Do not fear the known
Edward Portsmith: Level 4 (12 cells) ///////////////////////////////// (43/40)
Ace Cadet - Level: 9 - Total EXP: 313/90
Location: The Avenger
Word Count: 6032 (+7 exp/rexp)
Edward had sat himself next to the Ace Cadet and Miss Fortune to eat lunch, and immediately regretted doing so as he found himself functionally third wheeling as the two focused on each other. An entirely fair thing to do, given the circumstances of what they’d just lived through, but it certainly managed to be a fair bit awkward on his end. As such he made a concerted effort to hustle his way through his meal, though by no means as fast as the feline-form had her first burger, so that he could then politely excuse himself.
He did, to be fair, have things to do.
Setting his cutlery neatly down, the man lightly cleared his throat and then said ”Well, it has been lovely, but I will need to head off take a stint in one of the workshops repairing my magelock rifle, if it is at all salvageable” intending to be on his way.
Ace gave the man a quick nod of acknowledgement, almost half forgetting he'd been there in the first place, but a few moments after the man had departed the hunter properly registered what he'd said. Repairing a rifle. Ace had taken note of the man's equipment during the day when he could (as he took an obvious interest in that kind of thing) and found that while there was definitely an air of magic around what he carried, it was far from what Ace had come to expect from the magic users among the Seekers. There was also a technological aspect as far as he could tell. Ace had only really spoken to him just recently when they both ended up out of the fight, but he didn't get the sense that the dreadnought was a loner or anything like that... so this might be a good opportunity, for a couple of different things.
The Cadet stood up rather suddenly, scooping the couple's empty plates up.
"Sorry, there's actually something I wanna work on too," he told Nadia. Rather than offer her any more explanation or an apologetic smile, the hunter leaned over the table to give her a fleeting kiss. Then he moved to dump the tableware with the rest of the dirty dishes, calling back, "I'll see you later!"
The feral wasn’t one to dwell on such things. She just made an exaggerated smooch sound and waved Ace off. “See ya!”
Edward hadn't actually gotten too far, so it was easy enough for Ace to catch up with him. The monster hunter fell into step next to the other man.
"Hey! Uh-" Oh, dungpods. Had they actually been introduced? "They call me Ace. Is it Ya-cool with you if I tag along?"
Edward seemed a little surprised at Ace’s appearance by the look on his face as he turned to Ace, but it was quickly put away, the man nodding and saying that ”By all means” Ace was free to come along.
That journey could wait for a moment however, as he paused his stride and turned fully to Ace, before saying ”My apologies for not introducing myself after you saved my life” before offering Ace a hand to shake and rectifying his mistake by introducing himself as ”Edward Portsmith, at your service”
Now it was Ace's turn to be surprised. Not having expected his newest acquaintance to stop he ended up a couple steps ahead. Edward's formal tone didn't bother him, though it did make Ace take the introduction a little more seriously. He grasped the offered hand to return the handshake firmly, though it wasn't long at all before a friendly smile made its way onto Ace's face.
"I can't really take credit fur the felynes. Or at least not full credit," he said honestly. "Nice to officially meet you though!"
With the introduction complete, the two could continue on to Edward's workshop of choice. The day before Ace had used one of them to make a bunch of ammo, and he considered going to collect the materials he'd taken from the Qliphoth that he'd dumped with the bulkier pieces of his armor for now. Ultimately though if he got to crafting it would be more of a distraction than anything.
As they walked, Ace didn't hesitate to start a conversation. "When we were crossing the Dead Zone, I saw you use a bowgun that could heal. I was Quru-ous if it used special ammo or if it was something built into it. Is that the rifle you mentioned?"
”Ah, no, that would be… something Midna acquired…” he paid briefly, rather than simply roll forwards without a moment of silence for the dead, and in that moment decided to retract the complaints he was going to make about the rifle’s design and instead simply answered the question.
”and it was the ammunition that did most of the heavy lifting there, which is now spent” He explained, before giving it some thought, saying ”Though it did have a somewhat interesting firing mechanism now that I think of it, hmmm” mostly to himself, before getting to the point, which was that ”The rifle that was broken was of the same origin and design as my magelock pistol”
He retrieved the firearm in question from its holster, holding it by the barrel as he showed/offered it to Ace. The gun mostly appeared to be a flintlock pistol (a bit one with a spiked finger guard) where it was not for the amber glow leaking out from both the barrel and the point where the hammer was intended to strike.
