History class passed without much excitement, much to Hunters disappointment. He had hoped for the professor to launch himself into another fascinating, impassioned speech. The lecture was still interesting, but Hunter wanted to hear more about these ancient Asutnahem. He decided that he’d take some time to visit the professor one day after class, and see if he could pick the man’s brain.
He also remembered to mention him to Trey at some point. He’s sure they would both have a fascinating conversation, and if they could somehow verify the professors claims, maybe the professor would find a powerful new patron to support his work.
Hunter felt like it was a fantasy scenario, but becoming a part of one of the most powerful family’s in the world would have seemed like that a mere few months ago.
Who was he to say what was in the realm of possibility or not?
Hunter spent the rest of the day between homework, training focus, and then tutoring Aera. He told her about his small success during the martial arts class, and she seemed utterly unimpressed until he mentioned it was against Emilia.
“Emilia Beaugard?” She asked. Hunter shrugged, he didn’t know her last name.
“Short, blonde, thin, but surprisingly strong?” She asked.
“That’s her,” Hunter said, still still feeling the legacy of two falls she’d inflicted on him that morning.
Aera raised an eyebrow.
“She’s good. You said you took her by surprise?”
Hunter nodded.
“That’s what I would have done if I were you, too. Good job, Hunter. You’re learning how to fight.”
Another genuine, positive sentiment from the queen of cold. The world really was changing. Maybe he should check oustide, he might find a few pigs flying merrily through the sky.
Aera pulled out her notebook, where she was had written a problem she’d been struggling with from her Artisan class. Hunter took as his queue to start teaching, or tutoring, or whatever this was supposed to be.
“I know that the Link subglyph is a more efficient choice for a network than a drawstone shard, which is why its invention was so revolutionary. But why is it the most efficient choice? What does a subglyph do that a shard doesn’t?”
That one was easy.
“The subglyph simply diverts etherium without effecting its charge. A drawstone can not only have a subtle influence on the charge, but they’re mainly meant for drawing in neutral etherium. A lot of the charge that runs through a drawstone shard is lost, dissipating from the drawstone itself. Not only that, but it pulls more etherium through the network than would need to be there otherwise. Imagine using a waterpump to divert the flow of liquid in a pipe, when all you need to do is attach a new pipe in a different direction. And not only that, but the waterpump actually diverts half of the water from where you want it to go, leaving you with half of what you want on one end, and more than what you need on the other. More expensive to run, with less output then needed. The only way to get your desired output is to increase the amount you take in, which means more expensive constructs.”
“Then why use a Link at all? Why not just run more channels through the network?” Aera asked, and then she slapped herself on the head.
Right, it was a silly question on the surface, but this was actually a learning opportunity.
“I want you to tell me the answer to your question, but I want to try and look at it a bit more deeply,” Hunter said, trying to be subtle about how he approached the topic. He was learning that simply delivering information to Aera was the quickest way to bore her. It was a lot better to ask her questions, it seemed to engage her mind more deeply.
Aera considered the answer, and responded slowly as she wrapped her mind around what she knew.
“Without the Link, there’s no way to attach more glyphs into a construct apart from drawstone shards . We would be limited to a single glyph per construct,” she said. Hunter nodded, gesturing for her to continue.
“Channels wouldn’t do the job because Link is the only way to merge two glyph outputs, either increasing the effect of similar glyphs or creating a new effect from two disimilar glyphs” she said, “but I don’t understand what you mean by looking at it more deeply. Do you mean questioning why the subglyph works at all?”
Hunter nodded.
Aera shrugged.
“I have no idea,” she said. Hunter laughed.
“Me neither. In fact, no one does,” he said.
In fact, his father had a few ideas, but she didn’t need to know that. Not yet.
“All we have are some facts that we can work with, with no apparent answer. Drawstones pull in etherium through our bodies, and into constructs,” he said, making sure he wasn’t revealing anything she wouldn’t be learning about in her class, “we also make construct channels out of finely curshed drawstones. What seperates a channel, from a shard? No one knows. All we know is that at some critical point of accumulating density—and the point is different for different charges of etherium— the etherium decides to react to a drawstone differntly than it would were it just lain in a thin line.”
Aera frowned.
