Elio is awakened by a grumble, not from something around him but instead of his own stomach, demanding food! At first Elio tries to ignore the rumble, tossing and turning as he does so, but eventually the hunger overwhelms him and he sits up from the bed, his brow furrowed with annoyance. Scanning his room, the happenings of yesterday begin to rush back to him, but is abruptly stopped by his stomach grumbling once again, and so compelled he gets off his bed and walks to the hall, skipping the sink as usual. Stumbling into the hall he finds not a sound or movement, and instantly he is concerned and looks around for the man, thankfully he finds him rather quickly slumped over and sleeping soundly on the middle table, under him a slew of large parchment and next to him a small lantern recently used. Elio is surprised to find the man still asleep, and so thinks of what to do with this opportunity, placing a hand on his chin it only takes a moment of thought before deciding to wake the man via a little mischief. He moves silently to the man's side of the table, carefully dodging over the messes on the floor and navigating along the paths created by where the man walked before him. Eventually Elio gets to the right side of the man as the left is blocked by boxes, and then onto the bench ready to scare him awake, but in his excitement Elio had forgotten about his hunger, though his stomach made sure to remind him. all his plans are washed away as the moment he tensed up to jump his stomach rumbles so loud it wakes the man, who jolts in surprise before turning to the source of the sound and seeing an embarrassed Elio standing next to him on the bench, his body like a spring coiled and ready to jump. Slowly Elio drops his hands to the side as a silence begins to fall on both of them, finally broken by the man saying "hungry?" in a humorous tone, a smile drawn on his face as he puts together the puzzle of what was happening, Elio nods.After having a quick and simple breakfast they enter into the tower where the ballista sits disassembled, with all the new gears neatly organised next to it, and the old ones in a pile off in the corner. The man brushes away the fatigue and lack of sleep as if flipping a switch and looking to his side sees Elio is ecstatic and full of energy, the man asks, "you're ready to repair the ballista?" and Elio nods enthusiastically. The man sits next to the ballista, grabbing another bolt and tightening another gear in place while consulting the blueprints that sits to his side. when he is done he calls out to Elio "Alright, i need number twenty two", to which Elio runs of to the neatly organised pile to find the gear in question via the numbers engraved in them by the man. he rolls it towards the ballista were the man catches it, "thank you-oh and a wrench two sizes bigger please", Elio nods as he grabs the wrench from the man's hands, and then walks to a spread pile of mismatching wrenches that he quickly scans over, his eyes instantly locking in on the wrench in question, and bringing it back, before running off again to grab another gear. They keep this up until they finish ahead of schedule, and after tightening the last bolt, they begin testing, with Elio nervously sitting on the controls and the man sitting next to the open side of the ballista to watch for any mishaps.

"Alright, first lever" the man says as he watches the gears carefully, Elio nods and pulls the first lever to his left, lifting the hand that would have carried the bolts. The rhythm of clanking gears fills the tower as the sound spills from the open side, and the man's eyes follow the mechanisms closely as they move. Moments pass, the gears come to a rest, and nothing breaks, he looks over to Elio and says, "load the ballista like usual, and I'll tell you to stop if something comes up". Elio nods, and then slowly and methodically goes through every lever and winch in the ballista, constantly listening out for a 'stop' as he does so. But the man never speaks, and as Elio pulls the firing lever, and latch lowers causing the bolt thrower to anticlimactic slide forward slightly, the man smiles, "the test is complete, and it's an absolute success!" Elio celebrates at the news, jumping off the chair in excitement and circling the ballista, the man smiles as he looks at Elio passing by, "at this pace, we'll have the ballista up and running by the end of today".Elio runs even faster at the news, but as he comes back around he becomes confused after recalling him saying it would take days, that's when the man perks up, "what, did you think i was only making a blueprint last night", and he points towards a neat stack of planks that were sitting unassumingly next to the wall. Elio walks towards the planks, and as his eyes focus in he figures out that the stack is actually one singular block of wood, put together, glued, and then bolted. Not only that, but on both end of the planks there is a metal mechanise that Elio recognizes as some of the old gear from the ballista, the man explains, "yesterday, you gave me an idea, so after you went to sleep rummaged through my table and looked through what I had, eventually I found a schematic for a pillar, one that could bend when burdened by to much weight" the man then places a hand on the mechanisms that sit either side "as for these, well it took some elbow grease as well as some workshopping, but with it we can hopefully adjust the tensions of the bow, so that you can maximise strength without snapping it like a toothpick-", the man is cut off by Elio suddenly hugging his leg, and looking down, he can see Elio smiling at him, and he smiles back.The next few hours fly by as they place the bow on the ballista and adjust the strength, using the mechanisms to move the string down to the inch. Eventually they get it just right and after closing up the ballista, they begin the slow and methodical