0:057 on the 72nd day of Winter

I dragged myself into the workshop in central command the next morning. As I walked in, I found everybody gathered around my desk looking at something. Arin was there too, standing at the front of the group with her arms crossed. A warm feeling spread through my chest when I saw her.

"Yeah, but what could have done this?" someone asked.

"That's hardened steel as thick as my hand!" said another.

"I think I know but I'm not telling." said Arin in a singsong voice laced with mischief. Then she spotted me.

"And there is the man of the hour." she said, and everyone turned to face me.

I could now see that they were all looking at the backstop plate I had used to upgrade my laser rods with the darkness spell last night. By the time I had left, the plate had multiple holes in it and was dripping with molten metal. I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment.

"It's a side project I've been working on." I said. "I'm not ready to share it yet."

There was a round of grumbling but everyone returned to their work. Arin remained behind and was beaming at me.

"So I guess this means you got the control thing to work?" she asked. "Yes, I have." I said, my good mood draining out of me. Arin must have noticed.

"Hey, what's that look for?" she asked. "That's a good thing right?"

I looked around the room. I wanted to talk to her about it, I needed to talk to somebody about it, but not here.

"Kinda. Hey, can we go somewhere to talk?" I said.

"Sure." she said. "There are some training rooms downstairs that are always empty this time a day. I need to talk to you too."

She led the way and we soon entered a large room with a bunch of weights, climbing ropes, and fighting dummies. She walked over and sat down at one of the benches next to the weights.

"So, what's the big deal with magic control?" she asked.

I thought about how to explain it to her.

"Okay, this is going to sound crazy and a lot of it is speculation based on what I found so I could be wrong." I said. "Remember what I said about rolling a bucket of dice."

"Yes, you said we are basically controlling luck, but only for magic." she said.

"Ya, so I was able to look inside a mage's core." I said. "What I found was quite scary. Every mage, and a lot of monsters for that matter, have bombs built into their cores."

Her eyes went wide at that.

"But when I say bomb, I don't think I am conveying the scale of destruction right." I said. "These bombs are, I think, capable of destroying the entire world faster than anyone can perceive it. Again this is a theory based on a few extremely dangerous tests I ran."

I could see that she had gone pale. Then she got a skeptical expression. Finally she started to change the color of her hair. The reds and blues and greens and yellows all mixed together in a beautiful arora.

"It doesn't feel like I'm destroying the world." she said. "It doesn't make sense. I feel like you're still missing something."

Her skepticism shook me out of the dark place my mind was going again. What was the actual evidence that the core was destroying the world? A small fraction of the control elements of the core is explosive. Or really, it converted all neutrons into protons. Probably by increasing the strength or prevalence of the W and Z bosons of the weak nuclear force. Maybe that effect scaled, maybe not. It was certainly dangerous but maybe not dangerous enough to destroy the world. I was also probably considering what the demons told me about mages destroying the world. But that was not a reliable source of data. But if it was not destroying the world then how would it control the outcome of the wave function?

"I know I'm still missing something." I said. "Destroying the world would explain the observations we made in the lab. But it might not be the only explanation."

"Okay, I'll bite. What else could explain it?" she asked.

I started pacing the room trying to wrack my brain for alternative explanations.

“All I really know is that activating the core's control function eliminates potential outcomes from the wave function.”

I knew it worked that way because I managed to use that knowledge to control magic.

“Maybe it is forcing some interaction that is not possible.” I said. “Like forcing a proton and electron to occupy the same location in space.” I don't know how it could force that. An apocalypse easy button is still the simplest explanation but it's not the only one. I let out a sigh and sat back down on the bench next to Arin.

"Thank you." I said. "I've been obsessing over that for days. It might still work that way but then again it might not."

She smiled at me.

"I'm glad you feel better." she said. "Now, I came to find you for a reason."

She dug in a pocket and pulled out a large flat disk on a chain.

