168, 2/2

The generalized magic conversion array was located at House Platinum, in a room just off to the side of the foyer, with Patriarch Rial Plat there to introduce the device and explain its functionality. Darabella seemed perfectly capable of doing this, too, and soon, she was discussing the item with Rial, as Erick asked questions, and poked around at the item.

He could have spent days playing around with the array, but Erick contented himself to a half an hour and a bunch of poignant questions, for the system was about four times more complicated than it appeared.

Overall, the array was a set of ten nested gold rings, with the largest a meter across and welded directly onto a splash of possibly-gold metallic crystal that resembled giant quartz, but in metal. The crystal might have been a rare form of fool’s gold, but Erick had no idea; it wasn’t runed, whatever it was, but it did seem to have some sort of anomalous effect on the rest of the system.

The largest golden ring did not move, for it was affixed, but the nine smaller concentric rings did move, each of them freely rotating within the system, slipping left and right as they were wont to achieve the effect in the center of the system, which was to give birth to a baby metal slime. The type of slime produced varied a little, but usually they were iron slimes. Erick was told that the slimes usually only survived for about an hour without iron ore to mine from cave walls, but this system was defunct these days, and the Slime Spawner was more of a relic than an artifact. They had transitioned away from using iron slimes to mine for iron long, long ago. Usually, they simply traded with Homeland, the goblin capital city, for their iron needs.

This sparked a small, enthusiastic conversation from Erick about how he had seen and moved one of their Iron Beasts just the other day. Rial explained that the iron-fungus farming beasts were about a hundred times better at farming for iron than slimes, and you didn’t end up with accidental iron oozes with the goblins’ system. Iron oozes were not nearly as nice as platinum oozes apparently were; that revaluation on the city hall steps had been a large oddity to Rial, too.

But back to the Slime Spawner.

Spellwork of any basic kind, from [Force Bolt] to [Alter Size], went into the exterior ring, and then flowed through some ethereal connector runes to the next ring, where various other runes shifted the meaning of the power flowing into them, and then flowed that new shaped power into the next smaller ring. This flowing process repeated, with spellwork shifting more and more into the desired shapes and meanings, with each ring rotating as needed to facilitate the flow and shift, until the magic met in the middle ring. When anywhere from 900 to 1500 magic power flowed through the system, a metal slime would be born in the center.

“Variations in requirements are mostly due to the environment.” Rial said, “The cleaner the environment, the less mana required. Slimes are a result of bacteria turning monstrous, and most bacteria aren’t capable of becoming monstrous, so this is to be expected.”

Erick smiled upon hearing that. He teased the dryly sarcastic man, “That’s a theory that isn’t fully accepted by the Arcanaeum Consortium, Rial.”

“There are a great many things we do that aren’t accepted by the Arcanaeum Consortium,” Rial deadpanned.

Erick laughed, then turned back to the system, saying, “This is truly remarkable. I barely understand how it works, but I’m beginning to.” A question struck him. “You don’t make gold slimes, or osmium slimes, to help mine for those metals?”

Rial said, “Feel free to copy this system and adjust for those metals, if you wish. We’ll buy such a system from you for a good price.”

Darabella asked the question Erick was about to ask, “You’ve never had luck with gold or osmium spawners? After all this time?”

“We’ve failed every time, my dear,” Rial said.

The spinning rings and the flowing magic were a lot to try and understand, but Erick managed to figure out most of it. Superficially, anyway. He’d have to make one of these himself to see if he truly knew what he was doing.

Erick gave his thanks to Rial, and they moved on.

– – – –

Darabella smiled wide as she stood in front of the machine, saying, “Now this one! This one is the most impressive runic machine I have ever seen.”

Jalrock smirked, saying, “If only it didn’t break down every single time.”

“It certainly looks like it could break down every single time,” Erick said.

They had moved to House Slate, and then to a storage shed away from the main house, and past several protective runic webs. Inside of a room dedicated solely to it, sat a marvel of runic engineering known as the Sliding System. Whatever it was, it was very large and way too complicated. Compared to the ring system of the slime generator, the Sliding System was literally centuries ahead in rune tech.

