--belated donation bonus (day 5/7, page 2/3)--
“So you don’t really know,” said Lynn.
“If it is such a moral quandary for you, then you can simply avoid absorbing souls,” said Haqq. But at Lynn’s persistent look, he added, “Yes, we do not know, because there is currently no way to know. There exist no scientific instruments which can aid us in studying souls.”
‘None that WE know of at least,’ corrected Sazandara. ‘Haqq is very intelligent, and you should listen to him, but he is also more of a hardware man than anything. We haven’t devoted much time to studying souls other than to observe the enhanced physical properties they may provide for our technology.’
Lynn, of course, heard nothing of what the reaper said, and Haqq didn’t seem too keen to reiterate it to her, so Hector had to struggle through it. Sazandara helped him out by repeating a few of the things she said.
In the meantime, Garovel took the opportunity to address Haqq again. ‘I was wondering if you might do me a small favor.’
“What sort of favor?”
‘My servant is a materialization user. Would it be possible for you to confirm his element for us? We believe it to be iron, but we’re not one hundred percent certain.’
Haqq eyed Hector with an overwhelming degree of disinterest. Then he held out his hand. “Make a flat disc for me, just small enough to fit in my palm here.”
With hesitance, Hector did so. The metal accumulated in the man’s hand and formed a perfectly smooth and round disc.
Haqq cocked an eyebrow at the metal. Perhaps he’d been expecting something shoddier-looking. Or perhaps he thought Hector wouldn’t even be able to do it in the first place. Haqq lifted the disc to his ear and rapped a knuckle against it, listening to the ring. After a moment, he tossed the disc back to Hector. “You were right. It is iron.”
Hector annihilated the disc instead of catching it.
‘I was hoping for something a bit more rigorous and definitive,’ said Garovel, eyeing Sazandara. ‘Not that I don’t trust your servant’s ear.’
Haqq gave an irritated sigh.
‘Haqq would be delighted to assist you,’ said Sazandara. ‘He will perform an emission spectrometric analysis for you. Isn’t that right, Haqq?’
The man had nothing to say.
Sazandara’s skeletal grin widened. ‘It shouldn’t take him very long. He’s very skilled. Come back tomorrow.’
‘Much appreciated,’ said Garovel.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
It's been a long time since I asked, so if you guys don't mind voting for TZK over at Top Web Fiction, then please do. We've been doing pretty well there lately, what the recent increase in readership 'n all. So thanks, everybody.
ReplyDeleteHaha nice! I don't know if you took my suggestion or you had it planned out that way in the first place :)
ReplyDeletewohoo we finally get an answer to what his element is
ReplyDeleteI am really looking forward to finding out what happens next.
ReplyDeleteAnd now the wait continues.
:)
ReplyDelete<3
ReplyDeleteHector's element is actually just really hard butter with gray food coloring.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that a biological weapon? :)
ReplyDeleteSeems a bit weak though. Why couldn't it be chocolate. Death by chocolate. Think his enemies will even line up to be fed..er I mean killed. I can forsee food fights.
While it may be a biological weapon in it's present state it gives Hector a huge number of elements that he can materialise if he learns how to purify them.
ReplyDelete"The main elements present in butter in
non-trace amounts are hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur.
Other elements present in lower amounts include phosphorous, potassium,
sodium, chlorine, zinc, iron, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. There are
very small amounts of other elements present, including selenium and
fluorine."
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_elements_are_present_in_butter
Haqq is kind of a dick. Sazzy's all right though. I'm beginning to wonder what his servant ability is, and how much he's developed it. I'll go out on a limb and assume that he doesn't have a ton of time for all that spiritual meditation bullshit, what with science and his growing collection of Dozerian romance novels, and he doesn't seem like the sort of dude to go risking his life just for a chance at emergence.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but I get the feeling he's actually pretty old.
ReplyDelete....he's gonna die before he can get back to Hector on the element issue, isn't he?
ReplyDeleteCan it be spread on toast
ReplyDeleteHopefully something doesn't happen before the analysis is done.
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention it... yes, yes he will.
ReplyDeleteEither that or he will be kidnapped or Hector will have to leave to visit the Rainlords.
hector will be so shocked to hear that
ReplyDeleteYou got up to the #1 slot in the 24-hour interval. And you're in 4th in the 1-week interval. No change in the yearly interval though. Still, good job!
ReplyDeleteStop giving the author ideas!!
ReplyDeleteThe anticipation is killing me!!!!! Also congrats on being 4th on Top Web Fiction!
ReplyDeleteI suggest reminding us to vote there every chapter. Given that you can vote for as many things there as you want, it means that you aren't even asking us to support you as our favourite. I often forget to refresh my vote, anyway, and you do a favour for several other serial killers/authors by reminding me to vote for them, as well.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, that thought led me into wondering who would win, should every author there assume a power set from their story and duke it out in an arena.
If it ends up being a rare element, it could be valuable and usable in some scientific studies and help solve his housing and the queens banking issue. That would be to convenient, but I want it to be something other iron after all the iron??? or at least iron and some other elements. Materialization users can have more than one element as displayed by some rainlords manifesting a water ability. Please let their be something else or this would have been very trollish.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if Hector's got invar for an element. It's an alloy of iron and nickel (with a few impurities), and is characterised by low variability of volume across a wide range of temperatures, while otherwise resembling iron or steel. It's ferromagnetic. Given that he may be taking a trip to the centre of the earth, eventually, a power that allows him to construct temperature resistant structures will be quite useful, and may give him an edge when fighting Alteration, Transfiguration, and Materialization users that use heat, one way or another, to make his constructs nice and malleable.
ReplyDeleteNeither of which are ferromagnetic...?
ReplyDeleteNow, tungsten carbide seems to have some odd properties that I can't quite decipher. It's a grey-black lustrous solid, for instance, and might possibly be ferromagnetic, or maybe simply becomes magnetic when induced with an electric field? Maybe? It's also chemically simple, with the formula WC. On the other hand, it's nearly twice as dense as iron, so unless Haqq really wasn't paying attention here...
ReplyDeleteKensei, if you really get technical, which I seriously advise against while reading a fantasy, "organic" material are mostly CHON anyway (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen) broken down to most basic elements, even your skin, muscles etc etc. Packaged right, any ingredient list can scare anyone away. :) Di-hydrogen oxide anyone? :P (H2O)
ReplyDeleteActually, even the fact that he can create something from nothing solves his money problems already, the cost just reflects on how much he has to make.
ReplyDeleteAnd metal prices are through the roof these days. The news just focuses on "big" issues, but I know of cases where people steal copper wires and pipes and manhole covers to smelt down and resell. Including some facepalm incidents of people trying to steal copper wire... from a live ground wire. Darwin Award that one.
Stealing copper can get some appreciable money for an individual (or at least, I hope it can, considering those dumbasses are risking their lives), but there's no way Hector could get enough money selling iron to a whole country from bankruptcy without crashing the market.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that would be bad for him: it would limit his upper materialization limit any time he was near some building where they used his iron.
Maybe it's whatever he THINKS it is. So they first thought it was iron, therefore it's iron. Then later we will find out that he can actually materialise any atom or molecule he wants! *Mwuhahahahaha*
ReplyDeleteLater: Yup, just iron. Nooooooo!
Di-hydrogen monoxide sounds fancier. :D
ReplyDeleteFML really? I thought tungsten was for sure....guess I should've used google.
ReplyDeleteMy money is on tungsten or titanium,because reasons.
ReplyDelete