“How can you be content with that? It feels like a pretty huge gap in our collective knowledge.”
Hunter nodded, “True, it can be frustrating, but etherium isn’t like physics. We aren’t sure where one rule ends and the next one begins. In fact, many wonder if there are any rules with etherium at all. Some think that their are definite rules, but that they’re just hidden. Others think etherium might have an intelligence to it, and that it's rules are more like choices or whims.”
It was Hunters’ own theory, actually. It paralleled a few others, but Hunter was able to verify it in a way that no one else could. Etherium was intelligent, cognizant at some fundamental level. He couldn’t explain any deeper than that yet, but he was sure that one day, he would be able to see those depths just like he could now see the surface.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
The rest of their session passed with him answering more mundane artisanship questions, and overall Aera seemed content with how the evening progressed. Hunter went up to his apartment, and had one final session with the drawstone. He was still disappointed with the result, having made no progress in discovering his own channels, or having his AR increase by even a single point.
But he was still committed. His fathers journals told him that it would take time to get a feel for the channels, but that his mind naturally knew where to go, he just needed to give it time to get there, especially if he’d been subconsciously suppressing his growth for so long.
That night, Hunter dreamt of building a bridge over a river. He saw himself in the river, floating by, struggling to stay above the waters surface. He watched with curiosity as the stream dragged him away. When his other self had disappeared over the horizon, Hunter continued with his work.
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Hunter cursed as the screwdriver rolled off the worktable, clattering on the ground and bouncing under the divided wall into the occupied workspace next to his. He briefly considered whether he should give up his research for the day, but laughed at himself a moment later. Of course he wouldn’t.
He was being a little baby. What were they going to do, be angry at him? Even if they were, who cares?
He left his little cubicle space and walked over to the next one. The door was slightly ajar, but he knocked anyways.
“Hey, dropped my screwdriver. You mind grabbing it for me?”
“Grab it yourself,” came the answering voice. He shrugged and opened the door. A girl was sat before the worktable, her back turned to hunter, hunched over the table like he typically would be. In Hunters case it was from the fact that he had always had to stoop a bit otherwise he felt like he was too far away from whatever he was focused on. In her case, she it was just sloppy posture.
He saw the screwdriver on the floor just beside her table, so he stooped over to grab it.
“Wait a minute, I know you,” the girl said. Her voice was rich— it had a hoarse quality to it. He’d heard it before, and when he glanced at her he realized that he recognized her as well, “Hunter Koar, right? I’m Tilda, Tilda Burner.”
She stood from the bench and held out her hand. She seemed genuinely surprised and pleased to see him. He shook her hand, feeling awkward and not quite knowing what to say. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been with Jeremy Berrymoore and her other teammate, who’s name was slipping Hunters mind at the moment.
He’d always felt quite bittersweet about the trio who had won the competition. On one hand, he’d imagined it would be him who stole first prize. On the other hand, the fact that David Nettle didn’t win made living in this world a tiny bit more bareable.
“Yeah, I recognize you. I’m Hunter, ” he said, realizing that she would obviously know that, considering that she’d just said his name, “which you know, obviously. Sorry. I mean, i’m not sorry, but— uh—”
The small workspace was suddenly 20 degrees hotter. He needed to leave.
He was still shaking her hand. It had been at least 4 seconds. 5. 6.
He let it go like it had shocked him. Tilda stared at him, maybe trying to make sense of whatever had gotten into him.
Had he ever felt more embarrased in his life? He wondered why he was suddenly acting so strange.
“I’m just gonna get back to work, sorry for bothering you,” he said, turning to leave.
“Hold on, I’m not gonna bite,” she said, laughing softly, “Now that you’re here, do you mind looking at this problem for me? I’m supposed to be pretty good at this stuff but right now i’m feeling completely lost.”
Hunter felt like if he stayed in that room for a second longer his shirt will have soaked completely through with sweat.
Did he remember to put deoderant on? He usually doesn’t speak with people when he’s here.
But surely he remembered, right? He figured it would be weird if he checked.
Despite his discomfort, he nodded. He’d help her with the problem and then leave, and try to avoid ever speaking with her again.
