Roar of Dragons

[Sig – 13 years]

"Hello, everybody!" I wave to the orb as the stream begins. "You'll notice that I'm not playing Duty of Loyalty again this week and am back in the field at Nine Springs, a fresh layer of snow on the ground thanks to last night! You're also going to notice Professor John! He's a professor from Dragon Falls Community College, where he teaches magic engineering! Professor John, wanna tell my viewers a little about yourself?"

We were able to schedule this for the very first Tuesday after my initial bottle rocket stream, and I'm really happy about this. Puffy has joined us for it and is currently playing in the snow off to the side, but Xander assured me that he'll make sure we're not bothered by other magic beasts. Also that Professor John won't do anything bad to me.

Puffy isn't really here to supervise, though; he just wanted to come along because he heard I'd be playing in a big, snowy field. Xander sent a security orb for safety (why did him having those surprise me?), and Mr. Fuller took the day off from work and is here as well.

Mr. Fuller was my ride, not Professor John. With his truck, we were also able to bring out all of my supplies just fine. My bike is here, too, so that he can drop me off to meet up with my friends before we head to my house, though he'll bring my supplies back to the house.

That's really all there is too it. The security orb was just Xander's paranoia – Professor John is an old friend of Mr. Fuller's and Aunt Rachel's met him a few times. They go to the same church, even if Professor John's hunts are a bit more magical than my aunt's boyfriend's.

"Sure," Professor John says. "Hello, everyone. As Seb said, I'm a professor at Dragon Falls Community College. My course mainly focuses on introduction to enchanting and creating basic magic items and devices. I also run a program teaching this to local youth who are interested in learning, and we often have guest instructors for that."

"Alright," I say. "And what is the difference between making magic items and doing magic engineering?"

We did practice the beginning of this just a little, but not as in rehearsing. It was more so that I know what to say and ask to kick this off. Professor John said it would be a good idea for him to explain this to my viewers. This isn't just an experimentation session for me, it's a light lesson for my audience as well.

"A lot of people have a misunderstanding about this," he says. "And consider them to all be the same thing. They're not, actually. Magic items are items which contain magic of their own, either inherent to them or due to enchantments.

"They can be fairly simple," he raps his knuckles on the wooden table sitting in front of us. "This table is a magic item. It's made from a wood from a magical tree, and is highly durable due to the strengthening magics innate to that wood. A much better choice for experiments which can damage things than a simple plastic table."

"Yeah," I chuckle a little as my face heats up. "I accidentally broke that one last week. But that's why we've got this one! We did have to bring it out in Mr. Fuller's truck – he's out of view of the orbs – but it's a lot sturdier! And I did replace Aunt Rachel's folding table, too…"

"Well," Professor John chuckles. "Having a sturdier table is pretty important. But the table itself isn't only made from a durable wood, it's been enchanted for increased durability. Even a plastic folding table can be a magic item, if an enchantment like this is set into it."

"By the way," I look at the streamer orb watching us, then gesture at the table. "If you want a table just like this for your own at-home magic enchanting experiments, be ready to cough up a pretty penny for it. This might look like a regular table you'd spend maybe two or three, maybe four hundred on. But without the enchantments, this table costs $500. Standard, low-level durability enchantments would bump it up to almost $800. And it's not even a fancy table!

"Now," I say. "I know an amazing enchanter who was willing to do it for less. He wanted to charge only $10 for it, but he charges that for enchanting bracelets, so I gave him $50."

It took a lot of effort to convince him to accept that. Then he gave me ten boxes of cookies. Getting him to understand the point of paying more might be something we never manage.

"Yes," Professor John says. "And even if it had been an ordinary table, enchanting it for durability like that would make it a magic item. Why is that?"

"Because of the enchantments," I say. "They change the nature of the object, making it more durable."

"Correct," he says. "And that's different from magitech. A magic item is where the magical property is a part of it. Magitech is, in most cases, interacting magical parts. In other words, it's tech where magic is a part of its function. They often use magic items and the interactions between those. But not all magic items being put together turns something into magitech.

"For example," he picks up a bottle from the box on the ground beside him. "If you enchant this bottle, and you enchant a stopper, and you put the stopper in, you haven't made a magitech item. Why? Because even though both items are magic, they're not interacting with each other outside of the normal way. Their magics aren't doing anything to each other."

