An Ethereal Engineer's Perseverance

[Aaronock]

OOC: This is an ongoing story that's a work in progress. More updates to come in the near future as inspiration and time to write cross paths.
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The clanking of metal could be heard in the far reaches of a workshop in Geffen. A man was huddled over against one side of the room at his oaken work desk. Strewn about the room were various other projects at different steps. In one corner, the materials for several endowment scrolls were astray everywhere in an impossible pile. That order was due soon, but the man had no heart to do it in the immediate moment. It was going to be one of those last minute things, where he surely would be crafting the spells upon the scrolls as he rushed to the client’s drop-off point. As for the other items in the room, they no longer needed constant innovation, but they were invaluable since they provided quite a steady income for his livelihood. As an inventor, and engineer, he tinkered often, but his most recent idea had hit a bit of a snag when field tested earlier in the week.

With a wrench in hand, he freed the last few nuts and bolts from a section of his currently out of commission project. Behind him, on the floor, was the man’s assistant, an orange, gelatinous, blob-like creature who currently enjoyed a plate of homemade cucumber salad instead of being forced to attend to his usual duties. The inventor, with brown leather gloved hands finally at last removed the plate and began tapping various pieces inside. From the crystals that casted the necessary spells, to the scrolls with their complex incantations, and at last, to the machinery that held everything together, none of it was left untouched. He guided his own simple magicks through his wrench to spot any anomalies. He then huffed, dissatisfied to not have a proper diagnosis, as everything appeared to be in working order.

“Seems our field test with my Mass Dispel Machine did not go according to plan. But not for the reasons you’d think.”

The little monstrous creature in the other side of the room then spoke, “Huh, so you mean all those spell scrolls were written correctly this time?” He then licked one of the tomatoes in the salad into his mouth.

The man nodded his displeasure at the current situation, “Mmmhm, so it appears. Also, based on the condition of the the crystal fragments, they were pulsating correctly to cast the dispersion spell.”

Cream then puffed, “But, Aaronock, something clearly went awry. You saw the smoke that started coming from the machine. It was overheating! That doesn’t happen without a reason. I won on our bet. It screwed up just like I thought it would.”

As to the reference of their earlier bet, Aaron shook his finger at the side towards his assistant. They agreed to give him a week’s worth of proper food since his experiment wasn’t a complete failure. At least today Aaron had little need of using the Drops as a garbage disposal. “Tsk tsk. Cream, you only half won. The experiment did sort of work as I proposed it should. It managed to disperse some of the energies on the bridge last Monday as Muspelheim. But then —“

“Do I haveta repeat myself?” He hopped up, the chewed tomato he swallowed earlier drooped into the middle of his gelatinous body, where the rest of the salad resided. “Your machine had a big black cloud of smoke come out of it. It didn’t fully do what you want. You tried. You failed. The end!”

“There are no failures when it comes to science and magic! One only needs to know what to modify, and with a mastery for the rules of each, you essentially are a god~”

Cream rolled his eyes, too aware it was useless to try crushing a tiny piece of the self-proclaimed ‘Ethereal Engineer’s’ ego. The man’s persistence did actually capture Cream’s admiration at times, but would never admit as much as he chomped into another piece of the treat laid in front of him. Instead, he chose to pose inquiries about a related subject instead, “Hey, before you get all caught up in work again – Why did you bother to even make something like your ‘Bifrost Project?’ Why worry about dispelling the Muspelheim Bridge now?”

“Because the one person with the power to deal with the problem chose not to fix it. Now that masterful she-wizard is dead. And pretty much anyone else relevant to the problem is also dead, and that’s for the best.”

“You mean Ostellos and Eudoxie right?” He paused after his latest question, and then piped up immediately after, “And hey! you didn’t answer my other thing about your silly little rainbow bridge project! Grrrr…absent minded geek.” The little creature hopped in annoyance at the inventor.

