Engineered Magic

Sarah

She leafed through the finished book one last time, looking for any changes she needed to do. It looked perfect. She spent twice as much time on the illustrations for these enchantment books than she did on the first ones. Knowing that a copy of each book was destined for Enchanter motivated her to do her best work.

She added the book to her finished stack. She carefully counted them, twenty four. It was six more than Enchanter was expecting. After Grandmother and Todd left for the Speedwell, she found extra time to work on the project. After she finished the enchantments Enchanter described, she started working on her own list. She pulled that list out and checked off the enchantment in the book. She looked at the next book on the list and decided there was enough time before lunch to start work on it.

Ellen finally mastered the vellum making magic. She broke it down into four separate spells that could be used to produce a large variety of leathers, including the thin leather, not quite vellum, material that was needed for the covers on notebooks. They were still cutting the shaped pieces out by hand, although Ellen was certain there must be a crafting tool out there to do it. Ellen spent the afternoons making them a huge inventory in blank notebooks. Sarah copied over the starting pages of the enchanting books that were the same onto a stack of them. It was one of these books she pulled out to start on the next enchantment.

There was a knock on the door. Sarah assumed it was Companion or Alex, delivering the daily haul from their scavenging run. Sarah set down the new book and went to the door.

“Todd,” Sarah said with pleasure when she opened the door. “When did you get back? I didn’t expect you for at least another six days.”

“We came in this morning on the transportation system from the north gallery,” Todd responded. “I have the language books for Enchanter and one for you.” Todd followed Sarah back into their apartment.

“Oh wow,” Todd said as he got a good look at the interior. “It looks like you went on a shopping spree at the new furniture store.” Sarah glanced around. The room sported two chairs, a desk, two bookshelves and two larger shelving units along with the workbench Ellen bought from Alex before his shop opened. The shelves were now loaded with the items that used to live on the floor, as was the top of the workbench and desk.

Alex’s shop was such a success while they were away to Seagrass he raised all his prices. This didn’t stop Ted from nearly selling out every time they went to visit a square. Alex kept raising his prices, mindful about what Grandmother said about how long it would be before that furniture needed to be replaced. It would work out better if the sale rate was consistent.

Sarah and Ellen’s shop started out slow, with a lot of lookers and not many sales. They still didn’t have anyone to run the shop while they were out of town so they closed it when they were gone. Sales however were starting to pick up. Surprisingly it was the master craftsmen who were doing most of the buying. The idea of having a reference library for young apprentices to look at was catching on.

Sarah sat back down in the desk chair after pulling it out so she could still see Todd. She invited him to sit in the other chair. Todd perched on the edge of the chair so that the long knife he was wearing on his belt wouldn’t scrape it. Sarah realized Todd wasn’t carrying his spear. She wasn’t certain when she last saw him without it. He also wasn’t wearing the brigandine. Instead he was wearing the cloth armor he usually only switched out to when his heavier armor needed repair. Sarah decided it must have been an eventful trip.

Todd opened up the pack he was carrying and pulled out a stack of rectangular books held together with a leather strap.

“These are the language books for Enchanter,” Todd said, handing them to Sarah. “Grandmother constructed them out of the most basic materials available in the hope that if they don’t contain anything technical the nanobots might leave them alone longer. You will need to touch them at least once a day to get the longest life out of them. Remember to tell Enchanter that when you pass them on. The longer life integrated items get in a square doesn’t apply to imported materials.”

“Ok,” Sarah said, accepting the stack. She glanced at the cover of the top book. It read ‘Articulation for the hearing impaired.’ Sarah wondered why that was included in the stack. Looking at the book spines, the rest of the books were more in line with what she was expecting.

“I also brought you these,” Todd said, handing over two copies of the same book. “One is for Ellen,” he explained. “They are Grandmother’s notes on the structure. She told me she already sent us most of it in sections. To be honest I never did understand that whole electronic mail idea. I always thought if you want to talk to me just talk. So I don’t think I ever read the sections. She sent me a link to the whole thing the day before we left the Speedwell and I knew I didn’t want to wait until we got back to finish reading it, so I printed out copies. I thought maybe with you being so much younger when we first left the structure, you might not have read it either.”

“I don’t remember any sections at all,” Sarah admitted. She set the extra books on the desk and flipped open one to a random spot and read a few lines to see if she recognized it. The writing was incredibly terse and dry. It took Sarah a moment to decipher what the words actually meant. Once she figured it out, she was hooked. Some time later she realized she was ignoring Todd and forced herself to stop.

“Sorry,” she said, as she carefully closed the book to stop herself from looking back at it. “Did you know that coins are inscribed with how they were obtained?”

“Don’t tell me,” Todd said. “I haven’t gotten to that part yet. The first section is about how to use your interface. I told Grandmother how to change the setting to make older map sections more transparent and she acted surprised. I started reading her notes and I was completely shocked. I didn’t know anyone figured out that much of it.”

“You can make older map sections more transparent?” Sarah challenged.

“Don’t worry, she already added it to the text before I printed it,” Todd replied. “Grandmother was working on a way to print it with a stylus onto vellum so the copy spell would work on it and it could be sold.”

“Grandmother was working on a project and she left it?” Sarah responded. “I am even more surprised by your early arrival.”

“She didn’t have enough vellum,” Todd responded. “Besides, we found another project along the way.” Todd went on to explain to Sarah about their discoveries at the ruined rest. He ended his explanation with, “So we need a way to transport large items rather quickly. Starting with Alex’s hand cart or something like it, can you work on enchanting it to travel faster and carry more? I know you have a lot on your plate already.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Sarah responded. “I finished the books with Enchanter’s enchantments, I was just working on my own. Until we head back to Seagrass I should have time to work on it. I would like a cart to experiment with and I don’t think Alex will part with his.”

