“The sword isn’t here anymore Boreas.”

His magic came to a halt.

“What?”

Boreas stood there for a moment, as if unsure what to do. Did he really think that I would just leave that sword there for all eternity when I found it’s overbearing existence to be so irritating. Although to his credit, I’m not the one who removed the sword, but that information isn’t relavent.

After I graciously allow the long moment he needs to process this ‘shocking revelation’, he finally begins to speak.

“If the sword isn’t here, then where is it?”

“The sword no longer exists Boreas. It’s magic was spent.”

“LIAR!”

He pushed his magic and forced it to cycle causing the flames on his body erupted in a furious blaze. I sighed internally as now I would have to replace all the ice and moss in the cave. Not to mention the fact that if he were to attack me now, it would hurt a great deal.

“That sword held the magic of gods! GODS! And you’re telling me it just dissapated into nothing!”

“Thats not what I said. I said it’s magic was spent. Someone spent it’s magic.”

As he digested my words, the flames on his body calmed and dimmed, but still burned ferociously. I began reforming the ice in the furthest parts of my domain that were still within my reach, if I didn’t start now, then it would take all day to return this place to it’s former glory and luster.

Although new glowmoss may take a while to procure…

“I see…”

Boreas stood still, his flames occasionally brightening and dimming based on whatever mood or fantasy was going through his tiny brain. This always happened when something unexpected happened to him. He hasn’t the mental capacity to make dicisions at a moments notice, so he just sits there wasting everyone’s time.

“...Who spent the sword’s magic?”

“It was this dreadfully obnoxious little-”

I began to answer the question, but my words halted as I realized I wasn’t sure how I wanted to answer the question. Knowing this scatterbrained moron, he would almost certainly kill whoever I named for depriving him of a new shiny object to hoard, and the cub would probably keel over and die if Boreas even glanced at her.

“I’ve no idea.”

Unadalterated rage flashed across Boreas’ face for a moment, before it split into a nasty grin. The same grin he usually had when he was about to break something. A small spec of flame seperated from his body and shot past me and rocketed towards the newly made ice I had so pain stakingly made. When the flame reached it’s destination, it erupted and exploded. Had this been five years ago, I would have flinched at the sharp noise bouncing around the walls of my domain, but unfortunatly I’ve developed a tolerance for loud noises.

“That was rude, I just remade that ice.”

“I was simply repaying you in kind. After all, lying to your guest is rather rude itself. Answer me, who spent the sword’s magic?”

You’re not a guest you’re an annoyance.

“As I said before, I’ve no idea. One morning when I returned from a hunt, it was gone.”

“Stop lying, you take so much pride in your senses, yet you let something so valuable slip through your grasp? I don’t think so.”

“I do take pride in my senses, and as such I’m sure the swords magic was spent. If it was taken, I’ve no doubt I could have noticed from the far end of the forrest.”

“So what you’re telling me, is that someone snuck past you, and spent the sword’s magic, got away, and you didn’t even notice them?!”

“Precisly.”

“I thought you took pride in your senses! Weren’t you supposed to be the most perceptive one of us?! How can you accept that someone stepped into your domain and you were none the wiser of their presence!?”

Hm, there were many times when I didn’t know the cub was in her chamber when a loud combustion proved she was, if I got mad about it every single time then I would be as mature as a small child.

While I’ll admit I became frusterated the first few times I failed to sense the cub, I soon realized that I was trying to read something that wasn’t there. There is no shame in admitting that you cannot do something impossible.

“It’s not the first time something has escaped my notice. There was once a human who did so frequently, much to my aggitation.”

Boreas stopped to think for a moment.

“What was that human’s name?”

“Terry Fulcreek if I remember correctly.”

“I see.”

Seemingly done with his business here, Boreas made his way to the enterance of my domain. As he was about to depart, he turned to me.

“Dorran I almost forgot-”

I wish you did.

“-I still need to ask you about something. Although I doubt you’d know anything about it, it’d be best not to leave any stone unturned.”

That sounded like a pun. I hate him.

“Please ask your query already.”

“Oh my, no need to be so eager, it’s almost like you want me to leave.”

I do.

“I’ve recently found a small stone that’s unlike any other. It’s purple hue is something I’ve never seen before. It was about as small as a human cub’s hand, and the color faded to transparency out from the middle. The stone was remarkably smooth and it reflected light in a way that would make gold look like rusted iron. Have you seen anything similar as of late?”

As Boreas spoke of this stone of his, he closed his eyes as if he was remembering the most beutiful thing in the world. I’ve no doubt that the stone is vauable if Boreas spoke about it in such a manner, but it’s still just a rock, I don’t see the point. I heaved a sigh at his greed.

“No Boreas, I haven’t seen a stone like that before.”

