“What just happened?!” I nearly shouted in panic-laced concern.
A younger member of the caravan spoke up, seemingly more annoyed than worried for the injured elf’s life. “Damn idiot lit a fire near a waterlogged mana source!” he groaned, before sighing. “My Mina here’s gonna have a real painful recovery if she survives this. And she had better survive damn it — I still haven’t proposed!”
Were it not for his words, I’d have thought him rather cold-hearted. After he mentioned proposal though, I chalked it up to him trying to cope with the admittedly dire situation.
I wonder how marriage customs work here…
Oh right someone’s dying.
Unfortunately at that time I did not possess knowledge on how to treat wounds, so I was left standing off to the side feeling real shitty while the others rushed about, looking for items to treat Mina’s burns. Basic wounds and gashes were something that — like most other people — I could treat. Burns, on the other hand, were out of my depth. What little I could tell is that her nerves had probably been burned away with several layers of her skin. Her face had been severely disfigured to the point that she was barely recognizable. Third degree would likely be an apt description for the burns.
A girtablilu medic of some sort from one of the head wagons had descended the slope with a pot of what looked to be some kind of gel. He took a handful of it and began smearing it on Mina’s affected areas. A few minutes passed, and her erratic breathing had begun to stabilize. Soon after, she lost consciousness the man wrapped her face in cloth. An elf carried Mina back up the slope and laid her down in one of the wagons.
The past 20 minutes or so had raised two major questions for me. The man that had been fretting over Mina was busy talking to the medic, so I instead questioned Sanon.
“Do you know what that guy meant by ‘waterlogged mana source’?” I asked, approaching Sanon.
Sanon had once again noticed my approach almost immediately once I started moving in her direction. She responded once I got within arm’s length of her. “Most people wouldn’t be concerned with that right now, but I guess there wasn’t much for us to do. Mana sources are just… areas that are really rich in mana. In the past it would have been indicative of a source of spellsilver, but most easily accessed sources in an area like this would have been stripped bare of it. The river source is probably just heavily saturated from something else in the mountain. You should never light a fire near saturated waters. The air near them tends to be very… volatile.”
Now that’s interesting.
I put a hand to my chin in thought. A moment later, I had a hypothesis of sorts forming in my mind. Now, I was no chemist — I’m still not one now — but I had an idea of what might have caused the explosion. I put my other question on the backburner for now, as I dragged Sanon over to the river.
When we arrived at the edge of the river, Sanon grabbed my shoulder. “As much as I would love to see where this is going Max, I need to know what you’re planning.”
“Don’t worry, I’m just looking for something.” I said as I knelt down by the riverbed. I didn’t need a light, since the water was illuminated by the mana within. I observed the surface of the water until I found what I was looking for. The river was relatively calm right now — not rapids by any stretch, so finding my target didn’t take long. Small bubbles.
Seeing this, I snickered to myself quietly before taking a deep breath.
“Max no-”
I plunged my face into the water, and let the new air bubbles clear from my face. Uncomfortable as it was, I opened my eyes. The glow of the mana made it hard to see past the surface, so getting wet was my solution. Sanon quickly began pulling back on me, so I waved my hands at her in an attempt to get her to stop. After a moment, she seemed to get the message, and by then my eyes had somewhat adjusted to the freshwater of the river.
I very quickly found the culprit behind the bubbles. From the sediment of the river I saw bubbles rising, before I stuck my hand in to pull some up. As I pulled it up, bubbles continued to rise from it. I rubbed it around in my hands before I found a number of tiny blackish colored pebbles. They had an iridescent sheen to them. Unfortunately, I’m not a geologist, so identifying these was beyond me. My first thought was some kind of obsidian, but this would later be found to be incorrect. There were other small bits in the sediment that also emitted bubbles, one of them was very clearly some kind of metal… copper?
I don’t think this black one is a metal, but this other one is probably copper. Is it electrolysis? If so then where’s the electric current coming from… is it the mana?
I brushed my now soaked hair out of my face as I presented the various pebbles to Sanon. “Any idea what this stuff is?”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Sanon took my offered bounty without even looking at it. She simply stared straight at me with a very stern expression. “Max, are you a burning idiot?! You could have set the whole river off!”
“I know that it was reckless, but hear me out — I had a hypothesis.” I said, backing up slightly.
“No, I will not hear you out! That could have killed you! You’re lucky Brom didn’t see it!” she admonished.