”Much more effective and reliable than a flintlock, self loading, and entirely self powering, mana wise” he explained, indirectly confirming the weapon's magical nature.
So it really was a magic gun. Unlike a staff, or a wand, or simply conjuring spells from thin air, the Cadet could more easily intuit how this weapon worked. He still hesitated to take it though, some wariness showing on his face. After too long a moment he accepted the pistol gingerly, like it might explode if he handled it wrong.
"I'd like to get a look at the one Midna brought back too, see if I could alter it to accept new ammo," Ace said as an aside, mostly to make sure his nervousness didn’t come through too much in his voice. He’d been able to tamper with the Breechshot enough to do the same, so he figured he could do it to any gun that wasn’t totally outside of the scope of his knowledge. Not to mention it wouldn’t do to just set aside something useful just because the person who’d found it wasn’t around anymore. There was no way either Midna or Goldlewis would have wanted that. Ace kept his eyes on the magelock as he went on.
"So it uses... magic to ignite instead of a real spark." He slowly turned the firearm over in his hands, avoiding the glowing parts where he touched it. He thought about opening it up and getting a look at the chamber, but he wasn't quite there yet. "I guess it wouldn't need a firing pin, but in that case why does it even fire rounds at all...?"
He glanced at Edward. "Or does it?"
”It both does and does not. Here, I can show you in a moment” Edward replied as they entered the workshop Edward had been guiding them too. It contained advanced fabrication tools, but also a number of humble workbenches and more conventional tools.
It was one of these Edward claimed, tapping away at the armory interface as he did until it summoned the rifle he needed to repair onto the bench. The burn, bent, and broken weapon looked entirely unsalvageable, but it took only a bit of levering and unscrewing for Edward to retrieve the core part of the weapon, namely the source of the glow, which turned out to be a series of ritual circles going up the barrel warped, all hovering in front of a glowing stone that the hammer of the gun would strike instead of a flint.
”It’s rather simple, excluding the specific bits of spellcraft” Edward said, removing the gem so that the weapon was no longer live as they inspected it
”The hammer strikes this” he said, referring to the gem, holding it up, before pointing back down at the core of the gun and continuing ”which produces the energy to launch the round forwards via the generating an explosion, just as gunpowder would”
”The clever part is that the other circles then absorb the excess heat and energy left behind, converting it into energy for them to cast a spell to conjure a fresh round directly into the chamber of the gun, and another to pull back the hammer, thus automatically reloading the weapon”
Ace wasn't quite hovering, but he did pay the dreadnought curious attention. He put the pistol down on a nearby table for Edward to reclaim when he was finished, instead peering at the broken rifle as Edward took it apart. He watched from a slight distance, feeling the now unfortunately familiar unease when the magical inner workings were exposed.
"Huh." Ace crossed his arms, regarding the weapon. Its design really wasn't all that different from the firearms he'd come across in this world, or from the bowguns in his, but if it actually worked as Edward said it did then it really would be a lot more efficient.
"When it... 'conjures' ammo, is it... summoned from a stockpile, or created from thin air?" he asked somewhat clumsily, still not very used to the terminology. His eyes then flicked to the gem. "And is the energy in the igniter unlimited? 'Cause that would be Kut-kurazy."
”You’d be surprised how much more complex moving matter in space is than creating it” Edward replied, before explaining that ”the round only needs to exist for enough time to strike its target, which rather simplifies things. Magical constructs decay without a constant supply of mana, you see, but if they only need to exist for moments to minutes, things become a lot simpler” the man having left out some of the complicated pre-battle operations needed to prime the gun to be fired in the first place.
”The stone, meanwhile, can draw in the ambient mana of the surrounding environment in the exact same way any mage does, but, ingeniously, without the training such a spellcaster requires. Thus we bring the power of magic to the masses. In this case, sadly, for war, but the basic principles have innumerable civilian applications that we can apply once peace is achieved” he continued, that last sounding very much like a much repeated line despite the honest desire also evident behind it.
