Chapter 42 – Pns? What Pns?

  “Honestly when he gets in the zone it’s best to leave him be. Oh, I still check in on him and make sure he gets food and takes the occasional break, but I don’t want to interrupt his work if I can help it.” - Val talking to Kristi about Kurt’s work habits.

  In a mostly well thought out room sat a man. He was hunched over his work and muttering to himself. Beside him was a pte with a crust of bread and some crumbs along with several empty water bottles. Behind him was a very loving, kind, supportive and thoroughly irritated kitsune.

  “Kurt, sweetheart.” Val asked. She got no response. “Kurt.” She said a little louder. Still nothing. With a sigh, she walked over and pced a hand on his shoulder. “Kurt!” she said harshly.

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.” Kurt said, looking up and rubbing his neck. “What’s up?”

  Val’s hard expression softened as he turned to look at her. “Hey, it’s been like five hours.”

  “What!” Kurt hopped off the stool. “Shit, I gotta get dinner started.” He began to put away his books. “Ah, I’m sorry, Val. Time got away from me.” He opened the security box setting the notebook and binder inside before sealing it and locking it in one of the lockers.

  Walking over and putting a hand on his cheek, Val made him pause and look at her. “It’s ok, you don’t have to cook for us all the time, you know. We were just worried since you disappeared hours ago and hadn’t even been up for the bathroom in all that time.”

  “And that reminds me…” Kurt said as he gave her a quick kiss. “Gotta go.” He then jogged up the stairs. He went directly past Kristi who sat on the couch, wrapped in a bnket and watching a movie, barely giving her a wave as he made his way up to the bathroom.

  He emerged a few minutes ter, feeling much better, and walked out to the kitchen where he saw several bags of takeout. He looked to Val who was unpacking it all with Kristi.

  “Since you were otherwise occupied, we decided some takeout was in order.” Kristi said after noticing his questioning look.

  “Friday night so half off wings at Johnny’s.” Val added for context as to why there were several dozen boxes of wings. “We kinda got carried away.” She said with a sheepish shrug.

  Kurt smiled and walked over to give her another kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for handling it then. And I am sorry for getting bogged down with my project. It is more complex of an issue than I initially thought.”

  Kristi was trying to decipher a sticker on the top of a carton when she looked up. “How do you mean? I thought it couldn’t be more complex than what the ring does.” She frowned at the sticker again. “What, in all the hells, does this say?”

  Tilting his head he quickly decoded the abbreviation. “Lemon pepper and I assume the DR stands for dry rub.” Opening the carton, he saw and smelled that he was right. “It’s not complex at face value but I also ran into the issue of weight.”

  “If it’s like a bag of holding, does it even matter?” Val asked and opened a big box of fried sides.

  “Kinda but also no.” Kurt answered, and she gave him a ft look. “So, it’s not so much weight as it is mass. While the ammunition doesn’t weigh anything inside the bag, the feed pawls still need to pull it up into the gun. It has to overcome the inertia to do that.”

  “Oh, I guess that makes sense.” Kristi said and bit into a wing from the box peled ‘sweet Thai chili’ and immediately humming in satisfaction as she went after another.

  “Yeah. Also, I don’t want the belt to just coil when it hits the bottom so I am trying to incorporate a simple structure enchant that will y them down in a pattern, so they don’t end up like a string of Christmas lights.”

  Val did the little ear-perk-head-tilt that he found so adorable. “How does a string of Christmas lights end up?”

  “So, you know how they are a few strands of wire with little sockets and bulbs.” Kurt pantomimed the shape, poorly but at least trying. Val seemed to get it and nodded. “When you take them down each year, no matter how you put them away, they always end up in a jumble and need to be untangled, which is hard because of the bulbs.”

  Kristi giggled, a sound that startled Kurt since he had never heard her do that before. “You can always just leave them up. You don’t have to mess around putting them up if you never take them down.”

  Val’s ears fttened. “I am sorry Kristi, but this isn’t working out.” She dead panned. “I can’t believe you would leave your holiday lights out all year. What kind of monster are you.” Her tone became steadily more pyful as she went on.

