Engineered Magic

2 AL: Irene

Breakfast was as unfamiliar as dinner was last night. Irene ate the food slowly fully experiencing the flavors. Breakfast was served with a hot drink that was nothing like tea or coffee. The server called it mocha. Irene never tasted mocha but she suspected it didn’t taste like that either. Mocha was an ultra rare drink on the Speedwell that only the officer class could afford. Irene thought the name was the expression of someone’s discontent with the ship’s officers.

Sophia came in from the courtyard and joined Irene after she finished eating but was still sipping her mocha.

“What are your plans for the day?” Sophia asked.

“I didn’t really get to look around yesterday,” Irene responded, “but I also want to do some hunting. I want to get enough coins to rent one of the apartments.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “After my mother’s odd behavior yesterday, I don’t really want to stay here.” Sophia nodded her understanding.

“Jake and I want to go hunting too. Do you want to go together?” Sophia asked. Sophia’s body language indicated that Irene’s answer was a lot more important to her than her casual tone might have indicated. Irene remembered how the guard said a wizard’s group was exempt from the toll. Irene was starting to think she needed allies here outside of her family.

“Sure,” Irene said. “We are a group.” Some of the tension left Sophia. “Did you find anyone who can sew the rip up on my shirt?” Irene asked.

“Yes,” Sophia said. “There is a large crafting community here. Most of them are working on making new items but there are a few that will do repairs on Speedwell clothing. I found a man working out of an apartment that said he might be able to patch it. He wouldn’t commit until he saw the damage.”

Jake came into the common room. He crossed to their table. “You found her,” he said as he sat down.

“Irene is interested in going hunting today,” Sophia said to Jake. “What did you find out?”

“There is a back entrance on the other side of the square that leads out into the halls. You can find rats and badgers there. You can also find scrap, which appears to be different from just debris. A crafter can turn scrap into metal ingots. You can sell it to the crafters or try to trade it for a finished weapon.”

“We didn’t have much luck finding rats in the halls before,” Irene commented.

“I was told you have to search the rooms. Several people warned me it was very dangerous and recommended that I stick to the green,” Jake explained.

“What about the green?” Sophia asked.

“Almost everyone goes out there. The biggest danger seems to be from the other hunters. From the way they talk I would have expected the green to be hunted out but they swear there are still animals out there,” Jake reported. “The squirrels, cats, boars and cougars all have a payout. There are a host of other animals that people seem to ignore because they don’t produce any coins.”

“Which do you think we should try?” Sophia asked Jake.

“I want to try the rooms,” Jake said. “I am curious if I would have found more rats if I just opened the doors. But I am a bit worried about the warnings I got. The people that gave them seemed very serious.”

“What do you think?” Sophia asked Irene.

“I think it is all dangerous, just in different ways. If you want to check out the rooms, let’s go do it,” Irene replied.

“When do we leave?” Jake asked.

“Let’s go now and try to get back by lunch, so we can get the last meal we have paid for,” Irene suggested. Jake and Sophia agreed to that plan. “I am a little paranoid about my possessions disappearing if we get back late. Give me a minute to pay for another day and pick up my staff,” Irene said as she rose from the table. “I will meet you back here.”

“That is probably not a bad idea,” Sophia said. She turned and looked at Jake. “Maybe we should do the same.” Jake agreed.

They found the innkeeper and paid for another day. He seemed surprised they possessed enough coins for another day without going hunting first. Irene went up to get her walking staff. She was already wearing her belt with her knife. She dumped the contents of her water bottles and refilled them with cold water from the sink. She took a long drink from one of the bottles, still absurdly pleased with herself. She only took one bottle with her. Since she lost the water bottle holder for her belt, she was forced to shove it into a pocket. It didn’t fit very well. She was afraid it might fall out. She would need to keep an eye on it. She picked up her walking staff and went down to the common room to rejoin her group.

They were armed up and already waiting for her. Jake led them to a wide corridor between two storefronts, the walls were made of opaque glass.

About forty feet in was a barrier very similar to the one at the greenspace entrance. They pushed through the gate and continued to the first intersection. The walls here were stone or a finished concrete, Irene wasn’t certain which. After a discussion of where they should go, their group turned left and passed two intersections before turning right at the next one. A series of doors awaited them on both sides of the hall.

