Stephen was on the hunt for lemons.

  Lemons, limes, oranges, any goddamn citrus fruit that might be available.

  Stall to stall, street to street, he picked up anything that vaguely looked like some kind of citrus-having fruit– but to no avail.

  He frowned deeply. This was another strike-out on his attempt to generate electricity.

  Magnets. There were none around. If the mages of this world hadn’t found any and taken interest, Stephen would have found that surprising. But if they had, there was nothing here, and nothing mentioning as much.

  He would likely have to make one.

  He knew of a couple ways he could create a magnet. Generate electricity magnets, for that matter, but it wasn’t exactly the most simple process.

  Whatever he was able to make would only be a step towards the amount and consistency of electricity needed to charge a smartphone. You couldn’t just chuck together a hand crank generator and charge up your favourite tablet.

  It was a bigger project than the young ones realised.

  Inventing something from scratch with the imprecise tools he had available.

  Honestly, the practicality of such a thing was questionable, all things considered. What might you even use a phone for without the infrastructure. A convenient multitool with note-taking, photography, videography, a calculator?

  These were useful things for sure, very useful even…

  But were they worth what might be months of effort? Because if you wanted to charge these devices without degrading the batteries, that’s what it was going to take.

  Stephen wasn’t a genius, even with notes to refer to, this would be a tall task.

  He either needed months, or a large coordinated number of people working on the problem at once.

  Stephen didn’t ponder it long, he was not that kind of pessimistic person. Get sent to another world? He still pursued education, even here, even under these circumstances.

  Perhaps he should be taking more responsibility, not going and chasing something comparably frivolous– but he was a researcher of a kind that could make great impact to this world. He wouldn’t say this to anyone, but.

  He wasn’t in a hurry.

  Being as obsessive as he was about the workings of many things, he had quite a lot of information on his phone. Information like… how to construct a combustion engine.

  A challenge of a whole other magnitude. Regardless, inaccessible without electricity.

  As you might imagine, most methods were relatively infeasible with the available resources, unlikely to work, or too inefficient.

  Electrostatic generators, basic solar cells, a self excited dynamo using nothing but the Earth’s magnetic field– possible but not usable. Inconvenient.

  If magnets weren’t going to be readily available, batteries were going to have to be the beginning point. Something a bit more advanced than sticking nails in potatoes, but in that direction.

  Any battery he could make was likewise going to be terrible, but once you have an electric current, you have an electromagnetic field, and with a sizable amount of work, you can create a magnet. A pretty weak one, probably, but a . From that, stable electricity generation.

  Problem: citric acid for the battery.

  The damn lemons, or similar, were difficult to get your hands on. Maybe not even money would do the trick, market vendors didn’t just ‘sell lemons’ as far as Stephen could tell.

  … Stephen would need quite a few lemons.

  Maybe he’d go see the young man who’s better placed for this sort of thing.

  —

  Oliver approached his apartment, some amount of trepidation evident in his gait.

  The information he’d gotten could be entirely inconsequential, but he had risked his anonymity in getting it, regardless of any ways he could explain it away. There had to be .

  Oliver was just about to open the door to the apartment, but River and Levi beat him to it, seeming ready to rush out. They were surprised Oliver was there, and stopped in their tracks.

  He looked between the two of them. “Going somewhere?”

  Levi spoke, seeing as River wasn’t going to do so outside. “You were taking way too long, we need to do something.”

  Oliver blinked, “let me see it inside, please.”

  After sitting down at the table with a cup of water, Oliver stretched out the paper in front of him, it was crumpled at the sides.

  As he read, he saw why.

  Oliver leaned back in his seat.

  River, now indoors and free to speak, did so frustratedly, “this person might not know they’re even being hunted!”

  Levi nodded vigorously.

  Oliver groaned. “What if it’s group? Even if not, we can’t just rush there, it’s too suspicious… I just got this information, if I act and then that student lets it slip…”

  Levi looked crestfallen, “what do we do then?”

  Gears moved behind Oliver’s eyes. “I’ve got a bit of an idea. Leave it to me, you guys. Keep gathering any information you can.”

  Not sure if it was healthy or not, but by this stage Oliver was able to sleep just fine even at the peak of stress.

  —

  The bog monster sloughed out of the deep, plant matter dribbling off its slick hide as it rumbled.

  Bouncing on the balls of her feet, Adventurer Reine waited a beat before darting to its left, its eyes following as a massive limb lifted into the air.

  Reine slid under the webbed fist as it slammed the ground behind her. She whirled around, sliding the horseman's pick off her back with a flourish.

  She swung the spike of her weapon into the beast's flesh, hooking herself into the ghastly arm like some kind of mountain climber would a cliff face– before it flung her upwards.

  Now, she was falling. The monster looked up– raising its other limb to swat her. Reine pivoted midair as she unlatched the brush from her belt loop, the magical circuitry on its handle lit up.

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  Blue ‘paint’ filled the bristles as she dropped past gargantuan nose holes, then launched off its oversized stomach.

