A loud knock at the door woke me up and I groaned as my eyes took in my surroundings. The stone cup was still embedded into the floor, but Gold and Agni’s perches were empty. I'd left the door open for them so they didn't have to fight the handle when they woke up, and they’d been nice enough not to wake me up with them.

Right now they’d be flying through the hotel or outside in the holy land.

The knocking on the door continued, forming a steady rhythm as the visitor got carried away and started to turn it into a drum solo. I could already guess who was on the other side.

"I'm coming. I'm coming.” I said.

By the time I reached the door I was interrupting an entire performance. On the other side stood Roxxy. Her blonde hair was tangled and she was still wearing her pajamas, but she was buzzing with energy as her foot tapped against the floor.

“Hey, hey, hey. And good morning.” Roxxy beamed. “I heard there was treasure.”

I raised my hand to my head and winced. The light of the corridor hurt my eyes. For some reason I feel more tired than usual, which was strange because I hardly ever felt tired.

“Roxxy, what time is it?” I asked.

“There's light outside.” She said.

With those words she shuffled past me, collapsing onto the couch and sinking into the cushions. From the bags under her eyes I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d woken up a lot earlier than I’d planned to.

“It's the Burning Lake, there's always light outside.” I said.

"Okay, then I guess it's night time. Technically." She said. "But I woke up early and decided to spread joy.”

I looked at her and then to the kitchen. This world had coffee, or at least something that had a kick like it, but I hadn't brought any with me. Instead, I opted for heating up some water and making tea. The actual heating regent looked like a simple bowl, and I had the urge to examine it as I activated the heating symbol array and watched the water boil.

Fortunately, copying the array was legal. But also very difficult. Maybe I could sneak a peek when nobody was looking.

I was startled as Roxxy’s head peeked over my shoulder.

“Did you have this over there?” She asked.

“I already told you about electricity, didn't I?”

"Yeah, the lightning that works like mana.” Roxxy nodded. “Remind me again why you used something so dangerous?”

“Because it's useful.” I said. “We do the same in this world. If this array overheats and somehow the safety symbols fail, it'll explode and take half the room with it.”

Roxxy nodded, her eyes sparkling as she strode back to the couch. Her words stuck with me as I waited for the water to boil.

The devices of my old life and this world being so similar yet different was a constant in everything I saw. Both were shaped similarly, and had the same function, and both could backfire and hurt the user if they were used improperly.

It wasn't the first time I'd considered the differences between the technology in this world, and my old one.

Humans in this world still needed to fulfil the same functions as on earth. They needed warm water, and transportation. Even animal companionship was the same. The only thing different was how they achieved all of these things. Instead of metal, they used magical materials. And instead of electricity and wires they used symbols and symbol arrays.

A small ding interrupted my thoughts as the regent finished boiling the water.

“Your tea.” I handed Roxxy the cup.

It was the same one I’d created yesterday. I sat down on the couch and allowed the furniture to embrace my weary muscles.

"I'm guessing you want to ask me even more questions?” I asked.

I didn't mind talking about my time back on Earth, but it was lucky that I’d asked my guards not to listen in on my conversations when they were private, or else they'd have some questions of their own.

Then again, I couldn't blame Roxxy or call her careless because she didn't know they existed.

“So, so badly.” Roxxy nodded. “But not today. I, um, kind of came to your room second. And now I'm scared.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Who did you go to first?”

The answer slammed the door open before Roxxy could respond, bright red and orange light illuminating the room as strands of fiery red hair entered my vision.

It was Amanda. And she looked pissed.

“You woke up Amanda?” I asked.

“I woke up Amanda.” Roxxy said.

Roxxy batted her eyelids innocently as she crawled behind me, making sure my body was between her and the girl whose hair and fingers were aflame. I didn't blame her. If there was one thing I had learnt to respect since meeting Amanda, it was that she wasn't a morning person.

Fire mana gathered across the living room as Amanda scanned every inch of it with red eyes. The moment she spotted Roxxy the blonde’s fingers dug into my shoulders and her palms rattled against my back.

“Kill him, not me.” She said. “He never warned me you weren't a morning person.”

Roxxy pushed me forward and Amanda seemed to notice me for the first time. She blinked in surprise and narrowed her eyes.

For a moment nobody moved as we each waited to see what the others would do. Then Amanda turned around and spotted my open door.

"I'm stealing your room.” She said.

With those words she stormed into my room and shut the door behind her. Roxxy and I stared as the light of her flames crept out from underneath the door gap, but they died down quickly, and I knew she'd fallen back asleep.

I immediately turned to face Roxxy, my eyebrows raised.

“You tried to sacrifice me.” I raked a hand through my hair. “I'll remember this.”

“What's a little light betrayal among friends?” She beamed. “Besides, I knew she wouldn't kill me while there were witnesses.”

I crossed my arms and she poked her tongue out at me.

“Thanks for the save.”

****

"You know, we have something similar here.”

Roxxy’s voice was soft against my ear. I wasn't sure if she was whispering because she didn't want Amanda to hear her talk about Earth, or because she was deathly afraid of waking up the fire magician. I suspected that it was the latter.

"A kettle?” I asked. "Yeah, I've used them.”

Her hand gave my shoulder a light slap and I saw her holding back a smile.

“Not a kettle. I mean the wires, and electricity.” She said. "I mean, I wasn't sure at first since it was just something I’d heard of as a kid. I had to ask my mother about it, which was a real hassle.”

"Wait, really?” I asked.

This was the first time I’d heard of something like this.

"Yeah, I don't remember anything as fancy as a kettle being mentioned, but when I was young my mother used to tell me stories about golems made of wires and powered by lightning. Apparently there was a time in history when they were pretty common.”

