The mountains still felt like they hummed with storms, even though Elmore had returned from Stratum Beta months ago. The thunder in his bones had not passed, nor the ache of things he wished he could forget. Each day pressed harder than the one before, as if the whole valley expected him to keep dragging the world forward with his bare hands. The seat of his power had grown, his family had grown, his responsibilities had grown. And yet, no matter how many victories they claimed, he still carried the weight of the two men who had not come back.
The funeral was held in the cool of the morning, though even the shadows of the chestnut trees seemed heavy. The graveyard lay within his personal land, a place reserved for all who had fallen under his watch. It was quiet here, except for the shovels of Men holding grief with silent actions. Family and crew all taking turns digging side by side, shoulders rolling with the strain, sweat soaking through shirts as they worked in silence. What has now become tradition demands the dead be laid to rest by the hands that had fought and lived with them, those who had loved them and were willing to die with them. To Elmore’s sorrow his calloused palms did not blister anew on the shovel handle as he knew it would have long ago, wishing for the pain of the body to take away the pain within his soul, but even so he worked without pause while everyone else took turns he stayed in the dirt until the two pits were clean and deep enough for their long rest.
By the time the coffins were carried forward, the grass and stones were black with footprints. Most of Lakevail had come, hundreds of those closest to these men filling the thick forested mountain side and spilling into Elmore's yard, around him was a wall of solemn faces.
The coffins, built of black cherrywood polished to a sheen, bore the weight of men who had walked through fire with him, sang songs while dancing around volcanic calderas, men who fished with him on days of leisure or came over for dinner so they could get to know each other's families, he had learned all he needed to know but it didn't feel like enough and truly never would. Elmore stood at their head. His formal clothes clung damp with dew and sweat. Today, he did not look like a calm chief, or an intimidating warlord, or even a man of leadership. He looked like a man just lost some of his closest friends to date.
When their families approached him , he lowered his head inwardly hoping for forgiveness knowing he shouldn't. He took their hands, cold palms, shaking fingers, the sudden grip of grief, and he spoke in low words meant for them alone.
To Tim’s mother, her eyes rimmed raw and wet, he whispered, “I remember every time your boy whistled before a hunt. The same tune, every single time. He said it kept the mind calm. I can still hear it.” She looked at him like a banshee who had lost her voice and softly spoke asking to know the song. Her breath caught and she pressed her forehead against his knuckles as Elmore's mind reached out to a once good memory that now felt like glass and began to whistle a perfect rendition of what Tom had always used to calm himself, only after a few moments in for her eyes to lock onto his with startling recognition before closing her eyes to listen. When he was done the woman thanked him before crumpling into herself.
A man walked up to him introducing himself as Frank’s son, a man with children of his own now, hydra had found him while they were still lost in that hell, he tells Elmore he arrived after the battle was over only to find his father's body without the warmth to greet him, voice rough with strain. Elmore could have said many things but he landed on a memory that was simply Frank “Your father sharpened his blade three times before he ever called it ready. It was his way of making sure death came clean, he told me . I saw it every time and whenever we interrupted him he would stop, listen, and grunt like an angry old hound and start over, always leaving us with a few words to keep us going. He was a good man even if he was grumpy..” Elmore let a beat pass before speaking again “ your father spoke of you a lot down there in the dungeon, told us he looked for you, he missed you and wished to give you what he left so if you and your family wish to stay you can, no papers needed.”
Aither Memory bound him to these recollections, whether he wanted them or not. They etched into him, sharp and permanent. But here, they became gifts. Fragments of life handed back to the grieving. Memories to make the dead live again, if only for a heartbeat in the minds of their kin.
“You trusted me with your son and with your father,” Elmore said, cupping their hands in his own, meeting each gaze until his eyes burned. “And I brought them back in the only way I could. I'm sorry I couldn't do more, they live on inside ourselves. I swear they will not be forgotten, not by me or this world. They cannot be, but why is something that doesn't need to be said. It may not be much, but they will be legends, if not tomorrow then one day after.”
The silence of the crowd deepened as the coffins were lowered. Shovels moved again, and the earth swallowed them. Overhead, clouds shifted across the September sky, dimming the light. When the last clod fell, two mithril-plated headstones gleamed above the graves, each etched with their faces on the front and words chosen by the families on the back. Eternal markers, cold and shining.
Ditzy lay pressed against Elmore’s boots the whole time, the massive dog’s head low against the grass. She had hunted with them both. She remembered in her own way and her morning was just as true as his own.
When the testimonials were finished, Elmore climbed the small stage. He turned to the sea of faces and let his voice carry.
“I will not tell you the cost of leadership is hard,” he said, rough and steady. “Because what you feel outstrips anything I feel. But I will carry it. Even if it drowns me. I will carry it for them. And for you. Thank you all.” he didn't have much left to say outside that.
The valley answered him, not with cheers, but with a sound deeper than words. A hum began in the chest of one, then another, until it swelled into a low, rolling chorus. A hymn without words. The birds calls and the insects dronning in the trees lent their voices to it, high and piercing. Ditzy brought in a baritone that reverberated the earth.
To Elmore’s eyes, the Aither shifted. The song bent it, pulled it. He saw threads of light, subtle and slow, sinking into the graves. A dirge in energy, like coins dropped into a ferryman’s palm.
He did not know what it meant, not truly, but he knew what it was to him. The sound of a people binding themselves tighter, choosing again to be one.
When Elmore and his family made it back home, the mood hung heavy but not unbearable. They let themselves drift into small comforts, Ash curling up on the couch while Edward sprawled out on the rug with Ditzy’s massive head acting as his pillow. The stories came gently at first, with Elmore sharing a few small memories of Tim and Frank that hadn’t been spoken yet, some lighthearted, some ridiculous, and some that drew quiet smiles. Edward, curious as always, prodded for details, asking about the time Tim supposedly wrestled a salamander the size of a horse that crawled out of the river after the last expansion, or how Frank had once fallen asleep snoring loudly on guard duty only to claim he had been meditating. Even in grief, the telling let the air grow warmer.
When dinner was laid out, pork roast pulled from the brick smoker in the yard, cornbread cut thick, and bacon and beans seasoned heavy with new herbs from the dungeon, conversation stilled a little. The silence stopped being sharp, instead it turned round and softened, like coals left glowing after a fire had died down. Midway through the meal, Elmore leaned back, holding a chunk of meat on his fork, and asked Ash in a low voice, “You got anything planned tomorrow?”
She shook her head, green eyes catching the light from the moon streaming in through the window, framing her face in an almost marble luster “Nothing I can’t push off. What’s on your mind?”
Elmore took a bite of his meat and smiled saying, “You want to go out tomorrow? Just you and me. A proper date.”
Edward’s head snapped up from his plate. “Hey, that’s not fair! I wanna go too.”
Elmore reached across the table, ruffled his son’s hair until it stuck up wild, and chuckled. “We’ll go do something together the day after tomorrow buddy. Just you, me, and Ditzy if she’s up for it. But tomorrow’s a date with your mom.”
