My soon-to-be-replaced etching wand hovers in front of me, directed by my magic rather than my hand. For some reason, it is steadier that way. A flame of pure dragonfire pulses from the end, melting the solder the ends of the wires are held to in order to fuse them in place. Acrid and toxic air rises from the join, and as I inhale it, I note that many of my professors would be thrown into hysterics if they could see me now. Doing such work without any safety precautions is typically considered inadvisable. But others can’t take the punishment my body can, and safety equipment is cumbersome.
With a movement of will, the flame spurting from the end of the wand slowly dies away. I cast the wand to the side, leaning back in my seat to inspect the latest enchantment. A bundle of wires wrapped around a metal cylinder floats away from its housing to turn in front of me in the air. It is the prototype for the new etching wand I am constructing.
“It appears stable,” Galea says next to me.
Curling my fingers, the cylinder turns over, exposing the only part of the wand currently powered. Three wires dive into the transformer near the bottom of the cylinder, though this one is a bit different from the ones I have made before. The basic function is the same; it converts fire-affixed mana into the various kinds needed for the enchantment, but this one has an active component, a trigger.
“Stability is the first hurdle,” I tell the dragon spirit. “That’s what Conway said, anyway. Actually getting the thing to work is the important part.”
The skeleton of the new etching wand is made of steel I have infused with black dust. As long as the wand is within my presence, it is under my power, and I use that power to send it hovering over a sheet of thin iron. Multiple scorch marks and an exceptionally large hole decorate the testing plate. Pointing the thin head of the etching wand to the plate, I flex my will. Instantly, the transformer bursts into flame.
After a few seconds of panic and a quick application of cold-infused fire, the small flame is put out, and a ruined transformer hovers in front of me, removed from the device. I spend the next hour rebuilding the transformer. I imagine that there are few low-level enchanters that are as quick about constructing the more intricate parts of their enchantments as I. Pre-cut plates, wires, bolts, and component beds float away from their labelled positions in boxes and drawers on the far end of the table, moving under the influence of the black dust. Without needing to use my hands, the pieces assemble themselves, moving in a dance to form the component that I need to recreate. In less than five minutes, I am able to accomplish a task that would have taken me two hours just a few months ago.
It seems like every day I am discovering that the black dust is more valuable than I previously believed. Part of what Corinth once told me about it comes to mind, about it being some strange kind of particle that he hadn’t seen before. A few weeks ago, I didn’t even know what a particle was. It was only after Professor Garnd began to explain what atoms were in my chemistry class that I even started to crack the window open into that deep well. I still don’t understand the material, not really, but maybe one day I will.
The newly assembled transformer hovers in front of me, and as I did before, I add a small bit of black sand to the triggering plate. When mana is applied to the plate, the force of it pushes down, allowing the mana to contact the infusible wire. It is a crude trigger, but it is supposed to be a good one.
This time, I push only the most fractional piece of mana into the sand coating the plate. The issue is immediate. The steel of the plate begins to melt as soon as the dragonfire touches it and doesn’t depress in the least. I pull the magic back before it can melt through this transformer as well. These things aren’t inexpensive. Luckily, Dovik has been keeping us flush enough that I have even managed to squirrel away a decent amount to save. Under the bed I keep in my vault, a small pile of twenty thousand suns resides.
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For the next two hours, I try to make the triggering device for the transformer work. In the end, I have to scrap the idea. Dragonfire simply burns so hot that it will melt any component before it manages to push it kinetically. That isn’t to say that all my efforts go to waste. After hours spent trying various workarounds, I find a novel solution by using some of the spare obsidinate that I have. The melting point of the material is incredibly high, and it can handle the small amounts of dragonfire that I have to use to trigger enchantments with. Without any real equipment, I melt tiny bits of the obsidinate with dragonfire and shape them into six pairs of wire caps for the infused wires.
In just under six hours, I invent a new method for creating mana transformers. If it weren’t absolutely useless to everyone that isn’t me, then I might even think about patenting the method. In the end, I have to screw the obsidianate caps onto the ends of the infusion wires inside the transformers to make it work. Now, when I want to activate the enchantment, I conjure the mana directly into the caps. Some power is lost to heat, and the new enchantment will have to be inside my soul presence to function, but it works.
Reassembling the piece of the wand takes almost no time at all, and once more, the end hovers over the testing plate. Taking a breath, I trigger the enchantment. A spark of burning dragonfire pours out of the obsidianate caps and begins to discorporate into heat and ambient fire mana. The mana races forward, entering the chamber of the transformer, where it is nudged away from its concept before running on. Chaotic mana leaves, entering six different pathways, the power inside takes on the properties of the mana already housed within the infused medium. Runes etched onto the surface of the cylinder which the enchantment is wrapped around spring to life, guiding the mana racing along its path, priming it. Finally, the six different kinds of mana are forced against the exit runes by the building mana pressure inside the mediums. The runes carved at the tip of the experimental etching wand spark to life, encouraging the mana pushing against them to actualize itself in a very specific way.
The process takes nanoseconds to complete, and at the tip of the wand, a blue gel begins to extrude. The gel itself is flecked with tiny bits of copper and sparkles in the low light of the room. I can’t stop myself from crying out in joy and clapping my hands as the gel makes a trail across the testing plate. I control the wand precisely, drawing a rune used in array construction onto the plate with the gel. The array I create is simple, one of the most simplistic that can be pulled out of any first-year book on enchanting, but that doesn’t matter.
By the time the bundle of wires for my prototype enchantment has finished drawing the three runes of the array, the transformer that I just fixed is smoking. That will need to be fixed later. Excitement fills me, and I lean forward, pressing a finger to the gel array. Dragonfire flows over my finger, and the fire-affixed mana is sucked away into the array. The blue gel I laid on the iron flashes red as the array completes, and the temperature in the lab rises by a few degrees.
“I did it,” I say to Galea, snatching up the still-in-construction etching wand and returning it to its mount on the worktable. “I made something new.”
“Well done, Mistress.” Galea swims through the air to applaud in front of me. The sincerity on the little spirit’s face only heightens my elation. “Sixty-three hours of work and you are finished.”
My triumph comes crashing down. “Sixty-three hours? I have classes. You were supposed to warn me about my classes.”
I am already out of my chair and halfway to the door before she can reply.
“It is a long weekend, Mistress,” Galea cries, flying after me.
“Oh.” I pause, hand on the door to my laboratory. “Well, no need to panic then.”
The cold dark of night greets me as the door to the laboratory opens. At the far end of the hallway, I can see the nightscape of the city stretch out beyond the balcony and the glass wall.
“What time is it?” I ask Galea, walking into the hall.
“Approaching midnight,” she answers immediately. “The last time you ate was…”
I hush the spirit, holding up a hand. The sound comes again, the wrapping of a knuckle on cold steel. The knocking echoes through the penthouse, louder than it ought to be, more portentious. I don’t know what sets my nerves on end as I head down the hall to approach the front door, but I ready myself.
With an effort, the enormous steel door of the penthouse slides open to reveal a large man standing in the doorway. My eye takes him in at once, marking him as a rank three magician, one that I have met before.
Kedrick Kane(Level 138)
Gray Bull Conflux
The golian man who stands so tall that his head nearly scrapes the ceiling of the hallway opens his hand toward me. What I see resting on his palm turns my blood cold.
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