They hoped this somewhat random location would keep anyone going in and out of the square from stumbling across them. The first door they opened revealed a room empty of animals. Sophia wedged the door open using the same item as before. This time Irene took the time to look at it and realized it was a fork. Amused, she followed the other two into the room.

The room was covered in dust. In the center was a large pile of splintered wood that Irene thought almost looked like a desk. Behind that was a rusty dented frame with scraps of cloth attached. Some kind of dingy white stuffing material littering the floor around it. Tilting her head and squinting one eye she decided it was the remnants of a chair. There were a couple other piles of stuff littered around but she couldn’t really decide what any of it was supposed to be. Jake was walking around the room touching each item.

“Is any of this scrap?” Sophia asked.

“Scrap,” Jake said as he continued touching things, “is a kind of reward. It gets put in your inventory if you touch it.” With this information the two women joined him in touching stuff. When at least one of them touched everything in the room they regrouped.

“What else do you know about scrap?” Sophia demanded of Jake.

“They said there is only a set number of appearances. We should be able to recognize it easily after we find a few,” Jake told them. Sophia retrieved her fork and they moved on to the next room. The second room turned out to be a suite of rooms, interconnected with open doorways. Scraps of a wooden door stood in one of the openings.

In their third room they ran into trouble. Jake stepped inside as Sophia propped the door open with her fork. Irene was still in the hallway, looking past Sophia when three animals, larger than rats but luckily smaller than boars, came out from under a pile of debris and charged. Irene recognized them as the same type she saw at the entrance in front of the lightning inscription. She remembered clearly that a single lightning bolt did not stop it. Irene threw an ice-bolt at the lead animal. It slowed but didn’t drop, just as Irene feared.

Sophia leaned to the side and put an arrow through one of them. Jake backed out of the room. He waited for Sophia to clear the door. He was swinging his ax to keep the animals away from him. As soon as he cleared the door. Irene threw an ice-bolt into the third animal. Jake managed to get a blow into the first one, crippling it. Sophia was scrambling back trying to get away. Even with the slowing effect of the ice-bolt it was fast. The animal was too close to Sophia for her to use her bow. As its claws reached out to rake Sophia’s leg, Irene cast lightning. The flash of the strike startled everyone. The animal dropped and began to convulse with the stun effect.

Jake hit the animal with a killing blow. He grabbed Sophia in a hug.

“Are you hurt?” He asked, desperation staining his voice.

“No, No,” she replied to him. “I’m fine. Really I’m fine, just a little rattled.”

Irene turned to the two crippled animals. There was an arrow through the neck and shoulder of one of them but it was somehow still alive. The other’s pelvis was crushed. Irene hit them both with an ice-bolt before hitting them with the end of her walking staff. It only took one blow to finish off the one with the arrow in it. The spreading pool of blood beneath it indicated the arrow hit something major. It took several blows to finish off the one with the crushed pelvis. Irene thought that it was a mercy when it finally stopped trying to crawl away.

“What was that spell?” Jake asked. “The one you used to keep the badger from reaching Sophia?” He appeared to be getting his fear under control. He released Sophia and turned back to look at Irene.

“How do you know it was a badger?” Sophia asked.

“They told me there were rats and badgers out here and it wasn’t a rat,” Jake countered.

“It's a stun spell,” Irene said, answering Jake's question. “It stuns the target like it has been hit with a taser. I’ve been using it to knock squirrels out of trees.”

Irene leaned over and touched the last carcass. Rewards appeared by each of the three animals. She touched the closest pile of coins with her pick up all motion and from her point of view all the rewards in sight disappeared.

“That worked out,” Irene said, “but I think we should come up with a better plan.”

“Yeah,” Jake said with a sigh. He ran a hand down his face. When he made no further comment, Sophia moved forward to retrieve her arrow.

“The butcher in the meat shop told me he would pay three coins for a badger carcass,” Sophia commented. She leaned over to start gutting the animals. Irene paid close attention to her movements trying to learn how to do it.

Jake searched the room. He reported back that he found a piece of scrap. Since it vanished when he touched it, Irene and Sophia forced him to describe it twice. They left the guts on the floor inside the room. Closing the door behind them. The smell was not pleasant.

“These animals are heavy,” Irene commented as she tested the weight of one of the gutted animals. “I can carry one but not two,” she said. “Should we take these back and sell them before continuing?”