Edward pouted, but not for long. He shoved his fork into his beans and muttered, “Fine… but you better not have too much fun without me.”
Ash laughed softly, shaking her head at both of them. The rest of the evening wound down in peace, the family gathered in a quiet ease that didn’t chase grief away but at least gave it somewhere to sit that wasn’t so raw.
By dawn, Elmore was awake and padding into the kitchen only to find the smell of fried eggs, biscuits and sausage gravy already heavy in the air. Ash stood at the stove in her robe, hair tied back, humming faintly as she worked. The sight stopped him in his tracks. For all the might and chaos of his world, this was the anchor he leaned on most.
They sat together at the table with Edward still dozing in bed, it being the weekend and all. Between bites, Ash tried to prod the day out of him. “So, where are we going? What’s the plan?”
Elmore chewing slowed, then shrugged. “Don’t know yet. What do you want to do?”
She tapped her finger against her mug, thinking. “Well… we could go to the movies. Three new ones came out this year, and they’ve got a few reruns too. Or we could drive down to the river now that the roads are finished. I'd love a swim. I heard they’ve set up stalls and shops along the bank. Or…” her eyes narrowed slyly, “we could check on some of those projects I've been too busy for all the details on. You give me little tidbits occasionally, but I never get the whole picture.”
Elmore smirked at that, but she wasn’t done. “And maybe dinner at that new restaurant in the dungeon. Though that’d be a long drive if you’re feeling lazy.”
He leaned back, crossing his arms. “Why not all of it?”
Ash laughed, rolling her eyes. “Of course you’d say that. Then we better get moving now before the day’s gone.”
They loaded up into their silver car, its retrofitted mithril frame gleaming faintly in the pale morning light. The engine purred low, more a steady sound closer to a lawnmower than the rumble of the beast, and Ash settled into the passenger seat with an amused sigh. Elmore turned down the old holler road, the one on his own land he’d refused to let be modernized. Gravel cracked under the tires, trees bent close overhead, as they made their way to the tunnel that leads down into the hollows where the air smelled of wet iron and coal dust.
After a short drive they reached the Marquee Cinema, the hollow had opened up a lot recently with more towers being built on the surface allowing more commercial and industry to take over the old residential areas and cool tunnels. Wind slipped through in steady drafts pulled in and circulated using the giant vents scattered around, carrying an eerie but strangely peaceful tone. Posters lined the wall outside the theater, some crisp with new ink, others a little faded or hand drawn by someone with frankly mesmerizing skill.
Ash’s eyes darted to one immediately. “The Skill of the Gentleman. That one.” Her smile had the gleam of a woman who already knew what she wanted.
Elmore snorted. “Romance? Really? I was leaning toward The Blue Tick Returns.” He pointed at the brightly colored poster showing an ultrabuff man in a blue suit with antenna on his head at the front and a group of equally outlandish bug themed heroes around him. “Classic 90’s character saves the world with a pack of misfits. That’s real cinema.”
“You just want to watch your childhood come back to life,” Ash teased.
“And you want to watch some guy figure out what women want, like that’s not the most cursed skill imaginable,” he fired back.
The back-and-forth stretched longer than it needed to, with Elmore grinning stubbornly and Ash tossing jabs until finally, with a laugh that shook her shoulders, she gave in. “Fine. Neither of us gets our way. We’ll watch the other one.”
They ended up settling on the third new release: a low-budget horror flick titled Plasma Invaders from the Sun and Martian Demons unite, the fourth in the series. The poster showed glowing alien blobs clasping hands with horned demons above a frozen Antarctic fortress.
Inside, the theater was empty. Elmore had called while driving and asked the manager to keep a room just for them. They slid into the front row, holding hands while a platter of the theater owner’s famous hotdogs was brought out, from cows his family raised themselves.
The movie was ridiculous. The effects were practical and had almost no digital assets outside the Solarians, the acting the best kind of over-the-top, and the plot barely held itself together but came together in the end in a twist that the humans had backup from the living jellyfish farts from Jupiter. But as the screen flashed with red-tinted explosions and melodramatic screams, Elmore and Ash leaned into each other, laughing through mouthfuls of hotdog, fingers brushing now and then.
After leaving the theater, Elmore made a point to thank the manager personally. He clasped the man’s hand, offered a few words about the hotdogs being as good as he remembered, and only then did he and Ash step back out into the parking lot cave. They slid into the silver painted car, the mithril skin gleaming underneath like it had underflow LEDs , and drove on through the town center toward the river.
The town continued to grow more and more alive in a way it hadn’t been even a year ago. Vendors called out from corners, children wove through the streets laughing, and the turquoise towers of Lakevail stretched tall against the trees of the valley. Ash leaned her head out the window, eyes catching on the rows of new greenhouses climbing the ridges like glass terraces.
“What are those?” she asked.
Elmore slowed the car, glancing over the rim of the steering wheel. “ I know you saw the announcements but i’ll humor you, expanded food production line. We are now feeding the entire county after that the state and I have hopes we can feed most of the country in another decade”
Ash gave him a skeptical look, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “The whole country? Baby, won't that make us too stretched out. What happens if we come up short? What if, ”
He cut her off gently, his voice steady. “We won’t. We’re already far past the point where we’ll ever run out for ourselves, plus this is worth doing. My sister was right.”
Ash scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Your sister’s always right about everything, isn’t she?” The bite in her tone wasn’t hidden. She leaned back in her seat, the emerald shine in her eyes narrowing as she continued, “I still can’t believe she came in here acting like she owned the place. Tried to tell us how to run things, what we were doing wrong. And you should have seen her while you were gone, bossing people around like they’d fall in line. Nobody listened, and it drove her crazy.”
She crossed her arms, still simmering. “Apparently she led a biker gang, turned bandit crew, then landed in a Mexican prison, then as she was making her way east she fought off three different lords, took their land, and just… walked away. That woman is insane.”
Elmore laughed deep in his chest, shaking his head. “Yeah. She’s crazy. But she’s mine. I love her. She is the way she is for a reason.”
That softened Ash just enough. She gave him a sideways glance, lips twitching in spite of herself, and soon the edge of her annoyance turned back to banter. The radio crackled out country music, voices twanging against the rhythm of grit under the wheels, and the valley slipped by.
The New River was beautiful when they arrived, towering mountains with layer upon layer of treetops swaying in the breeze, while building sized rocks sit on the bank of the opposite bank where they fell from above eons ago. The water shimmered, broken by the occasional flash of scales, giant salamanders lazing in the depths, electric catfish rippling currents with a glow, the kind of hazards you only noticed if you weren’t careful. Guards patrolled lazily along the banks, most more occupied with chatting up bathers than watching for fish, but still enough to make sure families are safe.