process of moving it onto the elevator and to the top of the tower, an uneasy job as the man wouldn't let Elio ride the elevator with the ballista and no handrails, and they had to walk up the stairs to reach the top. Thankfully Elios' worry subsides as they climb through a trap door and see the ballista sitting there patiently, and after moving it back to the track, Elio begins to pack up all the pins while the man puts the handrails back on the elevator. As the last bolt is tightened, Elio walks over to the pillar to open up the curtains and use the ballista, just a small amount before the days end, but before Elio can reach the hand crack the man reminds him, "I'm sorry Elio but it's a bit too late in the day right now, and besides you must be hungry, breakfast was a bit light and you didn't eat dinner yesterday". Elio looks longingly at the ballista and disagrees, but the man reaffirms, "Elio, nothing is going to happen to the ballista if we leave, and besides, a celebration is in order, I'm thinking something like meat, I found some edible cuts from-Elio?" As the man looks forward again he finds that Elio had disappeared, but a small tug on his sleeve shows Elio right next to him on the elevator. The man nods as he pulls the lever, and Elio makes sure to wave goodbye to the ballista as they leave.They move back down through the tower and to the hall, the man dons his apron, but is surprised to see Elio doing the same with another, and rarely used apron, and raises an eyebrow "What brought this on?" he asks in curiosity, Elio points at the man and then acts out sleeping, and the man chuckles slightly, "Might as well teach you a few tricks, maybe one day i'll wake up to the smell of food, how about it?" he says in a humorous tone, Elio in response stops sliding the chair to go and sulk on the bench, letting the man work all on his own, "You sure you don't want to help? I might sleep in tomorrow~" Elio thinks about it but still a little annoyed by the man's tone he remains seated on the middle tables bench, though the man still says in a joking manner "~Suit yourself~" and goes back to cooking, and while humming takes out pans, demented vegetables, and herbs, but when he goes to unwrap the preserved meat he find Elio has appeared back on the chair, still arms crossed and pouting but, more importantly wanting to help, this time the man doesn't chuckle, and says, "let's get started!"

The Next day and after having breakfast the man stands over the box of crystals at the third table still incomplete as throughout the last two days he had little time to work on them, and even still is delayed once more. The ballista has been on his mind since waking up, practically speaking it should be safe, all the strength testing and tension adjusting from yesterday proves that point, but even so he can't clear the cloud of anxiety from his mind, and so opts to go up with Elio and make sure of no hiccups, as well as ease his worry. Elio blazes back and forth to get ready as the ballista has been on his mind since waking up, it has only been two days when last he used the ballista but to him it felt like two weeks, and he dare not wait any longer. He runs into the tower to pull back the sleigh and load up another quiver, when in turning around he hears the man to say "need some help?". Elio nods with glee and waits for the man to place one of the quivers onto the sleigh before running all the way back, the man carrying another three with him. He waits for the last quiver to be placed before pulling the lever to send them up, and then running to the handrails to say goodbye, only to find the man not there. He scans the bottom of the tower for him, when he hears a cough to his side. He is surprised to find the man on the elevator, and questions why he is here by giving him an inquisitive look, the man answers "i thought it would be nice to get some fresh air, that and i probably forgotten a wrench or two in the rush from yesterday", the man lies, thinking it wise to not spread his anxiety to Elio, who takes the answer at face value. At the top of the tower the man walks over to the control pillar, (the one with all the winches) and spins the hand crank for the curtains, raising them and illuminating the tower with light, meanwhile Elio is quick to push the sleigh to the ballista, even before there was light to see, and by the time the curtains are fully raised he is already seated at the ballista and scanning the sky. His eye darts across the horizon, and on rather short notice a wyvern ghoul is seen taking off from the desert beyond, Elio jumps into action to load the ballista, he spins the hand crank of the bow steadily, as to not cause damage to the bow, meanwhile the man takes this opportunity to watch the bow and the rest of the ballista. Elio pulls the loading lever and a bolt is dropped into the flight groove, after which he aims the scope with the reticule at the front of the ballista, zeros in, and fires the first shot of the newly repaired ballista, only for it to miss entirely. Elio's face slowly turns red with embarrassment as he realises he missed and looking to his side he can see the man put a hand to his mouth to hide a laugh bubbling up before collecting himself and saying, "well the bow is new, it'll take some time to get used to, so take as many tries as you need-" as the man was talking Elio had fired another bolt at the wyvern, this time the bolt lands true, puncturing through the wyverns neck and out the other side, and dropping it out of the sky, the man turns to face a rather smug Elio and says "well then, i guess all you needed was two". Elios ends his celebration short when he notices another dot in the distance left of the ballista, looking through the telescope he can see two wyvern ghouls approaching side by side, he turns to the man and points at the wyvern, the man looks down, "want some help?" he