Rory and his clan had rarely been asked to provide their services in such a dangerous and chaotic environment.

Serving coffee to the Dark Fey during the Murderfest holidays, where any small slip could mean death, was nerve-wracking.

But skill and grace had seen them through the ordeal.

The threat of violence was predictable and had rules.

Most of the Fey lands had rules, fair or unfair.

But the mortal lands were different, and you never knew what to expect.

Never had that been more apparent than today.

The brownies strove in vain to figure out what was going on and who was in charge.

There was none of the layered pecking order they had seen elsewhere, and the Countess was pretending to be a mere mortal.

First one person was directing the work, then another, often with demonstrations of magic or lots of shouting.

They'd tried to determine rank by the volume and quality of shouting, to no avail.

These were boss-level shouty-people.

The clan kept their heads down and did their best to keep everyone's mug filled, which was more difficult than they'd ever imagined.

The mugs of the twin professors were glowing with imbued storm mana, and when the half-dwarf engineer had noticed, he carved glowing runes on his own mug that kept his coffee hot but sucked the heat out of any mug that got near it.

In addition, Vladimir's mug was levitating near him, keeping his hands free to carve.

Squire Squeak solved that problem by sprouting a long tail to hold his mug.

His eyes were glowing now, and with each sip of coffee, he seemed to move faster.

At one point he and Vladimir began juggling their dirty mugs back and forth between them, arguing the orbital mathematics behind Celestial mana.

Titania's earthenware mug had grown larger to accommodate two eyes and a shrieking mouth.

Volminus, laughing, kept asking for more coffee, but no matter how many gallons they poured into it, his mug remained half full.Rory had been respectful as always but had drawn the line at letting Damien 'Improve' on the clan's espresso machine.

The offer of doubling the pressure and cutting brewing time in half was tempting, but brownies are traditionalists at heart and adapt to radical change poorly.

Damien had to content himself with watching the gaggle of mad professors and engineers as they overdosed on caffeine and sugar.

He recognized the pure chaos from which true science grew quickly.

After Damien gave up on the idea of rebuilding the espresso machine, Damian and Milo casually meandered over to a spot where they could stare at the arcane-looking contraption of copper and brass.

Vladimir pointed to the pressure gauges.

"See? They are carefully monitoring their steam output and excess heat radiates from the copper holding tank.

I'm not sure we could improve on this design.""Perhaps not, but we could start from scratch with Deep Copper fittings, and the rune you have on your mug to generate heat.

In the meantime..."Vladimir nodded, "...in the meantime, research demands another mug!"The coffee was having an amazing effect on efficiency in rune carving.

Engineers Milo and Vladimir had carried on a fast-paced conversation while they flew through the process, finishing their work in the next hour.

The junior engineer was curious about one of the runes that his senior was showing him.

"I find it curious that you would put the Rune of Acceleration on the ammunition, needing a rune on each piece.

The Rune of Fast-Flying that dwarven engineers use on their ballistae is on the machine, and thus more efficient.""Well, yes, but only if you want to launch the war machine at the enemy.

It's an interesting strategy since a ton of metal and wood flying at 400 miles an hour will do a lot of damage."Vladimir saw his error, "Oh...yes.

I see the difference, but I'm suddenly intrigued by the idea of launching large objects using the rune.

Do you think we can test it?""Why not, it sounds like fun and what could go wrong? We'll top off our coffee and drag something heavy to the top of the tower!" Sadly, before they could begin their experiment, Benjamin pointed out how dangerous it would be to leave Damien alone and in charge.

The two Engineers grimaced, and then said at the same time, "Tomorrow!"Johannes happily started on the next step by ensuring that each of the carved channels was smooth and free of flaws.

The large professor greatly enjoyed long and boring tasks—the more tedious, the better—and whistled as he carefully sanded the hard stone with an emery board.

Rory had offered him a handsomely glazed mug, but the old Professor insisted on a battered tin mug, stained from long use.

With their rune carving finished, the half-elf and the squire jumped into the middle of the work of creating the teleportation matrix that would power the stone.

The conversations wandered into different subjects as ideas were tossed out on how to best proceed.

Many of them digressed until someone encouraged the digressers to concentrate on the matter at hand.

Sometimes through shouting or threats of violence.

At one point, Milo was describing to the Tommaso twins his work with Professor Arlo in creating a Storm Mana Generator.

The two were interested immediately, pondering how they could adapt the described machinery.Damien had of course dabbled with attracting and using lightning many times.

It was practically Mad Science 101.

"I need to get back to my work with lightning attractors.

There's nothing like a bolt of destruction from the sky to light up a laboratory.

Maybe when this contraption is finished.""You're saying that creating artificial lightning through the mechanical rotation of magnetic rocks attracted Storm Mana? That's almost unbelievable.

