Lilith was panting and sweating heavily as she walked back from the regular target of rocks after flight class. She was glad she didn’t have to worry about conserving energy now that the fire-knights in Solis were taking care of things with the beastfolk. And she was so close, so she couldn’t help but push herself!
She walked back to Lagora with the rest of her flight group, not really paying attention when they all turned.
“Oh, wrong way.” Cyla grabbed Lilith’s hand and guided her into the adventurer’s tavern.
“Huh?” Lilith tilted her head.
“We’re grabbing a bite after training, remember?” Cyla smiled.
“Oh yeah.” Lilith followed her inside the tavern and walked over to a booth with everyone else, except Alec, who went over to talk to the bartender.
“So, how close are you to flying?” Jatte asked.
“She’s at 90%!” Cyla said excited.
“I’m at—!” Lilith stopped.
“Sorry,” Cyla said, looking guilty.
“Well, that’s almost a hundred,” Jatte said. “What are you gonna do when you finally fly?”
Lilith stared back, then shrugged. “Just fly, I guess.” She smiled. “I didn’t really think about it more than that. It’d be nice to fly with you two and see everything from above.”
“You mean us four?” Cyla asked.
“Oh yeah, you can fly too,” Lilith said.
“Yeah I can fly.” Cyla raised an eyebrow. “Though I guess it’s been a while since I’ve done anything other than gliding outside of work.”
“Work?” Lilith asked. “What’s your work?”
Alec came back with a tray of five plates of fish and some starchy discs, then set them down one by one, before putting the tray against the wall and sitting down himself.
“Well, if you look up around noon, you might see me gliding over rooftops or farms, if I’m not away from Solis. Flight works with a lot of different jobs,” Cyla said.
“Yep,” Alec said. “And most people can’t fly, so even short jobs pay a lot. It’s usually royalty asking for roof inspections or checking on resources.” He took a bite of his fish.
“You can’t just fly around for hours and enjoy that?” Lilith asked.
“Well you can, but that wouldn’t be work.” Cyla raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, right.” Lilith sat back, then nibbled on her food. She was hungry, but she was almost too tired to eat.
“Speaking of work,” Ethen said, “isn’t she overworking herself?”
Alec nodded. “Oh yeah, definitely.”
“I gotta reach a hundred as fast as possible!” Lilith smiled eagerly.
“I’m surprised you didn’t burn out already. Hmm. Just make sure not to overdo it so much you drop out of the sky,” Alec said. “We might not always be able to catch you.”
Lilith nodded and nibbled at her meal some more.
…
After their meal, they headed back, and Lilith, Ethen, and Jatte went to their dorms.
However, Cyla knocked on Jatte’s door later, and Alec on Ethen’s.
“Huh? What’s up?” Jatte asked.
“Come on!” Cyla said. “We gotta plan for when Lilith reaches a hundred!”
“Oh, right!” Jatte rushed out.
…
The four mages flew up over the rooftops as the sun set.
“So, what are you guys gonna do?” Cyla asked.
Ethen looked down and smiled. “I think I’ve got an idea.”
Jatte looked up. “I wanna bring her there!”
“I already got something picked out for her,” Alec said. “What about you Cyla?”
Cyla held out one of her wings.
---
A few days from then, Lilith was standing on the scale, rings of electricity around her, when she finally saw it hit zero. Then, she felt it!
Putting out this much magic strained her, but there were so many other sensations she almost forgot about that. Her feet were no longer touching the ground, she felt weightless, and she drifted up as air blasted down around her. She wobbled since it was hard to control, but she was only a few feet off the ground, so it wouldn’t be too much of a problem if she fell.
Cyla turned to the others. “Guys! Guys!” She yelled and waved her arm. “She’s got it!”
The three other mages stopped what they were doing and flew down. When they saw her hovering in the air, even if unsteadily, none of them could help but smile.
“Finally!” Alec said, grinning. “Now come up here with us already.” He drifted back so he and Cyla were behind Ethen and Jatte. “Ethen, if she falls, you catch her. We can’t have our air magic pushing her down.”