"What about with the sticky enchantment?" I ask.

"That still wouldn't count," he sets the bottle on the table. "However, you can easily cross the line from two magic items doing their normal function into magitech for these. We'll get into that later. Back to magitech, the streamer orbs and security orb we have floating around here are magitech. They're made of different components whose magics work together to create an effect or do things.

"On a simpler scale," he continues. "You can get a beginner magitech kit from magitech supply shops which make magitech lamps. These are simple lamps with a few components, which use magic to function. Most of them are a simple wiring with magic components to activate a light magic aspect in the shell of it.

"But," he says. "That can be done as a magic item as well. The magic lamps you make at Xander's party are magic items rather than magic lamps. Why is that?"

"Because it's a single object," I answer. "With magic inherent to it and enchantments laid on it, and that's it. All we're doing is enchanting a cube of wood with a light magic property. There are no connecting pieces, no 'interacting magics', in that sense."

"Correct," he says. "Much like if you enchant a table for durability, those magic lamps simply have their properties altered through enchantments. This allows them to turn on and off, emit scent, adjust lightning, and more, all from their own magic. Well, the magic of the enchantments, but that's still a part of it."

"And what we're doing today," I say. "Is just playing with magic items. We're putting them together, but not as magitech. But who knows? Maybe in the future, I'll do some basic magitech! But I'm still a beginner enchanter, so not right now.

"Now," I look at Professor John. "What's magic engineering? It's not just making magitech, right?"

"It's not," he says. "Magitech engineers are magic engineers who create magitech, but magic engineering is simply the art of using multiple magic items to do things. It doesn't require that their magics interact or create a magic effect.

"For example," he picks the bottle up off of the table. "Taking a bottle with a durability enchantment and a stopper with a snug-fit enchantment and putting them together to make a bottle rocket. All the durability enchantment is doing is making the bottle resist breaking better, and it's on the bottle. And all the snug-fit enchantment does is make the stopper do what it already does, just better.

"It's the same as with a regular bottle rocket," he says. "You're designing, building, and testing a functional object. Rather than applying scientific principles to it, you're using magic… though it's done to play with scientific principles."

"So the difference between regular and magic engineering is whether or not the items used are magic or not," I say.

"Yes and no," he says. "You can use magic items all you want, but unless they mean something to what you're making, it's just regular engineering. In our case, the magic in the items are actually important. As you discovered last week, without a durable enough bottle, it just explodes from the air pressure. The durability enchantment is a magic which increases the strength of the bottle, therefore enabling it to withstand a higher pressure than a regular plastic soda bottle would manage. We have a similar thing with the stopper, where if you use a regular stopper, it shoots out sooner. The enchantment on the stopper is important because it prevents that, makes it take longer. This allows more air pressure to build up inside."

"Which eventually leads to an even higher launch!" I say.

"Correct," he says. "Now, this does play with scientific principles. As you said last week, it deals with Newton's Three Laws of Motion. Nearly all of the most basic magic engineering devices you can create play with scientific principles. The magic involved, however, isn't really following science. That's why it's magic and not science.

"That's very important," Professor John looks at the camera. "Magic isn't science, even if it appears to be at times. A lot of people forget this, because magic is really good at imitating science or playing with it. But magic can and will do its own thing. We know how to cast spells because magic is consistent – but it isn't always. There are times where you can be practice a spell over and over, trying to improve your speed. You're casting a magical arrow over and over and then bam! You get a lightning bolt. Why? Because magic felt like being lightning instead of an arrow."

"Or a puppy instead of a fireball."

"A what now?" Professor John looks at me.

"Xander says he saw that happen once," I tell him. "That his cousin, Greyson, was casting fireballs. Every cast was the same, but one of them, a puppy appeared! And Xander said there wasn't any difference in the magics. It should have been a fireball, like all the others. Instead, it was a puppy!"

"If it were anyone else," Professor John tells me. "I'd think they were telling a tall tale. But if Xander says it… well, I guess that can happen. Magic can do strange things for no reason at all. Science? It's consistent. You do the exact same thing with the exact same circumstances, and you'll get the exact same result. Magic says no to that whenever it pleases.

