Giant Tank Beetles were exactly like their name suggested. The Pigeon King described them as being 4 feet tall and 6 feet long, with hides thick enough to protect them from sledgehammer blows. Apparently, these were some sort of extra dimensional creatures that had infested parts of the disused underground. How they got there, he couldn't tell me, but he did say that just one carapace from a Tank Beetle would be enough to produce armour that would protect me from any blade.
"But if they can withstand sledgehammers," I said to the Pigeon King after his explanation, "how am I going to beat them?”
"Ah, with human ingenuity, of course, little mageling," the Pigeon King replied, flapping his wings. "You have your new Runes. You've unlocked some new abilities. Time to put them to the test.”
"Yeah, but what am I going to do with them?" I asked him.
The Pigeon King cocked his head and rolled an eye at me.
"Honestly, you mortals! You want to be spoon-fed everything, don't you? Why don't you go back down to that little hovel of a room of yours and engage that?" The Pigeon King flapped and pecked me on top of the head. "Use your brain, boy. I'm sure you'll come up with something. I've been away from my kingdom for far too long now. Think hard and meet me at the market square tonight."
The Pigeon King flapped his mighty wings and shot off into the distance, far faster than a normal pigeon. I watched him until he was only a speck, then yawned and scratched my head. The sun was starting to come up, and I hadn't slept all night. My eyes itched, and I blinked heavily. I collected the Runes carefully and took them back down to the flat. I locked the door behind me, laid the Runes down on my desk, and then fell into bed, promptly going straight to sleep.
By the time I woke up, the sun was back on its path to setting. I stretched and yawned, my body feeling somewhat recovered from the after effects of the agility potion. I set about putting together a hasty breakfast/lunch/possibly dinner from the last of the food Marilyn had brought, and then sat down to my Runes. I sat cross-legged on my floor and stared at the two Runes which had created an effect. There was the magnetic Rune and the electricity Rune, although I wasn't quite sure if it was correct to call it electricity. I didn't get the feeling that I'd be able to power anything with it, but it could definitely deliver a nasty zap.
The question was, how do I employ them? I mean, the electricity Rune, no, that's an incorrect name for it. The shock Rune had potential. My mind immediately went to Bang Rocks. I could make shock rocks, but that was another problem. The Bang Rocks were so unreliable. I needed to refine them. I needed to figure out how to make it so that they wouldn't fail 60% of the time. And I definitely didn't want to apply the shock Rune and have that fail on me 2 out of 3 times.
I chewed my lip and thought about applying it to a weapon in a similar way as I had done with the explosion Rune on Grandad’s bat, perhaps fashioning myself a cattle prod of some sort. But then I wasn't sure about the Rune. I didn't know how conductive it was. I didn't even know if I might end up zapping myself by accident. And besides, I already had the bat. I didn't know if I wanted to carry a second weapon on me.
What I really needed was a way to beef up my own attacks. I thought back to my fight with the lank-haired goon and remembered punching him several times with very little effect. I wasn't particularly strong, and the most training I'd had was at a local boxing gym my Grandad had taken me to not long after my parents had died. I wasn’t very good, and I cried alot. Eventually, Grandad gave up and instead we would watch old kung fu films together. That was pretty much the sum of my martial arts training. I'd probably struggle to fight a person my own age and weight, let alone grown men and thugs who were used to being punched in the face.
But that was the wonderful thing with electricity, it didn't matter how big you were. Flesh was flesh, and voltage was voltage. As I thought, my eyes were drawn to the box under my bed where all my gear was stashed. I pulled out the box and looked over it before flipping the lid off. There sat all of my gear, and it was pretty pathetic, if I was honest. I picked up my gloves and scowled at them. They were old leather gloves that I'd cut the fingers off, with some shoddy protective Runes stitched into them. While they were semi-effective, they didn't exactly pack a punch.
I looked at the shock Rune again, then back at my gloves. I could pack a punch with that. My mind suddenly explored the idea of having electrified fists. It would certainly make taking down goons a lot quicker if I could simply grab hold of them and taze them. I could probably incapacitate two, maybe three, in only a few seconds, and they wouldn't even know what was going on.
