Bob was sitting on what looked like Dave’s back porch in Cliff-Hill sipping on a glass of bourbon.
Dave flashed into existence within the Mirror of Communication conference room.
“You look like you have something on your mind,” Dave said, using his favorite trick. A pint of beer appeared in his hand as he sat in a muskoka chair near Bob.
“The Dark Lord and his sudden power increase. I don’t know where he’s getting it from but it’s a hell of a lot of power,” Bob said, sipping his glass, looking out over Cliff-Hill but not seeing it.
“While we’re talking about power, I was wondering about something,” Dave’s tone made Bob look over. “If I was able to make a nuclear power plant, what would the Empire do?”
Bob’s eyebrow raised in surprise before chuckling.
“I should stop being surprised by your actions at this point.” I didn’t expect him to take all the gold and resources I gave him and use it to upgrade his Mine Manager to get more resources. Bob thought Dave might not be his child, but he was as proud of him as a father might be of his son. “The Jukal will look into explosions that are over a megaton. They will also look into any massive nuclear decay emissions. Even all of the armor dissipating at Devil’s Crater wasn’t enough to set off sensors, because they released so quickly and weren’t all at the same time. If they had been at the same time or a constant release over a few hours, then the AI’s might have picked it up. What are you thinking?”
“I could use runes to dissipate that energy and stop the Jukal from sensing it though, right?” Dave asked.
“Yes,” Bob agreed.
“Okay, well I’m thinking about a lot of things. The biggest one right now is that when I destroy one of my conjurations it falls apart in nuclear decay. If I was to slow down the breakdown of that process, I could make a nuclear reactor. As I was thinking about that, I figured that I might be able to make a fusion reactor. Look, we know how it works, we just don’t know why. With the right kinds of magical runes and conjurations, I could recreate the conditions found within the sun,” Dave must’ve seen Bob’s skeptical look.
Bob rubbed his chin in thought.
“Why do you need so much power? I know that Malsour completed the drop pad for the power station,” Bob said.
“With my Intelligence and Touch of the Land, I sensed that Datskun only has one reactor online. I know you could use that power. I also know that the ley lines of Emerilia are a finite resource. If everyone pulled from it, then it would not be able to compensate for the energy loss. I know on Earth that we ran into problems from burning up our natural resources. The reactors will stop that before it happens. I could also, with your help, maybe make mana wells,” Dave held Bob’s eyes.
“Mana wells?”
“Nuclear batteries made from the waste of nuclear reactors?” Dave said.
Bob sat back in shock. He knew of them and he knew Earth was playing with them in the time of their simulation. It had just been too long since he had really needed to think scientifically instead of just managing everything.
Bob smacked his head.
“Damn, that could work. They don’t give off radiation at levels that would be detected, but if you, say, rigged up a conversion box. Maybe code in something that changed that decay, waste, heat and such, and turned it into mana,” Bob whistled.
“That was what I was thinking,” Dave said getting excited.
“So what’s your plan?”
“First, I need to train up other people to code, and I can teach the POE to conjure right?” Dave asked.
“Ah, you finally figured that out?” Bob smirked.
“Kind of. I guess that with Players, they don’t think of this as real, so when they try to conjure something, the spell messes up. If the POE, that think that Emerilia is real, were to try, then they might be able to conjure. For me, it’s part of the bleeder thing, being able to tell what is real from not,” Dave said.
Bob clapped Dave on the shoulder.
“You’re learning!”
“Why is it when I learn something, I always feel that there’s so much more to figure out?” Dave released a suffering sigh, leaning back into his chair.
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Bob laughed.
“Ah, the age old dilemma of those that seek to innovate and improve; there’s no upper limit, no end, though it is a hell of a lot of fun to just chase those ideas and dreams.”
The two of them sipped their drinks and looked out over the peaceful simulation of Dave’s house.
Sato appeared from thin air, wearing his normal attire, a white space suit with blue accents and an emblem on his shoulder showing his rank.
“Hey, Sato,” Bob said, conjuring a seat for the man.
“Bob, Dave,” Sato said, nodding and smiling to them both.
“Looks like old Jukal can learn new tricks. Seems, I’m not the only one that can conjure items,” Dave snorted.
“I have a little problem with the fine control. Need to get a better sensory skill or spell for it,” Bob grinned, looking to Sato. “So, no Edwards today, what’s he up to? Hopefully not using those damned gravity spells.”
“Ouch,” Dave winced, looking to Sato who was cringing.