“Great,” she said, “you made quite an impression on us at the competition, you know. The rest of the team, I mean”
“Oh, that’s nice to hear,” he said, not really sure how to take the compliment, “So what’s the problem?”
He glanced at the project she’d been tinkering with. It looked like she’d been prototyping, he saw an open circuit laid out across the desk, different parts of the network were in various states of repair and disrepair. It took him a second to analyze the syntax, and saw a few problem spots that she’d either missed or was in the process of addressing.
“I’ve been wracking my brain for an hour trying to find out where the I went wrong with the design, but I just can’t figure it out,” she said, frustration clear in her voice. She pointed at one part of the prototype towards the far end of the table.
“That’s where its supposed to emit heat, and i’m trying to—
“—shape it with Speed? Interesting,” Hunter said, taking another glimpse at the network as he started to understand the logic behind it. It was no small feat, if she could get it to work. He was sure he’d heard of similar products before, but like his two-part shield, it would be a way to prove that she was a serious candidate for Excellence. This was advanced stuff.
He could see a couple of problems with her design, though. Some of them were just a question of efficiency, but there were a couple of spots where he could see that the etherium was being severely bottlenecked, not just as a matter of inefficiency, but total miscalculation of the charge. Several glyphs prior to the bottleneck she’d run the etherium through Reinforce, which caused a cascade of subtle changes in the etherium as it was channeled from glyph to glyph. By the time she needed it to zig, it would only want to zag, and the rest of the final portion of the network was suffering for it, barely outputting anything, and what it did output fell far short of her desired effect.
“I’m surprised you could see it so quickly,” she said, moving her hair out of her eyes and behind her ear, “not that I should expect anything less.”
Hunter cleared his throat, and pointed to the Reinforce glyph he’d noticed earlier.
“I see why you placed that there, but I think you should place it up here instead,” he said, pointing towards the end of the network, “and if you remove the Amplify glyph altogether—
“—then my emitter would only out put a quarter of what i’d intended,” she said, looking between the construct and Hunter with skepticism.
“True, but what if we slowed the etherium down, just before the speed field was created?”
She thought about it for a second, and then snapped her fingers and looked at him with excitement.
“That’s why you want me to move up the reinforce glyph! The etherium would build up, but once it reaches the emitter plate, it won’t matter anymore. It will be less effective than i’d hoped, by about a third, but it’ll work. That’s brilliant,” she said, pulling a notepad out of nowhere and jotting down Hunters suggestions.
Hunter felt like the room was starting to cool down to a normal temperature.
“You know,” he said, swallowing his nerves, “I have a few more ideas, if you’re interested?”
She glanced at him over her notepad, and nodded.
“I’ll take any advice you can give me,” she said. Her cheeks dimpled when she smiled.
Hunter thought that she was kind of cute. She had a round face, and her brown hair curled but had a bounce to it that seemed to match her personality. Her blue eyes almost seemed to sparkle.
The next hour and a half seemed to melt away, and he felt a sense of disappointment when it was time for them to leave. She seemed to find his suggestions about her work to be fascinating, and would always have a thousand questions that Hunter found himself having fun answering. Unlike Aera, all of Tilda’s questions were interesting and challening. She’d been working with constructs for years and might be just as passionate about them as he was.
Once they left the Artisan department, Hunter glanced at his watch and started to plan the rest of his evening before his session with Aera.
“Man, I always end up working up an appetite when I’m in there,” Tilda said. Hunter nodded, not sure why that was any of his business, but not wanting to seem impolite.
“Sure, I get that. That’s why I usually bring a snack,” Hunter said.
She winced. Had he said something wrong? Then it dawned on him.
He felt himself start to heat up again.
“Do, uh, do you..”
She looked at him expectantly.
“Do you want to get— I mean, so do you want to find an eat— I mean a place? Like, to eat?”
Hunter wanted to die. He’d never been in so much pain— not even after waking up in the hospital after being nearly beaten to death.
Was it a side effect of his focus exercises? Maybe his concussion hadn’t fully healed, maybe Aera had made it worse during their tutoring sessions, maybe—
“I thought you’d never ask,” Tilda sighed, “come on, I've been wanting to try this diner near the soul for like a month.”
Hunter followed, still unsure how he’d gotten himself into this situation, but utterly powerless to resist the flow of fate.