Metal Mage 2

by Eric Vall

  I had decided to go with a large and mobile design for my first attempt. I wasn’t sure if this were the model I’d eventually settle on, but it felt like a good start. My vision was a five to six-foot-tall, vaguely humanoid machine, but it would have treads instead of legs, like a cross between a mini-tank and Bobbie 2.0. I wanted something that could run down bandits on horseback, but that had to wield weapons also. I knew the wheels would be the most complicated to make, so I started at the top and worked my way down.

  I still wasn’t sure exactly how my magic worked, but Stan had demonstrated that things like eyes, and by extension, a head, weren’t strictly necessary. I mean, the stickman didn’t even have a face, and he got around just fine. So, I decided to save a little iron and skipped making a distinct and separate head. As an alternative, I chose to extend the machine’s torso up a little past where it shoulders were going to be until it came to a sharp point, like the end of a spear. The torso itself was only a basic rectangle, and I carved deep indentations into the sides to make the ‘shoulder’ and ‘hip’ sockets. When I was finished, it kind of looked like a misshapen Lego block with a Sims diamond icon welded to the top. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a start.

  “I mean no offense, Mason,” Gwain said as we stood over the finished torso, “but that doesn’t exactly look like something that could take on Camus Dred.”

  “Not yet,” I agreed as I wiped my brow, “but give me a day or two, and you’ll see.”

  The blacksmith furrowed his brow, but before he could say anything, Cayla’s voice sounded at the door.

  “It sounds ridiculous, I know, but he is a man of his word.”

  I turned to find Cayla and Aurora standing in the threshold of the workshop. The princess wore a dress similar to the one she had on yesterday, but the fabric on this one was a deep purple instead of a light blue, and it was embroidered with a fine silver thread that matched the tiara in her hair. Aurora was dressed in her mage’s robes and red stockings, but her usually long and braided hair was tied back in a high ponytail. Typically she did everything to cover her tapered ears, but today an easy smile stretched across her mouth, and her emerald eyes twinkled with happiness.

  “There you are,” I said with a smile. “Good morning, ladies. I hope you slept well.”

  Aurora smirked at me. “Very well, Defender Flynt. And you?”

  “Splendidly,” I replied as my grin widened. “So well in fact that I got a jump start on my project early this morning.”

  “And skipped both breakfast and lunch,” Cayla said as she arched an eyebrow and produced a plate of food from behind her back.

  I blinked and glanced around the windowless room. “Oops? Seems like time got away from Gwain and me here.”

  I looked back at the blacksmith and watched as he bowed his head deeply to the two women.

  “Princess Balmier,” he murmured reverently.

  “Gwain,” she responded with a soft smile. “It is good to see you again. How is your son? I heard he is recovering in the infirmary.”

  “He is doing well, Your Highness,” the blacksmith replied as he lifted his head. “You are kind to ask.” Then his eyes flickered to Aurora, and I saw them immediately go to her ears.

  I stepped forward and clapped him on the shoulder. “Gwain, this is my fellow mage from Illaira, Defender Aurora Solana.”

  The blacksmith blinked and then dipped his head again. “It is an honor to make your acquaintance, ma’am.”

  “It is a pleasure to make yours,” she replied with her own nod.

  “Great,” I said, “now that we’ve all met each other, do you guys want to see what I’ve done so far.”

  “I think you should take a moment to eat, Mason,” Cayla chuckled as she extended the plate of food out to me.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but just then my stomach let out a loud gurgle.

  Cayla raised an eyebrow at me again, and I winced.

  “I guess I could take a little break,” I said as I reached out to take the plate. It was simple fare, a little bit of roasted chicken and some bread and cheese, but it smelled delicious all the same.

  “Forgive me,” Cayla said with a frown as she looked to Gwain, “I did not think you would be here, so I only brought the one plate.”

  “No apologies necessary, Your Highness,” the blacksmith said with a wave of his hand. “I’ll just take a stroll down to the kitchens, maybe see my son for a moment. I needed to stretch my legs, anyway.”

