Machinist of Mana

Family trips for me had always been the same on Earth. The insanity, the trips back and forth to make sure everything was ready, the final trip to the bathroom my father invariably took once everyone else was in the car, and me, sitting there once I was ready bored. I was happy to see that this tradition continued in my new world as well.

Now that I was a bit older I wasn't carried around like I had been as a baby, but I still ended up woken at an unreasonable hour and forced to ready myself. To aid in making this as painless as possible I'd taken to preparing everything I could the night before. If I was sleeping but ready, nobody could really complain until they were, nor did they want to, as they had other concerns.

Of course as soon as we were on the way I was awoken. I wasn't sure what it was exactly but mother seemed to have some form of distaste for any man being asleep when she had to be awake, and simply wouldn't have it.

“Percival,” she said, poking me for what had to be the fifth time. “Get up, we need to look proper when we arrive at the train.”

“In an hour and a half mother,” I retorted, not even opening my eyes.

“Not the point. What if someone should see you as you slump there? Didn't you go to bed properly last night, up, now.” I felt another finger make its way into my side and very nearly lost my patience.

“Are we meeting grandmother and grandfather there or on the ship?” I asked, hoping for a change in subject.

“The train of course, now up.”

Fine, she wanted me up, she would get me up. I opened my eyes, looking at her with the thoughts of mischief brewing. Now there was nowhere to go here, no way I could really get out and run. Well I could totally get out and run, and even keep up with the carriage pretty easily, but that would be rude. No, I needed to lean upon the weapon of young boys in every dimension, incessant chatter.

“I'm actually quite excited mother. Do you think grandfather will be willing to ask for us to see the engine? He's shown me how they work you know, and I really want to see one up close. Could he ask the conductor? Did you know that the fuel...”

An hour and a half later of constant facts and questions and we finally pulled into the train station. Father looked exhausted, mother looked frustrated, after all she'd brought down the deluge upon them. I'm sure if you asked her then and there if she'd ever wake me when I was trying to sleep in such a situation again she'd swear up and down that she wouldn't, but of course she probably would in the future, it was just her nature.

Luckily we had little to do at the train station, as from this point the servants took care of the majority of things. Instead we were shown to our compartments, rented well in advance, and right across from those of my grandparents. As soon as we arrived both of my parents spoke almost in unison.

“Well, I'll head off to the smoking cart,” father announced, fleeing.

“Father, Percival is quite excited about the train, perhaps you two could see if he could get a look at some of the engine parts. Mother and I should head to the dining car to greet the other ladies, goodbye,” she spoke in almost a single breath, grabbing grandmother and nearly dragging her from the room in her haste.

“Good heavens boy, what did you do?” grandfather asked, looking down at me with suspicion.

“She wouldn't let me sleep, so I told her about every paper I've ever read on thaumic engines. I made sure to go into great detail,” I explained with a smile.

He looked divided on how to respond to that answer, though I could tell he both wanted to laugh and scold me.

“Were you at least in good sorts for the trip before sleeping?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said, a bit offended. “It would be unsuitable to not have my things together properly.”

“Well then, your mother did suggest we try to get a look at the engine, what say you then?” My answer seemed to have mollified any desire he had to tell me off. If my mother was going to be troublesome then I supposed in his book she could find the trouble she did.

As it turned out the staff of the train was quite happy to show us the engine, or at least tolerant. Because of the different levels that people lived at it was hard to tell when people didn't care, or rather felt that had no choice sometimes. We were nobles, and therefore we had a lot of leeway on certain things, a privilege because of the power we could bring to bear. I'd never seen it, but I knew that in wartime one magical soldier could bring down dozens, sometimes hundreds of non-magical ones. This, added to the fact that there were a lot of jobs that nobody else could do meant that we had to be respected, at least on paper.

“As you can see sirs, most of the engine itself runs on simple principles of boiling water. Now you could make one of these without magic, but the whole thing would be a mess. The heat loss alone would be astounding, and the sheer quantity of smoke it would spit would pollute all the cars behind. That's where the enchantments come in,” one of the junior engineers explained as we watched the machine run, it wasn't even that loud.

“Yes, I'm told that there are constant advancements in heat retention and air purification yes?” grandfather led him.

“Right you are sir, now over here we have the readouts...”

The engine itself was a variant on a steam engine, but all around it were magical devices. Sound was dampened, air cleaned, and most importantly, heat was preserved. I'd not yet gotten a good handle on how magical items worked in this world, but I did know there was a sort of language to it, and the effects were often dramatic. In this case I could walk up to the boiler and put my hand on it without feeling the warmth, such was the efficiency of the work.

This translated to a much smaller engine, requiring a fraction of the fuel one from Earth would have. It also meant that there had to be someone somewhere charging the thing up periodically to keep it going, but that was minor in comparison to the volume of fuel saved. It was a true marrying of magic and technology, and a beautiful thing.

The other important bit was that magic could define sizes and make parts to a specification that made the machinist in me want to weep. Things dreamed up by engineers and builders could be made exactly the way they needed to be, even if the dimensions in question would make it almost impossible to build with the 'modern technology' of my previous world. Parts fit exactly as they needed to fit, with just enough room for lubrication and movement, a true wonder.

Ideas ran through my head as we were shown around, thoughts and potential uses of these things. Sadly I wasn't an engineer, nor trained in a lot of the intricacies that would allow this to be taken to absurd levels. I could make a lot of machines, sure, but I didn't know well enough the principle of say a jet engine to make that a reality.

“Where do you get the magic to power this?” I asked once the tour was done.

“Excellent question, larger stations along our route have dedicated magic users for charging them. We also try to keep either a Talent or weaker magic user on board to handle any unusual situation,” the young man explained. “I'm in training for that myself, though I'm only a Talent the pay for the work is good.”

Talents seemed to run a lot of things. Those quasi-magicians had very limited abilities, but with even a whiff of magic you could run an item, at least for a bit. Many of them were lesser children from branches of noble families, removed from the main line but still respectable. Sadly there were never enough people with magic to go round.

“Well, thank you for the tour young man, but we really should let you get back to work,” grandfather said, smiling and slipping him a tip with a wink.

As we returned to where we were actually supposed to be I wondered if all the modes of transport used the same kind of engine, for example the boat... Well, perhaps they too would let me take a look, but if not, that wouldn't be the end of the world.