That was the other issue I needed to explore: how did the shock Rune work? Did it require conductivity like normal electricity? Could it pass through anything, and, more importantly, would it also shock me?
"Well, there's only one way to find out," I said, and I got down to experimenting.
Getting electrocuted is no fun at all. That’s not a sentence I ever thought I'd be saying, but it's definitely true. There's something about jolts of electricity in your bones that makes them ache. It's a particularly unpleasant feeling when your bones rattle in your body. I'm fairly certain they're never supposed to do that.
I'd already ruined one of my gloves and come to the conclusion that the shock Rune was particularly blasé in whom it would shock. I'd ended up scorching my knuckles and burning a hole in my glove. I'd also learned that, while it didn't require conductivity, it worked a lot better with it. So, I sat down, sucking my charred knuckle and shaking out my hand as I still felt vibrations running up my shoulder, and began sketching in my journal.
I was an absolutely appalling drawer. I was bad at most things, drawing was one that I was awful at, but sketching helped me think. It helped me build pictures in my mind of what I was trying to create. So, I began drawing out misshapen gloves, sometimes with only three fingers, sometimes with six. As I began to design my gloves, I realised there were other issues I needed to fix. I needed better wrist support, some padding preferably around the knuckles. I needed some sort of conductive metal to channel the Rune and some non conductive material underneath to protect my hands.
Stolen story; please report.
As I drew, plotted, and planned, I realised essentially what I needed was some sort of jerry-rigged brass knuckles with a nonconductive material sandwiched between my knuckles and the conductive material. Then, I needed to get these knuckles into a glove of some sort, preferably one with wrist support. I sat back and scratched my head, looking at the picture I'd drawn, and suddenly it occurred to me: these were martial arts gloves. They would have padded knuckles with a wrist strap and be fingerless for dexterity. The big padded knuckles on them would be perfect for stitching on a layer of conductive metal, and hopefully, the padding could be replaced with something nonconductive.
I quickly opened my WristPod and checked my account. Mark had been true to his word and paid me for the days I'd worked. It wasn't much, but certainly enough to get some supplies. So, I jumped online and ordered everything that I thought I would need, wincing as I realised it was more than half of my paycheck. Then I clicked 'buy' and went to fix myself a drink and sat down to wait.
About 20 minutes later, there was a jingle from my WristPod to let me know that the drone had arrived. I quickly ran downstairs out of the flat to where the drone was descending, you had to be quick, otherwise someone would rob your parcels. I grabbed the boxes from the drone and then skittered back up to my flat, keenly aware of the eyes the drone had attracted. Under any other circumstance, I probably would never have ordered a drone to the flat, but I needed this gear ASAP. I didn't have time to go running around the Boroughs looking for the right shops.
I got back in the flat, tore the box open, and inside was a pair of bright blue mixed martial arts gloves. I tried one on, and it felt good. I tightened the wrist strap and threw a few practice punches. This could definitely work, although blue wasn't really my colour, but I could do something about that later. I pulled the glove off and then opened the second box. Inside was a sheet of copper, the most conductive metal I could afford. It was thin and malleable, exactly what I needed. I learned from a bit of searching around the internet that cotton itself is a good non-conductor, and the gloves were packed full of it or at least some synthetic version. Just to be on the safe side, I ensured that I bought gloves with a plastic coating, which would also be nonconductive. I had to hope that would be enough to protect me from getting shocked.
I grabbed a set of metal cutters from my Grandad's old toolbox and went to work cutting strips from the copper sheet. I only cut myself three times, which was quite good for me. I had two rectangles of copper that were approximately the width of the knuckles on the gloves. Now was the complex part, I needed to etch the Runes onto the copper.
This bit was surprisingly complex. I'd searched around on the internet for the best way to create permanent etchings on copper, and I'd come up with a method that included salt water and batteries. Something about the way you can charge water with salt and electricity would permanently etch the Rune onto the copper. I didn’t entirely understand the science behind it, if I'm honest; I just found the video and followed along.
