Detect Magic, Gorbachev Science, and Other Basics to Cover

Some time later…

"Charging now… running protocol… there… it’s… it’s working.” Despite her fixated expression, Tricia nearly giggled her conclusion. The object of her fixation, a single chunk of blue metal, shifted and twitched on the table. A small, multi-jointed antenna extended from each of its three sides—two rounded off with a straightened third, forming the shape of a dragon scale—and lifted the small automation to its feet. Tiny LEDs sparkled blue on its otherwise featureless face underneath the armored top of the small, black beetle Tricia had given life.

It had been eighteen hours, or two hours to the world outside John’s barrier. Tricia had used some three of them to sporadically pull John back into the faux sheets they had sullied with their bodies; Yui had spent a comparable division of hours between observing their every move and then… “observing” their every move. John occasionally popped in and out of his temple to bring them food, water, and enough of the latter to clean themselves while they remained here; both longed for “proper” facilities, but made of the barrier what they could. Yui and Tricia occasionally napped; John watched them sleep with aching attention while also experimenting with his powers in the barrier.

That made up most of the time, as far as John and Yui were concerned… but every moment not spent on John or in the sparse sleep cycle she allowed herself, Tricia was toiling away. Using what remained of the Lawmen armor and 13 of his soul gems, John used Craft in almost every way it permitted, deconstructing, reconstructing, refining, and eventually upgrading materials until the magical and mundane became the particular tools Tricia desired: soldering gear, raw silicates, piles of tubok, and basic, bulky gemstones. The rest, Tricia had assured him, would fall to Gorbachev science.

John had watched with fascination at the "magic" of the Gorbachevs: while he had accepted the premise of magical technology, he wasn't prepared to watch her solder or mold things interchangeably with either her tools, the raw application of her mana, or a delicate intertwining of both. With his ability to observe her via his Eye of the King, John registered how virtually every step of Gorbachev technology involved mana. Rather than produce some primitive circuit that even he might've picked up in a YouTube video, Tricia's engineering leaped through what John would've expected to be necessary steps in the middle. Her "technique," then, was in hastening the process of crafting electronics, circuitry, and processors, all while reaching greater heights than such crafting would achieve in mere mortal hands. Her every manipulation of the materials drank deeply from her mana, making it dwindle and regenerate in the ebb and flow that she barely seemed to notice, and weaving her power into every bit of manufacture.

She seldom asked John for much help at all once she finally had her basic tools and materials. She also didn’t take any breaks except to sleep or fuck, and her new mana reserves were tested as she powered through what once took days of work in mere hours. All that work had culminated in a few select devices and gear, though John had yet to see her wear or explain any of it; his Eye told him he was staring at a supercomputer with a mana battery power source, a modular suit of armor and, now dancing nervously on its antenna feet, a “drone scale” capable of basic tasks and reactive defenses.

That last one was what all three stared at with rapt attention, each looking for some sign of why Tricia had suddenly become so animated by what her magic had produced. She sensed their confusion, and explained, “This is an older, basic model of the drones I operated back on Earth. But constructing one here, given the limitation of our materials and equipment, was... not a highly probable success.”

“So… what can it do?”

With a smile, Tricia touched the black cylinder “supercomputer” and then touched the small drone. Mana drained from her pool, mostly into the battery, but also some into the drone as she registered it. The drone chirped lightly and, without further ado, began to rapidly cross the table towards the remaining blocks of metals and stones John had produced. Its awkward-looking feet let it glide with surprising finesse… and smaller claws came out of it along with the brief flashes of an electric arc as it began to cut and shear pieces from the nearest block of steel. Yui and John continued to watched until, a minute later, most of the innards of a second drone had been completed. Though still lacking the telltale scale that would close the frame, the second drone blinked with life… and a small arc of mana shot from the battery into the completed drone before then reflecting into the incomplete one, networking the latter. The two continued the work of the one… and then the four continued the work of the two. In thirty minutes, dozens of the scales had reduced the materials by half… and only now did John finally blink and unfocus his attention to then watch as Tricia slipped into a steel-mesh set of tights. “So they’re nanomachines!”

“Incorrect,” Tricia chided, “nanomachinery works on a microscopic level, which is of course the Gorbachev specialty… but for now, these ‘micromachines’ will act as a substitute for my preferred nanite designs.” Two dozen drones surrounded the supercomputer and quietly lifted it from the table before marching towards Tricia. Their master smiled and extended her arm with her palm flat on the table, letting the army march up her body as they crawled to her shoulder and headed down to her rump. “They’ve been programmed, synced, and will now act in unison to reflect my commands… albeit without a brain-computer interface, meaning their response time will be far poorer.”

“But what kind of medical applications can they run?” The question had come without a single stutter from Yui Decker, which was a first as far as John could remember. “Gorbachevs have cornered the non-Praxis market on medical technology, not military tech… unless they’re s-secretly behind the Order’s arms race, too?”

“I was specifically instructed not to talk to anyone about the workings of the Gorbachev technology labs,” Tricia tersely replied.

