Artificer

 

One month ago.

Dheg Malduhr was in an ideal location. The dwarven fortress city sat nestled into the mountains overlooking the Malduhr Pass, a key trade route for Westaren, Vlaredia, and the Sovereign City of Sacksburn.

This strategic location necessitated the city to pour large amounts of its resources into protecting its interests. The resulting fortress its forebearers had built was considered impenetrable. A bastion that had held against any for centuries, allowing the city to turn into a flourishing city of trade.

The forges of Dheg Malduhr were some of the most extensive in the world and the source of the largest portion of its exports. However, trade in the region was now in jeopardy as the Empire of Vlaredia invaded the Sovereign Cities. A dispute that the city did not wish to get involved in. Which is why it was developing weapons that could defend it against the massive armies that the empire was known to field. Even the Sovereigns would be tempted to take advantage of the fighting to pick at unaligned cities if the opportunity presented itself.

At least, that was what Aedan Solla had been told when the dwarven council of Dheg Malduhr offered to trade with him for his knowledge. A relationship that he had thought was a partnership, now had deadlines, demands, and overseers.

Aedan looked down at the last piece of the device he was constructing. It would act as the control panel for the Anti-Army Incursion Mine. He had learned much since arriving on Eona, and one thing was that the denizens were vastly outclassed by what he could bring to the table in terms of technology.

As a Lieutenant in the Terran Interstellar Union Navy, his primary focus was on communications technologies, and this is what helped him decipher the Arcane Runic Language. Something about the arcanic energy that permeated the air around them allowed the runes to draw upon the energy in various ways.

“Mr. Solla. Is it done?”

Aedan was jerked from his thoughts as he looked at the dwarf man to his right.

“Allow me to finish this… last… rune…” Aedan grabbed the conduit probe that had somehow arrived in the world with him. He then channeled energy through the device and a teal beam emitted from the front aperture and etched the final line of the runic sequence. He had devised the sequence that would draw in the arcane energy of the surrounding area of the mine to strengthen the blast, similar to a thermobaric reaction.

“You are sure this will work?”

“Yes. I included a rune that is supposed to amplify the effect as well. Due to our other experiments, we know that beings can be even greater sources of the arcanic energy of the planet. This will draw upon that to create a chain reaction in any army,” Aedan explained.

“Good. Then let us install it and prepare for the test,” the man said with a nod.

“Wait. I thought we were going to wait for that?”

“You said you are sure it will work. The empire has moved more quickly than expected. We need to test the device in a controlled environment so that we may be sure it works when we have to rely upon one.”

“Team three completed the test room sufficiently?”

“This is not a discussion, Mr. Solla. We have orders to test the device. Now come.”

Two guards stepped forward and Aedan tensed up, but in the end, he simply nodded. He followed the man with the control panel as they made their way through the halls of the research area of the city. Aedan had convinced them to prepare a site that was not directly in the city. The test area was a cavern that was dug out and reinforced with steel precisely for this reason.

When they walked into the cavern, Aedan took a deep breath. He couldn’t deny that he was excited, and seeing his device there set up and prepared on a pedestal in the center washed away any hesitation.

“The chains were made to specifications?” he asked the dwarves working around the device.

“Yes, Mr. Solla. Just waiting on the final piece.”

“Aedan! Finally! The control panel was inscribed with the rune for distant triggering?”

Aedan smiled and turned to see the one reason he had put up with everything. Norie was his partner on the project and her ability to learn everything he put in front of her made the dwarf woman indispensable. In fact, she was the one to design a remote activation function of the mine.

“Norie, it’s remote activation. Your name for it isn’t going to catch on.”

She waved him off. The woman had purposely come up with new terms for everything he explained to her. It had turned into a fun game for them.

“Yes, it’s ready. You just need to mirror them together with the transmitter.”

He handed her the control panel, and she went to work making the appropriate arcanic connection. She clearly had been waiting for some time, because everything was prepared and she was soon installing the panel into the mine’s housing.

