Wandering Agent

Machinist of Mana Chapter 28 School Arrival

The little carriage rolled towards my future home for the next few years, the campus pulling itself from the ever-present mist.  We were just outside the city, the walls and towers of the metropolis visible from the small rise this place was set upon, still shrouded in the morning fog.

Exion Boys Knight Academy was young, modern, and considered quite a good institution for its kind.  There were other academies for those with physical magic, the one in the capitol ha...

Machinist Chapter 27 The World's Greatest

On my first day at the house in Exion I'd made some inquiries, but the results were less than I'd hoped for.  The housekeeper Mrs. Rider thought that I was just trying to get a grip on how things were run and  so she'd dutifully run me through all the books.  That had ended with me having a very good idea of how the finances were doing, and the expenses in general, but hadn't answered my actual question of how my half-sister was.

“Ah, Mrs. Rider,” I eventua...

Machinist of Mana Chapter 26 A Professor and a Maid

After the mad morning dash my boarding the train was peaceful.  This was a trip I'd made many, many times, and even if I found it rather boring it wasn't like it was difficult.  Soon enough the train was speeding along the countryside, with fields and trees passing me by one by one.

I thought back to what mother had said about there being a gate, and how there wasn't one.  It was a sad state of affairs, but a true one.  All over the country there were gate...

Machinist Chapter 25 A Parting Gift

While my grandfather had been thrilled with our model's success my parents honestly didn't see the point o it.  Flying with magic was possible, and if you really, really wanted you could make a basic flying object.  Well, flying magical tools tended to be terrible, and drink mana like a sponge drank water if you wanted them to do anything, but they were possible.

I'd even taken time to ask around as to why most of the wizards didn't bother learning to fly.  The...

Machinist Chapter 24 Fourteen

I was only fourteen, and all the things I'd managed astounded me.  Over and over again I thought this as I looked at my newest creation.  Perhaps it was cheating, calling this my own doing, I'd certainly cribbed a lot of notes from my old world, knowledge that would prove useful in the coming years as it already had, but it was still a lot of hard labor.  Before me sat my newest and best creation, one of the first major things grandfather Darksky and I had really built from scr...

Machinist of Mana Chapter 23 Unhappy Parent

There were no two ways about it, mother was livid.  She'd not been so sure about me being there in the first place and my insistence that the goblin was nothing like it was depicted in the paper didn't convince her at all.  It wasn't even like I'd been trying to hide what happened, it just hadn't come up how things had gone.  She was busy, I was busy with lessons and the like.

Just after breakfast mother had pulled me from my daily activities and to her parents...

Machinist of Mana Chapter 22 Repercussions

The revelation of my grandfather's combat abilities left a lot of questions, questions I wanted answers to.  Of course with all the excitement going on in the Royal Society and the gardens I was going to have to wait.  There were a lot of people who insisted on a thorough search of both sites to root out where and how exactly the little monster had gotten in.

Small monsters, I learned, were not totally unheard of in most cities.  Deep in the sewers and undergro...

Machinist Chapter 21 In the Tunnels

Mrs. Lutte was an annoyingly smart cookie, and had put together the exact same things I had.  She'd also alerted my family to the matter and now they were taking action.  True, they were not really high up in a lot of the local government, but they knew people who were, and being a noble meant that you could get things done if you really wanted.

Of course none of them believed for a second that there was a goblin in the underground, but they did believe that their s...

Machinist Chapter 20 Gardens

A few days after I had dinner with my... friends?  They were still so young, it was honestly odd to call them that, perhaps peers would be a better word, if an odd one.  Regardless, a few days after that meeting I made my way down to the botanical gardens mentioned.  I didn't have any particular interest in flowers, though I liked them as well as anything else, but the idea that one of those creatures was loose did pique my interest a bit.

My family was general...

Machinist Chapter 19 Dinner Party

The day had finally come, and I had a dinner party to attend.  This was going to be an interesting affair, riddled with rules and meeting new people, a fresh experience.  My mother of course was stressed, she seemed to always be stressed, but mostly because she meant well.

Most of my afternoon was spent with either Mrs. Lutte or my mother, going over the many rules and regulations on attending such a party.  Of course I wouldn't be alone, there would be a numbe...

