It's an amazing advantage to have a world's worth of culture to crib from.
I was not looking forward to returning to Developing Theories, my advanced cutting-edge science class. Up until Fiveday this had been awesome, with one demonstration after another of what these awesome people had done with the basics I had given them. Now, I've got this asshole that is labeled as one of my love interests for some fucking reason....
I'm okay. Really.
It's not like Nux Gysmo is ruining my entire life - my mood. He's not going to ruin my mood today.
After all, I say to myself, he's probably still in restraints in whatever barbaric state this nation keeps people that are clearly broken and a danger to themselves and everyone-
Fuck he's right here.
I stand in the doorway of the basement area of Natural Philosophy. Like all good university departments the brochure-ready public-facing functions are up in the main building clearly labeled from the directory, and all the novel unique work is being done in a breathless basement space that used to be storage for centenarian furniture that should probably be referred to the historical archives. The concrete walls are stained even after scrubbing, the room never seems fully lit no matter how many candles we set up or how many experiments are flaring open arcs of electricity. It's a sanctum of hard work and innovation, practically a shrine.
Nux Gysmo is here, and he's wearing a lab coat like all of the faculty. His hands are shackled in front of him and there's two orderlies standing by with cudgels to beat him down if he makes the wrong move or tries to eat someone. He's swaying on his feet as if dancing to music that doesn't exist, even for me. And he's smiling a wide, cheek-pulling, facial-tic smile. A muscle-cramping lip-cracking grimace that is trying to tear his face, and he's pointing it right at me like a loaded gun.
He's flanked on the sides by the other scientists, the philosophers of nature who have come to understand the works of the gods and instead have been fed a course of my knowledge like a perversion of what they were meant to know. And now the facts I wrote down and sold to the world have created a host of new inventions that are reshaping what is possible. For a thousand years, machines were things to tell time or to run a conveyor belt. But now thanks to me there were machines that could move men and change the world and break someone's mind.
And one of those broken minds is staring at me through unblinking eyes.
And twenty feet behind him, almost at the far end of the room, was Dean Corder standing with a satisfied smirk, waiting for us to give him something else to claim credit for.
I fucking hate this.
But, I have to get out in front of it. "So, let's discuss electric fences," I said. "We can make a barrier that not only stops people trying to cross it, but sets off an alarm to let us know where and when they try to cross. Picket lines miles across that you can cover with a handful of wires instead of patrolling soldiers."
Dean Corder looked gluttonously gleeful. I tried to ignore him. The hive of scientific inquiry was immediately buzzing with speculation and math, several of them running to workstations to put together small-scale models. Nux Gysmo was standing nearby, bobbing his head slightly. His hair waved back and forth in time. "If you use very very sharp fences that cut to touch them," he said, "you'll need to adjust for how blood affects conductivity."
I mention electric fences and he's already jumping to concertina wire. Great.
While the rocket scientists scurried around to perfect electric fences in a single afternoon and Dean Corder pottered around trying to get estimates for how much money this could bring in for the Academy, I walked over to Nux, nodding to his handlers.
"Don't worry fellas, I just need a private word with the big guy," I said, indicating towards [ The Madman ]. He was easily two heads taller than me, and we had seen him make some shockingly fast movements before.
"Sorry milady, but he's dangerous and it's our asses if he hurts anyone," said one orderly, gripping a truncheon hard.
I smiled. "That's very considerate of you. But someone was incomplete about your briefing. I'm Natalie Harigold."
"The duchess?" the port-side orderly said.
"The murderess," said the starboard orderly.
"The sorceress," I corrected. "I can manage him barehanded."
"He bites." They were almost convinced.
