Valerie Moore

“Finally…” she whispered

Grinning, “Finally.”

Roaring into the air, “FINALLY!”

She had been broken free from impatient silence and stillness, for the stalls had finally come to life. The rest of the Sixty had gone to the fifth floor and the arcanist had waited here. Waited and shook with emotion. Two months of impotence, seared into her brain as the others had risked their lives. The one time she had gone out had ingrained into Valerie the liability of her skillless ass.

Now, the curtain had finally been drawn open. It was time for her show to begin. The stalls were whirling to life and the world was all hers. No limitations, not anymore.

Power flashed through each stall as the invisible walls disappeared altogether, glowing barriers dropping slowly to the ground. The robots came to life with flickering lights and testing servos. Gears whirred, hands flirted with the air, and a deep glow burned in every mechanical eye. She could hear their sudden life and laughed a deep belly roar. The golems rumbled and whispered as their purpose reignited. Rock grated against rock, metal clanked against metal, and a tremor was felt through the ground for every heavy step.

New noises and new lights filled the great expanse of the Hall. Perhaps ancient in truth, but to Valerie’s eager eyes it was incredibly shiny and new. The greatest unseen sight made real. Hammers slammed, forges flared, enchantments sparkled, and liquid boiled. In the stalls, their caretakers were testing both sides. A rhythmic check as each device was checked to an unknown standard, but undoubtedly a high one. She watched every minute movement, unwilling to miss a single bit. It was a dance of tutelage to Valerie. A source of foreknowledge.

The anticipation was enough to kill her, the moment so close.

She walked in a frantic circle, trying to keep every robot and golem in sight. The list of projects swirling in her mind as priorities bashed against priorities. Sweat poured down her face because of that fierce battle within. Valerie had waited so long that it was hard to decide where to begin. There was so much to make. So many experiments. Beginning was necessary, but it was also terrifying.

The attendants were slowing down now, their start-up tasks running dry. Alchemy components were stashed away, enchantment tools dust free, and all useless implements replaced from the aether. The forges were all frozen in time, the fire raging in an infinite second. Robots and golems took their original positions. Seeming to shut down again. The eyes, however, remained awake. Lights in the gloom awaiting a new task.

Everything was ready.

Valerie wasn’t.

It didn’t feel like she was when her chest was tight and her head was swollen with a thousand unused ideas. Creation was more than an art to Valerie. Being a maker of things was her very breath. For over two months, that had been halted. Only practice and a few trivial challenges to stave off madness. Rations in the desert of sloth.

She laughed again, overwhelmed and manic.

Too much water for the thirsty woman.

The locked stalls were finally open to her and the arcanist was unable to decide where to begin. She could side with nepotism and begin with those ideas that revolved around Soren. Siding with her own theoretical concepts was equally tempting. Yet, sense did exist in the overwrought Valerie. Part of her demanded something simple and basic, to begin with. At best, these new trades were adjacent to her expertise and there was a lot yet to learn.

That wasn’t satisfying, only rational.

As a prospect, it felt lacking. Valerie wanted to create wonders, not practice runs. It was a risk, but two months of preparations gave her not only eagerness but confidence. Only Damien could challenge her in the number of books read. She had her own library. A towering stack of knowledge in every trade that the arcanist thought might be a bit useful.

What the torment came down to was that she wanted to begin with something worthy, A project worth being her first true creation of this world. Those boots and trinkets were nothing in her eyes to a real attempt. Valerie didn’t even consider them for a second. Trash, not even a footnote. Just a minor notation crumpled and tossed away.

The list taunted her, ever reorganizing. What was important? What was cool enough? What could she pull off? Be reasonable or rash? Go for gold or certainty? Valerie was exhausted by her indecision. The stalls had all gone quiet and she hadn’t begun yet. Everything was ready and she wasn’t somehow. It was wrong.

Growling, Valerie flitted through her list again. Took a couple of deep breaths and let the quagmire of emotion settle. They wouldn’t help with choosing the right project.

Not as the main factor anyways.

