“Thank you. I think I’ve made my decision,” Olivia proclaimed.
“That’s good.” Rose smiled again. “Right, should we eat? I’m sure you’ll come up with great ideas once you’ve got some good food in you.”
After lunch with Rose, Olivia returned to the shop and went around gathering all the academic books in the building. Just thinking wasn’t going to bring about any new ideas, so she began searching through books to find knowledge that would lead to something.
But, after reading ten complicated technical tomes, even after twenty, she still hadn’t found any clues to a solution. It was two weeks until the deadline, when she was staggering about on sleep-deprived legs, that she began to think it was impossible.
Her solution came out of the blue.
✦ ✦ ✦
💎💎💎
“I am utterly stuck…”
It was two weeks before the deadline. Olivia was in Harrison’s workroom, closing the final technical volume with a sigh.
I’ve read every book in the shop and got nothing.
She hung her head. Reading that much and getting zero out of it made her want to cry.
Harrison looked at her with worry and called, “Everything all right?”
“I’m fine,” she replied, looking up, and then she gasped. Her eyes fell on the red magic stone Harrison was holding. “Mr. Harrison,” she began, “that’s a crimson flame stone, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
She saw that stone basically every day, but today, it seemed to have a new special light to it.
Olivia started thinking. Crimson flame stone was unique because it became malleable under mana, allowing you to turn multiple stones into one larger stone. It could handle any shape, couldn’t it?
“Could you apply that way of thinking from crimson flame stone onto other magic stones?” she posed. “Like, make five smaller stones into one big stone?”
Harrison folded his arms. “The Royal Magic Research Institute tested it with all known magic stones, but I haven’t heard of any other than the crimson flame stone that can do that.”
Olivia smiled wryly. He was right, of course. The leading artificers of the Research Institute would already have investigated it, so she doubted she could come up with anything else herself, but she’d already read all the technical books they had. This was her only option left.
I don’t have any other clues right now. It might be worth looking into.
“Would you happen to have the results of the Institute’s investigations? I’d like to see it,” she asked.
Harrison smiled and nodded. “That’s fine. I’ll give it to you later.”
That night, Olivia was alone in the now quiet workshop on the second floor. Under the orange glow of the magic lamp, she read the report Harrison had given her.
The people at the Institute really did try all sorts of things.
They checked everything, from average stones Olivia knew to ones she’d never heard of, to see if any of them had properties like the crimson flame stone.
The report concluded: “Crimson flame stone is a unique stone which exhibits characteristics similar to all other magic stones.”
Magic stones were like people: each one had different characteristics. You had to adjust your mana based on those peculiarities, and being able to do that showed an artificer’s skill. According to the report, all stones other than crimson flame stones were so individual and different from each other that there was no way to make multiple of them act as one together.
Accepting this conclusion, Olivia pinched the three small diamonds in front of her between her fingers and lifted them.
They look like the same sort of diamond, but how mana flows and passes through each of them is entirely different. There’s no way to make these work as one.
She sighed and laid her head on the table. This too had been a wasted effort.
Olivia pushed herself to her feet to put the report away, and that’s when it hit her. There was one other possible way of making multiple stones have the same peculiarities.
It’s an utterly ridiculous method, but theoretically possible based on the conclusion of this report…
After some waffling, she looked up and took the magic lamp in her hand. She cut across the dark workshop to the set of drawers in the corner, unlocked it, and picked one stunning magic stone from it.
It blazed in the light, a star diamond of the highest purity. The gem was the size of her thumbnail and, at wholesale price, would cost ten years of Olivia’s salary.
She gulped as the hand holding the stone trembled.
Olivia had been too afraid to bring herself to use it, but she now had no choice.
As she stared at the stone, it twinkled beneath the moonlight. She steeled herself as she whispered, “I’m sorry, Gordon. I’ll work enough to make up the loss if this fails.”