There were rings of various sizes and configurations floating or locked in place here and there. There were floating plates, etched with singular runes, hovering in the vicinity of the rings. Pillars of rotating runes rose here and there among the system. There was a book of runes with metal pages, and then off to the left there was a small shelf of paper books. A boiler, for some strange reason. And, above all, a fuck ton of gears and belts and otherwise, holding it all together.

The most prominent feature, though, was a square meter of black metal that acted as a screen, fastened to the front of the machine, and the keyboard with runic keys that jutted out from below the screen.

Darabella looked to Jalrock, asking, “Do you mind if I explain…?”

“Go ahead.” Jalrock gestured to the machine, saying, “You’re as good with this as I am.”

Darabella giggled a little—

Which caused Jane to roll her eyes.

—and she then walked closer to the machine, explaining, “The overall direction-of-intent of the Sliding System’s runic structure is primarily based on [Identify]. The end-effect is similar to what you get with an identinomicon, but with an important difference. This system doesn’t query your own mind or a set of enchanted books to help you find the answers to your questions. It questions magic, itself.”

Erick was not the only one to have his focus suddenly narrowed down to the machine sitting in front of them. Nirzir gasped. Teressa huffed a disbelieving laugh. Erick’s mind instantly went to the fact that Melemizargo and the mana were basically the same thing, so was this machine querying that Dark God? But then Jane spoke up first.

Jane said, “Ask it about [Gate].”

That was a good question, too.

Darabella’s good mood took a small dive. She very much understood that Jane did not like her on a personal level, so that explained some of Darabella’s response, but there was more to that new, sad look than simple dislike. Whatever the case, Darabella recovered fast enough, saying, “It breaks with the large questions.”

“Of course it does,” Jane muttered.

Feeling more secure, Darabella continued, “The Sliding System breaks down all the time, with runes and breakers burning out as the first stage of breakdown; the steel flowways melt and this is by design. Or at least those flowways are supposed to break down before the rest of the machine. Sometimes they don’t break like they should, and then the machine is down for a while.”

Erick asked, “Is it a problem of money?”

Because he would supply large amounts of money if this machine actually did what Darabella said it could do. He had a few questions he wanted to ask ‘the mana’. ‘Why did the mana drag him and his daughter to Veird’, was just a start.

Jalrock spoke up, “A full repair costs more than money. Some of these materials are hard to replace, and some of the deeper mechanisms are impossible to replicate, for the people who made them are no longer alive and we have no one capable of working in some of these designs.”

Darabella nodded, saying, “Hence the flowways breaking down before those important parts.”

Erick asked, “What sort of questions are allowed?”

“Questions on the nature of magic are very dangerous; don’t do that.” Darabella happily said, “But everything else is an option! The closer you are —physically, metaphysically, whatever— to the subject of your question, the easier it is for the machine to answer you. Questions about specifics are difficult. Questions about specific locations are difficult. Questions about the future are difficult. Questions that have nebulous answers are difficult. But down the other path: Questions about the past are easy. Questions about nebulous locations are easy. Philosophical answers are sometimes wildly difficult, causing the machine to break down rather instantly. But sometimes the answer is simple. Asking ‘What is the meaning of life’ will get you ‘what you make of it’, almost every time.” She smiled, then said, “A bad question is, ‘Who or what will cause the most difficulty in my life, going forward?’ This one is way too nebulous to get you a good answer because, by answering that question, it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and then you get a feedback loop. A good question is, ‘What killed so-and-so.’…” She paused. She said, “That one usually gives you a direction to find out the real answers, but sometimes that doesn’t work, either.” She looked to Erick, saying, “You should treat the Sliding System as a way to narrow down possibilities. To give directions. Not to give a true answer.” Darabella looked to Jalrock. “Anything you want to add?”

Jalrock spoke up, “It’s based on Elemental Book, like [Identify]. Treat it like a very elaborate identinomicon which is able to temporarily enchant the very world itself, or at least this small part of it. This includes the user. So the more receptive you are to the idea that the system works, the easier it will work.” He asked, “Any idea what you’d like to ask it? We might have already asked whatever you’re thinking about.”