At the mention of ambient mana the Ace Cadet blinked in surprise, and he looked up from the workbench briefly as if he might be able to see such a thing.
"Hm, yeah, if it can ignite a bowgun's firing mechanism then it could light a stove or a forge, or turn a steam wheel," Ace mused. "I think... maybe Edinburgh Magicapolis ran on something like this. I was pretty distracted at the time but they had lights and carriages and all kinds of things with those glowing circles around them."
Edward's explanations were all informative and to the point, which the hunter appreciated. Though he couldn't understand how, exactly, the gemstone worked to absorb mana, he likened it to any other system that drew power from nature - like a windmill. The basic principle behind the magelock, how and why it functioned, was easy enough to grasp.
This was good. Magic in small, easy digestible doses like this was much easier to handle.
"Though it wouldn't work if you were in a place that didn't have mag... mana," he finished with, cutting another glance at Edward.
"That's what my world's like. We have fairy tales and stuff, and there were a couple of times another world's magic kind of crossed over into ours, but it didn't last long. Normally there's no magic at all." If anything, Ace sounded sort of glad for that fact. "At first I thought all the magic was pretty radalos, but the longer I was with the Seekers the more it kind of..."
He trailed off, motioning with his hand to try and grasp the words from the air. "...started to bother me. It seems like there's no logic to a lot of magic. Once, we ended up trapped in this sea vessel where a woman had turned us all into little kids. And everything was trying to kill us while we were stuck like that. There was cursed food, and all this stuff started growing on my arm... It giggisucked. After that's when magic really started to freak me out, but everywhere we go seems like all the enemies we face can do more and more dangerous things with it."
He chuckled a little at himself. If no one else felt like he did, then his fear was irrational - and though his uneasiness with magic had been somewhat manageable at first, lately it had caused all kinds of problems. Maybe he wouldn't have been defeated in the final hollow if he could better control his reactions.
"That's why I tagged along, I figured if I could sort of understand how it worked I wouldn't be as jumpy around it. And since a magic bowgun is more technical than a magic sword, I thought it would be easier to get if I saw the pieces while you worked on one." Ace gave Edward a small grin. "So far so good! ...you don't mind, right? I could even help out if you need it. Might not look it, but I'm pretty good with my hands."
Edward had to resist the urge to start taking notes despite his intense urge to do so when presented with so many hanging threads of information, but resist it he did, just as he resisted the urge to pull on those threads. He’d seen this sort of fear before, as when faced with the horrors magic could be used to create even the most hardened soldier could lose their nerve, and it was important to take it seriously.
”Caution around the unknown is entirely rational” he affirmed, before expositing on his own philosophy around the topic ”but as you intuited, learning about what you do not understand, and thus making the unknown known is an excellent way to ward against the fear it can induce. Then, once you begun to peeled back the curtain and have burned away the veneer of mysticism, it becomes clear that all things, be they magic, miracle or material, have an explanation just waiting to be discovered”
”and I’d be entirely welcome to your help. Perhaps we can even learn some things together, seeing as I will need to salvage some spare parts to get my rifle working once more” he then replied to the request, before tapping at the armory screen again and summoning the Charr Pirate Musket to the table.
”I was thinking of dissecting this one to see how it ticks, and to see if I can salvage components from it to replace the broken ones from mine” he explained as he moved the dismantled rifle parts to the side and set the musket at the center of the stage.
Now this was really something the Cadet took interest in. He was no Ace Gunner, but ever since she'd taught him how to customize bowguns it had been a fun and cathartic hobby to soup them up. Plus if they were going to rebuild the rifle, isolating the practical parts from the magic components would be easy and he'd get a much better look into how it all functioned together. Even better was that Edward seemed an old hand at things like this, and though Ace assumed he'd been around magic all his life he didn't treat it like common knowledge, nor balk at the hunter's misgivings with it. Ace didn't necessarily need validation in his feelings, but truth be told it was kind of nice to have it anyway.
"Does the gemstone need a special piece to hold it in place? If it doesn't then I don't see why scavenging parts off other guns won't work. There were a few others in the armory too, and I've got a bolt action I've worked on if needed."
He didn't mind giving up the Breechshot in the name of fixing the magelock if it meant he'd be able to work on his weakness. Ace got closer, though he gave the screen Edward had used a funny look. He sort of recalled the dreadnought mentioning the system before they’d set out in the morning.