Ethen nodded. “On it.”
“I’m… going up with you guys?” Lilith paled and wobbled a bit in the air.
“Yeah!” Cyla smiled.
“Don’t worry,” Ethen said. “If you fall, Jatte and I will catch you.”
Lilith nodded, then pushed her magic a bit harder, ascending slowly. It was terrifying, but having Ethen and Jatte within arms length calmed her. She might not have been perfectly safe, but she was safe enough. And while she was panicking, there were sights she was missing!
She looked down and saw the rocks and grass move away and the giant target around her shrink. She was about rooftop height now, and then a bit higher. She looked ahead and now saw Solis from above the rooftops. Soon, she was floating above even the tallest church towers, and then the castle towers.
She turned. She just had to bend her rings into a spiral and back. Now she could see what had been behind her and the others: countless trees were swaying in the wind, all now below her. The only thing as high as them now was a flock of colorful birds darting around over the treetops, like a colorful cloud that expanded and contracted in response to things she couldn’t see. But soon, as she rose even more, she was now higher than all of the birds too.
Twisting her rings and turning back to the city of Solis, she could see the castle surrounded by marble districts, surrounded by the cheaper wooden houses. Then, there was forest on one side of the kingdom and a river and then countless farms on the other side. Watermills dotted the river and windmills and farmhouses were sparsely scattered among the great square and rectangular farms. There were so many farms that it made the whole kingdom look small.
She had to keep her awe in check so she wouldn’t lose control of her magic, but after she flew up even faster, she turned once more to look off at the mountains in the distance. She was able to look at their peaks head on now. In fact, she had to angle her head down slightly to look straight at the base!
The whole time she looked around, Ethen and Jatte stayed right by her, just outside of the rings of electricity.
“Alright!” Cyla called out. “Time for presents!”
“I’ll go first!” Ethen called out, then grinned. “Check this out.” he pulled out a large, spherical rock that was bigger than his hand, then dropped it.
“Hey!” Alec said.
Lilith looked down. The rock plummeted at terrifying speeds, then left a cloud of dust on the tiny target way below them. She stared down for a few seconds wondering why it was silent, before she heard a faint cracking sound.
“Don’t drop stuff like that. It’s dangerous!” Alec said.
“Sorry,” Ethen held his palms up. “Just this once.”
Alec sighed.
“Ooh, my turn next!” Jatte carefully moved forward and grabbed Lilith, avoiding the rings, then flew up in her gravity much faster. They shot up, and soon, they both felt the moisture of the cloud all around them and saw mostly white, and then they didn’t.
Lilith looked down to see a sea of clouds below and all around her, each as big as the entire Solis kingdom, like giant flat ships floating on an invisible ocean.
“Haha!” Lilith stared at it, then started taking deeper, quicker breaths. For some reason she felt like she was suffocating.
“Yeah, it’s hard to breathe up here.” Jatte said. “Let’s go back.” She started pulling Lilith down. They descended through the cloud, seeing all white again, and then floated back down to the group.
“You good?” Cyla asked, seeing Lilith breathing hard and glancing at Jatte.
“Yeah!” Lilith smiled. “That was beautiful!” She drifted away from Jatte. “I wouldn’t even have thought to look at the clouds from above! It’s like a whole other ocean above us!”
“It is, isn’t it.” Cyla smiled at Lilith’s happiness. ”Well, I can’t wait any longer.” She pulled something out of her pocket.
“Rope?” Lilith tilted her head.
“Jatte, put her up against me like I said before!” Cyla said.
Jatte surrounded Lilith in a field of gravity. “Alright, turn off your magic.”
“O— okay.” Lilith hesitantly let the rings fade away, putting out just enough power to keep in relatively the same spot as Jatte’s gravity magic lifted her more and more.
Jatte flew forward and lightly pushed her, turning her around until her back was pressed against Cyla’s torso. Then, Ethen and Alec flew around them in dizzying turns as they covered the two with the rope and then tied a few knots.
“Is that good?” Alec asked.