“Oh, while that wasn’t unexpected, it’s certainly a shame. May you have good fortune Dorran.”

With that curt goodbye, Boreas spread his wings and took off towards a clearing off in the distance. It looked like there was some kind of human contraption there, a train perhaps, but I didn’t care. Thankful he was finally gone, I turned towards my domain and entered it. Remaking all the melted Ice as I went. As I worked on the boring task, my aimless thoughts soon turned towards the topic of my unwanted conversation, and by extension the human cub.

That little troglodite better be thankful that I spent the effort to come up with a believeable excuse as to why the sword was gone. Not that she would know that she owe’s me her life, well she owed me her life already so I would have to demand something else. Perhaps that stupid rock she always carried around with her. Speaking of that rock, I’ve no eye for valuables, but I’ve never seen a shade of green like that, maybe if Boreas makes another unwanted visit I could just gift him that and he’ll go away.

Actually, while I’ve never held it, that rock of her’s did look rather smooth. And it did seem transparent near the edges… and it was the size of her tiny human cub hands…

Oh dear.

Sooner than I would have liked, my meeting with the princess began. Alice ushered me into a train car specifically made for the royal madwoman who was sitting behind a desk. The train car was sectioned off into a living area and an office area, both of which were remarkably more decorated than the rest of the train, although the nature of those decorations were noticeably different.

In every train car there were things like swords on the wall and suits of armor, in this car however, there were hundreds of flowers in addition to the swords. Hell, some of the flowers were shaped like swords. Were those natural? Or did someone cut them to look like that? With some of the things I’ve seen in this world, I could believe either.

Looking around the car, I think I recognized ten flowers out of the hundreds of species here. I didn’t know any of their names. I didn’t realize just how much I was looking at the flowers until Rola pointed it out.

“You seem quite fascinated by my flowers, are you interested?”

The crazy Princess had a strange smile when she asked that question.

“Um, not really. I just wasn’t expecting this many flowers.”

“No need to be so formal. You haven’t even sat down yet, I can tell you’re interested. Here, let me show you some.”

When Rola grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the wall with the most flowers on it, I noticed Alice just sigh and start cleaning the car.

“So Julie, how much do you know about flowers?”

“Not that much really, I’ve never really been that interested-”

“That just won’t do. You’re going to be working under me so you need to at least know the basics.”

The Princess picked a flower from the wall. The flower looked a little like a rose if you didn’t count the fact that the blood red petals curved inwards the back outwards at the top like a vase. She peeled back the swirling petals in the middle to reveal icy blue petals hiding inside.

“This is a Tamire, they come from the False Oases of The Great Desert of Heslios. From afar they look identical to Famiares- OH! One second.”

Rola ran across the room and plucked another Tamire from the opposite wall and ran back.

“As I was saying Tamires look identical to Famiares from afar but are differentiable due to the Tamire’s icy heart. Alone they have four different meanings based on how they’re presented to someone but if you pair them together with Famiares then they have NINE different meanings!”

“False Oases?”

Rola seemed really excited about her flowers, but a false oasis? What?

“Oh that's right! You haven’t left Azor have you?”

“No, I haven’t?”

“Well Famiares and Tamires only grow naturally in Oases and False Oases respectively. Famiares are basically just regular plants and are honestly a little boring. They’re really only special because of Tamires and how deceptive False Oases are. A False Oasis looks just like a real oasis but the water is poisoned. Tamires grow there because they actually need the poison to grow!”

“Why would the water be poisoned-”

“And this is a Steel Clover!”

Completely ignoring my question she put the two flowers aside and pulled a new one from the wall. This was the flower that looked remarkably like a sword. You could honestly mistake the thing for being made out of steel. It’s silver stem was dug into a small sapling and the four silver petals bloomed outward like the hilt of a rapier with a little stick extending out to make the handle.

“Steel Clovers are parasitic by nature and won’t bloom until they’re stuck into a living thing. This flower only has three different meanings but they’re native to Azor! They’re not really common but every once in a while you can find a whole bush of these waiting to stick into something!”

I think I’ve seen one or two of those actually. Not recently of course, I mean up until two days ago I was living in the mountains.

“OH! And then these are called Acorts!”

…

…

...

The next half an hour passed like this. Rola dragged me around the room and showed me about thirty different flowers and explained all their origins and meanings in great detail. I tried to ask a few questions at the start to be polite, but after a while I just tried to change the topic of conversation to the meeting we were supposed to be having. That's what I came here for after all.

But even when I said “Hey these flowers are pretty cool but what did you want to talk about?” it was like she didn’t hear me. She just kept talking and talking and talking about flowers and how this one can mean sorrow or melancholy if you flip it upside down like some kind of tarot card and how this one meant purity but only if you’ve lost an arm or whatever.

