Disclaimer: Anything in this story that relates to Forgotten Realms belongs to the Forgotten Realms people.
Nimor Imphraezel paced slowly back and forth in a dimly lit warehouse of an abandoned fish cannery. He was deep in thought as he walked past pallets of electronic hardware. A young Drow sat at a table beneath an orange light, paper in front of him, and quill in hand, waiting to write. "Dear Gromph," Nimor began.
"Dude, there's no way that thing could weigh eighteen tons!" Two other drow stood off to the side looking down at a titanium pallet. On the pallet rested a jet-black sphere the size of a marble.
"It's entirely possible!" the other Drow, whose name was Ysandro, replied. "When stars collapse on themselves, their atoms rearrange into denser substances."
"Bullshit!" the first Drow shot back. "Nothing can be that dense!"
"You don't believe me? Try to lift it."
The first Drow, whose name was Zeryk smirked at Ysandro and kneeled down, pinching the sphere between his fingers. He squeezed and his fingers slipped off. He glared at Ysandro. "You super-glued it didn't you?"
Ysandro shrugged. "Nimor would kill me if I did."
"To get revenge, Gromph," Nimor went on, "Is the sweetest feeling in the entire realms!"
A loud grunting noise caught Nimor's attention, and his sharp red eyes snapped over to Ysandro and Zeryk. Zeryk had his hands under the pallet's forklift openings, and was lifting as hard as he could.
"Leave it God Dammit!!" Nimor barked.
Zeryk jumped, then cringed under Nimor's glare. "My bad Boss!"
Nimor walked over to the pallet and looked at the sphere. "18.3 tons, to be exact, Zeryk." He waved his hand over the pallet and muttered a spell. The sphere floated off as if it were light as a feather.
Nimor summoned the sphere up into his hand, where the spell supported most of the weight, allowing Nimor to move it easily. He tossed it up and down a few times, then set it into a slow skim towards Zeryk, the spell holding it waist high. "Catch," he said.
Zeryk extended his hand and caught it, but the spell wasn't entirely in effect on him, and the sphere's inertia pushed his hand into his gut, and began pushing him towards the opposite warehouse wall. "What the hell? Nimor, stop it!"
Nimor laughed and watched on as Zeryk struggled to slow down. He hit the wall lightly, and doubled over as his hand was pushed deeper into his gut. "Point made, point made!" he yelled.
Nimor laughed some more. "Push you weakling!"
Zeryk grunted, and pushed with all his might, finally bringing the sphere to a stop, then reversing it's direction, ever so slowly. He put his feet against the wall and pushed with his legs, sending it at a snails pace towards Nimor.
Nimor crossed his arms, as if waiting impatiently, and the sphere dropped. It hit the floor with a tremendous cracking noise, and shattered a ten-foot diameter circle of concrete. Zeryk was thrown into the air and landed at Nimor's feet.
The unfortunate Drow was pulled roughly to his feet. "Make yourself useful for once!" Nimor growled threateningly. He slapped a credit chip into Zeryk's hand and shoved him towards the warehouse door. "Go buy us some lunch!"
Zeryk stumbled away as Nimor walked back to the table. "Where were we?"
The freight elevator reached the reactor level in less than a minute, doors sliding open upon arrival. Gromph strode into the room with Frank in tow, examining the interior as he did. The reactor level was nearly complete, with only a few wall panels removed, testing equipment wedged in between thousands of wires.
"What's the reactor status Frank?" Gromph asked.
"The reactor itself is complete, but we're not connected to the bridge yet, and the controllers for the coolant pumps haven't had a test run yet." Frank scratched his chin and motioned to the rear of the level. "Out of those three generators, we have one running so far, enough to provide power for a test run.
"Yes..." Gromph muttered. "Have a water line attached from the building. We're going to run a shakedown cycle, now."
"Yes sir!" Frank pulled out a cell phone and began talking to someone. Gromph walked over to the half-dome set into the deck, the reactor vessel visible through the double paned glass windows in the sides. Soft blue lights lit underneath the vessel as Gromph approached, the glow giving off an unexplainable aura. The aura of power... Gromph decided.
A clunking noise underneath the ship sounded the arrival of the water line, and a loudspeaker above Gromph crackled to life. "All airship construction personnel, shakedown cycle will begin in twenty minutes. Any personnel not wearing a Nuclear Certification badge must leave the airship dock until further notice."
The sound of running liquid filled the reactor level as water began circulating through the reactor vessel. The freight elevator doors opened then, and a team of nuclear engineers flooded into the room. One was shouting orders as he walked toward Gromph with a laptop under his right arm.
"Mr. Baenre." The man nodded his head in greeting and set the laptop on the desk. "We don't have the controller software loaded into the rector computers yet, but we have it on here, we should be able to run a shakedown cycle without a problem. We've also added temporary controller software for the coolant pumps."
"Very well." Gromph carried the computer into the control room and plugged it into a nearby port. Taking a quick look at the source code, he ran the software, and seeming satisfied, turned to the man behind him. "The controls are set, your team may begin when ready."
The man nodded and walked over to the intercom headset lying on the control desk. The rest of the reactor team was out making last minute inspections, and they all looked up from their work when the intercom blared, "Reactor team, report."
The sole speaker in the control room clicked on as the team members made their reports.
"Pump status, green."
"Neutron injection system, green."
"Backup power, green."
"Control rods, green."
"Systems cross-check green across the board."
As the team filed into the control room, they sat down at their designated terminals and double-checked the system monitors. "We're ready," one called out.
The team director sitting next to Gromph tapped his keyboard. "Control rod interference is set at ninety percent. Awaiting your orders sir."
Gromph nodded. "Do it."
The director tapped the keyboard again, and the reactor monitors flickered, percentages and numbers dancing across the screens as the reactor quietly jumped to life.
"We have a sustained reaction fissioning at ten percent," one team member announced. "Core temperature at one-hundred-seventeen-point-eight-nine degrees and climbing."
The reactor level shuddered as the coolant pumps came online. Gromph stood up and addressed the director. "Keep it in shakedown mode for a full thirty-five hours and call me when you're done."
A few of the team members groaned, and one muttered, "..wife's gonna be pissed!"
The director glared at them then nodded to Gromph. "Will do sir."
"I'll take my leave then." Gromph turned and walked out the door.
The room erupted into a jumble of complaints all aimed at the director. "Hey, HEY!" he yelled above the voices. "You all know the drill, shakedown mode is the most critical time in a reactor's life. It's the time when something can go wrong! We'll just have to bear with the hours, order some pizza, bring down some movies, whatever floats your boat. Good? Okay!" He sat back down, folded his arms on the table and laid his head on them.
"Shitty..." he muttered.