The Ley Lines

[Chaz]

He spotted Dom and waved cheerfully, then saw his cane and had a sort of small crisis, realizing he was blind. He blushed a little, and stammered.

Uh, s-sort of. I'm, uh...

He looked down at his map, trying to figure out how to explain that he could see lights and lines under the ground when Dom couldn't even see.

I'm following some magical trails. You know about ley lines? Oh, and this is Grant and...umm...I guess Sophia left, but she was here a second ago.

[Dominic]

Dominic was quiet for a long moment at the mention of ley lines. It was one of the few things he'd actually had a little experience with, second-hand so to speak. He was no mage, but he'd been invited by a wealthy archmage to entertain for the afterparty of the unveiling of his greatest feat. The party never happened.

"Look...Chaz...could I maybe tag along? I learned quite a bit about ley lines. Maybe I could help in whatever you're doing. Got no talent for it myself, but I got a good memory." He'd rather not experience the sound, the feeling of what happened to the archmage. Especially not to someone who seemed so...well...pure as his new acquaintance. Remembering there were others there he swivelled his head around as if trying to acknowledge the whole street.

"Pardon if I don't go to shake your hand Grant, wouldn't want to cause an accident. Name's Dominic." he said, regaining his more flippant manner.

[Chaz]

Chaz nodded, then corrected himself.

Uhh, yeah! I wasn't able to really find anything, and I didn't want to bother Alec...the sort of scholar around here. It should be fun! Especially if I learn to, uh...harness it. I have some...ideas.

[Dominic]

He took a deep breath, clacking his way up to fall into step beside the young man. His voice became a little hesitant, a little grave.

"Chaz...scuttlebutt around town tells me you're a great worker of mechanics. Even the crustiest and oldest of learned scholars get the spooks at that sort of thing, and you got a knack for the new and the wild, so's the say. But...let me put it like this. Think of the hottest, nastiest, most horrid substance you can. Like molten steel or bubbling pitch or Silverspinner venom. Would you try and make something out of any of that stuff with your bare hands?"

He let that point hang just a little in the air before carrying on, trying not to be patronizing or overly smart. Lords knew he was only going from rumor, story, book learning and one very unpleasant night in the West.

"Just...just please be careful. Folks say that no one being should have that power, thinking it'll make them like gods. By my track of the tales it seems we simply aint built to use it at all. Far too squishy, us mortal things."

[Chaz]

Chaz took a deep breath in, nodding once.

I know. I'll be careful. I learned my lesson after I got hit by lightning a few weeks ago. You can't just mess with things like that.

He looked around, and then tapped the goggles over his eyes.

For now I'm just...looking. Maybe eventually I'll figure out how to skim the energy off the lines. I mean, all the other attempts were magical, and it backfired. Maybe...maybe I can do something with metal. Steam and steel. You know. I have a hunch the magic won't know what to do with it.

[Dominic]

Dominic grinned, let out a quiet laugh of acquiessence and managed to put a hand on the shoulderblade of the curious catboy. He patted his new friend in a brotherly fashion and shrugged.

"Perhaps so. At least you're not so arrogant as to think you can hold the soul of the world in your head and tell it what to do. That puts you head and shoulders above one feller I knew briefly."

Anther shudder shot through him at the memory. The hissing, tearing sound, the sudden yell of pained panic, then the smell of ozone, of air charged with so much power it crackled. Then the smell of overcooked meat and screams. He hadn't eaten bacon for a month afterward.

[Chaz]

Chaz cocked his head, looking at Dom curiously.

Are...are you okay? You look sick.

[Dominic]

Dom nodded, clearing his throat. He gathered himself and was at his flippest.

"Naw. Just remembering that there are times I'm glad I can't see. Whatever sounds like someone being unravelled like a fraying blanket is something I don't ever want to see." He laughed a little more raucously, using humour to push the nagging dread away

"There's probably a good number of fellows and wenches wandering about with a few too many ales about the tum who still think they can fit into leather breeches. Don't want to see that either." He nodded forward and tapped his staff on the ground. "Lead on." came the suggestion.

