“What do you mean by that?” Kain asked in response, “All of this stuff works quite well. The cloak’s shield is great, the firing system of the pistol is the same, so what’s the problem?”

Ythane took a short breath. “Yes, it all works. The only problem is that you made it out of pure Ether runes,” she explained, “Did you not get that far in the books you said you took?”

“No, we didn’t,” he said. “So what’s the difference between a pure Ether rune and a normal one?”

“The difference is in their longevity and resistance. Normal runes are physically engraved into a device and then filled with Ether, pure Ether runes are created within the device by shaping Ether and not the material itself. The main problem with pure Ether runes is the fact that you can easily wipe the imbuement away with a pulse of Ether. If you have something that you wouldn’t mind losing, give it to me so I can show you what I am talking about.” Kain pulled out one of the Ether collection rocks he had made during testing and handed it over to the small serpent. “Hmm… a simple Ether collector made from a rock. Nothing stellar, but if you can do this, then you’ll get what I am trying to say when I do… this,” she said. A pulse of Ether flowed from one of her hands. When it collided with the rock in her other hand the thrum of energy that had been present vanished, and the accumulated Ether began to steadily flow outwards. “That was just by using a simple ‘disrupt’ pulse, with the Ether-specific nuance. Now, watch me do this.” She began to use one of her claws to carve the rock with small abstract shapes. Along the way, she needed to take a pause so she could regenerate the Ether that was spent making her claws capable of carving the rock. Eventually, however, she was able to carve a series of runes into the rock. She then asked for some of the blood from the chitin-covered monkey, or ‘Grunt’, and Kain reluctantly obliged. Taking small amounts of blood each time, Ythane pushed variously attuned Ethers into each sample of blood and filled the carved runes with the attuned blood. Eventually, the rock was completed, and had runes coated in blood in the middle of the rough surface. She activated it, and it worked identically to how it did previously. It collected Ether, began to glow blue, and stopped before it reached a critical point. “This is a normal rune device. You carve runes that lead into each other, overlap, and whatever else may be needed in pure Ether runes, then fill each of the runes with something that has a specific concept imbued into it. Blood is something that will always work due to its high Ether capacity, but using specifically attuned metals in the form of paint or even just dust works just as well, if not better,” she explained.

She then sent a pulse of the same Ether she previously used, which did nothing apart from shaking the blood fillings a bit. “That… makes sense. I have to ask though, what is attuned metal?” he asked, “I’ve never heard of it before.

“Well,” Ythane began, “Attuned metals are exactly that: metals that are attuned to a type of Ether. They mostly appear in areas where a certain type of Ether is being used almost exclusively. For example, if an arid mountain range is inhabited by fire-attuned monsters almost exclusively, then the metal found in the range will be almost exclusively fire attuned. They are rare, hard to find, and likely guarded by a legion of monsters or animals, but they actually increase the efficiency of using Ether dramatically. In truth, using Ether is very inefficient, so using attuned metals increases your effect for Ether put in,” she concluded.

Kain nodded. “Well, I guess that would put it in high demand,” he agreed, “But couldn’t you just pump a lot of a specific type of Ether into it and let it become attuned?”

“Yes and no. You know what happens when something is given too much Ether, and the same is true for attuned metals. The only time you can do something like that is when you have a machine or other thing running for hundreds of years and using the same type of Ether throughout it all. The Ether that is expelled fuses with the metal in question, attuning it. The time and resource investment, however, is so large that no one in their right mind would make a machine specifically to do that,” she explained. “Well, either way, I think we’ve had enough chatting. I know that it’s not my place to tell you what to do with your equipment, but I would hate to see your work get destroyed and you get killed due to inexperience.” Kain tried to protest, but was cut off, “You weren't going to do anything while you waited anyway, and I doubt you would leave this room without her, so you can use this time effectively.”

Over the next dozen hours, Ythane observed Kain removing the pure Ether runes in all of his equipment and restoring the function by making normal rune copies. He decided to use some of the rose-red metal, which Ythane called ithicite, by powdering it and mixing it with some water and blood. The steam-powered pistol was easy enough, but the cloak proved much more difficult. Due to the fact that engraving cloth is impossible, Kain decided to simply paint the inside of the cloak. The problem came when he learned that the cloak was waterproof, and that all of the grey cloth was. Ythane had never thought to permanently imbue an article of clothing, but was able to help Kain by suggesting to sew in small patches of non-waterproof leather into the interior of the cloak. After a few hours of embroidery, he was able to paint the strips of leather with the mixture and complete the cloak. It was also at that time when he learned what happened to liquids that were imbued with too much Ether; they made every effort to move away from itself. The end result was an almost imperceptibly thin layer of diluted blood with high concentrations of ithicite on the floor of the lab. Despite that, he was able to finish the embroidery and test his new shield out. It cost less Ether to maintain, which was an appreciated benefit. On top of remaking his own weapon, Kain worked with Ythane to remake Luna’s floating rocket hammer, her shield, and her deer skull.

