Stumped. That’s all there was to it. As much Mitch’s mind revved its engine and spun its wheels that stump refused to budge. Gone was the nostalgic scent of sulfur and ash, the light, and the noise. All that remained was the mad battle with the most stubborn of stumps.

The simple fact was that he did not know enough about the rules and processes that governed these things. Why did the nonuple helix fail? He had no idea. Why was the mana rod consumed so quickly? He had no idea. What reasonable change could he make to improve things? He had no idea. Why was that cricket that was always chirping in his workshop so difficult to find? He had no idea.

It had begun to seem increasingly likely that he would be forced to settle for the wildly inefficient blunderbuss, which besides being inefficient affected a large area and would have a short range. Regardless of how destructive it might be at ten meters, sixty degrees cover a lot of territory, and that power would fall off rapidly as you got further and further from the origin point. That wide spread would also be impractical in just about any situation other than a good old-fashioned medieval charge across an open plain. Using it anywhere else would be like trying to do surgery with a hatchet.

He had already gone back through the pseudo graveyard of failed weapons to try to see if there were any paths he might have cut off prematurely without receiving any inspiration. The same had held true for the printouts of the engraver.

There just wasn’t enough time. If there were months remaining until the next Tolling, it would be one thing, but the deadline was just over two weeks away. There wasn’t enough time to test the unlikely ideas or the ideas that might only have a minimal effect. He needed one thing, perhaps two, with a reasonable chance of success that would have a significant impact. At the moment there were no such options.

All he could do was hang his head and start thinking about a method to mass produce the blunderbusses and mana rods.

Blunderbeams. I’ll call them blunderbeams.

It was time for a break. Joel had been working on the form for about four hours so far and reached the tipping point of the law of diminishing returns. A bit of a hike up to the top of the nearest hill and a quick meal would do him good. He had always been the type that benefited from taking a break and thinking about other things when faced with a tough problem anyway.

The most recent discovery, Joel’s this time, was a big one. It turned out that if you increased the intensity of the movements, along with a trick of focus, you could increase the response of the energies, or mana as Mitch was calling them now. In fact, the response increased to such an extent that the physical effects would be visible immediately upon completing each movement. It still took two to threes repetitions of the for the manifestations to become stable, generally, on the first repetition the manifestation would just collapse after each movement was completed, but they could now achieve in about five minutes what had previously required half-an-hour or more depending on the accuracy of the motions. So far it remained impossible to control the form the manifestations took, but it still kept his faith in the form alive.

As he began walking up to his favorite lunch spot, amid the crunch of his footsteps and the chatter of the wildlife, he allowed his mind to wander.

He had been unable to squelch the bit of schadenfreude that had arisen when Mitch disclosed that his newest weapon wasn’t nearly as much of a success as they initially thought. He didn't truly wish for Mitch’s failure: it was his competitive side getting the better of him. Think of a second-place jockey in a horse race that had just given up on victory when they saw the lead horse unexpectedly start to flag; suddenly there’s a chance again. Still, even though he knew it wasn’t malicious, he felt some kind of bad about it. He wasn’t sure if the sensation was guilt, or shame, or whatever but the ignoble response didn’t sit well with him.

He decided to take a slightly different route up to the hilltop. He usually took the harder path due to the attitude he had acquired of “everything is training,” but this time he decided to take the easier trail and just meander.

He wondered how his family was doing. He didn’t really have any close friends due to his focus on martial arts, but he remained close with his siblings. There was basically no reception out here, so he had to drive out closer to the road to get a signal to call or text anyone which he was doing less and less as time got shorter and shorter. His brother had been building a survivalists doomsday shelter with his life savings since shortly after the first Tolling. At first, Joel had thought that was ridiculous, it wouldn’t stop the energy, but knowing what he did now, it might actually be a solid idea. His brother had been thinking he would have it done in time for the upcoming Tolling.

His sister had reacted in a less extreme manner. Actually she had barely reacted. No one really close to them had died, and he supposed for her it was just easier to try to maintain daily life. It was a pretty typical reaction really, people feared change and would hold on to what they were used to as much as they could, for better or worse. It seemed more like the reaction people had toward a hurricane than anything although without the option to evacuate it was much more an attitude of “hunker down and weather the storm.”

Joel picked up an odd shaped, lumpy rock. He seemed to remember hearing that this sort of rock was likely to be a geode at some point in high school. He didn’t have a rock-pick but managed to crack the stone in half with his hands. Sure enough, it was a geode. It was a nice one too, it had formed genuine milky crystals.

He had been surprised by how tightly people held to the trappings of the modern world. He supposed it made a kind of sense. Modern humans, for the most part, had no idea how to live in a world which had gone wild so they huddled around the campfire of civilization hoping the flames would keep the wolves at bay.

It probably didn’t hurt that there was a schedule to the thing either. Everyone knew they only had to worry one day out of the year. As long as they could get through that one day, everything would be fine.

The reaction after these mana mutants attacked might be different. It would add an unpredictable element that would stoke fear on a continuous basis. He thought there was much more likely to be more of a “the sky is falling” type of reaction when the comfort of that predictability was taken away. Then again, humanity had surprised him once, maybe it would do so again.

He had reached the hilltop, so he sat and just listened to nature as he ate his lunch. This hilltop was far enough away that he couldn’t hear Mitch’s tools or generator echoing out of the mine, and it was nice just to listen to the trees whispering and the birds chirping.

This kind of moment had begun to feel like sitting on the beach on your last day of vacation, knowing that you have to go back but being determined to enjoy the time you have left. It was entirely possible that these times would become much rarer, if not extinct, within a couple of weeks. There was no telling exactly how things would change. It could be harmless after the mutants recovered from their starvation, or nature could become dark and deadly: a place to be braved rather than enjoyed. If worse came to worst, he would very much miss these experiences.

Lunch over he headed back toward the training area. Unwilling to slack off twice in a row, he took the more difficult way back.

Training until the evening didn’t yield any significant results, although on one iteration he had managed to get the manifestations to remain stable on the first repetition. Unfortunately, he had not been able to repeat the feat.

Joel headed back to camp for dinner. Realistically speaking, this was the only time he and Mitch would interact regularly. Honestly, that was okay with him. They worked together fine, but neither felt the need to pursue more than that: like Adam and Jamie.

After they got settled Joel pulled the geode out of his pocket and set it to the side to watch it sparkle in the firelight.

“What’s that?”

“I found a geode earlier.”

“Geode huh? I haven’t thought about things in years.”

“Yeah, I just picked it up randomly. It’s kind of nice though. Most of them are small, but it has a few decent sized crystals in it.”

“Crystals?”

“Yeah… You okay?” Mitch had a strange look on his face.

“Hah!”

Without offering an explanation, Mitch hopped up and took a low leap back to his truck about ten to twelve meters away and landed inside. Joel got up and walked at a much more sedate pace toward the vehicle.

“What’s going on?”

His only answer for a few moments was some rustling sounds from behind a pile of boxes.

“Hah!” Finally, an even more emphatic exclamation came from inside the truck and Mitch came out holding one of his books.

“Crystals!”

“Right. Why are you so worked up about them?”

“They focus energy!”

Mitch hurried back to the campfire grabbed the half of the geode Joel had pulled out earlier and rushed back into the mine toward his workshop barely remembering to take one of the lanterns to guide his way.

“Weirdo.”

Joel went back to his chair and finished his dinner.