NOVEL WEB Ch.34: In Bed or The Workshop Discoveries
Leaving me alone at the table, I debated going after them but I still felt tense from that experience. Deciding to cool my head by looking over the books I picked up with Emily. The first one I checked was the one on mythics. Looking at the table of contents, finding names like; man faced lion, the Wild Deamon, the Horse of bubbles and bolts, the crimson wing, dark dragon Fachnan or Queen Devourer. These were more descriptor names and a few sounded more like folklore names, at least one was about a dragon. Turning to the dragon page I saw several images of large monsters, one looked like a big black armored lion sitting proudly with a creepy smile and another was a drawing of a unicorn shrouded in dense mist. This one even had a date on it, Apr 9, 1803, I guess some of these are super rare if they don’t have a more recent picture.
Finally finding the dragon page, I froze. It was… the same black and white picture I saw on the internet a while back. A large spiked dragon with its back turned to the camera as it towered over a small building, overlooking a rising cloud of smoke. So this dragon was called the Dark Dragon Fachnan, I was surprised that it wasn’t another dragon, it was the same one. I mean sure it has a photo of it but then that means…. Saving the page I checked the table of contents again, finding nothing else that said dragon, I even checked crimson wing only to find the griffon Emily showed me before. It was the only dragon in here.
Turning back the dragon page, I read the small intro blurb.
‘the Dark Dragon Fachnan also known as Bás Mace, was known to appear out of thin air and brutally shatter buildings and explode into spikes in the middle of populated areas. Often leaving more than half as a molten crater. Its favorite way of attacking was reported to be swinging a limb which exploded with spiked scales before impact. Survivors explained that this dragon’s scales would move and change into a forest of spikes that shot forward as if each spike had a mind of its own. Goring a target, pulling out and goring them again until ruble or a red mist was all that was left.’
That was insane! I share a world with murder machine dragons! If all dragons are like this then I could understand why people are so afraid of me, my own race was the definition of brutal. But wait a moment, I’m not like that but my instincts sure seem to be very defensive. Then maybe there has to be a reason why it did this right? but to destroy that much? I shook my head in disgust.
“I’m going to be extra careful with myself so I don’t go on the war path. I just need to know everything that might set me off…..” I said before sighing in frustration. I just gotta learn about everything about mysterious dragons and a world that has thousands of dirty things and probably thousands more hidden skeletons in the walls. I might as well try summoning universe ending primordials while I’m at it. That thought made my mind get excited for a fight of godly portions and even drawing confident smirk on my face. I rolled my eyes at that. No way am I fighting something as deadly as that!
Looking back at the book, I checked for what magic the dragon used, surprisingly all it did was use its spikes to do any damage. The book read that lots of floating mana would disappear every time its scales turned to spikes. Was it absorbing surrounding mana to do that? Or was there something else it was doing, maybe charging its body instead?
The rest of the book was just speculation on what other magic it might be able to use. Turning to the larger book I tapped my fingers on it, unsure I’ll learn anything helpful or relatable to me. Slowly opening the book I found a small intro page that mostly welcomed the reader to cultural studies of monster races and this book was meant to be used as a starting point in my monster studies. Turning the page, I saw a hefty table of contents with several sub categories. I looked around until I spotted one that seemed to be perfect first place to look, ‘Similar uses of magic between monster cultures’.
Quickly turning to the page was getting me excited, maybe I could learn more about other races that had similar mana problems? Sure there probably isn’t one on dragons but maybe something close enough in power or ability.
Finding the page, I quickly scanned the subsections to find something familiar or close to my needs. There were sections on trading body parts as a form of love, one on healing techniques, magical rites, uses of magic items, courting and marriage and another one on communicating.
“Bingo.” I said with a smile as I honed in on the communicating section.
‘Monsters have been known to communicate through either use of their mana, magic and magic tools. One of the simplest and oldest form is through a method called mana aura, which is release of mana imbued with one’s primal/physical needs. This is used as young as a fetus within its second trimester, typically in the middle to ending of the second trimester while young in eggs only communicate at the last week or days before hatching. The communication between mother and child in the womb is considered the most intimate bonding period, especially for the mother as it allows her to learn their baby’s “language” and emotionally connect to them.’
