(Hey it's me! everytime I post a chapter I loose followers!! If anyone would like to offer any feedback, feel free! Honestly, I am going to stop writing for now unless people are interested because I need to polish my current work and refine the stories direction, there will be more chapters to come but if your going to unfollow, comment below why! it would mean the world to me!)

  Two hours later, the remaining imperials stumbled out of the cave and into the quarry. They were significantly less in number.

  Some stood murmuring among themselves. Others were frozen in shock. A soldier grabbed at his leather sheath and threw it to the ground, stomping over it as he cried in agony. Others watched. No one interrupted. There was no hope to be had. Sunlight trickled over the horizon as a new day started. The wisps of radiant light seemed to almost tease them with memories of liberty, licks of a life once known soon to be forgotten. The sun’s glow beamed down like a pleasant smile from the wave of unending death or the sweet taste of a meal before execution. No one had yet to even boil what little rations remained. They all huddled in a circle. Forty souls waiting to die.

  Laura approached and the two sat on the foremost rock. They could only imagine what was happening to Paxter and the others on that bloodied meadow.

  The three lay with their backs on one of the freshly excavated watchers. The other soldiers were also disorganized and scattered into huddled whispers or empty stares. In the end only Jan and Laura remained. Aloat had disappeared once more to mutter amongst herself.

  Time passed.

  The fires were started, and rations were boiled. This time even less was spared, and they gorged on the tasteless food. The group ate like the dead, tongues clinging onto feeling, stomachs growling as they wondered if it would be the last meal they ever withheld. The clouds above wisped like froth in an icy sea. Everyone waited, watching the world pass by. The sky was a window to the heavens and the peace and tranquillity of the outside. The walls were a reminder of their tomb.

  “Commanders are you ready to follow my plan now? I have moved into threat analysis mode and am using 43% more power than normal? Is this alright? I will take your silence as a yes.”

  It was only then that Sill spoke, and this time Jan and Laura listened. Some desperate portion of their hearts had given up so much that they were willing to hear the tiny rock speak. This time they followed it’s orders.

  The two nodded slowly.

  “Greaaaaaaaat! Listen carefully, we need to get your Command Chip Activated Jan. In order to do so we need to generate 100 watts of power for a sufficient amount of time.”

  “Watts?” Laura inquired.

  “Electricity, We need to make a crude powerrrr generator! Calculating it will work at 10-20% efficiency.”

  Then a single word made the world turn on end. The other two almost had shivers trickle down their spine.

  “Electricity? Really!? It’s a myth Sill. Something as incredible as electricity can not be generated. What does it even look like? What does it even sound like? Look I know you were traumatized but, we’re only taking serious suggestions here. To make wagons move without magic or rocks fly is nothing but a legend from past time!” Her eyes lit up in wonder.

  The mention of electricity seemed to make the others stirr. A few soldiers even rose from their early graves to listen in on the plan. They were dismayed to find a conversation where they seemingly couldn’t hear the third person and attributed it to lunacy instead. A few coughed and let out snide remarks among themselves with reference to insanity. Clouds fluttered overhead while the wind remained still.

  “Laura. Remember my recount? The interviews with the captains. You called me crazy, and guess what, the fact that Crous was made of…” Jan started to mumble in excitement.

  “Metal?” She responded.

  It seemed like something from too long ago to even grace their recent perception. Still, the conversation was starting to ignite. The two made the click instantly.

  “You don’t think this could be some kind of new form of magic? Metal magic that relies on whatever demonic ritual the rock is about to show?” Laura added.

  “Uh…maybe?” Jan responded. He hadn’t thought of something that far-fetched. It was entirely possble for the existence of some form of metal magic to be true, however, the same could be said for flying cats or a non-monarchial society. Far too little was known about source of magic short of the separate branches and their reliance on matter manipulation. It had only been for the past two centuries in which investigations into geofulminology and other more articulate field began to emerge.

  Laura continued to speak and then Jan followed. For a second her entire face drooped and then lit up in excitement. The two paused with a hint of remembrance sticking to their lips. A flurry of thoughts and emotions cascaded through their thoughts to settle upon past events.

  “Electricity Sill?” She asked almost rhetorically.

  “Yes, Commander's Electricity!!” Sill hummed.

  Laura smiled. It was only then that her mouth began to open and her face creased in curiosity.

  “How have we been so stupid! So incredibly stupid, Jan. This could be the source of Crous’s abilities. This even explains why Sill can’t be detected using regular inanimate techniques. What if he’s an inanimate that works on electricity! It all makes sense. Crous’s unnatural style. His metal body! He’s also made of Electricity,” Laura shouted.