Putting the deer skull aside, Kain yawned. “I think I’ll be going to sleep. Do you need to sleep?” he asked.

“No, I don’t. It’s one of the advantages to having a soul gem house your soul,” she replied.

He nodded. “Alright then. If Luna finishes her thing before I wake up, can you wake me up?”

“Not an issue.”

*=====*

Kain sat up, blurry eyed, as an annoying beeping sounded off from somewhere. It sounded like an alarm clock and an air raid siren combined together. He turned to find the source of the beeping and found a small ethereal serpent coiled around a crystal floating in front of the machine. Ythane was looking at the display intently with one of the translation necklaces wrapped around her soul gem.

She suddenly sighed in relief as the machine’s siren blared and turned to Kain. “Looks like you’re up. I think that she is almost done. She has another minute according to this thing,” she explained. Kain stood and moved to observe the machine. The screen was just as he had left it apart from the flashing timer.

[Estimated time until operation completion: 53 seconds]

As he stared at the screen, the seconds ticked by, and the operation came closer to finishing. Just then, the sphere that had been filled with bluish-green liquid shook slightly, and the liquid began to condense. At the same time something changed, as the liquid changed from bluish-green to a deep, crimson red. Slowly, the liquid condensed and condensed, becoming smaller and smaller, until it seemed to condense into a solid, bean-shaped organ about the size of a water bottle. The hatch then opened, letting the crimson red bean out. The bean suddenly sprouted legs and walked out of the hatch, falling to the floor once it left the sphere. The organ shuddered, shook, and then began to transform, flesh stretching in some areas and breaking apart and letting bones extend in others. I grew and grew, first taking a vaguely humanoid shape and then taking a definite human shape.

Once the transformation was complete, a young, about 15 year old girl stood in front of them, completely naked. She had short scarlet hair, was about 5’ 6”, and had soft facial features, making her look somewhere between cute and mature. Kain closed his eyes, sighed, then threw a translation necklace and his cloak at her. She eagerly put the necklace and cloak on, despite the fact that the latter was much too big for her. She took a step forward, looked down, and frowned. Patting the tiled ground with her bare foot, she became slightly more discontent as she heard the soft thudding. Eventually, she shrugged as a pair of rabbit ears the same color as her hair grew from her head and her human ears receded into her head. Once the final transformation was completed, she smiled and turned to Kain and Ythane. “This is amazing! This is what a human body is like? No wonder humans can do so much! Look at this! I have thumbs!” she cried in apparent joy.

Kain smiled before looking down at her body, which had become shown from her outburst, and turned away. “That’s great, Luna, but can you cover yourself up? Showing yourself like that is many things, not the least of which is indecent,” Kain replied.

Luna looked down, shrugged, and more securely adjusted Kain’s cloak. “Well, either way, this is awesome! I get to change my shape freely, I can mess with my DNA as much as I want, and I can do anything!”

Ythane coughed slightly, taking Luna out of her reverie. “Well, that is good, but how does your new body really work? I am very curious.”

Luna looked up at the ceiling, thinking for a moment, before snapping her gaze back to Ythane. “Well, there are two ways I can change my shape: the first is to carefully edit DNA to make a template of a body that can survive on its own were it to live in the wild. The good thing about it is that it only takes effort to create the DNA, not to maintain its shape. The second option is to jam conflicted DNA together and make a body out of the pieces, using Ether to smooth out any incompatibilities. That one is easier to do in the heat of the moment, but is harder to maintain for longer periods of time,” she explained. “For example, I can change my shape to this:” Her form shuddered as it contorted, wrenched forward, and grew green. Once her transformation was complete, she looked like a goblin from fantasy on Earth. “This is a goblin,” she stated her normal voice due to the translation necklace. Her form shook again as she grew back to her human form. “The only restrictions I have are on size and variety of DNA spliced together. I can compress and decompress my weight easily, but I need more flesh and blood at a certain point; I also need to make sure that I am as big or bigger than my core as well. The other restriction, variety at once, won’t be an issue. I can hold 20 unique strands of conflicting DNA together at once, so it’s all good!” she cheerfully concluded.

Kain smiled and took out a roll of grey cloth. “Well, you need clothes anyway, and I doubt that you want to force your body to maintain clothes, so give me a bit to sew you some basic clothes,” Kain said, “You can sew as well, if you want.”

Her eyes lit up. “Ohh! I can use my hands this time!” she yelled excitedly. She hurried over next to Kain and helped him sew an outfit for her.

*=====*

It had been a decent amount of time. The Beast with One Eye was getting closer to its target, its seed that had been growing for hundreds of years. It could feel the seed, feel its heath and nutrition, and know exactly where it was. It had felt its pack feasting not long ago, so they would be flying to join it. It could almost taste the savory meat that would come from the creature.

Then, all of a sudden, something changed. The connection between it and its seed was severed. It was as if the seed was crushed in a rapid flurry of change, its carefully designed matrix broken. The Beast with One Eye did not appear surprised, as it was not. It had no need for such an emotion. Or any others, for that matter. It simply stared in the direction it had last felt the seed and followed.