"It's also fully capable of creating matter and energy out of nothing," he continues. "Mana is one example of that. Mana simply forms on its own. We know that we can boost our body's rate of producing it slightly by eating food, or food with magic, but we're not actually converting that into mana. No one understands why it gives a boost."

"I asked Xander about that," I tell him. "Since, y'know, he can see basically all mana. And he said that mana just likes making more of itself. Then I clarified that I was referring to the part about how being more full of food can improve your mana regen for a little bit."

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Oh?" Professor John asks. "What did he say?"

"Apparently," I say. "It doesn't have a direct effect on our mana recovery. We generate mana based on several factors, including how well our body is able to handle the gain. The speed at which our mana recovers taxes our bodies a little, and the extra food is mainly to help compensate for that. Magic foods are just better at it than others as they convert into extra energy more easily. That's the explanation he got from Adrian King when he asked."

Though his initial response wasn't too far off from that… which came with the implication that he can see more energies than just magical ones. I decided not to ask about that.

"That's… kind of interesting," Professor John says, then looks at the orb. "And a sign that even professors can still learn things. And today, we'll all be learning a little bit more. I've never used enchantments for bottle rockets before, so Seb here caught my attention when he did it last week.

"Today," Professor John says. "I'm going to be teaching Seb some better versions of the same enchantments, and working with him to improve his creation of them. Our goal is to try and get a rocket to fly one thousand feet, which is a little less than double what he managed last week."

"However," I say. "That's not all we'll be doing! Just like last week, the final rocket's going to be decorated! And this one's going to have some magic effects! Professor John's going to teach me how to do that! There's apparently a simple enchantment setup which will work for that! Let's get started!"

Professor John walks me through the first of the durability enchantments we're doing today. He explains what each part of it is, both to me and to our audience, and does so in a simple way. This one is similar to my durability enchantment from last week, but can handle a higher strengthening level.

Rather than making it extremely strong, Professor John shows me how to make it as strong as I managed for the one last week. There's a rough approximation for that, so we do it, then move on to the stopper.

We're doing an initial control bottle, though in this case, it's to use different enchantments to make the bottle shoot the same height as my final one for last week. This allows me to learn the differences to receive the same effect. Only after that do we start making adjustments, and Professor John explains how to know what to do for the adjustments.

Each rocket goes a little higher than the last, and we manage to get one to shoot nearly 950 feet into the air! Then we move on to the next durability enchantment. I'm glad I'm wearing my hunting hoodie, because the shrapnel from exploding bottles would definitely tear apart a regular one.

After nearly three hours of playing with different enchantments and tweaking them, the number displayed on the height indicator is 1,002 feet!

"YEAAAAAAH!" I pump my fists up into the air as I cheer. "ONE THOUSAND FEET!"

Professor John lets me cheer for a minute before pulling me back to the project, and we design a rocket with fins, snow leopard and turtle decorations, and a cone tip. The cone tip has another enchantment on it and is made of a plastic-like material.

"What the enchantment we're going to put on this is going to do," he tells me. "Is create a light show once it reaches the peak. Now, it is rather sunny out-"

The sky turns cloudy.

"-or not!" He laughs. "What I was going to say is that because it's sunny out, we won't see the light show as well, but it should still be visible. But it seems someone out there wanted to make it easier for that to show, so we'll see the display just fine!"

It was probably Xander, though I doubt he's watching my stream. It's nearly to the end of his own right now, so he'll be busy with that and the timing was too perfect. That means it might not have been him, then.

"And I don't know what the display is," I tell my viewers. "He's not telling me, so the light show – in place of confetti – is a mystery to me! And what makes it even better is we actually have to add in some stuff to the enchantment to define it!"

"Due to your beginner skill with enchanting," Professor John tells me. "I've picked an easier one for you to do. The material of the cone will assist with it as well, so not as much work will be needed. But you'll be surprised by the effect, I'm sure."

"I hope so!" I tell him.

We work on the enchantment, and he explains some of it to me, including the parts which create the burst of light. There's a factor which also makes it so the light effect only occurs once it momentarily stops moving – the peak of the bottle's ascent, before it begins its descent. Then, I begin filling the bottle with more and more air until there's too much and the cork shoots out.

The rocket soars higher and higher and higher… and when it reaches its peak, green, grey, and brown light shoot out, radiating outward like a firework. Rather than sparkling and fading away, however, it transforms.

