Chapter 14: Attunement RW
Ginny looked up at the sudden burst of fire in the Chamber of Secrets, where she was working at the moment. “Morning, Hailey,” she greeted, before turning back to the half-built Void Weave Drive before her to finish assembling it. It was Saturday morning, just over a week after the Monster of Slytherin was first detected.
“Good morning,” Hailey agreed.
The silence then held for the seconds it took her to finish building the device, and order it powered on; the energy required to preheat its Astrion Generator was more than she wanted to spend at that moment, but thanks to the second, smaller Drive already attached to the system, she didn’t have to.
Finally, she rose to her feet and turned her back on her setup, which would’ve fit easily on her desk back home. “So, you’re ready?”
Hailey nodded. “That’s not as big as I was expecting,” she indicated, gesturing down at the Astrium on the floor.
She glanced down at it, and shrugged. “Yeah, of course it’s not. I’m using matter transmutation to make the ingredients for the Astrium, then forging it- and even though these little Drives each produce more power than my wellspring, even the upgrade I just performed will only bring it up to about the same speed as the crystals popping out of my hands.” She paused. “Speaking of which, I actually know how to control that now, so I no longer need to fear crystals popping out at inopportune times.”
Hailey tilted her head. “I take it matter transmutation takes a lot of power?”
She nodded. “It takes an unbelievably large amount of power. Then the forging takes a lot of power as well; one of the limiters on my innate production is actually my wellspring rather than materials gathering.” She sighed. “By default, my body gathers the raw materials from dust, essentially, then uses magic- specifically, the overflow from my wellspring when my reserves are full- to form the base Astrium compound and forge it into Astrium as well. My seed has been storing all the excess power not used by that- which isn’t much- to enable me to create the initial sample of Luminous Astrium just slightly sooner than my fiftieth birthday if I happen to be unable to access electricity or whatever; that, combined with the output of these Drives, is what allowed me to make the Luminous Astrium I used for the minicoms so far.” She sighed. “Good thing they don’t use much.”
“How much power does Luminous Astrium require?”
She chuckled. “You know how I said matter transmutation takes an unbelievably large amount of power? Well, forging the base compound into Raw Astrium doesn’t take quite that much, but still requires a lot of power… and making Luminous Astrium makes it look free. I’d probably have a good fifty times as much Astrium here, if I wasn’t focusing so much power into making Luminous Astrium so I can build bigger Void Weave Drives and make it faster.” She sighed. “I kinda wish the Drive didn’t have so much Luminous Astrium in it, especially in power generation focus like these, but you take what you can get, I guess. I’m already running right about a gigawatt of total power output in here right now, so there isn’t much that a muggle power supply can offer.” She sighed. “With this much power, I can make the amount of Luminous Astrium used in that tiny Drive you gave me once an hour or so- so I expect to be upsizing this Drive once a week or so. Ideally, I’d like to get it big enough to go all the way from this wall to the Snake Gate, as I call it, and add another one on top- but that’s going to take a small eternity.”
“I expect it will,” Hailey agreed. “At least it will accelerate over time, won’t it?”
She sighed. “Yeah.” Then she glanced up. “Um, so you know, I’m currently reserving about ninety-five percent of the power produced for this expansion duty; the remaining five percent gets put into making those minicoms. The Database requires a lot of Luminous Astrium to reach its design potential, of theoretically unlimited storage and access capacities, but it’ll take hardly any at all to make one big enough to serve a Hogwarts full of minicoms. It’ll need a lot more Nocturnic, but I’ve got plenty of that.”
“Works for me,” Hailey informed her. “Rushing to build a full-castle network is kinda pointless if you don’t have the capacity to maintain it, and I don’t want you stunting yourself in order to do something like that either.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I know,” she sighed. “That’s why there’s only five percent left over for building the network- and even the ACM you’re here for. Good thing that requires very little Luminous Astrium, isn’t it?”
She chuckled. “Yup, good thing. And I assume the Obelisk also requires very little?”
She nodded. “It does need more than the minicoms- quite a bit more, actually- but not as much as that miniaturized Void Weave Drive.”
“And your excuse for making so little Astrium upstairs?”