The worst part was that I felt bad about trying to get her to shut up. She was clearly passionate about flowers, but if I spent another second hearing about fucking flower bouquet theory I’m going to shoot something.

Is this how the Griffin felt when I talked about runes? No wonder he froze my mouth shut.

I finally understand your pain Griffin. If I never get out of here, then I’m sorry for talking you to death. BUT TO BE FAIR, hearing about how magical capacitors are limited by the fluid nature of magic in motion is much more interesting than hearing about what type of flora your new boss prefers.

Perhaps noticing my boredom, Alice finally did something nice for me. She tapped Rola on the shoulder and mentioned that she should probably proceed with the meeting or else she’ll miss lunch. Realizing that she was wasting everyone’s time, Rola sat down behind her desk and motioned me to sit in the chair across from her.

“Julie, as you know you’ll soon be working under me in the castle. I called you here today to discuss your duties and what will be expected of you when we reach the Capital.”

Rola pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to me.

“Please keep in mind that all of this is subject to change.”

The paper gave a brief overview of what my day to day life will be like working under this stab-happy princess. As of right now, I was to spend all my time developing weapons for Rola in addition to trying to steer the research of the other engineers at the castle in the same direction. I would be given a room in the engineer’s wing but I wouldn’t be given the standard servant that comes with such a room. There was no reason stated.

“First question, why won’t I be getting a servant?”

I have no idea what to expect when living in a castle, but I do know what to expect when it comes to working in a lab environment. And my expectations tell me that I having a secretary fill out all the annoying paperwork and getting me coffee would make my life a lot easier. Not to mention that I haven’t filled out anything close to legal documentation in a little over nine years.

“In order for you to get a servant I would have to ask the Head Maid to spare one. At the very least I’ll likely be able to persuade her if you’re still here after a month.”

“...Why wouldn’t I be there after a month?”

The Princess coughed and looked to the side.

“Ahh… You might be transfered elsewhere…What was your second question?”

The way she abruptly changed subject just sets off alarm bells. Should I be making an escape plan right now? The castle was probably a big place and I could probably slip away easily, I’ll keep that in mind for later.

“So what types of weapons do you want me making and why do you want the other engineers to start doing the same?”

Magic engineering is a vast field and can make a variety of devices. It makes sense that a castle would have many different people working on many different projects. But if Rola wanted me to move all their research to weapons development, then that could only mean one thing.

War.

I’ve seen this happen before, back at my old workplace. I was hired just at the start of the newest world conflict, and the company I worked for made a huge numebr of things, not just weapons. But as the wars went on, Boss gradually moved everyone into weapons development and we became one of the most prominent arms dealers in the world.

If Rola wants to move everyone to making arms, but there’s no war, then that means there will be a war soon. Why else would she make weapons on that scale? If she just wanted weapons against the other seconds, then I could supply her. As far as she knew anyways.

“I wanted you to make more of your ‘plasma weapons’ as you called them. They left quite the impression. Don’t worry about cost, the palace will cover it all. As for the last part of your question, don’t worry about it.”

Yeah, Othium is definitly going to war. If I had that thought in any other context it I would be fucking livid. Peaceful world my ass, Caboose lied to me! AGAIN! But I wasn’t focused on that.

“Don’t worry about the cost. The Palace will cover it all.” She said that. She said those words. Money won’t be an issue. Resources won’t be an issue. I can get actual parts instead of jerry-rigging rusty swords and knives. I can get paper to properly write down my ideas. I can bounce my concepts off of other researchers. I can test my designs to my heart’s content while not having to worry about running out of energy crystals, or my energy-sword dissapearing, or a griffin freezing me in place to stop me from making noise, or worry about what I’ll eat next, or how the hell I would hunt those stupid fucking mountain-snow-tiger things without dying.

While my research back in the cave was far from fruitless, it felt very limiting. The lack of usable materials and the overall situation made research real difficult. That wouldn’t be the case at the castle. ALL my needs would be attended to. Well, research needs at the least. But what would I make? My plasma pistols and rifles were almost at a point I was happy with, all they really need was dedicated hardware rather than rusted, crumbling swords. Maybe I could make plasma shields? Or maybe a cannon? A plasma cannon- NO A PLASMA RAILGUN!

Railguns work by using magnets, and superhot plasma has a magnetic field, so it should work with enough effort! So what if the magnetic field was extremely short lived and unreliable? Anything is reliable if you do it fast enough!

Speaking of doing things quickly, I need to write this down before I forget!

Realizing I don’t have a pencil, pen or any other writing tool, I reach over and grab one of the pens laying on Rola’s desk and quickly start sketching basic designs and ideas for the plasma railgun on the sheet Rola gave me. Completely ignoring anyone who would dare interrupt my work.