"He'd chip his teeth," I assured him. And with their blessing I took Nux by the elbow and dragged him away from his minders. He stumbled as he went, and his eyes were boring into me like he was trying to hate me to death. When we had enough space to call it privacy, and stopped, with my hand on his arm, thumb pinching at his elbow. "Now, Nux baby," I said, voice low, "I want you to know that all that hostility between your friends and myself doesn't need to be a big deal. I think that it's possible for us to work together and-"
"Mixture, solution, emulsion, suspension," he said, grinding his teeth.
"What?"
He shook his head as if to clear away bright lights. "There are voltages that lock the muscles, and voltages that stop the heart. We can use a selector dial to apply either one. You can paint with fear if you take the green out," he said, the words jangling together like a hiccup tried to growl. He's trying to communicate something, but that is one of many parts of him broken.
"That's true, but what did-"
He leaned down, and held my gaze with very wide, very serious eyes. "I speak in tongues and teeth and lungs, lunges and tithes and beating drums."
"That doesn't follow from -"
"We're going home to the crossroad of humming skulls," he snarled, agitated now. His teeth clacked together, snapping bone-on-bone.
The orderlies hustled forward. "That's enough, Nux, take it easy," the starboard said, grabbing the tall boy's lab coat and pulling him back away from me.
Port-side grimaced my way. "He gets lucid for natural philosophy and machines, but other than that..."
"Other than that?"
"Well, you never know what he's going to say, but it's not going to make sense. And if he gets excited he starts biting."
Oh. He's not just mentally ill, he's mad like only fictional characters can really go mad. This is not a trauma response or a psychotic break, this is 'cuckoo for cocoa'. He's "TV crazy".
"Huh," I said, rubbing my chin with my forefinger. How am I supposed to cope with a love interest who's belfry-batty in such an improbable and unrealistic way?
This will take more consideration. I've got things to think about. But oddly, this might make things easier in the long run. I had thought of him as being an angry young man with a hard grudge against me who is trying to ruin my work. But he's a mad scientist.
Not a psychologically-troubled engineer or a neurotic researcher, a mad scientist. And that means he's not an enemy to overcome or a personality to negotiate with: he's a puzzle to solve. He's got levers to pull and switches to manipulate. I can do this.
"You're in a better mood," Trazom pointed out. I was standing around waiting to walk him to music class, and giving him a good look-over. He had chin-length hair swept back from a widow's peak, and a face that was serious and moody but never quite stern. Stormy eyes, very intense. It was a good look. He would make good arm candy. I could use some good arm candy.
"I am," I said brightly. "The guy that was annoying me last week turns out to be much easier to deal with than I expected. And I don't have as many enemies as I thought I did. I'm settling in here at school, I'm getting a sense of normality and balance to me. Also, I had a good weekend. One that I needed a lot more than I thought I did. It's amazing what just a couple good days can do for you."
He nodded, and gave an encouraging smile. "I'm glad to hear it. You're very tightly-wound sometimes, and I think you look a lot better when you've relaxed some."
Great, thanks, everything I do is about looking good for you, jerk. So maybe I'm a little bitter about some things. Just a little. Trazom is a gifted young man but he's got a very ordinary sort of thoughtlessness to him.
"So, do you have plans next weekend?" I asked him, artlessly changing topics. After all, I wanted to talk about the ways that his image could benefit me, not the other way around.
"Practice," he said, shrugging. "The first couple years of Academy are almost entirely seclusion, and potentially an opportunity to train myself more intensely than I've ever trained before."
Oh. "Oh," I said out loud, and I sounded just as disappointed out loud. "That's actually a really great point. So, I should not invite you to come out to a gala event with me on Sixthday? I know you get pressured about these things but if you don't feel like playing I will understand."
"I would love to," he said instantly, smiling my way. "There is a massive difference between being cooped up for one-hundred-and-sixty hours each week, and being cooped up for one-hundred-and-sixty-eight
"I haven't checked the program, but I feel like someone would have mentioned to me if that was the roster," I said, and patted his arm. "I mean yes, it's a musical event, but I don't think it's going to be nearly so experimental as that."