“Let's do a couple more rooms first,” Sophia said. “If we don't, I think I might lose my nerve.” Irene thought it might be Jake who would lose his nerve. He was taking the close call hard. Irene thought he was realizing he couldn’t guarantee Sophia’s safety.

“I can take your place at the door,” Irene said. “If something gets close to me I have my stick to push it back.”

“If I stay farther back, I can fire more arrows before they get close,” Sophia commented.

“We need a way to limit how many can get out at once,” Jake observed. “Let’s not jam the door on the first open. Instead I will just hold it open with my foot and see if anything charges at me. If it does I will let the door swing shut as I back out.” Irene already noticed that the doors varied a lot in how stiff the hinges were. Some of them were very hard to push open and would stay open on their own. While others opened easily and swung shut quickly.

“I wish I brought my rope,” she commented. “We could have pulled the sticky doors closed, even as we backed away.” Eventually they came up with a plan. Jake would enter and draw the attention of anything inside. He would then retreat back out into the hall to the door’s right. Some or sometimes all of the animals would follow him out before the door closed. Irene and Sophia would wait in the hall to the door’s left. They would pelt whatever followed Jake out with arrows and ice-bolts. If anything got too close to them, Irene would jab it with her stick or stun it with lightning.

They would repeat this until nothing emerged from the room. Only then would they use the fork to hold the door open. Jake would go in for a quick survey, one of the women would watch his back from the door. When he called the all clear they would join him inside. They would sweep the room for scrap, pick up the rewards and Sophia’s arrows only after all the animals were confirmed dead.

After all that preparation it was kind of disappointing when the next eight rooms were empty of life. They found more scrap, all of them got the experience of having a piece of debris disappear with a brush of their fingers. One of the doors led to a series of rooms. They modified their tactics a bit in order to search the inner rooms. They found a prize altar in one of the rooms at the back but no animals.

They were getting pretty far from where they left the dead badgers. Irene wondered if she should suggest again that they head back to the square with them, when they found a room full of rats.

Jake backed out of the room immediately following the plan for him to go to the right. A stream of rats followed him. Irene counted fifteen before the door finally swung closed. Every rat Irene hit with an ice-bolt dropped and didn’t get up. She threw the spells as fast as she could. Next to her Sophia fired off arrows. Jake's somewhat wild swings kept the rats off him but were less effective at killing them. He kept yelling at the beasts even as he backed away. As their numbers decreased Jake’s wild swings became more controlled, taking out more of his attackers.

After the last rat stopped moving, Irene found herself grasping for breath. She was far more tired than she should be from just swinging her hand around. She suspected the nanobots in her blood were making her pay for using magic. Sophia was the least affected of them. She calmly started retrieving her arrows. When she touched the first rat Irene saw prize coins appear all across the floor.

When Irene got her breath under control she stepped forward to claim her share. She tossed the dead rats against the wall across from the door, where they would be out of the way for their next attempt.

“I understand the need for a rope now,” Jake commented. “I thought that door was never going to close.”

Irene paused in her effort to move the rats and studied the door. She was using the opportunity to steady her breathing. The effort of shifting all those rats made it a bit ragged.

“We do need a way to get it to close quickly,” Irene said, “but with that odd latching mechanism they have I am not certain how we could attach a rope to it. I didn’t think of that when I first suggested it.” She turned back to the rats to find that Jake already shifted most of them. They finished up together as Sophia inspected her arrows and returned them to her quiver.

They opened the door two more times before the room was empty of rats. The room beyond the door was large. It reminded Irene of the engineering control center on the Speedwell. She visualized how the debris might once have been rows of desks with separators. There were two smaller side rooms. The doors leading to them were reduced to little more than slivers of wood. They carefully entered each of these areas, using the same enter and retreat process. One was empty but the other held an additional three rats.

These two side rooms were obviously storage. Intact metal shelving was still in place along the walls. Irene thought that one room was cleaning supplies. The shelves were loaded with degrading boxes and bottles that were leaking toxic looking crystals and fluids. The back of the room contained a pile of rusty looking buckets beside piles of fiber and wood that Irene thought might once have been mops. She eyed the long wooden rods. They looked longer than the broom handle she was using for a walking staff. They splintered easily when she touched them.