“I wanted you to make more of your ‘plasma weapons’ as you called them. They left quite the impression. Don’t worry about cost, the palace will cover it all. As for the last part of your question, don’t worry about it.”

Julie’s ‘plasma weapons’ truly had left an impression. I’ve no idea for their viability in combat, or warfare for that matter, but based on what I’ve seen so far I have some expectations. I also have to wonder what kind of conditions Julie was living under before I met her. Her clothes were animal furs sewn together, much like that of a peasent living up north, but she was in Talcoya so she couldn’t have been raised there. Her weapons were in almost complete disrepair. Rusted and cracked, it’s almost like they had been sitting in a damp cave for decades before Julie found them and made them what they are now.

Honestly, Julie seems almost too smart for her own good. She noticed that it was unusual for every magic engineer in the castle to be making weapons and questioned me about it. Had she been older I might have told her that Father feels uneasy about the Fey Kingdom and it’s new king, but I’d rather not have a child focusing on something as greusome as war-

My thoughts were rudely interrupted when Julie abruptly grabbed my favorite pen from my desk, nocking over anything that was in her way and sending a miriade of papers flying, and began furiously writing something on the information sheet I had given her.

The pen was a sleek one with a quaint tulip coming out the back.

“Julie.”

I called out to her, a little unsure of how to deal with the situation. I was angry. I knew I was. But no one had ever just reached onto my desk, thrown everything off it, and stole my favorite pen before. She didn’t even ask to use my pen, she just took it.

Regardless of how I felt about this situation, the little brat ignored me. Choosing instead to continue to write complete nonsense on the paper until there was no space left. At which point she just took one of the papers she had knocked onto the floor and started to write on that.

“Julie.”

I was starting to get really mad. Not only had she stolen my favorite pen, she had also disorganized my work place, defaced one of my documents, and now she was ignoring me.

At this point I would have threatened violence, but, this was just a small child. An orphan child at that. It would be stupid to expect one to know much at all about etiquette. It’s something I can teach her later.

“Julie, that was an important document and that's my favorite pen-”

“Can you shut up for a second? I’m working.”

She interrupted me again, and she didn’t even look up from her work! If anything she’s writing down gibberish at an even faster pace!

Perhaps I should use violence after all?

Cycling my magic, I called upon one of the many swords hidden under the flora decorating my walls and it flew to me. Being the gracious and just ruler that I am, I, in all my infinite generosity, decided to give this disrespectful brat one last chance before I traumatized her.

“JULIE. PUT THE PAPER DOWN AND RETURN MY PEN.”

“I’m working. I’ll do whatever it is later.”

She didn’t even hear what I said as she continued to write gibberish on a brand new piece of important documentation as the last one was now filled to the brim with scribbles and nonsense.

I took a deep breath.

“Alice, would you be so kind as to open a window?”

“Y-yes Your Majesty, right away!”

Having seen a similar scene many times, Alice knew that I wasn’t happy. Stumbling over her words, she walked as quickly as she could to the window without running, as that would be disrespectful.

With the window now opened, I cycled my magic and hit Julie in the chest with the butt of the sword. She dropped the pen and paper and fell to the floor. I stood up and cycled my magic and strengthened my body (A parlor trick my Goddess taught me).Now with the strength to do so, I picked the wheezing Julie up by the scruff of her neck…

...and threw her out the window.

Not wasting a second, the sword flew out behind her and with decisive accuracy, stabbed the blade through her clothing and deep into the wall, pinning Julie to the side of the train.

“Close the window Alice, her screaming is getting on my nerves.”

“O-of course Your Majesty. Um, will, will she be okay?”

“She’ll be fine. She needs to learn to respect her superiors. Do tell Esia to retrieve her by the hour though.”

“Right away Your Majesty.”

Alice left my personal car to inform Esia of her new responsibility as I picked up my pen and the papers Julie wrote on. As I expected, I couldn’t decipher any information from them. I recognize a few of the markings as magic circuitry but the rest of it was entirely beyond me. There were a few sketches of what appeared to be some sort of cannon, although it looked much too slim to be a cannon. Maybe it was another ‘plasma weapon’ of some kind? I pulled out a small handkerchief as I wiped some sweat from my brow and put the papers on my desk.

As disrespectful as she is, Julie really is gifted in engineering isn’t she? I was incredibly lucky to find her. I’ll have to give Sir Thog my thanks for recommending I come out here.

Sitting down, I did my best to ignore Julie’s screaming as I wiped away more sweat. Her screams seem to be getting louder, becoming ear-piercing. How can a human scream so loudly? I wiped away even more sweat.

When did it get so hot in here?

I glanced out the window and saw that the surrounding hilly grasslands that we had been passing though, which were perfectly lush and green not even a minute ago, were burning as far as I could see.

Julie’s screams became even louder.