There was a single large room in the runewright building. All along the edges of the room were shelves and workbenches. On those shelves were a wide variety of inscribed objects. Everything from ornate shields to tea cups. In the back of the room were three more runic mech suits. They were slumped up against the wall, each one missing a limb.

  Dominating the center of the room was a wide bowl, where a snake person sat coiled up. She was a naga, a species Luke only knew from fantasy books and rumors on the internet. They were rare enough that no one could prove that they really existed. Her upper body was bigger than a human’s but smaller than an orc’s. Her face and upper body were humanoid, but wore the same scales as the rest of her body, shimmering green and turquoise. Luke was vaguely disappointed to see she didn’t have boobs.

  She was leaning over a large obsidian table, working on something small. A row of tools were neatly laid across the top of the table, ones that Luke recognized. It was the same type of tools he had in his toolbox, only much nicer. These ones looked like they were carved from bone and inlaid with gold.

  After a minute of humans awkwardly standing there, she looked up from her work. She wordlessly gestured towards the closest mech to come closer. Bumblebee shuffled closer and she carefully inspected each rune on his suit. Her hands hovered a few inches above the runes as she swept them across the chassis. When she got to his back, she decided the life rune in the center needed a touch up. She pulled out an inscriber and quickly retraced every line of the rune.

  Luke winced slightly as he saw her make a mistake. The life rune was one of the governing runes of the mech suits, and she had flubbed the connection to the movement cascade. She noticed at the same time as he did and stopped her work.

  As he watched, she hissed to herself and corrected the line. Magic infused the tip of her inscriber and she pushed the carved line off to the side, as if it were a physical thing. Luke’s mouth dropped open before he caught himself and schooled his expression. What she did was impossible, she moved a carved line, the absence of material.

  Rune work would be so much easier if he could learn how to do that trick. He couldn’t wait to ask her about it. It didn’t take long for her to finish her inspection of the other three magical mechs and send them on their way.

  She glanced at Luke and then turned towards the doorway where Cormac stood just outside. She said, “??? ?? ? ???? ?ζ ???? ? ?? ??? ??? ?? ? ???”

  Cormac nodded and replied, “??? ?? ? ????. ?? ??ζ ???? ??.”

  Luke’s brain hurt trying to understand what he was hearing. It was a different language than Galaxian, that was sure. The orc’s language sounded like it could have come from some European country he had never heard of. This language was so foreign he couldn’t even pick out consonants and vowels. He hurriedly pulled out his phone and switched the translation language. He had a choice between Thubanian and Grunka and decided to go with the one the elves spoke, Thubanian.

  It worked.

  His cell phone translated the last half of Cormac’s sentence, “- as you will. You asked for an assistant, I gave you an assistant. How much I am paying him is none of your concern. I want all six magic armor suits to be functional in six days. How you make that happen is up to you. I will return at lunch time to escort them back to the portal. Please have him ready to leave by then.”

  She hissed and swung the thin tip of her tail in a circle.

  Cormac ignored the reaction and turned to Luke and said in English. “This is Unu Kruro, the outer runewright for the Edobar Falodun estate. She will be your master until I return in ten Earth hours. Make sure she gives you a midday break. Snakemen forget that other peoples need to eat often. She does not like speaking Earth, but she understands your language, so you will be fine.”

  Luke was a bit nervous being left alone with someone new, let alone someone that clearly hated to be stuck with him. He fingered the mana core in his pocket. He could afford to stick around for at least a day since he already had an orb worth $22k.

  “Yes, sir.” His phone helpfully translated, “ζ?, ???.”

  Cormac barked out a laugh and patted Luke on the shoulder. “You will be fine Luke of Runes. Talk like that and Kruro will love you like a pet.”

  Kruro hissed and whipped her tail. Cormac only laughed again and walked away. Throughout the whole exchange, the orc never set foot into the building.

  As soon as he left, the naga went back to work on her inscribing project. It was a small tea set. Her large hands held the porcelain cups delicately and kept inscribing new runes on the bottom of each cup.