She shrugged. “Matter-energy conversion makes even Luminous Astrium production look cheap, and that’s what I’m pretending to use upstairs. The pipe I ran from here is really skinny, so it didn’t take long to make and fill and it’s hard to find, but thanks to running it through the Chamber of Secrets Access Network, not only is it impossible to find without speaking Parseltongue, but I can expand it to a pretty significant size without even walking up to it- all I have to do is be near either end, and pass the commands along the Astrium.” She paused. “I’ve got my Seed running a matter-energy conversion simulation so I know exactly how big to make the Tempered Astrium blocks upstairs, which are based on actual, Luminous-Astrium-intensive ME device blueprints, and how frequently to make new minicoms available.” She sighed. “I’m pretending to have about seventy percent as much power production upstairs as I actually have down here, but upstairs is only taking about two percent of my total power production right now, and that’s only going to fall as my power grows much faster than the ME stuff would.”
“And you’ve used some of that three percent for the ACM and stuff?”
She nodded. “I did.” She held up a little white ball of Tempered Astrium, about the size of a walnut. “This is the ACM… well, technically it’s the case around the extremely fragile ACM, but you get the idea. It’s actually based on my Seed, which looks about like the case around the ACM before it is installed and does quite a lot more, but I don’t have the blueprint for it, so…” She shrugged. “It’s not like anyone else actually needs, or even wants for that matter, much of the rest of the Seed’s functions.” She sighed. “Hell, even I don’t want a couple of them, but only in a similar way as I don’t want the psionic powers or to be seen as Phoenix-bonded.” She shrugged again. “I’m tired of power, simply put. But it’s not like I can exactly complain about it, so it’s here to stay.”
Hailey shrugged. “Same way I don’t want all of my powers, but it’s not like I can just throw them in the trash can.” She paused. “Well… I actually can, as strange as that sounds, but I’d still have them, if you know what I mean.”
Ginny giggled. “I think I have an idea.” She then drew what looked like a deep purple wand from an inside pocket. “This is the Obelisk. Don’t worry, just like the minicom, it’s installed in an energy form, so you don’t have to deal with a hard rod like this nor any brain damage from its presence.” She paused. “It’s also capable of self-installation, so long as the host has an ACM or similar; if said host has a Seed, like mine, it doesn’t self-install; instead, the Seed takes over to install it.” She shrugged, then pocketed it again. “Just like the minicoms, I’ve configured it to self-install in the first person it touches that doesn’t have one… and is compatible with it. It’ll also uninstall the minicom while it’s at it- there’s no point having both.”
She nodded softly. “Alright then. What do you need me to do?”
She drew her wand this time and conjured a bed. Too bad conjuration- and transfiguration- weren’t good enough for Astrium production. “You’ll have to be unconscious through the ACM installation process,” she informed her. “The installation can react… poorly with a conscious mind. I’ll be using my psionics to keep you asleep.”
Hailey nodded, laying on the bed as Philomena leaped into the air and vanished in a burst of flames. “Alright, give it a shot.”
--------
“How’s it coming?”
“Pretty well,” Ginny answered automatically. “Finished the installation, now I’m just verifying it.” She paused, and looked up. “Wait. Hailey?” She looked down at the bed again, then back up. “How?”
The Hailey that was standing next to her chuckled. “One of the first powers I discovered last year lets me be in multiple places at once, with completely independent bodies in each place that I can spontaneously create and destroy as I like. Souls don’t experience unconsciousness like bodies do, so it’s perfectly fine for me to do this during the installation; it won’t affect the soul tethering.” She scowled. “Which actually isn’t working already, because my wellspring apparently already has that capability, and merely needs to see exactly how to interface with it.”
Ginny blinked. “Meaning… you didn’t actually need an ACM.”
She shrugged. “Meaning my wellspring learned in all the features of the ACM basically the moment you installed it, then rejected the hardware components,” she answered. “The Obelisk will probably experience something similar, given what I am.” She chuckled. “You should be able to retrieve your ACM without any issues.”
She looked down, and back up. “Are you certain?”
“Just as certain as I am of what I am,” she sighed. “And unfortunately, I’m so certain that I’m actually aware I technically don’t fit in this universe. Or at least, not within its laws of physics; as such, my very presence warps reality far more than Nocturnic Astrium does, which is why any Astrium can be ordered into Nocturnic Astrium in my presence, independent of time distortions made by other Nocturnic or not.”
Ginny facepalmed. “So…” She sighed. “So you could already interface with the Astrium?”
“Yup.”
A minute later, her ACM case once again contained an intact ACM, and Ginny pulled the Obelisk out of her pocket to hand it to Hailey.