“Don’t worry, Grandmother promised to buy a set of wheels from Alex if he has them. We are going out this afternoon to gather the rest of the parts. The cart may evolve over time, since we are looking for something we can haul up and down stairs as well as travel quickly over flat ground.”

Todd left soon after that. He said he needed to talk to Muriel, but didn’t explain why. Sarah prepared herself a quick lunch to take along to her shift minding the store. She left out prepared food for Ellen to eat when she got back.

She carried her lunch and the two copies of Grandmother’s book down to the shop. Ellen was perched on a tall stool, another purchase from Alex, behind the shop counter. She was turning a crafting tool over in her hands. Sarah didn’t recognize the tool, which was strange considering the number of crafting tools that were piled up in the back room.

“What is that?” Sarah asked.

“I think it might cut vellum sheets,” Ellen replied.

“Really?” Sarah questioned. The tool was long and thin. As Sarah watched, Ellen twisted the end and pulled. The tool got even longer.

“I think you roll the finished vellum hide into this side and the cut sheets come out over here,” Ellen explained, pointing to the appropriate slots. “I suspect there is a series of spells to control the size and maybe even shape of the cut pieces.”

“Where did you get it?” Sarah asked.

“It was in Grandmother’s inventory. She has fifteen of them, if you can believe it. She told me that low of a count means it is a rare find,” Ellen said as she shook her head in disbelief that that fifteen was rare.

Sarah set her lunch and the books on the counter. She picked up the top book and handed it to Ellen. “Here,” she said to her sister, “Todd printed these out on the Speedwell for us. This is your copy.”

“What is it?” Ellen asked, accepting the book from Sarah. “User Manual?” she said questioningly as she read the cover. Sarah laughed out loud, realizing she hadn’t actually read the title.

“Who says Grandmother doesn’t have a sense of humor?” Sarah questioned. “Todd told me it is Grandmother’s notes on how the structure works. I read a little bit of it and found it fascinating. Remember to touch it everyday or as an import from outside it will disappear, even here in the square.” Ellen flicked open the book to a random page and did not look excited about reading the tiny print.

“Grandmother wants the group to go out and clear some rooms down in tier three space, to get a feel for how tough it is and what kind of things can be found there. I told her we usually keep the shop open until early dinner, but agreed that we would go with her for a couple hours after that,” Ellen commented, as she idly leafed through the pages. Most of the book was the same tiny print. Ellen stopped at a page with an image on it. The image was of a warrior in full plate armor. She frowned slightly as she studied it, as if she didn’t recognize the pattern.

“Ok,” Sarah responded. “Where are we meeting?”

“At the green gate,” Ellen responded, as she closed the book. She stood up off her stool and knelt down. She started gathering items off of the floor behind the counter.

“What is all that?” Sarah asked.

“One of every unidentified tool in Grandmother’s inventory. I was just trying to puzzle them out,” Ellen responded.

“How did she get them if she doesn’t know what they are?” Sarah asked, confused.

“Do you remember when she said we were lucky to have Companion because he could point out stone sculpting tools without us having to try everything in a room at a prize altar? Well it appears that Grandmother has gone that route several times and these are the oddball items she picked up that no one ever wanted.”

“Wow, really?” Sarah responded.

“Yeah, oh and she has stopped calling prize altars that. She is calling them inventory access. It was something about not wanting humans to sound like religious fanatics in three or four generations. I wonder where she gets these ideas sometimes.”

“Well it is a more accurate name,” Sarah responded. “How did you get to talking about unidentified tools?”

“She wanted to know what kind of tools would be in a well supplied workshop for each craft. Did Todd tell you about their ruined rest discovery?” Sarah replied that he did. “Well I guess she wants to try to spawn a workshop and she hopes a set of tools might do it. Somehow we got onto book making and I mentioned the bookbinder we found but how we were still cutting the sheets by hand. She came back a while later with all this stuff. There is also a bookbinder in this pile somewhere. She only had five of them, making them extremely rare.” Ellen was stuffing the tools back into a purple gathering bag. It was pretty obvious it wasn’t going to all fit.

“Are you sure they all came out of that bag?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah,” Ellen responded. “The bags always seem to pack everything so much tighter for Grandmother. You know those huge piles of tools in the back room came out of only three bags.

“I know,” Sarah responded. “I told you. Let me see if I can find any bags in the back.”

She was able to find two green bags to help carry the tools. Ellen left carrying all three of them up to the apartment where she could examine the tools closer. Sarah settled onto the stool. She opened the User Manual to the first page and started to read.

As she read she kept thinking about the enchantment Todd requested for the hand cart. She was deep into the section on the personal interface. She didn’t know that there was a cooldown for tier five and some tier four spells before they could be cast again. There was a setting in the interface where you could add a visible indicator of when the time ran out for each school of magic. The setting came with a warning that if you showed all six, the resulting display blocked your vision quite badly. Suddenly inspiration hit her. Why it hit her at that moment she couldn’t say, since inspiration didn’t have anything in common with what she was reading.

What if she fixed a really large gathering bag to the top of the cart? They could get Grandmother put everything into it. The bag would respond to Grandmother and pack everything really tightly. She could then enchant the bag to reduce the mass. That way they would have two effects with only one enchant. She could enchant the cart with one of the selkie’s speed enchantments. If she did it right, perhaps one person could push it. Now she just needed to solve the problem of stairs.