A short trip down the shopping street brings us to the Ebock Blacksmith, just a bit off the road. John sets me down at the door, and I glance down at myself on reflex. That's right, in my nice dark blue dress, I look like a vulgant kid now, don't I? The only weird part is my hair. Irene didn't tie it up this morning like Emily always did for me, so it's falling all around me now.

Patrick opens the door, going in first. I walk through after the three men, and gaze all around at the little metal things on display everywhere. While we're walking through the center of the shop toward the counter, I gaze up at one shelf in particular, but the shiny thing from last time isn't there anymore. "Aww..." I mumble, a bit disappointed, and stay at Eryk's heels until we reach the counter.

"Eryk," Collin greets him flatly as we walk up.

"Collin." I cringe a little from the ugly feeling between them. I forgot how much they don't like each other. But why...? "We're here to check on our order and talk to Ebbin, when do you think he'll be available?"

He shrugs, not even looking at Eryk. "Just head in." He waves us past with his halfhearted grumble.

"Sure." Eryk pays the man no more mind and heads to the door at the back, to the workshop. Only John hangs back to stay in the storefront. Eryk bangs loudly a couple times before opening the door and leading us inside. "Hey Ebbin, how's it going?" he asks, while my eyes are adjusting to the dark.

"Hey Eryk, good to see you!" comes Ebbin's shout in the small room. I cringe a little, he's really loud. I'm starting to step around Eryk when he catches me by the shoulder, and I look up at him, still blinking through the dark as my eyes adjust.

He isn't actually looking at me, still focused on Ebbin. "You too. Any news on our order? How are things coming?" Even as he's asking that, he grabs a smock and wraps it around me. Oh right, so I don't get these nice clothes dirty. Once he's done, he releases me, and grabs one for himself. I move around him while he's tying it, so I can see Ebbin.

"Good news and bad news," he rumbles. I catch his eyes shift to me briefly when I move into his line of sight, but then his attention returns to Eryk. "Good news is, I got the coil made. Bad news, I couldn't get the copper as thin as I wanted." He throws up a big shrug with his huge shoulders. "At a certain point, the metal just starts cracking when you hammer it thin enough, no matter how much you try to heat treat it. I have some other stuff in mind I've been working on though. All trade secret, but I might be onto something. I'll get back to you if it pans out."

Eryk grins. "So what you're saying is, it's unrealistic to hammer it as thin as thread."

Face immediately going sour, Ebbin points a big finger at Eryk. "Careful, you may be eating those words if my other plans work out."

"Fair enough," he chuckles back, and Patrick joins in, shaking his head at the two of them.

"Now," Ebbin claps his hands together as he rises from his seat by the forge. "Let's show you the goods. I can't say it's perfect, but this is the best I can make with my current methods." As he speaks, he walks over to a cabinet and pulls out the coil of metal, then hands it off to Eryk. He wanders a little closer to the light of the forge as he looks it over, then nods a few times with a satisfied expression, before passing it to me. "What do you think, Aria?"

A little caught off guard, I blink up at him, then over at Ebbin, who cocks his head at me. I flush a little under his gaze, and try to focus on the piece in my hands instead.

Looking it up and down, my mouth falls open slightly. Like he said, it isn't perfect, but it's still wow. As I spin it, I don't see any weird parts where it's thicker, like he joined two pieces of metal together. So it was either one single piece of copper, or he managed to join separate pieces so well it isn't even clear that he did it.

But that's the least of it, as much as he complained about only being able to make it so thin, each ring is still thinner than my fingers. And they're all pressed so close together as they spiral around, there's hardly any room between them, they're packed nice and tight together.

Counting my way up the coil, it goes around fifty times, with the total length about as long as my forearm. And it's wide enough I could put the whole thing around my forearm too. That should give us plenty of room to put a magnet inside. Just thinking about how much stronger this one would be than the other...

