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They said that they will put him in the box again, if he isn't able to do what they want him to. Being in the box makes him feel terrible. You can't move, and it feels really bad when he can't move.
He chooses not to say anything when he sees the technician incorrectly set the wards surrounding the testing chamber.
The proctor says it's time to test Firecalling. A full force test. He doesn't see who it is – he just hears the voice. He complies, and puts out as much Fire as he can. His fire is black, rimmed and flecked with red.
An alarm sounds. The proctor says to stop.
He does not stop.
The proctor says to stop, now more urgently.
He does not stop.
The proctor says that if he doesn't stop, they'll bring out the ball.
He does not stop. And now, he uses his Metallurgy and and Windkeeping too.
The proctor stops, because the testing chamber has exploded. In fact, the whole of Alphazon's base on Mars has exploded.
He realizes what's happening and creates a bubble of air around him, even though he doesn't need air. Not anymore.
Is there anything left of the base? Is there anyone left?
Josephine eventually pauses in her consumption of soup. "Well, I suppose you can be your own someone with witchflame!"
"Indeed! I cannot be my own someone with Waterworking, though. I think I would like to have something watery in my room, and my Waterworking is very weak compared to my other elementalisms. I got to work with water very rarely. When I arrived at Chasmapolis, I was shocked at how much water there was. The base at Mars, and Mars itself, is very dry. There is no water to be found anywhere."
"Huh. I thought they had a bunch of water ice over there, and you're a firecaller, you'd think they'd just get some and have you melt it. We get a lot of our water from the Plane of Water, Einodia can do rifts there, and then we recycle it once we've got it."
"I don't know whether Mars has water ice. But when we went out for field exercises, everything was dry. Oh! I didn't know you could do that. It's Portal magic, right? I know very little about it. They didn't teach me about it. The first time I saw a portal was when Madam Einodia made a portal for me to get to Lunabella.
How does water recycling work?"
"Well. You get the dirty stuff out of the water, basically. There's a lot of ways to do it. Some witches can do it directly with Dominion. Mortals will put it through special machinery. Undines can charge from purifying water but they also tend to not like raw sewage, so they might do some pre-filtering. Waterworkers can just telekinese the water away from the contaminants."
Conrad looks very eager. "I might practice more with Waterworking in my free time. Although a fun project might be to try to replicate the special machinery mortals use with my nanites and Metallurgy. I don't know what materials it would use, though."
It's very hard to get the last parts of the soup out with the spoon. Are other people using Waterworking to put the soup into their mouths?
Some people are lifting their bowls to their mouths and drinking. Someone is being served more soup. Josephine is using her waterworking, actually.
He wants to practice his Waterworking. He will lift the soup to his mouth by the force of his magic.
The blob of soup travels very slowly and wobbles precariously and anxiety-inducingly, but he does not spill! He is So Proud.
«That worked fine this time, but I wouldn't recommend using elementalism at the table going forwards if it might make a mess.»
The meal continues. There's something that looks like a weird loaf of bread but turns out to mostly contain meat surrounded by some kind of paste, with the bready stuff as a thin layer around it.
After that, there's some leaves in a bit of sauce with little bits of toasted bread and cheese. The seating is reshuffled at this point, which apparently isn't standard, so that more of the household can get to know Conrad. Nobody seems to have an obvious negative reaction, at least. Some people are sympathetic.
Someone asks Conrad about miniaturized motors. Saffron raises an eyebrow at the asker, but does not actually seem to have any problem with any amount of explaining miniaturized motors Conrad wishes to do.
The bread with meat and paste is SO GOOD and he will request more. He is Very Happy.
The leaves are so-so. He prefers the leaves from earlier. The bread and cheese is good though! He is surprised when there is seat shuffling.
Conrad will answer about miniaturized motors! He knows quite a bit about mechanical engineering and physics, but if the asker presses him to elaborate more, some of his explanations will cap out at "It just works like that. I'm not sure why. But I know it has to be like that." and variations.
The asker is not going to ask followup questions, because she has had an eyebrow raised at her. Unless it seems like Conrad really wants to discuss his favorite grade of steel, or something, in which case she will ask about that.
Conrad doesn't emote very much. Most of the time his face is blankly neutral. Conrad does not particularly want to discuss grades of steel currently, but he will answer if she asks.
She doesn't. It's almost like there was somewhere particular she had been tempted to take that conversation which she is now not taking it to.
And soon, the invisible servants are making a production of bringing in some kind of brown cylinder with lots of decorations, including a lot of candles. It turns out to be someone's 36th birthday. Saffron asks everyone who knows 'the modern birthday song' to join her in singing it, and the musical instruments, which have mostly been playing quietly, pick up in volume to accompany her. The song is short.
After that, someone waves her hand and extinguishes the candles, the servants serve people slices of cake sans candle, and some people get out colorful boxes with ribbon on them and tell the servants to pass them to the witch who extinguished the candles. (Not everyone has boxes.)
Okay! Conrad was not asked a question so he will not say anything or ask anything. He doesn't think anything actually happened there, socially.
Conrad does not know 'the modern birthday song' and does not join her in singing it. He wants to sing but sadly cannot.
He also has no colorful boxes with ribbon on them to give! It does seem like he doesn't have to have one, because some people also do not. He's tempted to make a box with a ribbon on it, but it would not be colorful. It seems to him that the color is loadbearing. He does not make a box.
Also, while most of the boxes are going into this witch's hat, one of them is being opened and turns out to contain jewelry she puts on and thanks Saffron for. So this whole colorful box thing is possibly pretty complicated.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you're supposed to put things in the box!! In that case it was very good that he did not make one. He does not know how to work gems to make jewelry, and certainly could not make one in time for the box giving event.
Yeah, that was probably a smart move.
Other people seem to be eating cake, does Conrad want to try it?
Yes.
It's good! It is sweet and...sadly that is the extent to which he can explain foods. But it is very good!
And people start to trickle away from the table. Some of them, mostly ones who gave boxes, head off in a cluster with the witch who got boxes. Others head other directions. The light coming in through the windows is getting darker.
And Saffron turns to Conrad. "Alright. You came here by your own power and not with portals, so you don't need air, yes? I'd like you to come with me to one of my client's bubbles that's not really large enough for residence, and do a power demonstration away from all the nice things."
She'll lead him out to a small bubble by broom.
"Don't hurt me, and don't affect things more than, oh, a mile away from here."