The Way Ahead

“So what is it which you have managed to determine?” Lefi asked, confused as he followed behind a very eager Edwin.

“So remember what I was saying about the soot stains on my lab bench?” he prompted the adventurer, getting a nod, “Yeah. There was nothing in the explosion that should be able to create soot, but I figured out that it was black phosphorus, which is plenty stable. Of course, that’s not much better for really explaining what’s going on, because normally it can only be created with insane amounts of pressure, and besides, it should burn up in the fireball. So I didn’t know where it was coming from.

“Well, I was also wondering what was up with the fireball itself. Somehow, it became a high explosive, and that means that the entire thing has to ignite simultaneously. Like, every single molecule at the exact same time. Or, I suppose, the magic itself could create a shockwave at the surface of the explosion, but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like a fireball, not kinetic energy or… sound, I suppose. So one of my senses would be lying to me if that were the case.

“Now, I need to perform a couple of tests, but I think I finally know what’s going on. I need to focus for a few minutes, but I’ll answer your questions afterwards.”

He stopped in his storage room to grab some munitions test samples. Well, it was more of a closet than an actual room, but that didn’t really matter. For obvious reasons, he kept his materials separate from his actual experiment room.

He stepped inside his lab, motioning for Lefi to stay back, and placed the crystal-covered substance on the windowsill- not quite a replacement for a fume hood, but thanks to Fresh Air it was sufficient for his new workshop.

Okay, test one. If this failed, then there was clearly something else going on.

Phosphorus was flammable enough that he didn’t even need to infuse Firestarting to make it burst into flames. A simple finger-gun was enough to get him into the proper mindset for selective ignition, and he aimed at the tiny, sealed chunk of explosives before pulling the metaphorical trigger.

BANG

Edwin nodded to himself as the fireball faded. He should have tried anerobic tests of infused phosphorus, but he hadn’t really thought of it as an actual test. Just a stupid mistake he’d made early on in his experiments with the mundane variety. But the broken apparatite, and accompanying fireball, confirmed that he didn’t have to be too worried about adequate oxidation in his actual weapons, at least. Well… depending on if he was right about how this worked, it might only affect his grenades, but that was fine.

There seemed to be a slightly larger ‘sootstain’ than usual, but that might have just been his imagination. He still needed another test before making any further conclusions. After all, once the apparatite container had burst, the phosphorus was able to combust as usual. What would have happened if it hadn’t broken free, or was unable to combust?

For his next experiment, Edwin summoned an apparatite container around the casing, Infusing it with Improbable Arsenal as he did so. He’d found that if he used the two Skills simultaneously, instead of creating an object with Apparatus and then expanding it, he could get a larger expansion ratio, and he’d need as much volume inside as possible. Inside the testing box, he dismissed the Infused phosphorus’ casing, allowing the yellowish pellets to spill out into the larger space. That accomplished, he put the box on the windowsill- it shouldn’t explode, but Edwin was rather attached to his fingers and would rather not lose any- and ignited it.

Inside, the phosphorus sparked, glowing slightly as it erupted into a ball of black dust that filled the expanded space in complete silence- thanks to the near-vacuum inside- before settling into a layer on the bottom.

“Yes!” Edwin cheered.

“I’m afraid I do not comprehend that which you just managed to confirm?”

“So,” Edwin slowed down, “So far as I can tell, when I try to ignite Infused Phosphorus- I need to come up with a better name for that- the magic tries to burn the phosphorus, but it isn’t able to. So instead, it manages to convince white phosphorus to transmute into black phosphorus. Because black phosphorus is more stable, the transmutation gives off energy, which blows the block apart. Then… I suppose the excess heat manages to ignite some of the black phosphorus and then that burns more and more until most of the black phosphorus is gone.

“That’s why, when it was in a vacuum, it just poofed into a cloud of black dust. With no air, it didn’t have anything to burn for fuel and so it all fell apart into molecular dust- don’t inhale that, by the way. It might be stable inside of you, but I really wouldn’t take the chance.”

“I presume that made sense to you, but is there some benefit to this? Not that there needs to be! Such a discovery is marvelous unto itself is it not?”

“Well, you’re right on one part. Knowledge is always better than ignorance, but in this case...” Edwin said, a twinkle in his eye, “It means I can do this.”

They’d reached the chest of phosphorus, and so Edwin re-sheathed his hand in steel, drew his apparatite knife and sliced off a chunk of phosphorus from inside its watery basin. It started smoking almost immediately, of course, but that didn’t matter this time, nor that it was slightly wet. Instead, he tossed the element into the room, arcing towards the window as he took aim with his Skill.

Firestarting.

BANG

It exploded mid-arc, and Edwin’s face stretched into a wide grin. He could circumvent so much preparation like this. And! For the first time, he knew what his magic did, physically.

Spell unlocked, he thought in triumph, fireball.