  She slid to a stop a good distance from the monster.

  Reine watched it falter for just a moment, then saw as it began wailing piercingly, a sound she wasn't sure she wanted to remember, but had heard too many times to forget. She shook her brush, killing some plants on the ground, then latched it back onto her belt in practiced fashion.

  A line of blue stretched down the centre of the monster's face, its gelatinous black tears unable to wash the stuff away, its slick limbs failing to rip its own tainted skin off.

  It was about to go berserk.

  Reine ran back toward the shivering behemoth, pick primed. Now was the simple part, if not at all pleasant. With its loss of coordination providing the opportunity, she clambered up the side of the beast without notice, getting a good foothold before she began.

  It only took a good twenty swings, hacking into the thing’s head, before the beast's will flickered out.

  She wiped sweat from her brow, she was used to bigger jobs than this, but it was nice to rid the locals of a headache.

  Time to head back to Willowhaven.

  —

  There are rules for carrying around weapons in city limits.

  Adventurer Reine didn’t need to abide by such rules, one reason being that her weapons were arguably not weapons at all. But that was just an excuse.

  The real reason was that, one thing many people forgot or didn’t realise, laws were only as strong as the organisation enforcing them.

  She was under no illusions that the ire of a city, even one as small as this, would pose a significant threat to even the greatest adventurers, which she wasn’t… But even so, the price a city would pay to enforce petty laws on her wouldn’t be small.

  And for what? She was perfectly capable without weapons. Add to that, this city had commissioned her. Part of that sinister business that had been happening all around the empire. The ‘insurgents’.

  She shivered.

  She had doubts about them, but this group in particular had pulled off the kind of feat that was hard to ignore. Perhaps the empire had been right to preemptively root these individuals out, however barbaric.

  That was to be seen, Reine was not one to take information at face value–nor was any adventurer worth the title. She would do her own investigation, the cities were stupid in their approach, no wonder they were having so much trouble. Killing them on sight meant there was little to no information to work with.

  She swung open the door to the Mages Guild.

  People often forgot it existed, seeing as the Scholarium provided many common faculties people might want of a Mage. But the Mages guild was not a learning institution or a place for study. It was a place for learned and independant Mages to sell their services.

  This was her first time visiting the local one, but she needed a couple things done.

  A boy greeted her at the door, not really a sign of professionalism, but as long as the Mages themselves were competent…

  The guild was not especially big. None of the guilds were in this city, insofar as she could tell, but the Mages Guilds meek reception area was empty but for the boy and an old man sitting behind the counter.

  Reine was guided by the boy, who offered to take her coat to a place for storage. She declined.

  Reine unlatched her brush and thunked it down on the counter. She wasn’t being rude, it was just exceptionally heavy, no matter how much she tried to lighten it… “I need someone to refurbish the circuitry on this grade 4 magical implement. Got anyone that can do it?”

  Price was not a question when it came to upkeep. And adventurer’s gear was their life and livelihood.

  It also did help to not be poor.

  The old man’s expression wavered, “grade 4… There are a couple who could do it, but whether they are available…”

  Reine sighed, a city usually contracted its best mages into some official role or another. If grade 4 engineering was at the upper end of the spectrum for mages in Willowhaven, she suspected they would be too busy to entertain a request.

  If she had a favour to pull in, she would, but she was new to the city. The Minister of Resources was a potential client, but no explicit friend of hers. The nearest city she knew could do this kind of work was at least a week away on horseback. “Would I have better luck at the Scholarium?”

  The Scholarium was full of scholars, mages in training, and wizards. Not mutually exclusive titles, but different. Mages are practical, wizards are theoretical. Many of the best minds at the Scholarium would find the theory of complex subjects quite reasonable, but the application perhaps out of reach.

  While hesitant to hand away business, the old man responded in good faith, “as far as I recall, the Scholarium’s best might not be capable enough in an individual sense. You might find that if you put the right ones together, they could pull something like grade 4 engineering off.”

  Reine raised an eyebrow, “can’t you put a team together here?”

  The old man smiled at that. “You of all people would know mages well enough to figure out the answer to that, Reine of the Arts.”

  Reine’s face twitched, she didn’t like being recognised. “Yet you seem to think they would collaborate at the Scholarium.”

  The old man stretched his smile further, “sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

  —

  Adventurer’s gear. Leather, plate armour, sword, spear, halberd…

  Oliver had that wand and knife from Paige’s gear, but that wasn’t going to be enough.

  There were plenty of variations and combinations, and it was hard to choose, since you didn’t know what suited you until you had already used it.

  Oliver didn’t have that kind of budget. Emilia gave him money, but since that was coming out of her pay, that just meant a reduced share of his own pay… Hopefully he might get some change as a bonus of this investigation.

  Oliver couldn’t pick a silly weapon for this. Hopefully he wouldn’t need to be using a weapon much at all, this being something of a ruse, but if the need arose…

  The shopkeeper wandered over, “lookin’ at tha budget options, son? What can I do ye for?”