Turning into a massive turtle!

"WHOA!" I exclaim. "THAT'S FREAKING AMAZING! Chat! You can see that, right? It's a massive turtle!"

"It's displayed on the stream," Mr. Fuller chuckles from off camera. "So yes, S.G., they can see it."

"And we did it in time to catch everyone leaving school for the day, too," Professor John says. "So your friends can probably all see it, too, thanks to the height. It lasts for about thirty seconds, so it'll be fading shortly."

After it fades, Professor John pulls out a bottle and a stopper that he brought. The bottle just has three legs on it, not fins and decorations.

"Earlier," he says. "I mentioned that this could be magitech. It's easy to cross that line. This bottle and this stopper? They're each just a magic item. But once I put the stopper in, it's magitech. Seb, are you able to guess what the difference is? Without knowing the enchantments?"

"Uh… no?" I answer.

He puts the stopper into the bottle, then sets the bottle down.

"You want me to-"

"No," he says. "Just wait about now!"

Right when he says "now", the stopper shoots out and the bottle soars upwards.

"What the-!" I jump, then look at the professor. "You can fill it with air from there?"

"I can," he smiles. "But that wasn't me. As I said, it's magitech."

"But how would it-" I cut off as I realize. "Wait! You put the stopper in, then about twenty seconds later, it shot up! And magitech is when the pieces interact. So when you put the stopper in, it activated a magic that filled the bottle with air!"

"Correct!" He says. "Both the stopper and the bottle had enchantments on them which, when interacting, would cause the bottle to produce air within itself. There are various ways to create the same effect, and that's the one I chose."

"And it was freaking awesome!" I say. "Maybe next time, I'll look into making it like that! But we're actually past the end of my usual stream time, so we definitely don't have enough time for that. Before I go, however, there's a super special guest to do another rocket!"

I let chat wonder about that, and some of them ask if it's the person who talked to me a minute ago.

"No," I say. "That's my aunt's boyfriend. He's got a truck. He drove me out here so I wouldn't need to worry about bringing all of the supplies and a wooden table out on the back of a wagon. He's also old friends with the professor! The special guest is…!"

I snap, and Xander appears beside me, a bottle rocket in his hands and Trenton on his right shoulder. He'd expressed concern at teleporting in when I snap, but I assured him that it'd look awesome for the stream. With his stream having ended by now, he'd have normally gone to take a nap. However, he's staying up just a little bit so he can do a bottle rocket with me today.

He's wearing a dark green MountainStorm Gear hoodie with its logo small and in lime green on his left breast, dark blue jeans, and sneakers which match his hoodie. A matching beanie sits on his head, his hood pulled up, and gloves covering his hands. Despite all of that, he's still super cute.

This is my first time seeing his bottle rocket, and it looks like he transmuted the plastic to be his favorite shade of green, but still at least semi-transparent. What looks like motes of golden light float inside of it, and that honestly looks awesome. The fins and cone are dark green and fully opaque, but there's golden for the tip of the cone.

"That looks awesome," I say.

"Thanks," Xander's voice is quiet and his cheeks turn pink as he looks down at his rocket. "I made it during class earlier. Mr. Wilson helped me learn the dimensions to use for the cone and the fins. It was part of our geometry lesson."

Xander one hundred percent took the opportunity to do something more fun and interesting for a class, while his teacher took the opportunity to use it to teach him.

"Well, it looks amazing!" I tell him, then look at the nearby orb. "Yes, the special guest is Xander! He wanted to do bottle rockets, too, so I invited him to join us! But he had his baking stream with Ms. Katie, so he came after! You've seen bottle rockets made by an amateur enchanter! Now, it's time to see one made by an expert!"

A very real concern comes to mind.

"Uh…" I look at Xander again. "You didn't make the enchantments too strong, did you? Like, it's not gonna go to space or anything?"

"No," Xander answers. "If I did everything right, it should fly up exactly one thousand three hundred feet. Um… I thought you were gonna do extra and try to make them go to two thousand feet. Not-not that you were gonna stop after crossing the one thousand-foot mark."

Chat's going nuts with amusement over him saying that I'm extra. To be fair, that is something I would do. The only reason I didn't keep going is because of how long it took to reach our goal for today.