Erick had already considered the possible questions, but hearing all of the caveats narrowed down his options to a single one. He said, “Perhaps, ‘How can I make this machine work better?’.”

Darabella smiled brightly. “It breaks down instantly.”

“We’ve tried that one a few times.” Jalrock offered, “You could try one of our beginner questions?” He went over to the machine and plucked the metal book out of its slot near the keyboard. The ‘book’ couldn’t have been more than ten metal pages long, but it was made of rustless steel and bound in the same. He handed it over, saying, “That’s the Sliding System diagram and general question booklet.”

Erick flipped open the book and read for a few seconds, before flipping through the rest of it and rapidly understanding all of it.

He closed the book, and said, “This doesn’t explain why it’s called the ‘Sliding System’, either.”

Darabella spoke up, “Oh! I can answer— Uh. Jalrock? You want to answer?”

Jalrock smirked, saying, “You go ahead.”

Darabella wasted no time in getting right down to it, saying, “Spatial Magics play a large part of the Sliding System, in that the ‘sliding’ of the system is how it shifts through various possibilities to arrive at a proper answer.” She gestured to the bookshelf, saying, “That bookshelf sometimes gains or loses books based on how the system ‘slides’ through various Realities in its search for answers. The bookshelf is only the most prominent example of a ‘slide’, though. Everything shifts through Realities if you look closely enough. Thus, it is called the ‘Sliding System’.”

Teressa stared, focusing her mana sense even further, to try and understand what she was looking at. And she wasn’t the only one. Jane flickered some light here and there, looking for herself, while Nirzir stood on her tippy toes to get a better view of some of the parts.

Erick was even more impressed. “So it’s literally sliding through Realities to find answers?”

“Yes; but with a lot of caveats.” Darabella said, “Near-Realities better than further Realities. The further the Sliding System goes the more it breaks. Some answers are factual and recorded in the books the system slides into its shelves, though, so those come easier than others. Some answers require deep scans through subjective Reality in order to find factual realities with answers. Some answers are factual throughout all Realities, so these are the easiest to answer; it doesn’t have to slide far at all.”

Jalrock said, “It’s all terribly complicated and that book doesn’t explain any of it in depth. This is why we can’t repair it easily if something large breaks.”

Erick hummed, then asked, “So why can’t it answer about [Gate]? [Gate] is Spatial Magic, too. And I know a lot about Spatial Magic, as well.”

Darabella looked hopeful, but she kept her hopes small, and she looked to Jalrock.

Jalrock was deeply nervous, with a cold sweat breaking out across the otherwise-stoic man’s body. And then he collected himself, swallowed, and said, “If you want to ask about [Gate], go ahead.”

“… But that would break the machine.” Erick said, “Nevermind that one, then. I have a better question.”

Darabella said, “Then to ask it, all you have to do is type in the question using this rune matrix and then we wait. An answer usually takes five minutes to appear.”

Erick stepped forward—

Jane asked, “What are you going to ask?”

Nirzir was locked in mana sensing the machine, studying how it worked, but at recognizing that the talking had resolved her quiet desperation erupted out of her mouth, “What about questions of love? Could I ask the machine who I’m going to marry, and if I will love him?”

All eyes turned to Nirzir.

“What! It’s a perfectly reasonable question with far-reaching political consequences.” The young woman stood her ground, saying, “If necessary, Void Song will pay for the use of this machine, after Archmage Flatt has had his turn. We can pay for the repairs of most damage.” She added, “If this machine can actually do what you say it can do.”

Erick glanced from Nirzir to Jalrock—

Jalrock got the hint, and took Nirzir’s question seriously, saying, “Questions of love are too nebulous so they strain the machine more than most, especially when younger people are involved. But I can tell you that the machine responds favorably to such questions, in that it always answers the question —though poorly— and then breaks in the same way, which is easy to repair.” He pointed to a set of parallel lines of steel in the back of the machine, clearly visible under lightwards. “That’s the main breaker. Questions of love break the first three, and the books in the library sometimes have to be replaced alongside a retrofitting of many smaller parts. Such a repair is usually between 15,000 to 17,000 gold, but such questions do get answered.” He stressed, “No one has ever been satisfied with their answer, though.”