That one had ten circles, so this one will be five times better, that should definitely be enough to combine metals, right? Just thinking back to the sensation of the lightning energy and multiplying by five, I think it should be about as strong as the energy generated by a weak mana field. With a good, strong magnet... Yeah, I think this is good. Smiling, I look back up at Eryk and nod. "Yeah, this should work."

"Great." His grin is reassuring, but now I'm getting distracted by one of those last thoughts. What magnets are we using for this anyway? So far it's all been basic ingots, but those are smaller, so they wouldn't match the length of the coil. Wouldn't it work best if we made a magnet to match the coil? Not just in terms of size, but I feel like making it a cylinder would just make things easier overall...

"...Aria..."

"Huh?" I blink rapidly as Eryk says my name, cutting through my rambling thoughts. But he's talking to Ebbin, not actually addressing me.

"...a lot of help with some certain projects." I'm a little lost for a moment, missing the context while I was distracted. "Of course it's still secret, but as I'm sure you can tell, this coil is going to help us with it."

"Hmm..." The short man scratches at the stubble on his chin. "Not sure what to make of that," he shrugs. "She looks mighty interested in that coil though," he points out with a hint of a smirk.

"Aria?" Eryk asks, looking down at me. "Did you think of something?"

The sudden question makes me stammer, I totally lost track of where we were in the conversation while I was distracted. "W-well, yeah, actually. I was thinking shaped magnets might increase the effectiveness." At my words, Eryk takes one look at the coil, cocks his head a little, and I can see him imagining the magnets we've been using compared to the size of the coil, just like I did when I got distracted.

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While he's doing that, Ebbin asks, "What's a shaped magnet?" I flush when I remember again, magnets are something I made up. Of course no one will know what they are...

"Good point, Aria," Eryk nods, before I can figure out how to respond. "Ebbin, can we make a quick order? Shouldn't take you long at all."

"For one of these 'shaped magnets'?" the blacksmith questions with a shine in his eyes. "What is this thing you need?"

Eryk waves it off. "Nothing that special, really. Just a cylinder made of durite, shaped to fit inside this coil."

"Durite?" Ebbin wonders aloud, his look somewhere between confused and intrigued. "Sure, you want me to match the inner circumference of the coil?"

"Yeah, that should work," Eryk agrees easily, but I look down at the coil in my hands as something occurs to me.

"A-actually," I speak up, nervous about drawing their attention again. "Could you make it a little smaller? The same length, but so it doesn't touch the sides of the coil?" One part of my head is saying that the bigger the magnet is and the better it matches the coil, the better it will work, but another part is saying that if it touches the coil, we might need to worry about the lightning energy jumping off onto the wrong path.

Sure, durite has a lot more resistance than copper, but what if we were trying to put the current of energy through a mix of even more resistant metals, like iron or something? The easiest path might be to skip over all of that and just go through the magnet... I'm not sure, but it's something I would worry about, so I'd rather stop that from even becoming an issue.

Ebbin raises an eyebrow at the suggestion, turning a look to Eryk, who thinks about it shortly before shrugging. "Sure, I can't think of exactly why... but if Aria thinks so, let's go with that."

"Sounds good. Just stand over there, I'll be done real quick." He waves us off, grabbing up an ingot from a crate without even looking, and tosses it into his forge to get it started, while we move back to give him some space.

We all wait in silence for a bit, but I can tell Eryk's still thinking about something. It only takes a few ticks before he chuckles, looks down at me, and says, "Oh, now I get it. That's why we're making it smaller," and gives me a playful pat on the head. I smile back up at him, glowing at the praise, and then we just wait for a while longer.

Watching Ebbin work is kind of interesting. Like in Eryk's workshop, he works the bellows up and down each time as he watches the metal. I wonder how Gremory came up with his special bellows? Was it something he made himself, or was it a secret taught to him by someone else?

Just thinking about it, I'd bet they're made using flexible metal, like tongs. Every time they get pushed down, the metal probably flexes, then returns to its shape after, pushing the bellows back up so the worker doesn't have to do it themselves. Huh, I wonder if I should suggest something like that to Eryk...? But it's Gremory's secret, so it's probably not fair for me to share it...

