“Be prepared for my arrival.”

Rarely had such a simple phrase filled Mitch with such dread. He didn't even have a spare Blunderbeam floating around to show the warden; if Kanshou came back too quickly he would have nothing to show and if that were to happen there was no telling if he would be able to talk his way out of a (hopefully) swift doom. He needed at least a few hours if he was going to have any chance: more if he was going to try to make a weapon using the geode crystals which he had a feeling he would need to do to avoid being tied down on top of a fire ants nest, or skinned alive, or having his internal organs extracted via his asshole, or.... Mitch grabbed hold of his thoughts before they could spiral out of control.

First things first, he needed to worry about avoiding his demise before worrying about what form said end might assume. Moving with as much alacrity as possible without becoming careless, he gathered materials and references that might be needed and headed down into the pit; determined to spend as many minutes or hours as remained doing the utmost to allow for survival.

Kanshou rushed back toward his shop as quickly as possible; pushing harder than was advisable considering the risk this low energy environment brought for the drains, or even collapsed meridians, if he allowed his reserves to get too low. He would need to restore his energy levels with spirit stones after he initiated communication with the next realm.

That meddling idiot was taking things too far. His master had clearly told him that he was in charge of things when they had begun this whole fiasco, and yet the Historian thought he could do as he pleased. If the other immortal hadn't invoked his master he would not have survived the earlier exchange. Unfortunately, even Kanshou's own master would not take the other's lightly.

How some doodler had managed to gain such a degree of influence, able to even turn the Head's rightful punishment into an experiment, Kanshou would never know. Such people should stay hidden in their basements and scrolls until called out into the real world as was proper. If they had stayed where they belonged he would have been able to spend the last millennium seeking advancement in peace rather than spending it worrying about what a bunch of useless mortals were doing.

Finally he reached his shop and proceeded to the most hidden portion of the complex. The limitations inherent with communication between realms meant that all he could do was signal the need for an exchange. After that, he would need to wait until the other side returned the signal. It could be minutes, hours, or days and he would need to be there when they initiated the connection else one of the extremely valuable chits would have been wasted. Kanshou brought out some spirit stones and worked to replenish his energy stores while he waited in the formation for a reply.

Mitch bounced between tools and machines like a pinball on a high score run, but somehow managed to fall short of appearing rushed. His hands kept steady as they worked: his movements were sure as if he had done this a thousand times.

“Will adding circles reinforce it or just disrupt things? Maybe offsetting the helices will force it to flow evenly.” Had anyone been listening the absent tone would have made it clear that the muttering was subconscious. Such an observer might also have noticed that the current step of the construction had nothing to do with circles or helices. If this person were thoughtful as well as observant they might come to the conclusion that even while so avidly performing the current task Mitch was also planning the next phase, or perhaps the process after that.

Behind him were the remains of several more experiments that had been conducted earlier. A ragged hole nearly thirty centimeters wide in one of the worktables where the smallest crystal from the geode, just under a millimeter to a side, had been overcharged to the point of failure to see what would happen. It exploded. Next to that was a crystal which had been left shooting a beam continuously ever since it had been set up in a stress test. On the other side were three more crystals of different sizes glowing in separate circles that had been specifically tuned to prevent each from ever emitting a beam so as to determine how the size of a crystal affected the energy requirements and capacities. Some notes about using the ratio between the size of the main circle and the collectors as a unit of measure were penciled directly onto the tabletop next to the weight of each of the crystals.

There were no plans to be seen. Whatever schematic Mitch was working to existed, or was being created, solely within his mind.

“The beam being visible means it is not perfectly efficient. Need to test diffraction. Visible beam is also a tactical disadvantage. Can it be better focused?” The muttering continued almost without pause while the work continued to pour out of him.

Nearly two days passed before Kanshou finally felt a return connection through the chit, but when a voice came through it was not the one that he expected.

“What is it?”

“Where's Boss Ming?” Boss Ming was his masters right hand and had answered every time a chit had been used in the last millennium.

“Dead. Piss Robes got him. Now, out with it. These things only last so long.”

There would be time to consider the implications of Ming's death later. “I need some direction. The Doodler's man is interfering with what I was told to do. I need to know if the scribblers are still in favor or if I can put him in his place.”

“A moment, I will review the notes.” Ming had been a meticulous note keeper. Supposedly he had recorded the size, shape, and color of every bowel movement he had passed for nearly three thousand years. “I see. By 'Doodler' you mean Master Chi and 'scribblers' refers to the Artificer's Faction.” Kanshou didn't really need to hear any more: if the members of his own faction were referring to Chu and his followers that respectfully then it was likely the other faction had gained even more influence somehow.

“Do not interfere with-” Kanshou snapped the chit in his fingers. This would make it appear as though the connection had failed from the other side and he didn't have to listen to the drivel that was undoubtedly to come.

The competition between himself and the Historian had not officially been part of this exercise, but it had been understood that whichever faction had the representative that brought back the most value at the end would secure significant political capital. Capital it seemed his faction was badly in need of. Stumbling upon the boy had been a stroke of pure luck as he did not have the formation the Historian used to keep tabs on the planet. Neither did he have the ability to create such a formation and even if he was able to recreate the formation he didn't have the ability needed to utilize it.

Worse, both killing the man and forcing his compliance were out of the question. It seemed all he could do was make nice and attempt to convince the artificer to share some of the people he found. It was unlikely that he would get so lucky again.

His lip curling at the thought Kanshou finished replenishing his energy and made to leave. It was time to go back and see if the boy had earned his life.