I drew the Rune onto the strip of copper three times at equal distances using a permanent marker. During this part of the process, I disappeared into my mind and visualised exactly how I wanted the Runes to work. I saw myself fighting goons, zapping them with jabs and punches, and watching them fall down twitching. It was quite cathartic, really.
Once I had drawn on the Runes, I then had to set up a salt bath. I used an old mayonnaise jar that was still kicking about, and after thoroughly cleaning it, I filled it with salt and water. Then I pulled out the large battery that I had bought, hooked it up, and hoped that I wasn't about to set my flat on fire. I submerged both strips of copper, and again, all I did was imagine, remembering the Pigeon King's words about deliberate intentions. I kept my focus the entire time, waiting, watching as the water bubbled, and slowly turned brown, a metallic smell filled my room and stung the back of my throat. I sat in this almost trance-like state longer than I could quantify until finally, I felt like it was ready. I withdrew the rectangles, washed them off, toweled them down, and then began sanding the top layer of rusty copper from them. The whole time, I kept up my visualisation, the thoughts becoming more intricate. I imagined myself like I was a kung fu master handing out beatdowns to a hundred goons, one after the other, zapping them, lighting them up with the shock Runes, and watching their bodies fall twitching before me.
By the time I was finished sanding and had given the Runes a quick polish, I had absolute certainty they would work exactly how I pictured them. I held them up to the light, and I felt a low buzz of energy but no shock, which was good, I think. Then, I bent the copper a little bit to mold it to more of a fist shape and super glued them to the knuckles of the glove. Once I was satisfied they weren't going anywhere, I pulled one of the gloves on and flexed it. Then I sent my intentions down my arm into the glove, willing it to come to life. There was a sudden crackle of energy, and I grinned. Stupidly, I touched it to myself just to see if it worked, and the zap was powerful enough to make me yelp like a scalded dog. I grinned stupidly; it actually worked. I'd done a thing, and it worked! I might really be a real Mage after all.
I was exhausted and felt physically weak after the process of crafting the gloves, but I still had the magnet Rune and was desperate to try it out. I took the second, much smaller plastic bag out of the box. This one contained some sort of nickel alloy and had been four times the price of the copper. Unfortunately for my bank account, copper wasn’t magnetic, so I had to bite the bullet and order the nickel alloy. However, I was certain I could go through the same etching process as I did with the copper. I had two discs of nickel the size of a badge and began the etching process again. The jar wasn’t wide enough for both so I would have to do them one at a time. Despite the fatigue setting in, my mind was keenly focused on the image of sticking metal to my hands, grabbing weapons out of enemy hands, even climbing walls like Spider-Man. It was getting harder to concentrate, though. I screwed my eyes shut and tried to keep the images simple this time, not allowing my imagination to run wild, but just focusing on a few key skills.
I went through the salt bath process again, yawning and stretching out my aching back. Then I cleaned and polished until I had a gleaming disc of nickel small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. I didn't have the energy or concentration left to do it twice. One would have to do for now. I yawned and then picked up the magnet Rune. I touched my keys to it and nothing happened. Okay, that was good. I then thought about magnetizing, imagining the power coming from the plate. I dropped my keys on it, and they stuck fast. I gave an elated whoop that turned into a jaw-breaking yawn, but still, I was excited and invigorated. I couldn't wait to see what else I could do.
I took the plate and superglued it to the palm of my left glove. It was the perfect size to still allow me the ability to close my hand comfortably. Then I looked at my palm, threw my keys in the air, and swiped my hand through the air. Again, they stuck, and I grinned like a fool. This might actually work!
I was desperate to test out my new powers, but as I looked out the window, I saw the sun had fully set and I needed to go and meet the Pigeon King again. I quickly suited up into my gear, pulled on my new gloves, strapped my Grandad’s bat to my back, and wrapped my Grapple Cord around my wrist. I pulled my scarf up around my mouth, obscuring the lower half of my face, and pulled my hood over my head before stealing out of my window to meet the Pigeon King.
The Tank Beetles, whatever those were, better be ready to get their shiny asses kicked!
Do beetles have asses?