  “But why choose me? Because I’m talented and it thinks I’m it’s new Commander?”

  Jan smiled too. A glimmer of hope began to spread like infectious wildfire among the two. The pit's destitute confines were soon overcome by the everslightest chance of brilliant discovery. An emotion slowly crept through Jan's heart. Electricity was a child's dream or a fool's recompense. It was as taunting as a memory of distant love and as enchanting as the most silver-tongued lie. Every line was shrouded in the cloak of benevolence, almost terrifying to bestow as it broke the very fabric of physical law. A solution for every problem, every wrinkle, every cut, every speck of blood to ever tarnish the fabric of life had risen, one so potent, it would press the jannic race forward seven thousand years.

  The first Arlon had once stated electricity was "A blueprint of the heavens, a way to place the fingers of almighty god into the claws of it’s user" or at least that was recorded after the ancient one took their final sip of mercury in the hopes of attaining immortal life. If something this powerful was truly discovered the people would no longer look upon the future dreading every passing year as though it was the next nail driven into the coffin of life, the coffin of hope. Instead, they glanced into the stary night and laughed as thought it was their child, their servant, their slave.

  It was the power of the gods, a lost hallmark of an undying age that splattered the legends of his forebearers. Jan felt the same puslating beat in his heart that captured the interest of Lanum Lin, the first Jannic to discover the principles of geofulminology, Harper Twyin, who's sleepless nights and skeletal life slaved for decades to make a cure for the changing, even Iue Liuan who trekked over mountains and dales and debated for years, gathering evidence from each furthest corner to prove the rotation of their world. Each one standing on the shoulders of giants and hoping someone else would stand on theirs. It was a sensation not only of pride, glory or greed but camaraderie. This was the same spirit that enveloped Lastrum's soul when he gambled away his last coin to get a single glimpse into the world outside their reach. Purpose. One that would withstand beyond the grave and acted both as fleeting and immortal as truth.

  “Yes, but wait, we can’t just gloss over what you said about Sill being electric, we need to confirm. Sill, are you an inanimate made using electricity?” Laura inquired.

  For a moment, the tiny rock stirred before speaking. They held their breaths in anticipation.

  “Yes!!! For the last time, Commanders!!!! I am a piece of technology! I am not alive, I run on 100% renewable electricity! However, I uh am in low power mode so I can’t supply enough watts to activate Jan!! If I was fully charged, I could act like a battery.”

  The words were all the confirmation they needed to hear. Still that was rather convenient Sill couldn’t simply supply the energy in general he would need to question him more on that. The mention of assault wasn’t good. The two were uncertain why Sill would want to commit battery. Electricity must have had some form of quantity or buffer, and already Jan began to ponder how they would lay out papers and draft articles both on it’s source and activation. He would pay attention to the words Sill spoke more carefully. The rock was clearly insane, but there might have been some truth mixed into the madness.

  “It’s obvious!! Sill must have been an incredibly powerful mage who helped Crous rediscover the mystery of electricity. Crous must have stuffed him in this electric rock as a means of controlling this knowledge while forcing him into slavery!” Laura reeled in shock.

  “Yes! No, Laura, that’s brilliant! That explains everything! This electricity must simply be a stronger form of magic that draws from the planet in a different way! It’s a clear breakthrough in geofuliminology! Laura, this will make us actually famous!” Jan added.

  The two beamed at their foolproof theory. Regardless, it was highly likely that they would only make this electricity once, for a convenient way to escape the pit, and this story would not follow the path of industrializing a small nation.

  “No Commanders! That is not….” Sill shouted almost in pure frustration.

  “Don’t worry Sill once we free you using Crous’s password you can share your discoveries with the world and gain immortal fame! You’ll be rich Sill rich, all the Pwol boards in the world! Rich enough to afford a new body!”

  “Commanders you forget, the reason who the Jannic’s are so slow to develop electricity is a combination of both supplementation by magic and our own assassinations of Jannic intellectual figures, I don’t think it would be…….”