When she finished, Norie cheered, which caused everyone to clap and yell. After a quick celebration, she gathered and explained the test process. She reached out for his hand and asked if he was ready.

He nodded, a smile unable to leave his face as he grabbed her hand and walked with her to the reinforced bunker.

After the test area was locked down, and everyone was safely inside the bunker, they looked through the reinforced glass portholes that would allow them to observe the reaction. Men stood by levers that would slam shutters into place in case of any issues.

When everything was prepared, Norie held out the transmitter to him. “Would you like to do the honors?”

He smiled and shook his head, closing her hand around the device. “No, you believed in me. You should do it.”

With a nod, she turned her head and looked at everyone. “For the glory of Dheg Malduhr!” she called out excitedly, pressing the button as she finished.

They watched as the runes started glowing purple, and pulses of energy started running through the conduits they had created within the outer casing. He glanced at Norie and saw her staring with rapt attention.

The pulses running through the conduits got faster, then moved at a speed that created an illusion of the conduits glowing brightly with a solid color.

“It’s beautiful,” Norie said, awed.

“It is,” he said while looking at the woman next to him. Smiling as she squeezed his hand tightly.

The device began shaking, slow at first, making him think it was nearly at the reaction stage, taking a bit longer than he had assumed it would. Then… the shaking intensified and a loud explosion of air came from the device, followed by a purple sphere of sparking energy that was just wider than the device.

He tilted his head in confusion. That… shouldn’t have happened.

The sphere pulsed and grew massively in the span of a second to cover over half of the cavern.

“Aedan?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should–”

Another pulse of energy emitted from the device and suddenly the sphere of energy collapsed into what looked like… No–

Another loud crack of deafening noise was emitted and Aedan felt a rush push through him. His eyes widened but Norie was ahead of him.

“Collapse the shutters! Now!”

The men slammed the levers into place and three of the four shutters crashed shut. The man at the one still open yelled even as he kept trying to reset and try the lever again. “It’s stuck! I cannae get it!”

Aedan panicked and rushed to the porthole, looking out. The energy collapsed again and he looked at what seemed like… How?! There weren’t nearly enough crystals or cores in there.

“Aedan! What is it?”

“A singularity! It’s expanding! We need to evacuate!”

Norie shook her head, he knew she didn’t know what that was, but surely–

He looked back. Realization hit him like a hammer. The only exit leads back into the cavern. We’ll never make it.

“We need to get this shutter down! Now!”

Men rushed into action. Two men hammered on the shutter while Aedan looked around, he saw a bar and grabbed it before hurrying to the porthole. “Here!”

He shoved the bar under the lever and screamed as he wrenched it upward, the latch finally catching and slamming the two-meter-thick shutter shut. He dropped the bar and took a deep breath. He looked at Norie’s face, the lamps in the room flickered, then a massive crash hit the wall, and what felt like an earthquake sent them all tumbling to the ground.

He looked up from the ground and all of the fire from the lamps seemed to raise into the air before just… disappearing into nothing. The room was plunged into darkness and he heard people scream out.

His teeth started vibrating, as he felt the energy in the room increase. Looking around in the dark, trying to see. This is going to be enough. We’re safe.

“Aedan?!”

“Norie?”

He felt around, falling several times as more earthquakes hit, and then when he found her, he pulled her close. Another explosion was felt, and Norie gripped him tighter.

“Aedan? I’m scared.”

“It’s going to be–”

As Norie clung to Aedan, the device rattled. Mana rushed in from all around, the steel and cavern offering minimal protection. The mine glowed purple and pulsed as the amplified loop built within the runic chain worked as designed and drew more and more mana. Fissures opened throughout the mountain as the chain reaction spell started by the device was overwhelmed as mana tore at spacetime and condensed gravity into that one location. A saturation point was reached within the manasphere of the world and the singularity collapsed as it could no longer sustain its own nature. The resulting implosion ripped at the cavern walls, causing the mountain to crumble in on itself.

