Tunnel Rat

Chapter 138: This is a wrench...

Class was mentally exhausting to Milo. It wasn't hard to teach, the students sat still and listened, perhaps because Professor Cremona was standing behind them. But he had to keep making his explanations simpler, and back tracking to explain basic concepts. It got easier once he assumed that they only knew magic, and nothing of engineering. He started from nothing and explained basic concepts. Such as how easy it was to electrocute yourself, that you could not 'absorb electricity' to empower your spells, and that a wrench was used to turn a bolt, and should never be used as a hammer. (Unless surprised while sleeping by some idiot playing surprise.)

Some of these concepts turned into discussions. The idea of too much power was a vague concept for many of the younger mages because they never had enough mana for spell casting. The idea that an electrical system might have enough power to turn them into a little black smudge on the ground was both frightening and intriguing to them. None of them had been around large machinery, or seen a lightning bolt split a tree or light a building on fire. (Milo had never seen lightning either, but had seen videos of its destructive ability.)

As the lecture went on, Milo moved to the most basic explanations, and offered promises of more knowledge to come later. The class came away with the ideas that electricity could kill, and it could also be a useful tool. In that both cases it was similar to Storm Mana.

By the end of an hour all of the students knew how to turn a bolt, and everyone was taking turns getting hands on experience by taking off the covers on the old machine, and replacing them. Two adventurous Raptor Claws figured out the different types of screw drivers and were looking smug as they explained how to take things apart to a trio of Puffyfurs. They weren't as good at putting a component back together, but they vowed to do further research.

He took the best of the class and moved on to the theory of power generation and why electricity and Storm Mana were different. Arlothe was a great help here. Milo knew the two types of energy were different, but not what the connection between them was. Storm Mana could generate electrical effects, but how did electricity make Storm Mana?

The secret to understanding turned out to be a basic property of mana. Arlothe explained that most ambient mana in the world was untainted by aspects. Milo thought of this as basic mana. Basic mana near certain substances or places in the world could take on additional properties. Battlefields and graveyards would generate Death aspected mana. A roaring fire would generate fire tinted mana. And a large amount of electrical energy would change ambient mana to Storm mana.

While a mage had only so much mana that they could call upon at any one time, they could also tap into supplies of aspected mana that were nearby, or better yet, stored in objects. Arlothe held up a basic staff loaned to him by one of the third-year students who had just finished her project. "As you can see, Winifred has constructed her staff from a thick piece of bramble thorn. The thorns have been removed, the wood straightened, and a stain and polish have been added to give the grain a nice luster. While this may seem unimportant to casting spells, remember that a spell is an extension of the willpower of the mage casting it, and when focused through a tool such as a staff, the quality of the tool matters. By working with the wood and refining its shape, Winifred is more familiar with her staff and it will be a better focus for her will."

"Notice what has been added to the top of the staff. The simple magi-tech crystal encased in a copper framework can hold 50 storm mana. Winifred can charge this staff each night, and have that mana available for duels or blasting spiders."

Arlothe pointed the staff at a target and let loose a Blazing Arc spell. "The spell I just cast is beyond Winifred, but not when she is holding her staff. She has made an important tool to aid her in her pursuit of knowledge." He handed the staff back to the student, who immediately began checking it over for any cracks or problems.

Arlothe then raised his own staff above his head. "This is a Battle Stave that was passed down to me from my mentor. I have made small improvements to it over the years, and hopefully will pass it down to a worthy apprentice. This staff has runes for Blazing Arc and Electrocuting Death that make casting those spells 20% cheaper. It can also hold over 2000 storm aspected mana." He paused and appreciated the sounds the students made as he showed off his staff.

Milo was impressed by the storage capacity of Arlothe's staff. That much extra mana would be very nice to have in a battle. Of course, once gone it needed to be recharged. "How long for a staff to regain all of its mana?"

Arlothe turned to the class. "Professor Tallsqueak has a very good question: How long to recharge my staff? The answer varies on the method. If I simply lean it against a wall and ignore it, a very long time, most likely a month or more as the staff gains small wisps of ambient mana and converts them. However, I can add to that, by recharging it with my own mana each night. The process is not without some loss. Winifred's staff has a resistance of 50% meaning she will need to put 100 mana into her staff to recharge 50. My own has only a 20% resistance being made of better materials. I will need to put only 2400 mana into it over a few nights to recharge it."