The thought of a baby talking to its mother in the womb left me a little uncomfortable. Imaging having your kid talk to you in the middle of something private like the restroom or personal time with their husband? Honestly I wasn’t sure how to feel about it, pregnancy just felt so foreign to me, especially since I’ve physically become a member of the opposite sex. Something growing inside of me, feeding off my energy and a belly bloating to a size two or three times my original size, crushing my organs or moving them out of place. The whole idea made my body pinch and feel as if I was being cut open from the inside out.
Looking further, I read something familiar, monsters share small condensed mana with those close to them. That reminded me of the marble Belle fed to his mother and his uncle, he said it was a greeting and showing love to each other. The text warned that humans cannot handle condensed mana and that it would function similar to a blockage in their bloodstream and weakening them until they die of mana desaturation. I was about to turn away in annoyance when I spotted that humans can give condensed mana to monsters. Ok, that’s not all bad but I won’t be able to connect to non-monsters? Actually would this form of communication matter when it comes to controlling my instincts? Maybe? If I had no way of talking with people then I suppose I might go nuts, trying to scream into the void.
‘Monsters can learn how to communicate with another race even if said race has specialized organs and glands. The only issue being that they would have to have relearn magic from that race of monsters to even begin to figure out this form of communication.’
Then I could learn from other monsters? Maybe I can learn some from a friend…. All I could think of was the smell of watermelons and apples, maybe I can share that with my mother and brother.
After some more reading, I took a few pictures of what I thought might be useful to do further research on and anything hinting to other applications, especially in careers that use it. I did the same with the reptile monster biology after reading about sharing heat, I really like the idea of staying warm, actually I wouldn’t mind if it got a little warmer now that I think about it.
I cringed the reason why fatty tails where attractive and even more when I discovered that certain reptile races could be smaller or larger based on physical sex. There was even a picture of a large male snake person called a naga who dwarfed a female naga by an extra three feet! Apparently they evolved to be larger to scare off rival nagas and to store more energy for sex. I turned away when it mentioned how long female nagas had sex…. Why is there a record for two months! Looking back I found an old legend underneath that which stated their hero lords were gone for two years…. All naga dream of achieving half a year in respe- god why are naga so fucking horny! How the hell are they not ripping off their body parts! No. Not even going to pollute my mind with the actual why.
I found another reptile race grew feathers which it flushed with blood and mana to produce a hypnotic magic to scare opponents and stun prey from escaping. Huh, that’s kinda cool, like a peacock but it has a functional use beyond getting a girl.
Later that day as I was making my way to the exit I heard some shouting down the left hallway, it sounded almost like a preacher, if one had a cute almost moaning like voice.
“We must stand together! Holding firm the beliefs our ancestors brought with them into this new world. Regardless how the world may seem, there are murky depths yet to be exposed to the naïve public! The eyes of human and monster alike only settle for what is served to them instead of asking if our primitive and base thoughts are warranted for change!” shouted the voice in wild anger.
Deciding to ignore it, I kept walking to the exit only to be hit with an odd feeling of anger. My mind was seething pure rage!
“Beware the orange menace that tries to bind you with fear! She is nothing but a seducing devil that flaunts her power over us all. Leading even me to taste sin in the public eye!” ragged the voice.
But as I walked into view of the hallway, the shouting stopped as if sucking in her voice as if death was here. I looked down the hall to see only an open door with a sign hanging on it that read, ‘Meeting of the light, Church of Chevalier D’OR’ Oh! These WERE the guys who were putting up posters about me. My blood burned as I smiled at this little discovery. I was so happy I could meet them before they could spew more bile from the holes they called mouths. “HEHEHEHEH.” I can finally end this before it became worse!
But before I could make my move, someone called out to me. “Hey Oliver! I was hoping to run into you!” called Mark down the opposite hall.
My mind was screaming to ignore him and quiet these bugs for making me look dirty! But I realized that I was letting my instincts take control again and knew where that would lead me. The shouting in my head didn’t relent, it felt like it was dragging me forwards causing me to clench my fist, stabbing my palm with the tips of my claws. It felt as if long metal nails were slowly pushed into my hand, the pain was enough to shut up my angry instincts. I wanted to apologize to Jaque for failing to use his calming technique but I didn’t have the time to use it.
Turning away, I walked over to Mark while my mind was growling like an annoyed animal. Please just be friendly with me, I’ll figure out something to blow off steam.
“I was hoping you could help me out with something back home.” He said with a big smile.
“No I’m not doing a photo shoot for your ‘collection’.“ I said bluntly as I crossed my arms.
