“You needn’t worry about me, lad,” Cirayus said calmly. So calmly that Vir wondered if the giant was tapping into his Foundation Chakra. “Unlike what this egomaniac would have you believe, I do understand the gist of the issue. My question is this—Imperium Creations run on Ash prana. You’ve confirmed this yourself.”
Vir nodded.
“Then Saunak must have modified his control tablet to use his elemental affinity. Yes?”
“Right…” Vir said.
“Can he not simply turn the change back?”
Vir blinked. That’s… so obvious. How did I not think of that?
He’d assumed that whatever Saunak had done was irreversible.
“Well?” Vir asked. “Can you?”
“Why, of course! It’s a simple task. Actually, I didn’t really alter the tablet, so much as switch configurations that were already built in.”
“If that’s true…” Vir asked, doing his best to keep his eyebrow from twitching, “Why didn’t you say so an hour ago when I started experimenting?”
“And waste an opportunity to study you! Are you out of your mind?” Saunak said, genuinely shocked.
Right. Should’ve figured it’d be something like that.
“Alright, enough games. Change the tablet to accept Ash prana, and teach me the commands,” Vir said. “And please don’t test my patience. Not if you value your life.”
Saunak visibly deflated. “Very well.”
It took only a handful of minutes for Vir to master the controls. As he’d suspected, rather than control the Automaton’s every motion, Saunak had been issuing commands by sending pranic pulses into the metal tablet. Commands like Halt, Walk, Run, Defend me, Patrol this area, Pursue hostile, and Flee were just a handful of the many commands that could be sent. Helpfully, Saunak’s tablet displayed the required number of pulses and their durations to trigger each one.
It wasn’t hard—the only time-consuming bit was memorizing which pulses mapped to which commands. Vir jotted down the sequences, in case he ever needed to refer back.
With every moment that passed, every step that brought him closer to manipulating the Automaton, Vir’s doubts about Saunak’s seemingly inevitable betrayal grew. As did his anxiety.
After Saunak guided the Automaton out of its berth, he switched configurations and handed the tablet to Vir, who then practiced the different commands. At first, it took him several seconds to refer to his notes and send the proper signal, but after an hour, he’d brought that down to less than a second for most actions.
Being slow wasn’t much of a hindrance in everyday life, but in combat, seconds mattered. Vir ensured he was more than comfortable with the controls before bringing the Automaton back to the berth to drop Saunak off.
This is it. This is where he’ll pull something.
Vir tensed, waiting for the demon to pull some trick. To laugh and claim he fooled them—that no one in their right mind would ever simply give away such a priceless treasure. He waited for the moment the demon wrested control from them and summoned his minions.
Instead, Saunak simply turned and sauntered down the raised catwalk, waving behind him.
“You’re just giving this to us?” Vir shouted after him, his concern turning to outright confusion. “No strings attached?”
Saunak turned, confused. “Well, sure. But when you do inevitably abandon it, I’ll just bring it back. Consider it more of a loan.”
“Abandon? Why would we—” Vir’s words hung in his mouth. Ah, right. Cirayus had mentioned it earlier. That they’d never find an Ash Gate large enough to fit such an enormous machine. Even if they did, the prana in the Demon Realm would be insufficient to sustain such a contraption. After riding atop it, he now knew just how much Ash prana it consumed. The amount was staggering, making him wonder if even the outer reaches of the Ashen Realm had enough to support it.
We’ll have to abandon it when we leave for the Demon Realm. But until then…
Vir grinned. “Until then, it’s ours. Right?”
“Yes, yes. Of course. Well then, I’m a busy demon and I’m sure you have places to go, so I bid you a good day,” Saunak said, as if he’d suddenly lost interest in them and was trying to shoo them out. “Remember this next time we meet! Oh, the experiments we’ll run…”
Saunak’s whimsy had already moved on, no doubt thinking of his next project, whatever that was.
As Vir watched the thaumaturge’s receding back, he wondered if he couldn’t reap all the benefits he could from this chance encounter with the thaumaturge. He didn’t want to be greedy—an Automaton Guardian was already more than he could have ever dreamed—but what was the harm in asking?
“Um, Saunak?”
“Hmm? Yes? What is it?”
“Do you, uh, have any manuals on basic thaumaturgy? Y’know, that I might be able to learn?”
It was something that had interested Vir his entire life. Ever since he’d been labeled prana scorned, he’d wondered how orbs functioned. If he knew more, perhaps there’d have been a way for him to also do magic… Or so he’d thought.
Unfortunately, humans only knew how to copy the inscriptions that made their orbs work. They knew nothing about the underpinnings. From what he’d seen, though, demonic knowledge outstripped that of humans in this area. There was a chance they knew more, and who better to ask than Saunak?
The demon’s eyes lit up, his demeanor shifting in an instant. “Learn thaumaturgy, you say? All on your own?”
“I’m a quick study. Just ask this guy,” Vir replied, thumbing to Cirayus, who grunted in affirmation.
“Hmm,” Saunak said, before snapping his fingers. A spider Automaton melted through the ceiling, dropping onto the metal catwalk. Saunak’s fingers played over his tablet, and then the spider ran off.
“Thaumaturgy is not a simple art,” he said. “Even I have yet to unravel all of its secrets.”
“But you’ve studied it a great deal, haven’t you?” Vir asked.
“I have,” he said thoughtfully. “Can I not convince you to stay another few days? I promise you’ll learn more from me than from a stuffy old tome.”
“No,” Cirayus cut in, his tone allowing no rebuke.
Saunak sighed dramatically, though Vir was sure Saunak expected such a response.
“If you insist,” the thaumaturge said. “Then just wait here a moment, if you will?”
Though Cirayus was on edge, he said nothing, keeping his eyes trained on Saunak.
Vir and Shan did the same, though there was a bit less suspicion in Vir’s mind. The ancient thaumaturge was eccentric, yes, and perhaps ruthless in his pursuit of research, but he could be reasoned with. He was just… more nuanced than Vir initially gave him credit for.
The spider Automaton returned a few minutes later, though Vir couldn’t be sure if it was the same one, as they all looked the same. It carried a large book above its head, which Saunak casually tossed to Vir.
He caught it, raising a cloud of dust.
“The most basic of the basics. I haven’t touched that manual in centuries. Might be of use to you. Or it might all be gibberish. Come back to me when you’ve mastered that. I’ll give you another.”
Vir rolled his eyes. As if returning to Saunak was such a simple matter.
“Why not just give it to me now?”
“Spoken like a layman,” Saunak scoffed. “It’d do more harm than good, boy. Without a solid foundation, you risk learning incorrect methodologies. A perfect recipe for tragic results. No. No, I think not. Old Saunak here will guide you when the time comes. Now begone, both of you!”
And with that, the mad thaumaturge turned tail and disappeared into his tower.