The brothers had arrived, each carrying a tray of food. Behind them floated what now looked like a little version of Mel. It flew past me and joined back into the main cloud body, and Mel looked as though nothing had ever left him. The trays the brothers had brought were covered in several foods, including a few I even recognized.
“What made you decide to bring the snacks?” I asked, looking at the food hungrily.
“Mel’s message said it might be a long night, figured we could all use a dinner. Sorry, Elody didn’t know you were here too or we’d have found something for you,” Cecile answered while Elicec passed out drinks.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Elody said, producing her own platter of the sandwich-like things we had eaten before. She placed them on the table along with everything else.
“So now that you ain’t a master librarian, what kind of title’re you planning to use anyway, Elody?” Mel asked as he stuffed two apple-like things into a second mouth that had formed below the first. Did that count as talking with your mouth full or not? I wondered what the experts on etiquette would say.
“Ah, yes, I think I’ll just revert back to my previous position. The Spiral could always use another paladin of knowledge. The order is so small these days,” she answered in between bites. I knew what a paladin was, or at least what one was in most fantasy works. I wasn’t entirely sure how that applied to a concept like knowledge, though. Did she follow a god of knowledge or was she on a path of the concept itself?
“What does a paladin of knowledge do exactly? Sorry, still really new to all of this,” I said, slightly embarrassed by the look everyone except Elody had given me at my question.
“Dave, you can’t just ask people that, it’s rude!” Cecile said immediately.
I opened my mouth to apologize, but Elody cut me off. “It’s alright, Dave, I don't consider your question rude. For that matter, I don't find questions of that manner rude at all. I find the taboo of not discussing personal class features to be a concept wholly against my purpose as a paladin of knowledge. My order works to teach others how to learn, give them the tools needed to teach others, and build their own repositories of knowledge. The main problem is that we are few, and the resources that can be generated by such repositories are highly prized, so right now we fight a losing battle against informational entropy.” Her smile faded as she reached the last part of her explanation.
“Is it actually that hopeless?” I asked. With the powers I’d seen her display, I found that hard to believe.
“I never said it was hopeless. It’s just a losing battle. I still hold hope that one day, that can be turned around. That’s a big part of why I’m here today. If what you’re planning actually works and can be replicated, it could potentially change everything,” Elody said. I was going to have to break the bad news soon. I still had no idea where to get the energy needed to create this thing. I hoped she had some idea, as I didn’t want to crush her hopes so soon after she had been forced to leave her position.
“Wait, what exactly is it that Dave is trying to do here? What kind of mess are you getting us involved in, Elody?” Mel asked, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the former librarian.
“I believe that means it’s my turn for explanations. So, all of you know I don’t have a core. What you don’t know yet, Mel, is that the System assigned me an esoteric core creation quest, and it has been sending me on further quests to read all about the times people, primarily Karlinovo, tried to create an artificial socketing system for a core.” I stopped speaking having spotted Mel with a raised hand. I nodded at him to go ahead.
“So, yer trying to kill us all blow and up a planet then? You have a target in mind, Elody?” Mel’s color had shifted to a darker green, and I had no idea what that meant.
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“I know it sounds super dangerous. I’m aware of what happened to Karlinovo, but I had a set of knowledge from my own world that doesn’t seem to exist here. Have you ever heard of an electronic circuit or even a circuit in general?” I asked, unsure of how that would translate as I hadn’t seen a single reference to one in any of the books.
“Not in what I imagine is the way you mean them. Please explain,” Elody spoke first, and no one bothered to speak after her as she waited for me to continue.
“So what Karlinova laid out is similar to how my world uses electricity, but there are several components we’ve advanced on that you haven’t. This is likely due to your access to magic and our complete lack of it. We had to go a technological route with our creations, but that’s not entirely important right now. What is, though, is that I know how to build a more advanced circuit than what he used, and I can do so in a way that regulates the mana flow between the sockets and the core, even going so far as controlling which orb is in use at the given time. Now, I’m not sure how fast it’ll be to switch between the orbs, but I believe I can build it,” I explained. Mel had his mouth hanging open, which on a cloud was a strange sight. The brothers just kept eating and nodding along as I talked. It looked like they had long since decided to help me.
“You said you needed our help, though, so where do we come in?” Elody asked. I wasn’t surprised she was the one still curious about how this would work exactly.
“I still have one major problem to work out. I don’t know where to get the energy for this, and from my calculations and references, it will take a ton. I do have the materials to make the design, though. So where you all come in is brainstorming a solution to the energy issue, and then helping me do the creation itself. I won’t be able to do much beyond form my core and control some of the energy flow there. Feeding the energy in from the outside and aligning the parts over my core will need to be done by others,” I explained. Surprisingly, I didn’t spot any negative reaction on Elody’s face at the mention of needing energy to do this.
“I take it you’ve forgotten what you gave me for safekeeping then, Dave? It should have all the energy you need for this. It’s an insane way to use something like this, and I imagine no one would ever consider it, but we can’t really use it for anything else, so why waste our lives holding onto something that may turn out useful later when it can be now,” Elody suggested, and she was right, entirely so. I had forgotten about the experience orb Sanquar had given me. I wasn’t sure that if I had remembered it, I would have considered the possibility of using it as an energy source, but that didn’t matter now. I had a solution to my biggest problem.
“Well, from the smile on Dave’s face, I think that means all he needs is for us to agree. We already discussed helping him with his core creation quest and are, of course, still willing,” Elicec said as his brother looked at me with a smile.
“This is a completely terrible idea, but why not? I’ve been around a real long time and wouldn’t mind seeing something new one more time,” Mel said, his color finally shifting back to the original shade of green.
“I don’t know that I can quite match Mel’s eloquence, but yes, I’ll also help. What needs to be done to get you ready for this, Dave? I’m not sure how much longer it’s safe for me to remain here, so we need to do this as quickly as possible,” Elody said. I was almost ecstatic that they had all agreed to risk their lives for someone they had known for such a short time. Was I instilling that much confidence in my abilities?
“I don’t know, a day, maybe two. I need to make the wiring system, but that’s about it. I’m already sitting at level twenty, so I’ve got my attributes as far as I can push them. I think we really just need a room large enough and safe enough to do this in,” I said, trying and failing to keep the excitement out of my voice.
“We can use the same area we cleared the dungeon from at the bottom of the archive. The systems there should stop any cataclysmic-level destruction, though I can’t promise we’ll survive the mishap, but everything else should. I’ll prepare it once we finish this meeting. If I don’t see you in three days, I’ll come to make sure everything is okay. Otherwise, I’ll stay scarce down there for now.” Elody’s room offer was great, and I had nothing better. I wasn’t thrilled with her living alone for several days, though.
“You sure you want to hide down there and wait? It might take me two days to get everything ready to go,” I said.
“Yes. I don’t want to draw any attention from anyone else watching the regular areas of the archive,” She explained. That made sense, she was trying to make this easiest on us by avoiding passing her problems over. It looked like all I needed to do now was fabricate a circuit capable of handling magical energies. I’ve built microcircuitry before, just how hard could it be?