Elmore parked close to the beach. The two of them kicked off their shoes, stripped down to their swimming clothes and waded straight in, the warm rush of the river refreshing. They swam, and dove, tossed stones across the surface. Elmore managed five skips on one throw, which earned him Ash’s mock applause before she nailed him with a splash of water. They played Marco Polo like they were kids again, their laughter mixing with the noise of twenty other swimmers scattered across the shore.
Eventually, dripping wet and sunlit, they wandered up toward a little shack built at the edge of the sand. A cheerful Chinese man stood behind the counter, beaming wide. Behind him, tiny rice golems bustled about, cooking each other with squeaks of glee before hopping onto plates. Each one bowed and waved before sitting down neatly in its dish.
“Thank you, thank you, sir!” the man exclaimed when he spotted Elmore. “So glad to meet you! And thank you for letting people from other countries that have been naturalized in America join your community. It means so much to me and my family.”
Elmore smiled warmly, accepting the plate. “No problem at all sir if you made it in, I know you can be trusted so keep the work up, and you will get on great, and appreciate your work too. Tell me though, do we just… eat them? ”
Ash chimes in “ yeah I don't wanna hurt the little guy he is so cute” while her food looks up at her with its blank rice face and waves.
“Yes!” the man replied, eyes twinkling. “They enjoy it. Strangely enough but true. Their hands are calamari, their heads filled with catfish eggs and with some surprises everywhere else, they get creative. See?”
The rice golem on Elmore’s plate stood, puffed out its chest, and then jabbed a tiny fist into his open mouth. Elmore bit down, chewing with a grin. Ash giggled, lifting her own dainty golem by the feet. She nibbled it slowly, then laughed. “Mine’s got peanut pork inside the feet.” as it seems to giggle upside down being eaten
After they finished eating, they thanked the man, licking their fingers clean, before strolling through the line of novelty shops that had sprung up along the bank. The farther they went, the denser the crowd became. A juggler spun rocky squirrels through the air who were on their own juggling acorns , a woman sang while flowers bloomed at her feet and playing out an interpretive performance of Shrek 2, and a group of kids gathered to listen to their teacher on an outside teaching day levitate rocks as though they were planets and teaching them about all the life now found on them and what to expect if we go there one day, Elmore notes Pluto among the planets, he smiles glad he had brought up that it bothered him it wasn’t anymore in a weekly townhall, and wished it was at least an honorary planet for its history, and everyone agreed so now its local law, the thought made him laugh.
Elmore realized with a slow nod that grown past just a marketplace. It was the bones of a new settlement, a little riverside town budding under his nose. Sooner or later, it would be folded into Lakevail proper when the towers get built out this far, but for now it had a spirit of its own.
Ash walked beside him, laughing and pointing out the oddities, until finally she leaned into the car seat on the ride out and turned to him, voice edged with mock seriousness. “Alright. You told me about the food. But what else? What else did your sister push you into changing? Baby. I want the whole reason. Because I get the food. But what else have you been cooking up?” with a smile
Elmore smiled, hands steady on the wheel. “Well,” he said slowly, “we’re sitting in the first one.”
Ash tilted her head, green eyes narrowing just a touch. “Clarification, love. You can’t just toss out a line like that and not explain it.”
Elmore gave a short breath of a laugh and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as they coasted up into the valley road. The Beast purred beneath them, steady as a heart. He gestured with his free hand, pointing through the windshield at a row of cars ahead. “Look, see those? The bodies, the frames, even the hoods. All swapped for mithril plating. And those towers, ” He nodded to the skyline where half-built spires glittered like wet stone in the sun. Entire sections of scaffolding held sheets of pale turquoise metal that gleamed unnaturally bright. “Every wall, every beam we can replace, we are. Hydra’s running it nonstop. Haven’t you noticed it?”
She blinked and leaned toward the glass, lips parting as the thought clicked into place. “Yes but even our car?”
“Even our car,” he confirmed, patting the dashboard affectionately. “The whole valley’s shifting under your feet, Ash. We’re preparing for the worst. Hydra told me, back before I went into Stratum Beta, that if we ever ended up at blows with the federal government… their plan would be to nuke us if they couldn’t win cleanly. Not immediately. Not unless they got desperate. But eventually.”
Ash’s hands twisted in her lap, slow and careful, as though she were wringing water from a cloth. “God above.”
“That’s why,” Elmore went on, voice low and steady, “we’re making sure that if it comes to that, our people, our homes, our food supply, everything we can, will still stand. Mithril’s the only shot we’ve got. Glass is the weak point right now. But some of the things we dragged back from that volcanic hell down there… I think they’ll give us a shot at forging glass that’s just as strong.” He paused, eyes flicking over the traffic and the hard glimmer of construction work. “If it’s a normal hydrogen bomb, at least from what Hydra and I understand… mithril just might hold.”
Ash turned her gaze on him, her voice barely above a whisper. “Do you really think we can beat them, love? The federal government has the largest military on the planet. Even if it’s cracked and rusted and hollowed out these past years… they’re still stronger than the last time they marched here. Back then they weren’t even recognized by the Nexus. Now they are.” She swallowed hard. “You don’t think that matters?”
Elmore’s jaw set firm, but his words came measured, patient. “It matters. Of course it does. But it’s not just survival anymore. I’ve been planning. Every bit of goodwill we’ve sown, all the work, the hospitality, the projects, it’s right, it’s what should be done. But it also makes us untouchable in another way. If they attack, the optics are poisonous. The world’s watching, Ash. If we keep shining, if we keep doing right, an attack would look too damn ugly for them to risk.”
She exhaled slowly, unconvinced but thoughtful. “I hope you’re right. But maybe it’s time I step in a little more. My skills aren’t just for small talk anymore.”
His eyes darted to her. “What do you mean?”
“I’m level four now, El. I haven’t let myself grow weak. My streams, the interviews, the videos, they’re blowing up. People eat it up because I talk to them, not at them. And apparently…” she smiled faintly, the corners of her lips tugging upward, “…Silver Tongue works over a camera lens. Followers hit twenty million this week.”
Elmore jerked the wheel slightly before correcting. “twenty million? How in the hell did I not know about this?”
“You didn’t ask,” she teased, laying a gentle hand on his arm. “You’ve just supported me the whole way, and that’s enough. Don’t worry. It’s all helping.”
“I’ll look it over tonight,” he muttered, still half-stunned. “twenty million… Jesus, Ash.”
She laughed, leaning back against the seat. “I just talk to people here in town. I interview guards, craftsmen, families, and tourists. Let them tell their story. People love it. They love this place. And it makes them feel like they’re part of what you’re building. The feedback’s been overwhelming. Everyone says the same thing, that you’ve made it better. I just gather the proof.” Her grin softened, eyes catching his with warmth. “But there are things only you can show me. Things only the chief knows. I want those stories too.”
Elmore thought for a long beat, then cocked an eyebrow. “Why don’t you interview your own husband then?”
Ash burst into laughter, shaking her head. “Conflict of interest. Can’t be done.”