The students pondered this knowledge and had several questions. Milo went back to looking at the machinery. Then he walked up to Arlothe and spoke. "I have a theory to test." He looked over the students. "Winifred, you get to be my assistant for today since you figured out how to use a screwdriver." He pointed to the rest. "Class project for today is figuring out how to remount the waterwheel in its frame, and connect the belts to the axle. If you can't figure it out, find someone who can. Arlothe, I need the Storm Mana storage unit repaired."

There was a small pause, and then everyone ran to get to work. Arlothe noticed the difference in Tallsqueak immediately. It was like someone else was suddenly inside his skull, and attacking the project. Maybe several someone’s? Cremona accused him of doing the same thing when working on his own projects and it was very interesting to see the creative mania in someone else. He happily got to work on the storage device and was soon as lost in his work as much as Milo.

The original use of the machine had been to generate Storm mana by making electricity. Milo was working on the generator, and Arlothe was fixing the large storage device for Storm mana which turned out to be the large glass globes. Arlothe was also skilled at glass blowing, and could use a combination of cantrips from that craft with a tiny electrical arc to fuse broken pieces together and repair cracks. By the end of three hours, they had the equipment at one end of the machine running. The waterwheel turned, generating the physical power to send two halves of a huge lode stone spinning in opposite directions surrounded by coils of copper wire. Milo judged the production of energy to be only a fraction of what the apparatus would do once he rebuilt and fine-tuned it, but he was happy to get it running.

The students were amazed, staring at the arcs of power while wearing dark goggles. They held their hands near the machine to feel the Storm mana condensing as electrical power was made. Several members of Clan Puffyfur were mesmerized with how their fur stood on end when they got close to certain parts of the machinery.

Tallsqueak made some small markings in charcoal on the storage device, then turned to Winifred. "Please put your staff in the slot next to the storage device." The nervous student did. Tallsqueak watched as the staff recharged. The rate was much faster when the staff was close to the machine, especially adjacent to the storage device. "I need a student with a bigger staff please, several of them."

Runners were sent, and several students of the upper classes were hastily torn away from what they were doing. Each was told to expend their staves against the targets set up, blasting the wooden spiders to splinters. Being specifically told to let loose like that was fun. Then one by one they handed their staves to Professor Tallsqueak for recharging. By this time there was a sizeable number of students gathered and watching.

Tallsqueak explained his findings to Arlothe. "I've figured out a few things, but more testing is needed. The rate of recharging for staves depends on several variables such as power supplied by the generator, amount of storm mana present, number of staves being recharged, and the quality of the device. I will have some preliminary theories available soon, and need to do some research in the library. But lets do one more test." He turned to Arlothe and pointed at the wooden spider targets that had just been set up again. Arlothe understood and turned to face the wooden foes. A few of the smarter students put on their goggles.

"Transcendent Storm of Power!" A large black cloud formed at the top of the ceiling, and lightning bolts obliterated the targets.

The ground in a 30-foot diameter circle was blackened, and thunder rolled away, startling the rest of the Hollow. Arlothe leaned on his depleted staff, a wistful grin on his face. "Ah, I missed doing that. A bit irresponsible of me to expend all my mana at once, but this is an important experiment." He placed the stave in the machine, and Professor Tallsqueak closed a circuit with a switch.

Storm Mana arced from the glass globe to the stave, recharging it in seconds. Milo handed the charged stave to Arlothe, made some marks on the depleted glass globes, and shut the machine down. Some of the coils were close to burning out and he didn't like the way the linkage to the water wheel was sounding. He'd learned a lot today, but had so much more he needed to find out!

He assigned several of the student’s to small projects. They were talking excitedly about what they had seen, and several of the older students were revising their own experiments. Tallsqueak and Arlothe began talking about their next steps.

Tallsqueak hoped to increase power in the coming week, but was upset at the quality of the copper wire used in the coils. It was inferior and prone to break. He complained about it to Arlothe. "Why is your copper so bad? I know the Hollow has mines, and I see a basic subrogator attached to this machine. But this copper wire is full of impurities. Why?"