[Chaz]

Chaz blinked, and then grinned nervously.

Right. Right. Let's, uh..let's go then.

He cleared his throat again and started towards the outskirts of town where his map led. He seemed to realize something, and turned as he walked, talking back to Dominic.

Wait...un...raveled?

[Dominic]

Dom surmised he might have scared the little engineer a bit too much. He quirked his mouth in thought and replied.

"Yeah...it sounded like someone pulling apart a sheet. A sort of tearing sound. But it only came from one place. Everyone else was fine." Whch was technically true. He decided not to mention the thumps of fainting people, the vomiting and the rush of the crowd fleeing. The sight of the mage being disintergrated by raw energy must have been spectacularly messy.

"Even if you could tap into a line by your lonesome, you don't sound dumb enough to try and go neck deep in it. Just sayin' what I know because I'd rather you continue breathing, Chaz." his smile turned soft as he spoke.

[grant]

Grant listens to the exchange silently, wondering just what the blind man was leaving out. Deciding that he might as well pitch in, Grant clears his throat.

"Well, at least that means that those who are so arrogant as to try and control nature itself will receive punishment. Means I don't have to punish them for that sin. At any rate, it is nice to meet you sir. I am Grant, what might your name be?"

[Chaz]

Chaz looked back to Grant.

That's Dominic.

Silently he wondered if he'd missed when Dom had said it earlier. He turned back and led them out of town.

Hopefully it's not as volatile as people say. I have my thaumometer, if it starts to look bad.

[Dominic]

Dominic turned to face Grant, smiling as he always did, though there was a certain wryness to his words as he spoke them.

"A pleasure. Though you probably don't want to hear my thoughts on sin and punishment, Chief. I don't want to offend."

He kept pace with the eager scientist, always happy to lend a hand in the pursuit of truth. He cocked his head, an inquisitive expression.

"Thaumometer? That's a gizmo for measuring magical field strengh isn't it? Aren't those, you know, viciously expensive and prone to failure?" He'd heard about them, highly sensitive devices. Some were portable, but those were notoriously prone to inaccuracy, from what he'd gleaned. He'd never had need to use one himself, and even if he had needed one it would have cost him every copper he'd earned in a year just to rent one for a day. A realisation dawned

"You built it yourself, didn't you?"

[Chaz]

Dom could hear the grin in Chaz's voice.

Yes. This one is much, much more simple than the ones the magical types use. Instead of measuring magic, it goes the other way and actually measures the local strength of the normal laws of physics.

He held up a small glass tube, walking backward, explaining it as he went.

This is a glass tube with a small amount of mercury in it. At the bottom and top of the tube are two very weak runes of repulsion. Under a normal thaumatological environment the runes aren't enough and the mercury gathers in the bottom of the tube, following gravity. But as gravity weakens and the runes soak up magic from the world, they push the mercury up and cause it to hover and eventually compress it in the middle of the tube. Using that, I can measure the size of the mercury and get a rough ballpark of the amount of Thaums in the air.

Then he fell backward, tripping over something small, barely managing to hold onto the thaumometer and not drop it. He let out a small breath as he got up, rubbing the back of his head.

You, uh...g-get the general idea.

[Dominic]

Dom actually blinked, eyes opening and then closing a few times as if he'd just been flicked on the nose. Normal thaumometers needed resonating crystals, magical refraction lenses, all manner of energy channelling fillagree made of semi-precious metals. They needed constant adjustment and recalibration.

Chaz's solution would not give detailed readings on the nature of the magical field, he assumed, nor would it give directionality but even so it was brilliantly elegant in its simplicity. From all he'd been told about detecting magical fields it was an amazingly sound theory. Runes were supposedly rooted magic, energy bound to a solid form and contained. If the runes were simply absorbers then they'd rarely need to be adjusted. Mercury was relatively expensive as an alchemical reagent but still far cheaper than the alternative.

"That's...that's genius!" he exclaimed. "Stars, Chaz. That's a detector that even child could use, and it wouldn't cost much more than a good blade. You should register the design with the Mages guild so no-one can copy it. You'd have gold coming out your ears!"