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Sadde is home; it's a Friday evening, his shift is over, and there's no school. He's reading a book, lying on his bed in his small-but-tidy apartment.
He is also quite naked, because it's his place and why not?
Glam and Ashras in Wormverse
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mxglam
mxglam
"Yup!"
So they fly and fly until they can barely see the shore, and oop there's a platform there.
So they fly and fly until they can barely see the shore, and oop there's a platform there.
the-long-dawn
"I brought a lot of blueprints," says Ashras. "And charts. And a notebook to record my results. I apologize if it gets boring and I hope the explosions will be some consolation. First, I wanted to test if platinum actually does do freeze blasts - I'm pretty sure, but I didn't want to start ordering platinum without verifying it."
He shows Sadde the first blueprint, which specifies a small platinum wand with fairly simple engravings.
He shows Sadde the first blueprint, which specifies a small platinum wand with fairly simple engravings.
mxglam
And the mask is gone again once they're there and she pecks him on the lips once before handing him the wand. "I'm sure I won't get bored."
the-long-dawn
"All right."
He aims the wand at the ocean. A smallish chunk of water freezes into ice.
"Oh good. Okay, now for the efficiency tests."
He has eight more platinum wand designs, all precisely the same size, with eight different engraving patterns. Each wand produces a particular size of ice chunk. It's reasonably easy to tell which one is the freeziest: it has double the power of the next best wand.
He aims the wand at the ocean. A smallish chunk of water freezes into ice.
"Oh good. Okay, now for the efficiency tests."
He has eight more platinum wand designs, all precisely the same size, with eight different engraving patterns. Each wand produces a particular size of ice chunk. It's reasonably easy to tell which one is the freeziest: it has double the power of the next best wand.
mxglam
She doesn't pay too much attention to the engravings because she's certain that will cause them to poof. Other than that, though, she watches the procedures with interest. "I wonder what it is that makes people from your planet be able to do this kind of thing."
the-long-dawn
"I have no idea," he says. "Anyway, now that I know freeze works properly, I want to optimize some of my other designs..."
There follows a round of testing various engraving patterns for various wands. It's very hard to tell how efficient one stun wand is over another - Ashras can do it by sound, but he needs to go back and forth between different wands a lot to get a good sense of their relative merits - but he manages it, and tests force blasts and fireballs against the ice chunks produced by the freeze tests.
And eventually: "Right, that completes phase one. Now to begin phase two: finding out what I have to put together to cause the greatest possible destruction."
The blueprints for this phase are way more complex, involving various combinations of all the known metals, and they are all to be tested at pin or half-wand size - two inches and five inches respectively. Also, Ashras wants to be higher above the water again.
There follows a round of testing various engraving patterns for various wands. It's very hard to tell how efficient one stun wand is over another - Ashras can do it by sound, but he needs to go back and forth between different wands a lot to get a good sense of their relative merits - but he manages it, and tests force blasts and fireballs against the ice chunks produced by the freeze tests.
And eventually: "Right, that completes phase one. Now to begin phase two: finding out what I have to put together to cause the greatest possible destruction."
The blueprints for this phase are way more complex, involving various combinations of all the known metals, and they are all to be tested at pin or half-wand size - two inches and five inches respectively. Also, Ashras wants to be higher above the water again.
mxglam
Higher above the water they are! "These look really complex," she comments of the blueprints. "Are you gonna get super turned on again when they create huge explosions?"
the-long-dawn
"Probably. I'll try to contain myself."
Testing!
...Some of these pins, particularly the ones including a large number of different metals, produce even bigger explosions than the wand from last time. The ice chunks from the first round of testing are completely obliterated early on.
Testing!
...Some of these pins, particularly the ones including a large number of different metals, produce even bigger explosions than the wand from last time. The ice chunks from the first round of testing are completely obliterated early on.
mxglam
She giggles. "Should we go even farther from the shore? Are we gonna be visible as weird lights in the distance?"
the-long-dawn
"...I think we should go farther out when we test these next few," he says.
mxglam
So Sadde takes them farther out, and creates the black wall thing between them and the shore just in case.
the-long-dawn
And they test several more weapon designs. Enormous explosions ensue. Honestly, someone has probably noticed even with the black wall.
