The duo, now trio, walked down the various streets of the small village, talking a bit on the way there.
"So when did you two get so close with each other?" Johan was a bit curious about that since he wasn't super involved with Anne's social life.
"Well it's been a while I think... Probably 3ish moons. If I had a calendar I could tell you the time in months, but unfortunately I do not." Pat shrugged a bit.
"Yeah, it's been a while since we started to kinda hang out with each other, Pat teaches me some stuff sometimes too, which is cool. Jen also comes around sometimes. It almost feels normal when it's all three of us." Anne smiled a bit at that, but Johan could tell it was a somewhat bitter smile.
"Well, I'm glad that you've managed to make some friends. It's nice to hear that you've managed to retain some sense of normalcy, Anne. Also, I don't think I've talked to Jen more than a handful of times, maybe 6 or 7? I should talk to her more." Johan sighed internally, he kinda sucked at making friends for a while, being a bit nerdy and then trying to hide that you had magical powers tended to make teenagers pretty anxious to be fair though. That is, if his old comics were any clue to that.
"You really should. Jen knows a lot of stuff that she probably shouldn't know, it's also good to learn some tricks out of combat and such as well. Kinda crazy how much she knows to be perfectly honest. Though she seems to somewhat dislike guys and I'm not sure why. I think something probably happened before she came here." Anne said
"Well that would likely be the nature of this country. You guys wouldn't really be too aware of it, but outside of this town is an outlaws paradise. Things like murder, rape, and looting is common. Heck, the only reason why it doesn't happen here is due to Nath. That old man is crazy strong when he needs to be, and since he provides water to us, Markus helps keep the peace so Nath rarely gets involved." Pat said, her expression changing to a bit of bitterment.
"Mm... Well that is fair I suppose." Johan nodded a bit. "Truth be told I'm also a bit wary of Jen, but that is kinda due to her being so good at gathering information, it's a little unnerving."
"Ah, well, that's fine Jen does that automatically, that's how used to it she is, so I can understand why it would be a bit unnerving to some people, but she is also pretty chill a lot of the time." Anne nodded a little bit at her brothers reasoning as she explained.
"Well, yeah. That's just who Jen is. Anyways, enough about that. I wanna talk about what happened in my workshop!" Pat threw her arms into the air in excitement. "You guys know that device you brought a while back, when Johan got his watch?" Pat paused, as Johan and Anne both nodded for her to continue, "Well I managed to get it working again! It's really cool too, it seems like some sort of artificial intelligence, moreover I think it may be magical too!" Pat paused with her mouth open in a smile, then she looked at Johan, who had furrowed his brow a bit.
"What's up, Johan? Why do you seem upset about that?" Pat asked
"Well, if it is a magical device we need to let Nath know immediately. Not all magitech is made in peace as you know, and given that we found it in an area that was used by Ambevelance to test their weapons... Well, I'm sure you get the idea." Johan smiled bitterly.
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"Ah... I, uh, I hadn't considered that." Pat paled a bit.
"I'll go get Nath then." Anne spoke up, "I'd say Johan would be faster normally, but he hasn't gotten back enough strength from when he made his mana heart to use his Muscular Strengthening."
Pat nodded, and then she and Johan continued to walk towards the workshop. Even if it was a weapon, they needed to be there to make sure no one who wouldn't mind their business would mess with it.
As they turned into the workshop, The two of them found Jen sitting on the bench next to the pile of scraps that Pat kept heaped into the yard.
"Hey, Jen, what are you doing here?" Pat approached her.
"Oh uh... Not much I was wondering if Anne and you wanted to hang out a bit, but I can assume you are, a bit, um... busy?" Jen glanced at Johan, a bit of fright in her eyes.
"Well, I managed to get the device I was working on to work again. I brought Johan and Anne went to fetch Nath. Johan reminded me that he and Anne found it in the same area that Ambevelance used for weapons testing, and since it's magical in nature, well, Nath is probably the best person for that, yeah?" Pat explained.
"Oh, ok. Should I... Leave then?" Jen once more glanced at Johan, who had decided to walk closer now as he was starting to get annoyed with the current situation.
"Alright, stop that! I am not going to do anything to you, Jen. Pat, I want to see this device." Johan walked past the nervous girl, and approached the door.
"Ah, alright..." Pat laughed a bit nervously. "Let's go inside then. You can come too Jen. Even if it is a weapon from Ambevelance, you can look at it before it goes off. If it does go off, it won't matter where in town you are, you'll be dead anyways." Pat came forth while gently pressing Jens back.
"Oh. Alright then." Jen seemed like a nervous wreck to Johan, but then again he wasn't very close to her so he couldn't say if she was always like this or not.
The small group walked into the workshop. Johan saw off to the sides of the room all sorts of various machines, and also the engine from his old car now sitting on the ground, some parts conspicuously missing. On a table in the middle of the room, and what truly got Johans immediate attention, was the device. It was laying on its back, the small screen facing the ceiling, a faint light emerging from the screen.
The part that got Johans attention however was the mana being exuded by the device. It wasn't being rushed or anything, instead it felt almost like he was in front of another mage, but that shouldn't be possible given that it was a machine, right? According to Nath, even though Gent had proper and working artificial intelligence before he had left their service, machines still couldn't use magic. Had that perhaps changed in the time since Nath retired from that service? Or was this an Ambevelance device meant to confuse the enemy mages to come close so that they wouldn't be able to block the blast? Johan couldn't say, but as far as he could tell it didn't seem to be a violent mana flow or anything, and as he had learned over the past week, intent was quite important.
Johan came close to the machine. Now standing at the table.
"Incredible isn't it?" Pat asked.
"It really is. But what is it?" Johan spoke "I'm decently sure it isn't a magic fueled weapon, if the mana intent is anything to go by, but I still don't know what it actually is."
"So it likely isn't a weapon? Thank goodness. That's good to know." Pat let out a sigh, as her body released most of it's tension. "Jen you should come look too, it's really cool."
"Alright. I guess." Jen seemed to be a bit less nervous now that there was clearly something that Johan was focusing on that wasn't her.
Jen approached the device and looked at it with some awe.
"Wow. What does that do?" She looked at Pat regarding the screen.
"I don't really know, if I'm being completely honest." Pat shrugged.
"I can take a couple guesses, it seems to me like its some form of touch screen. We used to have things like that in Ambevelance, you use it to interact with devices instead of buttons. If I could read the screen I'd probably be able to tell you more, but unfortunately I can't." Johan peered at the glowing screen seeing unfamiliar words.
"Oh? That's a very old device." Nath suddenly spoke from the entrance of the small workshop. "Haven't seen one of these in a while."