Chapter Four-Hundred Forty-One (Patreon)

They gave me a pretty good idea.  Rocky was close enough for me to hear what Aranya and Larx were talking about, and though I try not to evesdrop, I heard them mention the birbs, and I couldn’t help it.  And they’ve given me a good idea for how to help the birdkin get at least some smithing.

And there’s a pretty low chance of me gaining another affinity from it, which is nice.  I only got gravity because Teemo gained it, and it kinda propagated from there.  For what I’m thinking of, I’d need someone with lightning and light, and maybe metal, too, depending on how it works.

Now if only I actually knew how it worked.

Induction heating sounds simple on the surface: do induction, get heat, easy.  Right?  But not many people even know what induction even is.  I only know because it’s one of the main parts of an electrical circuit, but I’m no electrical engineer.  I know the best way to get inductance is to run electricity in a coil, basically the opposite of those flashlights you shake up to charge because they have a magnet that goes through a copper coil to make power.

So you do the opposite, run electricity through a coil, you get a magnetic field, and that’s because of inductance.  But I’m not sure how to get that to make heat.  I have a guess, but it’ll be on Thing to probably execute it.  And hopefully he won’t go getting an electromagnetism affinity.  I have one fundamental force already, I don’t need two!

“You alright, Boss?  You sound annoyed,” comments Teemo as he wanders the shortcuts, making sure they’re up to his standards.  The spatial vines have been stepping up to maintain them, but he still inspects them every so often.

Only annoyed at existence.  I have a way for the birdkin to smith without burning down the tree.

“Yeah?  Some kind of fancy heatproofing or something?”

Nope.  A way to heat metal directly.  Well, iron, at least.  I dunno if other metals would work.  But yeah, no fires, not even a hot forge.  Just a thing you can set iron on, heat it up, grab it, and the surface it was sitting on wouldn’t even be hot.  Well, a little hot, because of a red-hot piece of iron, but you get it.

My Voice gives a low whistle.  “How do you even get something like that?”

Another fundamental force.

Teemo suddenly looks nervous.  “My head isn’t about to explode, right?”

I mentally blow him a raspberry.  You’ll be fine.  Probably.  You don’t have the relevant affinities.  None of you guys do.

“Then… how’re you going to do it?”

Thing should be able to build a prototype, then he can show the antkin, and I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to share once they have a more robust model to show off.  Can you go check in on Thing?

“Sure thing, Boss.”  Teemo slips into a shortcut and soon steps out into Thing’s lab.  Right now, he’s still experimenting with making the composite armor even more dense with enchantments, but I think he’s hit the point of diminishing returns.  It’ll still be a good thing to work on, but the inductance heating coil shouldn’t take him too long… maybe.

“Heya Thing!  How goes the projects?”

He wiggles himself in a so-so motion, making Teemo smile.  “Ready for Boss’ latest crazy idea?”  He looks hesitant, but not reluctant, so Teemo continues.  “He needs you to make a forge that doesn’t use fire.  A forge that doesn’t get hot.  Like at all.  So the birdkin enclave can have some metalworking.”

So that’s what a flat look on a hand looks like.  At least he didn’t flip me the bird.

“Hey, he wouldn’t dump that on you without a plan!  Or at least a vague idea of a direction,” he says, not quite defending me.  Still, I explain the basic gist of what needs to be done, and he translates.  “He says it will use something called inductance to heat metal directly, no actual heat involved at all.  You need lightning running back and forth through a coil, and that should basically be it.  Do that, and iron and steel nearby will heat up.  Oh, he says you might need some light or even metal runes, too.”

Thing starts taking notes and drawing out some rough plans as Teemo continues.  “Sounds random, I know, but he says it’s related to another fundamental force.”

That pulls Thing up short, which in turn makes Teemo grin.

“What?  Do you even have a brain to pop?”

That does earn my Voice the bird, but he laughs it off.  “Boss says there’s no real danger.  Get light and lightning, then worry.  And maybe metal.”