  “You’re going to miss all the fun,” I warned Gwain as he walked toward the door.

  He chuckled and shook his head. “I am certain there will be more than enough left when I return.” Then he bowed one last time to Cayla, flashed me a small smile, and slipped out into the hall.

  “I like him,” I said when the door clicked shut. “He’s been a real big help.”

  “Gwain is a good man,” Cayla agreed with a nod. “He’s been my father’s smith since I was a child.”

  “What happened to his son?” Aurora asked as she walked across the room and scooped up Stan from his perch on one of the tables.

  “Camus Dred,” I growled, and my knuckled blanched white as I gripped the plate in my hand tightly. “Gwain’s son is a soldier in the royal guard. He and the rest of his patrol were attacked as they were returning from bringing supplies to a nearby town.”

  “Bastards.” Aurora scowled, and the flame in the forges sprung high for a moment as she released a wave of magic in her anger. Stan immediately stroked at her thumb in a soothing gesture, and the half-elf took a deep breath before she exhaled slowly.

  “On that, we can agree,” I muttered, and then I collapsed down onto one of the workshop’s stools as I started to dig into my lunch. “Which is why I’m so eager to get these animatrons built and ready for battle.”

  “How is this… thing going to fight bandits?” Cayla asked as she leaned over the torso I had just completed.

  “Well, that’s only the first part,” I mumbled around a mouth of chicken and bread. “I still have to make the arms and the wheels and most importantly, the weapons.”

  Cayla’s eyes caught on my diagrams and illustrations, and she walked over to the table to get a closer look.

  “Is this what it’s meant to look like?” she questioned as she picked up a yellowed piece of parchment.

  “Mm-hmm,” I hummed as I shoved a bite of bread and cheese in my mouth. I gulped loudly and added, “For now, at least. The design will probably change as I go, but that’s what I’m starting out with.”

  “Interesting,” the princess muttered as her blue eyes scanned over the page.

  “Why did you settle on this design?” Aurora asked as she joined Cayla and peered over her shoulder.

  I shrugged as I polished off my plate. “I wanted something that could wield a gun or sword but also manage to maneuver quickly and reach a decent speed. Even with his new joints, Stan still isn’t very fast, and we know the bandits have horses. This seemed like the most logical solution.”

  “Thinking about Bobbie again?” Aurora teased as she pointed to the wheels.

  “Maybe a little.” I sighed. “I do miss her. Maybe after we get the first prototype done, I’ll take my own stroll down to the stables and work on her a little.”

  “Let us focus on one thing at a time,” Cayla said with a laugh. Then she looked up at me, and her eyes were bright with excitement. “What do we need to do next?”

  I grinned back in response and set my now empty plate on the table. “Well, next would be the arms, which should be fairly simple. I’ll just make a larger version of Stan’s arms, complete with the elbow upgrade, and I’ll modify them later with weapons once I’ve tested them out.”

  “Alright,” Aurora said as she handed Stan off to Cayla and then turned to me with her hands on her hips. “Tell me what to do. Where do we start?”

  “You can make sure that iron stays molten so that it’s easier for me to work with,” I replied as I jerked my head toward the fo
rges.

  The Ignis Mage nodded and then strode to the other side of the room as flames sparked to life in her hand.

  “What can I do?” Cayla asked as she tilted her head to the side. “I know I’m not a mage, but I want to do anything I can to help.”

  I pursed my lips and gave it some thought. Then, movement in my peripherals caught my eye, and I glanced down to watch as Stan clambered up the princess’s wrist and used the folds of her dress like ladder rungs as he scaled up her arm.

  “Actually,” I said with a laugh, “there is something you can do. Give Stan some tests and trials. He follows basic commands, but I want to figure out more about how this power actually works.”

  “I think I can manage that,” the princess replied as she looked over at the stickman perched on her shoulder. Her eyes crinkled with mirth, and she blew a kiss at Stan as he tugged on her hair for balance.

