Reborn midst light and fire,

And with deep darkness dire.

           -prophecy of the duskbringer

Present day, 4993 A.D. Sixth day of the first week of Fall...

Upon hearing a whistling noise as she entered her workplace Guppy had ducked on pure reflex, the preservation instincts developed from years of working for Friedrich as a technomancer apprentice kicking in. 

A solid thunk in the doorway over her head elicited a sigh from her as she peered up to see what flying piece of murderous machinery had threatened her today.

A bolt lay embedded in the comparatively soft wood and Guppy grabbed a spanner and levered it free, no doubt Friedrich would be wanting it later..

While she and her boss managed the perpetual occupational risks with safety measures and equipment, most of which was designed by Guppy and made or ordered by Friedrich, one still needed a quick wit and reflexes to avoid the odd piece of shrapnel around here. 

Perversely it made her job a secure one, because no one else would work under the dwarf, nor for that matter he have them. Guppy thought them fools.

Indeed Guppy had found that while not entirely safe, working for Friedrich was certainly fun. There was always an interesting project Friedrich had her working on and the dwarf was a good teacher despite his other flaws. 

Guppy walked past the service counter and glanced over at her workbench on the right of the workshop. Once it had been littered with training pieces, random joints, bolts, rivets, and metal pieces of all shapes and sizes that the dwarf either had laying around or made himself for her to learn the basics of their trade. 

Now her bench was clean and the old ‘toys’ packed away in her bottom most drawer, but Guppy had to spend many hours learning how they all fit and worked together, as well as the common ins and outs of the tools needed to persuade them to do so when she first started.

Two months after she began Guppy had finished with her first round of lessons and then been allowed to help with some of the simpler public orders of tools and parts, after helping one nervous delivery man she had quickly been assigned to deal with any deliveries or customers that came around. 

She suspected this was more so because her boss disliked being bothered instead of any outstanding aptitude on her behalf, the dwarf delighting in no more annoying interruptions during his crafting marathons. 

Guppy pocketed the bolt and took a deep fortifying breath. The sharp tang of oil and metal filled her nose, a comforting scent, a familiar one. She relaxed a bit, for all the hazards and craziness of her workplace it was a second home and it gave her a sense of safety.

A respectful sense of safety to be sure, Guppy definitely respected the gears that meshed and the hammers that pounded, the fires that burned and acid that dripped or etched. Respected, and loved, for all here was only a hazard to fools and poppycocks. She was neither.

Guppy could hear Friedrich cursing down in his basement workroom, he would be up in a bit, no doubt looking for the bolt, but as she was forbidden to venture down there Guppy had a few moments on her hands. 

So to pass the time she sat down at her workbench and pulled open the second to bottomost drawer and rummaged around. It too contained mementos of Friedrich’s lessons.

Not even a year past her lessons had experienced a sharp uptick in difficulty. Friedrich had started Guppy with a new set of practice puzzles, except these were far tinier and more complex than the other sets. Once she had a degree of competency Friedrich had given her strange projects, ones he carried down to his secret workshop once she had assembled and sealed each device. 

The delicate little mechanisms Guppy put together and activated were made of strange alloys and metals, and when Guppy had asked in puzzlement why he did assemble them himself the dwarf had muttered something about the parts being too sensitive for him.

She did pick up some clues though. Friedrich ordered a great many odd bits and bobs, despite their creators warning him he wouldn't be able to use them personally. His design had been flawed, far too delicate they said, for his own measured ambient mana radiation. 

Guppy didn’t enquire too much, she owed Friedrich to great a debt to go carelessly prying into his personal affairs, he would tell her, or not. It did not matter to their relaxed relationship.

Guppy heard a clumping of boots on metal rungs, her master was coming up so she put away the puzzle she had been playfully fiddling with and rose.

Shortly into her apprenticeship Guppy had quickly found that life as an apprentice to Friedrich often resembled that of a nursemaid. The old codger she called boss would often skip meals, or even sometimes forget to eat for days on end, especially when he got particularly involved in his secret project. 

And after coming across a moldering meal one too many times Guppy put her foot down and insisted on forced meal breaks. 

Initially, Friedrich had been against it, not wanting to interrupt his 'creative processes' as he put it. But after an extended argument, Guppy convinced him by pointing out how he had an increased margin of error and number of accidents when he was sleepy and hungry. 

As the dwarf had turned thoughtful Guppy had swiftly pressed her advantage, she appealed to Friedrich's pride as a craftsman to avoid such faults in his esteemed work. The argument had been a steamroll from there. 

Unwilling to produce Inferior products, especially while working on his pet project, Friedrich finally caved and allowed Guppy to 'mother' him as he put it. 