  “Or just don’t do lights.” Kurt offered and got a look from both girls that told him he had better keep his mouth shut.

  The conversation then devolved into what was the best kind of string lights, then what color ornaments were most appealing. Shortly after that, it was agreed that, while real trees were nice, a synthetic tree was the way to go for interior décor. Regardless of their individual taste, Kurt had a feeling that he would be buying lights to hang on the house this year.

  “It takes pce on Christmas so it’s a Christmas movie.” Val said. The conversation had moved on to other aspects of the winter holidays and now movies were the topic.

  “Kurt, you settle this.” Kristi pointed a still intact chicken wing at him.

  “Listen, I don’t care either way.” He held his hands up like she was pointing a gun at him. “If you really want, we can leave cigarettes and a beretta in front of the air vent.”

  Both of the girls were now squinting at him. They studied him for a few seconds before nodding and getting on with their dinners. They did, however, wonder if they should change out the beretta for an MP5.

  A moment ter they all perked up as they heard a distinct voice in the breeze way. “We gotta put a motion sensor out there.” Val said just before the door opened and Penny walked through.

  “… right, yeah. Listen…” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and counted under her breath as she exhaled, tilting the phone away as she did. “Look, I got it. I will pass it along. Good night, Garnith, have a good weekend.”

  She then looked up and saw them all standing around the counter. “That sounded fun.” Kurt said and nodded toward one of the empty spots.

  “No, he has been nonstop about that fucking crystal.” Penny groaned and shuffled over after kicking off her shoes. Her skin rippled as scales repced skin on many parts of her. “I’m not te, am I?”

  “No, we just started early.” Val said and began pting the food to take to the table. “So, beer or…?”

  “Beer sounds great.” She said. “A lot of it, sounds great.”

  Kurt just reached in the fridge and grabbed the whole six pack. “I’m going to need a keg pretty soon if this keeps up.” He muttered and grabbed a tray of wings with his other hand.

  “I know a guy.” Penny offered as she helped take the pte from him. “Old orc brewer that made the switch from his family’s winery.” She popped the top on a bottle and took a long pull. “So, what did I miss?”

  “Nothing much, Kristi and Val had some girl time this morning, while I figured out a problem with my silencers. Then lunch where Kristi came up with an amazing idea that I am working on.” Kurt got the important things out first. “Then there was a debate about holiday décor and if Die Hard is a Christmas movie.”

  Penny shot an accusing look that was filled with a little hurt to Val. “Girl time?”

  Looking very guilty, Val sat at the table. “Sorry, we didn’t have anything else to do. I should have called you.” Her ears drooped and her tail hung limp.

  “How about we go do something this weekend?” Kristi offered. “I know it feels a little forced, but we really should have reached out to you.”

  Penny sighed and waved them off. “Honestly its probably for the best. Also, I am not sure about this weekend.” Seeing the curious looks around her, she eborated. “We got a tip for you to investigate but it might need some extra prep since you will have to travel.”

  “Care to share or is this more of a twenty questions game?” Kurt joked.

  “We think there is something going on up north that needs your personal attention. Based on the information we harvested from those guys that followed you, they have a tie to some organization up there. I can send you the info to review ter.”

  “Well, until then, dig in.” Kurt said. He hadn’t been expecting Penny but at the same time, she was pleasant company. “What did that Garnith character want?”

  “I already sent it over earlier. More findings on that material you have.” Penny said after loading up her pte. “Apparently it’s the greatest thing ever and he offered to buy every bit of it.”

  “Well, I also found it pretty useful, so I don’t think that will happen.” Kurt muttered.

  Val once more added her opinion. “Yeah, its not like we have an infinite supply of it.”

  “How much do you have?” Penny asked aster swallowing a bite of her food.

  “A couple tons.” Kurt answered. “We cleared out a cavern of the stuff that was bigger than this room. And its all-in different sizes and clumps.”

  Once more Penny leveled a gre at Kurt. “A couple tons? He was willing to give you a thousand dolrs a gram.”