The city that was supposed to be safe, was unprepared. Excess energy had nowhere to vent and was directed through the fissures of the falling mountain. It then expanded throughout the tunnels and into Dheg Malduhr itself. The energy built up in the largest area it could expand in.

Ripples spread from the ground and into the pass, causing avalanches and uprooting trees. The entire surrounding mountain, that the city lay within, fell into a massive rubble-filled sinkhole. The air rushed back into the vacuum and caused a second explosion of pressure that blew out a crater half a kilometer wide centered on the largest cavern within the city’s network of tunnels. The same cavern that housed the city center.

It took a day for the dust to finally settle, but when it did, all that remained of Dheg Malduhr was the solitary tower that sat a kilometer south at the entrance to the pass. Its garrison worked tirelessly to search for any survivors. Of the bastion and mountain north of the valley, only rubble and ruin remained. As the sun rose on the second day, an army appeared.

Dheg Malduhr was no more, but their legacy would live on. For the city had built an impenetrable fortress. Just not the one most would suspect.

 

* * *

Present

 

"Kendel! Toss me a wrench!”

Alyce narrowed her eyes as the man rushed over and handed her what she had requested. I coulda caught that. She turned and looked at where one of the guys was working on precise machinery.

“Nev, look out. Let me get in there.”

The man looked over his shoulder and nodded. “Yes, milady.”

She crouched down as he moved and got to work. “I’m not a ‘milady’!”

The man laughed. The crew had all taken to calling her a Lady after a minor spat with a noblewoman during one of the dinners in the palace. It wasn’t her fault the lady was as stuck up as a steel rod. Rust. I probably shouldn’t have said that. The lady had been all offended and flustered, after which she called Alyce the Short-Eared Lady of Hot Air. She couldn’t help but laugh at the absolutely horrible attempt at an insult. She also probably shouldn’t have told the lady she obviously had a few gears loose. But the woman was positively daft!

The king had simply covered his face with his hand and after that, it became a game in the dinners to come up with the poorest insults possible amongst the nobility.

She sighed as she tightened the bolt on the last gear. Closing up the panel, she handed over the wrench to the man and patted him on the shoulder. “There you go, Nev. This section is done and ready for the magic scribes.”

She moved on and jumped in with another worker, fixing more gears and aligning the machinery that would make this big, monstrous, ugly, beautiful, wonderful steam engine purr.

Alyce walked up to a group of men and a woman who were next to the main boiler. “Sana? What’s got you guys all clogged up?”

The woman turned and threw her hands up. “It’s these glyphs! They are not performing as they should.”

Alyce nodded. “Here let me take a look.”

She grabbed the inscribing pen from the woman, and touched the tip, making sure the ink was flowing. Very important, that. “You have more palladium ink, right? This seems a bit low. It will start gunking up soon unless we fill it.”

Sana nodded. “Yes, milady. We have eight more batches.”

“Good.” She turned back and looked at the glyphs the team had already inscribed. Everything looked fine. “Which glyph did you need next–Oh, nevermind. I see.”

She pushed some magic through the pen and into etching the next glyph for [Heat] then pushed magic into the rest of the glyphs, the magic settling into the ink and lighting up. Their ink wasn’t perfect, but it was something that would take a lot more trial and error than they had time for. The problem wasn’t that the glyphs were bad, it's that they just took a little bit more love and magic.

Alyce gave the glyphs a moment to settle then pushed more magic into them, they finally stabilized and held a solid purple glow. She smirked and stood up, handing the pen back to the sun elf magic scribe. “Let it settle, then push your magic into them a second time. Don’t let the magic dissipate before you do so.”

Sana nodded. “Got it, Alyce. Thank you.”

“No problem!”

Alyce stepped in where she could and helped out those that were struggling. Many of the sun elves had a hard time acclimating to proper technology, but it was okay. That’s why she was there. At the end of the day, she felt like they had managed to get a lot done and told her crew that as they trickled out, returning all of their tools and equipment under the watchful eyes of the palace guards.

Later on, she sighed as she overlooked the site from the terrace outside the palace. They had converted the grounds where they rode horses into her project site. It allowed it to be hidden and protected from any who would spy on them.