A bush head rose from the open hatchway, accompanied by an elevated pitch of grumbling discontent that would have peeled their wall paint had they actually applied.

"Good morning Master Friedrich," Guppy called out to the ascending dwarf, "Have you had breakfast yet? Or dinner?" She inquired, arching an eyebrow at her master.

Friedrich's ugly mug turned to her, his furrowed brows and rumbled clothes telling Guppy the likelyhood of a forthcoming ‘yes’ was slim to none.

"Dash it all Guppy, forget food, have you seen an orichalcum bolt lying around?” Friedrich asked, waving his arms around for emphasis.

Guppy shook her head in disgust, only her master would use a rare metal that was worth triple its weight in gold as a common bolt. 

She held up the aspiring murder bolt in question and prepared to bargin.

"I'll give it back if you'll take a break and come eat some breakfast." She negotiated.

Guppy picked out Friedrich muttering some choice swear words before he grudgingly wiped his hands on his decidedly grubby trousers and walked over to their small eating table which held the only clean surface to be found in the workshop, something Guppy made sure stayed that way. 

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Grabbing one of the sandwich rolls that Guppy had retrieved from his cooler box Friedrich munched uninterestedly on it, occasionally drinking from a flask of pressed fruit juice, for while he enjoyed liquor the dwarf never drank on the job. Not once.

Once he finished the sandwich and had his mouth clear again Friedrich lapsed into his usual complaint as he picked a sliver of meat from between two teeth with a shard of copper.

"What kind of apprentice orders their master around girl? Any other master on this street would have you out on your ear in a heartbeat." He groused.

"The kind of apprentice who wants to see their master above ground, not permanently below it. Master." Guppy retorted, stressing the last bit with a sickeningly sweet grin. 

"I was born there," muttered Friedrich as he averted his head to prevent Guppy seeing his embarrassed face. 

They thus concluded one of their many short conversations that had reached an almost scripted level after 3 years of hurling insults and overdone adoration at each other. 

A comfortable silence followed as they both stretched and then tidied up.

Guppy knew that Friedrich was terribly dishonest with his feelings, it had thrown her for a loop when she started working for him, but over time she had learnt to watch what he did instead of what he said. His actions spoke far louder to his kindness and caring than the cursed that spewed from his lips.

She knew he had been hurt badly in the past. Not that he had ever told her what had happened but someone had clearly betrayed him badly in the past. It showed in how he interacted with others, he pushed others away almost instinctively to prevent them from getting close enough to hurt him again.

Guppy felt lucky that he had let her in at all. 

Yet despite his lack of social graces and the dwarf’s general lack of concern over his own wellbeing Friedrich had been a second father to Guppy and taught her a great deal about the theory and application of technomancy, the physical science used by magitech crafters, 

While Guppy was a dull and might not be able to use magitech tools without an expensive core, she was enlightened in the 'language of metals' as Friedrich put it, still able to ply an honest trade with her knowledge and skill.

He had even stepped in one night during the first year of her internship when the debt collectors had started to hound their family badly again. 

After smacking them around with a few toys he carried to ensure he had their utmost attention Friedrich had quietly made a few promises to them of what he would do if they pissed him off too badly. 

The terrified meat handers had left at practically a run when Friedrich had released them, pale and tripping over each other in their haste to be anywhere but at her doorstep. A different set of collectors still came, but after that night they were a far more polite duo then before.

Guppy let a quiet smile out as she checked that Friedrich had indeed eaten, rehydrated, and tidied himself up. she then handed over the Orichalcum bolt as promised. 

"So old man, prompted you to slip into your old bad habits?" Guppy questioned. 

Friedrich did not immediately answer her, instead he twirled the bolt between his fingers in silence. His brows grew deep furrows and a weight settled upon his shoulders. The dwarf seemed to age then, and Guppy noted his beard held more grey than she remembered.

Startled by the suddenly solemn air that she felt from her boss Guppy waited quietly for his reply. And it came, though in the form of another question when Friedrich finally spoke.

"Guppy, what is wrong with this world?" He asked.

The weight of the question settled on Guppy as she pondered it. It was too large a question, too big a thought for her to answer with her limited understanding, so instead she answered as she reflected upon her life's grievances. 

"A great many things."  Guppy softly spoke.

"Yes, indeed there is." sighed Friedrich. 

A pregnant silence fell between them for a moment before Friedrich lifted his head once more.

"And yet, I believe the many faceted ill’s we each face are all symptoms of the growing pains a civilization experiences as it explores just what it means to exist. Take for example what happened to your mother. Magitech itself is a great boon to civilization and society, it brings us warmth, light, shelter, safety and comfort. 

