Archie and Alex didn't return until almost midnight. When asked why, Alex explained that he stayed clear of the highways in case Snow was trying to follow them—or send someone after them.
"It added an hour and a bit to the drive, but I'd argue that was worth it just to avoid potential detection," Alex explained, as he stepped fully into the dungeon.
Archie followed behind him, looking for all the world like a spooked rabbit. He had Snow's cane clutched in both hands, gripping it so tight the wooden shaft was creaking. Zack could sense the cores accompanying his mob—from the one attached to the cane to the ones in his pocket. He ordered the others to clear some space and then conjured a small table for each one.
Delicately, Archie set each core down on a table. Zack's figurative heart broke at the sight of the shattered purple core, even as he could sense the life within its two halves. He could sense anger radiating off the orange core before Archie even opened the box to allow its influence to spill out. Nothing but silence was coming from the cane, though, the crystal was silent and unresponsive.
"Okay, let's start with you," Zack said, turning his attention to the orange core. "Hello, my name is Zack, and you're presently inside my influence. Are you okay?"
"You're choking me!" The orange core insisted. "Give me some space!"
Zack immediately pulled his influence away, allowing the orange core to spread some of her mana out. It was enough space to create a wisp, which she used to thank Archie for getting her out of that prison.
"I'm Iris, I'm a library core," she said, introducing herself.
"Zack, dungeon core and Archie's… um…. creator," Zack said, struggling to come up with a word. He couldn't call himself Archie's master, since the rabbit was more inclined to act of his own device. Creator felt like a reasonable term. "If you don't mind me asking, what do library cores do?"
"Library cores store information rather than patterns. I'm still able to store patterns, but I can't create complex objects. The most complex I've managed—or even tried, for that matter—is a calculator," Iris explained. "However, I am able to absorb things like books and then perfectly translate the information within into different materials. For example, they once had me absorb Shakespeare's Othello and then translate it from a paper book to a stone carving. I was able to do that."
"You can change the state of information?" Zack asked.
"Sure, let's call it that. Ultimately, all information is still stored within me."
Zack bobbed his wisp in place and thanked Iris for that information. He had a library in the manor wing and asked if she would like to be moved there. She thanked him for the offer, and was subsequently carted off by Greg to her new—potentially temporary—home.
The second core Zack approached was the shattered pair. Both halves were a dull bluish-purple. They glowed softly with internal mana, but when prodded they didn't respond.
"Sorry about that one," Archie apologized, his ears drooping. "It was like that when I found it. Its two halves were attached to a pair of arches."
Zack mentally frowned, and then turned his attention to Salazar. The adventurer was standing a little ways off from the rest of the group, leaning against the prize counter and watching the others work. "Sal, your elemental affinity is crystal, right? Part of that is the ability to breakdown molecular bonds in inorganic materials?"
The elf nodded. "That process is necessary for turning crystal into dust—the second half of its high element paradigm."
"Could you reverse it?"
"Well, yes, naturally. That's how you turn dust back into crystal and…" Sal paused and stared at the two half cores on the table. "I'm not entirely sure I can fix that."
"Care to try?" Zack asked.
Salazar pursed his lips. "You're not going to kill me if this goes wrong, are you?" He asked, cautiously approaching the table.
"Unless you intentionally turn the stones to dust, I can't imagine you putting them in a worse state than this." Zack assured him.
Salazar nodded his agreement, then carefully scooped each half off the table. He held them in his hands, turning them over until he found two sides that looked like they might fit together. He tested them for a moment, observing how the two halves slotted against one another, and his expression soured. "It looks like they're missing some smaller fragments and flakes. Likely a side effect of the process that broke them."
"Damn. Does that mean you can't do it?" Zack asked.
"No, I can do it, but I'll need some material to connect them. Ideally something that won't compromise its ability to move aether and mana."
Zack considered that for a moment, quickly cycling through the different materials he had at his disposal. His first instinct was to try the various minerals, but none of them quite fit his needs. Most of what he had were just ordinary stones. Not even the minerals he acquired from Ember matched his needs. He considered conjuring a piece of quartz, but its material makeup—while visually similar to a core—was nowhere near the right level of aether conductivity for the job.
He turned his attention next to metals, of which he had in abundance. He immediately discarded more than half of them for the same reason as quartz—they just weren't conductive enough. Then, he found one of the metals he acquired from Ember.
"Try this," Zack said, conjuring a bar of the pale yellow metal. "It's electrum. From what I can tell, it has a crazy high mana conductivity."
Salazar's eyes widened at the sight so much raw metal, but he immediately got to work. He touched the tip of his finger to the metal and let out a pulse of green aether, and it came away with with a bead of liquid electrum on its tip. Gently, he rubbed the metal against the crystal's broken side, until a thin layer of electrum covered it. Then, he repeated the process with the other half.
As he worked, Zack watched. When not directly in contact with his skin, the electrum immediately turned back into a solid state. Curiously, he asked how that worked.