He smirked and, instead of arguing, turned the wheel toward the back roads. “Alright then. You want something only I can give? I’ll show you the lab. The one down in the hollows. My little pet project I’ve kept out of Hydra’s hands. Scientists working on things even I don’t touch, so I can keep my head on family and training.”
Her curiosity bloomed instantly, her posture leaning toward the windshield like a child seeing fireworks. “You’ve been hiding a lab from me?”
“Not hiding. Just… saving it.”
Elmore slowed the car as the mountain road wound downward, the headlights catching damp stone walls where the valley’s earth had been carved into descending terraces. The hollows spread beneath them like a hidden ribcage, each curve of land filled with darkened workshops and sleeping houses. Past the last tier of homes, where no lanterns burned and the sound of the river was little more than a muffled whisper, he turned down a stone track that looked like nothing more than a maintenance path.
The Beast’s tires crunched across it until they reached a rock face where steel doors, half-buried under moss, waited. AIther lights, faint and pale green, lined the arch above the entry, a marker only those who knew what to look for would recognize.
“This is it,” Elmore said, putting the truck in park. “Deepest part of the hollows. I had the engineers carve a shaft straight through the limestone to make it work.”
Ash leaned forward, peering at the heavy doors. “Doesn’t look like much for your so-called secret lab.”
“That’s the point,” Elmore answered with a grin. “What matters is inside.”
He pressed his palm to the black screen set in the wall. With a muted hum the mechanism stirred, and the doors drew apart just enough to reveal an elevator cage. A rush of cold, mineral air drifted up from the depths.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
They stepped inside, and the doors clanged shut. The elevator jolted, then began its slow descent. Ash clutched the rail, peering through the grated floor at the shaft spiraling beneath them. The walls flickered with embedded Aither lamps that grew brighter as they sank deeper. The ride went on long enough for her to arch a brow at him.
“Just how far down did you put this place?”
“Far enough that nobody stumbles across it by accident,” he said. “And far enough that even if the valley burned, these folks could keep working.”
When at last the elevator rattled to a stop, the gate screeched open onto a stone corridor that smelled faintly of ozone and wet rock. The walls were slick, chiseled with care, and studded with mithril reinforcements. Ahead, thick glass doors sealed off a chamber bathed in shifting light.
Elmore and Ash traded a glance. From beyond the glass came a glow that pulsed too bright and steady to be just lanterns , it flared like a sunrise trapped underground.
Without a word, they pushed through into the lab.
The glass door hissed as it swung open and for a heartbeat the lab was a riot of sudden sound. Voices cut off mid-syllable. Shoes scuffed concrete. Heads whipped toward the intruders. Then the light died, as if someone had cupped a hand over the sun, and in the dark a choked chorus of surprise rose like things being dropped.
When the emergency lamps clicked on their pale, grainy blue, a ring of faces came into view. Fifty people, give or take, clustered around benches and machines, all wearing the same oversized welding goggles with blackened lenses. The goggles made every reaction look theatrical, like a chorus of shadowed actors caught at the wrong beat. At the center of them all, taller than most, stood a woman who looked like she was built to be noticed even without the coat and goggles, long-limbed, shoulders squared, hair cropped close to her head so the light outlined the crown of her skull. She stepped forward before anyone else could, and when she coughed she did it small and precise, palm raised on instinct as if she were clearing her throat to make a point.
“We didn’t expect the chief …or the chief's wife, to arrive today so forgive us for not being ready for a surprise inspection.,” she said, voice flat and practical. offering the same hand that had just sheltered a cough. “Name’s Lita. We were doing more tests on the new red crystals and making another run at obsidian glass composites.” Her words were clipped then, like a line read off a checklist. She looked Ash in the eye and smiled, something wry and unembarrassed at once. “I am a big fan of your podcast, by the way, it's nice having people see that not everyone in this town is some superhero.” giving elmore a jovial but pointed look.
Ash blinked, the surprise folding soft across her face. For one breath the space between them warmed, a private recognition, and Ash’s mouth flickered a faint halo of light before fading, an odd little Aither gloss that lasted the length of a grin. She took Lita’s hand and squeezed, delighted. “Always happy to meet a fan, maybe we can see about getting you on for an interview. I bet you can really shine some light on things others don't know.” she said, then looked at Elmore with a grin that asked permission and got it. “Now why don’t you show me everything this man has been having you make, since I am his wife and apparently under-informed.”
Lita gave Elmore a sideways glance, a quick appraisal that carried no malice, only professional curiosity. She released Ash’s hand with the kind of casual deference that happens when people who do hard things acknowledge each other. “Yes, yes, anything you want to see,” she said, and with that she turned and began shepherding them through the lab.
They moved through chambers that smelled of hot metal and cold ozone, past racks of devices that hummed at different pitches. Lita spoke without ceremony, pointing to things and naming them like a musician naming notes. “Material fatigue rigs. Hydraulic punchers. Cryo-torsion benches. We tried to put a hole through a sheet of mithril with a two-hundred-ton press. It didn't flex, which is not new with mithril.”
Elmore watched a giant mechanical arm bring a circular plate down on mithril so dense it sang when struck. The plate resisted like a sleeping thing that did not wish to be woken. Sparks flicked out in rainbow lines where contact met resistance, and the technicians nodded into their goggles and wrote numbers on clipboards.
Lita stopped them at a bench where a cluster of odd devices waited. Each one had a blue Aither crystal set in its heart like a lung. Occasionally the crystals pulsed, and when they did the air snapped, the smell of ionized metal and ozone cutting through the warm lab air. A device would arch, a thick filament would jump, and the bench lights would blink as a miniature storm curled in a controlled arc. “Those are resonant flux drivers,” Lita said. “They encourage crystalline conduction so we can see how Aither couples to lattice structures. Sometimes they throw off, ” she made a small hand motion that could have meant anything from sparks to catastrophe “, a surprising amount of energy. Nothing catastrophic. Mostly. We keep brooms handy.”
She led them to a machine that looked like it wanted to be a rolling mill but kept pausing. It would unspool a sheet of mithril, work it for a beat or two, then stop as if considering whether it had the right to continue. “We are trying to roll mithril into super thin sheets trying to make it flexible,” Lita explained. “The metal wants to behave like a mineral. We have to coax it, slowly, and even then the grain wants to tear. We built a timing algorithm to let it breathe between passes and Aitheric injections. It helps with the rolling but no luck on flexibility.”
At a far bench they were shown combustion tests on the red Aither crystals. A technician placed a sliver of the red stone in a tube before powdering it with a metal rod and then struck a micro-arc lighting a burner. The crystal dust flared open in a color Elmore did not instantly have a name for, flame not quite flame, and the pressure gauges spiked pleasant and then alarming numbers. Lita ducked her head at that one. “Explosive maybe sounds dramatic. We call it energetic release. The red crystals function far better than blue crystals put out far more heat and also radiation signatures we have not cataloged. We may have to restrict how much of it gets into public hands with it being so much more potential.”
