An Unconventional Genius
Switch stood in the same hallway she had walked down hundreds of times before. Around her, the stone walls were melting and dripping onto the ground. Nothing seemed to sit still; it was hard for her to stand upright while the floor shifted under her feet. When she looked at the featureless metal door ahead of her, she was filled with a profound sense of despair. She knew that she did not want to go beyond it, but something inexplicable compelled her forward.
As she drew closer, the hallway faded to a fuzzy gray. She was completely focused on the door and held captive by its terrible allure. Looking behind her, the hallway disappeared into nothing and left only a black void in its wake. She wrapped her hands around the lever that was used to disengage the door’s lock. Using all of her meager strength, she pulled it down.
On the other side was a room that was all too familiar and vivid. Unlike the hallway, this room was completely stable. Every color seemed definite, almost exaggerated. Myriads of lockers, cabinets, and safes lined the walls of this room. From the moment she stepped foot past the door, she knew that this was the vault of the Artificers’ Tower. In here, the Artificers stored all of the materials they needed for their experiments. She had been down here more times than she could remember to fetch something for a senior researcher or to gather pieces for her own prototypes. She also knew that something was horribly wrong.
All of the cabinets were flung open and heaps of spare parts littered the floor. Before she could formulate the question, she received her answer as her eyes drifted to the center of the room. The guild’s motto was carved into the floor with flawless precision: “THE LIGHT OF PROGRESS ABOVE THE SHADOWS OF IGNORANCE.” An enormous pile of blasting powder had been heaped atop the seal of the Artificer’s Guild engraved just below the motto. The amount of powder was ludicrous; it was far more than what would be needed for any experiment.
She did not have time to ponder on the matter before she found the bodies in the corner. The two corpses, whom she presumed to be the guards who normally watched over the vault, were covered in slash marks from head to toe. They were mutilated beyond the point of recognition, and their blood was still pooling on the floor. Horrified, Switch turned to exit from the room only to find that the door simply was not there. The wall that had been behind her was replaced with the empty nothingness that had consumed the hallway. With no options left to her, she turned back to face the room in hopes of finding another exit.
Instead, she was met with an even more terrifying sight. Standing in front of her was a shadowy figure that she could only call vaguely humanoid in shape. Light spilled around it and obscured all of its features. In a sickeningly high pitch, it cackled madly. A black tendril grew from its shoulder and extended toward the ceiling. As the figure continued to advance, a set of curved blades sprouted from the appendage. Switch, who had already fallen to the floor in shock, could only watch as the silhouette closed in on her. It stopped just in front of her to speak in its monstrous voice. Its words were jumbled beyond recognition but somehow unsettlingly familiar.
It grew before her eyes until she was entirely consumed by darkness. The voice rang within her head with the sound of hideous laughter. For a split second, she felt an indescribable pain shoot throughout her entire being.
Switch jolted awake screaming. As usual, she found herself struggling to breathe and coated in a layer of cold sweat. After taking a few seconds to shake off the stupor of a restless nap, she tried hard to remember the details of her dream. Nothing came to mind besides an inexplicable fear. This happened almost every time she succumbed to sleep.
As troublesome as it was, she did not allow much more of her thought process to be wasted. There was work to be done, and the musings of her subconscious were far less valuable than her precious projects. Wracking her brain, she attempted to recall what she had been working on before she fell asleep. When she was not greeted with an answer after a few seconds, she grew impatient and began strolling around her lab with the hopes of picking up where she left off.
“Hmmm, where was I…,” she murmured to herself as she walked past several rows of work benches, each piled with various devices and scraps. Heaps of metal tubes littered the floor, wires stretched between benches, and wrenches strewed the shelves. There was method to her madness, or at least she thought there was.
She was walking past a typical bench covered with all sorts of unidentifiable contraptions when her eyes lit up with excitement. She rushed over and lunged for a stretch of thick wire coiled around a metallic sphere. Picking it up, she clutched it to her chest in a tight embrace. “How could I have forgotten about you?” she asked the inanimate hunk of metal. “You are my pride and joy, of course!”
Switch set the wire on her work bench before scrounging around for a pair of pliers. Toppling a few piles of scraps before finding the tool she needed, she overcame the mess with a triumphant grin. After pulling down a pair of red-tinted goggles over her eyes and tying her hair back, she began tinkering with the gadget.
She sat there for over an hour before she paused from her work. She looked around the room, clearly frustrated about something. Bolting upright, she leaped off of her stool and began sifting through any parts she came across.
“If only I could find a small power source strong enough to ignite the capsule,” she mumbled. “It’s not going to be viable until then. Maybe there’s something…”
Just as she began rummaging through a particularly large closet of spare wire, she heard a loud knock from the other side of the lab. Poking her head out, she smiled and exclaimed, “Oh, a visitor!”
