Machinist of Mana

“Boring,” complained my 'assistant' for about the fifth time.

“I didn't try to hide that it was going to be boring did I?” I asked.

Lucas frowned at me. “If you could just tell me what you're looking for then it would probably help.”

“Things that stand out, things that are odd,” I informed him again.

“Percival, that's all of history; well, all that's written about at least. If something doesn't stand out, if it's not odd, people don't write about it, ergo, it doesn't end up in some dusty old tome in the library.”'

“That's...” Actually it was a fair point, but I couldn't tell him that I was looking for things from Earth now could I? “How about this, I'm looking for odd, and large leaps in technology. Things that stand out. Like the elven king or stuff like that.”

“Okay, that's actually something then isn't it.”

After awhile of poking around we found several tomes on tech. There was a good chance that some of my fellows had ignored it had they found themselves in this world, but there should be something. However what we found wasn't good.

“So after the creation of the core things sort of stagnate,” Lucas declared.

“Stagnate? They don't 'stagnate' there's a millennia long dark age. Do you know how much we lost? It's insane, like the whole of society was pulled out from under it,” I said, exasperated.

“If you believe the stories, frankly I think the elves are lying. They like to act all high and mighty, but honestly their stuff isn't as good as ours in a lot of places. They don't even have a proper portal network.” He scoffed, seeming to think it was all lies, I however didn't.

“Yeah, about that, I can't find it in a lot of the places I'm looking. Where did it come from?” I asked, having focused on some of the older parts mostly. Lucas seemed more willing to look at the new stuff.

“I... are you screwing with me Percival? Everyone knows where it came from.”

“...”

“Old Auntie Penumbra,” at my blank look he appeared shocked. “The Kingkiller? The Worldsinger? Top advisor for... well like, forever?”

“Pretend I don't know who you're talking about,” I told him.

“Then you're a child or a fool. She's the Headmistress at the best magic school around and you've never heard of her. You do know who the current king is right?”

“Of course,” I protested. “He's on like half of our money.”

“We've got to get you up to date on common knowledge and like, people you should know. You talk a good game but not knowing the basics of the royal family is just sad, and embarrassing, if it were anyone but me I'd feel terrible for you. Luckily though I'm here to fix this.” He shut the book and shook his head. “Come'on these aren't what we need.”

He found me the proper book in moments, and it was a biography. It wasn't upon the woman who he'd spoken of, but rather the first king of our nation. King Verren hadn't reigned long, but he'd done much. It detailed his rise as a soldier in an old kingdom called Bergond, a long lasting place that was overthrown by an empire very briefly before such empire did as most of them, and died with it's emperor.

Some of what I was reading about that emperor led me to believe he might have been a reincarnator. His ideas were... progressive, to say the least, nationalistic, stopping short of communism, but very strong on having the strong protect the weak. He wasn't what I was looking for though.

“Her,” Lucas said, tapping the page.

The girl in question was King Verren's only daughter, and in the book a bit of a mysterious figure. She popped up a few times, causing a big stir, only to disappear once more. She introduced technologies, worked on important projects, and seemed to assiduously avoid any positions of power. Alana Penumbra, that was her name, along with half-a-dozen epithets.

“No biography on her though?” I asked, not seeing one in the section.

“Nope, nobody will publish one. Rumor has it that there's a royal decree to that effect, but also nobody wants to cause problems.” Lucas shrugged, not having a good explanation for that.

“Problems? I mean, wait, this woman can't be alive. She'd have to be...”

“Over three hundred years old? Yeah, she is, one of the more mysterious parts of the whole thing.”

I looked down at the picture of her in the book, one with her father and brother, the first and second kings respectively. Here at least she looked young, blonde, with bright blue eyes and a bit of a hard cast to her eyes. Sadly it was probably out of date, but if you could live for three hundred years, why not stay young too?

“I'll have to find a way to talk to her,” I mumbled.

“Good luck with that,” Lucas chortled in response. “The old, private, paranoid mage is unlikely to just waltz up to you and be like, 'Hey, we should have a chat.' isn't she?”

“Yeah, probably, but I'm sure there's a way to get a meeting.”

“Questions for later, for now we need to get to the arena.”

“Right,” I agreed. He'd helped me, it was time to keep up my end of the bargain.

“Then we're going to have a long, long talk about holes in your knowledge.”

“Why are you so dedicated to this?” I asked.

“I... man you're stupid there aren't you? And here I thought you were bright. Well, we all have our blind spots, but don't worry, your big brother Lucas is here to help you learn, one way or another.” I got a rough pat on my shoulder as we moved, though he didn't explain why he felt the need to look after me so much.