  Before Kurt could reply, Val made a noise and tilted her head. She hummed slightly and squinted before looking over to him. “I can’t be sure, but I feel like I have more than I did after clearing out the rift.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “A lot more. Holy shit, it replicates.”

  Kurt was about to check his own ring when he heard the sound of gss shattering. His head snapped over to Kristi who was now soaked in beer from the waist down. “Oh, damn it. Sorry. Lost control for a second.” She rushed to get a towel from the counter. “I just heard ‘self-replicating’ material that sells for a thousand dolrs a gram.”

  Then it hit him, and he checked his own ring. Sure enough, the crystals he has taken had grown and multiplied. The originally small gems were about double their size while the rger ones had growths of the smaller ones where their base met the rock they had been dug up in.

  This was going to be interesting. He almost wanted to go experiment right that second but also knew that it could wait. At the rate the crystals were growing, there wasn’t any rush for him to clear them out of his ring. He would want to get that done in the next couple months however, otherwise his ring might not have room for much else.

  “Well, here is to self-printing money.” Val said and toasted with her bottle.

  Everyone joined her and the talk quickly moved on to what the girls were going to do for the weekend. Val and Kristi insisted on doing something regardless of them having a packed week ahead of them. Kurt couldn’t agree more and offered the use of his car before they had to ask.

  *****

  The next day saw the girls up early and out the door with barely a pn in mind as they went on their own adventure. This of course left Kurt to reading the report from the research division and the operations order for the raid they were going to conduct.

  The pce they were going to hit was in Houghton, nearly as far north as they could drive in the state. Apparently, there was some sort of group or organization that was conducting rituals. The rituals in question were of unknown nature but they had pinged off the order’s sensors.

  His actual interest was in the follow-up report from Garnith on the crystals they had recovered. The fairy had conducted several more tests with the rger chunk of crystal that Kurt had provided. The first one was what happened when the material was super cooled.

  “… When the sample was chilled to -180 degrees (via submersion in liquid nitrogen) the material hardened to something close to diamond on the MOHs scale. In this state, the sample became highly reactive and sensitive to mild shock, releasing pure mana. Further testing showed the material was of an even higher density and purity to the natural crystalline state.

  A secondary test was conducted by heating the sample which eventually returned it to its natural state before progressing to a metallic material. That same metal was then cooled and once more transitioned in the opposite fashion to its original format before progressing to the state of higher reactivity and mana purity…”

  The actual details of the report went on for many more pages, but Kurt just needed the abridged version to know what was going on with the strange material. He had long thought of making a battery bank for mass enchanting, more so since his little business venture with Renee. If he could make something using the mana dense version it would solve many of his problems with production.

  “Well, well, well. This might just change more than my finances.” Kurt said and drained his coffee before headed down the stairs to his workshop. He had things that he wanted to finish with the ammunition pouch he was working on.

  After retrieving his notes, he read through them, making a few edits for things he missed on his first pass through. The majority of his notes and schematics still passed his initial inspection so he picked up where he left off.

  The st problem he was trying to work through was a spell to dictate the shape of the sub space. He didn’t want what was essentially an open void and instead needed it to be the same width as a normal ammo box. What he wanted to do was prevent the belt from tangling as it came to rest on the bottom of the space.

  He had figured out the method but still needed to actually map the design that he would use. With another paper added to the already thick stack, Kurt began to draw. His engraving was a spell that actually took inspiration from space mages. He used what was called a ‘confined border’ to define the size in the chosen dimensions.

  The page he used was actually closer to a stencil, drawn on tracing paper like the other parts of this enchantment. The faint outline of the other parts of the enchantment allowed him to have a better idea of what he was working with when it came to the size and shape of this spell.

  Eventually he finished drawing his lines and runes, carefully checking the design against his notes. With everything in order, he lined up all the pages and smushed them over the backlit surface he had brought out for this project.