  “Looking for anything cheap but sturdy, if at all possible,” Oliver gave the shopkeeper a strained look.

  The shopkeeper sighed, “son, anybody knows that good stuff ain't cheap, and cheap stuff ain’t good. I’ll give ye a suggestion though– if you're willing to pay with yer safety.”

  That didn’t sound good, but Oliver listened as the shopkeeper explained. “Screw armour, screw shields–unwieldy bastards anyway, get yerself a good sword.”

  Oliver blinked a few times. “I assumed a spear would be more appropriate–”

  The shopkeeper waved the idea away, “just because the guards prance around with spears doesn’t make it a good choice fer everyone. A spear might beat a sword in a fight, but they’re useless in close quarters, and a right pain to carry around. Fine if you’re being ordered around by a superior in a big group, not so good fer an adventurer. Give me a second…”

  Oliver thought for a bit while the shopkeep left and came back with a simple longsword and arm braces. “If yer skilled, this’s all the armour ye need. Since yer hands are free too, thought a big guy such as yerself might like a longer sword.”

  Oliver frowned. The braces were leather, with a small metal plate tied into the centre of each. They would block a swing, but they were clearly too small to stop arrows or a directed stab. Who was he to argue with this guy though. “Aaaargh… How much will that net me?”

  The shopkeeper smiled and held out a hand, “five gold!”

  Oliver slumped, “yeah, alright,” and opened his coin pouch.

  —

  Stephen didn’t so much attend lectures as he read textbooks available to him. Magic, from his perspective, was fascinating. If there was a way to directly turn mana to electricity, that could be convenient too. Alas, aside from some mentions of a ‘lightning spell’, it didn’t seem too promising.

  His time was a mix between his magical study and preparing for his generator project. Even if he didn’t have all the materials he needed, there was prep he could do.

  One such thing, drawing copper wire.

  Thankfully, this was a bit more accessible. Due to the industry needed by the city’s magical requirements, many of the higher end smiths had wire drawing techniques.

  Arguably more advanced than necessary for Stephen’s requirements since the alloys preferred by mages for their projects were less malleable than copper.

  Stephen had a bit of money behind him. Funding was allocated according to the research you submitted. Normally, anything submitted by a student who had only been in the Scholarium for a month was not enough to even waiver attendance fees.

  Stephen was no ordinary student.

  All Stephen needed to do was periodically write a proof for a bit of math that was familiar to him, as if he had discovered it. While not explicitly magical or of interest to the uninitiated, it afforded him some level of additional coin that he might not have had otherwise.

  He used such funds now, putting in an order with a Scholarium wizard who handled such matters.

  The lazy wizard receptionist looked up at Stephen with a confused expression. “Pure copper is useless in magical tools, you know.”

  Stephen frowned. “There’s an experiment I want to run.”

  The receptionist gave Stephen a look.

  Stephen gave in, “... I mean a copper alloy with a very small amount of grade 1 crystal dust, spooled into wire.”

  Stephen imagined it wouldn’t affect conductivity all too much.

  —

  Oliver, equipped in his brand new gear, felt a bit silly. But he had something he needed to do, something he wanted to do, and something he was assigned to do. The three happened to overlap.

  He entered the Adventurer’s guild, garnering a couple snickers from the resident adventurers. The older ones looked more disappointed than anything, as if to say ‘’.

  Oliver liked to think he knew the dangers of adventuring, not specifically of course, but in an overall risk sense. Surely it couldn’t be worse than what he’d gone through already.

  Not that he was even meaning to be an ‘adventurer’, he was joining the guild as a formality.

  But, before he got into the investigation– there actually an ‘adventure’ he’d like to have today.

  He filled out the paperwork, awkwardly listing ‘unknown’ as his birthplace (there fortunately weren’t any entry requirements to meet), then approached the job board.

  His task, to find evidence of Adventurer guild malpractice, wasn’t going to be very straightforward. He needed to happen upon an example, or he needed to poke around until someone coughed up wrongdoing.

  Then, maybe, if he had access, they could be subjected to that truth-telling mechanism for more concrete implication…

  He’d get around to all that, but there was something a bit more time sensitive he wanted to do. There really weren’t many requests on the board, but the name of one village stood out to him. A simple request for guards on a routine transport service.

  Oliver plucked it off, and took it up to the guild receptionist. “Could I take this on?”

  The receptionist smiled wryly, “a guard job to begin with is brazen. I’ll put you down for it, but you’ll have to share the job– and pay will be decided based on the employer’s analysis of your respective input.”

  Oliver nodded.

  The receptionist began to go over the details of the job, “this is heading out in just an hour or two, here’s where you’ll need to wait…”

  Oliver stood there, nodding through the details.

  He felt the weight of his sword at his waist, sheathed and wrapped in a covering.

  He wondered what he might end up cutting with it.

  SUNDAY

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