He hacked a small laugh. "What other sorts of events are there?"
"What a- hang on. Sorry, gotta dive on that real quick. Enefiat, does anyone ever invite you out to anything that is not musical in nature?"
He looked at me like I had asked him if he had tickets to a celestial body that does not exist. "Like what?" he said, scoffing.
"Like a dinner party for smaller groups?" I suggested. "Or public readings, signings, game nights? Stand-up comedy, painting, picnics? Conventions, team sports? Auctions?"
He rocked back, dazed. I felt like I'd just slapped him forehand-backhand several times in a row, he was blinking as if struck. "Wh- sorry?" he blurted out.
I was struck by how small this man's life might really be. "Hey," I said, using a softer voice. "Do you think it'd be nice to try some of those things? Maybe spaced out some, over the next year or so?"
He turned to stare ahead of us, watching the walkway shrink between us and the music hall. "I know about picnics," he said, as if slightly offended. "I've just... not thought about that in a long time. It might be nice to try some of those things that I've forgotten about."
"This Sixthday," I said. "I'm going to Vancy's county for perfume shopping. I can talk to her about including a picnic lunch, and I'll bring you along. Then in the evening, the Auditioneer's Hall. A nice balance of events." I got a brief notification that I had advanced a checkpoint for [ The Famous ], but I shuffled it away with a thought.
We mounted the stairs, and he held the door open for me. "I think I would like that very much," he said, thoughtfully.
So that's half my weekend planned. And on Sevenday I'm going to be walking Nathan around the old home village. When am I going to make time for monster-slaying and catastrophe-averting?
Between music class and field practice, I ran across another familiar face. "Hey, Thumper!" I said, jogging forward. And then I got a good look at her expression, and a hundred thoughts rushed through me together. "What's the matter? Di- was I wrong? Oh gods I'm sorry!" I was already knee-deep in a worry-slurry over giving bad advice and freaking out that my predictive powers might be failing me when she replied.
"Nah. I'm team captain all right," she said with a sigh. "But do you know what that means? It's responsibility, Natalie. Most of the time it just means doing extra stuff. My free periods are over here now, and not even for practice or sparring! Just double-checking the managers and facilities, organizing rosters for meets, and all that garbage. I was hoping that I'd get a cool new sword, or a fencing helmet with a gold crown or something. Instead, I've got a key-ring."
She patted her hip, where a jangling pile of brass teeth dangled from a carabiner.
"But, you do get all the cool perks at competitions and meets, right?" I prompted.
"Yes, but I'm not at a competition right now, I'm at the locker room right now, waiting for the guy from the maintenance department to come over here and fix the water heater. And I'm probably going to miss half a day's practice because of this!"
I spotted an alert that I had a quest opportunity available. Brass Tacks, reward xp and love interest advancement. Ah.
"That's a terrible reason for a team captain to miss practice," I said. "What's wrong with the water heater?"
"The sigils are still fine, but the tank sprung a leak," she said, rolling her eyes heavenward, demanding an explanation from the gods. "So now I've gotta wait for this knucklehead to hammer the rivets back in and I can get started with practice."
"Show me," I said. She gave me a strange look but she shrugged, and unlocked a door to the maintenance shed. I noticed that a lot of the keys she had were ensigiled, set to interface with magical locks and alarms. She had access to some of the very serious parts of the campus, where important materials were kept.
Wait. [ The Access ]. That's her benefit to my quest, she's got a key-ring that can get me anywhere, even places that might be protected against my sorcery. And also, her name recognition as team captain might open some doors that even that key-ring does not unlock. I'm starting to figure out this Rival love-interest thing. Bit by bit, it's making sense.
The room back here was steamy and damp and kind of gross with mildew. "ew," I muttered. I leaned on my affinity to the water and had it behave in ways it does not normally, lifting out of puddles and sweeping around at high speed to scrub the walls and floor clean of mold, slime, dust and spiderwebs, and then shoot out to the grass outside to deposit all that. Under my control the water was a living thing that moved at high speeds like a pressure-washer and then dumped itself out, leaving the space not only clean but already dried.