  The spell for the spatial storage was simple for him, being a fairly well-known enchantment. Then came the next circle that was used to not only reduce weight but also the mass of the belts of ammunition, allowing for the feed mechanism to pull rounds in rather than break links from weight. After that was the shaping spell that wrapped around the st bit of ft space on the pattern.

  The one surprise that he had to think through was a loading mechanism. The pouch would have to be loaded somehow and he couldn’t just open the bottom like normal. He also didn’t want to individually press every round and link through the opening since there was a set of spring steel lips that provided some resistance.

  Kurt solved this by mechanical means rather than magical. He was able to break off the outer feed lip and repce it with a spring clip that he could easily move out of the way by means of a small post to hook it over. The modification was retively easy to make and was actually the shortest part of the process.

  Taking a quick break, Kurt checked his messages, seeing the girls checked in, saying they were doing a few wine tastings and going out for lunch then probably shopping before dinner. He also saw a message from Renee asking to talk when he was free.

  With nothing else to do, he went back to work and cmped the ammo box into the vice. He began tracing the pattern over the aluminum top of the ammo box. He was once again reminded how easy of a metal it was to work with as his dividers effortlessly marked the surface. He had stripped the finish off, and the rough, matte surface contrasted nicely with his fresh scribe lines.

  Outlines traced, Kurt began to engrave the runes and lines that connected the enchantments into a cohesive unit. It was tedious and slow going since his normal adjustable vice didn’t have big enough jaws to hold the box, so it was constantly being adjusted in his vice every few lines.

  After a couple hours, he was finished with the carvings and began the iny. He felt rather silly inying gold wire into a piece of aluminum, but he was living in rather strange times. The wire went on without issue and he was soon sanding the surface smooth before a quick buff to make it paintable after he finished.

  “Here we go, three at once and one is a big one.” Kurt limbered up, stretching before he began the process of activation. He was going to be using the slow method once again, but it would still need him to kick start.

  Base activated, box pced atop it and then the activation rune circle snapped into pce. The initial draw on him was immediate and intense, a spike of pain ncing through his core. He felt it begin to fade almost immediately as the ambient mana harvesting array fully activated. He was briefly concerned about how much power he felt flowing into the array. It seemed like it was more than it should be.

  After another hour of monitoring the arrays, the ammo pouch fred with light and the arrays dissolved. The glowing box was left sitting on a slightly smoking enchanting pte before the spells finally took and the enchants settled in.

  “That was, something. Not sure what, but it was a lot.” Kurt muttered to himself before inspecting the item. It was of excellent quality like all his works so far, discounting the cheap ones he made for Renee.

  His device also gave him numbers for weight but nothing for size or other dimensions. He briefly wondered how he was going to test it when he got an idea. He opened the drawer of his work bench marked ‘gun cleaning’. From inside he pulled out a brace of brand new M16 cleaning kits. He dumped out all the cleaning rod sections and began screwing them together.

  There were ten kits which should equal out to twenty feet of cleaning rod after he removed the handle sections. While screwing the rods together he ughed at how all the guns he bought that came with them and he never had a use until now.

  After assembling the mother of all cleaning rods, Kurt cmped the ammo box in his vice and began feeding in the rod. Three feet passed quick as a fsh, a minute ter he was passing ten then fifteen. He was beginning to worry until he finally felt bottom at roughly eighteen feet, guessing by the remaining sections of cleaning rod on the outside.

  Thinking about it a bit, Kurt wiggled the rod back and forth after drawing it most of the way out, bumping into each edge of the space and concluded the space was nearly eighteen feet deep and two feet wide with just enough breathing room for the belts of ammunition to sit inside.

  He then began trying to do mental math at how much it would hold but quickly came to the conclusion that it didn’t actually matter, it was a lot. It was a barrel melting amount, and it was giving him ideas.

  Kurt looked at his watch, noting it was still midafternoon. He then looked to the cases that the machineguns had come in and the spare barrels sitting atop them. “I mean, while I’m here.” He chuckled to himself as he grabbed one of the barrels and pulled up his heat resistance enchantment.

  Kurt would be busy for a few more hours until the girls came home to find him passed out in his shop with a pile of enchanted items around him.