Elmore nodded and Lita handed him a thick document with a stamped cover. “The first full report,” she said. “All our findings, preliminary conclusions, methodology. Read it and tell us if we can publish the parts that make sense for public consumption.”
He accepted it by habit, feeling the weight of paper like another coin placed in the chest of the world. “I will read it,” he said. “Then i’ll tell you what we can release.”
They walked on and the lab opened into a greenhouse annex. Raised beds glowed under artificial sun panels. In neat rows, pawpaw saplings sprouted in earth mixed with varying proportions of powdered blue Aither crystal. Some saplings were dwarf and cramped, leaves pale as if skinned of color. Others towered and glowed faintly, fruit already knotting at the ends of limbs like promises. A chart at the head of the bed showed soil mixes, pulse rates, notes on nutrient uptake. Lita let them peer. “We are seeing the powder act as a growth bias. At low concentrations it stimulates root signaling. At higher levels you get runaway cambial growth and strange pigmentation. We expect to refine the dosing curve so we can make hardy, fast fruiting trees without botanically destabilizing the genome.”
Further on, a wall had been dedicated to taxonomy. Trays and pins, pinned wings and exoskeletons, the careful cruelty of lab order. Specimens from the dungeon scrolled from tiny bioluminescent beetles to something larger that made Elmore think of a crab the size of a car. Each was dissected and catalogued, organs labeled in neat script, molecular analyses annotated and cross referenced. The sheer scale of it made the place feel like a museum, morgue, and lost temple.
Finally Lita led them to a small pedestal that held what looked like a modern circuit board married to an old watchmaker’s dream. Mithril gears the width of grains of rice down to sand, meshed with slotted crystal plates. Microtraces of metal wrapped around crystalline junctions. At first glance it was nonsense, at second glance it was elegant and terrifying nonsense. The board hummed with a frequency Elmore felt in his mind.
Elmore leaned in. “What is that?” he asked.
Lita let out a long breath and, for the first time, let the technical language come like a wave. “It’s a Aitheric-Metallo-Dielectric hybrid matrix,” she said, ticking off phrases as if listing ingredients while pouring a recipe. “We are combining Aither conductive mithril microgears ,crystalline logic nodes and some advanced classical circuits. The crystals act not as semiconductors but as phase anchors. We bias Aither potentials across the lattice to create transient coherence windows. In practice that means we can hold a quasi-stable low entropy channel long enough to let, ” she made a rough hand shape, trying to catch the way the words frayed “, to let processes that should be forbidden by ordinary thermodynamic constraints happen with only marginal violation. It is not the natural awakened tech from when Aither first manifested. It is an engineered awakening. Think of it like tuning a radio to pick up a station you were told did not exist. The signal is faint and the station is not stable, but it plays.”
She rattled on in terms that sounded like a litany, pseudo-topological conduction, flux trapping, boundary layer anchoring, coherence collapse mitigation, words Elmore did not have the trained ear to parse. He absorbed them anyway, because that was what chiefs did. They took foreign tongues and translated them into decisions.
“So you are saying this can make awakened tech on demand?” he asked, the question landing simple and blunt.
“We are saying that we can bias Aither into cooperating with mechanical constructs in a controlled way,” Lita replied. “It will not be as physics-defying as the artifacts that reacted with the first spike in Aither. Those are natural anomalies we barely understand and go beyond what this could do. What we can do is push past a few of the limits. Slightly. Enough to make devices that behave in ways we did not think possible, to create machines that hold microcoherent states. It is hypothetical until we prove it. Our models are promising. Our safety margins are thin.”
A murmur ran through the room as people nodded at the claim and then busied themselves with instruments, like a chorus returning to their stations.
Elmore set the report on the pedestal by the hybrid board, fingers lingering on the crisp edge. He thought of the valley, of mithril sheets on towers, of the red crystals and obsidian glass and pawpaw orchards. He thought of the federal government, of optics and deterrence and Ash’s millions of followers.
Lita watched him for a long second, her expression unreadable beneath the welding lenses, then said, quietly, “We only have hypotheses for how the underlying field organizes. We think Aither can be guided to form transient pockets of coherence, that if anchored properly will let us do the tiny impossible. It isn't a grand cheat of the laws. It is a way to step just far enough past what is thought possible that the next step becomes visible.”
She trailed off and the lab hummed around them, alive with small clicks and the distant thump of presses. Elmore felt the room tilt under a new gravity, as if the future had been set a degree off true and all of them were trying to walk along that new line.
“Push past what is thought possible,” he repeated, tasting the phrase. It sat heavy in his mouth and, for the first time since the graves, hope and worry braided together in a tidy, dangerous cord.
Lita's office was sparse but organized, every surface serving a purpose. She'd left them with the thick technical report and excused herself to check on an experiment, giving them privacy to absorb the information. Elmore pulled a second chair beside the desk for Ash, and they sat shoulder to shoulder, the weight of the document between them.
"Alright," Elmore said, cracking his knuckles. "Let's see what we've really been working with all this time."
The cover read simply: Lakevail Research Group Technical Report - Material Catalog Code: MT-01 - Common Name: Mithril
Ash ran her finger along the date. "October 14th, 2039. They've been studying this for years and we're just now seeing it?"
"Had to be sure before putting it to paper, I reckon," Elmore said, flipping to the abstract. His eyes began scanning, but Ash read aloud, her voice carrying that particular tone she used for her streams clear and engaging.
"'Mithril represents the most strategically valuable physical resource within Lakevail's possession, distinguished by its remarkable property of mechanical immutability except under deliberate Aither-assisted modification.'" She paused, looking at him. "Mechanical immutability? That's a fancy way of saying..."
"Can't be broken," Elmore muttered, his finger tracking the next lines. "Jesus Christ, Ash. Look at this 'complete resistance to conventional deformation, no scratching, bending, denting, compression, stretching, or fracturing under any force less than directed Aither injection.'"
"We knew it was tough, but "
"No, we didn't know shit," Elmore interrupted, his voice tight with a mixture of awe and frustration. "We thought it was just stronger than steel. This says it literally cannot be damaged without Aither. At all. By anything."
Ash leaned closer, reading the next section about secondary properties. "Total resistance to corrosion and wear... absolute electrical insulation at all voltages..." She stopped, blinking. "Wait, it doesn't conduct electricity? But we've been using it for "
"Keep reading," Elmore said grimly.
"'Invariance in volume under both extreme heating and cryogenic cooling.' Baby, this doesn't expand or contract with temperature? How is that even possible?"
Elmore's jaw worked as he read ahead. "Gets better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it. .Density of osmium but atomic weight of argon. That's... that shouldn't exist."
"You're losing me with the chemistry," Ash admitted.
"It weighs as much as the densest metal on Earth while having atoms as light as a noble gas. It's like..." Elmore struggled for an analogy. "Like having a brick that should weigh as much as a feather but instead is as heavy as a block of metal multiple times its size. It breaks physics."
