Comeback

Elizabeth's sword has been melted to shit. It doesn't work anymore. It doesn't matter who holds it anymore. There's not an ounce of blue light. Now, more than ever before, I need a way to fight. I need my magic.

"Vol. Come with me."

Vol follows me down through the ruined city of Rosewood. The city consisted of carved out trees, grown from the ground using magic, so rebuilding is slow. A few people have already started, though. Ordinarily, Vol would be helping, but right now, he's following me. After a hurried walk, we arrive at the remains of my own house.

It must have been struck by the greater monster at some point because the entire building is in tatters.

I crouch and duck under some large chunks of splintered wood and enter the living room.

"So... what are we looking for?" Vol asks, coming in behind me.

"The blueprints. Here."

It feels like a long time ago, but just yesterday, before the monster attacked, we were working on a certain magic tool. With our most powerful weapon out of action, we need to finish it. I look down on the blueprints. The name scrawled across the top was one Elizabeth came up with, but it was just supposed to be temporary. I don't feel like changing it now, though.

I guess it's doesn't matter, either way. It's a decent name.

"The manacaster."

---

Elizabeth is discharged the next morning. She didn't seem too happy about the loss of primary weapon, though it's always hard to tell with her.

"Still, you took out a greater monster!" Vol said, "That's quite a feat."

"Sebastian killed one first," she replied, blankly.

"It's not a competition. Besides, I couldn't have done it without your sword."

And that's not a partial truth.

We go over our blueprints a few more times, making the last adjustments before we begin construction.

For the first few days after the attack, several people came to request Vol's help with re-growing Rosewood. He turned them all down.

"I'm sorry, but I'm working on something more important right now," he'd say.

Once, on my way out to get dinner, I even overheard some students at the magic academy talking about how he had rejected an in-person visit from the elven council. I'm sure there are rumors going around about what, exactly, he's working on.

Right now, we are the only ones who have a complete picture of the product. We brought in a smith, Gerailt, to create the metal base of the tool, but even he only knows a small part of it.

"Hrm, that's gonna be pretty rough, 'hu," he growled after we showed him our blueprint.

"You can't do it?" Vol asked him.

Apparently offended, he said, "Now-now, that's not what 'ai said."

While Gerailt returned to his workshop, Vol and I began the process of creating an AM-store to our specifications. Small enough to not mess with the weight distribution too much, but still powerful enough to be able to cast all the spells we wanted.

Two days later, Gerailt presented this first attempt at the tool. It was a bit too large compared to our specifications, and it was too heavy to wield on one arm.

Another day passed and Gerailt had tried again, making a version that seemed right at first, but cracked in half when we tried to inscribe the spells. The problem was that we couldn't figure out why. It was the right metal, and we had conducted test beforehand.

It took another week before Gerailt returned to us with what would be the final version. It turned out that the rounded metal surface didn't have enough structure to support the inscribing of the spells. Thus, the inside became something more akin to a pentagon, while the outside was round like a shield, with a hole in the center for the AM-store.

"How about we inscribe our names?" Elizabeth suggested, once we had finished embedding all the symbols for the spells.

"Do people usually do that?" I question Vol.

"Ah... I'm not sure? I've never done it myself."

"It's not common, but I think whoever made my sword did it."

Sure enough, upon closer inspection of Elizabeth's melted sword, there was a small inscription near the handle. It wasn't a name, though.

The inscription was an unbelievably detailed spell, consisting of 10 layers of neat handwriting and rounded shapes set in extension of one another.

"This sword really was something else," Vol said, reminiscently. "I really should've studied it further when I had the chance."

"You can have it, if you want," Elizabeth said, absently.

"Just accept the gift, Vol," I say quickly, because he looks like he's about to argue.

"Ha-ha. Thank you, miss Elizabeth. If we're lucky, I may yet be able to glean something useful from this!"

We did, in fact, end up engraving our names on the inside of the manacaster. Elizabeth has lovely handwriting. Vol, not so much.

After an additional week of adjustments, the first ever version of the manacaster was finally completed.

An AM-store in the center of a glinting, circular shield. One tiny mechanism, inspired by the gears of a car, allows the user to switch between 5 spells, all embedded permanently into the tool:

Rogsfulnert - a lower-mid-level fireball spell

Solaeyvun - a high-level lightning spell

Taeilynert - a lower-mid-level tidal spell

Ailomolliex - a mid-level agility spell

And last, but not least,

Equeralliex - a mid-level barrier spell