Rodney had been an adventuring buddy of Cole’s master, Archibald. The man had retired early, now only doing easy jobs for the Baron, while Archibald was now a court mage for the Duke. He hadn’t expected Rodney to return quite so swiftly, or to request an expedited meeting. It wasn’t too out of character though, the old man didn’t like to waste time. He had left the current meeting to Poetrak and went straight to see him.
He had arrived just after Penny had closed the door to the sitting room, and she had reported to him they had requested a doctor for the party’s mage, even though whatever problem it was didn’t seem serious. He told her not to hurry the doctor, as he would go in and check on her now. Upon entering the room, he met with a quite animated back and forth, and chose to wait it out. His eyes only momentarily flicked to the living metal when Leona mentioned it had let go of her on its own. He seemed to have his work cut out for him, as the party had gone though most of the questions he had been about to ask them. He took some slight satisfaction when making the old man jump, but it was admittedly irresponsible of him, as he should be checking on the mage’s hand. Mana starvation could cause serious damage if it was left untreated, especially if the magician was unable to recirculate mana fast enough to start recovering right away.
“So how long were you in contact with the living metal?”
“Only about eight seconds total. After the first three, it didn’t take any more mana.”
“Now that’s strange. I’ve never heard of even Soulsteel attempting to slow mana ingress. Only ever it trying to prevent its mana from being taken away.”
“What do you think of Rodney’s theory?”
“I think it’s plausible, but finding out why is the long term question, what I need to know today is if it would react the same way with me.”
“Is her hand fine, Mage Cole?”
“Yes, remarkably so. If I didn’t know better I would just think she had cast one too many spells with poor circulation.”
“So, what now? Should we put it back in the bag?”
The giant pearl still hadn’t moved, and as everyone turned to look, it continued to sit there apparently in self imposed exile.
“You’re telling me it wasn’t skittish before you touched it?”
“Downright playful with Tarrik on the carriage ride here.”
“Is that why it kept opening its mouth at me?”
Cole stood up. He hadn’t been expecting to do his testing here, but he didn’t want to carry an unknown factor through the Baron’s halls without checking to make sure it wasn’t hostile for himself. Rodney had given him the bag they had collected all the metals it had shed inside, and looking through it he was shocked with just how much gold, silver and electrum he could spot at a glance. The powdered metals he couldn’t immediately identify, but he’d bet on at least one of them being platinum. The dark gray powder was notorious for being difficult to pin down, and it would likely have to be sent to Archibald, but it wouldn’t hurt to try and test a sample himself.
“So, I'm certain I see electrum here, but it’s not powdered. Did it shoot it at you?”
“No, it fired it off the night it landed. We found it about ten minutes away, stuck halfway in a pine tree.”
“Halfway inside the tree, or half of the nugget?”
“Half of the nugget.”
“Hmmm.”
“Electrum would strongly point to it being living metal, but having shot it out, especially so far, strongly points to Soulsteel.”
“This is the conversation we’ve been having for two days.”
“Yes, but I have a third option. If it’s just Living metal, do you think it’s already been bound?”
At this the group went silent. They had seen it in the crater, and it hadn’t even crossed their minds someone could have messed with it before they got there.
“Who could have beaten us there? And if they did beat us there, why didn’t they just take it?”
“I don’t know, but based on how a certain crackpot promised me it was gonna be, If I remember his words exactly, ‘Too small and pitiful to even sell as a paperweight.’ I’ve got a suspect at the top of my list.”
“The directions he gave us were perfect though. And I’m pretty sure the druids would have told us if someone else had gotten to it before us.”
“Yes, you’re right. The more I think about it, even if someone had snuck in while the druid was waiting for you instead of watching the crater, they'd need upwards of three hours to cast even the most basic of binding spells. And If it’s Soulsteel, they’d be completely screwed as soon as they tried.”
The conversation had hit a standstill, and Cole could only think of one line of inquiry he could do now, before moving it to his laboratory.
~~~
They all kept glancing over at me, and it was getting a bit unsettling. What are they even trying to decide? Initially, the only thing I could think of that would be taking them this long is if they’re arguing over how dangerous I am, but maybe they’re haggling over my price. Or both. Honestly, I don’t care either way. They’ve been talking for so long, the fire’s almost out. They don’t seem to be planning to try and take the mana back, so logically they shouldn’t mind if I just scooch on over to put a few more logs on.
Just as I’m about to start turning back into that giga-gecko form and trying to warm up inside the fire, the wizard starts approaching me. He has to walk around the two couches the party is sitting on, but he’s holding something in his hand. It’s shining more brightly than he is, but not by much. Just like when I expelled mana, or when the mage lady lit the fires for me, It is casting a light I can see by, a pale blue light.
He places the stone on the floor around two feet from me, and then backs away a step or two. I just stare at him. Is this a test to see if I can see the marble? Perhaps it’s food? It could also be a component for a spell or something he’s trying to cast. He doesn’t seem to be making any weird gestures, and I take a look over at the trio still on the couch. They are all just watching, not giving away any hints on what they expect me to do.
I guess I can start by turning into something that could actually interact with the blue marble. I sort of pencil out the rough shape of the gecko’s form inside of my orb, and then ‘let go’ of all the excess material. It drops to the floor and forms a pool, before I absorb it again by tethering it to me with light blue mana, and then pulling on the threads until I swell back to my full size. I don’t really “see” with my head, but I still turn it to look up at the wizard, and he seems pleased. That doesn’t last for long though as I just keep staring at him.
