Kaelen woke up a new man. A full night sleep in a pod tends to put a little pep in your step. Kaelen whistled his way to the Artificer. He unlocked the steel gate and rolled the door up, relocking the gate. Holding his gem to the door he checked over each shoulder before pulsing in the code on the second door.

Shelves lined the walls in the showroom. Repaired junk displayed in the open for shoppers. Boxes of parts sat on the floor in front of the shelves. A checkout counter was stationed at the center of the room with a polished stone top. On it rested an old light lock box and scanner. The light lox box still had the raised keys that had to be forcefully punched down with a rigid finger. The whole contraption was made of polished brass.

Glowing pocket watches sat on shelves and portable Noxflare lamps. Repaired radios and ice boxes lined another set of sturdy wooden shelves. A faint hum fills the room and a faint green glow from the various Noxflare powered gadgets.

Larger items-like a polished Noxflare typewriter and a rusted but functional gramophone sit on a heavy iron bench at the center of the room. Pedal driven sewing machines and basic yard tools are displayed at either side of it.

Behind the counter is a glass case showcasing delicate, high-value trinkets such as pawned jewelry with tiny glowing green shards embedded in them.

A set of ornate steel steps spiraled up behind a door behind the counter. Kaelen climbed up the stairs past the second balcony to the third story. The third story was nothing but heaps of broken hardware. He held his gem to the sunroof sensor and pulsed his signal again. Steel plating slid wide open giving him a view of the sky through double plated hardened glass.

The sky danced with purple, pink and green auroras. The day star belched furious tendrils of plasma through the vast darkness toward Lumina Nocte. The plasma blasts continuously brightened the sky in a flurry of dancing colors. Precious dim light that grew the plants, that fed the animals, that fed the creatures in the outer darkness.

Kaelen wondered to himself if the creatures of the dark would risk pressing into the light of the city if the animals stopped fleeing out from the farms. The light from the Day Star Aurora flooded down through the glass and lit up the shop. It wasn’t enough light to work, just enough to move around and find things without tripping, saving precious Noxflare.

Kaelen glanced around the junk room; heaps of clutter piled high in a manner of organization only Kaelen could understand. A pile devoted to broken machinery and rusted gears, cracked casings and shattered crystal housings. Another pile of various metals, brass, steel, iron and copper.

Wooden crates were stacked in hazardous towers along the walls, some overflowing with motor components others with circuit boards. Broken light fixtures and gas filled tubes were in other crates and random nuts bolts and fasteners in another.

At the back of the room sits an ancient industrial press Kaelen has yet to get back around to. Next to it a cobbled together Noxflare detector nearly complete.

Kaelen fills the tip of his finger with a chip of Noxflare and lights a work lamp. He lifts it from the peg on his wall and grabs up a spool of solder before making his way back down the stairs to the second-floor shop.

The main workbench dominated the center of the room. It’s covered in scorch marks, scrapes, deep gouges and oil stains. Tools hang on peg boards at the far wall-everything from pliers to complex crystal resonance calibrators and arc-welding wands.

The walls were crammed with shelves and mismatched cabinets holding jars of screws, springs wires and other components. Open drawers reveal tangled nests of insulated cables and copper wiring. Labels are written in Kaelen’s frantic handwriting.

Kaelen had some time to spare so he sat at his work bench and pulled out his personal project from a wooden crate beneath the bench. He sat the brass sleeve on the table and gathered some wires from a drawer. He worked carefully on the polished network of crystal conduits. He assembled a latticework of translucent quartz spirals and thin copper lines on narrow boards.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He knew what he wanted the sleeve to do. It would fit over his forearm and a set of strings would tie up to his fingers. He could manipulate some of the switches and valves with the bearing arm while his free arm could dial in the gas filled tubes for finer tuning.

He hoped the converter could amplify the waves of Noxflare, while breaking down the lower waves to create a more concentrated purer form of light. He could sell the pure crystals for higher profits and pump larger amounts of junk light into cheaper crystals. His foreman’s shop would make more, and the cheaper crystals would help the poorer citizens.