  Since she was ignoring him, Luke decided to take a look around the shop. At least he assumed that’s what it was. For all he knew, this was her personal house. Near the door were shelves with items that could be for sale. A headdress, shoes, a set of knives and shears, and an assortment of sieves. As he moved back along the walls, there were more weapons and armor. The rear wall of the building had what he guessed was a kitchenette along with other work benches and the two broken armored suits. Next to them was a pile of spare parts from Earth, pistons, wires, and actuators. Nothing that needed a circuit board since those didn’t last on this planet.

  Luke leaned over to examine the magical mechs closer. They were similar to the power loaders he knew, and so different as well. They were smaller for one. Still seven feet tall, but on a more compact and enclosed design. They looked more like metal golems than props in a Hollywood movie. He recognized roughly half of the runes on the chassis, the same ones that he was used to repairing on the power loaders.

  The helmet and hands had the most new runes, but there were changes throughout the design. The new runes were smaller than he was used to, these were more precise than the utilitarian ones he was used to repairing.

  “?? ? ???? ?? ?? ???,” Kruro said. She had snuck up to him and had her large head inches from his own.

  Luke jumped up in shock as his phone translated, “Do you understand what you are looking at?”

  He put his hand to his heart as he caught his breath. It was a reasonable question, he was supposed to be her apprentice so she would need to know his depth of runic knowledge. He nodded and said, “Yes, I understand about half of what I am looking at. I am a quick learner and I should be able to help out soon.” His phone translated for him, but he suspected that Cormac was right. She understood even without the elvish translation.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She hissed out, “? ?? ??? ζ? ?? ???” - “Tell me everything you understand about runes.”

  Luke looked back to the runed metal and collected his thoughts. He pulled the closest mech suit over and found the rune he had been expecting.

  ???

  ???

  ?? ?

  Luke said, “This is the life rune,” He waited for his phone to translate between every sentence before he continued. “It is the central rune for augmenting the movements of the pilot. It is one of six interconnected runes. The one on the chest and the four limbs have to sync up or it won’t move. If you change one rune and not the others, it won’t work. The whole system feeds off the mana core, which is... here.”

  She gestured for him to continue with her clawed hands.

  He shrugged and pointed to the right arm. “These runes here are subservient runes to the right shoulder linked rune. They power the actuators here for turning and the pistons here for strength. Movement is based on the pilot, but also works on intent. If they think really hard, they can get more strength out of the pistons than would normally be possible.”

  Luke tapped the helmet and said, “I don’t know any of the runes on the helmet, but I can guess how they work. There is an isolated system on the helmet, maybe one to see magic or something. These ones on the forearms and hands are new too, clearly linked together. I saw the swords glowing earlier. Do these runes give the wielder a magic sword?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him and sat up fully. She tucked away her tools in the apron she was wearing and said in elvish, “No. The sword itself wields mana. The gauntlet schema allows the ‘pilot’ to control that magic. Most humans cannot use magic. Unless you are different?”

  The cell phone translation fell into the background of Luke’s mind and he answered, “No, I cannot use magic. I think you need a class to get magic, and that’s difficult for some reason?”

  She gave him jazz hands and said, “Yes, the world system has strict standards. Only one in ten manage to catch its attention. Anyone with a system class has accomplished a great deed to gain their class.”

  “I saw you move the rune line earlier, does that mean you have magic? Did you have to do a quest or something?”

  “Yes, I have the Runewright class. No, I didn’t have a quest. The System of the World occasionally observes some people. After that period, it grants them access to its power, depending how they performed. I will not tell you how I gained the class. That is valuable information. I sold it to Lord Edobar Falodun to be able to work for him.”

  “You gave him something valuable so you could work for him? On my world we do not have to pay to get a job.”

  She sliced her hands down, “No, it is more than a job. I have the outer Runewright position. That means I live within the city for free. All cities are protected from attack and therefore it is very expensive to live here.”

  “Protected from attack how? Is that little wall we passed magic or something?”