“W-Well… I-I-I was j-just-”

“But I’m not with the Gorbachevs anymore.” Tricia did not meet Yui’s eye when she said as much. Instead, she fitted her left bracer on and tapped the three embedded, diamond-shaped crystals in quick succession. The crystals—blue, red, and green—glowed briefly before spewing up a white, holographic interface. With her mana still regenerating, Tricia quickly poured more into the device as she programmed the computer now resting over her lower back. “If you continue to aid us, instead of causing more trouble for us, perhaps I will humor your questions. For now… I have to focus on helping John get us home… or to a home.”

John nodded in agreement. “It’s going to be dangerous, this next attack… and even for those not coming, there’s still the chance an attack could happen at the base while the rest of us are away.”

“A-A-A-A-Attack? Y-You mean that nons-s-sense about the rebellion?”

“Nonsense?” John stood a bit straighter as he questioned Yui. “This is our best shot, as far as I can tell, to gain control of this Kingdom… and until I find an alternative, that’s the only way any of us are getting out of this place. Besides,” he continued, waving his hand towards the hatch his tunnels still blocked, “you saw what was going on out there. Isn’t it… I don’t know, just wrong to leave it like that?”

Yui smirked bitterly at that.

Tricia, meanwhile, slipped on the second bracer while her small army of drones crawled the halves of her leg guards, boots, and crotch guard up her body to help her equip them. The right bracer, unlike the utilitarian left, was a weapons platform that Yui had not recognized until it was properly worn: three ports rose from its side and, once they were equipped, Tricia made their purpose clear. With a closed fist, Tricia made the bracer extend two long razors of segmented steel that extended past her fist. Unfurling her fist, or bending her hand back, made the blades retract to prevent collision; keeping an open hand except for her middle finger on her palm produced a small burst of blue light that shot across the barrier to shatter a wooden bench across the room.

Tricia’s Mana Blaster deals 288 damage to the wooden bench.

The explosion had interrupted John and Yui’s brief duel of wills. “Whoa!” they both yelled. Both turned to the source of the sudden bolt of energy… and watched as the drones almost silently marched, one over the other, until her bracers, shin guards, boots, lower and upper armor pieces were all completely covered in what appeared to be mundane, steel scales of armor. “This should suffice as a basic means for self-defense… but I would like more raw material, if possible… some uranium would be optimal, should you find any on the field.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll get right on that,” John chided with a shake of his head.

“Are you certain you still cannot manifest any using your… powers?”

“I-I have a question about that as well, actually,” Yui suddenly asked, her eyes returning to John, “because the ‘magic’ you’re using doesn’t even leave a trail I can recognize.”

John glanced at the soaked beds and nodded towards them with a grin. “I think you’ve been seeing the trail I leave all day.”

Yui blustered until she managed to stammer, “I-I-I m-m-mean ether t-trails! E-Essences! Aether echoes! S-Something like t-that.”

“We have a few theories on that,” Tricia explained, “but for now, there is no explanation. In any case, my preparations are complete for now. Unless we need… more time… we should rejoin the others and proceed with the operation, or at least learn more about the technology, means, and power of the opponent we seek to rob and eventually defeat. Based on the reports of your most recent… summon, the means of the permanent barrier owner are unknown to the regular population and may not be limited to runic sorcery via an old, dead form of magic.”

John nodded before suddenly asking, “Wait, how do you guys see these… trails, or echoes, or whatever?”

“I would require more sensitive equipment than I can fabricate here,” Tricia admitted.

“I used a spell earlier when you were working to observe it,” Yui admitted, surprising John; he hadn’t even noticed, but then he had stopped paying as much attention to her once it was clear she was no threat.

But that’s exactly the kind of lack of caution that could get me in trouble… I need to watch her more carefully, and the others too...

“Can you use it right now for me, please?”

“E-Eh…” Yui looked between them, clearly showing distrust… but eventually she gave in. “S-S-Sure.”

Yui Decker tries to cast Detect Magic, but fails.

“J-Just a second.”

It was a silent spell, though John had to guess that most of hers were quiet if she had spent most of her days stalking others in secret; she cast it a second time and, this time, succeeded in doing so.

You Copycated Detect Magic.

John hadn’t found any magisteel on Vantage, and he was done holding on to the spell just in case he did. With the old spell gone, he quietly cast his own version of Detect Magic… and blinked wildly for a moment as blue tendrils and pulses colored his vision. “Jesus… how the Hell can you focus with this on?!”

“W-What do you… mean? D-D-Did you… s-steal… n-no, I can still… c-copy? You c-can copy… b-but you never even l-learned the c-components, m-much less…?” The danger of John Newman continued to grow in Yui’s mind… as did her curiosity.

“Yeah, well… I can’t make much sense of-”

One of the tendrils gained a Gamer pop-up over it once John stared at it long enough.

Technical Fusion C, cast by Tricia Gorbachev 34 minutes ago for 40 mana with an intended target of seventeen distinct logic matrix components.

“Oh… that’s… hmm…”

Detect Magic, cast by Yui Decker less than a minute ago for 10 mana with an intended target of herself.

“Damn… this one’s pretty handy!” John silently wished he could learn it permanently… and then peered around, almost confused that the Game didn’t give him some kind of pop-up to fulfill his wish.

“What’s wrong?” Tricia asked.

John cleared his voice, embarrassed at his expectation.