Or... he could scatter some seeds. The boy had been fortunate and managed to intuitively pick valid information from the dross which was all that remained after a thousand years of revision: if he were to plant some seeds – spread accurate but incomplete knowledge all around to jump start progress – perhaps something worthwhile would grow to be harvested. Something that could ensure his dominance.

All in due time. There was already one crop to bring in.

Mitch wrote feverishly, putting down into words the thoughts and abstracts and wild maybes that had been going through his head. He felt that odd state of mind begin fading as soon as he put the finishing touches on the two weapons made in the last however-long-it-had-been. He had the feeling that not recording everything he could would be an immense loss for him.

Crack.

The branch breaking sound of Kanshou's emergence behind him snapped the tenuous threads of reverie that remained. Mitch bemoaned the loss but knew anything that hadn't already been recorded was gone.

“Warden.”

“Boy, it is time. Demonstrate your toys.”

“Right. Proving ground is this way.”

Mitch led the immortal back to the area where he had been conducting tests and began to set up his testing protocols.

“What are you doing?”

“Setting these up to trigger remotely in case of failure.”

“Dispense with this pageantry. Use them directly.”

“But if they fail-”

“If they fail I will not be harmed and it will save me the trouble of killing you myself.”

Mitch took a deep breath. “Practical.”

“It is.” Kanshou met his eyes evenly.

“Fuck it. YOLO it is.” Mitch grabbed, lifted and fired the new version of the Blunderbeam in a single motion. Even knowing something of what to expect he had never actually seen the first prototype fire so the intensity of the beam still took him off guard. Despite the cornea burning brilliance he kept his finger on the trigger and closed his eyes, then covered them when that wasn't enough. The complete silence of the weapon in operation was eerie.

He held the trigger closed until the beam stopped of its own accord noting that some welder's goggles would be handy next time he used this one. It took a few seconds, but eventually enough of the after-images were blinked away to allow the aftermath to come in to focus.

The scars left in the stone were both strange and familiar. Having been hand held, the path of destruction wandered quite a bit but this only served to highlight the destructive potential. What few plants, and animals presumably, that had existed between the firing point and the wall of the mine were entirely obliterated. The stone in several places was clearly molten this time; slagged being to gentle a word. Rock popped and cracked as it cooled.

“Passable. Presumably this is you taking my warning about swarms to heart?”

Mitch wrenched his gaze away from what to him was an impressive display to turn to the stone face Warden. “Partly that. Partly it was originally the only thing that I could make that worked.”

“I hope you have rectified that. This may be effective but it is hardly the right tool for most situations. If this is all you have you will not have sufficiently ensured your survival.”

“I have one more.”

“Good. Proceed.”

Not daring to quibble Mitch picked up the brand new, completely untested and yet to be named weapon.

Please don't explode.

It didn't explode. Instead it unexpectedly performed exactly as planned. A beam so white it almost seemed solid struck out with neither muss nor fuss. Soundless like the Blunderbeam before it and no less effective for all that its beam was so much smaller. Turning away from the section the Blunderbeam had ruined so as to better differentiate the effects a meter thick boulder found itself the unfortunate focus of Mitch's inquisitive mind as it was cleanly bifurcated without so much as a proper dinner date to help it relax.

Even short pulses punched satisfyingly deep holes in whatever they were unleashed toward. Mitch played with tested the weapon for a couple of minutes before he ran out of things that could honestly be called probative and turned to Kanshou for his verdict.

“What's that phrase you people like so much? Live to fight another day?” Mitch sighed in relief. “However, I would change the design of your second weapon slightly.”

“What do you recommend?”

“The control is fine, but the beam itself it too small. A weapon such as this lacks the secondary types of damage seen with your projectile weapons. There is no concussion from the impact to damage organs, and no lead to mushroom or shatter and expand the tearing caused by the projectile itself. There will be some burning, but for the most part your damage is limited to the direct path of the beam so you need to make sure the beam is sufficiently wide to maximize your chance of causing fatal damage.”

“That's... very helpful advice. Thank you. Unfortunately this design requires crystals to focus the mana and what you just saw was the largest crystal I possess. I don't believe I will be able to make the beam bigger.” The Warden looked at Mitch impassively for longer than was comfortable.

“I will assist you this once. You have created a method that is sufficient and only lack materials.”

Kanshou began making more of those finger tutting motions Mitch had first seen in the basement of the acupuncture clinic. This time they were evidently designed to bring the remains of the campfire here as the blackened hunks of what had recently been wood appeared floating in the air before the warden. Flecks of gray and a few other colors fell from the jumble before what remained burst into a powder and re-condensed into a black ball about the size of two fists held together. This ball split into two smaller spheres each of which was slightly larger than a fist, maybe nine centimeters in diameter before they began to shrink gradually but noticeably. Both globes began to emit heat that Mitch could feel from several feet away.

They continued to shrink further and further and began to glow. Finally when each was about two centimeters across they stopped shrinking. A layer of black dust fell away from the surface and two flawless diamonds were revealed. At least, judging by the process, Mitch assumed them to be diamonds.

“These should be adequate, yes?”

“Sure.” Despite knowing that this had in part been a show of force Mitch was impressed. Something about seeing something as coveted as a diamond created so easily really struck home the power difference in a visceral way.

“Now, as promised I will not kill you. However, as there is still a significant chance that you will die in the coming Tolling I will claim the information you have now as a precaution.” The warden stepped forward and once again placed his hand on Mitch's head and drove into his mind.

This time Mitch lapsed into the now disconcertingly familiar unconsciousness.