Cyla tugged on it, then nodded. “Yep. We’re good!” She held her wings out.
“What’s this about?” Lilith asked.
“Since you liked my wings so much you tried to make a copy, I thought I’d show you what it felt like to fly with them!” Cyla said, then tilted forward.
“Really?” Lilith looked forward in anticipation.
“Really!” Cyla said.
Jatte and Cyla both dropped most of their flight magic, but instead of plummeting, Lilith and Cyla started falling, then shooting forwards.
Lilith almost panicked when she saw the ground rapidly coming up to her, but she calmed down when she felt Cyla carefully maneuvering right behind her. Soon, the kingdom that was once small was now right in front of them.
As air blasted past them, they were now eye level with the tallest towers, right before Cyla tilted her wings back, and they ascended rapidly. They both looked down at the kingdom from its center, far above everything. And then, they fell forward again. But this time, Cyla flapped her wings against bursts of air she made with her magic and kept their height level after falling a bit, keeping them level with some of the tallest structures, and they both swung slowly around a nearby church tower. Lilith admired the detailed statues of humans with wings on their backs and a few harpies and dragons flying up to reach them, but it only took a few seconds before the tower was behind them. Then they flew to the next one.
The statues on this tower were almost the same, except that the winged human was helping some humans and harpies up. It was a slight, but interesting difference, but it was more fun to be able to view them from this angle at all. Then, she realized this tower’s statues were all at angles where no one on ground level would see them! This was a sight someone would only see if they could fly! And soon, it was already behind her.
After they swung around both towers, Cyla dropped a bit lower, flying just high enough over the rooftops that Lilith wasn’t afraid they’d hit one, though it was still terrifying how fast the houses disappeared behind them. They passed over the marble and wood houses in a great circle, looping around the castle once before they continued to the ocean.
Once they reached the coast, Cyla flapped her wings several times as they descended until they gently touched down on the beach. Then, once Cyla’s feet touched the ground, she started undoing the ropes.
Lilith teared up as she was lowered to the ground, free from the ropes. She smiled and wiped her eyes a few times with her hands as she turned back to Cyla. “I can’t tell if I’m crying or if my eyes are watering because of the air.”
“I know, right?” Cyla laughed. “First time flying is like that.”
Alec, then Jatte and Ethen, touched down behind them.
Alec walked forward. “Well, my gift’s not as crazy as these guys’.” He pulled out a scroll.
“Oh, it’s the same thing you got me,” Cyla said.
“Yep,” Alec said.
Lilith took the scroll and unrolled it, blinking away her tears. It was a map of Solis, but when she looked at it, she felt a bit of vertigo and almost lost her balance. It felt like she was back up in the sky for a moment.
“Whoa!” Cyla reached a wing out before Lilith righted herself.
“Yeah,” Alec said. “You never look at those things the same after flying. Maps help everyone, but they’re a treasure to us flight mages whenever we’re grounded.”
Lilith closed the map to rid herself of the vertigo, but then she held it close to her chest, still tearing up a little. Once she reached a hundred, she expected that she’d fly around with Ethen and Jatte and have trouble keeping up, but this was amazing. If she was honest with herself, every flight class was both a physical exercise as well as a slight exercise in controlling her jealousy, but she was glad she exercised both. Playing games with Cyla was even more fun than martial arts practice, but she preferred not being at the bottom of the class. At that moment though, she didn’t care. Even if she would forever be the worst flier, she still liked flying as much as martial arts, and maybe even as much as taking on Wispy’s crazy challenges.
Then, she remembered Cyla said Alec gave her a map too. “Is this a thing when anyone becomes a flight mage?” Lilith asked, still smiling.
“Yep.” Alec nodded.
“What did you guys get then?” Lilith asked. She hoped that they’d been given as wonderful gifts as she’d been given.
“I got a map.” Cyla rolled her eyes and pulled out a similar map.
“I don’t remember…” Alec said. “It’s been so long.”
“I got this belt,” Ethen said, holding the belt on his clothes.
