-tinkerer-

[https://i.imgur.com/LoYByv0.png]

After getting scolded yesterday for the problems I caused Mei and the building we were staying, I was planning to hole myself up for a day or two and let things blow over.

Life, however, had other ideas.

After everyone else had made plans that I made a fair bit of effort to avoid, somebody came looking for me at the Inn.

A rapid-fire knocking sounded at my door.

“Good morning, Rias!” Lira greeted me excitedly in elvish.

She was wearing her work clothes; a white tank top, blackened-leather pants, dark utility boots, and her black patrol cap.

“Hi, Lira.” I replied with a hint of melancholy.

“I heard you were feeling down, but I didn’t think it’d be this bad. Come on! I got permission give ya’ a tour of the fluxworks. It can get a bit messy in there, so you should wear something you don’t mind losing—oh here, I brought ya’ a set of extra work shirts. You just gotta handle the lower half, heh!”

Lira practically shoved a pair of white tank tops in my arms with a satisfied grin.

I bet my sister asked the Matriarch about this last night…

I shook my head to disperse my lingering thoughts and found a pair of my most worn out pants and the military boots that Airis had packed away for me just in case.

“Okay! I’m ready. Let’s go, Lira!”

I took the elven girl’s hand and we charged out of the inn and into the streets of Umbraedomis.

We approached a large metallic door inset in a white-bleached stone building, the expensive stonework the city used for its defensive walls.

“Welcome to sector eight!” Lira stretched her arms out to show off the odd placed door.

“It, uh, looks very exciting?”

Lira laughed, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll open the door and then you’ll see all the exciting bits. The fluxworks are the heart of our city, so they’re secured a little over the top.”

She walked up to a pillar offset to the left of the big door, and part of the stone pulled away to reveal a panel with runes and circuits inset into it.

“Activate ID recognition, Warder First Class Lira’donei, Fourth Division Astral Knight, Artificing Core.”

A monotone voice responded from a speaker embedded some place within the panel, “AUTHENTICATING ACCESS… FACIAL SCAN IN PROGRESS… VERIFIED. PLEASE INSERT VALID KEY-PASS…”

With a metallic click, a small slot opened up on the panel’s face. Lira took a small disc out of her pocket and placed it in the slot. A strange whirling noise followed and eventually the panel shone in a green light, and the disc was ejected out of the slot back to Lira’s expecting hand.

“KEY-PASS VERIFIED. WELCOME BACK, WARDER FIRST CLASS, LIRA’DONEI.”

Deep rumbling came from the doorway, and the metal doors parted just enough to allow us entry. Lira motioned for me to follow after her and we headed through.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimmer interior we’d entered into, and once I was able to see clearly I noticed Lira walking just ahead.

She placed her hand over a red button sticking out from an almost identical looking panel as the one outside.

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A high-pitched chirp sounded three times, and then the door slammed closed.

“Ground floor is the same no matter which sector you’re in. Large door, security terminals, and dreary interior.” She motioned around the room—or rather, wide tunnel—that we’d entered. “We’ll descend down to the cold-tech rooms first. I think you’ll find those interesting.”

A knowing grin was plastered across Lira’s face.

The tunnel seemed partitioned, with the majority center portion acting as a roadway and the sides as foot-traffic walkways.

We followed the walkway, which felt to be on a downward decline, until we reached an actual stairwell.

“The road continues on for a while an’ snakes its way back. We’ll go down three floors here. Watch your head though, the fit is a little tight.”

As we descended, the familiar sounds of machines and other tech filled my ears. Once we’d reached the third floor down, I began to feel a slight rush of air coming up from the stairs.

The draft seemed warm initially, but the further we made our way through the tunnel the colder it got.

We reached a door and Lira presented her key-pass disc. This security lock was less impressive than the full-on face scanning one above ground, instead it just authenticated the disc and the door unlocked.

A grand room was on the other side. Decorated and embellished much like the buildings in the city I’d become used to seeing. The chilly air in this room was noticeable. It felt like the seasons had gone backwards and it was winter once more.

In the center of the room was a large desk with three uniformed elves sitting behind it. Papers and devices I’d never seen were strewn about.

Lira headed to the desk and received what looked like a key.

“I’ll be right back, you can sit down over there if you want.” She pointed off to my left, where I discovered a set of couches and a small table in the corner.

Instead of sitting, I stretched the soreness out of my legs and spread frost-aligned magicka through my body’s mana circuits. The frigid air became less of a bother instantly.

Lira returned after a moment with two bundles of cloth under her arms—thick coats with fur lining.

I considered going without one just to see how my reinforcement magick would hold up, but my head was already starting to feel light. I accepted the coat and threw it over-top my borrowed shirt.

“Okay! Time for the fun part.” Lira chirped.

We passed through a set of doors on the opposite side of the room and entered what looked almost like a factory.

Oddly shaped shiny metal apparatuses were spaced out evenly throughout the room. A few had elves wearing tight-fitted bodysuits lying down on padded benches next to each of them. Cables were connected between the elves and strange devices nearby, monitoring systems and other display readouts.

“What in the Aether are these things?” I turned on my heel and eagerly questioned Lira, “How do they work? What do they do, even? Why does it need to be so cold in here?”

Lira laughed, “I’ll tell ya’, so settle down a bit! We call them cold-tech links. They’re basically connection points where our technicians can manage the aethernet.”

“You work aetherline tech through something like this?”

She shook her head, “We don’t work individual devices with this, but the main network itself. Those link stations are a type of magi-tool that allow you to interface directly with the city’s aethernet.”

Directly into the aethernet? Was there ever a technology like this?

“Did the Aestori had access to this tech in the Empire? I’ve never read about anything like this before.”

“Ah, no it’s something new.” Lira tapped her knuckles against the nearest station, “We made the first one almost twenty years ago now, if I remember correctly.”

“That’s amazing! A magi-tool that allows neural interfacing with the aethernet itself… The calculations and designs must have been incredibly complex. I can imagine each one of these has more than a thousand rune bases.”

“One-thousand two-hundred and sixty-three. You were pretty close. I’m amazed you can make a guess like that as young as you are.”

I touched the shiny metal device that Lira had tapped a moment ago, drawn in by its familiar appearance, when it dawned on me.

“The casing is made of chromasteel, right?”

Lira’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! It was a logistical nightmare trying to source enough to make the current number of stations we have. Any other metal would lose its strength after about a week due to the stress from packing so many reactive runes inside, but not chromasteel.”

“I’ve been curious about using chromasteel in some new devices I’ve been tinkering with Dori—she’s a dwarven artificer who lives in Tolin with us, and my teacher—but our supply is super limited. Dori used most of what we had access to in order to make my sister’s armor.”

“The Empress has a set of chromasteel armor, huh? I wonder if—”

“There’s no way she’d sell it.” I cut off the greedy-faced girl.