We have to try that.

It would open up so many new avenues of discovery!" The twins, Milo and Damien, spent a half hour sketching out the design for an improved apparatus before they could get back to the main work, but the discussion had given one of the twin professors an idea of how to remove six percent of the inefficiency of the copper capacitors.

Work began to remove all of the older tubes, modify them, and reinstall them.

By the time that was done, Volminus had taken the improvement into account and announced a new configuration of components that would result in a 3% mana savings.

Vladimir and Milo checked his math and agreed.

They tore apart the machinery and began again.Baron William showed up with a train of twenty wagons bearing catapults, onagers, and ballistae to be installed on the walls and towers.

These machines used the older designs, and while deadly and better than most Legion outposts would have in their arsenal, they fell far short of the new machines that would soon be produced and blessed by the priests of Ares.

These had been in storage, hidden in the catacombs below Sedgewick, to be installed at Rowan Keep at the last minute to block any attempt by the Office of Procurement to move them to Northguard or another fortress.

Two dozen workers carried the machines to where they needed to be built.

One of the stone masons followed behind, using long steel rods to bolt the machines firmly to the stone of the fortress.

Another six wagons bore loads of ammunition that were distributed to each tower.

The soldiers looked on, happy to have a full provision of armaments.

William joined his Baroness where she watched anxiously from a spot near to the chaos of the main courtyard.

Each happily accepted a mug of coffee from a small brownie.The Engineers saw the weapons being unloaded, and raced over to take a look, before anyone could stop them, they'd dismantled a ballistae and were arguing over which runes to add and what improvements to make.

Layla listened for a moment and then handed each a brochure for the upgraded designs that would bear the mark of Ares.

The two engineers grabbed charcoal and found a large, blank wall to draw on.

The schematics were life-sized and worked their improvements into the machines in the flyer.

Finally satisfied they'd improved the efficiency of the design, they took a break for cookies and coffee, ignoring that all of their instructions were written in dwarvish rune script.

Two hours later, Damien felt they had done as much as they could to improve the efficiency of their design, and they completed the apparatus.

The old stone was removed and carefully set aside, and the new machinery was installed in its place.

Johannes declared that the new stone was ready to accept the metal that would reinforce the mana channels, and all eyes turned to where Ozzy and Georges were working to create a proper alloy.

So far, all attempts had failed, with none of the crucibles at the smithy and foundry in Sedgewick able to withstand the heat needed to melt the exotic metals.

They'd returned to the keep to see if the Professors had something suitable.Stolen story; please report.

As they walked into the courtyard, Betty met them.

"I have a problem that I need your help with.

My new cauldron has a nasty black stain on the outside of it that I can't seem to scrub off.

No one cleaned the thing properly and every time it bubbled over, stuff burned on the outside and backed on.

And the inside is worse! Damien says it's residue from whatever those harridans were using it for.

He suggested high heat to remove it, and you two know all about that.

It's hard to find a good cauldron this size, especially with a non-stick surface, but I need it cleaned up.

I'm a White Witch.

I can't be seen using a black-as-sin cauldron."Jorges stared at the cauldron.

"My, my, a large, non-stick, heat-resistant cauldron."Ozzy took the large pot from her.

"I'll give it my best shot, Betty.

Don't you worry.

We'll work on it right now and heat this thing up the best we can."She smiled at them.

"You're both good boys.

I've got some bread I need to take out of the ovens downstairs.

There are lots of hungry soldiers to feed, and I'm helping the cooks today.

Bring that down to me when you're done, and I'll take a look at it."A half-hour later, another try was being made to melt the two metals and form an alloy.

Jorges had the cauldron on top of a large forge with three people pumping the bellows to increase the heat from the burning coal.

Ozzy stood on the fourth side, his polearm stuck in the cauldron and channeling the heat from his Charnel Pit into it.

Vladimir had offered his insight to Jorges, having spent decades with his father learning the art of forging steel.

He added a series of runes to the forge that pulled heat from all around it.Back in Sedgewick, Joe was tossing fuel into the pit to keep the fires burning hot.

"Damned boy better keep pulling the heat out of this place.

Otherwise, all that tender meat will be turned into jerky so hard an ogre couldn't chew it."The metals in the cauldron glowed bright red, then white.

The processed Silverthorn vines began to melt, fusing with the higher-tier molten metal floating in the cauldron.

The professors conversed in hushed whispers, and then Johannes offered his advice.

"If you recall, we used a powdered extract of separated air in our last endeavor to achieve high temperatures.

I have a small amount of that substance available.

It should raise the temperature by at least 457 degrees.

Sprinkle it slowly, however."Georges took the small pouch.

"Everyone clear out.

This is going to get hot.