  The two smiled at this while the rock let out more of his repetitive traumatized rhetoric about code, irreparable harm and a dangerous enemy army. All which they skillfully attributed to manifestations of Crous’s torture on his clearly damaged inner-psyche. At a certain point, it just gave up speaking and convinced them the machine they were making was a tribute to the elder gods and would summon the power of electricity in it’s purest form. Jan almost quivered in excitement; he knew it had been holding back. The creature must have been a religious zealot in its living time. A new branch of magic hadn’t been found since air spells started to develop nearly two thousand years ago. Even then, it was such a divergence that it founded three major religions and ended two. Not to mention the monk who discovered the spells was practically and literally immortalized in a statue so large it could be seen for eighty kilometres in all directions. Jan could have sworn he once saw the monk's name engraved in teacups and lamposts in even the most superfluous backwaters.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Scholars would give their left arm to even grace a second of the events they were about to casually witness. Statues would stare over sprawling horizons immortalizing their faces in eternal fame. Entire colleges, museums and history books would staple in chapters detailing every detail of their waking lives. Visiting nobles and dignitaries would fall head over heels to see a single page or grovel at an individual brushstroke. This was almost as big as Setra’s and would make Lastrum’s dreams look like child’s drawing of the heavens. A positive article in the Sam Herald was even more than likely. It was guaranteed. He could almost taste the bitter pride and confusion of the masses when they heard who had discovered it. Aloat would stiffle into a little ball at the very notion of these words sprouting from Jan's lips. The scribe’s hearts swelled three sizes in excitement.

  “So this is our only option?” Jan inquired again.

  “Yes, Commanders! This is virtually your only option, my processing power isn’t great but this is the best I could come up with. I hate to be blunt, but it’s not looking good and short of making smoke signals for our forces this is our best option!!!”

  The two ignored the creature’s remarks. Still it wasn’t great that the creature was mentioning Crous’s forces. It was likely some form of technologically advanced bandit camp that used the secrets of electricity to their own avail.

  “He’ll yeah, I’m totally in!” Laura spoke. She smiled and beamed for the first time in a while.

  Jan was surprised by this and kept glancing around with a nervous expression at having this many people overhearing them.

  “What?” he murmured in a little wince of shock. He was expecting more pushback.

  “What do you mean what? What’s the alternative? We sit here and die?” Laura interjected.

  The two laughed, and those around looked at them in an even more crazed manner.

  “I guess. Yeah, wait, Sill, is this exactly what you used for Crous?” Jan replied.

  He stood on a rock now and let the others eavesdrop. There was no time to care. They would have to drill the rock more when they had free time. It was a task they had put off thanks to its uncanny dialect and fixation to strange words and phrases but seemed more imperative by every second. For a moment, they felt uncanny. Like adventurers or characters out of a book from legends past. It was a weird sensation that stuck to their guts.

  “REDACTED_______………_______REDACTED. Sorry Commanders! Still a considerable blocker on information incase I fall into Jannic hands however in essence yes!” Sill resounded.

  The two almost grinned ear to ear.

  “Electricity,” Laura mouthed in excitement.

  Her fingers shifted around to mimic a tingle and she laughed. The others looked at them like they had gone absolutely mad. Meanwhile, in a circle of imminent death the two seemed to almost jump for joy. If this fabled weapon not only allowed them a method of escape but was replicable this could make their careers. They would become heralds of the empire. Legends scraped and inscribed into every ledger book and footnote in the country's history. There was fortune to be built. A name to be plastered in the open hearts and dreams of every aspiring scholar or person who dared glance upon the world. Glory waited for their watchful gaze. Stopping both the parasites and uncovering one of the greatest mysteries of the lost world was heart-stopping, let alone amazing. Literature on electricity was a limited as three thousand year old gods and as fanatical as a false prophet’s midas touch. No one had the faintest clue how it worked or what it even was only that it may have once existed. The subject was frowned upon and even laughable in almost every research setting. Those who dared partake were considered thrill-seekers, idiots or some smear in between. If Sill wasn’t lying this was the greatest breakthrough to ever grace the modern world.

  The prisoners couldn’t hear the rock and simply passed it off as an internal conversation. They were far from the main group. However, in the end those who listened took Laura and Jan for two leaders who had been driven insane by the situation infront.

  The two discussed the rock's plans with interest.

  “Wait Sill, if making electricity is such a bad idea why didn’t we do it earlier?”

  “Well, you’re command chip has been out of action almost your entire life. It’s running on reserve power, and I estimate a ? chance of death from the procedure. That’s even if everything goes right!”

  “What!! That’s insane! That’s…..” Laura spat. Her concern for Jan fought with both logic and desire to see the unnatural. She turned to him and looked for an answer, not wanting to pressure any choice.

  The tone had changed quickly.

  Jan stood up for a moment and let his mind wander. What was science without a little sacrifice or gamble to liven up the game?

  “Well… we don’t have much of an alternative,” Jan whispered to himself.

  “Great! Commanders, Now I need you gather me every water canteen, from the soldiers, we need roughly a hundred to be exact! No one should be spared!”

  “Wait what… Sill, we need water! what will we drink?” Jan questioned.

  He was already having second thought’s about the rocks' plan.