She drew her knees up to her chin, resting her head as she fell into her childhood memories.

“I used to love that stuff when I was young. Stories about magical times when symbols weren't around and adventurers had to dive into danger headfirst, usually coming out with riches and more babes than they could handle.” She said.

Roxxy smiled and I chuckled at her words. Then I thought about what she was saying and wondered what kind of mother would read her daughter stories like that.

"Don't give me that look, they were fun." She said.

"I don't know what you're talking about.” I said.

My eyes widened and I pretended to examine my hand. I don't think my innocent act fooled her.

"Well, maybe I don't remember what I was going to say." She huffed.

Roxxy stared at me, and I stared back. Despite her words, I knew that she couldn't resist telling a good story. And after she had brought Amanda into my hotel suite I wasn’t going to give her the joy of seeing me back down.

A moment later she threw her hands up in the air in frustration.

“I won't play your games.” She said. “But I will tell you my awesome story.”

A smile tugged at my lips, but I hid it before I annoyed Roxxy for real. She waved her hands animatedly in the air as she weaved a tale.

There was a mechanical golem, and the lovely damsel that it fell in love with. A wicked scientist tried to stop them, but in the end the entire city gathered together and approved of their love.

It was a children's story.

More importantly, the golem was described as being powered by lightning and being created by a manaless person.

"It's all true, you know.” Roxxy said as she finished recounting the final act. “I mean the technology, not the romance story.”

I sat back and considered her words.

“That does sound kind of like the stuff that was in my world.” I said. "But if machines exist here, why aren't they more widespread?”

"Because it never got the chance to take off.” Roxxy said.

Her posture shifted and her expression changed. I straightened my back as I recognised that she was about to talk seriously. What she said next wouldn't be a child's tale, but hard facts and logic that she’d gathered together.

“I tried looking through my mother’s records for more signs of this kind of technology and two things kept coming up as obstacles.” Roxxy said. “The descent of Artus, and Ength. Obviously it's not a coincidence that the two major periods of strife where we were nearly driven to extinction are what made my research so hard.”

I nodded in agreement.

When Artus had descended a thousand years ago madness had descended upon the world. People had been compelled to destroy all signs of order and law, and even deeper than that, they wished to erase all forms of language.

Books had been hunted down and burned. Records were lost, never to be recovered. And the subsequent wars had made sure that nothing of significance remained of that time.

It was only when Fue descended that the madness had stopped, but the damage had already been done. Civilisation had been brought to the brink of collapse, and it had taken hundreds of years for humanity to recover.

But I'd never paid too much attention to what had happened after that.

"Obviously I can't tell you what happened before Artus.” Roxxy said. “But after him people spent a couple of hundred years rebuilding and just trying to survive the wilds. It's the three hundred year period between that rebuilding and Engths arrival that I found the most information.”

I leaned forward, and Roxxy puffed up when she saw that she had my full attention.

She reached into a bracelet on her wrist and a book appeared in front of me. It looked old, and worn. The pages were falling apart and even the soft breeze generated by her hand moving seemed like it would cause the book to disintegrate.

“I present to you, the compiled works of the subject of lightning-powered golems.” Roxxy said proudly. “This is one of the only copies, but it was dirt cheap because nobody wanted it. Honestly, I read through the notes and they aren't too detailed. You can blame monsters for that. They came right as this stuff was being developed.”

My finger brushed over the cover of the book and I opened the pages delicately. There were a few basic diagrams, and a lot of notes. Books hadn't always been widespread. Before symbols had arrived, most people had to write the books out entirely on their own. Even if they had magic to help them it was a tedious task.

The subject of the book was lightning-powered golems. In the introduction there was a paragraph defining the difference between lightning golems, and lightning-powered golems.

From what I could see the book looked like a rudimentary attempt to branch off into the kind of machines and technologies I was used to.

“Of course, it was all abandoned when symbols appeared.” Roxxy waved her hand dismissively. “We had to come here to hide from the monsters, and they didn't really leave much liveable space when we returned from the sanctuaries. Or even intact cities.”

She trailed off and yawned.

"And by the time everything was rebuilt, symbol usage had become common and was much easier to manage.” I completed her train of thought.

Maybe our worlds weren’t too different after all.

Regents were much easier to manage in some ways compared to machines. A lot of people had mana on this world, and were walking batteries for the regents. Onze regents didn't even need recharging and gathered their power from the ambient mana in the air. Machines couldn’t do that, or at least I hadn't used any that could when I was back on Earth.

This world had developed technology that was more convenient for it.

The smile I'd been holding back finally broke out as I put the book in my inventory. Even if it was barely similar to what I used to use back on Earth, a sense of nostalgia still tickled my heart.

"Thanks.” I said. “This couldn't have been easy to find.”

“Yeah, well, I thought it'd be nice if you felt like this place wasn't so different from your old one.” Roxxy shuffled back into the cushions. “I know a thing or two about establishing connections, and it's always easier to transition when things are familiar.”

I didn't tell her that I already considered myself to be part of this world. It was the thought that counted, and I was happy that she'd gone out of her way to try and make life easier for me.

The topic shifted and I found myself waking up fully as we spoke. I hadn't realised how early Roxxy had woken me up. None of the students in the adjacent rooms showed signs of waking until the two hour mark had passed.

That sign was Amanda opening the door to my room and looking out into the living room. The moment she appeared Roxxy’s eyes widened and she held a cushion up to the air defensively.

“She's not going to kill me is she?" Roxxy asked.

“It was good knowing you.” I replied.

Despite my words I knew that Amanda probably didn't even remember her anger. She stepped toward us and her eyes fell onto me, a smile breaking out.

"Did somebody say treasure?”