One was carefree, unshackled but a bit of a handful and never deigned to sit still in one place. The other, was somewhat soft spoken, readily conforming to instructions given. She was versatile and tranquil. But the four minders were not fooled. She, underneath her essence, was tempestuous more so than her sister if she wanted to be. These two twins were Diane, the elder and Aeris the younger.” Excerpt from The Book of Realms: The Age of Elder Gods, Church of Thea.

The older men’s reactions were expected; Edel was fan-boying around as if he’d discovered inspiration for his next alchemy project while Orhill was amazed by the industriousness of Arthur’s lab. After he’d let them have their fill of the lab’s ambience, he got down to business.

“Ahem, Mister Edel.” Arthur cleared his throat to get the older man’s attention. Orhill had already composed himself and looked ready to get down to business.

“Before we continue, I assume you brought the Geas contract?” he asked the guildmaster. The [Alchemist] winced.

“Ah yes, cost me a pretty penny it did boy; same terms as mine,” looking at the [Alchemist], he rummaged through his pockets and got the contract out. He placed it on one of the island tables so that the two could sign.

Arthur got out his own pen and did the same. Orhill quirked his brow on seeing the peculiar writing instrument but he didn’t say anything. Edel hesitantly brought his own magic quill and signed…the contract disappeared into motes of magic.

After the familiar weight of a Geas contract chaining their spirits dissipated, Arthur started with a preamble.

“Gentlemen, for some time now our underground neighbors have been squirreling away their magitech keeping it out of reach, of humans most of all.”

The seniors remained passive as it was common knowledge; Orhill was already in the know where Arthur was going with it.

“Nothing has ever made it clearer than the way they were ready to make sure some of those who had research in similar fields were ready to disappear. One of them happened to live in this mansion and this was his lab...”

“By the Primals! You mean you just happened upon it?” Edel gasped “…all of this?”

“That is correct Mister Edel; I needed someplace I could work without the risk of having someone snoop around. There is only one way in and out of this lab,” he smirked.

“So then, this is where you got mana poisoning?” The [Alchemist] Looked around with a critical eye. “There’s nothing in your reagents or materials that suggests something strong enough to have caused such an abundance of mana—”

“You got poisoned?” guild master Orhill interrupted. “Why am I hearing about this today?”

“I was just getting to that,” Arthur commented, picking up Ascal’s journal. “Ascal Conierva—”

“Hold on boy,” guild master Orhill interrupted. ” did you say Ascal…the Ascal Conierva?”

“Hmm, did you know him?” Edel asked with furrowed brows.

“Yes,” The guild master regarded the duo. “He was the [Enchanter] before Yondouk opened shop. He allegedly went underground decades ago.”

“His journal said he was in danger; that sooner or later someone was going to come after him,” Arthur leafed through the pages and settled on the last that he’d read which he showed to his two listeners. They sidled closer to take a look.

“Hmm, Ascal was a controversial personage,” Orhill pointed out. “He was kicked out of Kamen’teurgier for his controversial research. I say controversial because the Mage Academy thought it was too dangerous…”

‘Hmm, controversial is subjective’

“And this research…no the capstone of his research just happened to fall onto me…many years later.” Arthur said, closing the journal. “What are the chances that Yondouk’s arrival was not a coincidence?”

“Hard to say,” the old dragonkin shrugged. “For a time Aldmoor was without a chief enchanter and we had to source services from outside the town. I am afraid we cannot take someone to task if there is no evidence that mentions culprits by name.”

“Gods, this is murkier than I thought,” Edel added, stroking his moustache. “Well Arthur, you wouldn’t happen to have what might have caused Ascal’s disappearance do you?”

“I do in fact have his legacy; he left it behind with instructions that whoever found it would either continue his research or learn how to use it…”

“And? —” Orhill enquired.

“He didn’t get to see the full capability of his invention…it’s called a Quasogravis Upending Etherite-Shift Tellusphere Engine.” Arthur grimaced. “ You know what, just call it the tellusphere.”

The seniors' raised brows prompted him to go on.

“Initially, he built it as some kind of flight device I think…I could explain the concepts but it might just go over your head.”

“Mmh what a mouthful,” Orhill snorted, “Is that the thing that poisoned you?”

