An Unbound Soul

I stood in front of the target once more. And once more, Kari was standing a long way behind me, a fact which didn't exactly fill me with confidence. This time we'd not used a bracelet, but Remous had produced a single seriously intricate mythril chain-mail glove, which I wore over the top of my armour on my left hand. Apparently, using mythril made it a lot easier to work with fine details, which made my rings look even poorer by comparison. Then again, the quality rating of forty-one informed me that Remous had bought the rank three [Expert Smithing], so he did have two whole ranks over me.

As wasteful as it was to use mythril without even bothering with an enchantment, this did mean the crystals could be mounted on my fingers, making it easier to aim without getting my own hand in the way. Besides, maybe I could get a comfort enchantment on them later, so they'd last for longer before I needed to get them enlarged as I grew. Whatever would the Grover from a year ago say if he knew that a small-village smith had used up a significant chunk of mythril on a kid's experiment...

Anyway, musings on wastefulness aside, it was time to once again risk life and limb. Determined to take at least some precautionary measures, I activated my physical buffs in advance. Then I held my hand forward, traced the lightning affinity mana through the air, and beamed ecstatically as an arc of electricity jumped from my hand to the target. Success!

I kept it up for a few seconds before I went to inspect the target, Kari running up to join me. The wooden target was scorched, but not destroyed, broken or on fire. So, better than nothing, but I wasn't sure how much damage it would do to high-level targets. I could add more crystals, but these ten were already stretching my mana control. It would be something to try when I ranked up and picked up the rank three version of [Greater Mana Control], but it was beyond me for now.

That evening, I made a celebratory meal for Kari and Remous. And my own family, of course; Mum's baby bump was getting more obvious each time I visited, so I figured she'd appreciate an evening off. Disturbingly, I was still getting a feeling of unease each time I thought about getting a sibling. I had no idea where that feeling was coming from, and it was worrying me, but for now I kept it to myself. There was absolutely no reason for it as far as I could see, so no point in worrying my parents too.

Ironically, despite all the earlier joking about my inability to cook, as of last week, I'd become one of the best chefs in the village. [Basic Crafting] covered cooking, and at the effective level of thirteen, it was higher than anyone here could possibly get without taking the [Cook] class. Not that I told Dad that; I let him stew in fear of the toxic sludge he thought I'd be serving to everyone. Everyone else was in on the joke, and kept needling him, which I found rather more hilarious than I probably should have. Apparently, food related practical jokes on my dad had become something of a tradition for me.

The next day, I headed back to Dawnhold to try out my new toy in the dungeon. Halfway there, and after a careful check that there was no-one anywhere nearby, I made an attempt at using it alongside my active mana perception. Predictably, it didn't work. Tracing all the pathways while also keeping the ambient mana moving was beyond me, and while I could just about manage it using a lesser number of crystals, the moving mana disrupted my pathways and resulted in me shocking myself again unless I was trying to hit something at very close range. That was a problem; the tenth floor boss chamber had assassins, so I'd need to use active mana perception.

It was irritating that training wouldn't help. My [Greater Mana Control] was almost maxed out, and I'd soon hit a hard limit where no amount of practice would improve my ability to handle mana until I took a rank three mage class. That wasn't how training was supposed to work; if I did something day in and day out, I should become a master of it without having to take specific classes and buy skills. Stupid System. Of course, without the System I probably wouldn't be able to control mana at all; without System skills, I now had the equivalent of a high level [Mana Sense], but I still couldn't do anything with the mana. That didn't make it any less annoying, though.

Reaching the dungeon, I found my lightning melted through the first floor boss. On the second floor, it somehow seemed even more effective, despite the higher levelled goblins. When I stepped onto the third and my skin started prickling again, I finally realised how stupid I was being. The dungeon had higher ambient mana. With each additional floor, my crystals grew more effective and going much further would cause me to self destruct again. That was something I really should have thought of, and if it wasn't for the dimly glowing walls, it would have been obvious; I'd already heard that the light crystals used in darker dungeons needed to use configurable shades to adapt to the ambient mana.

