Paperwork and warnings

You knock on the closed partition between yourselves and the driver, who gets out and opens the door for the two of you. He bows curtly, and drives off.

“We'll need to go Inside for a bit for the paperwork,” your guest speaks up, “New ID and whatnot.”

You go inside the building, go through a bunch of signs and countersigns, a lot of paperwork, get your pictures taken, and pick up more jewelry, all in that silver and sapphire setup, plus several loose sapphires and some metal bars - “they're blanks for me to use for exercise,” your guest explains.

Looking over the set in the bag, you have to wonder… “How much does all this cost?”

“Eh, there's about five or ten grand in there,” the doc answers, “I get a discount because ai work with the suppliers directly. As I mentioned, it's coated titanium and lab-grown sapphire. A common enough metal and a cheap gemstone. Gold and natural gemstones would be better, but the difference is just a little efficiency. It's mostly for exercise, and this way I get over ten times the materials for less than a tenth the price. I actually can enchant basically anything, but some materials are better than others at specific tasks.”

“Oh?” You raise an eyebrow as you head out to your mother's car.

“Yeah…” you get an answer as you open the door, “...gemstones store power well, they make good batteries: It's why there's such a large one in your bracelet, you need the storage space. Metals conduct power well, good when power needs to be used quickly - plus it tends towards durability, hence the metal in the bracelet for the actual work. Sturdy organic materials like wood or bone handle complex decision trees well - yours doesn't need that, so there's no wood there.”

You nod, as you climb in, “So where's a pearl fit?”

“Anywhere,” the dragon replies as you buckle up, “they store power well, take complex instructions easily, and don't generally need the transmission capability as the power is already right there. However, the pricing isn't linear, the farms take a long time to grow them, and I can get the same effects in a larger package for much less, so I generally don't use them. They're good for production work, but I mostly focus on training people to not need the gear.”

You consider as your mother starts up the car, “what do you mean by ‘production work’?”

“Well…” he pauses as your mother backs out of the parking spot, “...suppose a ruling queen wants her heir protected. She doesn't need her to learn magic, she needs her to learn statesmanship. For that, efficiency matters, and the ‘training wheels’ don't. So I might build her a pearl ring that passively monitors her immediate future, charges itself on the magic she can provide without issues, and manifests a suit of magical armor around her when there's a problem or when she calls out an activation phrase.”

You pause as your mother leaves the parking lot, “That sounds suspiciously like what's known about Dame Discord.”

“I don't do certain types of production work unless it's for me or there's a pressing need,” the dragon takes a slow breath, "and even then, it's either non-combat or keyed to a specific person. I have had some ‘learning experiences’ about leaving magical artifacts lying around. So if you happen to go up against double-d, just let me take over for a moment: I can turn her powers off.”

“It is really weird to listen to half of a conversation…” your mother butts in as she merges into traffic, “...you might want to pull out your cell phone when talking to him.”

“I should probably get an earpiece too…” you nod as you pull your phone out to humor your mother, “You can just… shut down Dame Discord?”

“She's using magic I designed, and it's not the training variety,” the dragon sighs, “yes, there's a backdoor shutdown command keyed to me.”

“That's what you call production work?” You consider, “Invulnerability, flight, and a bow that melts tanks?”

“Invulnerability isn't,” you can actually feel the ring twitching on your finger as your mother drives down the road, “she's wearing a pearl ring that charges itself off of her magic, and looks a short distance into the future. If she would be hurt, it forms an armor-themed magical barrier, sets her up to fly, and summons the bow. The barrier seems invulnerable… but what it's actually doing is expending energy to interrupt anything that would hurt her. She's completely unharmed by anything… right up until the pearl runs out of power. But that won't happen, because if power reserves fall below a particular threshold, the armor will retreat to preserve her. It was fundamentally about keeping the princess alive. Sure, it reads her mind to identify what she wants to destroy, who she wants dead, and where she wants to be. A complicated spell… you can think of it as an AI program… buried in the pearl then makes such things happen according to her desires, some ranking logic, and preservation routines.”

“So you can just… build a super suit, that anyone could easily use, making them an expert combatant overnight?” You're a little flabbergasted. “No need for training?”

“It's a bad idea,” the doc answers. “Yes, I could make a nice belt buckle from a slab of oak for computation, a synthetic sapphire for power storage, and a titanium buckle for the power transmission... or one nice big pearl. Enchant it like that pearl ring, and give it to anyone. An adaptive ‘weight’ would charge it from the user at the rate they can support, and be good for burst usage. But there's a couple reasons no sane artificer does that, and why all sane heroes stay away from that kind of gear.” He takes a breath, “first, as Dame Discord demonstrates, artifacts often outlive their intended user. They can be stolen and used by others, unless keyed. It is almost certain that sooner or later someone unintended will put it to nasty use… usually sooner, as an inexperienced user can't maintain it for long. Hit & Run tactics work well.” Another breath, “From the other end, it's a risky proposition, and a bad deal. The ring Dame Discord uses has a backdoor - I put it there, originally so her mother could put her daughter to bed when she was being petulant. The complex enchantment providing the skills uses priorities and goals set by the user… but there's no particular reason for that. It would be easier to have it ignore the user, and simply trap them, using them as a battery for whatever schemes I cook up. And even if I'm trustworthy and neither backdoor nor trojanize the gear… it can still be damaged or stolen. If all you've ever done is power gear, you're helpless without it, despite having a strong soul.”

“But your gear pushes the user's soul through performing the ‘magic’…” you nod slowly, “...so eventually I won't need the bracelet at all. That solves the broken or stolen thing de-powering me, probably the programming as well, but the other concerns?”

“I make stuff to bind on use: That limits the blast radius, as they can't be used after theft or inheritance. Anyone else using it will have… problems.” He considers, “Don't lend it out, and get rid of it when you no longer need it. It's safe for you, it's not for anyone else.”

You nod, and spend the rest of the drive simply thinking….