‘Anyone who makes the first of anything gets to keep it’. Sounds to me like something a tech startup would do back on earth to make sure they have a constant flow of new products and services without having to actually hire people to make them. Since Pearl only found four of these things, and she had over two days to look, these slates have got to be the only ones that haven’t been made yet.
Now, I can easily understand why three of them didn’t get made–they’re simple. The kind of project someone takes on when they’ve already gone through all the interesting, complicated, or potentially valuable other options. That doesn’t even come close to applying to the power supply shell. I can’t make out the vast majority of the shellraiser script on it, but if this thing can power a machine that literally glassed a beach trying to kill me, then I bet every employee would be frothing at the opportunity to build it.
I look through the slates one last time, then walk over to the bench I’d slept on and set them down. Pearl impatiently waits for my reaction to what I’m assuming is something she worked pretty hard on, but to be honest, I don’t really know how to react. Sure, it’s cool that I might be able to get a little bit of gear, but that doesn’t help my real problem. Even if I can get the power supply, that just means I might be able to power the beacon.
‘Might’ being the key word here. I can’t even see the thing in my inventory like a normal item, so who’s to say I can use it at all?
“Pearl, I need your guarantee here. If I do this–spend all this time working to make these things–that it will actually be enough. Not just to get me through whatever’s at the end of these tunnels, but… in general. That they’ll actually be useful for whatever comes after this.”
“I guarantee it.” She says without hesitation. “The arm holster connects to your class card and lets you take coins from it without having to actually summon them. Both the knife and the matrix use coins to make you stronger depending on what kind of coin you put in them. They’re perfect for you, since you put all your spells into coins.”
…They’re built for coins? But… why? Being made for someone taller than Pearl is one thing, but she made it clear that she doesn’t have system access. I’m pretty damn sure that coins are a system-based thing only.
“Why were shellraisers making things for coins? You have power supplies of your own that aren’t system-based.” I point out and lean down to make sure she isn’t pulling my leg. What do you know, there are circular indents on all three of those blueprints. Perfectly sized for coins.
“I don’t completely remember the specifics, but not everyone that got the system aligned with it. We had way better tech than they did, so we sort of took over the part of making stuff for them.” Pearl explains with a shrug. “I guess they betrayed us, since there’s no trace of any of them and plenty of dead shellraisers. Well, nothing we can do about that.”
“That’s your reaction to finding out that your allies left your people to die?” I ask with a frown. “I think I’d be a lot more pissed than you are. Like, a thousand times more pissed.”
“Oh, I’m angry, just not the… exact same kind of angry I think you’re referencing.” Pearl chuckles solemnly. “I bear some responsibility for the decisions that were made, but so do a whole lot of other people. We took our risks, laid out our gambles to have the best odds possible, and did everything we could. If it didn’t work… well… I guess I just got all my anger out a long time ago.”
I snort and pick up the slate Pearl called the ‘coin holster’. “Sure, you keep telling yourself that. And when you come face to face with someone that’s responsible for the state you’re in right now, I’ll help you vent whatever anger bubbles up from the depths of your soul.”
“You’re going to be so disappointed. Or… proud of me, for not giving in to my anger?” Pearl taps her lip in thought. “Whichever reaction you have to me not being angry at all. Oh, are you going to try and make that one first? You’ll need the shell scraps you got from the risen grave for… all three of the easier ones, actually.”
I nod and tap the slate with my knuckles. “Might as well, since I’m using more coins than anything else. So, it says here I need an unreadable amount of injection-molded glass, a bunch of everdriftwood, and a… forged plate of high-quality shells to actually conduct the magic. We’ve got more than enough lumber here, and I’ve got the shells, but how are we going to turn this sand into glass?”
“We also need to turn the shells into a proper plate.” Pearl adds excitedly. “If you walk over to the controls, I can give you instructions on how to do both. Or… um… she can.”