There were gadgets to be considered. Armors, weapons, and accessories that could be built, new standard gear to personalized. She studied the other Sixty to practice theory crafting and that had resulted in the bulk of the list. New equipment that would raise what they were already good at. That’s where Valerie found a worthy first project. Something extraordinary. It would not only help the individual she had designed it for, but this new creation would boost the morale of everyone.

Valerie flipped through the overstuffed journal that had been her constant companion these unending days of study. In the mess, she found the proposed design. A few pages of sprawling drawings with inserted loose pages. All full of runic calculations and schematics. She drifted to a nearby table while perusing the whole design.

It was rough, but as she had expected. Doable and challenging. There were only a few tweaks needed to settle the whole layout and build order. Out of the space-manipulated bag, the arcanist pulled out all the necessary paper needed to take a concept to a viable blueprint. Her pen dashed across several pages, laying everything out to be organized. Double checking, triple checking, and then transcribing the whole thing on a poster-sized piece of paper.

The blueprint was a work of art, at least to her eyes.

Internals and externals were all presented in their working intention. Every step in the construction set out clearly for her to follow like a breadcrumb trail. A clear path to beautiful creation.

She grinned and put everything away into the bag. All but the blueprint, which was the only thing Valerie took from the table. With most of her mess cleaned, Valerie's mind had already turned completely to the next step in her very first creation with Mana.

The first stop was the Screens for materials. Looking over the blueprint’s component list, she began to quickly flick her fingers about to collect everything necessary for the project. The cart filled up nicely. There was a neat function Valerie was finally able to take advantage of. One could purchase materials, but hold them in reserve if one planned to use the manual half of the stalls. She selected that option and hurried over to the smithy stall first.

Entering into the stalls summoned a screen showing her what materials were ready for use. She pulled out several blocks of metal for the smelting. The advanced metals were outrageously expensive, but there had been plenty of well-written expositions on creating these Mana-soaked metals. Doing it herself would also allow for minor adjustments to the alloys. A small convenience in truth, as there were benefits for different parts to have varying properties.

She also admitted to herself that the decision was encouraged twofold by being both cheap and wanting a hand in the entire process.

Half of the metal was for creating, as it was translated to her, mithril. Two parts silver and one part steel as a general recipe. Then a whole lot of liquid Mana to aid the two metals to become something entirely better. Back in the Old World, such a mixing would have resulted in something utterly worthless. With magic, it was just an obvious connection that worked half because it made sense to Valerie.

The mithril she would make herself, but the simpler alloys the arcanist left to the golem blacksmith. Setting the attendant to work was fairly simple. A menu similar to the Screens was available within the stalls to operate and set instructions for the attendant. The temperature rose as the two of them simultaneously released the forges from stasis.

It was dull work, but the familiarity was comforting. Even working Mana into the metal added little to the flavor of boredom. This wasn’t flashy or awe-inspiring. Smelting was patient work. Melting, mixing, and checking. There would be a lot of failures to risk on top of the dull frustration, but the stalls were loaded with a vast array of ways to fine-tune the process. Valerie felt like she was working hand and hand with a supercomputer. The mithril was coming out perfectly.

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At stopping points, the arcanist observed the golem at work. A mix of curiosity and indignantly making sure the metals were being made right. Despite her paranoia, there was little reason to doubt the golem. It didn’t divert from efficiency nor add anything beyond the parameters of the orders. Before too long all the previous metals were converted into the needed alloys.

Next was the forging. She kept the mithril for herself and had the golem keep working with the metals it had smelted. The attendant would be producing simple internal pieces. What she needed there was straight out of a book, meaning it didn’t need her personal touch. Factory copied would do just fine. The precious mithril would be used for both the outer shell and the core frame that everything would be built upon.

A fancy cover, but it appealed to her. The situation reminded her of a myth and had inspired the whole project.

“King Nuada, let’s make you perfect again,” laughed Valerie.

