Arthur 43

293AC

There were many joys my position as the son of a prominent lord afforded me, but I had to admit, that of them all I made the most use of private tailors. There were just so many different varieties of clothing I needed for my current triple life.

I had my mother's lovely knockoff Elizabethan finery to wear during ceremonies and such, as despite my apparent magical nature I was still attending the Sept fairly frequently with my mother. More frequently than before honestly, to the point of being a little stifling, though I appreciated the gesture. Then I had another set of clothing, still fairly stylish in my opinion, though far less overwrought with ornamentation. Mostly plain or bi-colored clothing resembling my troop's uniforms with minimal embroidery, since it was going underneath my armor.

Finally, I had my research outfits, which were as bland as lab coats could typically be, and covered my entire body. A thick leather cap covered my head and hooked into cloth covering my face, thick insulating gloves covered my hands, and I generally looked like a faceless mad scientist. Especially with the hastily assembled goggles that covered my eyes.

'Which I am, I suppose.'

It had been well enough to leave Gerald and his apprentices in traditional alchemical robes when fire and explosion were all they had to fear. Those robes were designed for that. But Electricity, or lightning as they still insisted on calling it, was another beast entirely.

They had made unfortunately little headway on discovering the secrets of electricity during the months spent trying to get the army into shape. A side effect of my lack of time, but Ironically now that plans were made and laid out, with supplies being loaded for another few days before the final departure, I had finally found time to visit the dragonglass laboratory.

Honestly, what they had done thus far was sort of impressive.

In the fact that they had somehow managed to avoid electrocution themselves while doing it.

"That is, I think, a truly horrifying amount of open circuits." I gestured to the wall, where copper wires lay strewn about in ridiculous branching pathways that seemed to be completely devoid of any sense or reason at all, each trailing off to their own little workbenches. "I am honestly surprised you have not killed yourselves."

"We haven't been working with them connected to the beaker, as you said, your grace."

I turned towards Gerald, and then down towards the chest which held the bottled lightning. My only true contribution thus far had been assembling the framework around it, a seemingly pointless and grotesque mesh of copper wire that let the surrounding wires draw power from the beaker. I understood how they worked at a base level, harnessing the bleed-off from whatever magic the bottle held.

There was a whole lot of magical bullshit involved in the process that even I wasn't sure of, I didn't have names for half of the factors I could feel existed, and it barely resembled what I could remember of electromagnetism at all.

But it worked at least, and that was what was important. It gave me the keys to what seemed to function as an endless battery.

Though I couldn't be sure it was endless yet, I supposed I would find out when all the lights cut out one day.

Either way, there was a big meaty and obvious switch on the top of the chest that cut the power off from inside of it, and I was glad that Gerald and his aids hadn't ignored it.

"Have you produced anything working?"

"Not exactly." The man shook his head. "We got a buzzer with a mane that shakes a false throat around, but we haven't figured out the input for the system yet as you asked, and it keeps breaking."

"Hmm," I said, nodding. "Show me."

The device he led me too looked more like a phonograph than anything else to me, the horn of a, well, horn, strapped onto the end of a block of wiring with a magnet in the middle with cords running away from it.

"Ready?"

I nodded.

"Then flip the switch."

As soon as the circuit was completed, the whole apparatus began to rattle, emitting a low shrieking noise as it seemed to be shaking itself apart.

After a moment, I raised my hand to stop.

When the switch was turned off and the shrieking had died down, I turned towards Gerald, a smile obscured on my face.

"Excellent work."

"Sir?" He asked, sounding a bit confused, and I didn't blame him. By most margins, the device was at best a children's noisemaker.

But add a more easy to use switch to the circuit?

Well, then we would have something useful.

"That little buzzer may seem useless right now," I said, pointing to the device and making sure all of the aids could hear me.

"But by the end of the day, it's going to be ready to change the world."