"I'm surprised Sagi let you set that up."
”Possibly, but this one seemed the most in line with the magelock, as opposed to say, this” he tapped the screen again to summon the Glyphid Trophy Hunter Deepcore GK2 which, as he noted ”has a somewhat different design”
”Not that I amn’t incredibly interested in taking it apart, at a glance it seems to be entirely mechanical bearing the trophies, but that might be a task that will take longer than we have before landing” he said, entirely genuine in his disappointment it seemed.
Placing the gun aside he then replied to the question regarding Sagi’s allowance of the armory system to be used, saying ”A very thorough women that” approvingly before explaining that ”we went through all the potential issues beforehand, and supplied her with notes on the subject as well” and then asking ”I take it the two of you are familiar? Don’t suppose you might have an idea of what sort of thing she might appreciate as a token of thanks for her hard work?”
"Not anymore than you might," Ace replied with a tilt of his head. "I only got to the Avenger a day before you all. Just spent a lot of my free time in the armory so far, and since she looked Wyverian I got to talking with her."
The small familiarity on the high tech ship had been a welcome surprise, even if Sagi also happened to sport a very un-Wyverian set of wings.
"If I think of something I'll let you know. For now..." The Cadet went to fetch a set of his own tools in the workshop, and dragged another table perpendicular to the one they'd already been standing at. More room to take things apart and sort pieces. "Let's take a crack at fixing this thing! If we have time we'll take more apart too."
He grinned at Edward again. "Have you met Tora yet? If we can't get the rifle working again he might be able to help. He's a mechanic... or an engineer? But he makes all kinds of things. I’m sure he could fashion replacement parts, but who likes taking the easy way out first thing?"
That little bit of bravado got a grin from Edward, before he replied that he had ”Unfortunately not” met Tora, but saying that ”You’ll have to introduce us”
He then began a proper inspection of the musket, and was quickly disgruntled by the state of it saying ”This had not been particularly well taken care of. Or rather was created in a state of poor care I suppose” unaware that Midna had simply stolen this weapon rather than gotten it from a spirit. Either way, the weapon could have very much done with a good oiling, as patches of rust scarred its outsides, and discoloring on the stock and cloth wrapped around the barrel.
”Still, does not mean we can’t make some use of it, or see what makes it tick” he said, as he began to carefully disassemble the weapon, a process that required a bit more brute forcing of rivets than his own had required.
Completely lacking any sort of firing pin or internal mechanisms, the entire inside of the barrel was instead carved with rather simple runes that looked almost like scratch marks that seemed to all be at least a little bit misshapen. ”Almost like an inverted wand” Edward described it with interest, due to the complete lack of mechanical components, before pointing out ”see how the runes are warped? I think they might have engraved them on a flat sheet of metal and then bent it around into the tube shape afterwards. I can’t say if I am appalled by the crudeness of it or impressed by the durability of the spellcraft to endure that process”
Ace had pulled the Deepcore assault rifle over to him out of curiosity, but otherwise separated the pieces of the magelock out to get a better look at them all, more easily tell which were damaged even if slightly. Thankful he was still wearing his gloves and kote, he gently picked up the gem stone that served as the core and conduit of the weapon. It looks polished. I wonder if its naturally occurring or man made...
He looked over at the runes when Edward pointed them out, noting that it seemed to be an entirely different kind of 'practical' magic.
"How does that even work...?" he wondered aloud. "I guess pulling the trigger activates it same as any bowgun, but without a spring or a pin what tells the 'runes' to start... doing whatever they do?"
And that wasn't even going into how in the world inscribing runes produced magic anyway. Ace turned his attention to the musket's trigger itself once Edward held it up. "Would it have a matching engraving...?"
”Good question, let’s find out” Edward replied as he slid the musket back together, sans the entire barrel, leaving them with just a stock and trigger sections, before promptly aiming it at the closest wall and pulling the trigger. There came a small flash, and from the chamber a glowing bolt of magic flashed forwards, before impacting harmlessly into the metal it had been aimed at.
”Interesting. I think the trigger itself might be a wand that casts upon being flicked? That spark flys forwards, lights up the runes, and does something to create the projectile” he said before thinking for a moment.