“Yes, just follow me,” and he led them towards the area of the workshop that contained some ship building materials. It was there that the tellusphere lay in its containment.

Rain, muddy puddles… small feet in moccasins splashing through runoff. Soppy bangs clung to her face but she had no time to get them out of the way—they were right behind her, chasing in their light armor.

Light armor which was made just for the sake of street chases just like this so that they could keep the order in the town and they were gaining on her; she didn’t dare look over her shoulders.

For someone as short as her, navigating the rain beaten streets was running through a maze. After exiting the guard barracks, her link to the golems that had served as triangulation points had gone dead.

[Host-Mind] was not an emotional entity, it could not panic, instead, it latched onto the ethereal tether that drew the child towards the direction they thought was home. It was getting stronger the closer they got to it

However, all the buildings around her were all unfamiliar and [Host-Minds] memory matrices had no records of them. With [Spirit-Body]’s vessel, it would have been an easier thing to just bulldoze her way through. But [Host-Mind]’s logic matrix dictated that would be detrimental thus, the child had to go the long way round.

Passersby sheltering under eaves away from the rain pointed at the drenched girl and some made to move as if to get to her but she ran away.

“Hey! Little girl you lost?” said a concerned onlooker

“Watch it brat; didn’t your mother tell you not to run in the streets?” yelled a disgruntled wagon driver fording on, despite the rainy weather. It was plain luck that not many carriages run in that kind of weather; not even the centaurs would want to get wet under all that downpour.

A momentary distraction as she tried to orient her non-existent sense of direction was all it took for a guard to get her.

“Let go!” she cried out; but her captor had a vice grip on her. The entity of two known as the child knew that it was strong, yet logic from [Host-Mind] warred with fear from [Spirit-Body].

There was a memory there, it had bubbled up from the recesses of the spirit that inhabited the vessel, a very ancient memory. She could have leveraged her strength to get out of the guard’s hold or throw the bulky man over her small stature; She had watched the combat drills in the training yard. It was not to be, because [Host-Mind] had no control there. [Spirit-Body] was in flux, paralyzed by remnants of her memories; memories from when she was alive.

“I’ve got her!” The town guard yelled to his companions. Time was running out, and if [Host-Mind] didn’t do anything, all their planning would have been for naught. They could not leverage the strength of the vessel but all was not lost. [Host-Mind] was the core of the child’s skills and magic. [Host-Mind] executed [Identify]; from observing how humans reacted to the skill, it was the most irrefutable course of action.

[Tomas Bault | Level 18 Town Guard]

One would have thought working side by side with golems had accustomed the man to the skill but he wasn’t prepared for it to come directly from his captive. He flinched; the child took that chance to slip through the wet gloves of the guard thudding down onto the pavement; that was the stimuli that shook [Spirit-Body] from her funk. She got off her rear and slid between the guard’s legs before his comrades rounded the corner.

“Pits girl! What are you—!” the guard jerked in alarm.

‘[Mapping]!’ [Host-Mind] attempted to execute the skill; the odds were not in the child’s favour. The small vessel was too vulnerable despite its invincibility. The child could do nothing against numbers, it was logic. [Host-Mind] was attempting to gather information about how the skill worked.

Compared to [Farspeak] however, its matrix was a complex convolution of miniature matrices that built bigger matrices. It was a fractal! [Host-Mind]’s memory matrices almost shut down from trying to process the composition of the skill. It needed more energy, more mana.

Nonetheless, there was a reaction from the skill activation but not in the way [Host-Mind] accounted for. The skill activated; requirements were not met for proper execution—it fizzled out. The skill’s backfire caught the child by surprise, causing her to trip in a puddle of water.

‘[Mapping]!’ again it failed. Only this time it wasnt’ [Host-Mind] activating the skill. The overall administrator of the vessel constituting the child had caught wind of what was happening. She fared no better.

‘Why won’t it work!’ the child screamed internally; she was desperate, even as she picked herself off the ground and started running again. For a child, she sure had a lot of stamina . It did leave the guards astonished that she’d kept up her momentum.

She tried another skill, virtually bulldozing over [Host-Mind]’s computation and logic matrices. She was running on emotion.