While I'm still puzzling over that, Ebbin finishes heating the durite. He draws the piece out of the fire and positions it on the anvil, raising his huge blacksmithing hammer up over his head, giant muscles bulging with concentration. The sight makes me realize the problem, far too late to respond.

Clang!

My entire body convulses when the sound hits me, like he just brought that hammer down on my head. I jolt backward into the wall, dizzy and reeling. I scramble, a hand going up for Eryk to catch me before I hit the ground. My ears are ringing and it's suddenly hard to balance. Then I'm being brought out of the workshop.

Hands close around my sides and lift me up onto a counter. Eryk's in front of me, speaking, but I can't hear him over the ringing in my head. The way his mouth is moving, it looks like he's saying my name, and some other things.

"Sorry, that was too loud," I apologize, holding my head that's starting to throb a little as the ringing recedes. I can hardly even hear my own voice, and it sounds weird when I talk. And Eryk winces too when I say it. Then I see Collin walking over. Eryk puts himself mostly between me and the shopkeeper, and they start talking about something. I can't tell what, but they have really angry body language, so it can't be anything good...

Eventually, Collin shakes his head and backs off. I think he was saying something about... appearance? It's hard to tell, everything still sounds weird. And quiet. Eryk comes back over, leaning down a little and putting a hand on my shoulder, and I see John standing not too far away.

"Aria, are you alright?" he asks. I can only barely make out the words, but I'm pretty sure that's what he said.

"Yeah, it's still kind of hard to hear. That was way too loud for me." Eryk winces again, then covers my mouth.

"It's fine, just sit here. It'll wear off soon." Since he still has a hand on my mouth, I just nod. Then he drops his hand with a sigh, and leans up against the counter next to me, facing toward the door, his back to the rest of the shop.

Like he said, the ringing wears off after a little while, about thirty ticks before I can more or less hear normally again. Well, normal-normally. Nowhere near how sensitive my hearing is with the water mana I carry. Now everything feels weirdly dulled, even though I know this is 'normal.' It reminds me why I always carry water mana, despite issues like what just happened.

"Hey Eryk-" I still can't hear myself as well as I expect, so I naturally start getting louder, before realizing what I'm doing and stopping short. Lowering my volume again, I go on, "I can mostly hear again." I was definitely shouting before, wasn't I...?

"That's good," he sighs, with a slightly worried smile as he pats me on the head. With ringing ears from all the banging, maybe that's why Ebbin shouts so much?

"Sorry," I apologize once I move past the random thought. "Usually my hearing is helpful, but some things are just way too loud..." If only I could convert mana more easily, swapping back and forth quickly wouldn't be an issue like it is now. I should look into getting something like Claire mentioned. Even if I can't wear jewelry at my age, maybe there's something more inconspicuous I can do...

I consider that for a bit while we wait outside, and it isn't much longer before Patrick calls us back in. "Alright, one cylinder of durite!" Ebbin shouts, and tosses it to Eryk. I'm still holding onto the coil, so he passes it to me, and I put the two together. To my surprise, it fits just right, with a little bit of extra space to keep it from touching the sides of the coil. He sized it this well without even looking at it? Wow...

There isn't much more to discuss after that. Eryk hands over a whole pile of iron coins for Ebbin's work, and says we'll almost certainly be back to order more once we run our next tests and confirm that this will work for what we need.

Then it's just a short trip back to the refinery. John stops outside, and I thank him for carrying me again, earning a chuckle and a smile, then we head inside. Patrick breaks off into the workshop, saying to call him if we need anything else, and then we're back in Eryk's office, where he stops suddenly, and I walk into the back of his legs, wobbling a little as I bounce off.

"Eryk?" I ask, but he quickly steps aside, and Marrianne is standing there in the middle of his office. Why does she look so worried...?