‘She’? Who else is there aside from Pearl and… oh. Someone else’s memories. The shellraiser that suffered on the beacon to keep these tunnels safe.
“The crystallized shellraiser was an engineer?”
Pearl shakes her head ever so slightly. “She was a technician. I didn’t get a lot of the theory behind any of this from her, but she knew these machines better than anyone. Go get a ten inch by ten inch cube of sand from the dispenser and two planks of everdriftwood, then go take the third bay from the right. The furnace is already in there, and the less we have to move, the less we risk malfunctions.”
“Aye-aye, maam.”
Getting the wood is no problem at all–there’s enough planks on the bottom shelf to make a dozen of these holsters. I grab one under each arm and heft them over to the bay Pearl pointed out, set them down on a slightly raised platform, and press on the completely alien controls exactly as she orders to get it to rise to stomach-height. Then it’s just a trip to the sand dispenser for a big cube of sand, a walk back to the platform, and I’ve got everything we need. Somehow.
“You’re sure this is all we need, Pearl?” I ask warily as I unload the exact amount of shell scraps she asks me for–about an eighth of my total reserves. “Don’t we need tools? Or… heat? And where’s the furnace?”
Pearl gestures up at the ceiling while she fiddles with the control panel. “Up there. I’m trying to get it down right now, and–oh, right, I need a mold too. Can you take me over to the bay all the way on the other side of the room?”
With a sigh, I relent to the fact that I’m probably going to be playing taxi for the next few hours. I wait for her to finish with the panel, stick out my arm for her to climb up, then jog over to the other side of the room. There’s not much to see, but as I get closer and closer, it’s obvious that the first bay is a little different than all the others. The platform has a lot of moving glass parts in it, and they’re so magically dense compared to all the other glass that it doesn’t even look like the same material.
“Thank you very much.” Pearl says as she jumps off my arm and hits the control panel with a soft ‘splat’. Immediately the platform rises and starts to shift. “I’m going to need your help with this. Once I rearrange the mold into the proper shape you’re going to have to pull it out and lug it over to the other bay.”
I almost agree right away, but the heavy crunching and ringing impacts of the mold make me think twice. “Pearl, how heavy is this thing going to be?”
“A hundred pounds or so. I know–it’ll be a struggle, but the less we have to mess with where all this equipment is, the less likely we are to meet a malfunction.” She replies apologetically, but with an edge of certainty. “Maybe you can use a shield to move it?”
I shake my head and laugh bitterly. “Hell no. I’m not wasting one of my precious few remaining coins on making something more convenient for myself. You do your thing, and I’ll make sure it gets moved.”
The rumbling stops, and a square of midnight black glass pops out of the platform like a massive piece of toast. Pearl smiles at me and pats the console twice, then scurries up my arm.
“If you say so!”
Me and my big mouth. Just looking at the imposing slab of glass sends shooting pain up my back, but this needs to happen, so I have to do it. I rub my hands together and get as close to it as I can, then carefully flip it down onto its side so a little bit of it is hanging off the platform’s edge. Even falling slowly makes a deep, echoing ‘thud’ that sends my stomach into my throat.
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“Are you sure you can handle it?” Pearl asks with real concern. “If it’s too much for you, I can try to get some chains down that we could hook up to the mold. It’ll only take a few minutes, and I think I can get them on a track that won’t impede anything else…”
I shake my head and slide the mold off the platform, all the while cradling it in my arms like a strongman carrying one of those massive medicine balls. The weight still manages to catch me off guard, and I stumble a few steps backwards until I get my feet under myself.
Straining to keep it in my arms, I quickly and wordlessly start to shuffle over to the bay. Huffs and grunts keep me afloat until I finally manage to waddle to the platform, and just before I can have an existential crisis about somehow getting the thing onto the platform, Pearl snakes down my arm and lowers it so I can push the mold onto it.