”Here, maybe if I just replicate this” he said, getting out a scrap of paper, and then making a copy of one of the scratch mark runes on it with his quill and ink, before setting it down on the workbench. After that, he crouched down, aimed the baraless musket over the scrap, and fired it again.
Again, the bolt flashed forward, but, as it passed over the rune, it pulled something from it, and, in doing so, became both more solid and moved faster, making a light but audible ping as it hit the wall, scattering a fine mist of metal shavings out from the impact site. Said site was notability below where the man had been aiming.
The paper, meanwhile, had been shredded as a result of the spells passing, limited investment of power spent in the singular shot.
”Fascinating” Edward described the result of his test, before saying that ”I can see why the warping of the runes didn’t stop the weapon form working, as even if some fail the round is still made solid enough by the sheer volume of them”
Ace blinked in surprise at the demonstration, trying to wrap his head around how that had even worked at all. Leaving aside the nature of 'wands,' Edward had only copied the lines of the runes - he hadn't even cast a spell or anything like that. So the rune shapes were all there was to it? Letters that powered up the projectile as the trigger itself cast it through the barrel? That was so... weird... but a little ingenious too.
"And the runes being carved into metal must prevent them from being destroyed after shooting, so it can keep firing at least until the barrel itself eventually breaks down."
It was a completely different make than the magelock, but... the Ace Cadet was sort of starting to get how and why these strange weapons worked. It was interesting to see the differences and similarities, even if the major thing they had in common was still beyond his grasp. Hopefully it wouldn't stay that way for long though.
”Along with a less ad hoc investment of power, a better environment to do it in and so on and so forth. There are many ways to do it, because magic is inherently very flexible.” Edward added, before giving some context as to why he thought that way.
”The world I was born on was connected to many others, and in my travels across them, I found numerous different ways in which magic was made to do more or less the same thing. I can only hypothesize that Galeem’s patched together world will be like that, but even more varied” before adding that ”why this is I unfortunately cannot say. Some hypothesis that all magic made by mortals is a lesser imitation of some true, perfect works used by higher powers to create reality. Others that magic reacts more to intent and repetition, and that ways to do magic are not discovered, but instead imprinted onto reality by mortals”
”It is not exactly my area of expertise, you see. Laryssa, a dear friend, would know more. My focus is more on the practical implantation of magic, and the meddling of wit with machinery, rather than the deep dives into the hows or whys of its roots” he apologized.
Catching the other man's tone, Ace shook his head once. "It's fine, this is good - groovios even."
It was a great bridge between the understood and the misunderstood. The hunter could only hope that from here he could move up to getting comfortable with the more... esoteric and strange stuff, but he'd leave that for later.
"So was none of this-" Ace waved his hand in the air to gesture very generally. "-that weird for you when you got freed, if you were already used to other worlds?"
”My home of Athla was but one world hanging in a space known as the astral sea, a fact we were rather brutally introduced to when worldgates connecting our home to other worlds opened and the Godir marched fourth from them to conquer it. In the process myself, Laryssa and an army of the Commonwealth that we had assembled to stand against the Godir were tossed out into the astral sea, which is a rather unpleasant place, and then eventually wound up on another world entirely. It was quite the unpleasant introduction to the whole affair, to say the least, and it only got worse from there” He replied, retelling part of his story, before hypothesizing on the nature of reality by saying ”Given what has been explained about this one, however, I have to assume that the astral sea in its entirely must itself have existed in some greater ocean of some sort. One that contained numerous other worlds or seas of worlds that Galeem devoured and then used to make this a singular world. Thus it is both strange and yet also familiar”
Even abridged, it was quite the tale. Ace let out a low whistle.
”You mentioned your world briefly interacted with others that had magic earlier, so I assume you were at least somewhat in the same boat in that regard?” Edward added.
As he talked, the man began assembling all the parts he had acquired onto the one table, and in his head considered how best to assemble them together again. And also if that was even a good idea in the first place.
"Not even close. It only happened in the New World, and it was only two days I think," he told Edward. "A few monsters popped out of some portals, some people followed them, and once everything was taken care of they left. That was that - nobody had a clue what caused it."