“I got an apple,” Jatte said. “It’s tradition where I’m from.”
“Did the apple taste good?” Lilith asked.
“It was okay.”
Lilith frowned. “I gotta get you guys some late gifts.”
“You don’t have to.” Cyla smiled and shook her head.
“The belt’s a great honor,” Ethen said. “But I won’t refuse a gift.”
“I’ll think of something…” Lilith said.
---
“Six months, huh?” Cyla sat back in her booth across from Alec after they left the kids at school, still smiling. “She finally did it.”
“Yeah.” Alec smiled and held his celebratory beer. “It took her a while considering she was training constantly, but I guess that’s how it works if you don’t use normal flight magic.”
“Mhmm.” Cyla clinked her beer mug against Alec’s and took a drink.
Alec took a sip, then glanced over as he saw someone and put the drink down. “Ah! Jan!” He waved.
A tall and thin but fit adventurer walked over. “What’s up?”
“Teacher’s meeting,” Alec said.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Cyla scooted over.
“You’re teachers too?” Jan asked. “I don’t see you guys at the school.”
“We’re flight mage instructors,” Alec said as he pulled out yet another map and unrolled it on the table. “It doesn’t make sense to restrict us to a classroom.”
“Makes sense,” Jan said. “So what do a couple of flight instructors want with an adventure teacher?”
“I’d like to up the training. Discreetly.” Alec pointed at some points on the map that were a ways from Solis. “A few of your students have magic, and all of mine do. I’d like to try a few of the more fun military drills, but if anyone asks, let’s just say they’re mundane field trips.”
“I don’t think you can keep anything a secret with as many students as I have,” Jan said. “And why do you want to keep things a secret anyway?”
“They’re going to be raising the age people can practice magic again,” Alec said. “Nothing I can do to stop it. But what I can do is make sure our last early mages are given the best training they can get, so they can make up for the mages that come after them.”
Jan nodded. “I see. I suppose it’s worth a shot.”
“So, got any ideas for drills?” Alec asked. “I was thinking about a tournament or a defending game.”
“Or a race!” Cyla added.
“Hmm.” Jan stared at the map. “Why don’t we train them on the more important adventurer jobs? Like search and rescue?”
Alec shrugged and started writing things down. “I guess we’ve got a few ideas already. Any more?”
“Hmm.” Cyla held a wing to her chin. “A relay race?”
Alec wrote it down.
“Well, if we’re keeping secrets, we might as well add some more,” Jan said. “Even if most of my students can’t use magic, they can still use runes.”
“Oh, that sounds interesting.” Alec nodded, “Incorporating runes into training to deal with mages. Great idea.” He wrote it down, then paused. “I think we should ask some of our students too. They might have better ideas for games.”
---
Before they all knew it, a few more weeks flew by.
Lilith was in an area of Solis she hadn't been near in a while: she was at a bazaar on a path to the castle, and had a makeshift stand made out of boxes with the words, “Lilith’s Shop!” written above her.
A while ago, Malena tripped over one of her sponges and threw a fit about how their room was “being taken over by boxes and random crap!” She had a large scrape where she fell on her knee, so Lilith felt really guilty. And after she asked some of her teachers about her horns after Malena’s encouragement, and Mccoy said he’d buy one of her horns for a gold piece, she had an idea.
Now, in front of her on the counter were multiple horn-freezers she’d made before. It’d taken her a while to perfect their shape. She didn’t know of any equations for the placements of the blades in the thermoacoustic engines to start with, so she had to guess at where to put them. In the end, she had various sizes of horns that made different sounds as they worked, several of which could eventually produce ice.
She also had a few beakers, some with water, sponges, and some different rocks she hadn’t been able to use.
“Wow this looks terrible,” someone walked by. “What are you selling?”
Lilith frowned, then looked around. He was right. “Sorry, I focus more on my work than presentation,” she said. “And this—”She pointed at a horn.“—is a one of a kind item that can make ice!”
The man tilted his head at the horn. “Is there a small magicite crystal inside it?”