Thing drums his fingers for a few moments before returning to his designing, apparently asking questions as he does, as Teemo starts translating.

“How much lightning?  How fast should it change direction?  How does he direct the inductance?”

Not much lightning, way less energy than a proper bolt of lightning would have.  I don’t know how much it needs to induce enough heat, but definitely start small.  Change sixty times a second.  Pretty sure most electricity is 60 hertz…  I know it sounds fast, but you’ll get there without too much trouble, I believe in you.  As for where the hot spot should be… I think it’s inside the coil, but I know it can heat things outside of it.  I would guess out the open ends of the coil, but it might be alongside it.

Teemo explains, and I realize a potential hurdle.

Oh, and be careful about testing.  I’m pretty sure railguns work on the same principle, and I wouldn’t want you to shoot yourself while trying to make a forge.

“Shoot himself?” asks Teemo, with Thing looking intrigued.

Yeah.  You’re making a moving magnetic field, and they tend to drag along iron for the ride.  Make the field too energetic, and the iron’ll go faster than any arrow.  Well, maybe not any arrow.  Some of Yvonne’s shots pack a lot of punch, but that might be more kinetic affinity shenanigans than abusing velocity.

“What do you mean about abusing velocity?” asks Teemo for Thing, who looks highly interested.  I hesitate, wondering if this would be worse than explaining explosives.  But they’ve been pretty good about not trying to figure out how to blow things up.

Alright, but only if he promises to focus on the forge before trying anything else.

Teemo translates, and Thing gives an eager thumbs-up.  At least he doesn’t have a back he can cross his fingers behind.  Alright.  Kinetic energy is directly proportional to mass, but proportion to the square of velocity.  That means if you double the weight of a thing, you double the kinetic energy.  But if you double the velocity you increase the energy by four times.

Teemo repeats me, and Thing starts vibrating in clear excitement.

“Hey, remember what you promised.”

Thing twitches a few times before slowly starting to calm himself, and resumes drawing out the basic plans for a forge and the materials he’ll need.  Thankfully, it does look like he’s making a few different designs for ways to heat metal, based on the theory, before he starts sketching out runes to do what we need.  I leave him to it, and Teemo shortcuts to the Sanctum to lounge on my core.

“You seem pretty worried about a little bit of math, Boss.”

Little bits of math are how I know about the fundamental forces.

Teemo mulls that over before responding.  “Are you that worried about getting a new affinity?”

It’s not so much the affinity as it is putting power out there for people to use.  You know I try to keep a lot of things close to my proverbial chest.  I’m not worried about things getting into the wrong hands.  I’m worried about some things getting into any hands.

“Is the velocity thing really that big a deal?”

I… maybe not?  Affinities bring a lot more to the table than just a bit of velocity.  I’ve seen delvers hit harder than any bullet, yet armor is still a thing.  I’m a bit worried about what a gunslinger would do with affinities on top, but taking a few steps back to look at the whole picture… I get the feeling it wouldn’t Change all that much in the world.

Teemo smiles and pats my core.  “Are you going to let Queen in on the secrets to explosives, then?”

I mentally snort.  I would if I knew them.  Nitrogens seem to be a pretty important element for them, but I’m clueless to the chemistry.  I do know the basic ingredients for gunpowder, but I’m pretty sure it’s blackpowder, which kinda sucks.  Still, it could give Queen something to build on, if she’s getting bored out of her huge tiny brain.  Only chemical explosives, though.  The other variety I’m keeping locked firmly in here.

Teemo chuckles.  “I don’t know if she’ll be disappointed you don’t know much, or eager to do the learning for you.”  He pauses and smiles wider.  “I know which Honey will be, though.”

I can’t help but laugh.  Yeah, probably.  The nerds can’t get up to anything more destructive than teaching Vieds about coronal fire, right?

“Probably, but I won’t tell them you said that.  Vieds or the nerds, they might take it as a challenge.”