“I am lucky! That aside though, look at what I gave you. I think I might be on to something.” I said, a manic look in my eyes.
Sanon looked like she was going to beat me within an inch of my life, but much to my relief, she took a deep breath before finally looking at the items I had given her. She closely examined the pile of various minerals and likely metals before sniffing them. A number of the hairs below her eyes pricked up as she examined them. “Looks like you pulled up some copper, iron, and… some kind of gems? Huh. I’ve never seen these ones before. They’re real saturated though, so be careful with them.”
Alright time to test this.
I retrieved the saturated pile of minerals and metals from Sanon before practically sprinting over to the main camp. She followed behind at a slower pace, confused at my sudden burst of speed.
I quickly found a half-full canteen that someone had left unattended and uncorked it. I started by placing the copper into it.
…
And just as I suspected, I got bubbles of some kind of gas. I grabbed a stick and set it ablaze using a nearby lantern. Sanon had been watching me the whole time, gazing intently at the canteen.
When I lowered the burning stick just above the water in the canteen, the intensity of the fire increased by multiple magnitudes — electrolysis.
Or is it. This is probably just a similar phenomenon brought about by however it is that mana works. Either way, this proves that mana either passively produces an electric charge… OR mana itself behaves very similarly to electricity. Now THIS has potential. I mean… no matter the truth here, I’m essentially a living battery.
…
“I fucking KNEW IT!!!” I shouted, startling Sanon and a few others nearby. “Sanon! Do you know what this means?!”
She shook her head, though her smirk was evident.
“ELECTROLYSIS… or something similar. Either way, I have PLANS now. Plans for later, actually, but plans nonetheless.” I rambled as I found another canteen and put the gem into it.
This one did not produce bubbles, which raised more questions.
Does the type of material that’s been saturated change the reaction? Hmm…
I was brought out of my thoughts when Sanon tapped my shoulder. “What is electrolysis?”
And for the record, readers, Sanon did ask this. I’m sure all of you know what electrolysis is. Anyway, time to explain electrolysis!
“Oh- yeah I suppose that might be good to explain… or at least try to. So basically, you remember how I said that water is made of two explosive gases? Well electrolysis is the process of separating water into those two gases with electricity. Or I guess mana in this case…” I explained as simply as I could.
Sanon had closed her eyes in thought. “Okay… is it that groundbreaking? It happens all the time in some lakes and parts of the ocean, or so I’ve heard.”
It hadn’t necessarily been the reaction I was looking for, but I did learn something of note: electrolysis occurs naturally.
That might explain the abundance of hydrogen in the atmosphere…
I shook my head. “Not really. Even on Earth it isn’t all that groundbreaking. It might have been at one point, like when we first discovered it, but that’s probably it. Though it definitely doesn’t occur on a scale like this in nature.”
Sanon seemed to be mulling something over before she gasped. “Wait, so you guys definitely don’t get firestorms then, do you?”
UHHH. COME AGAIN??
“You uh… you wanna repeat that?”
“You guys don’t get firestorms?”
“You wanna explain just what a fucking firestorm is?”
It was self-explanatory. A literal storm of fire… kinda. Apparently they’re more common during the wet season, and most species of trees cast protection spells or have some kind of fire resistance. Animals normally just hide.
And no, before you wonder, I have absolutely no fucking clue how plants cast spells. I saw it in person for the first time like a month ago as of writing this, and it was just bizarre.
“No Sanon, we do not have firestorms… wait, you only just found out about electrolysis, how could you have known that it could cause that?” I asked, more confused than anything.
Sanon seemed confused for a moment, but realized what I meant. “Oh! Most people know that waterlogged mana sources have an influence on firestorms, so large cities try to deplete or remove the ones that are really close by. My home did, but we lost a lot of people when the source discharged. Most places don’t bother with them past a certain distance.”
Surely they don’t have meteorology yet… unless magic makes it easier? Gonna have to ask about that later too.
----------------------------------------
We settled in for the night about an hour later, after the chaos from Mina’s little accident had finally passed. I noticed something begin to stir in the sky. It didn’t take too terribly long, perhaps 20 or so minutes. Slowly, but surely, lights began to appear in the night sky.
Is that an aurora?
The lights were bright, so very bright. Helsa either has a weak magnetic field, or that was one hell of a solar storm. It only took me a moment to realize something.
Hold on. I’m near the equator, so why am I seeing an aurora?
These questions would soon be answered, though not by who I would have expected. However, before that, slumber would take me first.