  “As the academy says, always commit 100% Commander! We have to use all the resources we have for this, we’ll worry about getting you organics water later!” Sill shouted.

  The two didn’t like this response, but they began formulating a list of objects the creature had requested. Items lined like notches on wood, and it wasn't long before the list made them even more terrified about what demonic ritual was about to occur. Something told him this would either work or there was no going back.

  A little while later one of the first prisoners stirred. A man who had been there since almost the very beginning lifted himself. His feet were wrapped in bandages and the signs of both fasting and fatigue were portrayed even more vigorously from his dishevelled appearance. The soldier walked towards a nearby stone and swung a pick. The resounding clang filled the entire chamber like brass hitting a solid wall. He was about to swing again when Jan stood up.

  “Wait. Don’t swing. We need that.”

  The other turned their head and regarded him with disdain.

  “The Lieutenant’s gone, kid, I only take orders from those in charge and right now, no one is” He coughed.

  “I’m mining watchers to stay alive,” another piped in.

  The rest of them began to follow. It was only then that Jan spoke.

  “Everyone stop. We have a plan.” His words fell on deaf ears.

  The others didn’t react. Simply carrying out their day as would be normal for the enslaved. Mining commenced, and for some time, they rarely even gazed back to acknowledge his presence. The sound of chipped rock filled the air.

  “And who are you to Command us? Some lowly scribe?” another screeched back.

  Some of the soldiers even laughed at this, if humor was still possible among their ragged bones. They shuffled in desperation. Almost as to hope the toils of their labour would distract them from the horrors waiting for an empty mind.

  "Commander!! You need to show leadership here! Surely you remember Speechmaking 107? It would have been uploaded on your databanks!" Sill whispered.

  "Uh no" Jan murmored back.

  He hoped the others didn't see his lips moving and Laura glanced with an all-too-familiar concerned look.

  "Don't worry Commander! Everyone gets cold feet, I'll take it from here, but just repeat after me, syllable for syllable!!" The rock followed.

  Just then, Jan breathed in and straightened his back. A resounding crack echoed through the pit but he ignored it to stare forward.

  “Jan Theric, Consul For The Archmage.”

  The words held a mild effect. Some looked up in awe, reaffirming the rumors that they had heard. That was until a single guard stood straight and saluted towards Jan’s direction. Some followed with hard-pressed expressions, looking for hope. Others were stubborn. The weight of his name slowly shone through with years of doctrine carving away at their fears.

  “I’ve read about you? Aren’t you an idiot?” one remarked. Their soot-covered face let out the words more as a question than a statement.

  “Weren’t you arrested last week?” another added.

  Jan shrugged. What little strips of confidence he held from the moment prior started to fade. Whispers started to build as the crowd edged forward. That was until Aloat appeared. The sheriff had pressed a mixture of herbs and mud into a long gash on her arm and had been applying a bandage to a young sergeant’s shoulder. Her sword dangled at her hip like a loose stick.

  “Is it true you grew three hundred acres of farmland with a single spell?”

  The last comment ignited even more conversation for those infront. Worried glances started to be replaced with interest and shock. Jan tried to ignore the thinly veiled insult in Aloat’s words, but her embellishment of ten acres to three hundred made a good effect.

  “Second to the Scrier and Irwain himself,” Laura added while standing behind.

  “Listen, that’s all well and good Consul Theric but you’re a mage. We’re in a pit full of watchers, there’s nothing you can do,” a short soldier spoke. His brown hair was matted with sweat and he had eyes that showed only concern.

  The others let out sighs of defeat before eagerly waiting for his response.

  "Commander!! Repeat after me!" SIll screeched.

  "History pivots on small angles."

  The words were uncharacteristically Jan and caused a bit of a stir but it was enough for the scribe to feel a tingle of relief spread through his shoulders. He ignored the rock's pleas to move his foot to the left and strike something called a speech pose to leave his face to twitch.

  “Electricity, we're going to make electricity” Laura spoke up.

  The others and even Aloat looked up in a mix of sheer awe and confusion. Mixed expressions from the crowd outlined both their interest and bizarre emotions. They stepped back, awaiting new commands both out of curiosity and destitution.

  “Great, let’s get started Commander!! Juuuust repeaaat after me! We’ll have this built in no time!” Sill whispered.

  Sill began to relay more of his atomosphere building rhetorical, causing Jan to almost cringe but thankfully he was a good enough actor to pull off some sporadic lines.

  "Imperial Consul's aren't chosen without reason, neither are it's soldiers."

  "An army sits above us. Some may call us surrounded. I'd say they're exactly where we need them to be. We came here to find the Dawnshire bandit. When history asks, the world will know that some of us did our jobs." He relayed slowly.