I killed the third floor boss with conventional weapons, insofar as a highly magical staff made from mystical materials could be described as 'conventional', and made my escape. So, now what? Find a trainee enchanter and get some lower level crystals? Mine were already rank one, and if they were overloading on the third floor, I'd need something of a silly low level to work on a deeper floor.

The glove reminded me a bit of a Faraday cage, but to be protective it would need to cover my whole body, and even then it wouldn't help me fight if the lightning was running through my armour instead of whoever I wanted to zap. Actually... Speaking of protective. Freya had her armour enchanted with fire affinity resistance, to avoid blowing herself up with her own spells. Could I get the glove enchanted with lightning affinity resistance? What effect would that have? I'd been thinking of insulators from a purely scientific perspective, but this was magic I was dealing with. Earth rules may not apply.

Grover would very likely be interested in this new weapon, and there was still an hour or two of daytime left, so I decided to drop in at the research institute and see if he was in. A rather bored looking receptionist took me to his workshop, which was still every bit as messy as I remembered it. Another new item for my to-do list was going to have to be some method of levitation, if I was going to come here often...

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? You can't have.... what the hell are you wearing?"

Hah, the same reaction as the receptionist had to my rings, but this time wasn't quite so embarrassing. "It's a new type of magical weapon," I admitted. "It lets me attack with lightning affinity, even though I'm not attuned to it. The only problem is that beyond the first few floors of the dungeon, the denser mana would just result in me zapping myself. I was wondering if a lightning resistance enchantment on it would help, or if you had any other ideas."

Grover ran his hand through his beard speculatively. "I'd need to see it in action, and you'd be better off consulting an expert. There's a firing range out back that we can use, and we'll pick up a friend of mine on the way."

I thankfully followed Grover out of his workshop, then swiftly became less thankful as we walked up a corridor I recognised. I was starting to have suspicions about the identity of his 'expert', and indeed he soon entered into Vargalas's lab. Fortunately, the elf wasn't repeating his maniacal laughter from the last time I'd stuck my head in, or I may have turned and fled right then. Instead, he was messing around with a cylindrical device with lightning crystals inserted at regular intervals around its circumference. To be fair, he probably was the biggest expert around here.

He was also smiling, which was almost as disturbing as the laughter. What happened to his usual frown? Then Grover called over to him, and his face changed like it was on a switch. "What do you want?" he snapped.

"The kid made some sort of glove that shoots lightning," he answered, causing Vargalas to freeze up. I could imagine him fighting some kind of internal battle, between the need to constantly frown at everyone and the desire to see a sparkly new toy. It took a few seconds, but the sparkly toy won.

"And what do you want me for?" he asked cautiously.

"To help adapt it for safe use in the dungeon."

The frown extended. "I do not build weapons," Vargalas intoned with righteous indignation.

"So you don't want to come to watch us try it out, then?" Grover replied nonchalantly. "Okay, see you later."

He turned and left the room, rejoining me outside. "Give it ten seconds," he whispered to me with a grin, as we started off down another corridor. "He's a bit of a pain, but easy enough to deal with once you know how."

"Wait!" Came a shout from behind us, as Vargalas jogged to catch up with us, and Grover's grin widened in a complete mirror of Vargalas's frown.

The three of us ended up outdoors, where I demonstrated the device to the more experienced pair, both of whom looked utterly confused.

"How are you doing that?" asked Grover. "You didn't activate any mechanism. It just fired all on its own."

It occurred to me that while I didn't know the class history of either of them, it was unlikely that either had taken a mage class higher than [Apprentice Mage], and probably didn't even have that. I'd also heard that dwarfs didn't get access to mana control skills even if they did take a mage class. They also wouldn't have any mana perception skills of anywhere near the fidelity to see the pathways I was making. It was quite possible they had no idea what I'd just done.

"I used [Greater Mana Control] to trace pathways of lightning affinity mana through the air, and the lightning from the crystals jumps along them."