  “Thanks, love,” I said, and then I leaned over to peck a quick kiss against her cheek. “Now, how about we get to saving your kingdom?”

  Cayla nodded firmly, and then we all set about our own jobs.

  While Aurora kept the iron hot and fluid, I worked on crafting the rest of my animatron. I made the shoulder joints next, and once those were functional, I started in on the arms themselves.

  “Can you flex your arm for me?” I muttered to Aurora as I concentrated on focusing my magic.

  “What for?” the half-elf asked as she glanced over her shoulder. She had her right hand raised over the forges while she kept the fires constant and hot.

  “Need a model,” I grumbled, but I kept my eyes glued to the slowly shaping limb in front of me. “Want to make sure it looks and operates right.”

  “Fine,” Aurora said with a sigh, and then she raised her left arm to keep the magic flowing but bent her right one back and forth.

  I glanced in her direction to watch the way her elbow moved and the way her fingers flexed, and then I turned back to the worktable.

  “Thanks,” I grunted before I doubled down.

  Quickly, my creation began to come together. Once I finished the arms, I guided them into the shoulder sockets and then rotated and bent them back and forth to test their mobility. Everything glided perfectly.

  “Done,” I grunted as I sat back on my stool. The animatron body was spread out on the table in front of me, and pride swelled in my chest as I glanced over it.

  Aurora leaned over my shoulder to inspect my work.

  “I think he is missing a little something.” The half-elf arched her brow as she gestured to the animatron’s torso that just ended in empty air.

  “The tracks and treads are going to take a lot longer to figure out,” I explained, “and I want to make sure I can even control something this big first before I add the rest of the body. Plus, there is the issue of supply. Gwain had a modest inventory, but I’ve used a good majority of the iron just making the guns and the machine’s torso here.”

  “So you’re just going to test the arms first?” Cayla questioned as she walked over to stand beside me.

  “Yup. He isn’t exactly pretty, but for a first attempt, I’d say not bad,” I admitted as I scrubbed a hand through my hair.

  “I think it’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” Cayla said as she surveyed the machine. “Were these common items in your old world?”

  “Kinda,” I replied as I slid to my feet. “Robots and machines had been around for a few centuries, but it was only very recently that they started to become more sophisticated. It was a lot harder back on Earth though. Making machines like this took a lot of knowledge, and it required a lot of work to be able to tell a machine to do something and for that machine to understand what you said and follow instructions. Thankfully, we don’t have to bother with any of that. Have I mentioned how much I love magic?”

  “I think it is rather implied,” Aurora chuckled as she leaned into my shoulder. “Now, how will this test work?”

  “Beats me,” I replied with a shrug. “When I brought Stan to life, all it took was me carving the rune.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll start, right?” Cayla asked.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said with a tired smile. “Here goes nothing.”

  I stepped up to the animatron and squared my stance.

  “In the name of Nemris, I hope this works,” I muttered.

  Then I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. When I inhaled again, I dredged my magic up from the depths of me. It crawled through my veins like molasses, but it finally reached the surface, and then I willed it to carve the strange rune Nemris had shown me days ago, the one that was also on Stan’s chest, into the torso of this animatron.

  Instantly, my magical reserves dipped drastically, and my knees shook. It took everything in me not to collapse to the floor.

  “Fuck,” I gasped as I opened my eyes. “Gods, that’s a lot more intense than I anticipated. I’m going to need a huge dinner after this and at least ten hours of sleep.”

  “But, Mason,” Cayla breathed with wide eyes, “look.”

  I turned my gaze back to the animatron, and my breath hitched in my throat as I saw its finger twitch.

  “Yes,” I cried as I fist pumped the air. “It works!”

  Cayla laughed with delight and clapped her hands, and a fierce grin spread across Aurora’s face.

  “Well done,” the half-elf said to me as she looked at me with pride in her eyes.

  “I guess we should see if he can actually move before I go about accepting congratulations,” I said and then I turned back to the animatron. “Um… machine. Lift your right arm.”