“Ah.” Nirzir said, “I will have to think on this.” And then she stepped back; satisfied for now.

Enough dilly dallying.

Erick went up to the machine and began hunting and pecking at the Ancient Script keyboard. It didn’t take long for him to begin touch-typing and for everyone else in the room to suddenly tense, as they read. Letters began to appear in the air atop the screen, flowing out from the right-hand side toward the left. When Erick hit the question mark key, the whole sentence flashed in white light.

“What are the things I must know about Enduring Forge to gain a good outcome for this step of the Worldly Path?”

If he couldn’t ask about [Gate], directly, then perhaps if he broke it down into parts, then that would be acceptable. A hint or two about Enduring Forge, itself, would also be nice. Jalrock’s paling face betrayed his worry that the people of Enduring Forge had fucked up and made Erick feel unwelcome, but there might have been some worry over the machine’s ability to handle the question, too. Darabella’s almost-manic grin as she stared at the workings of the machine told him that his question was too large, but it was comfortably large; she might not have cared about the question itself, but she certainly wanted to know how it affected the machine. Erick found he liked that about her; Darabella loved her specific brand of magic and runework, and in that frame of mind, she was very willing to break things to see how they worked.

… Erick looked to Jane, too. His daughter seemed to be interested in the question, as well, but her glances at Darabella betrayed how deeply unhappy she was about the woman.

Well. Whatever.

Erick gazed upon the machine and hoped he had asked the right question.

The machine whirred. Gears turned. Fans caught magic, then began spinning up, faster and faster, their spellwork catching ambient mana and flowing it across the rest of the system—

Huh! The machine used ambient mana for something! Interesting! First time seeing that, thought Erick. He would likely be dissecting everything he saw here for many days to come, but for now, amid all the small, building noises of the Sliding System, came one noise in particular that gave Erick pause. He heard music, and there were no musical instruments or machines in the Sliding System’s workings.

So where was—

The manasphere was singing, and Erick wasn’t the only one that could hear it.

Nirzir whispered, “You hear that, right? Erick? The music?”

Jalrock looked to Nirzir. “What?”

“She hears what I’m hearing, and yes, I can hear it, too.” Erick watched as the letters on the screen flickered and faded from sight, yet remained in the ethereal illusions of the manasphere, transforming from reality to Reality, before being sucked into the screen then into the workings of the machine. “There’s a song. A chorus.”

“I can’t make out the words.” Nirzir said, “But I think they’re speaking… Of Fate? Maybe. Not sure.”

Darabella’s breath hitched. She briefly glanced at Erick and Nirzir but then she turned her attention back to the machine, searching for answers that only she might see or understand.

“I’d call it ‘Of searching through possibility’,” Erick said.

“Oh! Yeah. I could see that,” Nirzir said.

Erick said, “But ‘searching through possibility’ is almost the same as calling it ‘Fate Magic’, anyway. Don’t think there’s much of a difference.”

Jalrock stared at his family’s machine, asking, “It’s Fate Magic?”

Darabella gave a great big gasp. “Of course it’s Fate Magic! That’s the piece we’re missing to properly repair it all!” Darabella laughed loud, as though she had a few questions of her own answered tonight. “Fate Magic is basically Spatial Magic but by another name!”

Something had clicked in Darabella’s mind, which then clicked in Erick’s mind, too.

“Huh.” Erick said, “I suppose you could say tha—”

The machine had been whirring up, going faster and faster, but like a switch had been thrown, it began to slow. The black screen flashed.

Darabella whispered, “Oh. That was fast.”

Words began to form in the air above the black metal as the shadows in the room seemed to lengthen. No one noticed the shadows moving except for Erick, and they weren’t coming from Jane, so there could only be one other source.

Everyone else was focused on the screen, though.

“You have found what you needed to find, but now comes a choice. Slower, or faster. If you hesitate, the decision will be taken from you.”

“Huh,” Erick uttered, unsure.