Hailey touched it. There was a burst of light… and the Obelisk was still in Ginny’s hand, even as she felt the connection come in from Hailey, as if it had been properly installed.
“As expected,” Hailey nodded. “Once again, all my soul needed was instructions, because it was already capable of it.” She scowled. “Far more than capable of it; those Obelisks can reach between universes within the same Multiverse, but I’m pretty sure I’m capable of going between Multiverses as well.”
“That’s insane,” Ginny muttered, as both the bed and the Hailey on it vanished into thin air.
“It is,” Hailey agreed. “There’s absolutely nothing out there- and this is the only even remotely interesting Multiverse in the entire sector… right now, at least.”
“So,” Ginny sighed, rising from her chair and vanishing it. “So you’re connected, then.” She smiled. “I kinda want to get Hermione and Silver as well, but until we know…”
Hailey nodded. “We know.”
“We do?”
She shrugged. “One of my powers lets me just automatically know things if I want to. It’s a bit of a waste, most of the time, and definitely the boring way to go about it, but sometimes it can be handy.” She paused. “And if you think I wouldn’t use it to verify that the people I trust are actually trustworthy, the boring way or not, you’re out of your mind.”
She snorted. “How about Bonbon?”
She shrugged. “She’s also safe,” she answered. “So is Morning. And the rest of the Management Team, and that’s everyone I’ve dared to let that power look at- just because it’s so boring to abuse it.” She chuckled. “When I told Bonbon about it, she agreed that as convenient as it might be, we should keep it as a last resort.”
“Awesome,” Ginny smiled. “So, do you think we can get Hermione down here next week?”
“Only Hermione?”
She shrugged. “Then Silver the week after, then Morning and finally Bonbon, both up in the Astrium Room instead. It’d probably look more than a little suspicious if I vanished for too long, even on a weekend.”
“I suppose,” Hailey answered, tilting her head. “Yeah, it probably would, wouldn’t it? Especially when some of your subordinates are looking for you.” She shrugged. “Don’t worry, they, ahh, randomly crossed paths with me, asked their questions, and got answers.”
“Randomly?”
She shrugged. “Last year, people kept saying I had a habit of turning up whenever they needed me. That’s because I’ve set a special, ‘hidden ward’ over the Castle, so I know instantly the moment someone starts looking for me, or otherwise needing me, and can plot a way to just… turn up.” She chuckled. “Naturally, I don’t meet every need; I do, after all, maintain at least the appearance of being in only one place at a time, despite teaching as many as three different classes at once while attending a fourth, but…” She shrugged. “You do what you can, you know?”
She snorted. “Of course you do. So, how many of you are running around right now?”
“Right now? Eighteen.” She paused. “Seventeen. On weekdays, last year, it was usually at least fifty- and this year, so far, it’s closer to a hundred at any given time. Eighteen again, someone’s looking for Bonbon and hasn’t realized she has an office.” She sighed. “Hopefully, as people start to realize where our offices are, I’ll stop having to be in quite so many places at once.” She leaned back in the air. “At least this year we have enough Instructors that specialize in Special Needs students, so people like Crabbe and Goyle shouldn’t be held back by their disabilities anymore.” She looked sideways at Ginny. “So, I’m curious. Without abusing my powers, what are the various kinds of Astrium?”
She blinked. “Uhh… Yeah, why not.” She conjured a sofa to sit in, and Hailey promptly joined her. “I suppose it all starts with Raw Astrium. That’s the kind my body makes, that’s the kind the Astrium Forge makes. Yes, I know, you’d think it’d be Forged Astrium coming from the Forge, but that’s because it’s all translation artefacts from a language with much more nuanced versions of the words.” She sighed. “Raw Astrium, the blue crystals, is a room temperature superconductor for electricity, magic, heat, and psionic energy, to name a few. You can make batteries out of it, but they won’t have nearly as much capacity as Luminous Astrium batteries.
“Next comes Forged Astrium. It seems to be a little deceptively named in English, but again, translation artefact, it happens. It’s the densest and toughest form of Astrium, looks a bit like solid gold- and, despite taking the form of a metal, it’s actually a pretty good insulator. There’s very little that’s tough enough to cut Forged Astrium, and the main one is Forged Astrium itself- not that anyone compatible with Astrium will ever need to cut it, per se, but still.