Mark’s smile dropped into a tight frown and his eyes looked shaky before he chuckled nervously. “hahaha. Damn and I thought I had the perfect cutie too.” He said in a forced voice and a smirk. Normally he would try to avoid admitting stuff like this unless…
“Ok, so what do you actually need?” I asked raising an eyebrow.
“My mana glasses we made together stopped working. And so…. I was hoping you could help out?” he asked, rubbing his head like he was asking mom to beat a hard boss.
“Mark, I don’t think I can help. My new body might end up super charging it into a nuke or maybe make them release the same kind of mana I release somehow.” I said in annoyance and giving a pouty face without realizing it.
“I-I… uh ehm, I was more hoping for your weird moments of super clarity?” he said with a nervous voice and a red cheeks.
“My what now?” I asked not paying attention to why he was blushing. I leaned back with a confused face while Mark instantly tried to look away from me, almost his whole face was red.
“Hey, you’re the one who called it that… be-besides, it’s weird saying it out loud.” He said looking at the ceiling. “I’m hoping you could help me with the concept coding.” He added as he fidgeted with his wrist watch.
I wasn’t sure how I could help or what the heck super clarity was. Was… the Oliver of this world a third grader mentally? I would never do anything so embarrassing in front of someone. For some reason my mind felt proud and smug at that thought, it was even laughing in agreement. As annoying as it was at least my instincts wasn’t grumpy anymore. “I don’t know Mark, there’s no guarantee that I’ll be hit with the same flash of intuition.” I lied in an attempt to get out of this strange situation.
Mark’s face instantly snapped back to me with a really determined face. “Please come and just look at it. Maybe you’ll realize something or point out a flaw in them. I really need the money to get a new part for my PC.” He pleaded. “Without it then I might as well say good bye to my dream of being an animator.” He said looking down at the floor.
“That’s a lot of hope riding on something that might not happen twice.” I said bluntly. But at the same time this reminded me how quiet my Mark became when he couldn’t go to an art college, he was like that for a few months. He eventually cried and shouted that he used our high school’s computers to make an animation but was denied. “Fine… I’ll look at it but I can’t promise anything.” I told him with a stern face. I wasn’t going to let him slip down the same road if I could help it, you’re going to reach that dream of yours and you will succeed!
With that we left for his house, on the way there he explained that this new part would make his PC process information and somehow store more information than his seven external drives put together. I wasn’t sure how it did that, I never got into building computers or any of the technical things computers and consoles used but it sounded like it could do multiple things at once. It also seemed it would save him more time then help him reach his goal. But he explained that this would allow him to edit and produce animations faster for his WuuTube channel meaning he could begin and end projects sooner.
“Alright let’s make magic happen!” He said in an excited voice as he walked up to the front door of his three story house.
It looked like weird mixture of traditional European home, cobble stone foundations and wood going across the faces in a grid. But there was the use of large glass window on the third floor and low angle roofing of a modern home. It looked like someone took a small mansion and cut it in half to build a modern home on top of it.
I was dumbstruck. He was rich! My Mark wasn’t that well off, just barely making middle class on a good day. Why the hell does he need to make money if he’s rich!? Don’t rich people just live off the stock market or passive money?
Walking into the house was even more surprising, instead of a spacious and clean looking entrance, I saw bags, boxes stacked on top of each other and clothes just laying around on tables or chairs. I think there’s even a plate of unfinished food sitting on a coffee table, looks like pizza if they only ate the cheese. Looking at Mark I saw his face twist into what looked like anger.
“Damn it Abby!” He grumbled in annoyance before turning back to me. “Sorry about the mess. It was the walking calamity’s turn to clean up today.” He told me while clutching his face in embarrassment. “But it looks more like she made a mess instead!” Mark said in anger. “Aahh! Alright let’s just go to my dad’s workshop in the garage. I don’t have time to deal with miss hurricane and her stupid ass.” He grumbled while leading me down the hall.
We eventually found ourselves in a large garage converted into a workshop. There were workbenches with metal clamps, one even had large drills with glowing drill bits while the walls had tools small and large hanging on them. There were familiar tools like screwdrivers, small hammers and saws but then there were rows of flashlight looking rods, small scraping wire tools bent into zig-zag shapes and even a giant hair comb with electricity zapping between the teeth. Off on the other side of the wall was a transparent plastic cover (?) it covered the top of a table and a few stands with clamps inside it. The odd thing was how bright it was in here, it was as if the garage door was left open but it wasn’t open, the light came from cone shaped ceiling lights.
