Tommen was concerned. After he had gotten the Soulsteel to do a couple of tricks, it had refused any new ones. It would just tilt its head as if it didn’t understand. He knew most magical creatures would do tricks when rewarded with mana, but he didn’t have permission to feed it. Trying to go back to what worked before, it was now refusing to spin, but it would still put its paw back up on the glass. He once again decided to wait for Master Cole, as he should be returning any time now. He initially only glanced up as it began messing with the light it had pulled down. He knew it couldn’t harm the living metal, it was just a mana bead and gold wire. Even if it broke, the worst it could do was cause a small flash and a bang. But when he noticed it was losing its light, his eyes jumped back down to the words written on the Soulsteel’s warning tag.

‘physical contact - mana drain’

~~~

I was sick of working on my ears. I had thought if I tied a sense back into touch, It wouldn’t need focus. But I was making no more progress on that front. Hearing might be important, but hearing better won’t make me speak their language. I think I've hit a wall with what I can do by applying how microphones work so I’m gonna move on to trying things with my eyes. Hopefully they will be able to see things that don't have mana in them, or maintain some consistent peripheral vision. The more I started theory crafting on what to do for my eyes, the more I realized there were significant gaps in how I understood the magic in this world. I couldn’t account for why people didn't illuminate their surroundings, but this construct does. The papers the kid had been drawing on didn’t catch any light from him, so this miniature lamp is doing something that he isn’t, and I’m missing it.

When I tried to draw in its mana it didn’t even budge. The only conclusion I could come to is that the mana I can wield is somehow different from whatever mana is in this light. When I tried touching it to try and force it out, I managed to absorb only a single thread of the foreign mana at a time. Breaking it apart, I recovered about two red mana for every blue mana. Once I had withdrawn and integrated everything I could see, I tried putting the same ratio of mana back in. It started to glow, but it failed to cast any actual light. And upon pulling the mana back out, I was disappointed to see it hadn’t changed.

There must be something that can be done to make the mana glow, and these are the only base components I can find. The only conclusion left is that it must be a visualization problem once again. I’ve been treating this blue and red mana like it is a simple force vector. More mana was how I gained more magnitude. This left me free to pick any direction. However, I must need a different perspective here. I tried mixing paints first, but the mana separated back out on its own. How would I even use the mana if I visualized it as paint? After throwing that idea away, inspiration finally struck me. I had already visualized mana as a thread once or twice while trying to pull my form together, and the mana was coming out as threads too. I took two strands of red mana, intertwined with one blue. The three of them would obviously be stronger, but what I needed to know was the braid was what caused the illuminating effect. As long as it couldn’t come undone on its own, I might have something workable here. I finished by pulling them taught, and the distinct red and blue coloration faded away, leaving only white. This time when I filled the lamp with the white mana, it started actually illuminating things again.

How I managed to neglect mixing mana before now is beyond me. I’ll have to try so many different ratios, but I’ll start with the opposite of the light recipe. Spinning two parts blue into one part red. I was getting the hang of this. The dark thread I produced was as black to me as something without mana, but it was no harder to control than the white mana. My original goal had been to have real eyes again, so I used black mana to form a filter, and then I put an array of light mana behind it. I started adding muscles and some eyelids, so I could properly take in my surroundings for the first time.

My new eyes are not a physical structure, they are some sort of mana structure that is tied to my physical eyeballs. Everything is based on light now, but I can still see something’s mana if I focus like before. I think that’s pretty good for now, though I wouldn’t go as far to say they are perfect, as I’m only seeing in black and white. If I understand how the principles I’m applying here work, if I get new mana types and mix them with the black mana filter, and the white mana sensor, I should be able to upgrade to color. The other thing I notice is that I got carried away synthesizing the new mana. I must have spent half my leftover red and blue to make white and black. There is something else I can learn here too, as the white and black mana makes up more than half of all my mana now, despite the ratio having been three inputs to one output. I’ll have to think about this later. The wizard has finally returned.

~~~

Tommen had stepped away to grab a nearby managlass. It was obviously manipulating both dark and light mana, something it hadn't done the last time it changed. Returning with one, he could tell it was doing something to its eyes. After sitting back down, he heard the door to the lab open, and the only person who’d enter without knocking was Master Cole.

“Master, Come quick! The Soulsteel is polymorphing again.”

Brisk footsteps echoed throughout the lab, Cole turned the corner before the Soulsteel was sitting up straight again.

“How long has it been active?”

“It must have turned into that dog about an hour ago.”

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“What did it just change then?”

“It’s eyes, they were blank before.”

The Living metals eyes had dark black pupils, ringed with gold. It was another rare phenomena that was usually reserved for Elder Soulsteel. Artificial Sight usually required a number of preconditions, all thought to be impossible for Soulsteel to manage without mortal intervention.

“This thing is just doing more and more inexplicable things.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“I could tell you what it did while you were finishing your meeting with the adventures.”