“That was last week. He overdid the area of effect, got most of the station with one point five Earth gravities.”
“Well, that has gotta suck,” Dave shook his head.
“It wasn’t the most fun, and we’ve put new rules on him using it in the station. He gave me this file however,” Sato tapped something out on a screen on his arm, the Mirror of Communication receiving the file and transmitting it to Bob.
“Got to love faster than light download speeds,” Bob said.
“Wish I had that when I was playing games in my parents basement,” Dave muttered, drinking from his beer.
“How are things going with the Stone Raiders, Dave? It’s been awhile since we last talked,” Sato asked, relaxing and letting his upright military posturing fall away.
Dave conjured him a beer, looking to the roof above the porch.
“Well, we cleared out the occupied Aleph facilities. They moved in and started getting everything up and running. They’ve got a low population, so it’s taking them some time. They’re focusing on getting more automatons online. We saved the older generation of Demons, and the Beast Kin. We’re in the middle of building a city and we’re in the process of solidifying our alliances with different countries and groups.”
“Sounds pretty impressive,” Sato said sipping the beer, letting out a pleased sound.
“Damn, that’s not half bad,” Sato said, enjoying the drink.
Bob noticed the look on Dave’s face.
“What are you thinking?” Bob asked.
“Well, I’ve just started teaching people how to make magical code.”
“You’ve taught one person,” Bob inserted.
“Yeah, but it won’t be long till he’s pretty damn good at it and taking the responsibility off of my shoulders. I still have a whole bunch of Aleph, Dwarves, Stone Raiders, my own smiths, and Devil’s Crater Army to teach…,” Dave trailed off deep in thought. His frown started to widen as his pursed lips turned into a grin.
He clapped his hands together, jumping out of his seat and looking to Sato and Bob.
“How many Mirrors of Communication do you have?” Dave asked, pointing to Bob.
“Maybe a hundred of the smaller ones, twenty of the long range ones like the one you have on the seeder,” Bob shrugged.
“Sato?”
“We have a few,” Sato said.
“Ugh, fine! Keep the numbers to yourself; you’re going to be using them a hell of a lot more if I have my way!” Dave jumped up, clearly excited.
“Dave, words,” Bob said.
“Okay, so I need magical coders to deal with the things I don’t want to. I have ideas I want to work on, but there’s also a ton of weapons, armor, walls, frigging toilets and showers that need magical coding as well. I can have a lot of them coming down to the city and helping me out, but that’s a lot of resources and things that could go wrong. The Mirrors of Communication give us a place where we can experiment with things without fear of blowing ourselves up. It also means that people from all over Emerilia, or beyond,” Dave gave a pointed look to Sato, “can join in on the lessons, or work with others to gain the skills they need. My only cost will be that they either help with the city, that they continue working for me for two years, or that they make five short range Mirrors of Communication and one long range which they are then to pass out to others that are interested in learning. We expand the lessons to include conjuration or other magic. Do you think we can rope Fire into having some of her professors teaching through the mirrors? I think I can get the Aleph college to join in. They want to learn more, but they’re kind of scared to go to the Mage’s College, this bridges the gap,” Dave said.
“So, we basically make an online and interactive virtual reality college?” Bob said, the words spilling from his mouth in excitement.
Dave clapped his hands, clicked his fingers and pointed to Bob.
“Give the Gnome a prize!” Dave smiled, his excitement infectious.
“So, my people could take lessons directly from you on how to use their abilities?” Sato asked.
“Yes, though those that don’t have the implants would only be able to learn the magical coding, but those with abilities could learn every type of magic with enough knowledge and even conjure items,” Dave said.
“Then, as more people learn, more mirrors of communication are passed around. Maybe the Mage’s Guild could run it; anyone that wants to learn, can go to a Mage’s guild and learn anything. We could teach farming and agriculture, or how to control a ship,” Bob said.
“And the Jukal won’t be able to see a thing,” Dave smiled.
Bob’s face went slack, his eyes glossy.
“With just learning any of that, the median strength of a person on Emerilia could skyrocket.”
“Yes, and what would happen if we were to have lessons after the basic classes to teach people how to gain classes? Kind of like a masters on Earth, but instead of getting a piece of paper, they get a class that only takes time and effort,” Dave held Bob’s eyes.
“It’s so simple, but the impact it could have, giving education to any and all that desire it. I can’t even try to guess what will happen,” Bob said.
“A revolution,” Dave said, looking over to Sato.