“No magicite needed!” She picked up her latest horn, one she was going to keep. “Behold!” She took a deep breath and blew, producing a powerful note for a bit. Simultaneously, she picked a beaker up and dipped the end of the horn in it. Once in, the water started freezing.
“No way!” The man watched.
Lilith set the horn back down, panting. “So, want one?”
The man looked around. “I don’t know what I’d use it for, but it is really interesting.” He waved and walked off.
However, because Lilith was so obnoxiously loud, several people from the crowd were already on their way over.
“Oh, my son will love this!” A richly dressed man bought one for a gold coin.
“Very interesting.” A woman with a long coat slid over a gold coin. “I could use this.”
Eventually Jatte found saw Lilith’s shop and walked over. “You’re really loud. What is this?”
Lilith finished another demonstration, freezing a beaker of water in front of everyone.
“What?” Jatte pushed ahead of the crowd. “How!?”
“Do you want one?” Lilith held a horn out.
“Maybe?” Jatte stared at the horn. “How much?”
“One gold!” Lilith said.
“You sure you can’t do five silver?” Jatte asked.
“Nope.” Lilith shook her head. “There are plenty of other people here that will pay the full gold.”
Jatte’s shoulders sagged.
“You can just walk to my dorm after.” Lilith raised an eyebrow. “We live right next to each other, and I don’t think I can sell all of them.”
“I don’t know about that…” Jatte said.
“Two gold coins for the big one!” A fisherman walked up and slammed the coins down. “Fish ice is expensive!”
Lilith handed him the horn.
“I hope you save at least one…” Jatte frowned.
“I can make them!” Lilith yelled back.
“Oh yeah.” Jatte blinked, then waved. “Well, in that case, good luck!”
“Thanks!”
Then, another kid that looked like he was from her classes came up. “Does this work underwater?” He asked.
Lilith stared back. “What? Underwater?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Can I try with the beaker?”
“What are you gonna try?” She asked. “I need the water to demonstrate.”
“Ah, I got my flask.” He pulled out a large leather skin flask from his pocket, took a horn, and poured the flask out onto it. Instead of the water falling off the horn, it gathered around it in a giant sphere, which then coalesced around the front.
“Water magic?” Lilith asked.
“Yeah.” The guy took a breath, blew into the horn, and watched as the big glob of water at the front filled with bubbles, then slowly started to freeze after a few tries. “It works.” He smiled and set the horn back down.
Lilith wiped the mouthpiece with a cloth.
“I’ll buy that one!” Another student slammed down a gold coin.
“O— okay.” Lilith hesitantly handed her the horn.
Before she knew it, about half of her horns had sold, and one of the flame knights from before walked up, the crowd dispersing around him.
“Oh hey!” Lilith smiled. “One of you guys!”
“Do you have a license for this?” He asked.
Lilith tilted her head. “License?” She looked around to the crowd and other shopkeepers, but they didn’t seem to know what he was talking about either.
The knight seemed confused. “The noise.”
Lilith blinked. “I need a license for noise?” She looked around again. The nearby shopkeepers were shaking their heads or shrugging.
Another knight ran up to him. “Hey, they don’t need licenses here.” He turned to Lilith. “Sorry about him. He’s new.” He put down four gold coins and took a horn. “That should do it, right?”
Lilith nodded, then looked down at the money. It was way too much… so she slid the coins into her coin bag and didn’t say anything.
A little later, Hana walked by to see what all the commotion was about. But when she saw the horns, her eyes widened, and she ran off.
‘That girl is scared of the weirdest things,’ Lilith thought and shook her head.
At the end of the day, Lilith sold all the horns except two: one she planned on keeping, and another she would give to Jatte. So when she returned to the dorms, she knocked on Jatte’s door first.
“Hello?” Jatte opened it.
“Happy late flight day!” Lilith held the horn out to her.
Jatte smiled and took it. “I guess you didn’t sell them all. Thanks!”
After that, she went back to her room and unloaded her backpack. She had a small bag of gold coins now, and had a bunch of rocks, beakers, and chunks of metal that she couldn’t sell.