  He may have butchered the first half, but relaying Sill's words was harder than normal.

  Then, turning to address the crowd, Jan began to bark orders. He was truly shouting overhead. A nervous mix of confidence shining through in ways the old Jan could never have imagined. Once in a while, he would slur words or find his tongue caught on scattered phrases, but he truly re-iterated Sill’s directions word for word. The tiny rock seemed to relish in the moment and cherished every syllable that echoed from his lips. Soon caught up in the moment, Jan couldn’t help but feel inspired by the puppet words that came from his lips.

  “The premise is simple. We’re going to make one hundred galvanic cells. Iron will be our anode and hydrogen will be our cathode. It will be inefficient, but it could work. You start setting these upwards. I want 10 in series and another 10 in parallel, that would be roughly 100 watts if everything goes well.”

  The others looked at him like he was spouting nonsense or trivial gibberish. He said it with just enough confidence to be believable.

  “We need to make bus bars, it’s not complicated, and I’ll get to that later. The iron plates will sacrifice electrons through oxidizing. It’s a classic redox reaction. In total, it will look like this, Fe(s)→Fe2+(aq)+2e?."

  The crowd looked at him like he was speaking some conglomerate of outlandish gibberish, and Jan tried his best to stumble over the rock's words in a direct translation.

  "The copper coins and our bronze armour pieces will carry this to the water where reduction takes place into Hydrogen gas, 2H+(aq)+2e?→H2?(g). We’re also going to need a coil, and wires. The wires can be copper and just layed out on whatever planks or rope we have.”

  Laura made mental and physical notes on what was happening for replication later. She vigorously documented Sill’s every words with splotchy ink. Still it was only the two scribes who could hear him speak. Jan stumbled while walking and followed the rock’s arrangements as to what series and parallel meant. The others mimicked his every move. The scribe could tell they were excited by the very least. Only once all the bottles had been arranged did he issue new orders.

  “Aloat gather everyone’s quands. We need all of our money. You six over there, get a fire going with that old forge equipment, don’t spare anything and melt down the quands into copper strings. We need enough to connect all the bottles.”

  They looked up at him in wonder. He threw his own bag of coins on the ground and let it bask in the afternoon sun. It would have been nothing short of highway robbery if he actually had more than a few quands to his name. Regardless his coin-purse was quite large in general so the addition of his own money helped at bit. Sheriff Balk eyed him with utter suspicion. She had returned to the fight with renewed conviction; however, her face gave away a poor lie where her curiosity lay more in whatever power Jan claimed to possess.

  “Our money? You want to smelt our money?”

  “Yes, and parts of the breastplates, too. Those contain trace copper near the bottom. Imperials commission cheaps out.”

  Jan wasn’t sure how Sill knew this but he just kept spouting the rock’s directions. The others grumbled, but after a short mention of the limited uses of coins for the dead, a small trove was regretfully handed out.

  “You two there, snap all the pickaxes by the head and throw them into the bottles.”

  Everyone was given a job. Not a single soldier was left out of the scattered and bizarre tasks. Scraping of the interior of the bottles and the pickaxe heads with knives commenced quickly others were told to create some sort of bar by nailing flakes of bronze armour to wooden beams. Two were quickly forged in identical fashion. This was met with some pushback and even Aloat looked up with a questioning glance. Eventually, the others didn’t question him. They were far too curious to see where this was going than ponder actualities; electricity was a word that had barely been uttered in seriousness for a thousand years. Today it was stuttered with the authority of kings.

  “I’ve never seen a demonic contraption like this before. What are we doing?” an older soldier gasped while aligning the bottles as fast as possible.

  The soldiers around him looked terrified.

  “We’ll get there later” Jan replied.

  The others simply nodded.

  “How many cooking ingredients do we have?” Jan asked again.

  He slurred his speech as he tried to keep up with Sill’s demands.

  “A few kilograms of salt and some bottles of vinegar and olive oil, Consul!” a cook replied.

  Their rations had been stretched thin, but Paxter’s delegations had saved majority of their superficial supplies. Jan took hold of the glass bottles, and Sill seemed to mutter praises and swirling prayers for their preservation.

  “Great! You there, I want you to fill a canteen with this exact solution…. I’ll demonstrate and we’ll go together.”

  He bent down and started to pour in a mix of vinegar, salt and water in the metal bottle. The sweet smelling liquid started to give hope in their eyes. Jan too paused in wonder as he reiterated Sill’s ever-lengthening commands. All he could wish for is those above didn’t take notice of their actions.

  For the first time in ten thousand years, a Jannic was about to make electricity.