They flipped to the discovery section, and Elmore's face darkened as he read about his own first encounter with the material.
"'Elmore's exceptionally high intelligence stat enabled him to channel and focus the tool's stored Aither energy,'" Ash read, then elbowed him gently. "Look at you, getting scientific credit for being smart."
"That's not the point," Elmore said, though his lip twitched. "The point is I was the only one who could mine it at first because of my stats. And instead of figuring out how to let others do it safely, I just... kept doing it myself."
"You couldn't have known "
"I should have asked more questions." He turned the page harder than necessary.
The experimental methodology section made them both quiet. Ash's finger trembled slightly as she traced the numbers.
"They tested it to a million degrees Fahrenheit?" she whispered. "And negative 423? That's..."
"Nearly absolute zero," Elmore finished. "And it didn't change at all. Not even microscopic expansion."
"The electrical testing..." Ash's voice grew smaller. "Ten gigavolts? How did they even generate that?"
"Aither-Crystal banks, apparently. Shit we've had this whole time." Elmore's knuckles whitened as he gripped the report. "They fired enough electricity through it to power a city and it acted like it wasn't even there."
The section on atomic structure finally broke Elmore's composure. He stood abruptly, pacing to the wall and back.
"What?" Ash asked, still reading.
"Silicon crystal lattice with valence electrons replaced by Aither particles," he said, his voice hollow. "The electrons the things that make chemistry work, that make everything work they're just... gone. Replaced with Aither."
Ash set the report down carefully. "Elmore..."
"We've been building with something that shouldn't exist," he said, running both hands through his hair. "Every wall, every weapon, every piece of armor. It's all impossible. The atoms are too close together, the bonds are wrong, nothing about it makes sense except "
"Except it works," Ash finished softly.
He turned to her, and she saw something in his eyes she rarely witnessed genuine fear mixed with wonder.
"The electrical insulation," he said slowly, like he was working through a problem. "That's why it doesn't conduct. No free electrons. Nothing to carry current. But that means..."
"What?"
"All those plans for electrical systems through mithril infrastructure. They're impossible. We'd need copper or gold for any electrical application, with mithril only as structural support."
Ash picked up the report again, flipping to the applications section. "But look here weapons maintain perfect edge, no maintenance needed. Engine components with zero wear after ten thousand hours. That's baby, that's revolutionary."
"Revolutionary and terrifying," Elmore corrected. "Look at the implications section."
They read together in silence, the weight of each revelation settling on them like stones.
"Internal Aither saturation for security," Ash murmured. "If you keep Aither charged inside it, external attacks can't affect it. Like... a lock only you have the key to."
"Which means anyone with higher Aither output could theoretically override our defenses," Elmore said. "Unless we maintain higher internal charge. It's an arms race, but with energy instead of weapons."
The anomalies section drew a harsh laugh from him.
"'We tried to force electrons through it like water into a rock. Turns out the rock wins,'" he read, shaking his head. "At least the scientists have a sense of humor about their failures."
"This part about cryogenic testing," Ash said, her finger on the page. "'Steel would have exploded into glitter at that impact. Mithril just sat there and looked smug about it.'"
Despite everything, Elmore snorted. "Smug metal. That's about right."
Ash reached for his hand, pulling him back to sit beside her. "This changes things."
"Everything," he agreed. "We've been sitting on literal impossibility and treating it like it was just very hard steel. The implications for defense, for construction, for " He stopped, a thought occurring to him. "Ash, if the federal government knew even half of this..."
"They'd never stop coming for us," she finished.
"Worse. They'd justify anything to get it. A material that can't be destroyed by conventional means? That operates outside normal physics?" He met her eyes. "We're not just holding valuable resources. We're holding the keys to rewriting how civilization works."
Ash squeezed his hand. "Then we better understand it completely." She gestured to the report. "This is just mithril. We still have the Aither-Crystal report to get through."
Elmore looked at the stack of remaining pages, then at his wife. "Remember this morning when our biggest concern was picking which movie to watch?"
She laughed, but it was thin. "Simpler times. six hours ago."
"You know what the worst part is?" Elmore said, settling back in his chair.
"What?"
"Lita asked if they could publish parts of this publicly. How do you even begin to explain to the world that we've been building with something that makes modern physics cry in a corner?"
"Very carefully," Ash said, already thinking like the media personality she'd become. "You release it in stages. Start with the practical applications the durability, the corrosion resistance. Save the 'it breaks reality' parts for later, once people have accepted the smaller impossibilities."
"Spoken like someone with twenty million followers who hang on her every word," Elmore said, and this time his smile was genuine.
"Twenty million so far," she corrected. "And they're going to lose their minds when we finally explain what their world is really built on now."
They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of knowledge settling around them like a heavy cloak. Then Elmore reached for the next section of the report.
"Ready for the Aither-Crystals?" he asked.
Ash pulled her chair closer, their shoulders touching again. "After learning our infrastructure is built from impossible metal? How much worse could it be?"
Elmore gave her a look that said they were about to find out.
Elmore flipped to the second report, the cover reading: Lakevail Research Group Technical Report - Material Catalog Code: MT-02 - Common Name: Aither-Crystals
"Two distinct crystalline varieties," Ash read from the abstract, her voice already carrying a note of disbelief. "Blue and red. We knew that much, but 'inexhaustible Aitheric energy?'"
"Keep going," Elmore said, his eyes racing ahead.
"'Time crystal behavior an exotic state of matter characterized by spontaneous temporal periodicity that appears to violate fundamental equilibrium physics principles.'" Ash stopped, looking at him. "Time crystals? What does that even mean?"
Elmore rubbed his face with both hands. "It means they repeat in time instead of space. Like..." He struggled for words. "Imagine a pendulum that swings forever without anyone pushing it, without any energy input. It just... swings. Forever."
"That's impossible."
"So was mithril being immune to damage." He pointed to the next line. "Look 'continuous particle production that makes these crystals so valuable as energy sources.' They're creating energy from nothing, Ash. Perpetual motion."
Ash's finger trembled as she traced down the page. "Consist entirely of Aither particles... replacing protons, neutrons, and electrons. Baby, these aren't even made of atoms as we understand them."
"No," Elmore agreed grimly. "They're made of pure Aither pretending to be matter."
The structural symmetry section made Ash sit back in her chair. "Pentagonal for blue, octagonal for red. The geometry determines the power output?"
"Logarithmically," Elmore said, reading ahead. "Jesus Christ blue crystals produce ten thousand particles per hour, red produces a million. A hundred times more just from having eight-fold symmetry instead of five."
"And you've been mining these with your bare hands?"
"With Aither-charged tools, but... yeah." His voice was hollow. "I've been handling miniature stars that violate thermodynamics and didn't even know it."
The thermal conductivity section made Ash gasp. "Red crystals have near-perfect thermal conductivity? That might be why The Beast's cooling system worked so well in the second stratum there may have been red crystal inside the dinosaur-obsidian, it was probably managing heat at a fundamental level for them."
