Savoring the tipsy feeling and the joy of drinking a few macho blacksmiths under the table, I was left alone in the warehouse with my piping hot Peltier prototypes. My recovery boon and poison resistance working overtime to heal my liver, I was sobering with each minute without booze as I watched the smiths leaving and dragging their friends along. The little semiconductor gadgets worked as intended but something was wrong with them. They required too much power for the amount of cooling they did. It pointed to some sort of electrical mishap. We were losing power in some contacts. They also required some sort of heat sink. Maybe I should make some like those old boxy the desktop PC had.

I closed the door and confirmed it was already night. Since the noise from nearby dwellings still had to die, early night. I had time to do some last-minute repairs.

I sat at my workbench and disassembled the devices. The first thing I checked was the integrity of the doped semiconductors. While I had enough gallium for a lot of silicon slabs, it was a bother to make them. Studying the contacts with my enhanced sight, I found some of the aluminum pieces were not touching the cubes as they should. The pure silicon insulators were good enough for thermal conductivity but they were not optimal for electrical conductivity. Maybe there's current running through the silicon and skipping the cubes. While something fancier like aluminum nitride would've been better, I would take decades to be able to make it. I used Decompose to clear the surfaces of impurities like oxides and micro-pockets of air between the contacts. I slowly moved the aluminum to fill these pockets it stuck to the cube. It happened before but now I had a name to pin the phenomenon under.

Cold welding.

Just like what happened to the loose wrench in space, two metallic objects touching without anything between them will form metallic bonds between them. Maybe that's why I can't shape alloys. A metallic bond is not as much of a bond but the attraction between a metallic atom and all the other metallic atoms around it. As children in the slums, the electrons are free to party with whoever comes close. Like oxygen. Oxygen likes to party too much. It's that friend that comes even when you didn't invite them, rocks your house like there's no tomorrow, and gets you wasted whether you want to or not.

At least oxygen sticks around. Ugh. Terrible pun.

Bad chemistry puns aside, I spent the next few hours fixing my Peltier devices. The silicon sheets might be conducting some electricity. I should promote the growth of an oxide layer to block it as silica's electrical resistivity is orders of magnitude greater than silicon. It will add some thermal resistance but its thermal insulating is negligible at microns of thickness. However, even that microns-thick oxide layer takes days to form under normal atmospheric conditions. Fortunately, I had ways to make it faster though I would not do it now. I reassembled one of the finished Peltier modules and hooked it to the voltaic cells. It was now reaching what I considered peak cooling at twenty Volts instead of forty. Good enough. I reassembled and tested the other four modules then stored them after they cooled.

I looked around and took inventory of my material stores. I had no idea of the volume of these ingots and was too tired to measure so I just tallied them by quantity. I decided against putting them in storage. They used up a considerable amount of magic as upkeep. And given that our wise and magnanimous Enshi was literally inviting the army that came to invade us to help him build a ziggurat so he could cheat death, I felt I would need all the regeneration I could. I would keep some silicon and aluminum for building purposes along with the rare metals in storage though.

But I had a very good idea of how I'd protect my stash. I set some aluminum aside for Samus, I knew he'd want to make more golden bronze and used the rest to build a vault. Careful to not damage my armor, I overlayed titanium, aluminum, and tungsten, all seamlessly joined. I buried the vault in a corner of the warehouse, stashed my stuff inside and sealed the metal box. I moved the silicon on top and that was it. Finally, I retrieved my glowing goblin eyes and got ready to leave. My vacation was over.

Outside, I called four guards. Two of the newbies and two veterans. My bet was that mixing them would make them less prone to betray me and would help spread knowledge. Only time would prove me right or wrong. I took Penny from the stables and sensed for Dime. The green-headed eagle was out near his old nest, hunting. I could feel his thrill. We walked back home. The pitch-black night was foreboding. Sometimes shouts, moans, weird noises threatened to startle us. I had my LED lantern on a pole and a sliver of its plastic case in storage. It seems that as long as it is attached to an object I'm carrying, it wouldn't dissolve.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The guards left me at Abil-Kisu's gates and went to the ministry HQ. I had to claim back my house but the opportunity never presented itself. Maybe I should push my weight around and claim a headquarters in the middle of the city. Tomorrow.