"...The unfortunate thing is, I can't make this one any smaller, the design is too complex," he says of the last one on the list. "Unfortunate because I have no idea what it's going to do. All the designs we've tried so far have been basically energetic or destructive in nature; adding platinum and silver adds components of freeze and stun, and I don't know what the result will be. But I want to find out, in case it's impressive enough to be worth trying on Endbringers. Uh, let's get a little higher, shall we?"
"...The unfortunate thing is, I can't make this one any smaller, the design is too complex," he says of the last one on the list. "Unfortunate because I have no idea what it's going to do. All the designs we've tried so far have been basically energetic or destructive in nature; adding platinum and silver adds components of freeze and stun, and I don't know what the result will be. But I want to find out, in case it's impressive enough to be worth trying on Endbringers. Uh, let's get a little higher, shall we?"
mxglam
Higher and farther! They're less than specks in the horizon. "So, how certain are you we won't create a tsunami and erase Brockton Bay from the map?"
the-long-dawn
"Certain enough to try it. I did the math; a lot of my assumptions would have to be wrong before we'd create anything worse than an embarrassingly noticeable explosion. But, yeah, that's the sort of question it's good to make a habit of asking."
the-long-dawn
"Is it? Good to know. Okay, make me this half-wand."
The half-wand in question is four inches long and contains components of every metal they've used: brass, steel, gold, bronze, copper, platinum, and silver. Ashras aims it at the ocean.
The beam is nearly invisible and nearly instantaneous, with a high-pitched vvwp sound that is immediately drowned out by the sound of what it does to the water. A hemisphere of ocean about twenty feet in diameter flash-freezes and explodes violently, sending ice fragments flying in every direction.
"...If we want to fire one of those at an Endbringer at cannon size, we'll have to evacuate the battlefield first," says Ashras.
The half-wand in question is four inches long and contains components of every metal they've used: brass, steel, gold, bronze, copper, platinum, and silver. Ashras aims it at the ocean.
The beam is nearly invisible and nearly instantaneous, with a high-pitched vvwp sound that is immediately drowned out by the sound of what it does to the water. A hemisphere of ocean about twenty feet in diameter flash-freezes and explodes violently, sending ice fragments flying in every direction.
"...If we want to fire one of those at an Endbringer at cannon size, we'll have to evacuate the battlefield first," says Ashras.
mxglam
"It is! 'Cause you're smart. Smart is hot," she declares, then provides him with the half-wand.
And then—
"I don't think anyone will agree to that. Evacuating the battlefield."
And then—
"I don't think anyone will agree to that. Evacuating the battlefield."
the-long-dawn
"...if we demonstrate the effect at half-wand, wand, half-staff, and staff size, they might change their minds," he says. "If not... well. Maybe it'll work all right at the smaller sizes. Or maybe I can work the engravings so the effect is more... contained, less actually explosive. Or design a different weapon with different components that has the more contained effect."
the-long-dawn
"Yes. It actually does. Flat cylinders work as shields, but getting them to an effect strength that's worth carrying one around is stupidly hard and I never studied it, so I don't plan on trying to reinvent the discipline from scratch."
mxglam
"I'm mostly wondering what happens if you try to use it on, like, actual stuff made of those materials. What are the engravings for? How do they work?"
the-long-dawn
"Anything made of an appropriate metal and more phallic than a sphere has some effect as a magic weapon, but the farther they are from the right shape and especially the less symmetrical they are around the central axis, the weaker their effect. The sort of... neutral or generic version of any magic weapon is a wand-sized cylinder with flat ends and no engravings. From there, most possible changes make it worse at what it does, but some engraving patterns make it better, or change the exact nature of the effect. For example, you've done a light-pin with a very focused beam for me, but there are also versions that throw something more like a spotlight than a laser, except a solid gold half-wand makes for an awfully expensive flashlight so they're not very popular."
mxglam
"That's really weird! Why cylinders? Why those engravings? How did anyone even figure out those engravings were good as opposed to other engravings?"
the-long-dawn
"I don't know why cylinders. You figure out the engravings by testing them, basically, but I have no idea who first started doing that systematically. I mean, when you have engravings that are any good at all, they light up when the weapon fires, so somebody might've decorated their staff and found that some decoration styles were prettier than others and wanted to know why..."