‘[Matter Transmutation]!’ — mana suddenly roiled off her body. Rain that drizzled within a couple of paces from her evaporated around a sphere as she ran. Her clothes rapidly dried and the puddles of water in front of her exploded into steam.

It was then that [Host-Mind] logged inefficient use of mana. It had been unnoticeable, insignificant because [Host-Mind] was always precise in its execution, but for the other half of the collective? They were just pouring intent into the skills.

However it did catch her, as much as her pursuers by surprise she didn’t let it stop her. Only when the child noticed that clothes were starting to smolder did they dispel the skill and let the bubble of dryness around them collapse.

Unfortunately, the clothes had become stiff and started breaking down, leaving torn patches on the dress that had already seen much abuse. If [Host-Mind] wasn’t such an apathetic entity, they would have sighed in relief. But their roommate went ahead and did something else; truly, they had the impulsiveness of a child.

She decided to try another skill…

‘[Affinity Augmentation]!’ and in her mind’s eye the child saw the crystals she’d allegedly ‘eaten’ the first time she’d gained awareness calling to her. [Host-Mind] would have sputtered if they could.

The elder and more logical of the ancient entities was relegated to the backseat as they watched, like an external observer, the other half of their existence blustering around. Its computations and extrapolations held no meaning; the outcome was going to be…unpleasant.

Thus the child picked the first shiny thing she saw, a scintillating turquoise crystal. She became lighter—her legs blurred and she overcompensated skidding across the main street like a stone skimming off the water.

The main thoroughfare was mostly straight and free of traffic; she pushed herself harder, almost chuckling as her childish tendencies manifested . Her shoes came apart from every jump she made until they were nothing but tatters. Every subsequent jump pushed her further from the ground.

Before she noticed she was already far too gone, she lost traction with the wet road underfoot and went careening into low roof shingles.

“Owie!” she remarked, pulling herself out of the broken shards. She looked around and saw that she’d crashed into a low roof of a shoemaker’s shop; still wasn’t close enough to where she wanted to go. She huffed, it was too hard going where she wanted to go and the rain was just as bad.

At least she’d left her pursuers in the dust…or mud. Inwardly, [Host-Mind] was stuck in a dead-lock as it tried to remedy the situation. It had to start from scratch. They needed more values and information, factoring the emotional component and disparate distribution of control and— that had to wait, another situation needed their attention.

“By Vesper’s Pits, young’un! Are you okay? How’d you get up there?” a sinewy old man in rain leathers shouted up the roof. The child wanted to bolt but her foot’s perch decided that was the moment to go out from under her. She slipped down the shingle roof and the pavement rushed to meet her.

“Watch out lassie!” the old man cried out as he shoved an open crate of tanned soft leather under the girl; and just in time too.

“ Little one, are you lost? A child of your age shouldn’t be jumping on people’s roofs and in the rain too.” the kind old shoemaker asked as he perused among his collection of shoes. “And your skills; they’re too powerful for your body to go traipsing around like that.”

A new opportunity for [Host-Mind] to leverage its skills emerged. It could leverage its communication skills to get the old man to take them where they wanted to go. According to its memory matrices, the older the subject was, the more others deferred to them. Perhaps the guards would stop their chase once she employed the assistance of the senior member. [Host-Mind] was actually half-right in that regard.

The old shoemaker was an old guardsman who had a bad knee. He made a living by making the best boots and other leather articles that the Guard used.

From them, the child got a pair of child sized boots with side buckles that tightened against the calf; they were also waterproofed against rain. Her hair and what remained of her little dress had dried and the man had also given her a poncho for her modesty since he didn’t have anything else that fit her.

“Now, little lady; mind telling me why you were running from the Guard?” he crouched down to her eye-level, where she sat on a crate.

“Home,” the child said, nibbling at her lip. Her emotions were all over the place; frustration, curiosity, anxiety. [ Host-Mind] was trying to get some prompts in.

“Hmm; I’m gonna need more than that to go on, little lady,” he said as he dusted off his cap. “Don’t you have parents?”

[Host-Mind] quickly shove the memory of the master of the Sturmdrache mansion to the forefront. It was the most familiar thing that had been ingrained even in [Spirit-Body]. Success!

