Kain placed the book on automatons on the table and sighed, “Alright, what are you two doing?” he asked the small floating serpent and the malformed creature pressed up against the ceiling. It took a few minutes for them to turn away from the ceiling and for Luna to morph back into her human form.

Ythane and Luna shared a glance and nodded, “Well, what did you get?” Ythane asked.

Luna shrugged, “It seemed like he was talking to some goddess or something. Something something Great Clock. You?” she asked back.

“There was a connection there. I know it. There was also a strange thing going on with sentient energy up there. I believe that someone or something linked their soul to that room up there,” she guessed, thinking about it.

Kain sighed, and waved in their faces, “Hey, what were you two doing? There was something interesting going on, so tell me.”

“Okay! So, uh… Gus is planning on doing something in a week. He said something about a goddess and faith, so I think he’s going to try to kill us,” she said sullenly, “I thought he was a good guy, too! What’s wrong with him!?”

Sighing, Kain turned to Ythane, “Do you think the sound-blocking barrier can hold back her ranting? I don’t want the rest of them to know what we’re talking about, let alone Gus.”

“It can. Easily. I got a bit creative with this one. It makes any noises that someone hears from the outside distorted and garbled. It was only theoretical back in my world, but with my analysis of Ether in this world I was able to make it,” she ranted, “Anyway, I was able to modify my sentient energy-based eyes using the dwarves as a base. I can now actually see Ether and sentient energy; the second one took much longer, but proved its worth here. I was able to see something link up, well, something in his ‘back room.’ I have two guesses as to what is going on here,” she stated, pausing to collect her thoughts.

“Ooh! Ooh! Is one of them that an actual goddess is talking with him?” Luna asked excitedly.

Ythane gave her a sort of shrug, “Yes, that was my less plausible theory. My other theory is that someone is pretending to be a goddess to accomplish some random goal. I cannot say for certain, but… I doubt an actual goddess has much to gain from associating herself with a mortal storekeeper. What do you think, Kain?”

“I don’t know. There can be plenty of mundane things that someone could gain from a store —money, materials, Ether— but just robbing the place would be much easier than doing that, so if it were a fake, then it would have to be an ego thing,” Kain mused, garnering an exaggerated sigh from Ythane.

“Ugh… the one thing I believed humans could refrain from having too much of, ego. Please tell me that ego is a rare thing for humans and that your ego is also rare…” she mumbled.

“Since when did I have an ego?” Kain wondered.

Luna giggled, “Since you said you were the mom of the group; we are older than you, you know. Besides, what have you been working on all this time?” she wondered aloud, giving him a playful glare.

He sighed and pulled a notebook he was given by Valerax out of his amulet and showed them a page. In the center, the design of a sigil sat sketched out. On the next page, another sigil sat, entirely different from the first. He flipped the page, showing two more pages with two more sigils. After flipping through half a dozen pages, he stopped and closed the book, “That is what I have been doing for the last few days we have been here. I began to look at the runes of the spider drones, and figured out some of the more interesting parts of it. Mostly the ‘mind’ that controls the whole thing. I am thinking… we can imbue liquids with properties using Ether, right? Then why can’t we do the same with solids or even gasses?” he wondered aloud, “And that was when I thought ‘why not use sigils in the air, then enchant the air the sigils sit in?’ Thinking along those lines, I came up with this: a pure Ether-based creature.” His rant continued on for a while, but he eventually explained all of his work over their few days in Olsvania.

Luna stared at him, completely lost and confused about what he said, while Ythane was looking at the automaton manual with interest, “That would be interesting… to summon a creature with nothing but your own mana and to control it as if it were an automata… That is a fascinating idea that I have failed to even consider…” she praised.

Kain grinned, “And you say I have an ego.”

“You still do, but your idea is impressive,” Ythane refuted.

“Nope!” Luna laughed, “Having a big ego means that you aren’t good enough to prove it.”

Ythane shook her head quickly, “No, an ego is what you view yourself as. Having a big ego means that you view yourself as grand, no matter if you deserve it or not,” she explained.

Before Luna could argue, Kain spoke, “Sorry Luna, but she’s right. Despite how my country uses the term, she still is technically right.”

“I… Hphm,” she pouted, which turned to a sigh, “Fine, you win. Anyways, when do you think it'll be done?”

Shrugging, Kain pulled up the notebook once more, “Most likely… a day, two if something goes wrong. After that, I can experiment with it and change it from a spider to… I don’t know, maybe a squid or something.”

They went silent for a moment, “Well, what should we do about Gus?” Luna asked, “There’s a good chance that he’s trying to kill us, so maybe we can kill him first?”

While Ythane gave the suggestion some thought, Kain shook his head, “No. We can’t just kill someone on suspicion of bad intentions. For all we know, he could be just trying to convert us to his religion. We’ll wait for the week to pass and see what he has in store.”

“We can’t just give up the element of surprise,” Ythane said, “If we do, then… Well, we could die. I understand your aversion to killing one of your own, but you have to understand that we can’t just let him kill us because of it.”

Luna nodded with Ythane’s statement, “Yeah, Yth is right. We can’t just let ourselves die just because he may be good. We have to deal with the problem before it becomes one.”

Kain looked between the two and sighed, “I… can’t. Look, how about we compromise. We can set up imbuements on a bunch of weapons and use them if he tries anything. Can you guys agree to it then?” he asked.

They hemmed and hawed for a few minutes, but eventually agreed. Kain was to continue creating his sigils while Ythane and Luna made basic imbuement weapons to prepare to kill Gus. With their roles assigned, they got to work.

*=====*

Night soon gave way to day and as the sun climbed over the horizon, Mary awoke in her sickbed, which had been moved from the surgery room the night before. Sitting up, she stretched her arms, but belatedly remembered that one of them was made of metal. The room she was in was a cozy one, with a clean wooden floor and simple decorations on the walls. Fortunately, there was a standard workbench in the room that would allow her to tinker with her weapons. On the bench was her rifle, a thin rectangle of metal, and an envelope.

Steadying herself, she stood and carefully walked over to the workbench and tore open the envelope and read the note within.

Mary,

I hope you got enough sleep last night. We won’t be in the base by the time you’re reading this because of the whole Ring situation. Anyway, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Anyway, we got you the high-grade mana storage device. I know. It looks small, but it’ll hold a lot —and I mean a lot— of mana. Use it how you will. The guys around the place should let you take whatever you need, within reason, of course. Anyway, I know that you have an apartment somewhere in the slums, and I suggest you get whatever you have in there as soon as possible and bring it to the base. Hopefully, after the mission, we can help you with that. Anyway, thanks for joining.

Welcome to the Tunnel Rats, Huk

With a chuckle, she placed the note on the table and slid it to the side. She picked up the battery Huk got for her and examined it. It was a steely metal rectangle with rounded edges, only the width of her finger and as big as her palm— as big as a playing card. [Alright, you remember what we planned yesterday?] Abe asked, his voice resonating through her mind.

She nodded with a small smile showing on her face, [Yes, yes, I remember. Put the battery on it, enchant some more bullets, and make a little machine that can make more bullets, right?] she asked, to which he mentally nodded, [Alright, good. The machine will take a while, but the gun and bullets shouldn’t. Alright, time to start the day!] she cheered in her mind, readying her mind for a day of enchanting.