The weight of those words hit hard.

First came the notion that the machine was stronger in Erick’s presence, since he was currently wrapped in the Fate Magic of the Path, and the Sliding Machine worked off of Fate Magic. Maybe something was happening there in that meeting of forces. But this was only a passing idea, only evident by the speed at which the answer was given, and that the machine hadn’t broken at all in order to churn out its answer.

A corollary to the first notion was that Melemizargo was up to Shenanigans. But Erick ignored that, for now. He was always up to shit.

Second, came the idea that someone was actually controlling the machine from elsewhere, and that this was all an elaborate ‘smoke and mirrors’ routine. (This ‘someone’ was not Melemizargo in this scenario.) This was probably false; the machine was probably working exactly as advertised. Not only could Erick see the vast amounts of power flowing through the runes of the machine, but based on the pure emotions coming off of Jalrock and Darabella, they could both either be in on the ruse, or this machine had actually surprised them, too. He got the impression that it had surprised both of them in the past, many times, as well. Erick chose to believe the machine was not purposefully lying to him, and that there was no one pulling any strings except for him, and possibly Fate.

Third…

Erick read the answer again. The answer seemed to imply that he wasn’t capable of leaving the Path right now. He could only go faster, or slower. If he did nothing, the choice would be taken from him. Settling down in Enduring Forge and simply forgetting about [Gate] was apparently, implicitly, not an option.

Not ten seconds after Erick had gotten his answer, before anyone could say much about it at all, Erick went to the machine and pressed the runes for ‘erase board’. He ignored Jalrock’s aborted attempt to slow him down, and typed out another question. Everyone else watched, transfixed.

“Which option results in fewer deaths; slower, or faster?”

If him asking a second question was ‘hesitating’, then so be it. Erick wasn’t about to be shoved around by the words of a machine, and especially not if those words were actually coming from Melemizargo.

Darabella giggled a little, nervous, as she read the question and the machine whirred back to life. Light flashed. Books shifted in the shelf without moving at all, becoming different sets, and then flashing back to what they were before. Shadows and magic crawled through the machine, flowing along gears and inside runes like iridescent oil.

Erick had seen many types of magic before, but this one here was the first to make him freak out more than a little. This was actual fate fuckery, here. This seemed like true reality-bending. It made him a bit giddy, if he was being honest with himself.

He liked it.

The first breaker flash-fried, sending sparks flying as a gear snapped on the left side of the machine and then the next three breakers blew like a transformer struck by lightning. Sparks showered the room. Most everyone flinched and covered their faces, except for Erick and Jane.

Jalrock rushed to the machine, to flip a main breaker—

“Let it ride,” Erick said. “Please.”

Jalrock warred with himself, briefly, and then he stepped away from the break—

The machine began powering down. Jalrock almost collapsed to his knees in relief, muttering about how thankful he was to all the bright gods that it had stopped.

A readout printed:

“All options pale in comparison to each other, depending on where you stand. But those options are no longer yours to influence. You hesitated. Now all you can do is ride the dragon.”

Everyone else felt doom and gloom upon their shoulders, for sure.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

But Erick laughed at the proclamation, saying, “Ah! That’s fun.” He turned to Jalrock. “Thank you for this diversion. I completely believe that your Sliding System works as advertised, but the world’s best Prognosticators already find me infuriating, so… Whatever!” He turned to Darabella. “Let’s go see the next machine?”

Darabella was a bit pale, but she mustered herself, and gave assent.

There were a few more small pleasantries between everyone, with Erick thanking Jalrock for showing him the Sliding System, and Jalrock back to being his overly-pleasant self, but with an undercurrent of apprehension that wasn’t there before. Nirzir spoke to Jalrock about repairing the machine, and he gave her a quote which seemed high to Erick, but Nirzir was fine with it.

Soon enough, Erick and his people were out of House Slate and onto the next location.

– – – –

House Largerock showed off some ‘runic locks’ that served as blocking nodes among the runic webs that stretched inside the five different platforms of Enduring Forge. These were the heavily inscribed items that transferred wanted power, like wardlights and [Envelop Item], while also preventing unwanted power from traveling along the runic web, like tampering [Fireball]s, or any other manner of damaging spellwork.