Aaron had his pointer finger and thumb slung across his chin, and tapping the wrench now on the workbench. He heard Cream’s questions, and even his grievances for failing to answer, but chose to ignore it for the problem immediately in front of him with his newest project. The dull, repetitive noises from the wrench to the wooden work bench helped him to process the potential fixes in front of him. The action came with an additional bonus of muffling out the continuous complaints that came from the monster’s nasally pitched voice from the other side of the room.

Many forms of dispersion magicks had been tested, and the best one already chosen. That was how he arrived at utilizing the Light Crystal Fragments to begin with. They were chosen for their glassy, clear texture, a reminder of what it meant to dispel any magic, to return it to its original state. The eye pattern formed in every crystal’s center also intrigued the engineer, because to him, it was as if each of the pieces could envision where best to cast each occurrence of his written spell. The issue was clearly not there with the crystal fragments. He considered how Muspelheim’s Bridge gathered quite a lot of spiritual energy in an area, and how he may have underestimated that force. To store the gathered energies, he’d need something of an opposite to the Light Crystal Fragments, it would want to absorb energies, and not have them called upon till requested.

“Dark Crystal Fragments!” Aaronock proclaimed, and raised both arms high, and even with his wrench still in his right hand. The solution came so naturally, so spontaneously, he half wondered a moment if the gods were whispering in his ear. The notion dropped just as quickly as it was formed, because he knew they were far too fickle to be concerned much about him these days. Besides, he did not want to attribute anything to them because that would mean he’d owe them a debt, the worst place to be with such cosmic beings.

“Really? That’s it? Don’t skimp on the details, you great genius you.” Cream stuck his tongue out at the engineer.

Aaron would oblige Cream with by beginning with an excited statement, “I will need to rebuild the whole thing from the ground up, but the finished product will be better than ever!”

Then, another tonal shift to calm himself to a more down-to-earth, list-like voice, “First to reinforce the metals encasing this machine with Bradium instead of Elunium. This thing is going to be teeming constantly with magic, so may as well armor this thing with the best materials against that. I’ll need to write up a new spell scroll as well so those Black Crystal Fragments know how to play their role. Then, we’ll test this guy out again, and I bet it’ll go far smoother.”

Cream couldn’t place it, but he felt that Aaronock was right. And as a Drops, he trusted that his own gut instincts were never really wrong. For others of his kind, a simple misunderstanding could lead to an immediate death. Shivering momentarily, he recalled a situation where he smelled the scent of a ‘Second Aaronock’ a few weeks earlier during a walk around Prontera. Another attempt at prodding the inventor to answer his earlier inquiry felt all too pressing. At last he chimed, “Cause that’s all going to take a few days, why don’t you tell me all about that stuff surrounding Muspelheim. Besides, it's not like you to not want to blabber about yourself all day long.”

This time the man would consider the creature’s request. “I only never told you before because your attention span for such tales is far too small. To give you a full account regarding Muspelheim… that would require me to go further back than just a few years ago. I’d have to go much further back, to when I was a young man, freshly graduated as a sage…”

Cream puffed his cheeks out hearing Aaron’s barbs, “Fine, I’ll prove to you that I can listen really really really really well. Just try me now!”

The inventor chuckled, and began to recall in his mind a host of events related to his rise as the self-proclaimed ‘Ethereal Engineer.’. At the time, when he first became an adult, he was so full of dreams, hopes, and desires. But the cruelty of the world would bear upon him soon enough, and it would weather his idealism to near nothingness. He sighed, thankful for his current position, but always feeling the weight of his past mistakes. “Very well Cream, but if I feel you aren’t paying attention at any point in the tales I weave…” He went over to another desk on another side of the room to begin drafting a blueprint for a new version of his project. “You may find that my kindness to make such treats as your cucumber salad to be lacking. Wouldn’t want that now, would we?” He finished with a wide grin and strewing pencils from a container across the new work space.