“Ms. Maxwell. I heard today went well,” she heard from behind her. It also brought direct oversight from the king.

She turned and smiled at the middle-aged sun elf that approached her. He wore a stylish tunic and pants, and unless you knew him, you wouldn’t guess that he was the king of a nation. There was no crown on his head, no extravagant jewelry, and his clothes looked like something any wealthy person would wear. She liked that about him.

Alyce dipped her head respectfully, knowing he disliked formal bows or curtsies when in private. “It did, Your Majesty. I think we can proceed to stage two in as little as two months.”

The King of Rosale smiled. “Ms. Maxwell, that is just–Ah, what was the word? Rust it. I can not keep it up. Alyce, that is fantastic news.”

Alyce snorted, and his eyes widened when he realized what he had said. “It’s okay, Tanyth.” She leaned in and lowered her voice conspiratorially, “I won’t tell anyone. Your secret’s safe with me.”

King Tanyth Dal’or laughed, and leaned against the railing of the terrace, looking over the project site. “It’s coming together, Alyce. You’re doing great things for my kingdom.”

Alyce smiled and joined him. “It is indeed. Have you heard anything?”

Tanyth’s smile faltered, and he placed a hand on her shoulder. “I haven’t. I’m sure your sister is out there, we’ll find her. We just need to be careful. My generals say that the war may soon expand.”

Alyce sighed.

“I hope we hear something soon. Until then, we will keep pushing forward.”

Tanyth squeezed her shoulder before pulling back his hand. The two fell into a comfortable silence in the setting sun. Two people from worlds apart stood there, staring longingly at the source of one man’s hope of safety for his people, and a woman’s of finding her sister.

 

* * *

 

“Done!”

Sloane looked down and smiled. The last rune on her sword was complete. Gisele had asked to have her zweihander done first, but there was no way the first weapon she enchanted would be that one. I’d be crushed if I ruined that beautiful thing.

“May I see, My Lady?” Koren asked from where he sat across from her.

She rotated the sword so he could see the runes she had finished. The runes were nearly overflowing with mana and their blue glow was bright. Koren whistled and put aside the armor he was reassembling for Cristole.

“That is gorgeous. I dare say it looks better than the work you did for Gisele's armor.”

Sloane smirked and handed the smith the sword. “I had to make sure my own sword looked the best.”

He chuckled and he examined her work. “This has the [Repair], [Sharpen], and which else?”

“[Strengthen], [Lighten], and an experimental one–[Spell-Piercing]. I am hoping that one will allow me to use the blade against magic similar to Gisele’s shield. I can’t wait to test it.”

The orkun nodded as he handed the sword back to her. “Beautiful. You did great work, My Lady. This set will be ready for you probably tomorrow.”

“I hope so. We may need it. Cristole is back, I want him wearing that before he goes out again.”

Sloane looked up at Gisele, who wore the first set of armor that she had enchanted. The runes on the woman’s armor glowed, with the ones supplied with mana from the woman herself a soft red. There were only a few of those, but they were mainly the runes that would allow her to strengthen her swings and spells. The remaining runes were the more standard enchants as she called them, and they glowed a light blue that looked almost white. It seemed that the runes once they were [Renew]ed by surrounding mana, started to lose the blue that she channeled. She would need to test the strength of the runes to ensure they did not degrade by mana other than her own.

“I will start working on pieces that Koren is done with. Did Cristole see anything?”

She shook her head. “No, but we’re getting close. We need to get eyes on the town. We'll enter the plains tomorrow.”

Sloane returned her sword to its sheath on her side and stood up, wiping the dirt off of her backside as she did. “I have an idea, let’s walk?” She looked over at the smith, “I’ll be back, Koren.”

The man just waved as his focus was already back on the armor in his hands.

Gisele nodded her head and fell into step beside Sloane. They moved away from the smith’s wagon and toward the camp where everyone else was. She looked around. Elodie was speaking with Ismeld and Deryk while Stefan stood with Rel, who had a Kemmy attached to her hip. I don’t think she’s over the incident at their shop yet.