Erick spent a good hour there with Darabella and the people of Largerock, talking over how the system actually worked. Nirzir even got into it a bit, going so far as to request whether it was possible or not to get Enduring Forge to come to Eralis, to see about securing some runic webs for themselves. House Largerock gave some small promises to open talks with Eralis and with Clan Void Song about possible runic webs, but nothing as of right now. They were hesitant to offer anything more than that, since this stuff was integral to the defense of their own lands, but they’d bring up the topic with the other houses at their next meetings. They would have a better answer for her at that time.

Erick thanked them for their help, and moved on to the last stop for the night.

– – – –

Scion Yarlinnia Whitesteel greeted Erick at the gate to mansion Whitesteel.

Darabella was back to being on edge, for Yarlinnia did not like her, and the feeling was mutual. Erick was not here for the drama, though, so he had mostly ignored everything about Yarlinnia, even if he knew he shouldn’t. Yarlinnia seemed like a perfectly nice woman, too; she wasn’t haughty and her voice was perfectly sincere. But Erick was here for the Arcane Attuner, and not to get involved in whatever was going on between the two women.

The Arcane Attuner promised to be even more transformational than the Slime Spawner Erick had seen back at House Platinum. This machine, according to Yarlinnia, could transform normal [Ward] power into a Solid Ward of varying strength, size, and shape. Marvelous! Simply marvelous! The possible applications of such a working could not be understated, with most applications falling under the umbrella of ‘defense for the commoner’.

If only the 1 mana to 1000 mana conversion problem could be fixed. Or at least lessened. 1 to 10 would be great. 1 to 100… Less than ideal, but good enough. 1 to 500 was as good as they had ever gotten it, though, but that was only for perfectly cast [Ward]s imbued into the machine. 1 to 1000 was much more normal, and the point was to have any mana be used to fill up the Solid Ward; not just [Ward]. Not everyone had the spell [Ward], anyway, and even fewer people could cast it well.

Yarlinnia gestured down the third hallway since the entrance, saying, “Just a few more hallways. Sorry about the positioning. We’ve been stolen from before and my great grandfather—” She gestured to a painting on the wall, among a bunch of others. “That’s him. He got disgusted with people stealing from him, so he made all our runic devices welded into the actual house. They’re a lot harder to steal these days.”

Darabella scowled at Erick’s side, holding back some sort of remark.

There was a reason they were going down this hallway, for sure. There were other hallways to get to the Arcane Attuner, but this hallway had paintings, and Yarlinnia wanted to show them off without showing them off. And for good reason. She wanted to fuck with Darabella.

Several of those paintings held the images of a man that Erick had seen before, in the paintings of Darabella’s house. The man was Yarlinnia’s brother, and also Darabella’s late husband.

If the quality of the various paintings was not indication enough that they were the same person, it was hard not to notice when Darabella’s heart beat hard when glanced at the first such painting, and then when she purposefully did not look at the rest. Yarlinnia certainly noticed Darabella’s reaction, too; she had planned this.

The two of them did not hate each other because of some noble/commoner tiff, but because Darabella had married Yarlinnia’s brother, and then the brother had died, and Yarlinnia blamed Darabella for that death. Yarlinnia hated Darabella, and she was simply waiting to drive in the knife, as soon as Darabella gave her an opening. Darabella had yet to give her that opening, but she was getting close, for sure.

Erick tried to shift the conversation away from the building confrontation, asking, “So that’s why everything in these other rooms is wrapped in steel bars inscribed with anti-[Metalshape] runes? All of it looks very interesting, though.”

Yarlinnia gave a small, professional grin, as she said, “If you see anything in particular that catches your eye, let me know. We have much more than the Arcane Attuner to show.”

Before Erick could answer—

Darabella spoke, “How about the Teleporting Pads? He might be interested in those.”

There was a hidden edge to Darabella’s words, and Yarlinnia briefly looked like a woman about to enact her long-awaited vengeance. She had prepared, and now she would pounce.