When she saw the metal she failed to sell, she suddenly thought back to her attempt to make wings, and then to her soaring through the sky with Cyla. Maybe she’d try another attempt at wings. It would be worth it if she could glide like that again.
She picked up one of the plates of metal and levitated and heated a small chunk of graphite until it was white hot. Then, she poked the metal with the graphite. It melted around the graphite and let her push it in, and then, with a little bit more fine telekinesis, she could smooth out the drops so it was a smoother hole. It was as if she pressed something hot into ice.
She had a new manufacturing technique now, so maybe she could make better wings.
---
A few weeks later, there were some scratches left on the walls from Lilith’s work.
“Lilith I swear to Haven.” Malena looked up from a grain of sand in her palm and at a scraping noise, then facepalmed when she saw a giant metal and leather wing taking up much of Lilith’s side of the room and scraping against the ceiling.
“Huh?” Lilith looked up at her.
Malena pointed at where the wing was touching the ceiling.
“Oh,” Lilith lowered the wing. Then, she decided she wanted to share the story behind her masterpiece with her best friend. “Y’know, the last wing didn’t work because the metal was too thick, but since I can thin it, cut it, and join it better with graphite, I think I can make it much lighter. I think I’ll be able to glide like Cyla soon!”
“Wait, thin it?” Malena looked at the flat pieces of metal lining the wing. “So that thing’s full of blades?”
“Uhh?” Lilith blinked, then smiled sheepishly. “N— no? I think it’ll be fine, see?” She traced her finger along the edge of one of the pieces of metal and looked at her finger. It was bleeding. “Oh…”
“Blunt the edges. All of them. I don’t want you getting hurt either.” Malena shook her head. “And you need your own lab at this point.”
“I don’t have access to the labs yet,” Lilith said. “That’s for upperclassmen.”
“I see that new bag of gold by you.” Malena pointed. “Maybe you could buy a place?”
Lilith shook her head. “I’d need to spend another summer before I could get enough. And none of them are around areas I like.”
“Oh, so you checked?” Malena’s eyebrows raised.
“Yeah. I was thinking I’d store the boxes somewhere and then spend the rest of my time here,” Lilith said.
“So there’d still be giant wings here,” Malena deadpanned.
“Maybe…” Lilith looked away.
“Yeah, you need a lab, not a warehouse.” Malena frowned. “But a place like that by Lagora would be expensive. It would be a lot more than what you could buy with that bag.”
Lilith looked out the window, past the buildings, to some farms. “What if it doesn’t have to be close?” She asked. “I can fly now, so it shouldn’t take as long to get to the farm area, especially if I get these wings working.” She used both hands to furl and unfurl the giant wing.
“In that case, I don’t know if the farm area is best,” Malena said. “It’s best for farms, not for labs.”
“They need different stuff?” Lilith asked, then thought about it for a second. She’d like a place to get metal, a source other than her lungs for her engines, and a great amount of space to store things. “Yep, they do.”
“Maybe you should ask someone who knows the land better,” Malena suggested.
“Land,” Lilith repeated. “Like earth. Like an earth mage?”
Malena paused, then shrugged. “I guess? They would have a good reason to know the land.”
Lilith pushed her wing so it was out of the way, then ran out of the room and down the hall.
Once Lilith was gone, Malena went back to her experiment. She remembered the others mentioned powers could be trained, even from nothing, so she looked over all of the ones mentioned in Lilith’s textbook. With just time magic, she’d be a sitting duck if she were in any of the stories in her strategy textbook. With most of the other magics it wasn’t too different. The exception was teleportation.
That was why she was holding a grain of sand in one palm and trying to focus on the concept of it being elsewhere, but nothing was happening… yet. The book mentioned it could take a while, so she was going to continue practicing.
---
“Silene!” Lilith knocked on the door. “I need your help!”
Silene opened it.
“Do you know where I could put a lab?” Lilith asked. “It doesn’t have to be in Solis. As long as I can fly to it, it's perfect!”