Just an example, should the magitech knowledge and skills our nation possesses be tasked towards food production, it could replace the need for much of our currently used manual labor systems, which would then bring to question the need for the slave labor of the orcs that our current civilization is so dependant on… But Magitech has a fundamental weakness, what it is Guppy?"

Guppy thought of all she had learned of Magitech systems, while she could think of many shortcomings she kept thinking of her mother’s situation. 

"Mana. We have a limited supply of usable energy." she finally stated. 

"Yes, Exactly!" exclaimed Friedrich, his excitement and gestures growing as he continued to extrapolate and pace around the workshop.

"In order to operate all the magitech items that are demanded by civilization we require vast quantities of stored energy. At first we could hunt magical beasts, their cores were energy-rich and could even be recharged, a good example of this is the city cores that power the defensive shield and beast repulsion emitters in all major cities.” 

Friedrich slowed his pacing and folded his arms. “But in the end, these beasts were finite in number, and as our predation upon their herds and lands grew their numbers greatly diminished. The few beasts these days are inferior and limited when compared to the mighty titans of old and the domesticated breeding programs have all proven to be failures. 

So the great minds of magitech invented a magic tool that allowed people to create magic crystals, opening up a whole new supply to feed the ever growing demand. Yet despite their best efforts and intentions this magic was not perfect, as you well know. 

The side effects were and are ignored by those in power, for their nations can no longer thrive without their most crucial supply of energy." 

Friedrich paused his tirade, letting out a sigh at the folly of short sighted fools. He shook his head and focused once more on Guppy.

"However what they are finding now is that this rich energy source is also dwindling. A thousand years ago there was no record of dulls existing. The first tested dull was 954 years ago, and since then they have remained present but rare. Or so the general public is told. 

Census data tells us a very different story. In my generation, there were 1.1% of the population tested as dulls. In the latest tests that came out, your generation Guppy, there were 5.9% of the population tested as dulls. The growth over the last 10 generations has been exponential. 

People don't talk about it as it is still seen by society as a deformity, a shameful and defective individual in their eyes. However, I estimate that in just four to six more generations, magic as we know it will be pushed to the brink of extinction."

Friedrich stopped, his arms outstretched as he delivered that bombshell on his young apprentice.

Guppy stared slack-jawed at Friedrich as she tried to process the enormity of the reality presented to her by her mentor. She knew how others spoke of her, she even knew a few others that were dulls, not that they would ever publicly admit it. But she had never known how such a thing could impact entire civilizations.

Fridrich grinned, throwing off the sombre attitude he had been emitting. His smile and buzzing energy he now gave off broke the tension, and Guppy breathed again as she shook off a minor panic attack.

"Now what if I told you that there was another way, a way to produce a virtually unlimited energy source that could be changed into whatever form of mana we require? This magitech technology would be so revolutionary that it would force civilization to change on a fundamental level." 

Friedrich paused again, a pained look emerged, overtaking his triumphant one and twisting his already ugly features into a scornful visage.

"I theorized this idea some forty years ago.” he intoned.

“At the time I was the youngest dwarf to ever graduate from the famous Dwarven Deepstone University. I researched this idea fanatically, pouring over ancient tomes without heed for food or rest. Finally, in triumphant naivety I presented my thesis and plan to the highest elders of the Dwarven race. And I was rejected.”

Guppy saw Friedrich ball his fists, looking down as he spoke through clenched teeth.

“'Too dangerous' they said, 'too un-dwarvish they cried, ‘an end to the guidance and traditions of our forefathers' they condemned. And when I showed them my source material it was the last straw on the Boola’s back. They flew into a rage at the books I cited.”

“For in my youthful exuberance, I browsed old and forbidden tomes of dwarvish knowledge. To them, steeped in tradition as they were, I was a heretic. So I was named Stone-cursed, exiled from the dwarven kingdom, and forbidden from association with any dwarf for the rest of my life." 

“A dwarf greets another by clasping arms, I no longer do so.”

Friedrich rolled up his sleeves and revealed a runic glyph engraved into his forearms. Guppy had caught partial glimpses of them while they had worked together, but she had never seen the whole thing before. They looked horribly painful, the scarring of the glyph showing that whoever had engraved them, had not been gentle. 

Guppy shuddered as she imagined someone carving into his flesh with a red hot knife, branding her mentor for life.

Friedrich continued in a far softer tone as he watched her reaction, yet his quiet voice still easily heard by Guppy.

"I was marked so all dwarves I meet could tell what I was, what they said I was. Nothing but a heretical traitor to dwarven kind." 

They both sat silently. Guppy processing these revelations, and Friedrich dwelling on his own sorrowful recollections of a time long past.