“...And then, Kyni ran at the guy and took a big bite right outta his club like he was playing! It was so cool. So then this guy just looks at his stick an’ tries to hit Kyni, but he isn’t about to let somethin’ like that stop him! So he grew and just swallowed the whole thing! He kept on shoutin’ about how Kyni was such a big dog and how he could never stand against such a big and strong dog and then he ran off after just a little bark! It was so super cool!”

“Oh?” Rillah prompted as she brushed out Yathal’s hair. Kyni’s coat had been already finished and the dog’s fur gleamed in the dim light, “Are you picking up Sherrish, then?”

“Well… not really,” the boy admitted, “But it was obvious what he was saying!”

Yathal didn’t have Polyglot, which really hindered his ability to interact with pretty much anyone without the Skill. Fortunately, it was a relatively common Skill for everyone from guards to merchants- anyone who was likely to interact with non-locals, basically- but it was also all but required for any half-decent adventurer according to both Lefi and Rillah.

Its evolution path was at least straightforward enough- just evolve Language with Linguist, both of which strongly preferred the other. Unfortunately for Yathal, the most common method of unlocking the Linguist path was by learning a new language, and the kid was definitely still a ways from that goal.

“Are we not concerned about the fact somebody tried to mug Yathal, then? When did they even leave the tower?” Edwin asked Lefi, who just shrugged.

The six- five if you didn’t count Kyni- of them were all sitting in one of the tower’s lounges, eating a rare meal together. It was never really planned, it just tended to happen, but Yathal had really wanted to tell them all about what his day had been like and so had insisted they all meet.

“Yathal would never come to harm, not with Kynigos watching over him, and it’s better that he gets the possibility to get used to being in unfamiliar places. Besides, of the two of them, it’s Kynigos must learn to be responsible, and it’s important to teach him the sort of trouble Yathal can get into with cities.”

“Fair enough, but like... shouldn’t we keep a bit of a better eye on them or whatever?”

“Life is harsh.”

“Sure, but… just throwing someone into a river isn’t a good way to teach them how to swim.”

That got a skeptical look from Lefi, and Edwin realized his mistake. He buried his head in his hands, “Please tell me you’d at least fish them out if it looks like they’d drown.”

“Oh, but of course!”

“I mean, sure. I’ve been spending a fair amount of time with Rillah. Among other things, she’s nice,” Edwin pointedly teased his friend, “and is definitely better at teaching me magic than you are,” he splashed Inion with a bit of water.

One unexpected benefit of Adaptive Defense was that he could stay in the bath for a basically indefinite period of time without getting wrinkly, and he’d never overheat from the water either. So, he tended to stay in it for several hours at a time.

Inion had figured out his habit and started joining him after the third time, and what had once been Edwin’s last ‘alone with his thoughts’ time- after he’d started doing alchemy with Lefi around much of the time- had become ‘spend time with Inion.’ It was kind of hard to complain about getting the chance to bathe with her for obvious reasons- he had long since been inured to having no privacy from the fey, this wasn’t really different- but he was starting to get a bit people-worn.

“Hmmm,” Inion teased as she floated by him, “How many people do you like being around?”

“I mean, I don’t know that many people on Joriah,” he reminded her, “So it’s not really a fair comparison.”

“Yes, but she’s definitely spending a lot of time with you. You should be a bit more careful with that.”

“Yeah, she’s teaching me magic, and is tons of help leveling Flight. Oh, what? Another girl wants to spend time with me and you’re suddenly suspicious of her? Are you sure you aren’t just jealous?”

She rolled her eyes, “Edwin. I’m older than this entire w-Empire. Me getting jealous of you spending time with a girl is utterly absurd. What would I even be jealous of? That we don’t spend as much time together as we did before?”

“Yes?”

“Please. You know I don’t care about that.”

Edwin wrenched his brain away from the interpretation that she didn’t care about spending time with him and tried to spin it more positively. She was clearly… just happy that he was being social, clearly. Did she care about that? Wait, yes. She did.

“So then what is your problem? Is this still about her dropping me?”

“You were in serious danger! She clearly doesn’t care about your well-being, and you don’t know how much you can trust her but you’re still telling her all about your Skills.”

Edwin rolled his eyes, “It was one time! And she apologized anyway. I can take care of myself, you know. I could have just Overcharged and been fine. I actually tested that, you know. I dropped a rock onto my head while I had the Skill active and it broke on me, not the other way around.”

She raised a very skeptical eyebrow.

“It was safe! I worked my way up. I didn’t just drop a boulder on my head to see if I’d be alright. Come on, you know me.”

“Yes, because you would never perform an ‘experiment’ that might seriously harm you if it went wrong.”

“Again, that was one time!”

She leveled a stare at him, and he withered under her gaze.

“Okay, it was technically twice.

“Look, I don’t know… okay, fine. I suppose you could count those as separate instances, so maybe it was three times.

“Okay, that time just flat-out doesn’t count. I was in no danger that entire time.

“Stop looking at me like that!”