Silene blinked. “You want a lab?”
“Yeah, somewhere I can fly to and put stuff!”
“Wait, you want a lab outside of Solis you can fly to?” Silene grinned.
“Uh.” Lilith blinked. “Yes?”
“A secret lab in an isolated location?” Silene asked, grinning even more.
“I don’t know if it’s secret if I’m telling you,” Lilith said.
“But of course you gotta tell your villainous sidekick. Your partner in crime.”
“Villainous?” Lilith tilted her head.
Silene paused. “Have you not read the stories here? Seen the plays?” She walked back into the room and sat on her bed.
“No,” Lilith said as she walked in and closed the door behind her. “I haven’t even gone to the school library that much.”
“Then how did you make those magic horns I saw?” Silene raised an eyebrow.
“I uh, it came to me in a dream,” Lilith said.
Silene nodded. “And the wings you got extra credit for?”
“You remembered that? That was on the class rankings for like a day!” Lilith said.
“I was more surprised Rosina didn’t say anything about it.” Silene shrugged. “And, well, I can’t help but keep an eye on the only person ahead of me in magic and research.”
Lilith blinked. Was Silene jealous of her? Like how she was slightly jealous in flight class? “Ah, well it was just a coincidence. I saw the electricity mage, so I tried to copy him.”
“Wait, what about the other electrical levitation before that, and then the lamp?” Silene asked.
“Uh, both of those happened to come to me in a dream too…” Lilith looked away. She didn’t want Silene to feel jealous like she had during flight training.
“Well now it just sounds like you’re hiding things from me.” Silene frowned. “Don’t want to tell me?”
Lilith frowned. “I’m not hiding anything when I say it came to me in a dream. I’ve had these weird dreams since I was born. That’s why the dream mage here had to look over them before I was even admitted.”
Silene blinked. “Oh. I’m sorry, I just assumed.”
“It’s fine.”
“But, then.” Silene went back to her Cheshire grin from before. “Oh I love it. It’s such a perfect fit.”
“Perfect fit for what?” Lilith asked.
Silene sighed and shook her head, still smiling. “The next time the play shows, you’re seeing it with me.” She turned to her nightstand and pulled the drawer out revealing several maps. “Anyway, you want a secret mad scientist hideout, right?”
“I don’t know about mad scientists. I don’t think I’m usually that angry, am I?” Lilith asked as she walked in.
“Mad as in crazy,” Silene said as she pulled out the maps and placed them on her bed.
“Oh,” Lilith said. “I don’t think I’m crazy though.”
“But the dream thing…” Silene paused. “Nevermind. You want a place for all your experiments, right?”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Lilith nodded. “Wow, you’ve got a lot of maps.”
“I collect maps,“ Silene said. ”It’s great for helping the farmers. Even the mountain and mine maps are useful so they don’t use contaminated water for their crops.” She sifted through all the different maps. “Let’s see… if it’s a mad scientist’s lair, it’s gotta be in the mountains.”
“I’m not a mad scientist though.”
Silene stared at her. “Hmm. Hold on. Can you do something for me?”
“Sure. What?”
“Put your hands out like this.” Silene threw her palms up, fingers arched like claws, and leaned back. “Then do a laugh like ‘mwahaha ha haa!’”
Lilith raised an eyebrow, then shrugged and did it, quietly and unenthusiastically. “Mwa ha ha…”
“No.” Silene frowned. “Imagine you just finished one of your experiments and throw some electricity into it.”
“I’ll give it a try.” Lilith cleared her throat and imagined she completed her recent attempt at wings and was now flying through the sky. “Hehehe…” A few rings of electricity surrounded her and wobbled around a bit as lightning crackled around her. “Haa haha hahaa!”
“Yes…” Silene almost drooled. “Could use some work, but still, beautiful.”
“I don’t get it,” Lilith said.
“You’ll understand later,” Silene said. “But for now—” She pointed at a map of the nearby mountains. “—does anywhere here look good?”
Lilith looked. “Hmm. I’d like it to be closer to the river.”
