Clunky Coin Bot

Six days later, Gror, Drawk, and Leia were teleported out of Fahlhala using the Goddess Luik's hand and were heading to First Dwarven. Gror asked, "did he still not tell you what happened yet?"

"Yeah, still nothing. Sense, are you sure you want to come?" Drawk said.

"Yeah, they are old friends. Also, I'm Leia, not Sense."

"But Sense makes more sense. Could you make us feel more energized?"

"Fine." said an exasperated Sense. She held both of their heads and sent something through them that made both of them feel instantly stronger, wanting to run the rest of the way.

"At least carry me!"

Under the wreckage, Page was carefully putting in stitches or final touches to some metalwork, like leather handles or sheaths while chewing on a piece of meat. Utha was made to hammer out the impurities for them and Zeeth was covered away by a wall of old metals, greystone, and Lumos Gems.

Above him hovered many balls of water, smoothed out as perfectly as he could so that he could see the metalwork inside that was being cooled off.

He was swinging a new hammer, one that was made from as much concentrated greystone as Zeeth could get and a single large Lumos gem on the back to provide light. His table had turned a much darker shade, melting old metal against its underside by holding it there with its strings. A few of his slimes were helping him, hammering metals and cooling them down. he used his robotic hands to crush and mold rocks, gripping and crushing them like vices even without magic.

He finished work and threw it aside, into a ball of water where it hissed and cooled off. Pieces of metal swirled to him, a new idea coming to him immediately after finishing his last one. This time, he wanted to make a sword with another larger sword as its scabbard so that if the larger one broke, the second could be detached to be used again, as a dagger.

In all this time, he also checked out the abilities of the slimes that gained new abilities in the previous dragon fight. Meda, the dragon slime, was sprouting wings that were already twice the size of the slime, and shiny scales now covered every inch of the slime. The scales around its eyes moved to allow it to see like its personal eyelids.

And Mel, who acquired strengthened Black Magic, was able to make stronger black tornadoes and even make clumps of rocks or dead things to piece together and move like it was alive, making chunks of metal to fly together and walk itself to Zeeth like a clunky robot.

"Zeeth, I think we finally got the coin to work. It's powered by air and water but the ideas are there."

"Oh, awesome!" Page was holding a coin, a single styr that looked no different from any other. But when he tossed the styr into the air, four legs, single spiked legs like the spider-like legs Utha had on his contraption, sprung out. They unfolded like four toothpicks. It bounced around on the ground until it corrected itself and climbed around clumsily. Zeeth was moving its legs by moving around the water inside like hydraulic pumps, so they moved fast, but gracelessly.

"Soon, we can make them with magic circles."

"Oh, I think that is way too ambitious. For your complete idea, we will need plenty of circles in each of the four legs and joints for leg movement, a detection system so it can detect its surroundings and determine what's good or bad and a dictionary of sorts that contains what's good or bad, and a brain so that it can think what to do with the legs and what the eyes see. And you want to fit that all into a coin. No one has ever done something so… let's say ambitious-and succeeded."

In the knowledge he obtained, it tapped into the knowledge of magic circles. They were typically used to inscribe magic into objects to imbue them with magical powers and enchant them, the use of magic stones do something similar, it is just an easier form. It can also be used to enhance the power of circles. But circles can also be drawn in the ground or somewhere to allow faster or stronger casting of magic. Again, Magic stones do something similar.

He had no magic stones so he tried drawing a few magic circles, but without the proper equipment in the small smithy, he wasn't able to make any good ones. He had an ax that could divide the metal blade around the shaft as many times as he wanted, but they had trouble coming back as one blade.

Another sword was made to call upon the power of flames, but they were only able to draw in the flames from a few feet away by putting magic in the circle. He had etched the circle into the wooden part of the ax, the easiest part to etch in, so the mana that ran through the circle might eventually run the circle down and render it almost useless after enough uses.

The circles looked like mazes with letters and words mingled in the center, each new and different engraving produced a different spell or result. Technically, his odd creations were magic artifacts, but according to Page, they could hardly be considered so. They have ranked just barely within the Simple on the global standard artifact ranking chart.

"Are you sure this is your first time?" Utha asked while inspecting his magic circles. "Knowledge of the dwarves doesn't make you a master craftsman, how were you able to inscribe this with simple rocks and no support? My goodness, mine wasn't even this good until around the one-year mark. As much as I hate you all, this is damn impressive."

Taking the metal that he took from C.M. he made a few gauntlets and protective armor, enchanting them so they would fly to him when they sensed his mana reach their circles. In his memory, this was one of his greatest desires, that carried over even when it wasn't the actual story. He had always wanted to build something that would come flying to him when he needed it through science, but magic circles were even better. Sending out a wave of mana from his fist, they hit a gauntlet and it flew to his fists, where the mana had come from.

Admiring the gauntlet and moving his fingers around, he muttered, "Awesome!"

"You don't really need that, your slimes are stronger than those gauntlets."

"Yeah, but I made these. They feel so much cooler like I accomplished something to gain this."

"Stupid kids and their stupid idea…"

"Utha, go back to work. We still need to talk about your punishment with the others later."

"I'm telling ya, they won't believe you." This belief that Utha held was one of the only things holding him together, the strong belief that the other elders were going to believe his story instead of theirs. Otherwise, he would have given up a long time ago and suffered whatever punishments they had in store for him.

He wanted to use the dragon scales, but he felt he was still too inexperienced, so he held back and left the majority alone. He only tried to make a few small throwing knives

The inscriptions in the shield that Utha had were filled with magic circles made to absorb and release magic energy and it was made almost purely from magic stones. It was enhanced with so many techniques that it was physically brittle but the extraordinary ability to absorb and release magic makes it a valuable gem. There was even a circle that allowed it to take specific magic and regenerate cracks or broken bits in the shield as long as it was small enough.

