Evening came, and Ethan wore the most comfortable clothes he could dig out of Gilbert’s closet. He found a stash of charms in Gilbert’s bathroom - little temporary tattoos, really. There was a box labeled DISGUISE CHARMS - when he put one on, it made him look like a teenager suffering from a bad case of acne and “um, akshually”. Perfect.
Lysandra was already waiting for him at the Plaza. She, too, was wearing a disguise - hers made her look like a human woman, no older than 22; with slightly messy hair and big, round glasses. Ethan’s heart skipped a beat - her disguise was absolutely adorable.
“Feeling better, Gilbert?” she asked. Her harsh voice was like a bucket of cold water.
“Never felt better,” he lied.
“So,” he looked up at the door in front of them, covered in intricate carvings. “We’re going to a book club.”
“Not quite. This is a meeting of the Arcane Technology Association - people who have tried to connect the arcane with the technological and got kicked out of the Arcane Association as a result.”
“The combination of the two isn’t particularly popular, hm.” Ethan mumbled to himself.
“Of course it isn’t. Technology is wild and dangerous as it is - but when you mix it with the arcane, you usually end up with limbs no longer attached to your body.” Lysandra looked at him. “Only idiots would want to keep playing with fire like that.”
“Idiots like the two of us tonight?”
“Precisely.”
Ethan couldn’t help but smile. “How fun. Let’s go, I wouldn't want to miss the limbs falling off.”
----------------------------------------
The Arcane Technology Association was, Ethan decided immediately, full of weirdos. Weirdos he probably would play video games with in his world.
The first person who greeted them was a gnome - not even four feet tall, with hair almost that same length. He wore stained overalls adorned with little trinkets and what looked like novelty keychains - one of them Ethan recognized as the Ramen Witch-Dog.
“New faces!” he exclaimed. “Welcome, welcome! Please, make yourselves at home!”
The room was spacious, and some 16 people were present, not including Ethan and Lysandra; they all had their eyes on them, some full of curiosity, some of mistrust. Ethan and Lysandra both sat down at the designated couch.
“I’ve always wanted to come,” chippered Lysandra. Her voice sounded different now - softer, with a note of shyness. “I’ve heard so much.”
“It’s always so nice to see new faces here,” said the gnome. “Please - my name is Fitz. Who might you two be?”
“I’m Ethan Morris,” piped up Ethan without missing a beat. “This is my friend, Emma Krantz.”
“Ethan! Emma! How nice to meet you.” Fitz shook both their hands most vigorously. “Now, I hope you don’t mind - we have a bit of a tradition here.”
Ethan nodded, focused.
“How exciting! What’s the tradition?”
“Every time a new person tries to join the Association, we ask them to tell us about their favorite technological advancement.”
Ethan did not hesitate a second before standing up. He may not know how to be a proper investigative mage, but he sure knows about technology - or at least, enough about his world’s technology to bullshit knowledge of this world’s tech.
Hopefully.
“Now, I hope you don’t mind - my friend Emma is quite shy, and we’ve been working together for a while, so her answer is my answer.” he noticed that several other members of the Association were coming closer now. “I’ve always been intrigued by electricity specifically. I know that steam is great, and nothing beats clockwork, but electricity - there’s something about the zap, y’know? And, I mean, there’s so much we could do with electricity. We can transfer information with electricity - think how much we could accomplish by combining that with magic.”
“Electricity sure is quite a niche, even here,” admitted Fitz. “It… zaps.”
Ethan nodded.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“But isn’t the zapping cool?”
A few nods.
“Transferring information through electricity… How interesting,” said one of them, a woman with three fingers on each hand. “I’ve heard some people say it’s possible, in theory, but didn’t think too much about it. Have you ever come close to achieving it?”
“Of course they haven’t,” grumbled a goblin sitting in the back. “It’s a bunch of boloney.”
“It’s absolutely possible,” said Ethan, unable to resist. “I’ve done it plenty of times.”
The room grew silent.
Fitz came uncomfortably close to Ethan’s face.
“How?”
Everyone looked at Ethan. Underneath her disguise, there was the tiniest look of panic in Lysandra’s eyes.
Ethan grinned.