Machinist of Mana Chapter 18 Basic Safety

The day after my visit to the Royal Society I ended up in a heavily fortified building with Grandpa Shadestone.  He'd reserved a private room for today's activities at this facility, and was waiting when I arrived.

The room itself was perhaps thirty feet wide and around a hundred and fifty as long, with a counter and separated bays.  He stood at one of these, with several weapons laid out upon the bay and targets set up in the distance.  One of the servants had...

Elevation of Mana Chapter 94 Plan

The rains began, it was expected, anticipated, completely normal for this land.  It seemed that the world was weeping as the sky turned gray and water fell, sheet after sheet.  It also meant that construction on large project needed to take a backseat as we continued to reinforce our weapons and armor.  In my home, and in so many other workshops throughout the city burning metal was being shaped, bit by bit into weapons and armor.  I left Chien in charge as I left the hous...

Elevation of Mana Chapter 93 Weapons of Wood and Iron

Chien grunted as we pulled the last of the ropes taut and readied to test this machine.  Next a small bolt was brought to the fore and we established a shield in front of us, something learned from previous mistakes.

“If this one explodes we need to move on,” the boy said.  I was debating the same course of action myself, as this had taken far longer than I'd have liked.

A ballista was something akin to a giant crossbow, safe for a few things. &...

Machinist of Mana Chapter 17 Royal Society

The Royal Society was, in a single word, chaos.  I was sure that somewhere there were men and women writing papers in stuffy offices, but it certainly wasn't here.  The building was occupied by lecture hall after lecture hall, any one of which might be the site of vigorous scientific discussion at any given time.

My favorite part was this though, that nobles seldom frequented this location.  Studying science was done by the nobility, but being on the bleeding e...

Machinist of Mana Chapter 16 Fight

Reflecting back on it later I found I had been a bit hard on most of my opponents through the day.  They were children, had trained like children, and fought like children.  To most of them this was just another sport, another thing to do, and while some were quite skilled they lacked the sort of controlled aggression that could really change things.  They became flustered easily, angry easily, and didn't know how to focus not anger or rage, but just aggression, for there is a ...

Elevation of Mana Chapter 92 On War

There was no sense of satisfaction when I left the little village behind, no sense that everything would be okay, but I'd done all I could.  We had other villages to check, other places to make sure were well before we returned to the city, and with enemies moving as they were we had little time to do it.  As we moved I ran through all I knew about military tactics and methods, which wasn't much.

Sure I'd read The Art of War once or twice, and there were a few thing...

Chapter 91 First Fort

Atal waited until we'd returned to the last village we'd visited to speak with me, for which I was grateful, as it gave me time to organize my thoughts.  He was as distant as always, but a few times I caught him looking at me, watching me, surely something was on his mind.

The two of us found a hut, and others were banished from it, or even near it.  Atal clearly wanted privacy.

“That shield, what was it?” he asked, eyes reflecting the small fir...

Elevation of Mana Chapter 90 Deaths

All around me the battle raged, there were screams of elves dying and suffering as they were rent or burned.  I was unprepared for this, how could I have ever been?  How could I have thought that this would be alright, clearly it wasn't so.  We'd been ambushed, brought into a fight that we should have expected, after all, we knew at least some of what they had.

While I was trying to shield and return fire with some of the child soldiers Atal and the woman began...

Machinist of Mana Chapter 15 Guns and Swords

While I liked my paternal grandparents I really just didn't get them.  They were both talkative, and both far less obsessed with propriety than my maternal grandmother seemed to be.  I wondered why that was, if there was something I was missing, but I'd not found it yet.  Overall I liked grandma and grandpa Shadestone.

These thoughts were going through my mind as I met with the grandparents I seldom saw.  While they were only around for one season they wer...

Machinist of Mana Chapter 14 Return to Exion

Grandfather and I sat in one of the many reading rooms aboard the ship, the papers before us held as the vessel swayed gently in the sea.  He'd taken a number of notes on the engine here and the one in the train and though they were not particularly different there were some effects of size.  The ship's engine was so much larger, and required so much more magic that it really was limited to shorter journeys.  Mostly it went between the continent and Exion, or up and down the sh...