Vargalas swore. It was quite colourful and went on for some time. Once again I was left trying to imagine what was going on in his head, but if I had to hazard a guess, it would be the realisation that he could have done this himself years ago, and now he had a rank four class that he'd probably never complete and would never get the chance to switch to mage and learn mana control skills.

Grover took a step away and left him to it. "So, the problem is that you're not directly controlling the lightning, but just encouraging it. And if it decides to do something different, like jumping up your arm, there isn't anything you can do about it."

"Yeah, and as the lightning mana gets stronger, keeping it away from myself gets harder. Originally we tried a single higher rank crystal, but I couldn't control it at all. Then we switched to this set of ten rank one crystals, which are fine on the surface, but it overloads again at around floor three of the dungeon."

Grover began stroking his beard again, which seemed to be his thinking pose. "I honestly have no idea what difference enchanting the glove would make. It might not make any. I've simply never seen a crystal of any sort used in this way before."

"It'll help," chimed in Vargalas, who seemed to have finally finished his tirade of abuse at the universe, "but what you really want to do is build in a regulated mana feed, instead of relying on ambient mana."

"But don't the crystals need to be exposed to ambient mana for this to work?" asked Grover.

"It would only need to leak the tiniest sliver, just enough to build the pathways. Mostly, it would be enough that the mounting is electrically conductive. Yes, with dense enough ambient mana the leak would overwhelm the regulated intake, but it should be good across a fiftyfold density range."

"Why not use adaptive shielding? That would make it good for almost any density."

"We could, but it would be complete overkill for this town's ten floor dungeon. Plus, the bulk would cut down on the count of crystals we could fit, and you really wouldn't want to be wearing it if the shielding got damaged."

I had no clue what they were going on about, but it sounded promising. Apparently there were more advanced options beyond the general 'shove it in a box' approach that our little village team had been attempting. Once they got on to discussions about the best way to design a controlled backflow into a regulated mana intake, I gave up trying to follow the conversation and returned to the target, experimenting to find out my maximum range. It got progressively harder to direct the lightning at longer ranges, but it was more than enough for our cramped dungeon, as long as I wasn't trying to shoot from one end of a boss chamber to the other.

"Then if we use the impure steel for the cap and pattern the mythril links, we should end up with the right ratio. With that design we'd only have space for four mountings, but it would compensate by supporting higher rank crystals."

"Yes, I'll draw up some blueprints for you by tomorrow. Obviously, you'll need to build the thing."

It sounded like they were finally done. I watched Vargalas rush off back into the building, wondering whatever had happened to his credo that he didn't build weapons. It probably came with the unspoken proviso 'unless it's interesting and involves lightning'. Whatever was happening, this was way beyond our original village experiment of mounting some crystals on a glove and hoping for the best. Despite the lack of advanced technology in many areas, it seemed there was at least some level of magitek available.

Grover nodded at me. "We have a plan. Leave that glove with me and come back in a few days."

"I'll have to take your word for it. I understood approximately none of that conversation," I admitted. Actually, there was another more awkward admission I needed to take care of before this went any further... "But if this is going to be a few days' work, forget it for now. I can't afford to pay you for that."

"Pah," Grover spat. "You think Vargalas cares in the least about money right now? As for me, if anything, I should be paying you. Once again, you've accidentally invented something ridiculous. Every healer working for the delvers' guild is going to want one of these. We can discuss distribution rights once we've built your prototype."

"Mana control skills aren't exactly common among delvers, though," I countered. "They wouldn't be able to use them."

"That's true today, but with the promise of weaponry, the knowledge that they can produce mythril, not to mention whatever additional insanity you're sure to commit in the future, you can be certain the skills won't be unpopular for long."

An interesting thought, but this creation wasn't something rooted in my Earth knowledge; it was magical through and through. How did I come up with it when someone like Kari didn't? As I pulled off my glove to hand over to Grover, a sudden shock to my right hand as I carelessly brushed against a crystal reminded me of at least one part of the answer; Kari wasn't quite as [Self-Destructive] as I was.