She began with some rough molds to pour the molten mithril in. Simple shapes that would need to be hammered and bent into the final form. While the golem worked in an unhesitating flow, the arcanist moved slowly. Keeping the mix just right as the molds filled up took a lot of manual control. Her Mana drenched the molten metal and gave Valerie an innate understanding of its current condition. There wouldn’t be any risk of something going wrong.

Since beginning the project her Mana had begun to change. The passive pool had immediately reacted, surpassing past twitches in its upheaval. Before, when practicing or making gadgets, her Mana had only stirred. A reaction and nothing more. Now the power within her was singing.

The techniques Valerie needed slowly became more than skills, but instead passive spells. Mana constructs formed themselves into a technical readout. Everything was being tracked and displayed to her desire. At first, it was constantly changing, morphing to better suit her needs. Staring out rough and advancing every second. The display reconfigured in reflection of her need.

It was brilliant and raised the odds of success significantly.

Soon there was no need to guess or manually measure. Her eyes were enough. The information was automatically in her head, but also displayed where she needed it for the ease of calculation. Cooling the metal dropped from a dice roll to the mechanical surety. Valerie’s readout gave her the information and her Mana allowed delicate manipulations to create the perfect mithirl plates and bars. The production of which was accelerated by a cooling device in the stall. She wasn’t sure if it was temporal or heat dissipating, but the process went from potential hours to minutes.

Around the time Valerie had begun to hammer out the shapes, Soren arrived and she assumed the Sixty must have returned from the fifth floor. He tried talking to her, but the arcanist was deeply focused. The outside world, a distant thing. It was hard to make out the words.

She waved him away and fell back into the work.

Being a sweetheart, he didn’t stay gone. The marksman returned with goodies. A table placed within reach of the stall was heaped with water and easy one-bite foods. Even in the daze, Valerie recognized that she did in fact need some refueling. The arcanist made the time to take a swallow of both here and there. You could only collapse so many times in the middle of a project before you gained an instinct and skill for mid-work snacking.

For a time her world was the beat of the hammer and the background diddy coming from the golem doing the same. She wondered if the clatter was echoing throughout the Hall, but Soren sitting at the table with a book seemed unbothered. Not a twitch as metal met metal.

Sound dampeners, Valerie though. Good, I can work anytime then. Well without complaints, I was going to regardless.

Once the mithril pieces were in their final shapes, it was time for some polishing. She took her time doing that since the golem was still working through its queue. There wasn’t any reason to rush off to the next step without all the pieces. Polishing was also a good cool-down task. Plenty of opportunities for refreshments, and sharing a smile with Soren after tossing stuff at him.

The semi-break ended the moment the golem went still. Valerie darted over to double-check the pieces. When she was satisfied, into the Screen’s inventory they all went. The mithril parts too. Done with the forging stall, the arcanist left for the enchantment one.

Soren followed along with the table and refreshments.

On the central table, Valerie laid out the blueprint and the materials. Organizing everything into designated piles, ordering the process, and deciding which aspects the enchantment attendant could be trusted to take care of. At the moment, the metals was inert to its purpose. Innately magical, but nothing more than that. If they were assembled now it would be just dead weight. Pretty at best, though not useful. The enchantments would give life to the lifeless.

There were many ways to impose an enchantment upon an object. Directly infusing a Mana construct or carving a runic formation were the main two. The rest got messy and Valerie didn’t really want to deal with those. She preferred exactness in her work.

The methods of using those two got further complicated, but she already had the methods picked out. For the runic carving, an inlaid would be used. It wasn’t necessary as the channels could conduct through air alone, but a proper inlaid increased efficiency in this case. Gold for the mithril parts and leftover mithril for the rest. Using mithril for the inlaid on the internal pieces would also reinforce the concept of being a magical whole once assembled.

Valerie divided the work, set the automation, and then it was back to the grind. Using several different carving tools (that Soren handed to her like a nurse), she began laying down the circuitry from the blueprint onto the pieces one by one. Like before the mithril parts remained in her production list, but this time some of the internal parts were moved over as well. These would be the keystones that would run the device’s computation. Sensory arrays, sensory relays, movement, and several other small details that would be necessary for the project to be even a partial success.

She was of course going for exemplary, as was always the goal.