My mind really wanted to stand underneath it for some reason and curiosity got the better of me as I walked under one and put my arm under its light. My crystal scales on the top of my arm glowed as if housing a sci-fi electro ball generator in the middle of them. My arm felt a lot stronger while my muscles moved with complete ease and the longer I kept my arm under the light the more I felt excited and jumpy, it was like I downed twelve gallons of pure caffeine! I couldn’t help it as I began to move my arm in a wave motion while moving my fingers up and down…I may or may not have begun to quietly make beam sword sounds as I moved my arm.
“Whoa! That’s amazing!” Mark said as he watched my crystal scales absorb the light. “I knew mana lamps were good for enchanting but I didn’t think they would have this kind of effect! Your weird scales are holding or collecting the mana, this could actually help with my problem!” he said as he got closer to try and grab my arm. But just before he could examine my arm, I pulled it away in annoyance, making Mark give me a sad puppy face. “What’s wrong? This might even help me develop better glasses.” He asked in confusion.
“I don’t know, you didn’t ask to touch me.” I said being standoffish. I wasn’t going to let him call my scales weird and then use them. Only I can call my body weird because it’s me doing it, besides, weird as it is to have a body like this one. I’ve started to realize how useful its strength is. Being too weak to move an easy to move stick pissed me off, being strong made me feel better about myself.
“Oliver, come on man stop being a bi-“ Mark began before catching himself. I looked at him raising an eyebrow, I wanted to see what he said next, if he deserved to even look upon my splendor in respect or fear. “Sorry…” he said looking away. “My sister acts like that sometimes and it gets on my… could I please see your glowy scales?” He finally asked me while scratching his neck. Wow, the fact he went with an apology made me flash a smile as I lowered my arm so he could examine it.
“For future reference, don’t call my body weird unless I say it's ok.” I said coolly, setting a boundary to respect.
“Oh! Right!” Mark said in realization. “The last thing I’d want is my best friend to call me weird if I just converged, I’ll keep that in mind.” He said looking me with a frown. “Now let’s see what’s waiting to be discovered within your super charged scales.” He said leaning in closer to my arm.
“What exactly are you hoping to do?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how this could help solve his enchanted glasses problem. I wasn’t even sure if this was similar to whatever this super clarity gave to Mark.
“I wanted to see if the mana you’ve stored in your scales differs from what’s around us. Maybe looks different?” He said while keeping his eyes on my larger scales. I waited for more info but he was lost in his study of my scales, leaving me little idea what importance that had.
“And?” I asked as he fell silent again.
“hmmm…….. Oh! Uh, because an enchanter’s glasses lets me see mana easier instead of having to use magic to enhance our sight…..if your scales also make mana appear visible then I’d just need to copy them.” He responded with a smile.
“But they’re glowing like mana ore, shouldn’t a cluster of energy that dense be visible to the naked eye?” I asked in confusion. Wasn’t large amounts of energy always visible in sci-fi and fantasy series?
“You can only see the energy because the ore is acting like a specialized lens
“That’s because mana ores are made with a combo of mana and crushing pressure…. The mana becomes part of the ore forcing the minerals crystalize as if it was a gas. I guess a simple way to see it would be the crystal lets us see mana.” He said with a larger grin. “And it looks like your crystal scales work the same way!” he shouted in joy before grabbing my arm in both hands.
“Wait! What about that coding?” I asked as he trembled with excitement to the point he began to jump around.
“Fuck that work around! If I can make lenses that mimic your crystal scales then we’re hitting the stars!” He said sounding like he was cloud nine. “With this I can probably make better enchanted items to sell and smirk as I leave my father in my dust!” He added before rushing over to a nearby table to grab a small circular clamp that he attached to his phone camera, looking at it as he turned around, it looked like a microscope attachment.
He began taking pictures of both my arms, focusing on the powered and unpowered scales. I mentally shook my head at this, I ended up a model anyway.
“I think I might have a working prototype by Saturday but could you please come over so I can fine tune it?” he asked with a nervous smile and excited eyes. He obviously knew my answer.
“Sure why not.” I said with a smirk. “I’m excited to see how these dragon googles come out.” I said in a teasing voice.