"It's not actually in a liquid state," Salazar explained. "The crystal element is all about the molecular bonds between inorganic substances, and my Manipulate Element power allows me a level of finite control over those bonds. I am simply reshaping the material with magic."
As he got to work on the second half, Zack observed more closely. He couldn't directly see the molecular bonds between atoms, but he was able to watch as the metal reshaped to stick to Salazar's finger, then reshape again to fill in the cracks in the crystal.
With both halves sufficiently filled, Salazar held them together and sent a pulse of green aether through them. Zack watched as the electrum bonded with itself, connecting the two crystal halves together in places they otherwise wouldn't touch. As one last measure, Salazar magically tore off a chunk of electrum and carefully filled in any uneven gaps in the core's surface. Satisfied, he set it back down on the table and stepped away.
Zack poked and prodded the crystal, attempting to wake it up. Despite the glow within being far more uniform, it refused to budge.
"Maybe it doesn't know how to talk?" Archie suggested, crossing his arms. "When I met her, Iris complained that she didn't know how to make a wisp. It's possible that this core was divided and dormant for too long and that inhibited its development."
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"Well, good thing we know a way to wake it up. Salazar, it should be familiar enough with your aether since you repaired it. Do me a favour and pump it full, would you?" Zack asked.
Salazar's eyes bugged. "How on earth am I supposed to do that?"
"Well, maybe not your aether. Cores can absorb mana, but we need to be in direct contact with the source—and it can't be mana from a fellow core's influence. Probably some rule to keep cores from predating on one another," Zack explained. "That's how I drained Alex when I first woke up. Absorbing mana is normaly unnecessary but it sure helps us wake up faster."
Salazar frowned and then once more approached the table. Curious, he picked the core up, and touched it to his forehead. Almost immediately, the blue bar on his status tattoo started to dip. Zack watched as the clean magic flowed from Salazar's skin into the eagerly awaiting core.
"Okay, that should be enough," Zack declared. Salazar immediately broke the link and set the stone down again, backing away quickly.
"Never ask for that again," Salazar gasped, his breathing coming short and fast. "That was awful."
"Yeah, I can imagine. Now then, time to wake up buddy," Zack chimed, using his wisp to nudge the core.
For a moment, it didn't say anything. Then, Zack heard a weak voice echo in his head. "What-what-what-what is-is-is-is going on-on-on-on?"
To Zack, it sounded like their voice was glitching, bouncing between a half dozen different pitches and ages. There was no discernable gender, but there was almost a robotic quality to it. "My name is Zack. Do you have a name?"
"N-n-n-n-ame? I-I-I… What-what-w-what is-sss-s-s go-go-go-going—"
"Okay, this isn't working," Zack interrupted, cutting off his connection to the stuttering core. "Let's try something else."
Zack quickly conjured a pad of paper beside the core, followed by some pencil graphite. Immediately, the hungry core devoured the materials. Unlike Zack, who broke absorbed materials down into cubes as he worked, the two pieces turned to dust and were sucked into the purple core.
Almost immediately, the stuttering stopped. The core dimmed for a second, before brightening again.
"We," it said, in two voices this time. "We are… We are awake."
Archie's eyebrows shot up. Zack sent him a mental query and received a nod of confirmation. He had heard the core's voices, too.
"I'll admit, I was expecting you to write with those, not eat them," Zack confessed. "Still, this is an improvement over glitching out. Do you have a name?"
"Gary—Gretchen," the two voices said simultaneously. "No, that's not right. We… We were two but now we are one? Or were we one that became two?"
"Let's just call you Glitch for now, okay?" Zack offered.
"Glitch… We find this name… acceptable," the two voices admitted. "Glitch feels accurate to our state. Until a time when we are whole, we accept this name."
"Using the royal we? Seems a bit excessive," Zack chuckled.
"We… are… two," Glitch explained, pausing between words, as though its two halves were debating how to convey that information accurately. "We… Are not supposed to be one."
Archie scratched his chin in thought. "Just a theory, but I don't think these two halves were from the same cores. We know the universities were breaking cores apart for their experiments, and perhaps they saw two similar cores and figured all cores that looked alike were the same."
"That sounds plausible to me," Salazar confirmed. "I didn't even know about cores until earlier today, I can't imagine much information about cores is available, even to the those conducting the research. I can break them apart if they want."
"Do not," Glitch insisted, with Zack translating for them. "We-we-we are closer to being whole now than we have in years. We do not want to be apart."
"Sounds like they want to stay this way," Archie muttered.
Salazar raised his hands defensively and backed away again.
"Glitch, can you tell me a little bit about yourselves?" Zack asked, deciding now was as good a time as any to change the subject.
"We are portal cores," Glitch explained, vibrating their surface so that all present could hear them. Like their mental voice, each of their halves vibrated with a different pitch. "We can create passageways from one location to another. The researchers tried to use our halves to create a bridge, but forcing one open was not necessary. They tried anyway, even though our two halves could not connect the way they desired."