Elevation of Mana Chapter 89 First Battle

The sun crept over the horizon on the third day of our trip from Atal (The city) and Atal (The man) was acting more and more anxious by the mile.  It was hard to see, stoic as he tended to be, but he was always calling for scouts to check this or that, always making sure our watchmen were on point.  I was glad for that, as it showed he knew to expect issues, but it was also tiring even for myself, who wasn't on watch.

We were still far from the furthest edges of the...

Elevation of Mana Chapter 88 Call to Arms

I'd just started running my aunt through the basics of algebra when a visitor arrived at my door.  Those were getting more and more common these days, either orders from the local government for weapons or more craftsmen who needed to be taught things.  It seemed I didn't have, and wouldn't have for the near future, any free time.

“What today?” I asked the young man who'd come, I recognized him as one of the runners for the local powers that be.

Epilogue 4 Melody of Mana

A/N:  It was pointed out, rightly, by Logan that 3 really didn't end it properly, so here it is.

I stumbled through the portal into Justin's domain once more, leaning heavily on my staff as my muscles rebelled.  I had to hurry, but everything hurt so bad.  As usual the man took his time to join me, but as soon as he saw me he rushed over, hands wrapping around to help me up.  I felt frail, so frail.

Magic or no hundreds of years had taken ...

Epilogue 3 Melody of Mana

So many years had passed since I'd come to this world.  I even had a few gray hairs here and there.  These days I mostly kept to my school coming out to advise the king, or attend to things like I was today.  I passed through the halls of the royal palace like a shadow, heading to the wing where the former kings and queens resided.  There was something I needed to do before it was too late, a secret held too long.

When I knocked I was pleased to find that ...

Epilogue 2 Melody of Mana

My black dress fluttered in the icy wind, and I couldn't bring myself to cry again.  Too many times in the last couple days it had happened, too many times had I felt tears fall.  As the tomb was closed I just couldn't, it was too much.

Ulanion had fallen, not to some enemy, or some monster, but to the one thing that wouldn't be denied to those with human blood, age.  He'd outlived so many that I almost couldn't believe it, he'd seemed immortal, but he wasn't.<...

Epilogue 1 Melody of Mana

I stood well back, watching, waiting for all of our people to come into position.  It was strange, no longer running most of the activities, but at times I needed to step back, let others take up the work and prove that they could do it.  This joint operation was going to be something to see too.

“We don't have time to stop, if the King's men, or the Worldsingers find us...” one of the men before me said, his voice enhanced by my magic and brought to my side. 2023-12-20 00:02:42 +0000 UTC View Post

Elevation of Mana Chapter 87 Writing

Things changed slowly around my home, I brought in more things that were normal to me, but still odd to others.  These were often things that I didn't really think about, things that I'd never considered as 'important' to the world.  Decorations, cabinets, holders for various things here and there.  None of them were large, but all of them were something, and they all mattered in their own small way.

Then I came to an invention that I had put off for a long tim...

Elevation of Mana Chapter 86 Sharing Secrets

Of course Isha did want to see my workroom.  I secretly suspected that a lot of people wanted into that particular room, but were too polite or too patient to ask.  Nobody went down there other than me, not Chien, not Ida, no one, but I was going to let Isha in, at least this once.

She looked on in wonder as I opened the door.  It was a large stone construction.  I'd had to replace this door multiple times already, and though it was decidedly a door, if yo...

Melody of Mana Chapter 300 Until Next Time

After giving my host a quick goodbye I followed the kids through the portal.  I was really going to have to do something for Justin, though I was still unsure as to what.  For now I needed to get things back together as they should be, though I supposed that was mostly done.

My lab was, to my relief, still sealed from when I'd left.  So while the young ones were quickly getting their bearings, and Rodrick was examining every surface like an excited gremlin I wa...

Elevation of Mana Chapter 85 Visit From a Soldier

I didn't quite know what to do, so I did what I always did and retreated into my work.  I couldn't stop the enemy that Isha and Atie had described, I couldn't destroy half a village in one moment, but I could get there one day.

My current project was much the same as I'd already done, to make crystals of all the colors of the rainbow.  It would serve as a good exercise at the very least, practice until I could make something more potent.  One by one I worked to...