  Nothing happened.

  I frowned and then narrowed my eyes as I willed the machine to move with both my mind and my magic. Immediately I felt the drain on my powers again, and my vision swam as the world tilted beneath my feet.

  Still, nothing happened.

  But just as I was about to cut the connection, the machine’s arm leapt off the table and smacked me straight in the face. The taste of blood bloomed on my tongue, and I shot back away from the table as I cupped my face.

  “Mason, are you okay?” Cayla gasped as she hovered over me in concern.

  “‘M fine,” I mumbled through my hand as I looked back at the animatron in shock. “He just caught me by surprise.”

  “I’ll say,” Aurora sighed as she leaned over me. “Move your hand. Let me see.”

  I did as she instructed, and she grasped my chin as she scrutinized my face.

  “Your nose does not look broken,” she muttered with narrowed eyes, “but your top lip is a little swollen and bloody.”

  “Want to kiss it better?” I asked as I puckered my mouth.

  Aurora wrinkled her nose in disgust, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What happened, Mason?” Cayla questioned as she looked warily between me and the animatron.

  “Not sure,” I replied with a frown. Then I sat up again and nudged Aurora and Cayla so that they stood behind me. “Uh… machine. Lift both of your arms this time.”

  I leaned back and counted as we all stared at the animatron. When I reached five seconds, the machine’s arms lurched into motion and lifted straight up into the air.

  “There seems to be some type of delay between him receiving the command and then executing it,” I muttered as I scrutinized the animatron. Then I reached out, placed my hand on the top of it, and closed my eyes. I didn’t summon up any more of my own magic. Instead, I just tried to feel into the metal. I had crafted this machine from nothing, by hand. My magic seeped into every molecule of this animatron, it practically ran through its veins…

  “Huh,” I said aloud as I opened my eyes.

  “What? What is it?” Cayla asked as she leaned against my shoulder to look at the machine.

  “A thought just occurred to me,” I replied as I dropped my hand and ran my eyes from the top of the animatron down to the bottom of its torso. “Like I said before, these types of machines, back
in my old world, took a lot of math and engineering to figure out. And there was a shit ton of wires involved because there had to be a way for the commands to travel from the machine’s ‘brain’ out to the rest of it. It’s like the human body. We think something, and then the brain sends a single down our nerves to tell our feet to move forward, or for our hands to pick something up.”

  “Okayyy,” Aurora drawled as she furrowed her eyebrows. “What does this have to do with--“

  “I think my creations need a nervous system,” I said as I cut her off. “Or circuitry of some kind. I can control Stan just fine because he’s so small, but this machine is much bigger all the way around. I think that my magic is having difficulty traveling through the whole machine at an effective speed. I know that iron is a less effective conductor of electricity than, say, copper. Maybe it works in a similar way for magic.”

  “Electricity?” Cayla echoed with a confused frown.

  I waved my hand dismissively. “A type of power that existed in my world. Kind of like harnessed lightning. I’ll explain it to you later. Now, I think I need to find me some copper.”

  Aurora and Cayla gaped at me after I made the lightning comment, but I ignored them as I turned around and started to walk toward the workshop’s supply pantry.

  Gwain did have a cache of copper, but it was a small one, unfortunately. There was maybe enough for me to wire one arm, but it was better than nothing, so I pulled the two copper ingots from the shelves before I perched myself on a stool and got to work.

  The first step was reshaping the ingots into wires. Once I had a batch of thin, red metal wires, I set about braiding them so they would be more flexible in the machines. Once I was finished with that task, I turned back to my animatron on the table and scratched at my beard as I studied the shape of the machine’s limbs.

  “Okay big guy,” I said as I crossed my fingers. “This won’t hurt a bit… at least I’m pretty sure. But either way, once I’m finished, hopefully, you’ll be operating at your full potential. Sound good?”

  The machine lay motionless before me and didn’t indicate that he had heard me, but he also didn’t try to stop me, so I took that as a good sign and proceeded with my plan.