He mutters to himself as he works dragging the lamp closer and shifting the mounted magnifying glass to better look at his work. His hands move deftly between tools and components. He stops and rubs his burning eyes. He has to crack his neck and back. He looks over the device and bites his cheek.

“Come on, you stubborn piece of junk, let's see if you can handle not exploding this time.” He grabbed a polished green shard no larger than his thumb and slipped it carefully into its chamber. He fit the sleeve over his forearm and his fingers into the loops.

With his free hand he flipped a brass switch. The converter hummed as it came to life. Light coursed through the quartz lattice work, growing brighter and brighter. He let out a half sigh, so far, he had succeeded. Then, with a sharp crack, the housing failed again. Sparks showered out from the Noxshard singing his arm and flinging fragments of crystal across the table.

“Blazes!” Kaelen swore. He ripped the sleeve off and despite his frustration managed to set it down on the table carefully before burying his face in his hands. “What am I missing?”

The bell chimed downstairs, and Kaelen walked over to the spiral stairs to head down to the showroom. Renik burst through the door with his ever-present swagger. Tools hung from his belt under his long leather coat. “Kaelen! You’re not gonna believe what I snagged tonight.”

Kaelen frowned at Renik’s smug grin. “If it’s that woman’s lamp, I swear-”

“It’s not a lamp,” Renik interrupted, pulling something from his satchel. Something with a golden shine. “It’s… well, I don’t know what it is really.” He said scratching himself. “But it’s ancient, and it’s shiny.” His grin was half mad.

The shiny object was a metallic glove, made from silver, brass, and gold with pearl filled buttons and intricate decorative runes. It was more advanced than anything Kaelen had ever seen. More intricate than anything he had ever heard of.

Kaelen’s irritation faded and gave way to curiosity. “Where did you find this?”

“Let’s just say it wasn’t exactly in the hands of someone who knew what they had,” Renik replied with a suspicious wink.

Kaelen traced over the runes with his fingers and whistled at the fine workmanship of the gears and levers that allowed the fingers to move. He had a hysteric urge come over him as he looked over the device. It was mad really. Like a manic jolt of creative recklessness.

He looked from the glove to the sleeve he had been working on then slammed into his table as he pounced on his work. He cracked open a radio and stole the gas filled tubes from inside then soldered them with bits of wire to the knuckles on the glove. He finished destroying a lamp he had been working on to remove the variable switch from inside.

“You are ruining it.” Renik complained. Kaelen could’t hear him. He was ripping apart every working and non-working item in the room and attaching random bits from them to the sleeve and glove on his table. Renik felt a sinking in his stomach as he watched a monstrosity come to life. So much for a once in a lifetime score.

Kaelen wired the glove to the sleeve and attached the finger strings from the sleeve to the metallic tendons on the glove. Then he looked up wild-eyed at Renik for only a moment before placing a new shard into the sleeve and putting the sleeve and newly attached glove on his arm.

He reached over with his free hand and flipped on a switch. His hand dashed from the sleeve to the tuners on the glove in frantic flurries that Renik couldn’t follow. Light began to glow out from the gaudy contraption and fill the room. It spiraled up pathways on the arm to the fingertips of the glove.

Kaelen stared mesmerized at the green light leaping from the fingertips as the room filled with blinding light. Then his head snatched side to side as he tried to find something. He found polished shards meant for a jeweled watch and held the crude pair of drained gems in the gloved hand.

Light flashed so bright both of them had to close their eyes and cover their faces with their arms. A sound like a heavy metal drum hit with a cloth covered mallet pulsed out from the gems and sent a shock wave through the room.

When the light and the sound faded Kaelen and Renik stared astonished at the two glowing blue gems in the gloved hands. Noxflare only ever glowed green, yet these were filled with brilliant blue light. Neither of them breathed.