Fahlhala Tribe II

But before Page could answer, a man flew up to him from a cloud and jabbed a spear at them, stopping it right in front of Mag. "What are you guys doing here? This area is not open to measly travelers." He spoke with a thick accent that Zeeth wasn't sure where it came from.

"Oh, I didn't go there voluntarily. I was captured and sent there by a teleportation circle."

"And I came here to save him."

"Teleportation circle? HAH! Likely story, come with me to the main house. Our leader will judge you."

"Alright, but how do you want us to get back?"

The man looked at Mag and Gul and back to his own cloud. "You will ride your...fire ball."

"Cool, let's go."

"What do you mean, 'cool'? It is very hot."

"No, it's a figure of speech. It means that's alright."

He turned his cloud around and said with a heavy accent, "Oh. that is cool. Okay, don't talk. We go back in silence." he swung his spear around and pretended to jab them a bit.

Zeeth whispered to Page, "what is with him? What's going on?"

"Were not supposed to be so close to the volcano, there were rumors that my dad heard that they were trying to build something to harness the volcano's lava as a weapon. Maybe they're trying to stop us from using that."

"No talk!"

He brought them back through the various houses on the way back, past the road they took to the first house, first allowing Page to grab his bag, and went to the village with the broken houses and random black metal pieces.

"Enter this building, the chief is waiting for you." he leaned in close, "his interrogation is inescapable." he looked really proud at his knowledge of such big words. "Now, enter."

Zeeth shrunk back Mag and Gul, Page giving him the okay to show this to Hesl, the man who brought them here. he wasn't strong or smart enough to understand it anyway.

He pushed open the doors for them and a swoosh of hot air blasted out, like when they had broken that wall in the maze.

"Come in." they walked into the darkroom, the floors that the sunset had illuminated was pale grey. The doors snapped shut behind them, closing all sources of light. A small fire was lit on the other end of the room and revealed an aging man.

"Get over here. Allow me to see your face." they cautiously walked over, their feet creating loud steps on the floor, "why were you at the volcanos?"

Zeeth trepidatiously said, "I was sent there by a teleportation trap and he came to save me."

"What happened over there?"

"I got trapped in a stone maze underground, he saved me from there and…"

"Zeeth, I got this. I am Page, the son of Tarud."

"Tarud! Son of Tarud! I know of you. Actually, I met you when you were just a small boy, a wee lad in Jarlon. Ah, alright, I just need to know you weren't up there to tamper with our tanker."

"you are Tatio, right? Of course, we weren't, we hadn't seen any tankers." Page said.

"Yes, I am Tatio. That is fine then. here, you may leave."

"What happened here? The buildings are all in shambles, and what do you mean tanker in the volcanos? I heard rumors that you were moving things up there to create a lava powered weapon, but that sounds doubtful from what my dad says about you."

"Oh, Tarud talks about me? That is so kind. But, no we are not building weapons, we are manifesting lava to melt metal. We will then rebuild our village above the hardened lava. It will take a lot of work, but our men are strong. We need to rid of these magnets."

"What happened here?"

"You see, not too long ago, our village hero, my very own son, Leardio. He had a big fight with a crazy man. The crazy man wanted to take this village and he fought valiantly to protect us. He won, but at what a price. He is still unconscious in our medical room."

"How did this happen? What was the fight?"

"My eldest son has the ability to turn any metal into magnets, but as you can see our walls are made of stone and dirt, not metal. The other man could change the atoms of any material into steel. They were a perfect match, too bad they were fighting each other. The wreckage in our village isn't that bad, it can be fixed in days. We just put the entire village to work and this kind of issue is nothing. But the worst part is all the metal and magnets, they make working very difficult. The tools get stuck to them, our floors and walls are made of the same magnets, and they are strong."

Zeeth muttered to himself, "Wait, Leardio? I heard of that name a long time ago. From where though?"

"The crazy man was tied down and is being used as bait on one of our baiting sticks. He wanted to take over the town for himself and we have a tanker up there to carry lava down and melt the magnets down. But we would also have to replace the entire wall and fix most of the houses in the village, replace our defenses. It could leave us vulnerable for weeks, so all people are trying to get used to taking night shifts so that half can stay awake when the walls are taken down. Many of our spears are stuck to the walls, so we need to replace our weapons quickly too."

"Melt the magnets with lava? Magnets can be canceled out with strong force or high heat can dull it out into normal steel again. Why lava?" Page questioned.

"The magnets created here with the talent of the crazy man, making mana filled steel, and then made magnets by Leardios powerful talent. They were created within such heat from a volcano as well, they are far tougher than normal magnets. We called some experts over and they said the depreciation rate is so low we expect them to last far past human civilization and no heat other than immediate lava will demagnetize it. We need the lava, the only way we can move them other than that is to use earth magic. But we all know how slow that is."

"Maybe we can help," Zeeth spoke to him.

"Ah, thank you, traveler! But we can't. Although, moving those lava tankers is hard work."

"No, not the tankers. We won't be needing lava to melt them. We can use these magnets for you."

"What? Do you want to make spears out of magnets? We tried, they are almost impossible to break and the spears they create are crude and hard to use. They stick to each other a lot."

"Oh, you already made spears out of them, can we see them?"

"Um, sure. We have a few rights by that wall. Although buying them will cost 5 chicken legs."

"No, not buy them." Zeeth took a spear and checked the tips. They were sharpened into spikes, but the sides were rough and easily stuck to each other. The tips clung to each other to create a little circle.

"Page, take these, and mold it."

"I'm not sure if I can, these are solid magnets."

"Is it that you don't have enough strength? Because my Gul can help with that." he held out a small, condensed Gul on his palm. Because all of the gems were now a part of Gul they could now be shrunk with him. Only the ones that are shot out and made with magic can't be molded. "And Mag can apply some heat to make it softer."

"Oh, right! Strength enhancing, let's try it. What do you have in mind though?"

"These are magnets, what if we made them repulse metals and fire them at others?"

"That's actually a pretty good idea. We can mold them into barrels and shoot balls. Where did you learn it?"

"From the video, Juloris showed me of Leardio." Zeeth responded, "Let's start with smaller models, just to see how they would work."

Page took one of the speartips and Zeeth had a slime attach to his hand. His fingertips were coated in slime and began forcing the metal around. His sculpting mastery was made mostly from clay or simple stones, nothing as hard as this. He was having a hard time just trying to push the metal around. Eventually, he was able to mold the magnets to make a small barrel, using the small leftover bits to create tiny balls. He aimed the barrel at the floor and put the ball down the barrel, trying to put it to the back and let it out. But the ball and the barrel were the same magnetic poles and it simply got stuck.

He pried the ball out and tried to find a ball that was of the opposite pole. He tried shoving the ball into the tube but the ball wouldn't even get near it from the massive magnetic fields. He had to force open the back and force another ball through the back. It took forever to get it even close to the hole, but the ball fired back at him, narrowly missing his eye and hitting him in the cheek.