"While blue crystals are only as conductive as titanium," Elmore added. "Still good, but nothing compared to red. Every choice we made by instinct had physics behind it we didn't understand."
They reached the geological distribution section, and Elmore's face darkened.
"Stratum-specific," he muttered. "Blue only in Alpha, red only in Beta. And look 'no measurable size increase has been recorded across the entire 14-year observation period.'"
"They don't grow?" Ash asked.
"They just... are. Fully formed, never changing." He flipped the page aggressively. "Which means every crystal we've harvested, every one we've ground into powder for ammunition or fertilizer that's irreplaceable. Once it's gone, it's gone."
The electrical properties section made them both stop breathing for a moment.
"Red crystals conduct electricity ten times better than blue," Ash whispered. "And blue conducts a hundred times better than gold?"
"We've been using the universe's most efficient electrical conductor as fertilizer," Elmore said flatly. "Grinding it up and mixing it with dirt."
"But the energy storage..." Ash's eyes widened. "Nine times ten to the tenth megajoules per kilogram for blue? That's "
"Nuclear weapon levels of energy," Elmore finished. "In crystals we let children play with in the streets."
"Red crystals are ten times that?" Her voice cracked. "We're surrounded by handheld stars and nobody knew?"
Elmore stood again, pacing. "The dual-channel extraction system. We figured that out by trial and error metal for electricity, mithril for Aither. But look at the efficiency notes. 'Near-perfect energy transfer, no measurable losses.' We built the optimal system by accident."
"Or by instinct," Ash suggested. "Maybe part of having the Nexus is understanding these things subconsciously."
"That's even more terrifying," Elmore shot back. "That means we're being guided by something we don't understand to use materials we can't comprehend."
The particle generation dynamics made him sink back into his chair, head in his hands.
"What?" Ash asked, reading the section herself. Her face paled. "A theoretical tenfold symmetry variant could exist?"
"Producing a hundred million particles per hour," Elmore said through his fingers. "We need to search everywhere for any new crystals. If someone else finds those first "
"They won't," Ash said firmly. "The report says they've never been found. Maybe they can't exist naturally."
"Or maybe they're in Stratum Gamma, which we haven't even found yet."
They read through the environmental formation requirements in tense silence.
"One dungeon per tectonic plate," Ash murmured. "That's why they're so rare. It's not just about Aither density it's about unique geological conditions that only happen in specific locations."
"Which means," Elmore said slowly, "every crystal we use, every bit we grind up, we're consuming a resource that took cosmic coincidence to create."
The safety profile section provided the first moment of relief.
"No protective equipment required," Ash read, a slight smile touching her lips. "At least they're not giving us cancer while breaking physics."
"Small mercies," Elmore muttered, but he was reading ahead to the durability section. "Maintains full functionality even when fractured. You have to completely pulverize them to stop the temporal cycling."
"The applications..." Ash flipped pages. "The ballistic enhancement. Elmore, we've been shooting .22 rounds with the force of .50 caliber bullets and didn't understand why. The crystal powder was increasing the energy output by orders of magnitude."
"And red crystals might be ten to a thousand times more effective," Elmore added. "We could theoretically create ammunition that transcends conventional ballistics entirely."
"But we haven't tested it because they're too rare," Ash finished. "Thank God for small favors. Can you imagine what would happen if that technology got out?"
Elmore was staring at the section on legal framework. "The Aither Laws preventing export... I made those to keep our advantage, but I didn't realize I was containing walking nuclear reactors."
"The research implications," Ash said, her finger on the final section. "They talk about understanding the mathematical relationships, potentially synthesizing them artificially "
"Stop." Elmore's voice was sharp. "Look at this line. 'While current technology remains insufficient for crystal reproduction, understanding these fundamental relationships provides a framework for future technological development.'"
They met each other's eyes.
"Someone, somewhere, is going to figure out how to make these," Ash said quietly.
"And when they do, whoever gets there first won't need natural deposits. They'll have infinite energy, infinite resources." Elmore closed the report. "The entire global power structure would collapse overnight."
Ash was quiet for a long moment, then said, "Hydra help could probably figure it out."
"Probably," Elmore agreed. "But do we want to be the ones to open that box? Once synthetic Aither-Crystals exist, once that knowledge is out there, it can't be contained."
"As opposed to now, where we're sitting on natural deposits that make us the most powerful faction on Earth?"
"We're not the most "
"Elmore." Ash's voice was firm. "We have mithril that can't be destroyed by any conventional force. We have crystals that produce infinite energy. We have an AI that evolved from Aither itself. We have you at level seven with maxed intelligence. If we're not the most powerful faction, we're close enough that everyone else should be terrified."
He met her gaze, and she saw the weight of it all crushing down on him.
"My sister was right about one thing," he said quietly. "We've been thinking too small. This isn't about feeding counties or states. This is about the fundamental restructuring of human civilization."
"And you're the hillbilly from West Virginia who stumbled into controlling it all," Ash said with a weak smile.
"Don't remind me." He looked at the stack of reports. "There's more, isn't there?"
Ash checked. "Analysis of the obsidian materials from Stratum Beta. Fusion experiments with red crystal and mithril. Something called 'dimensional resonance testing.'"
"Dimensional " Elmore cut himself off. "Of course. Because crystals that violate thermodynamics weren't enough."
"Want to keep reading?" Ash asked.
Elmore looked at her, then at the reports, then back at her. "Remember when you asked what else I'd been cooking up?"
"About six hours ago, yeah."
"I think I've been cooking up the end of the world as we know it," he said. "And I didn't even know I had the stove on."
Ash stood, moved behind his chair, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Then it's a good thing you're the one holding the spoon."
"That's what terrifies me most," he admitted, leaning back into her embrace. "Because I look at all this power, all this potential, and part of me just a small part understands why men become tyrants. It would be so easy to just... take control. To decide I know better than everyone else."
"But you won't," Ash said firmly.
"How do you know?"
"Because you're sitting here terrified of the possibility." She kissed the top of his head. "Tyrants don't worry about becoming tyrants. They just do it."
A knock at the door interrupted them. Lita peered in, those welding goggles still perched on her head.
"Sorry to interrupt, but there's something else you should know," she said. "We've had a breakthrough with the obsidian-mithril fusion. You're going to want to see this."
Elmore and Ash exchanged a look that said volumes about how much more impossibility they could handle in one day.
"Lead the way," Elmore said, standing. "But if you tell me it violates causality or creates pocket dimensions, I'm going to need something stronger than coffee."
Lita's smile was enigmatic. "I'll have someone bring whiskey."
The side room hit them like walking into an oven. Even with the industrial ventilation roaring overhead, the temperature had to be pushing ninety degrees. Eight scientists stood in a semicircle, their lab coats abandoned, shirts soaked through with sweat as they stared into a reinforced glass case at the exit of what looked like a massive mithril forge.