The knight next to her snorted softly and Sloane glanced at the woman. “What?”

Gisele gestured with her head and Sloane looked over seeing Ernald sitting away from the camp, speaking quietly to Adaega. The human woman was leaning against him as they looked at a book together.

“She went through a lot. I am glad she found someone to talk to. She didn’t seem to want to talk to me for some reason,” Sloane whispered.

“Give her time.”

Sloane agreed. The woman was resilient, but that would only get one so far. It was good that Ernald was spending so much time with her. Perhaps it would be the start of some healing.

She laughed when they walked around the knight’s wagon and saw Maud. Her falcon perched on her arm like it was about to launch into flight. “What are you doing with my bird?”

Maud jumped and Tiberius jerked his head toward her, settling its wings back down. “Nothing! We were just practicing. Tib is upset he couldn’t do more in your fight.”

Sloane smirked. “Tib? Is that right? Well, it just so happens that I have an idea of something Tiberius can do to help.”

Gisele looked between the three. “What is that?”

“Tiberius? Come here please.”

With a swing of her arm, Maud helped the bird launch into the air, where it flew in a circle before landing on Sloane’s bracer she had modified for just that purpose.

“Okay. So, buddy. One of the reasons I made you was for scouting. However, the biggest issue we’ve had so far is communication. I was able to think while working on the runes.” She reached over and opened the panel that protected Tiberius’ core. She handed the cover to Gisele, who looked confused, which caused Sloane to smirk.

“One thing that I have been looking at over and over for inspiration, is my watch. This is the only thing besides my clothes that came with me. This whole time I have been making up reasons as to why that is. My initial thought was silly and honestly made no sense. Metal? Come on.”

“So what was it?” Gisele asked.

Sloane shrugged. “I still don’t know for certain, but I have an idea. This watch? I had a major hand in making it. I ran the teams that designed it. I made key decisions regarding it and would consider myself one of the main reasons for how it ended up. Now, I have been wracking my head around mana and everything about it. Well, I think I have something. It knows. It knows that in my heart and at my core, I am an Artificer. I love doing this,” she said, gesturing to Tiberius.

“I don’t know for sure of the why or how, but I think that somehow, whatever is guiding the mana, let me keep it because it saw it as part of a core part of my being. Now, I have been trying to figure out what all the watch could do for as long as I’ve been here. I… think it can do a lot more than I had first imagined.”

She brought the watch up and touched it to Tiberius’ core, channeling her mana and intent into the watch and then through it into the sphere itself. She closed her eyes and pushed some more mana until she felt a click, almost like a button press on a phone. She opened her eyes and saw Tiberius tilting his head at her.

Sloane smirked as she looked at the little guy, then channeled more mana as she focused on him. Fly. Find what’s ahead. Then show me.

“Wryatt wryyyatt!”

Tiberius crouched down and then flew up in the air, racing until he was out of sight.

Sloane closed her eyes and–

 

* * *

 

Tiberius flew. Below him stretched a small forest of trees of all shapes and colors. A beautiful sea of orange, red, yellow, and green leaves spread out before him. His maker and her followers were nearly out of it and onto the vast rolling plains beyond.

Clouds and a large fog bank obscured his optical senses of everything east of him.

He turned his head toward the south as he flew on. Channeling mana from his core into his optical sensors, his sight sharpened, allowing greater magnification and processing. In the distance was a forest that made the one his maker was in seem small. He could just discern several glowing pillars of light coming from within. His sensors detected a large mass of mana at the locations, enough to be dangerous.

He flapped his wings and flew higher, his optics returning to what lay ahead. As he approached the fog, he strengthened his wings and dove. Fifteen point six seconds later, Tiberius made it through the thickest of it, leveling off as he searched the area. The fog was still present, but even that didn’t hinder what he saw.

In the distance, smoke billowed from a fortified town and its castle. Tiberius felt the presence in his head recede, he calculated it as a cue to return.