"Whoa," Thumper said, staring around her. "That's not half-"
"Ah, I see," I said, tapping at the canister. "Yeah, this is just metal fatigue, expansion and cold weather. One moment." I curved brass, and I fixed the worn-out surfaces, bent the crumpled seams back into place, screwed the rivets into place, buckled the lid back down and primed the well-pump. "There. That should hold hold enough water for everyone, good as new. Much faster and quieter than hammering."
She examined my handiwork while I accepted five experience points. "Damn princess," she said with a laugh. "Guess I'm not missing any practice at all! Thanks!"
"No problem," I said, reaching up to pat her shoulder. "I'll let you make it up to me sometime. But for now I gotta get to camogie practice."
I used a couple of portals to get there faster, and was only a little later than most of the other players, not even the last girl on the field. I was charging along, when I saw a warning sign float into my vision and my vision alone.
[ Strength 10 ][ Damage 1:1 ]
Well, I've seen this before. It's gonna be a tough day at practice. This time I made sure my essence was channeling steel so I'd have my full Strength, and then I swaggered onto the pitch. Let's see what they've got for me today.
The coach waved me over. "All right now Harigold, if we're gonna use your reputation to best effect, I need you in full forward, probably corner-forward to keep their goalie out of the center. They're probably not going to give you scoring opportunities, so I want to prioritize your short-passing game, and today's a good day to start that process."
Well that doesn't sound like a difficult and dangerous physical challenge. I suppose there's plenty of chances for someone to try fouling me or sucker-punching me... there were a dozen hurlers out on that end of the pitch already, but Egnul was not one of them, nor any of the girls I remember being real close with her. I kept my eyes all around just in case. According to the status menu, I was going to be faced with a very real attack that was going to do damage and was too much for me to defeat right now. Still, I had promised Licard that I would not indifferently let myself get injured. This was an important part of my physical training, after all, and if I only take a couple points of damage I'll be okay. I'll lose half of that just sleeping it off.
Passing the sliotar is a bit different from most games. You can only make a toss to yourself, from hand-to-hand or from hand-to-hurley. So to hold a sliotar in hand and then lob it to someone else is a penalty. To pass the sliotar to another you have to strike it with either hand or hurley. For a long pass you'd use the hurley, swatting it dozens of meters, but short pass is hand-strike. Closed fist or open palm, you can use any part of the hand to strike the sliotar to someone else.
My strikes were coming in hard, I had to temper myself a little bit for the sake of the hurlers catching. My hand hits like a hammer, the sliotar was whipping straight-line vectors at the other players who had to catch carefully or duck fast. I was one of the leaner and lankier members of the team but sorcery turned me into a dynamo. I could take a pass well enough, and someone mentioned getting me to hand-catch a hurley-pass, to the chuckles of all the other forwards training at hand-passing.
I was keeping my eyes on my six, never letting anyone come up from behind me. It's difficult to train effectively when you're also guarding against an ambush. I did my best, making short stops and sharp starts, cleats digging into the turf as I moved to angle and strike over and over. The ash hurley in my hand was just counterweight today, I was not practicing anything that used that tool at all.
"Take five!" the coach yelled, and we all relaxed, dropping the sliotar, and just walked about a bit to cool ourselves off. I curved water to grab a bottle off the offside table and bring it to me. The water brought the bottle with it, I don't need to move the glass as well. I grabbed it out of the air and took a long swig, and let out a satisfied "Ah!" of relief. After a minute or so of small sips and standing still, I nearly had my breath back now, stamina training was paying off. Cardio really is its own reward.
The hurler next to me paused, looking around. "Who's whistling?" she said, and then a six-foot-long stone javelin hit me in the back.