Always tomorrow.

"Lipit-Ea, Huzzi-Ya, thanks for your hard work," I greeted some of my men by the gates as I went inside. They nodded and greeted back.

Lipit-Ea grimaced and delivered some bad news, "Sandra, Nanna told us you have to go to the room where your things are stored. You are to take care of them before sunrise tomorrow, or she'll throw everything away. We weren't sure if you would return today or if she would go through her threat."

"Message delivered and received," I saluted him and smiled. I felt like I had to soothe him as he looked very worried. "Don't worry, and try to give the witch a wide berth. We don't want to aggravate her. I'm not sleepy, I'll take care of that now."

I pat Penny's neck and the mare went to the stables on her own. I made my way to the house annex where Nanna and the room I took for storage was. You see, there was a pattern forming where I'd go and stuff my friend's places with tons of garbage.

I felt terrible.

I didn't notice movement or lights in Nanna's room and dimmed the lantern to avoid waking her up. I snuck into the storeroom and the stench of overripe potatoes assaulted my nose. Bags of potatoes, radishes, beets, citrus fruits, barrels of salt and oil. At a glance, it seemed all the stuff I purchased from the market a few days ago was here. And if something was missing, I wouldn't complain. So I rolled up my figurative sleeves, rolled up my skirt, and put myself to work.

The potatoes were the most critical. I created barrels of silicon and a stool to sit next to the bags. Picking one potato after the other, I separated the water into the barrel without breaking any of the other molecules and dumped the flaky dried potato skin in another bucket. After the potatoes, I Decomposed the other root vegetables. About three small barrels with around forty liters of water were filled and sealed. One barrel of starch and the leftovers, protein and some vitamins were sealed in a small silicon ball with the least O2 I could drain from inside.

Next were the citrus fruits. From them, I wanted the essential oils and citric acid. With two brand new silicon barrels between my legs, I removed the water carefully on the first and dumped the dried fruit in another. Another hour and I had two more barrels of water, more starch from the fruit fibers, and another one with the starch-less fruit leftovers. I was tired and it would take me quite some time to single out the citric acid's resonance. Its formula was too close to the glucose and other sugars. I wasn't even sure if some didn't slip in with the white powder.

A task for another day. With all the perishables taken care of, I withdrew back to my room. Or at least I tried. Nanna was at her door, scowling at me.

"It is hard to sleep when someone is burning a few master warlocks worth of magic next door," She groaned. "I'm going to get you another magic-sealing necklace, girl."

"I'm sorry, Nanna. I had no idea," I spoke meekly. I meant each word.

"Nah. Why waste time? Even if I were to make a greater seal for you, I don't have the silver or the time to make something that would last just a couple days before breaking like a beaver dam in the rainy season."

I had no idea they had beavers around here. Or maybe Nanna was from a place with beavers.

"And there she goes, thinking silly and useless things. Your attention, please? Good. Now, I see you have donned some armor and that's very good. You might not be as stupid as I thought," She chuckled. "I heard from the servants that some soldiers from Marduk's army are already in town. Don't walk alone. You are not invincible. And after you are done playing minister to your worst living enemy, come talk to me. I know what I want from you. You do remember you promised to do one thing for me, right?"

I felt a strong urge to placate the grumpy witch. Nanna was important to me. "Yes, I'd do any... almost anything for you, Nanna. Just don't ask me to whore myself or kill someone."

She frowned. "That doesn't sound much like anything but I'll take what I am given. Are these the only two restrictions? No forcing you to have sex and no murder?"

"Yes, basically that."

"Even if I ask for all your gold?"

"I'm afraid that would be a rather easy request to fulfill. Do you want my bullion now?"

Nanna sighed and grunted. "No. I have enough gold, your merchant friend is fair in his dealings. What I have in mind for you is a little bit of trickery but it won't go against those two conditions. Now, go to sleep. You look like a slave miner."

Not too far from the truth. I did mess with tons of ores.

"Yes," I yawned when the prospect of headbutting some pillows crossed my thoughts, "Good night, Nanna."

I felt tired. The alcohol was long gone but it seemed that Nanna's order forced my mind to acknowledge how exhausted my body was.

"Good night, girl. Sweet dreams."