Irene thought the second room once held office supplies. There were piles of stained papers, some loose, some bound together, mixed with items Irene couldn’t identify. The more complicated devices fell apart when she tried to shift them. There were a bunch of small containers that each contained multiples of the same item. One of these almost looked like an old fashioned ink pen used for calligraphy. Irene picked a couple up, slipping them into a pocket, even though she doubted they would have much use without ink. She wondered if she could get some in the town.

She dug through the pile of bound paper to find the least damaged one on the bottom. It resembled a tablet or notebook although it was oddly shaped. It didn’t fit into any of her pockets. She ended up tucking it into the small of her back where her belt would hold it in place.

The last thing she found was a container of extra long pins. She couldn’t think of a use for pins in an office. They were made of a shining stainless steel. One end was sharp while the other ended in a cross brace that made it look like a T. She was attracted to them, although she didn’t know why. She poked them in and out of the outer fabric of one of the pockets built into her work pants. The third one she tried bent rather easily. After that she tested their strength before working them through the fabric. When the container was empty there was a long column of about thirty pins down the side of her pants. She put the five weak pins back in the container she found them in.

She went out to the main room to find Sophia and Jake finishing the sweep for scrap. They were excited by the amount they found. They were having some kind of contest between the two of them on who could get the most. Irene left them to it.

On the inner side of the wall with the hallway was an inscription. Irene walked over to it and ran her fingers across the symbols. The inscription was mostly made up of underlined and overlined X’s. It reminded Irene of the roman numeral ten. There were two other symbols. One that looked like a backwards N and one that was a perfect match for a W. Irene thought there were a lot more of the backwards N’s than the W’s. She walked sideways in studying the full breath of the inscription, while making sure the camera was catching it all.

She stepped back and held her vision steady in the center. She let her vision unfocus a bit as she tried to pick up any pattern. A light began to blink in the corner of her vision. Annoyed Irene jerked her head in that direction looking for the source of the light. There was nothing.

When she turned back to the inscription she found Sophia standing close to the wall running her fingers over the incised symbols.

“It is interesting,” Sophia said. “Do you know what it is?” she asked.

“I was trying to detect a pattern to it but I am not seeing anything,” Irene replied.

Jake finally gave up his search. Irene got the impression he lost the contest with Sophia. After this success they went on to clear a couple dozen rooms. They found four more that contained rats in them but none as many as the room with the inscription.

They also found two more prize altars. They found scrap both in rooms with animals and in rooms without. One room with rats didn’t contain any.

That room was the last they cleared. They killed about ten rats to get access. They found a small room. There was a single vent high in the back wall, with a small amount of debris scattered across the floor. The debris seemed to be composed almost completely of metal fragments. Irene couldn’t figure out what the room was supposed to be.

“This is disappointing,” Sophia commented. “What do you say we head back for lunch?”

“That sounds good to me,” Irene said.

“It’s amazing how many rats there were in here. Do you think they all came out of that vent?” Jake asked, as he turned to exit the room.

“I don’t know,” Sophia answered. “There isn’t anything here for them to survive on and it would be hard for them to get back up that wall to go out that vent.” After a moment of thought Sophia continued as they walked back to where they left the badgers. “I don’t understand why they are in these rooms at all. The greenspaces make sense but it does seem like with all the hunting going on there shouldn't be many left there.” Irene remembered that Sophia worked in animal culture.

“Maybe they have fled from the hunters to these spaces?” Jake hypothesized.

“That just means there should be even less in the greenspace,” Sophia observed.

“I think they are bred someplace else and released in our path,” Irene said. Both of her companions looked at her like she said something especially crazy. “What?” she said defensively.

“Released by whom?” Jake asked her.

“By the control system,” Irene replied. Her companions looked at her blankly. “There is a big computer somewhere that is running this place.” Irene could see from their expressions that they didn’t believe her. “Think about it. If every sixth room or so in this enormous structure was always filled with animals we would hear them. We would smell them,” Irene declared. At the word smell, Sophia suddenly nodded her agreement.

“So you think they arrive in the rooms shortly before we do?” Sophia asked.

“Yes. And sometimes shortly afterwards. That is what happened to the first groups when they tried to sleep in the rooms. I think at any given moment only a small area around us is populated. When we leave the unused animals get removed.” Irene replied. “Maybe they get released into the halls to become the wanderers.”

“But what would be the point?” Jake demanded.

“So that we can kill them,” Irene responded. “So that they can kill us.”