There had definitely been an adjustment getting used to the current world they found themselves in.
He looked over the pieces again himself. "The rune bowgun looks like it's too simple to be able to replace all the broken parts in your rifle... but... how do you think the engraved barrel would work with the rounds the magelock summons?"
Edward said magic was flexible, but he had to wonder about two entirely different systems. Besides that it would also be nice to use parts from the Deepcore rifle after all since it was looking like just one extra gun wasn't going to cut it. The thing had a nice quality grip, among other things.
”I have to agree, it seems like they are too different to really be safely combined. I can’t exactly say what the two would do together, but I’d certainly prefer to test such a thing in a firing range rather than a workshop for one” Edward replied, before adding ”and with a golem pulling the trigger to boot” because the result could be quite explosive if the summoned round got coated in enough extra metal to jam the barrel before it exited.
”An entirely mundane weapon might well be a better bet as a basis, despite the outward appearances being so different” which gave them both the excuse they needed to take a look at the deepcore rifle.
That said, while it did not have magical components, it did have an electrical one, one that powered a glowing display, currently displaying 0/25 on it, facing the user. Other than that, it seemed like an entirely mundane rifle, but there was the slight issue in that neither of them had really worked with one of those, or, in-fact, seen them up close.
”What do you think?” Edward asked Ace, as he began carefully taking the weapon apart to see how it ticked.
"Well the fangs on the front are pretty cool," the Cadet said first. He studied each piece as Edward pushed them over to him once his own look over was done.
It was definitely the most high tech gun Ace had handled so far, in pieces or otherwise, but compared to a magic weapon? He felt like he already had a better grasp on it. Once opened up and disassembled he could see how the ammo would have been stored and loaded, how the bolt and springs could work together to push rounds into a firing chamber. The wire and display connected to the lower receiver probably just counted the number of times the trigger was pulled (or more specifically that the hammer was released) after a new case of ammo was locked into place, but he could be wrong and it was actually able to keep track of each individual round.
It was sophisticated, with a lot of little parts working together, though the overall process wasn't actually that complicated as far as Ace could tell. But as for how it would interact with the gemstone igniter?
"...seems like a lot of internal parts with functions already handled by the magic can be taken out, which should leave room for the gem without having to file anything down, but it could end up being too much room. It might need a custom piece between the hammer and the gem, and one to hold the gem in place, 'cause if you just replace the pin with the stone... see how there's a track? I think it will be moving around while the bowgun... while the gun is firing. You'd know better if that will interfere with how it works though."
The hunter scratched at his head, considering some things. "It won't need this port for spent husks, so maybe something could be fit in there to help instead. Probably doesn't need this shielding either if it will be able to siphon its own heat away..."
”Yes. I can see what you mean. It would be overall quite the task to retrofit this to be a one shot rifle, and likely one we’d need extra materials for as well” he replied, before admitting ”I think I might have been over ambitious, and in hindsight, and as a result all I’ve achieved is breaking two more guns rather than fixing one. Something I could fix, where it not for the hour at hand”
Indeed, while he could probably put the weapons back together, the reality was that such a process was a fair bit more complicated than taking them apart, and as a clock on the wall helpful informed them, time was ticking away.
"Raincheck?" Ace said. He didn't sound put out, as the prospect of building a chimera-gun was something they could look forward to in the near future.
”Can’t say I am familiar with that expression?” the very British sounding despite not being British man replied.
"Oh - like when a festival is gonna be held, you check the sky for rain, and move it to another day if the weather doesn't cooperate."
”Ah, I see, another time, yes. Perhaps with some extra local expertise like that Tora fellow you mentioned” He replied after it was explained to him.
”Still, I can’t say this was entirely fruitless” Edward added, as he neatly sorted the 3 dismantled guns into piles of parts for storage until the metaphorical rain was off ”as we certainly learned a thing or two”
"Definitely," the monster hunter agreed with a smile. "I could barrel-ly stand to be around magic a few hours ago, but seeing it put together with something more familiar... now it kinda feels like my brain is firing on all cylinders."
Edward grinned at that, before declaring it the "The power of learning" before adding "Speaking of, I think we're all set to learn who’s actually running this whole operation" as he set the broken down guns to be sent back to storage via magic circle.
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