"Time constraints!" I tell him. "Maybe for the future! But a thousand-foot launch for a bottle rocket is already amazing! I mean, it's literally beyond what science would allow for a normal one! We had to use magic to make it happen, and it's the first one ever to do that! I've seen videos of people trying it over the past week, but none made it past eight hundred feet! Come on! Let's see yours!

"Oh, also," I look up at the clouds for a moment, then back to him. "Did you conjure the clouds?"

"No," he answers. "I saw them show up and just assumed it was magic being magic."

"They happened at the same time Professor John commented about the sunny day," I tell him.

Xander looks off into the distance ahead of us, then nods and looks at me.

"There's a cloud beast nearby," he tells me. "It might've been them."

"Not a mean one like the one who was making it rain a lot over in the Autumn Realm, is it?" I ask.

"No," he answers. "Most of them are nice. Puffy likes playing with them in winter. And that other one's not causing problems anymore. He's working in my greenhouse to keep things watered the way the little noble shrubs ask. I think the one here just wanted to make sure the light show was good. I haven't seen it yet, so I'll probably look at your VoD later to see what it looked like."

I guess he wasn't looking outside when it went off, though he might have also had trees or something obstructing the view even if he was.

"It was a turtle!" I tell him. "A massive turtle! And it looked so cool!"

"Oh," he says. "I was thinking it might be a pack of snow leopards playing in the sky, but I guess a turtle swimming would be better for beginners."

"It wasn't animated," Professor John tells him. "Seb isn't quite skilled enough for that yet. If he keeps this up, he will be in the future, though."

"O-oh," Xander's face turns red again, and to a much deep shade of it than last time.

He made an animated light show, didn't he? If he was expecting mine to be, then he would have felt comfortable making his so.

"Come on!" I say. "Let's see yours!"

Xander gives a shaky nod, then sets his down on the table and takes a step back before looking at us.

"Do you wanna put your earplugs in?"

"What earplugs?" I ask.

"You weren't using them?" He asks. "What about the bangs from the stoppers hitting the table?"

Oh, right – Xander's sensitive to sound. He wouldn't be able to manage that.

"We just let them make us jump!" I say. "But I know you might not like that for yourself. You wanna put yours in?"

"They're already in," he tells me. "The ones I'm using are designed to dampen loud noises, so they don't affect normal talking at all."

"Okay!" I say. "Ready when you are!"

Xander nods, then looks at his bottle. He seems to contemplate something for a moment, then points at it. A moment later, the cork shoots out and slams into the table with the loudest bang! of today, his rocket zipping up faster than any of ours did.

There must be additional enchantments on it to affect speed. Maybe aerodynamic-enhancing ones, or something? Right when the orb displays 1,300 feet, a glimmer appears in the air above us, around where the bottle peaked at.

Then the glimmer transforms into three full-on dragons of light, which fly in a circle before bursting like fireworks. Judging by Xander's rocking and slight shaking and paleness, he's nervous he did too much.

"That," I say. "Was. Freaking. Amazing! I cannot wait until I can do enchantments like that! Or magics like that! Anyway! It's time for the stream to end! I'm gonna clean up now. Until next time, be awesome!"

I snap and point at the orb as I say that last bit, then the stream ends.

"Okay!" I say. "I'm gonna clean up now. You gonna go do your nap?"

"I can help clean up first," Xander says. "My bottle and stopper are some of them…"

"You don't have to help me clean up," I tell him. "I can get everything! That'll take a bit, and I know you need your nap."

"I can use magic to pick up all of the debris really fast."

"Oh, right," I say. "If you want to, sure."

"Okay," Xander gives a small nod… and all of the bottle pieces, stoppers, and crashed rockets appear on the table. "There we go."

"I really hope that one day," I tell him as he collects his own rocket and stopper. "I'm that skilled with magic. Alright! I'll see you later, Xander!"

"Bye," he gives me a hug, then vanishes.

"Thanks for coming out," I tell Professor John. "It was pretty fun, and I learned a lot from you."

"I had fun, too," he tells me. "You want to do a magic engineering stream again, you let me know."

"Will do!" I tell him, then look at Mr. Fuller. "You're still taking me to my friends after, right?"

"Yes," he says. "Though with how long you went, they might be waiting for a bit unless they head straight to your house."

"I'll tell them to do that, then!" I say. "Lemme get this stuff in, then let's go!"