“Thank you.” I hiss as the thing leaves my arms. “You’re sure that was only a hundred pounds? I’m no gym rat, but that felt like way more than you said.”
“Oh, it’s a hundred pounds of physical weight. The magical weight of it probably doubles that, or maybe even… more...” Pearl says, then starts to glow red. Almost like a blush. “Um, sorry. I kind of forgot to mention that. Do you want to try and use the chains next time?”
I shake out my hands with a hiss of confirmation. Even though the weight was horrible, and I swear my body is tingling like the human version of sparkling wine, the corners on that mold were by far the worst thing.
“Yes, please. And if we destroy anything, I’ll apologize profusely to whoever owns this place if we ever meet them.”
“I doubt we ever will.”
After she says that, Pearl just stares wistfully out at the opposite wall. Then she shakes her head, looks over at me, and composes herself with a bright smile. A few taps on the panel brings up a knee-high glass trough made of the same magical stuff as the mold, and an intense heat springs forth immediately after. There’s no visible fire, or even anything to burn, but that heat’s the real deal.
“Can you get the mold into there?” Pearl asks without looking back at me. “Once it's hot enough, I’ll drop the extruder over it and you can put the sand in. Then we’ll just have to wait for it to form, cool, and… get it out of there somehow. Maybe we’ll need a crowbar for that.”
I nod and wince as I shake out my hands, then go move the mold. It’s a lot easier to push off the platform and into the furnace than it was carrying it across the room. The thing crashes into the furnace with a bang, then the furnace itself contracts around the mold. It shifts and alters itself until the open part is sticking straight up, taking at least a little grunt work away from me.
“Thank god I don’t have to stick my hands in there.” I chuckle as Pearl lowers the extruder over the mold. “How long’s this going to take?”
Pearl hums in thought. “Probably an hour to melt and form, then another thirty minutes to settle, and an hour after that to cool and properly harden. We don’t have to just sit around and wait, though–we can get started on everything else at the same time.”
“Sounds good to me.” I grunt as I heft the sand cube into the extruder. The heat from the furnace rises to meet the ice almost instantly, melting it before I can get my hands off of it. “So what do we need to do to the wood and the shells?”
The bay rumbles for a split second, and a glass lathe rises from the floor. It’s joined by something else that looks like a combination between a drill, a saw, and some kind of press. They settle for a second, shifting and bouncing as if they were sitting on top of jelly platforms, then go deadly still. Pearl gestures at the saw, then at one of the planks.
“Could you please cut two three-foot planks out of each of the bigger ones, then stick them together and put them on the lathe. If you need to measure them, there should be markings and actual guides on the machine to help you. Oh, and make sure the cuts are clean and quick. This might be untreated everdriftwood, but it’s still freakishly tough.”
Does ‘tough’ mean I have to cut it quickly? If anything, I feel like it should mean I go a lot slower so I don’t screw anything up. But Pearl seems completely confident in the instructions, so… I guess I’ll go with it. Besides, if I mess up, there’s pretty much infinite wood for me to retry with.
I grab a plank and pull it over to the saw, set it against numbers etched into the glass, and clamp it tightly so it won’t move at all. I push everything except for the circular saw attachment away, grab it by the handle, and flick it on as I pull it down. Magic surges through the saw like a tidal wave, pressing against my fingers with such a monstrous pressure that I almost let go out of surprise.
“This much power, and your people used it for simple tools?” I ask over the whir of the saw slicing through the everdriftwood like butter. “Man, that power core must be something really fearsome.”
“Oh, it definitely is.” Pearl agrees with a little laugh while she carefully presses some shell fragments together. “This is an __________ core, which we use for _______ and–”
“Censorship, sorry.” I cut her off as I replace the cut plank with another. “Maybe after I get a little more Mind.”
“Oops, sorry.” She says over the noise of the saw. “I’ll try again after you get some more Mind. Ooh, that was fast.”
I drop the planks on the lathe, then look back at her for the next step.