asks, and Elio nods, "alright, go to the turntable lever, I'll push the ballista" he says, and Elio nods, before rushing off to the lever, while the man disables the breaks and pushes the ballista along. When the ballista reached the middle of the turntable Elio pulls the lever, spinning the ballista towards the western track, meanwhile the man positions himself at the back of the ballista so that when the turntable stops he can push it forward, with Elio rushing closely behind to catch up. In the distance the two wyvern are bickering and lashing out as they race to the tower, the former seeing the latter beginning to pass it from below dives down to attack it with its beak, only for it to miss entirely. It looks around to try and find where its foe went, but sees it dropping out of the sky with a bolt in its throat. It stares confused as it tries to fathom where the bolt came from, before it suffers the same fate, a bolt pierces through its chest and straight to its heart, breaking the crystal that sits within. As it descends, black and green spots of rot appear along its body as its eyes shrivel up and burst open, raining a black mucus as it crashes into the gravel like a puppet cut from its strings. Time begins to fly by as Elio shoots down wyvern after wyvern with the man helping, until suddenly he remembers the crystals right about noon. he checks the ballista one last time, and after seeing no damage or fault says to Elio "alright then, the ballista is safe and working" forgetting that he never mentioned checking the ballista in the first place. Elio looks at the ballista, and then back at the man and nods with confusion, wondering why the man didn't know that already. "Anyways, I stayed for a long time and I have some work to do downstairs, so I'll be on my way", the man says as he takes the elevator down, saying before he descends, "have fun!", with Elio waving goodbye as he does so. After reaching the bottom he pulls the lever to let the elevator rise again, and walks into the hall where he crystal sits waiting for him, he sits down, to get lost in his work once more. The man reaches into the box for another crystal to check, but finds nothing and is broken out of his chance. He leans the box towards him and sees it empty, the stack of trays next to him now runs high, he then looks around at the shadows around him, and guesses the time to be late in the afternoon, he ponders for a moment, before standing up and saying, "I've got time". He quickly sets the crystals into the metal box, gears up, and leaves the house to make his way to the gate. At the same time up on the tower, Elio is switching sides on the ballista and loading the last quiver when he sees the man having just left the house and walking along the path. He thinks it is a little odd to see him out so late but he merely takes note and continues what he was doing. On the red sand path, the man walks past the point at which he climbed and keeps going, and going, as he does so the complex runes that covered the side of the gate begin thinning out along the base of the triangle until they become simple lines that rarely waver. The monotonous trek finally ends as the man reaches a wide, wooden, and rickety staircase that rises up to a broken obsidian platform, once a half circle now remedied by wooden planks and skeletal scaffolding, not unlike that of the tower. Walking up the stairs the man is greeted by a podium, copper lining its cracks, sitting where the wood meets the platform, past it a square of metal rods are bolted to the obsidian like floor, and to it, all the chalk lines meet and connect from the right and the left side of the gate. The man sets down the box and replaces the divider with a copper cylinder that fits in perfectly, he slides the door to close the gap as a small reaction bounces around the inside and red light flickers through the thin seams of the box. He then places it onto the metal square on the floor where it fits perfectly, and the stuttering stops to create a consistent red glow, and a low hum. He walks to the front of the podium, on its slanted face the imprints of a tilted left hand lay, and placing his left hand onto the podium an energy runs through the chalk and to the runes, slowly climbing up the gate. watching carefully the red dot in his eyes flares up into a half circle, and under his breath the man asks, "ready?" to no response. Elio is closing up the tower, he fired a great deal of shots today, and had fun, but now it's time to say goodbye, he removes the sleigh and pulls it back to the elevator were he tosses the empty quivers inside, he grabs the rope and is about to let the curtains fall, when he notice a light slowly climb the side of the gate. His eyes shine with curiosity, but looking around he can see a few dots (wyverns) in the distance and in response lets the curtains drop but not all the way, with the small amount of light peeking through the bottom of the curtains he rushes to one of the less used pillar to manually raise the curtain that faces the gate just enough were he can see the white chalk glow and emit a purple and alluring light, drowning out the harsh red of the sky, in the distance, the wyverns turn tail and run. On the ground The man looks up and sees the energy reach the top of the tower, small sparks of light emanating from runes across its body. He takes a deep breath, and steels himself, he says "on three, one, two" and then screams out "THREE" and pushes his hand into the podium. A ripple of force emanates from the gate creating a wall of dust and sand, but the man stands steadfast, lighting bursts from the box and excites the air around it as it dances across the gate, his shadow jumping around at the lightshow, and his resolve is tested when a small amount of the electricity crawls up the podium and shocks his hand, but he is able to wince past the pain as all the dancing