Salazar's eyebrows shot up. "I knew Waterloo was working on portal magic, but I had no idea that such a thing was this close to becoming reality."
Alex crossed his arms. "You knew about this?"
"Of course. It's one of the few projects the university likes to brag about. They published scientific papers about how portals work in theory," Salazar explained.
"We can create portals without effort, provided we are supplied with enough aether," Glitch explained. "Observe."
A small purple hole appeared in the table's surface directly below Glitch, and the core tumbled through it. There was a loud clanking sound, and everyone present wheeled towards the prize counter, where the fused purple core was now resting on the glass surface. The hole in reality pinched closed again.
Zack immediately called Jean-Claude over and had the kobold stare with wide and excited eyes. "How many portals can you open? Can you hold them open indefinitely? How limited are you by distance?"
The series of questions quickly overwhelmed the portal core, and it set itself to stuttering uncomfortably. Realizing his error, Zack politely asked Jean-Claude to escort Glitch to the lab so they could have some peace and quiet. There would be time enough to discuss portals later. For now, there was one final core that needed his attention.
Everyone present turned their gaze upon Snow's cane, where it rested upon the third and final table. Like the others, it was dormant. It hadn't said a word through the entire conversation, and were it not for the fact that Zack had heard it talk to him, he would have assumed it was just an ordinary gem.
"Hello?" Zack prodded at the cane with a thread of mana, but it remained unmoving and unresponsive. No big surprises there.
"Let me try waking it up," Alex offered, reaching towards the cane. Before he could grab it, Archie reached out and snatched his wrist.
"I'm not sure we should wake it up," Archie muttered, staring at the cane. "You have to remember, this is Snow's personal core. It might be fiercely loyal to him."
"But Zack said it called out for help…" Alex reminded him.
"Yes, but that could just as easily have been a trap," Salazar pointed out. "From what you tell us, it's clear that Snow knows about cores and might have been trying to draw Zack into situation where he could retaliate."
"Is that something Snow would do?" Zack asked, immediately worried.
Salazar scratched his chin. "I'm not sure. He never struck me as a hostile man, but seeing what he's done to these cores… I can't say the lengths he will go to in the name of discovery."
Alex pursed his lips and pulled away from Archie. "We're already in the oven, might as well jump in the fire," he said, shrugging.
"I'm inclined to agree," Zack said. "Alex, do it."
With a nod, Alex picked the cane up from the table. With a deep breath, he flared his mana and sent a pulse of red aether surging up the cane and into the core at the top. Everyone in the room held their breath, but after several seconds of pumping it full of magic, the core refused to waken.
"Weird," Zack muttered. "From what I can see, she's full. Why isn't she waking up?"
"Maybe she wants a more delicate touch?" Chandra suggested. She had been quiet since the others returned, satisfied to stay at the back of the room and observe. Now, though, she stepped forward and took the cane from Alex's hands. She held it out and stared at the gem, as though willing it to wake up. When it didn't, she shook her head and passed it back. "So much for that theory."
"Give it to me," Salazar said, holding out a hand. "I think the issue is less one of mana and more one of power level. Snow is an incredibly powerful aetherologist, so I have to assume his aether is of higher grade than Alex's. Perhaps this core simply wants better food."
Like Alex before him, Salazar sent a pulse of green aether up the cane and into the core. This time, it started to glow, only to dim down again.
"I don't get it… What are we doing wrong?" Alex mumbled, crossing his arms.
Archie tapped a foot, before taking the cane from Salazar and stepping out of the dungeon. Zack followed the rabbit with his awareness until they reached the very limit of his influence. Then, Archie stepped out. Zack felt the sudden disconnect from his mob, but was thankful he could still see and hear him as he spoke out loud.
"Hello?" Archie said to the cane.
"Hello…" The cane whispered back.
Archie nodded and turned to Zack's disembodied awareness. "As I suspected. This core cannot produce its own influence. You were suffocating her."
Understanding dawning on him, Zack allowed the mana in his influence to weaked. Archie returned to the dungeon with the cane in tow and set her down on the table once again. Now that Zack's mana wasn't drowning her, she was glowing a bit brighter, and when she spoke, she did so by vibrating her crystal surface.
"Where am I?" She asked.
"You're safe, you're in my dungeon. I'm Zack. Do you remember me? You asked me to help you."
"Safe? Dungeon?" The cane shuddered. "Oh no. Oh dear."
"What, what's wrong?"
"You heard me ask for help, but I wasn't asking you for help. I was asking Cornelius for help," the core explained.
Archie's eyebrows furrowed, while both Alex and Salazar exchanged a look with one another.
"Your magic is so thick, I find it difficult to breathe," the cane explained. "I was begging Cornelius to shield me from you. But you stole me from him. You don't understand what you've done."
If Zack had blood, he would have felt all of it go cold. "But… but he was holding you hostage!"
"Hostage? Not in the slightest. My name is Enza Snow. I am an armament core, and before the Aetheric Boom, Cornelius was my husband."