We need this damn stuff to melt." He put the powder into a spoon at the end of a long pole to give himself some distance from the cauldron.

Ozzy was whistling and enjoying the heat.

Neither Vladimir nor Damien seemed inclined to leave.The Butcher noticed and warned them again.

"Jorges isn't kidding; this stuff will make a fire burn hot.

You'll lose more than the hair on your head.

Damien scoffed, "Young man if something dangerous and experimental is going on, I relish the chance to observe.

What are a few burns against the chance to advance the cause of science."Vladimir agreed.

"Personally, I'm excited about the idea of a new catalyst for forging metals.

My father's people have created special alloys with the aid of caustic substances such as dragon's blood, while the artisans who create works of art in my mother's realm from precious metals rely on the properties of Silverite ore.

If I can bring them a new substance or process to enhance their arts, it will be worth the pain." That reminded Ozzy of something he'd had in his bag for some time.

"Dragon's blood? I've got some vials of that.

Never had a use for it, and the gnomes didn't want it in their bank; they said the smell might attract the big lizards." Keeping one hand on his polearm, he reached into his bag and pulled out three red, glowing vials.

Vladimir grabbed them, cackling.

The half-dwarf opened them up and poured them into the cauldron before anyone could stop him.

Noxious fumes rose from the mix of metals, and the celestial-imbued Starmetal began to dissolve and mix with the molten Silverthorn.Damien noticed that the odd Engineer with a tail hadn't left and now was rummaging around in a large chest that had magically appeared.

Intrigued, he peeked inside and was quickly flabbergasted at the contents.

"What the hell are you doing with mana crystals that size sitting around in an old chest? AH! The Black Abacus? Do you have any idea how many people are looking for that?" He started to reach for the artifact, overcome with the potential to calculate things that should never be calculated.

His hand got smacked away hard enough to draw blood.Milo growled at him, maddened by too much coffee and not wanting anyone to touch his stuff.

"That's mine, you can't have it! Well, mine for now.

She'll want to make sure it goes someplace safe.

If you don't come witch hunting, you don't get to play with their toys." He found what he was looking for, bringing out a large chunk of silvery metal he held carefully with a pair of tongs.

Vladimir saw it and clapped happily.

Damien stared at it.

"Silverite ore? Dammit, why do Engineers hide all of the good stuff! We'll have to talk; that stuff is priceless! Do you have any idea how much that piece of metal is worth?"Milo walked to the cauldron but tossing the metal into the mix, turned to Billy, "As a matter of fact, I do know what it's worth: 100 wheels of stinky cheese!"Billy didn't hesitate, "You drive a hard bargain, but I need that teleporter working.

Agreed."Vladimir took the tongs and put the chunk of Silverite into the cauldron, the metal immediately absorbing half the mana present and becoming liquid, mixing with the Silverthorn metal.

Jorges looked at Ozzy, and dumped in the Extract of Air, then dove for cover.

Ozzy poured as much heat as he could into the cauldron and concentrated on his Active Heat Resistance and Shielding.

There was an intense flash of heat that roared out of the cauldron, forming a mushroom-shaped cloud floating up into the air and expanding.

The flash singed away what little hair the Butcher had and burned off his mustache.

Vladimir stared into the flame, mesmerized and seemingly unhurt.

Damien burst into flame and ran, looking for water.

He survived only because Volminus had been itching to test his Pressurized Fire Suppressant Apparatus.

The portly professor was chuckling as he pointed it at Damien.

"It's so hard to get volunteers for this, especially after so many failures." This time, his invention worked, spreading a layer of green slime over Damien and dousing the flames.

"Leave the slime on for an hour or two.

It has a little aloe in it to aid with skin regrowth." Exhausted and feeling he'd cheated death once again, Damien sat in a corner, covered in slime, thinking happy thoughts about science.Ozzy was surprised to be still standing.

In front of him was a sparkling, stainless-steel cauldron filled with glowing, silvery liquid metal.

He yelled out to the Professors, "Whoever knows the next step, let's get to it.

I have no idea how long this stuff will stay liquid." Vladimir immediately produced a stone ladle and began to carefully pour the liquid metal along the carved channels of the stone.

Whatever madness usually possessed him was under control, and his expertise showed in the perfection of his work.

At Vladimir's direction, Ozzy kept the metal liquid with a slow outpouring of heat.

"I think we have something special here.

And lots of it.

There will be plenty left over for the Baron's other needs.

Now that the metals have been alloyed, it will be a simple matter to reheat the cauldron and begin the repairs on the shattered stone of Gadobhra.

Such a fun project! So many things can go wrong! You learn so much more when things go wrong than when you get it right the first time."Ozzy grinned.

"Then you'll learn a lot hanging around this place."