  “Yes, I inscribed it myself. Maintaining it is one of my duties as an outer runewright.”

  “So your rune work is protecting the whole city and you still had to pay to get the job? Sounds like they should be paying you a lot more. Especially since it seems like you are already very busy,” Luke said and gestured towards the dozens of enchanting projects around him.

  Kruro sliced her hands through the air again and said, “You do not understand. The outer wall does not power the estate’s protection, it merely reflects the peace field that Lord Edobar Falodun maintains in the center of the estate. Without him, there would be no safe place to live. But enough history lessons. I am busy and you must help me. You will work on these armor suits today. Reattach the arm on that one and replace anything broken.”

  She slithered back to the heated depression in the center of the room and wrapped her tail around herself again. She went back to rune work and ignored him.

  Luke sighed and decided to get to work. There was a workbench next to the armor, clearly meant for working on it. He wrestled the suit atop it and dropped his toolbox nearby. Next he looked around for a chair or stool so he could sit down. His stump was throbbing.

  Predictably, there were no chairs in the building. The naga had no need for them. They would only get in the way for her. But Luke wasn’t going to spend the day standing, or even sitting on the floor. He looked around the room until he found a porcelain decoration in one of the corners. It looked like a mix between a plant pot and an incense holder. It was the perfect height and shape.

  He called out to Kruro, asking if he could use it, but she was still ignoring him. Well, her loss if it caused a problem. He rolled it over to his chosen workstation and sat down with a sigh. He took his prosthetic leg off and removed his stump sock. He rubbed his stump for a bit before he got to work.

  The right shoulder of the mech suit was a mess. It looked like the arm had been ripped off. Hopefully that didn’t mean the pilot’s arm had gotten ripped off at the same time. Luke realized that was an unrealistic hope, but didn’t want to focus on the gory details. There was no blood on the suit and that was good enough for him.

  He started by igniting his mana torch to cut off broken parts. He had to adjust the cutting flame because it was three times as big as he had set it. The higher ambient mana on this planet must have affected it.

  Once he was done cutting off the mangled metal and chitin, Luke used his vibro wrench to disassemble the pauldron. He hopped on his one leg over to the parts bin and grabbed what he needed. Then he hopped back and got to work. His inscriber was next.

  He used the metal tool to lay down a line of mana dust into complex symbols that made up a rune. If he got a single stroke slightly wrong, he would have to start over. He had been doing this for literally years at this point, so he moved confidently.

  Dexterity was only half of the equation for rune creation. The other half was intent. Inscribing was like music, you had to play the right notes, but there was a rhythm to it too. He had to focus on what concepts he was pushing into the rune with every stroke.

  Hours slid by as he happily lost himself in the project. This is where he was truly happy, completely focused on a project and seeing steady progress.

  Roughly four hours after he started working on it, Luke had the arm reattached and the movement runes re-inscribed. He went ahead and did touch ups on all of the other runes he knew. The mech suit could move without problems now.

  There were breaks and gaps in the gauntlet runes, but he didn’t know enough about them to be able to fix them. He copied down the runes on the intact arm and notated the interconnected dependencies. It was enough information to carve into the metal gauntlets, but not enough to make the runes work. He needed to know the intent behind each rune.

  Luke woke his cell phone up and said, “Excuse me, Kruro.” The translation app loudly repeated it in elvish.

  She didn’t look up from the tea set and said in elvish, “Do not worry. Seneschal Cormac reminded me that humans need to eat often. You may eat your food at that workstation, as long as you do not spread the mess elsewhere.”

  Luke checked his cellphone for the time. It was 3pm in Colorado. No wonder his stomach was growling. “I’ll eat in a bit, but I wanted to ask you about the intent for the gauntlet runes. They are all new and I’ll need to understand them before I can repair them.”

  Kruro put down her tools with a hiss. “You need to finish repairing the arm before we can-” she stopped and stared while his cell phone earpiece translated the partial sentence.

  She looked between Luke and the mech suit on the table. He wasn’t sure but she seemed angry. She said, “What did you do to my armor?”