He briefly says something to our impartial observers, and then bends down and flicks the marble towards me. It’s not moving very fast, and he seems to have reasonable aim, as I barely have to turn my head to grab it with my mouth. Now that I know what to expect, I have a wall of mana ready and waiting to stop what would have otherwise been another uncontrolled influx. I promptly place the marble back on the floor, and I nudge it back towards him. This doesn’t just get a pleased look from him, but a full on overjoyed one. He reaches down and picks up the marble after inspecting it, he turns away from me to tell the peanut gallery something.
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I’m still not sure what this man is looking for, but he takes the marble and strips it of all its light. He then places it back on the ground, and rolls it towards me again. The problem being, I now have no way to tell where it is. I open my mouth to try and catch it in the same spot as before, but I feel it bounce off my chin. I try to snap it up, but I miss and it goes rolling away somewhere to my right.
~~~
“Interesting, it must still only be able to see the base manas.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like any of the mana sense derivations, anything that doesn’t contain order or chaos mana must be black to him.”
“I was asking if you meant it could learn to see normally.”
“Well-”
The back and forth ended early, as the lizard turned to its right, and started searching for the marble. It was opening its mouth, and almost perfectly miming breathing fire like a miniature dragon.
“Is this it’s way of showing it’s angry?”
“No Larrik, I don’t think so.”
“What is it doing then?”
“Correct me if I'm wrong, Mage Cole, but he’s spitting mana. And if I had to guess, he’s trying to catch the marble with it, so when he does it will glow again.”
“That was my first assumption, but use this.”
Handing over his monocle, its glass yellow and ringed with gold, Leona saw that the faux dragon was spewing the mana up into the air. The mixture, being of equal parts Order and Chaos, would react and cast a dim mana glow in the immediate vicinity. It only took two more breaths of bootleg light mana for the little guy to locate the mana bead.
“Oh wow. I wouldn’t have guessed that in ten tries.”
“I know. It should be capable of synthesizing light. Why would it bother doing it this way, unless it either doesn’t know how, or it didn’t want us to know it can?”
“I have no clue.”
The two mages' conversation stopped as the lizard approached Cole, and spat out the bead at his feet. Surprisingly, it was now filled with mana. Cole quickly scooped up the mana bead, as it wasn’t designed to contain more than one type of mana at a time. He pulled both the chaos and the order out before they could start to react. He found both to be of remarkable purity. They should have mixed more than this before he had extracted them.
“Okay, let’s do one last test before I take him away. I’ll need your help though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to see how much mana he can keep out at once. I’ll just need you to pet him with me, adding one more until you can feel your mana being drawn out .”
Larrik volunteered to be the second to put his hand on the creature. He didn’t want to let Leona take any more risks after she had already gotten her mana drained once today.
“I felt something when I first put my hand on it. But now it only feels sort of tingly.”
“What’s it doing?”
“I don’t know. It’s not taking any of my mana. Could you make a guess on how long you could hold your hand there?”
“I don’t know, but I can feel the tingling getting worse. Oh, now it’s starting to hurt.”
“Okay, okay. Take your hand off”
After the two of them removed their hands from the creature’s surface, it crawled into the bedroll the party had brought it in. Its tail still stuck out for a second, before it shrunk away too. Rodney was the first to speak.
“I don’t think it liked that.”
“With how mature it acted, I had expected that it would be significantly more proficient at controlling mana.”
“You think this thing is mature?” Larrik almost seemed offended.
“For Soulsteel, Yes. It’s turning into the form of things it’s never seen before. That behavior is almost unheard of, even in the oldest and smartest ones I’ve read about.”
“I find it to be acting more like an overgrown toddler than anything else.”
“Hm. You’re all staying in town for at least a few days, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I borrow this bedroll? He seems to like it.”
It was Larrik’s bedroll, as the other two had been too small to fill the bottom of his massive backpack.
“Do you really need it? And why do you keep calling it a he?”
“I do, and I’m calling it a he because he has long, thin limbs when he’s a salamander, and unless I’m mistaken, that means it’s a boy.”
~~~
Now I realized that all these tests were checking my ability to control mana. I had burned through a good amount of all the mana I had stolen from the mage, but when the wizard bent down to pick me up with his bare hands, I concentrated my mana where he picked me up, just below both my armpits.
I didn’t feel any mana leaking in from his hands, but as he brought me back to the table I was starting to get light headed. His mana was far greater than her’s had been, and I promptly failed to notice another hand before it touched me. I ended up taking in some of whoever’s mana that was. I could manage to slow that tide, but even with the mana I was taking in, I wasn’t able to split my focus effectively in more than two places. I put both my front legs over my head. However, I had neglected to make lungs, so despite the presence of my mouth, I could not scream.
When I woke up, I was still inside the pillow. Well, it must not be a pillow after all, as I'm inside it. It must be a sleeping bag, or maybe just a simple bedroll with how furry it feels. I was currently about as flat as a pancake, and the bedroll was sitting on something solid. I wasn’t back in a backpack again. Peaking my head out, I could actually see for once. There was a miniature sun that was suspended by a chain about three feet above me. Looking around, I saw that I was inside what must be the wizard’s idea of a terrarium. Three walls, Plus one made of a clear glass. I could only tell there was a glass wall because I thought there was no wall at all, and promptly slammed my face into it.