"All light mages have one of these. This is your encryption amulet." she said, handing it to me. "The demon army has long since been able to read signals. If we need to send information securely, then we encrypt it."

She took out her own amulet and popped it open like a locket. Inside were three interlocked gears with letters and numbers around the edges in a seemingly random order. This was so cool.

"Wheel numbers and positions are posted every morning and for five days in advance." she said. "You will have to memorize the schedule. There are a few mnemonics I like to use. I can teach you if you have a hard time." She removed a stack of gears from the top of the clamshell.

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"Today's settings are 3-A, 10-H, and 8-C" she said, removing the installed gears and replacing them with three from the stack. The local language had thirty five characters in its alphabet but I noticed that some gears were smaller with an incomplete set and some were bigger with duplicates.

"When you get a message in the field, write it down in full." she said. "Then wind the spring here, and go through it and decode it from the start of the message. It won't work if you start in the middle."

"So it's not just a multi-stage shift cipher but it has memory too?" I asked.

If that was true then this thing was a tiny, mechanical, enigma machine.

"Yes, if by memory you mean that it matters the order you go through the message."

I looked at the master-craft device with reverence. It was compact, elegant, and, like every other craft produced in Cinder, it was beautiful. There were intricate etchings with gold inlay in patterns that resembled the sun and moon.

"Can I try it?" I asked.

It ended up being a very pleasant morning. Arin and I sent each other silly messages like we were kids texting in class. It was a much needed break from the workshop. But alas, it came to an end too soon. After a quick lunch I got back to work on the radio project. It made me sad that, if I was successful, these beautiful amulets would probably become obsolete.

***

0:190 on the 74th day of Winter

I stood in an empty snow dusted field. The farmland within the walls of Cinder occupied the top floor of most of the city which put them almost even with the walls. The roof of every building had a smoke stack and a farm. I think this one had potatoes at one point but was currently fallow for winter. A stray thought made me wonder if this farm would ever be replanted.

"Well, I think that's everyone." said Irmingar.

He was far more excited than I was. I was just hoping everything worked and they didn't reject the idea out of hand because it didn't use signal.

"Everyone, please allow me to introduce Mage Theod Aegis." he said. "Today he will be giving a demonstration of his design for the signalers. I want to remind everyone that the signalers project was, before Mage Aegis, unsuccessful at producing a working prototype that met all of the design requirements without extreme expense. With that I will pass it over to Theod."

He gestured for me to start. I swallowed nervously. There were six people that had gathered to see what I came up with. Mage Commander Reod had brought two of his staff, there was a man here from house Forge who ran their whole weapon craft division, and lastly there was a woman I didn't recognize with a long rifle on her back.

"I will keep this short as I know we are all busy." I said. I opened the case I was holding to show the four identical items inside.

"This is the prototype design for the handheld radio. I ended up going in a different direction than I think the original request imagined. But, once you see what they can do I think you will be satisfied. That being said, please keep an eye out for any features you would like added to the final design. Now, please come up and take one."

They were basically a cross between a walkie talkie and a sleek metallic cell phone. Reod took one, Forge took one, and the riflewoman took one, leaving one for me. I set the case down and turned mine on. It let out a soft crackling sound.

"Turn this knob to activate it and to make it louder or quieter." I said pointing to a knob on top of the radio. Everyone turned on their devices with confused looks. Perfect, now for a bit of showmanship. Without saying a word I walked past the group and out into the field. After a few marks I pushed the button on the side of my device and started to talk.

"Now I can continue my explanation of the features of the radio while also demonstrating its range and clarity. I would encourage everyone to pick a direction and walk."

I went on to explain the basic features of the radio and some radio etiquette. The range on a radio is limited by several factors, the length of the antenna and the transmission power being the two main ones. I thought about using a long whip antenna as it would get much better range but then I realized that I had way more power to work with than any handheld radio should. The op-amps I had made had a current output but running that signal through an array of microcores boosted it tenfold. That made a mediocre ten-watt walkie talkie act like a beefy hundred-watt radio transmitter.

