"I don't even know why I'm crying. I was- I was basically a slave. Make me work, no pay, can't leave, I'm in shock or something do you have water?"

They have water. Stalas fetches water.

She drinks it. Quite a bit.

And tops up the armature's radiator tank.

"I can't be down here alone. I can stay? I like Caridin."

"We don't stay," says Stalas. "We go to Orzammar. You can go with."

"Yes, I want to go with. Hm, how far? To see if I need fuel or not."

"Far. Twenty days maybe. If not enough fuel, we can carry the armature."

"Not enough fuel. One tank, six to ten hours. The blue light rock, does it power things?"

"Lyrium," says Stalas. "Yes. Lyrium powers things."

"I have some, from the cave. Talk about Lyrium? Maybe a fuel?"

"Maybe," he says thoughtfully.

There follows a discussion about the properties of lyrium.

Safety information: It's toxic and you shouldn't touch it or breathe its fumes - a little is fine, a lot will hurt you - and you especially shouldn't let any get in your blood, you might die.

Other information: Lyrium does a lot of things. It's what makes golems able to be people instead of inert metal and stone. It can enhance armour in various ways. Caridin forges a handful of small objects from lyrium-infused metal to demonstrate some of the applications: this one is persistently cold to the touch and makes its surroundings persistently colder, this one is persistently warm in much the same way, this one glows a little more steadily than natural lyrium and with a warmer light, this one makes tiny electrical sparks when brought near conductive materials.

This has potential. If they can get something to spin consistently, or if the sparks can be turned into a circuit, or it the hot thing can be fire-hot...

How to explain the finer points of electricity on a few hundred words? She does her best.

Caridin is fascinated by this potential use for lightning runes! He creates several more and invites Walta to try to power circuits with them.

"Can you make them switch on and off? It is dangerous to build circuits with live power sources."

Well that's a fascinating problem. He mutters to himself about it and goes to try some things.

Stalas expresses the opinion that it may be a while before they see Caridin again. He asks Walta if she'd like him to go find her something to eat.

She wants to watch Caridin and thereby try to figure out how to do runes and smithing.

But food is probably a good idea.

Well, then Walta can watch Caridin and Stalas can go get food! Off he goes, taking Hesta and Pell with him.

They're back in half an hour with mushrooms and unidentified cave creatures. Caridin is still tinkering.

She doesn't ask questions. Just watches. That's how she learned to do walkers, at first.

Mushrooms and cave critters... Not appetizing much at all but probably not the worst food she's ever had. Munch, munch.

The mushrooms are sort of bland; the cave critters are legitimately delicious. Stalas nibbles on a mushroom but otherwise doesn't partake.

"You're not eating?"

"I don't need to. Long story."

"Okay, if you say so." Munch munch,

Stalas chats with the golems and watches Caridin tinker with lightning runes.

What he eventually comes up with is a lightning rune in a little box with a switch on it. Flip the switch to one side, the rune is connected to the contact points outside the box; flip the switch to the other side, and it isn't.

"That's almost exactly how switchable batteries work! Haha."

Okay, now she can take, hm, the voltmeter is very dead... She takes a spare bulb for her helmet light, and a diode and resistor to force unidirectional flow, and rigs wires held to the contact point and to the box and flips the switch.