“I’ll do the rest of this–you just sit back and relax for a little while.” Pearl waves me off towards the bench. “When it’s done, I’ll call on you to put the pieces together. Oh, and grab a crowbar. We’re definitely going to need one to open the mold.”
----------------------------------------
Close to two hours later, and with the molds and wood for the other two things all ready to go, it’s finally time to get the creative juices flowing. By which I mean put the pieces Pearl completed and made sure were all perfectly to specifications together like a jigsaw puzzle. A damn complex one, too, since there’s close to a hundred little wooden parts that need to be put into specific places on the glass frame. And the shell fragments which are stuck together with a fluid that looks like it could’ve come from her body are weirdly… circuit-like.
“How long is this going to take me?” I wonder aloud as I study a piece of shell that looks like a little camera lens–complete with glass in the center to perfect the look. “Do I have to remind you that I don’t have infinite time?”
“No, you’ve done that plenty already. I’m just… a lot slower at this than I thought I would be.” Pearl admits sheepishly as if she didn’t just blast me with sarcasm. “I’m working with… let’s call them inherited feelings, sensations, and knowledge. Actually putting them to practical use is way harder than I thought it would be.”
With a nod, I carefully slot the lens into a small circle of wood, then press it into a properly sized divot on the glass frame.
“So what’s it like? Did you get all the woman’s memories when you did whatever you did?”
“No. If it was, I probably would’ve changed a lot when I did. It was like watching a really engrossing movie, but actually seeing it through the eyes of the main character. I’m still me watching it, and I don’t physically feel or react to the things they way she did, but I experience them all the same. As for the practical skills, that’s thanks to our body composition. She gave me her abilities and competencies, but they’re like a new tool I have in my arsenal, not something I’ve worked with for years.”
“But you still know how to properly use those tools, right?”
“Oh, definitely.” Pearl confirms. “I’ve seen her use them, know how to use them, and can use them with a degree of competence that’s way above anyone who’d be doing this their first try. It’s like… knowing exactly how to perfectly cast a spell, but you don’t have the right stats to perfectly replicate it.”
I raise an eyebrow without stopping my work on the bracer. I’ve got a pretty good idea about what she means–in human terms, it’d be like getting all the skills and experiences from the best baseball pitcher in the world, but still having your own body and mind. You know exactly what you have to do to throw the perfect pitches, but you don’t have the muscles built up from years of doing it. And you might not have the exact same body type, so you have to make little adjustments to actually throw perfect pitches.
…Not that I’m sure Pearl can even have that issue, since all shellraisers don’t seem to have one specific form. Or maybe they do, and I’m just being accidentally racist. Or… is it specist since it’s against a different species? Nah, I’m probably just being ignorant. But it’s cool that my mind stat let me hear all of Pearl’s explanations instead of assaulting my brain with censorship.
A harsh, grinding whine echoes out through the wide-open space. I look up from my work and see Pearl smack her little fist against the control panel in annoyance.
“Darn it all!” She whispers to herself. “Note to future Pearl–you can’t trust any timings you remember, since you don’t have the same internal clock as she did. Actually look at the timer instead.”
Seeing Pearl annoyed with herself brings on a grin that I have to stifle when she turns around with a cute little huff of frustration. She stares at me for a few seconds, knitting her eyebrows together as she tries to figure out why my lips are trembling and I keep looking down at the bracer without actually putting anything in.
“Are you laughing at me, Shelby?”
I fully expect to hear hurt in her voice, but all I can make out is amusement.
“Nope, not yet.” I let the smile free and point a finger at her chest. “Keep doing what you’re doing, little lady, and we might be out of here by tomorrow.”
She bats my finger away with a theatrical sigh. “That was, is, and will continue to be the plan. But I’m not little. And I’m definitely not a lady–ladies and gentlemen don’t go to war. They stay at home and pretend they won’t be next.”