A quick look down reminded her that her lab suit was far too dirty to look professional. Sprinting to the other side of the room, she took the bulky, black overcoat that was hanging on the edge of a bench and slipped it on. Thankfully, it reached her ankles and covered up her messy work clothes. As she darted between the stools to reach the door, she cursed under her breath as she noticed that her boots had a few smudges on them. She came to a sudden halt at the foot of the stairs that led up to the door. In a cheery voice, she announced, “You may come in!”
The door creaked in complaint as it was forced open. As soon as she saw the white robe, she put on a wide smile. “Loric!” she squealed. “It’s been too long since you’ve stopped by! I hope everything is going alright; the guards keep talking about assassination attempts and insurgents. Pretty frightening stuff, to say the least. It must be so stressful to worry about such things all the time.”
Loric opened his mouth to interject, but Switch rapidly accelerated her rambling. “Oh, if you came here for the latest prototype, it’s not going to be ready for a while longer. It looks like I still have some kinks to work out. You see, it won’t be much use as a portable device if I can’t find an efficient power source. The amount of power needed to set those things off is much higher than I originally estimated. Almost twice as much, actually! I neglected to take the insulation on the capsules into account at first, but they are absolutely necessary if the blasting powder is to remain volatile. Speaking of which, do you know when I will get any more? I requested some a while ago. You know, my masterpieces will not be very effective if I am not able to test them rigorously. I’m starting to think somebody out there does not want me to blow things up…”
She began trailing off once she noticed that Loric had lifted his hand. He slowly stepped down the stairs until he was directly in front of her. “Calm down,” he said quietly. “I am not here to talk about your work. You know how I feel about these…contraptions. But the Legion believes that it would benefit the Empire to develop your weaponry, so I will not interfere. I am here now because I have a job for you.”
Tilting her head, Switch gave him a puzzled look and said, “What do you need me to take apart now? I haven’t had a good challenge in a while. I thought there was nothing left from the tower.”
Loric shook his head. “No, something much more important. We are to meet with the Unseen Consortium, and you were requested specifically. This mission is vital to the Empire’s security, so your cooperation would be greatly appreciated.”
“The Consortium?” Switch asked excitedly. “I have no idea what they would want with me, I never even reached Head Researcher! Well, all but in name I suppose, there was Swifthand in ballistics but everyone knew he was outliving his post. You should have seen his material requests, all over the place and imprecise! The amount of blasting powder that man-”
“All you have to do is navigate,” Loric interrupted. “We will be receiving a location to which you are to take us quickly and safely. The Consortium will be facilitating a meeting with a few diplomats, and then we are to return as soon as possible. Just get us there and back; that is all. If I fail, Raz’thilda will be put into a very difficult situation.”
Stroking her chin, Switch contemplated the offer. When an even broader smile crept across her face, it was obvious that something devious had crossed her mind. “You have no reason to worry about my qualifications. Whether or not the Empire is in danger, this is a matter of professional integrity! I will accompany you on one condition: I demand that I receive a regular allotment of blasting powder. One box weekly should be adequate.”
With a reluctant sigh, he said, “I will make sure that it is done. Prepare whatever you need for the journey; it is going to be a long trip. We leave tomorrow morning at dawn. I will send someone to escort you to the gates discreetly. The last thing we need is a riot on our hands.”
Loric turned around to head up the stairs. The guards had already opened the door and were eagerly waiting for him to leave so that they could lock it again. Right before he crossed the threshold, Switch called out to him. “You said something about ‘us’. Is there going to be a big group? You know I don’t like crowds…”
Surprisingly amused, Loric let out a hearty laugh. “No, we will only be traveling with an infantry soldier who carries some information,” he said. “Please try to play nice.”
With that, he exited and the guards locked the doors behind him. Switch stood in place for a few moments wondering why Loric would involve her in his plans. She was obviously the most qualified candidate for the job, but it never seemed that anyone was particularly eager to let her out of her lab. The thoughts only lingered for a short time before her curiosity was directed back at the benches. Hoping to solve her power problem, she sprinted back to her work station and began unscrewing parts of the wire. She cared little for the underlying motivations of this arrangement; it was a small price to pay for furthering her work.
“If I finish this prototype tonight,” she muttered to herself, “I might be able to bring it with me. I wonder if I can rearrange the capsules to maximize the flow…”
Reflections – Brilliance
“Most of the people that you meet are content to accept the world as it is, to see with their eyes and leave it at that. Every now and then, you find someone who hungers for more. They peel back the world layer by layer, take it apart piece by piece, all to get a fleeting glimpse of the brilliance underneath. They are changed by it, for better or for worse, but it always makes them far more fascinating.”