electricity is pulled to the three corners, crackling with energy. The red in his eyes spreading to swallow his iris, he takes a brief respite to calm his nerves, and then twists the podium straight, suddenly all the electricity disappears into the gate, and for all but a second the air feels calm, before thunder shoots out from the corners within and to the space at the centre of the gate, from it a circle of pure void like black spreads out, the thunder dancing along it red edges, but just before the circle touches the corners, a part of the runes on the right side of the gate changes colour becoming red, and getting brighter and brighter before a cloud of black smoke bursts out from it and the red light spreads to other parts of the gate. Directly after the plumes of smoke appear, the black circle begins to stretch and malform, the man notices and quickly twists his hand back and tugs it out in one swift motion. The black circle shrinks rapidly and disappears unceremoniously, with it all the energy the gate held. He takes a few steps back and turns to his right to see the plume smoke rise from the right side of the gate and he makes an exhausted sigh before checking his left hand, he comments, "rebound again, a bit sore, but better then when it usually happens", before walking to the box that has been cooling off slowly, and opening the small door to let out all the hot air inside and then grabs it and begins walking back home. In the distance large plumes of dust kicked up by the gate settles fast, the cloud of smoke from the side of the gate dissipates into thin wisps of smoke and falling tufts of ash. As he gets past the gate he looks up and, after taking another deep sigh, keeps walking to the house, the world returning to its usual silent and unmoving self. At the tower, Elio is sitting still mesmerised by the incredible show, though he is knocked out of the trance when he notices the man walking back home, and he scrambles to close the tower before rushing for the elevator to go down, along the way throwing his hands around and imagining himself making electricity, the man on the other hand begins to jog as the sun sets past the tower and the shadows begin to lengthen, he reaches the house before long and walks in with a greeting, "I'm bac-Elio?" He asks in confusion as inside the hall he finds Elio on one of the tables, a random book in one hand and a broom in the other, acting out what would be to Elio casting a spell, and to the man manic flailing. at seeing the man walk in he drops both items and rushes to him playing out what he saw, or at least what he thinks he saw, the man places the metal box to the side and places the divider as well as the copper connector on it, while looking at Elio try to explain something only for his excitement to get in the way and for him to divulge into nonsensical movement. Confused, the man asks while taking off his coat, "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to run that one by me again". Elio tries to explain his thoughts but all that comes out is the same odd movements, the man chuckles a bit while he sits down to take of his boots, "You always do that whenever i activate the gate, but you don't ever seem to get tired of it" he says, to which Elio has no rebuttal and nod affirmingly. The man is comforted by that fact, and a genuine smile forms on his face as he hops up with a figurative electricity to his step. surprising Elio. "Come on now, dinner won't make itself" he declares and wakes to the kitchen to make a hearty meal, Elio follows as well, suspicious to see the man so active, and not knowing the cause to be himself, he begins to rather obviously investigate the man's good mood, the man dodging questions and laughing along the way. After the hefty dinner and as the man is cleaning up Elio seems to be resting on the bench as usual, or at least that what he wants the man to think, in reality he has the full intention to search the metal box by the door understanding it to be full of those odd glowing crystals, stretching his arms he waits for the exact moment the man puts the plates together, so that the noise, masks the sound of Elio rolling off the bench and onto his legs. he keeps this up, matching his steps with the plates clacking will keeping perfectly silent and low to the ground, but even with all these precautions the man says to him, "You can touch the box if you want, nothing will happen.", Elio freezes as he realises he has been caught somehow and he reaches for a random object, but the man knows Elios intentions all too well and as he finishes cleaning the last plate he turns to face Elio and tell him directly, "You know the rule Elio, no magic, alright, now come we need to get you to bed".

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

After saying goodnight to Elio the man walks back into the hall and takes a candle with him into his room, lighting up the desk where he toils away with a dull feathered pen and papers a plenty. He works late into the night, and at one point willingly takes out the golden pocket watch and staring at it in the candle light, when suddenly he answers "Same place as last time." to a question not asked, and no response is heard, but moments later he speaks again, "Yes, progress is slow, but tell me a time when it was ever fast." in a casual tone, another wait and he says, "Can you blame me? It looked promising this time." he tucks the pocket watch back into his shirt, and then seems annoyed, "Well I'm trying to be optimistic here, pessimism wont get me far." after which he leans back in his chair and looks up at the ceiling, "He's been doing well as ever, the ballista's bow broke, and it was an entire ordeal, but we were able to fix it." another pause, but this time the man raises an eyebrow, before standing up, commenting as walks to his bed, "I guess we all need to rest at one point or another".