“Easy. Please take notes, I tend to lose track if I have to repeat myself.”
Ethan spent a good chunk of the next hour explaining, to the best of his ability, the basics of data transfer. Members of the Association listened carefully, some curious, some waiting for any excuse to call him out on being a dirty liar. But nobody watched him more intently than Lysandra did.
“Fascinating,” murmured one of the audience members, an orc wearing an extraordinarily large hood. “Bril, does it also remind you of-”
“Yeah,” said Bril, a frog-person. “Haven’t seen anything like this since.”
“Have you seen anyone else pull this off?” asked Lysandra innocently.
“Well, yeah,” said Bril. “There was a guy here - real genius. Could do things with electricity that made what Ethan’s doing look like parlor tricks.”
“So why do most people here act like it’s such an impossible thing, if some guy has done it before?”
“Well, because- because it’s something that you can’t really do without it blowing your head off,” admitted Bril. Ethan pretended not to hear.
“Oh,” said Lysandra. “Ethan here has been doing it for… so long, I forgot how dangerous it can be.”
“And he’s… not an undead?”
“Of course not. As alive as you and me. Besides, undead are illegal in Arcalis.”
There was a nervous chuckle.
“Oh my, don’t tell me - Mr. blown head is an undead?” Lysandra asked, much like how a high school girl might ask, “Joey cheated on Kayla with Ashley?”
“No,” said the goblin.
“Oh yeah. Super undead,” said Bril.
“Bril!”
“Oh, sorry. No, just joking. Totally not an undead. Just dead. Very dead. Ha. Ha. Joke.” said Bril, sweating.
“Yeah. Don’t listen to Bril, he’s hit his head too many times.”
Lysandra nodded.
“Look, I don’t want to get anyone into any trouble,” she said, pulling closer to Bril. “But this is about… technology. Advancement. Sticking it to the man and all that. I don’t care about whether someone is alive or undead or from the Mirror Plane, if it’s for the sake of tech, I want to meet them.”
Bril and his friend looked at one another, uncertain.
“We-ell, I suppose… what your friend there is doing is quite impressive,” admitted the orc. “His name is Cole. Cole Stratum.”
Lysandra nodded. “Thank you. And where may I find this… Cole?”
“He has a workstation in Lower Gallows Row,” said Bril quietly. “But do not tell this to anyone, got it?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” smiled Lysandra. She turned to look back towards Gilbert. While her disguise kept her quiet, shy composure, underneath it, Lysandra’s mind was racing as she watched Gilbert create electricity seemingly out of thin air.
Ethan, meanwhile, was having the time of his life.
“Have you tried using elemental magic to create the electricity?” asked one of the people watching.
“I’ve thought about it,” lied Ethan, “But it seems redundant, at least at this stage.”
Nods of agreement and thoughtful murmurs go through the crowd.
“But,” Ethan said, “this is my favorite piece of technology. Is it okay for me now to ask what kinds of tech have the rest of you folks been working on?”
The members of the Association clamored to show off their individual inventions, now that Ethan was some sort of god of electricity.
“I have this device here that heats up food, no magic incantations required,” chimed up a little goblin.
“Blueprints for an arcanotech vehicle that would not require asmithium,” said a half-orc woman with an impressive amount of piercings.
“So this is an adults-only idea that got me fined for extreme degeneracy but please, hear me out,” a middle aged human man brought forth a crate with the DANGER tape all over it.
“It goes ka-boom real nice and big,” Bril happily showed off his bomb.
Ethan listened to each and every idea with eyes open wide. This strange world could produce so much beauty, after all. He’ll definitely enjoy his time here.
Once he solves this case, that is.
Several hours later, he and Lysandra left the Arcane Technology Association, Ethan and Emma being its two newest and most promising members.
“I have a lot of questions that you are not getting out of, Shadowveil,” Lysandra pointed an accusatory finger at him. “But that’s going to have to wait. We have an undead electronics aficionado we gotta investigate.”
“Tomorrow morning?” asked Ethan hopefully.
“So you can sleep in again? Absolutely not.” Lysandra grabbed his arm. “We’re going now. Hope you still carry holy water on you, Shadowveil.”