"That shield isn't completed." Utha was hammering another sheet of metal while Zeeth was discussing it with Page.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, the creator of the shield told the five of us, the elders, that the shield wasn't completed. We don't know what he means, he just wanted us to figure out how to complete it. He wouldn't tell us what wasn't complete, or how to complete it. Made it some kind of challenge for us, to try to make us stick together. But he told us when it is done, the artifact will be much greater than it ever was before."

"Didn't Thraz say his brother made it? Why don't you ask him?"

"Yeah, he helped make it and, to be honest, he did a lot for the shield so credit lies where it's due. He was an impressive dwarf, too bad he didn't want to be an elder. But he wasn't the main creator, in the end, he was just a helper so he doesn't know either. The real creator is unknown, but we believe it was Faber in disguise. She just appeared one day, barged into a smithy, and made this for us. Told us what I basically just told you and left."

"Faber…"

They heard a knocking above them, the movement of hundreds of metal and rocks, and familiar voices of Gror and Drawk.

"Lift that metal thing there, it looks like one of Utha's weapons. Man, he is relentless. Ow, it's hot!"

"Gror? Drawk?"

"Zeeth? Are Page and Utha in there with you?"

"Yeah, they are! You would not believe this, Utha didn't want to die from old age so he made some other dwarf make a circle on her hand and make a contract. When that failed, he trapped us in here to try and kill us."

"Oh yeah, Alba foretold that Utha was going to come in contact with demonic forces."

"Wait, you believe them? No, no, I'm an elder! I would never risk that, please you have to believe me!"

"Utha," Drawk said, "we have been suspicious of you for a long time. You hated the middle dwarves, but you suddenly just started talking to one almost every day one time, you don't think we noticed?"

They heard a heave and a longsword sliced through the ceiling. Light, the first they had seen in nearly a week, shone through. A circle was sliced out and the ground fell down.

"Woah~. Look at all those weapons. You spent six days and made all those?"

"Wait, these are good. Utha, did you make these?" Dwark held a curved dagger with spikes on the side and a rocky handle. A messy circle was drawn into the handle. "What is this magic circle for?"

"I didn't make these, it was Zeeth. So I have no clue."

"Oh, that does this." he touched the circle and the blade opened like a pair of scissors. Taking his finger away, they snapped shut again.

They stared at it for a moment, then at him, and back again, mouths open. "Utha taught you? But how did you etch it?"

"That's not important!" Page said, "we've been in here for god knows how long, get us out!"

Gror told them, "Sense is up there too, say hi."

When they were all out, the three of them all breathed a sigh of relief, sucking in the fresh air.

"Hey, Leia. Your name is Sense now?"

"Psh, it's a stupid nickname. It'll blow over."

"No, it won't," Gror said, heaving himself up.

"Yeah, I sort of like it."

Drawk came up, put his fingers in his mouth, and whistled, "WHIIIIII!"

Two massive, brown and white eagles flew down from the skies, easily able to fit two to three people.

"Map eagles. Eagles that grow maps onto their backs. It's an evolutionary thing, the pattern on their back often grows to match the land that they live on and observe to help other eagles of its pack not get lost. These two here were tamed by the elves a while back and they were lent to us. They are amazing at remembering the landscape, they'll get us back in no time."

"Why didn't we use these when we came here?"

"It was faster to use Luik's hand to teleport at the moment. They were just sent after us."

"What about all the things Zeeth made?"

"We can carry a few, but not all. Leave anything you don't want behind, the less the better."

"What? But I want them all! Page, can you help?"

"Sorry, my bag is basically full from all those coolers."

"Fine. Can everyone take a few of my works? Actually, if you want anything, you can keep it."

When they were ready to get back on the eagles, Zeeth was full of blades and weapons, holding most of them with his slimes. He clunked around with his weapons and tried to get on a bird. But a single hand made the bird buckle so he had to secretly let most of his slimes go, rolling them off and making them wait to come by themselves.

"Zeeth," Page whispered, "pick those back up, we're not going to Fahlhala first. We need to kill those demons."

"Oh, right!"

"Guys, thanks for saving us, but we have to go somewhere first, go ahead and we'll follow along."

"Somewhere? For what?" Sense asked.

"Just… a thing we have to do."

"We have to find a weapon that we lost before this, it's really bothersome so you guys can go first. This way we can take more of these weapons first, we can get there in a few hours."

"Oh, alright. We just needed to figure out what was going on. Utha, come on."

The creatures were exactly as Page had described them. They were the size of babies, as tall as his knees and crouching to appear even smaller. They had heads that seemed too large for their small bodies and their skin was layered with a hard exoskeleton like self-made armor. Its entire body was one shade, a light yellow like old teeth.

A single leg held them up, it looked like two legs tied tightly together, mixed into one. Two arms protruded from where the ears should be and the torso was cut short for the lack of arms.

They hobbled around with difficulty at first as they came from the wavy tear in the air due to the leg but they soon corrected themselves by using their arms. A nubby balled-up fist opened into three, evenly spread and clawed fingers as they hopped around.

Page stabbed one of them with a sword and told Zeeth, "They're surprisingly fast, don't let them get away."

They had appeared at a hole in the ground quite a distance away. The rocks were yellow and dusty, but these three-fingered things had been clawing at the rocks from a hole that seemed to be torn in the sky. A wiggling spot in the air, like heat, was making an illusion, but he could also see a little red in the center, a dark red darker than blood.