Arlothe scowled. "We just have bad copper. And that isn't a subrogator, it was used to pull the arsenic and other impurities from the hard copper ore. My wife uses the poisons that were made in her spells. She was hoping to find a way to create a storage device for poison infused mana, but that eluded us. If we could find a way to get better copper, I'd be delighted."

"Hard copper?"

Arlothe picked through a pile of ore near the broken not-a-subragator. "This ore. It's like copper, but too hard. It doesn't refine well and is full of impurities. Which is a shame. There are huge veins of it in all of the mines and little in the way of the good copper that I need for wires."

Milo was instantly excited. "Show me! I need to see the ore vein that this came from." He took his pick from his pack and yelled. "Electrical class is over. Mining class is starting in 2 minutes."

Arlothe didn't argue, he was curious. "Well, if we are heading to the mines, I should put on suitable work clothes. I'll be back in a moment to help you herd students."

Arlothe, Milo, and a dozen students headed towards the mines. The opening to the mines was past the barracks, and near the start of the tunnel to Larry's house. A basic blast furnace and several blacksmith shops were in full operation in the cavern just outside of the mines. Milo saw another pile of 'hard copper' where it had been separated from the more basic ore. Just that one pile was worth a large amount of gold, and ten times it's weight in regular copper.

The mines were old. Milo could see that generations of ratkin had worked here, slowly expanding them. Arlothe took Milo down a short tunnel that ended in a solid wall of Deep Copper ore. "See? All over the place. We mine until we hit too much of it in the rock, and then go another way."

Milo took his pick out, and easily began mining large chunks of Deep Copper. It was almost pure ore and within minutes he had a huge pile at his feet. He had been waiting for a Copperhead to materialize and surprised as he dug more and more ore without anything happening. "Do you ever get snakes from mining it? Small elementals that materialize from the ore?"

Arlothe shook his head. "No, I have never heard of that. We do have a lot of spiderlings in the mines. The guard trainees patrol the mines keeping the population down. But no snakes."

Milo had seen the spiderlings. They were indeed, all over the mines. The miners were constantly killing the small ones, or running from the larger ones. The guard trainees and novice fighters were constantly clearing out one tunnel, only for more to appear somewhere else. Even as he had been mining, a fat one named Nollylob had run up to try and bite Patsy on the ankle. The Puffyfur had shrieked and leaped in the air, both feet coming down on the poor Level 1 named boss, squishing him dead.

"Oooh! I killed it and got a special point! I'm a hero!" Several of the house Manticore students looked upset and jealous. Plans were made to start organizing groups to hunt spiderlings in their free time.

Milo had the class sit while he explained the difference between copper and Deep Copper ores, and how higher tier ores were more valuable, but also harder to mine and process. "The Deep Rock engineers use a subragator to refine deep copper. It's a complex machine that pulls out impurities and smelts the ore to free the Deep Copper from the rock and dirt. It runs off electrical power they generate from waterfalls or by burning coal or liquid fuels."

Arlothe looked at the vast veins of ore. "Are you implying the dwarves would trade this ore for regular copper? That would let us do so many more experiments."

"Yes. They would trade copper, steel, even Dark Steel or other metals for Deep Copper. And wouldn't mind trading for loads of ore. Dark Steel picks would let the Hollow's miners work faster. We might even be able to set up our own subragator here."

He and Arlothe talked about possible projects as they walked back to the tower. Arlothe had a wild gleam in his eye. "We need to talk to them, and somehow convince them to travel to us. I've always been held back by a lack of components. What is the relative value of Hard Copper to normal copper or iron?"

Milo knew that iron was extremely plentiful, much more so than copper. "Probably 10 to 1 for copper, and 20 to 1 for iron." Arlothe was thinking, and stopped, looking around. "Are you saying that for only 20 tons of Hard Copper ore the Hollow could gain a full ton of iron ore? That is outstanding!"

Milo corrected him. "You need to turn the ratio around. 1 ton of your ore in this mine is worth 20 tons of iron ore. There are costs of transport, and probably it would be easier if we put a subragator here and trade for ingots of metal." Milo found himself grabbed by the arm, and hurried off to a meeting with Bleusnout and Cremona.