“Please do.”

“It got my attention with a whistling sound. I thought it was just lonely, but then it went from being a salamander into a dog right in front of me.”

“I already knew it didn’t mind transforming in front of people, but it can whistle now?”

“It couldn’t before?”

“Not that I'm aware of. And you didn’t do anything to it?”

“I tried to talk to it, after it grew ears. But it didn’t react with anything more than tilting its head.”

“I haven’t had a dog in here. Why does it know what a dog looks like, let alone acts like?”

“I don’t know. It was getting antsy, but I didn’t know if I should light a fire or not.”

“A manafire should have pleased it, I was told it’s been seeking out all the flames it could on the trip here.”

“Should I start one now? He seemed to want out.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“He tried to knock the top off, and when I held it down he got mad at me. I sort of promised him you would let him out.”

“First, how. Second, why?”

“I drew it for him, and he just seemed really sad.”

Cole had been planning to relax and start some tests on the recovered metals first thing after he got back, and then storming over to chew out Poetrak while the tests were running, for not realizing that full on Soulsteel was about to land in the greenwood, not even a day away from his fat ass. But looking at Tommen, and then the Soulsteel, he really couldn’t bring himself to say no.

“We can take it to the training yard if it wants to go for a run, there won’t be anyone there at this hour.”

The walk was a short one, and after a quick spell the Soulsteel was safely in the hall. It lingered for a second outside the lab, but it caught up with them. Tommen was always excited to have an excuse to play outside. But as he ran out into the courtyard, he realized he had no plan of what to do now that they were here. Turning to his master, he asked;

“What now? I can’t play fetch with it.”

“I don’t know, why can’t you?”

“First off, it’s not actually a dog, and you know that. Secondly, you brought us to the interior courtyard. There are no trees here.”

“I don’t know either, you’re the one who told me to let it out.”

“I just meant from the Ignarrium”

“And let it gallivant around my laboratory?”

“I don’t see why not. It’s way too big to stay in a cage.”

“You and I both know those aren’t just simple cages, I’ve got it set up so that it can-”

“Wait, Master, look!”

The apprentice pointed at the Soulsteel, as it had moved away from their argument, and stopped in front of the well. They simply watched as it began scraping something into the ground where the grass was worn away to packed dirt.

~~~

When the wizard lifted the top off, I stuck my head out over the top of the glass wall. I was conflicted if I would need to turn into something that could climb or fly. I could jump, but I was more worried about hurting the floor than myself. My concerns ended up being moot when the wizard used magic to lift me up and out of the terrarium. He carried me by magical means until we reached the hallway, and he had closed the laboratory door behind him. Did they really think I wanted to go all the way outside?

Despite the fact I didn't follow them, waiting by the door as the two of them walked away, they kept going. I started after them when I noticed the wizard was making the same hand signs to cast another telekinesis spell. Bastard is lucky, if I wasn’t in a fancy noble’s home I would be whistling in indignation at such mistreatment.

It was a good thing I had four legs right now, because it felt like I was a newborn deer. It didn’t take that long to find a good tempo, but I was distracted by how surreal it was to be walking down a medieval looking hallway only being able to see in black and white. The wizard exited the hallway, walking through a double door. The kid waited for me, holding the door open. Looking outside, I saw what must be an interior courtyard, as there were walls on every side, and it must be getting close to night by now, as the whole courtyard was cast in shadow.

I needed to make it clear I am a sentient creature, even if I look like a dog right now. The best idea I could come up with was math. As far as I know, on earth, the smartest of crows struggled with even just addition. And while I don’t think mapping my alphabet onto theirs would be productive, they should recognize a base ten numerical system, even if they use some other kind.

I started by simply counting to ten, but using tallies. This was because the meaning of each line in a tally shouldn’t be possible to confuse. It took longer to write it all out than I expected. I had to turn one of my legs into a point so I could make a clean line for the fifth tally. I sat behind the number one, and waited for them to come over.

The kid arrived first, and he seemed pretty lost at the start. It was only after the wizard came over and said something that he started holding up the same number of fingers as each tally count. I would nod back to him and go to the next number, and so far so good. I drew an arrow after we hit ten and did the same thing with roman numerals, slowly pivoting around the well. This time the apprentice went and grabbed a quarterstaff, and used it to draw their numbers in the sand, matching them to my roman numerals.

Next, I started doing single digit addition and subtraction with their numbers. I was lucky their mathematical signs were almost identical, so we moved on quickly. It kept going well, we got through multiplication, and then into exponents. The little idiosyncrasies were manageable. Once I did pythagoras's theorem they both seemed to get the point of the exercise. The variables they used must be their letters, and they looked like a knockoff of the eastern european alphabet. We finished with me solving a simple factorial. It took me longer to interpret it than it took to solve. They seemed quite impressed, if I do say so myself.