Zach stretched out on his back, yawning a bit as he stared up at the sky and watched the clouds pass over head, taking a few minutes of rest after having cleared the dirt walls from their temporary camp to make room for the basalt they had collected.
After letting out yet another yawn, Zach turned his head to the side, watching as Gweniver continued sorting random objects out of her bag and placing certain items into the chest she had crafted next to the Condenser as the Furnace continued cooking whatever it was she had placed within it.
"Hey, Gwen. How much longer is your magic box going to take to make the bricks?" Zach called over to her before yawning slightly once more.
"It's Gweniver." She corrected him, yet again, "And the Condenser won't take too long as soon as I find the right materials to put into it. I'd rather not waste anything valuable on creating bricks."
"What's the big deals? If it can make a bunch of anything by placing other stuff in it, then can't you just remake whatever you use with something else?"
"Yes and no." Gweniver responded before pulling out a gemstone and a stick from her bag and turning towards Zach while holding the items up for him to see. "You see these? The Condenser works with EE, or Equivalent Exchange. Every item in our world has a value in EE. Some things have a much higher value than others and so when their value is exchanged for something with a lower value, we can make more of the less valuable item. Like this gemstone, it is extremely valuable and worth a lot of EE. However, this stick has a very low value. If I placed these into the Condenser, I could use the gemstone to make hundreds, possibly thousands of stick, but I would need to find thousands of sticks if I wanted to exchange them for a new gemstone. Understand?"
Zach stared back at her for a moment, his eyes traveling from the stick to the gemstone to the Condenser and finally back to Gweniver before asking, "So... are the bricks ready yet?"
Gweniver huffed and threw the stick over Zach's head before turning back to the chest and continuing to sort through her bag, "I thought you said you wanted to learn about magic!"
"I do!" Zach demanded while pushing himself up to a sitting position. "You put a thing into the magic box and you get another thing, I got, sort of... That's kind of boring magic though. Can't you make stuff that shoots fireballs or something? You know, cool stuff!"
"Because having an unlimited supply of whatever you want is so boring..." Gweniver mumbled to herself before finally finding what she was looking for in her bag.
Gweniver proudly pulled the strange, dark colored square contraption out of her magical bag and placed it on the ground next to the Condenser before pulling three more, light colored block shapes out of the bag and placing them around the first box. Gweniver checked over her new creation to make sure everything was working properly, smirking a bit under her mask as she spotting Zach staring at the new sight in amazement.
"Impressed now?" Gweniver asked him, a bit mockingly, "These three Collectors will now draw in energy from the sun, or any light source around them and transfer that energy into this Relay. The Relay will feed the energy directly into the Condenser, providing an unlimited source of energy for the Condenser, as long as there is light for the Collectors of course. Pretty cool, isn't it?"
"So, they're like Solar Panels?"
"NO!" Gweniver snapped, "I mean... Yes, they draw energy from the sun, but they're so much better than silly Solar Panels. We can do so much more with this energy. We could even eventually use it to create you something to shoot fireballs."
"Really?!" Zach leaped up in excitement, only to feel his head spin before stumbling backwards, falling back to the ground.
"Zach!" Gweniver yelled, racing over to him, "Are you okay? What happened?"
Zach rubbed his eyes before pushing himself back up. Sitting now, he looked up towards Gweniver, blinking a few times before responding, "Yeah, not really sure to be honest. Everything just kind of started spinning really fast and I got really dizzy..."
Gweniver stared back at him for a moment before his words finally hit her, though the convenient timing of his stomach growling at the both of them may had helped.
With a short sigh, Gweniver asked, "You never found anything to eat, did you?"
"...uh...no." Zach replied, a sheepish smile creeping across his face.
Gweniver rolled her eyes as she walked back over to the Condenser, checking over the amount of energy it had stored thus far and placing a Basalt brick she had already crafted earlier into the main slot of the Condenser. She then grabbed her sword she had left next to the chest and turned to Zach.
"Stay here, Zach, and for the love of everything don't touch anything. The Condenser is creating bricks, it should have plenty by the time I get back. I'll go see if I can find you something to eat. I think I remember passing an Apple Tree the other day."
With that said, Gweniver headed down the hill and towards the woods to search for food.
Jumping over a small stream, Gweniver hurried back towards the base, the sun quickly setting behind her. It had taken her much longer than she thought it would to locate some food for her vegetarian friend. Her bag now full of apples and a few seeds she had found along the way, Gweniver raced back home, praying everything was still fine.
As Gweniver crossed the tree line and entered the field before their base, she froze, staring at the dark brick walls on the top of the hill. More confused than worried now, she continued up the hill, locating the door and slowly stepped inside.
The walls formed a complete square, all sides tall enough to keep out monsters while protecting anything within. Each wall was lit with a torch, as well as a circle of torches around the Condenser and the Collectors. Lastly, Gweniver located Zach sitting on the ground next to a bed by the chest and furnace, poking the ground with the stick she had thrown at him earlier.
Zach looked up as he noticed Gweniver walking closer, that big grin of his returning instantly.
"Welcome back, Gwen!"
"My name..." Gweniver sighed and shook her head before looking back at Zach, "Did you do all of this?"
"Yeah! Took me a while though, kept falling over, but I think I followed where you marked out the walls close enough. I also figured we could use some beds but you only had enough wool in your chest for one. I took your sheers outside and looked around for some more sheep but I couldn't find anymore, sorry." Zach smiled up at Gweniver apologetically as she stared back at him, literally speechless.
Gweniver took one more look around them, at everything he had done. She walked over to the Condenser, checking it over, confirming that it was still functioning perfectly.
"Are you okay, Gwen?" Zach asked, watching her strange behavior. "Did you find anything to eat?"
Finally snapping out of her shocked stupor, Gweniver opened her bag and handed Zach a few of the apples she had found earlier, which he gratefully accepted.
"Thanks, Gwen! These look awesome. I owe you." Zach cheered happily before munching on one of the apples.
Gweniver smiled under her mask and shook her head, "No, Zach. You really don't. And don't worry about the single bed, you can have this one. You've had a harder day today than me, you could use the rest."
Zach blinked up at her, swallowing a mouth full of apple before asking, "You sure? I mean, the beds not that small, we could probably both fit on it."
Gweniver let out a hearty laugh as she turned to her chest and started transferring the apples from the bag into the chest, "Yeah, no, I don't think so. I like my space when I'm trying to sleep. I'll just make my own bed tomorrow. Another night on the ground won't kill me."
"Are you really sure you don't want the bed, Gwen?"
"Just take the bed!" Gweniver snapped, causing Zach to stuff a huge bite of apple into his mouth, if anything just to stop himself from asking again.
Author's Notes!
Hey guys! Luka here dropping a new fic!"The Darkhold Chronicles" is a collab fanfic series between myself and ShadowDragonia ( ) over on DeviantART
The Darkhold Chronicles is a genderswap fanfic based around The Blackrock Chronicles
Basically, Shadow will write one chapter and then I will write the other! I will be posting both sides on here since she doesn't have a FF. So, so follow her on DA if you have one! She also made the cover art so you guys should really show her some love :3