A Magic Academy Fantasy (My Dwarven Workshop #1)

Prologue

“What is it?” Beaky Callingworth asked. His eyes glittered as he stared at the object resting on the plinth before them.

“It’s wonderful,” was all Roman Ballows could reply as he, too, was mesmerized.

It was a wide, flat rectangle of silicone, smooth and polished to a near-mirror finish. Heavy-looking, a sphere of quartz was embedded in its center. The quartz was clean and flawless. Like a diamond, it lured the two mages with the breathless promise of riches beyond their wildest dreams.

Carved into the silicone was a web of runes. Thin clean lines arranged in circles, partial arcs, and intersecting curves. Hooks and loops broke any sense of repetition, turning what might have been writing into a deliberately complex abstraction.

Both mages recognized them as dwarven runes.

But neither could say what they meant.

Very few symbols repeated in any way a human scholar could follow, making the language almost impossible to decipher. And with the dwarves gone from the world for over a thousand years, there was no one left to confirm even the most carefully reasoned guess.

The two mages had seen machine cores before. Plenty of them.

To the dwarves, they’d been the beating hearts of their constructs.

The power that kept them walking, working, and even killing.

To mages, they were something close to a miracle.

Cores could amplify mana capacity, letting their bearer draw deeper from the world and drive more power into their spells.

Some cores were little more than slivers. Gems no bigger than a fingernail, barely nudging a mage’s limits, but still worth having. These were small enough to be conveniently slotted into a wand or staff which had been designed for this purpose.

Many mages carried at least one.

However, some cores were larger.

The biggest Roman had ever seen, outside this room, was a fist-sized gem locked deep within the Mage Court vaults called the Leveler. It was only to be used by a nominated representative of the Mage Court and even then only during emergencies. It had rarely left the vaults.

This one, however, was enormous.

The quartz sphere alone would take both hands to lift. The silicone base was the size of a dinner tray.

When Roman first laid eyes on this core, he’d felt an awful desire to take the thing for himself. But he wasn’t a fool.

The kind of power it promised could never belong to him.

It was doomed to be sent to the vaults.

Roman Ballows shook his head slowly. “I’m not really sure. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“I wonder what construct was big enough to use it,” Beaky mused.

Roman looked around the room. It was small and dark and empty, with bare stone walls and no windows. The plinth at its center was the only furnishing, clearly built for the sole purpose of holding the core. How long it had sat there, untouched, was anyone’s guess.

There was no sign of any construct at all.

Also, the core itself showed none of the usual wear.

Most machine cores bore small scuffs and scratches in the silicone where they’d been slotted and pulled from machines again and again over years of use.

This one was unmarked. Pristine. It had the look of something made and then immediately set aside.

Without question, this one was special. Not just for its size.

Beaky licked his lips. A grin spread across his sharp face. “I bet it doubles mana capacity. Triples it, maybe.”

“It’d be a pain to carry around,” Roman snorted. He folded his arms and looked the thing up and down. “I don’t think it would even fit on a staff. You’d need a cart.”

Beaky reached out and pressed his palm flat against the gem before Roman could open his mouth to stop him.

A low thrumming resounded through the room. The granite walls and floors vibrated as the sound detonated from deep within the machine core.

Like an alarm.

Roman froze.

His eyes swept the ceiling, the walls, the corners of the room. These chambers in the Dwarven Keep were always trapped. Always. He’d lost count of the near misses they’d already had getting this far.

The two mages remained motionless.

Then, when nothing happened, Roman let out a slow breath. “What did you do that for, you damned fool?”

“How else am I gonna see what it does?” Beaky scowled and pulled his hand away from the gem. “You won’t believe it, though. It doesn’t do anything. Not a thing. It’s useless.”

“What?” Roman’s frown deepened. “A core this size and it does nothing?”

“I ain’t no liar,” Beaky growled. “Touch it yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Roman reached out. Not because he doubted Beaky. He just had to be sure.

His fingers closed around it.

There was nothing. No hum beneath the skin. No tug at his mana. No heat, no cold, no arcane signature of any kind. The core sat in his grip like a decorative paperweight.

Inert.

Completely inert. Just a lump of quartz nested inside a lump of silicon.

Roman lifted his hand away and stared at his fingers. “Huh. That’s disappointing.”

“Tell me about it.” Beaky leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “We nearly died getting past all those traps. And it was all for nothing.”

“Maybe it was never completed,” Roman said, mostly to himself. He studied runes etched into the pristine silicone. The perfect quartz gem was polished to a smooth shine. “Maybe it was built and then abandoned before they ever charged it?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Beaky grunted. He ran his hands through his greasy dark hair. “What a waste of our damned time. Should’ve known it would be.”

“I guess we’d better let the Court know.”

Beaky smirked. “You know, for once, I look forward to seeing their boffins. I can’t wait to see their smug grins wiped clean off. I’m sick of them taking all the good stuff for themselves.”

Another thrum rolled through the room.

It went out from the core in a low wave, making the air shiver and dust fall from the ceiling.

Roman looked at Beaky. Beaky looked at Roman. The color left both their faces at the same moment. Neither man spoke. They shook their heads at each other.

“You do anything?” Roman asked.

“I didn’t touch nothing,” Beaky said.

“Me neither.”

“Run?”

“Run!”

They bolted. Boots hammered the granite tiles as both mages angled hard for the wide doorway. Their black robes snapped behind them. The air felt thick and charged with electricity.

Beaky screamed first as darts whistled from small gaps in the walls.

Thin as needles, each the length of a finger. Each tip was dark with ancient poison. A dozen punched into Beaky before he could raise a hand.

He squealed, short and high.

He was dead before his body hit the ground.

Roman didn’t stop. He couldn’t afford to. His heart raced and he sucked deep breaths.

He grimaced and kept his legs moving, eyes fixed on the doorway ahead. He knew what had happened to Beaky. But he couldn’t look back.

Survival was the only thought left in his head.

Up ahead, he saw the doors start to shake as a heavy clicking of gears shook the granite tiles.

The massive stone doors they’d worked so hard to open were moving. Closing.

“No!” Roman threw his hand out and sprinted harder.

The gap was already narrowing. Stone grinding against stone. There was an earth-shaking sound which mocked him as he lowered his shoulder and threw himself at the shrinking space.

He made it through.

Rather, most of him did.

Roman came to a sudden, violent stop.

He looked down.

Everything from his hips downward was paste, crushed flat between the massive doors as they’d sealed shut behind him. Blood rushed out of his body fast, spreading across the stone floor in a foaming crimson pool.

Roman screamed.

And kept on screaming even as he heard the clatter of booted feet approaching down the corridor.

Back inside the chamber, the machine core flashed once. It was a single bright ring that filled the room from wall to wall. It lingered for a moment on Beaky’s corpse.

Then it flickered. Dimmed.

The machine core lay on its plinth.

Inert.

Silent.

Waiting.