“Huh? Why?” Silene asked. “That’d make it much more prone to flooding.”
“Oh, maybe. I still want it for my engines though.”
Silene nodded, then blinked. “Engines?”
“It, uh, converts heat differences into energy, or stuff, like, cold into sound, or the other way, like sound into cold.”
“I didn’t know they could do that too.”
“They can!” Lilith smiled. “But if I had a watermill, I could also turn its energy into heat or sound or something, and if there was oil, I could turn the heat from the flames of the oil into cold.”
“The opposite of a lantern. So, it’s a bit like magic then, but without needing a person?” Silene stared intensely at Lilith.
“Uh, maybe? Why are you looking at me like that?” Lilith shrank back.
“That’s… not possible. If it's really magic, then it’s been proven impossible with runes, with magicite, with… everything.” Silene said, then smirked. “You’d have to be mad to even try it.”
"It's not really the same as magic though," Lilith said.
---
A group of scientists sat around a table in the middle of a lab, equipment like flasks and coils surrounding them. Both Crowe and the woman that bought the horn from Lilith were at the table. In front of the woman was a beaker of frozen water, with the horn she bought in it.
“How do you know it’s not using runes?” One of the other scientists asked. “You have to put it in your mouth, so it could use runes from that distance.”
The woman shook her head. “I didn’t feel the power draw from runes. However, if the problem is distance, we could test that quickly with a bellows.”
She grabbed the horn and beaker, walked to a sink and dumped and refilled the beaker, then grabbed a nearby bellows and leather tube, and moved it all under a weight suspended from a string through a hook in the ceiling. She took a moment to hook it all together so the bellows was lying flat while the horn was in the beaker of water, before grabbing the string attached to the suspended weight so she could control the bellows from afar.
They all watched as the horn made its annoyingly loud noises. After a few blows from the bellows, it was quickly getting annoying, and it didn’t look like anything was happening.
“Hmm.” The woman looked at the contraption, then picked up a nearby thermometer and placed it in the water. “It’s close.”
“You could’ve lowered that yourself,” one of the others said. “Step back from it.”
She glared at them before stepping back, leaving the thermometer in the water. Then, she repeated the experiment, and they all watched as the temperature on the thermometer slowly decreased.
“That’s… impossible,” one of the scientists said, then smiled.
"Are you sure it's not a small windcatcher?" Another scientist asked.
"It cools whether or not there's water on it, and there's no water inside it," the woman answered.
“Strange. Where did you find this?” Another one of them asked.
“Some kid was selling them in the bazaar,” the woman answered.
Crowe looked up.
“Did they tell you where they got them from?” Another scientist asked.
“She had other equipment with her. It looked like she was selling science equipment, so I assumed they were a project she worked on.”
“What did she look like?” Crowe asked.
The woman thought. “Purple hat, purple clothes, brown hair. And her shop name started with an L.”
Crowe nodded.
“Why do you ask?” The woman asked.
“I was called in for her admission because she had unusual dreams. It turned out it was a benevolent ancestor spirit.” He smiled. “If she’s making stuff now, I think we should fund her efforts and oversee her work.”
“She looked like she was maybe fifteen,” the woman said. “Which would make sense if you were recently called in for her admission. You want to fund that child?”
“That child just did something impossible,” Crowe said. “So of course I do.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” another scientist said. “If she’s not done with her school, she may be able to make stuff like that horn.” He gestured. “But she might not be able to figure out the rest of our technology. Taking her out of school could leave her stunted.”
“No one said anything about taking her out of school.” Crowe frowned. “She’s already making horns like that while she’s in school.”
An older scientist spoke up, “If she’s that young, I think it’d be better if she were involved in a part time apprenticeship than a funded job. That way the regular obligations that come with funding aren’t required. If you want to run an apprenticeship, I think it’d be a good idea.”
Crowe nodded. “That could work. I’d be giving her the materials for her work instead of gold. And I could also make sure she’s not taking on too much work outside of school.” He couldn’t help a small smirk. This would make his job of monitoring her much simpler.