43
Milo squatted in a small trench beside Jassie. Back to the wall.
The tall geomancer gave him a wide grin and stuck her fingers into her ears before nodding.
Then the ground exploded behind them.
He felt it thunder through his body and shivered. So much power!
Sod and dirt rained down around them, spitting down onto his head.
“Oww,” he winced.
“I told you,” she said, rapping her knuckles on her helmet. “You need to get one of these, Milo.”
“I have one,” he said. “I just forgot to bring it.”
That wasn’t quite true. His helmet was currently in a few pieces on his workbench. He was halfway through adding extra plating to the side. He’d figured if he was going to start dealing with explosives, he should beef up his defenses.
“Ah! Mister Mooney!” Mistress Vizzingbelle’s voice cut through the ringing of his ears. “I was not aware you were a geomancer.”
“I’m not,” he admitted. “I was just interested.”
“You are showing interest in classes?” She put her hands on her hips as she stood over the trench and looked down at him. “If you are showing interest in my classes, I would say it is a good thing. That perhaps you will survive longer in the harder dungeons. Alas, you are a stupid.”
He blinked up at her. “I am?”
“Where, Mister Mooney, is your helmet? Did you not read the instructions sent for attending this class?”
“I did,” he said. “But I forgot…”
“Forgot,” she repeated as though the word was foreign to her. “It is said, Mister Mooney, that the brain is a complicated organ in your head. That many things can affect it. Including recent injuries. I will take that into consideration. This time.”
“Thanks?”
“So I will only assign you five laps.”
“What?”
“Laps, Mister Mooney.” She pointed to the wide oval. “More oxygen to your brain is clearly what you need. Now. Go.”
“But-”
“Would you like it to be ten?”
“No!” He scrambled up the soggy earth, ignoring Jassie’s giggle behind him. “I’m going!”
But before he could spring away, Mistress Vizzingbelle’s sharp fingers snatched him by the robe.
“You clearly have many tricks and talents, Mister Mooney. But you should not rely completely on them. You need to learn that preparation should be meticulous not just before a dungeon, but also in every moment of your waking life. This way it becomes a habit.”
He stared up at her and nodded.
“I understand,” he said.
“Good. Then I will be extra lenient. Perhaps I am going soft in my old age, yes? Make it four and a half.”
Milo spun away without another word.
He dashed past Fulka, who was crouching in the next trench. The little woman’s eyes squinted at him as he passed. She’d already done her laps. Mistress Vizzingbelle hadn’t been happy with her inability to make the stone explode.
She muttered something at his back, but he didn’t catch it.
He was sure it wasn’t flattering.
As he ran, Milo’s mind turned over what he’d seen.
Jassie had, at first, created a solid sphere of stone. She explained she was compressing it so there was a lot of pressure inside the sphere.
That pressure turned to heat.
And, when she threw the stone, it would release that pressure with a fiery blast that devastated anything nearby.
Which explained why the ground was pockmarked with deep craters as the geomancy students continued to practice. The sound of their explosive projectiles boomed in the distance behind Milo as he raced away.
He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen to come to this class.
It had been an incredible coincidence that Mistress Vizzingbelle’s class on explosives had been scheduled so soon after the idea of making explosives popped into his head.
He could have ignored the class completely and just had Click record it for him.
But he felt he needed to be here for it. To see and feel what it looked like.
His idea wasn’t strictly for himself. He also knew he needed to find ways to fool other mages into thinking his golems were real mages themselves. So, they’d have to cast some magic sooner or later.
And, given they couldn’t cast a single spell, they’d need to fake it.
So, if he was going to try replicating this sort of spell with the new material Spragg had sold him, then he’d want it to seem passably realistic to any other mage.
On the face of it, it didn’t look too hard.
Golems were quick with their movements. They could pull something from under their clothes quickly and make it look part of the casting process. He was sure of it.
Still, the devices would need to be relatively small.
And the charge would need to be built to a point just before it exploded.
And then somehow paused.
Then he’d need a trigger.
The clocker part of his brain took over as he jogged around the oval. Sweat dripped off his face, but he didn’t notice. His mind was whirring with ideas.
What about a pin? Pull a pin and throw?
No.
Pulling a pin would leave the pin. Someone might get suspicious if the golems started dropping pins everywhere.
A button, then.
One made of something fragile enough it would be destroyed in the blast.
Normal human glass?
Some materials turned to glass in extreme heat, he thought. If anyone noticed some glassy shards after such a blast, they might not think twice about it if he was lucky.
But if the button was accidentally pushed it would blow up.
That might be awkward if it happened in the Mess or something.
And what if, after pressing the button, it exploded in his hand?
Racing from one idea to the next, Milo found himself utterly lost. And eventually sore. He paused for a moment, looking around the oval.
How many laps had he run?
He hadn’t even been counting.
Wiping his face with his sleeve, he noticed the sky was almost dark. He must have done more than five.
There were no more booms from the training ground where the geomancers had been.
How long ago had they stopped?
Time.
What he needed was a timer attached to the button, he thought. A small timer. A clock? A set of gears would be found. A fuse, then?
That sounded better. A fuse would burn out.
Any evidence would be turned to ash.
“Milo?” He turned and saw Jassie standing there. The tall woman looked mildly amused. “Mistress Vizzingbelle sent me. She said she loves your enthusiasm, but if you keep running she will make you do it again tomorrow.”
“I lost count,” he said sheepishly. “I was stuck in my head.”
“You’ll be stuck in your bed again if you pull a hamstring,” she warned. “I’m heading to the Mess. You wanna come?”
He thought about it.
He wanted to get back to the Workshop and get started on his new idea. At least start sketching it out. This one was mostly his. But it was rare for the other students to interact with him, and Jassie was easy to hang around.
She was pretty calm about everything and didn’t seem to care much about anything.
He nodded and gave her a smile. “Sure. Why not?”
“Don’t be too enthusiastic,” she grunted.
“Sorry.” He flushed. “My brain is full of ideas right now.”
“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes as they headed back to the Keep. “That sounds expensive. Your last ideas cost me five dungeon stones.”
“Five?” He blinked at her.
“You didn’t know?”
“I leave that to Tania.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” Jassie scowled. “That girl is ruthless, man! She doesn’t even give me a friends discount. And we’re friends, right? Right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll talk to her if you like.”
“Would ya?” She beamed at him. “If you do, I’ll let you have my babies.”
“You’ve been hanging out too much with Selma and Tania, haven’t you?”
“How’d ya guess?”
He shook his head.
And suddenly wondered if women were actually like this. He’d thought Tania and Selma were exaggerated by the instructions in their cores. But if women were actually like this sometimes, then just how real were his golems?
He had to admit his experience with real women was very limited.
Like, almost nonexistent.
The other apprentices had all liked going to taverns when he was a clocker. But he’d been too absorbed with his work and often stayed back to tinker with whatever he was working on.
They’d come the next day with stories of women they’d met.
Things they’d said and done.
And sometimes Milo had felt an itch of jealousy.
But he’d never gone with them, and they all eventually stopped inviting him.
Tania might be a little more overt about her intentions, but Selma wasn’t quite so forward. That Jassie seemed comfortable enough to joke with him, too, meant that his expectations on the nature of women might be a little skewed by his introverted nature and cold upbringing.
“Hey, Tania told me a poem the other day. It was real good.”
“A poem?” He blinked. Two shocks in as many minutes. “Really? Tania?”
“Yeah, for sure.” Jassie grinned. “Wanna hear it?”
“I’m not sure…”
“There was an old lady from Munt…”
Milo groaned.
He knew where that was going.