"With the explanations out of the way I'd like you each to try it out." I said. "Let's start with Commander Reod. Over."

"Can you hear me?" he asked.

"This is Theod, yes we can hear you but we won't know who is talking unless you tell us. Over." I said into the radio.

"This is Commander Reod, while this 'radio' is impressive. I thought the goal of this project was to make a device that could signal. I don't see any signal." he said, his tone strained. I winced at that. While the usefulness of radio was obvious to me, he was a senior light mage that had built his career on signal. It was understandable that he wouldn't take kindly to someone putting him out of the job. I waited a bit longer before replying and was rewarded.

"Over." said Reod who now sounded a bit embarrassed.

"This is Theod, the goal was to make cheap and effective short and medium range communication devices. It would add cost but I could make them transmit signal as well as speech. Over."

"This is Commander Reod. Yes, do that, it is a necessary feature. Over."

I could hear him emphasize the word 'commander' just slightly to, I don't know, establish his dominance or whatever. Asshole. Well fine, if he wanted a completely redundant feature then so be it.

"This is Theod, that's fine. Now who is next. Forge, would you like to give it a try? Over."

"This is Baldhere Forge, how long will this device be able to sustain this kind of conversation? Over."

"This is Theod, these devices power themselves so they will last until their components degrade to failure. I'm not sure exactly how long that will be but probably a number of years. Over."

"That's… This is Forge. That is incredible! How does it work!? How does any of this work!?"

He sounded incredulous. I may have just upended his understanding of what was possible. I reached the edge of the building where there was a stairwell down to street level. It was made of wood and metal and would not obstruct radio waves so I started down it as I answered.

"This is Theod. Radio is a type of light well beyond the invisible light that light mages can see. These devices listen to you speak, change your voice into light, and then receive the light and change it back into sound on the other end. The bottom line is that most of it only works because of my unique type of light magic. I can craft these radios but I cannot teach others to craft them. At least not as they are designed. We may be able to replicate most of the functionality of these devices but not without a lot of research and development. Over."

"This is Forge. I see, thank you. Over."

"This is Theod, you may not have noticed but I have descended to street level. An important feature of radio is that it will deflect around objects much more than other types of light. It also reflects off of hard surfaces. Because of this I do not need a direct line of sight to speak with you. Now, there is one more person in this conversation but I neglected to get your name before rudely walking away. Sorry. Would you please introduce yourself. Over."

"This is Fresin." She said with a rather thick accent. "I am the head of tactical operations and was the one who requested these devices in the first place. May I first say that I want as many radios as you can get me. They will be incredibly useful. I have two questions. What is their maximum range, and what is with all the formal speech to start and end everything? Over."

It took me a minute to convert units to Root's kilometers.

"This is Theod. Roughly sixteen kilometers in ideal conditions. Note that Cinder is not that big so I haven't been able to test that during the siege. As to your second question, radio discipline is not critical with small groups. The four of us could probably have a conversation without many problems. But I expect to deliver more than one hundred units within the next ten days. The large dial on the face of the device is to select a channel. I recommend establishing one command channel for generals and century commanders. Then each century has its own channel for the decade leaders to talk on. At that point radio discipline will make the difference between effective coordination and chaos. Over."

After that we decided to come back together so we could talk more freely. Their biggest worry ended up being about one of the radios inevitably falling into demon hands. Unfortunately, without digital communications and a processor to channel them through, there wasn't much I could do about security. I offered to make a self destruct switch that would slag all the internal components and they seemed to find this acceptable. Further, Reod brought up a good point that if I added Signal feature like I said I would then the encryption and decryption could actually happen outside of the radios so it wouldn't matter if one got taken. Maybe the encryption amulets would not become obsolete after all. All and all it was a productive discussion. Now all I had to do was actually make it work.