Inside the case, suspended by hair-thin mithril wires, hung a foot-long crystalline chunk that defied immediate description. It was clear as water but somehow denser to look at, like glass that had been compressed until light moved through it differently. The faint glow coming from within wasn't quite blue, wasn't quite white, it was the color of winter starlight, if starlight could be caught and held.
Three separate machines surrounded the case, each shooting beams of different colored light into the crystal, red from the left, green from below, violet from the right. Where the beams struck, the glass sang with harmonics just below the edge of hearing, a vibration felt in the bones rather than heard.
Lita stood closer than seemed safe, her face mere inches from the case, those welding goggles finally serving their purpose as she stared intently at the intersection points of the light beams. She didn't look up when they entered, too absorbed in whatever she was seeing.
An attendant, a young man whose shirt was so soaked it was transparent, appeared at Elmore's elbow with a glass of brown liquid.
"Whiskey," he said simply. "Lita mentioned you might need it."
Elmore took the glass, downed half in one pull, and without looking handed it to Ash. She knocked back the rest without hesitation, the burn a welcome distraction from the oppressive heat and the impossible thing they were looking at.
"So," Elmore said, his voice cutting through the hum of machinery, "you made clear obsidian."
Lita finally pulled back from the case, a satisfied smile playing at her lips. "Not exactly. What we made is something new entirely." She gestured to the crystal with the excitement of a parent showing off a child's first steps. "We doped molten dinosaur-obsidian with powdered blue Aither-crystal dust and powdered mithril under very specific pressure and temperature conditions. As you now know, mithril is essentially silicon, same as obsidian, just in different states of Aitheric infusion."
She pulled on thick gloves that went up to her elbows. "This allows them to bind at the molecular level, with the blue crystal filling the interstitial gaps. The result is a transparent material as hard as mithril but capable of transmitting light."
"That's..." Ash started, then stopped, searching for words.
"Very hard and complicated, yes," Lita agreed. She opened the case carefully, reaching in with both hands to extract the crystal. "The downside is its fatal flaw. Watch."
She carried the glowing chunk to a tank of water beside the forge, holding it up for them to see clearly. "The internal pressure is extreme. The atoms are packed so densely that the Aither electrons create the equivalent of fiber-optic channels on a quantum scale. Light passes through because it has no choice, the channels force it through. But this creates massive outward pressure, barely contained by the surface tension inherent to amorphous solids."
"Meaning?" Elmore asked, though he suspected he knew.
"Meaning rapid temperature drops cause those channels to intersect incorrectly." Lita raised the crystal over the water tank. "Like this."
She dunked it in.
The destruction was instantaneous and total. The crystal exploded into powder so fine it looked like mist, the water churning white as millions of microscopic shards dispersed through it. The sound was sharp and final, like a gunshot in a cathedral.
"Prince Rupert's drop on steroids," Elmore muttered.
"Exactly!" Lita's eyes lit up with genuine delight. "The thermal shock breaks the careful balance. The channels intersect, the structure cascades, and the entire matrix collapses in microseconds. We've tested it extensively, rapid heating is fine, the material actually loves it. But cool it too fast and..." She gestured at the cloudy water.
Ash stepped closer to the tank, peering at the glittering sediment settling at the bottom. "I got most of that, but here's the real question, can you make enough to be useful?"
Lita winced, her enthusiasm dimming slightly. "Not... yet. The process requires precise control and the material loss rate is still around sixty percent. Eventually, though, "
"Can you make sheets of it?" Ash interrupted, her tone shifting to something Elmore recognized. "Because if you can make sheets, we could revolutionize optics. Structural glass for buildings that could take direct artillery hits. Car windshields that never crack." Her smile turned mischievous. "Maybe we could finally make an indestructible phone. You know, with those fancy Crystal clocks you seemed to love so much."
Lita's jaw tightened slightly. "These things take time. Data collection, iterative testing, proper documentation, "
"Science with no application is fun," Ash said, and Elmore saw it, the faint golden glow around her mouth, subtle as candlelight but unmistakable. Her Silver Tongue was at work. "But it's not really the domain of the 'best scientist in the world,' is it?"
The effect was immediate. Lita's entire posture changed, her spine straightening as if someone had run electricity through it. She stepped forward, grabbing Ash by the shoulders with both hands, her eyes blazing with something between indignation and inspiration.
"I'll make it happen," she said, her voice fierce. "Sheets, windows, phone screens, whatever you want. Give me six months. No three, I'll show you that all science can be applied, that every discovery has purpose."
Ash's smile never wavered, that same expression that had captured Elmore's heart years ago, equal parts challenge and invitation. "If you're that fired up about it, maybe an interview is in order. Tomorrow? I could show my followers what real innovation looks like."
"Yes," Lita said immediately. "Yes, absolutely. Noon?"
"Noon it is." The glow around Ash's mouth flared once more, briefly, beautifully. "We'll let you get back to your impossible glass. But I expect samples to show off tomorrow."
She hooked her arm through Elmore's, and he let himself be led out, throwing a nod to the sweating scientists who were already rushing to prepare another batch.
In the hallway, the temperature dropped twenty degrees, and Elmore pulled Ash against the wall.
"That was the hottest fucking thing I've seen you do in months," he growled.
"Manipulating a brilliant scientist into revolutionizing materials science?" Ash teased, but her breath was already quickening.
"Watching you work," he corrected, and then his mouth was on hers.
The elevator doors were barely closed before she had her legs wrapped around his waist, his hands tangled in her hair, their bodies pressed against the metal wall hard enough to make it dent. The whiskey burn mixed with the adrenaline of discovery, with the power they'd just witnessed and wielded. Ash bit his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, and he responded by pressing her harder against the wall, her back arching as she gasped into his mouth.
The elevator seemed to take forever and no time at all.
The doors opened to reveal them hastily straightening clothes, Elmore buttoning his pants while Ash fixed her hair with practiced efficiency. Her lipstick was completely gone, and his shirt was untucked and twisted.
They walked to the car with the careful dignity of people pretending they hadn't just scandalized an elevator, though Elmore's slight limp and Ash's flushed cheeks told a different story.
Once in the car, Elmore lit a cigarette with hands that weren't quite steady, while Ash pulled out a tin of snuff and packed her lip with the practiced motion of a mountain woman.
"We should've had them make that elevator faster," Elmore said as he started the engine.
Ash laughed, the sound rich and satisfied. "Or slower. Depending on your perspective."
The radio crackled to life with Johnny Cash singing about walking the line, and they drove back up toward the surface, toward their home and their son and their impossible life built on impossible materials in an impossible world.
"You know what this means," Ash said as they emerged into fading daylight.
"What?"
"We're going to need a bigger lab. And more elevators."
Elmore's laugh echoed through the valley as they drove to their next stop, the silver car gleaming with mithril that couldn't be destroyed, carrying two people who'd just learned they were shepherding the transformation of reality itself.
Behind them, in the lab deep below, Lita was already pulling her team together, her voice carrying over the machinery: "Clear everything else. We have two months to change the world."