Do your best or don’t try at all. Perhaps not healthy, but Valerie wouldn’t even know where to begin to extract that mantra from herself. At least she no longer hated herself for a failure. That had been rewired to be seen as a necessary step if still a disappointment.

Her world fell into a rhythm. Mark out the design, carve, inlay, and begin again with a new piece. Some would be bored, but for her, this was a relaxing time. Everything had already been planned out, she needed only to follow her own plan to the finish. Valerie found this part meditative and pleasant. Second only to the moment, the last piece of her self-made puzzle took its place.

Time passed and she finished the last carving. The attendant had finished a few pieces back, so the manufacturing was done. All that was left was the assembling. Valerie wouldn’t change stalls for this part, once connected the runic formation would need to be checked over for full function. This stall, unsurprisingly, had that ability.

Everything fitted together exactly as planned. Her Mana display had long assured Valerie of every detail by this point. She ran a few basic tests on the finished project and when those came out green the arcanist asked Soren to bring Malachi to her. While waiting, the deeper tests could be run and she could clean up.

The leader of the Sixty arrived in good spirits and his curiosity grew when he saw the classic white sheet covering a form on the table.

“Hey, Soren said you wanted me? Didn’t say what… but I’m guessing what’s under the sheet is the reason?”

“That and I wanted to set a plan up with you. With the stalls up, time for the Sixty to get an equipment upgrade worthy of the, and yours truly is gonna do it. I already got a bunch of ideas for improvements, but I’d rather work everything out with each person before getting started.”

“Alright, we can arrange that easily enough. Everyone loves getting new equipment! Doing it by parties would be best, I think. That’ll let us keep exploring while people are getting used to the new stuff. Will this upgrading include the gadgets you’ve already made? Like the air step boots?”

“Yeah, parties can work. Have them make appointments with Soren. He's agreed to be my secretary. Didn’t ya hun?”

The marksman blinked, “I don’t remember that, but I gotcha.”

Valerie smiled with a promise at that and turned back to Malachi. “Man, you guys really like those hacked-together wastes of leather don’t you? Well sure, but they're gonna be mostly useless with the basic improvements I got in mind. Still, I could see having some specialized equipment on hand being smart. Bottom of the list, though.”

“That sounds good to me. Sooo… the thing under the sheet?”

Dramatically, “Feast your eyes on my first project with Mana!”

Malachi looked down at it with wide eyes. Emotions carousing across his face, excitement, longing, and embarrassment. “It’s an arm.”

“Yup! One silver arm to make the king perfect again! Long may you rule and whatnot.”

He half-heartedly replied at first, “I’m not a king. Seriously an arm? Just like King Nuada, huh? Does it work? I mean, like how much function does it have?” The bearded man seemed bewildered even as his one hand reached out to the mithril prosthetic.

“Might take some fine-tuning, but in theory with everything working correctly you should have full sensation. With some reservations. It’s still a metal arm, but you’ll get a lot of the same feeling out of it. Here let me help try it on.”

There were no braces or harness to take into account. Using schematics she only understood on a surface level, the arm attached directly to the stub. The nerves connected simply on a magical level. Taking it off was just as easy as thinking about the process. Only a quick jolt when connecting and disconnecting.

After some readjustment with his feedback, Malachi was entranced by watching the twirling fingers of metal. “Awesome… I’m going to have to train how to use a second arm again. Maybe two swords… ?”

“Sure, whatever, do that. Off you go, tell everyone to sign up. I have lots to do, so they better not dawdle or be late!”

“Thank you so much, Valerie.”

“Uh huh, go away now. Enjoy, and tell people to talk to Soren. Shoo! Lot’s to do, I’m done with you.”

Malachi laughed and left, still watching the silver hand’s movements.

The arcanist ignored Soren’s thumbs up, but accepted the hug from him. He knew her tolerance for other people was low despite his somehow exception to that. Soon after she got back to work and the party leaders began to appear. Some tried to talk to her, but the marksman was a good doorman as well.

She had a lot to do now and it was wonderful.