Her glistening cerulean eyes turned to regard his brown. “Arthur…”

“Ah,” the old man grinned. “ The young lord? I think I know where to find him.” Then his countenance turned grim. “Lord or not, he and I are going to have words about absconding responsibility.”

Misunderstandings. [Host-Mind] did not account for such a variable.

“Arthur, do you know what this means?” Edel gasped, after getting a peek at the tellusphere. A peek because getting a full was a no go when they didn’t know how to control the thing. Besides, the slate used to control it was missing. Luckily, the magical device seemed to be stable for now, cocooned inside a thick null-steel casing.

“ Eh? We have clean renewable energy?” he yammered, one brow raised in curiosity.

“Hmm?” Edel stared owlishly. “Ah, yes we can recharge our crystals just fine. But more than that; that thing—”

“Tellusphere,” Orhill supplied as he leaned against a pile of lumber covered by tarp.

“—the tellusphere has enough capacity to run our fair town if we could just control it.”

“Er, about that…” Arthur scratched at his nape sheepishly. “ I seem to have lost the control slate for it.”

“What?! come again? Edel gawped fussing over his hair. He withdrew his glasses and started cleaning them as if they’d improve his hearing. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing right then.

“How’d that happen?” Guild master Orhill asked.

“Ah, before we get into another tangent, guild master—”Arthur deflected. “ I would like to present to you…” he walked to an outline covered tarp and unfurled it like a showman presenting an article for auction. The tarp unfolded to reveal —the Mark Three.

“Ho, is that what I think it is?” guild master Orhill said, pushing off his leaning support.

“Yes,” Arthur patted the construct proudly. “One mana engine in working condition; fueled by an Aertherite and synthesized Pyrtherite mixture.”

“Hold on—hold on,” the alchemist held his brow as if experiencing a case of the migraines. “You mean to tell me; this is what that Pyrtherite supply was for?!”

Arthur and Orhill couldn't tell whether the Alchemist was conflicted or—

“Genius my boy! I’ve been studying the use of mana in motive constructs but to think—” he danced around the engine, peeking at its peculiarities, prodding the propeller fan in the intake which rotated without a squeak. “How’d you do it? the smooth movements…it can’t only be greased surely…”

“Ball bearings in the inner and outer race,” Arthur explained.

‘Gods above, I hope he’s not thinking of a mana core powered carriage; I can't see the chaos that thing will cause.’

“Is it ready for testing?” Orhill interrupted then before they could really get into it.

“That, I seemed to have lost the second control slate for this too,” Arthur remarked, shaking his head. “But not to worry I’ll etch control runes anew before the week is over.”

“Uh, and is that?” Guild master Orhill pointed to the airframe sitting further aways from the engine’s bracing.

“The Stormbreaker…first of her class I would like to think...”

“Huh? You were building an aership in your lab?” Edel again gawked.

“I don’t do things by halves Mister Edel…” he smirked

“How are you going to get it out?” Guild master Orhill pointed out. “I recall you saying something about one way in and one way out. She isn’t going to fit through the lift shaft is she?”

“Haha, of course not,” Arthur said deadpan. “I am still working on that; you’ll know when it comes out.”

“And how long will that take exactly?” Orhill grumbled.

“Eh,” Arthur looked to Edel who was still captivated by the Stormbreaker’s skeleton. “No idea on a timeline; I only have two hands you know…unless you don’t work weekends?”

“Hahaha, you kid,” Orhill chortled. “I wish I could but being a guild master is a full time job.”

“It’s amazing how much gray hair you have,” Edel quipped.

Orhill narrowed his eyes at the man and shook his head. “It's just silver—”

Just then, the lift doors opened and in walked Nora.

“Master Arthur, you have a mister Crenshaw at the door for you. He insists on seeing you in person,” her eyebrow twitched as if she was holding back anger.

“Uh oh,” Edel exclaimed.

“Uh oh? What do you mean uh oh? Do you know the guy?” Arthur enquired.

The [Alchemist] was going to say something but Orhill patted his shoulder and shook his head.

‘What’s that all about?’ Arthur mused as he headed to the lift. “I assume you know your way up gentlemen? Feel free to look around; I’ll be right back.” ‘Really you geezers; what are you not telling me?’