“Then there’s Tempered Astrium. Another… funny-named one, I think I’ll call them, since you don’t make it by tempering it but you make it the same way you make Forged Astrium: Order it to change states. It’s only a little bit denser than the Raw form, but still many times tougher than steel and about as good of a thermal conductor as the same. It’s also not too great of an insulator, though it still functions as one.” She chuckled. “When building a ship out of Astrium, the core structural components get built of Forged Astrium, at least if it’s a large or high-performance ship, and the hull out of Tempered Astrium. Bladed weapons often have a Tempered blade, with an extremely fine edge of Forged Astrium. Tempered Astrium is even used in windows- if you oxidize it properly, it’s more transparent than glass, without sacrificing any of its strength.
“And now for Nocturnic Astrium. Simple command, in the presence of time distortions, as you know. It’s a lot easier to make the initial sample for than Luminous Astrium, as it only takes six months for a Chronotemporal Accumulator- basically a time battery with a funny name given to it by translation artefacts, made from just the base three- to, ahh, accumulate the time distortions necessary. It’s capable of making those distortions on command, so it’s pretty easy to make more once you’ve got a base sample, no power or whatever necessary. Nocturnic Astrium is very… niche; it’s pretty useless, in general. Brittle and soft, it’s like the playdough of Astrium… except of course for the ways it interacts with gravitons, tachyons, and chronitons. It’s the only form of Astrium that interacts with those, and because of that, it’s absolutely essential in anything that wants to manipulate gravity, time, or the worldwall- such as the Obelisk and Minicoms, which work through the worldwall, giving them effectively unlimited range.
“Finally, and hardest to make, is Luminous Astrium. According to the reference materials in my Seed, it usually takes about twenty years of effort to make the initial sample of it, which you gave me in the form of that Void Weave Drive during the summer.” She chuckled. “It takes insane amounts of power to create, but it serves as a near-unlimited-capacity battery for basically any form of energy without any special construction or whatever required. That said, it’s actually pretty hazardous to just let go of, because it’s only partly physical and actually completely massless, so you never know what it’s going to do outside of a perfect vacuum. According to my references, it’s standard practice to mix it with enough Raw Astrium to make it heavier than air for storage, so that’s what I’ve been doing with it as well.” She shrugged. “Still floats on water, though.
“Finally, there’s a bunch of extra variants of Astrium that you can make by bonding it to various other materials, such as the oxidized Tempered Astrium, which I don’t have a specific name on record for. Then there’s the Astrium Weave, that’s what the fabric is all called, which can be made from any of the five types by bonding it with hydrogen. Raw Weave looks like silk, Forged is kevlar, Tempered is amazingly similar to cotton. I haven’t made any Luminous or Nocturnic weave, but according to my database, I have no reason to; Luminous Weave isn’t massless, but it is a lot lighter than hydrogen gas and about as transparent as the same- and Nocturnic weave is…” She sighed. “It’s just bizarre. I actually don’t have any information on exactly how it is bizarre, it apparently just is.”
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The nocturne weave let’s what it is wrapped around blend into the world wall, allowing nearly perfect stealth and teleportation, it can also be used to repair the world wall
This work?
I admit, when I first heard your description of the ME device and the auto-crafting, I was thinking I was reading a description of someone's minecraft base.
I know you've got more coming, and I hope the yet-to-come is going to be interesting. These last few bits seem like overpowered Self-Inserts just shy of Mary Sue level.
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A minecraft base... Yes, I can see that.
I have an idea! Nocturnic weave looks like it's been forged out of the night sky, so it has a light sheen to it but looks a lot like a liquid, constantly rippling and creating a black "puddle" if it's set down on a surface and not hung from something. When worn, people can shadow-step (disappear into the void of shadows in order to get from one place to another) and either enter Hammerspace themselves or access it without needing to be connected to it like Bonbon and Hailey are
Tell you what, sometimes I think you are writing adults that work in the science lab for a living instead of normal children like they are supposed to be, this is going to be such a pain.
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At least this time they’re both reincarnations, so they could easily actually be adults. But yes, I am notoriously terrible at writing children. Not sure why I keep doing it over and over.
Aaaand, this chapter also needs a comment break. It's been rewritten!
You missed a wonderful opportunity. Chamber of Secrets Private Access Network, or C-Span ...
Hmm. So ... 1.21 GW would be about 18 months? Interesting. And now it's 6 days?
How long until you can generate and store that much, and discharge as needed?
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Um... where did those times come from, if I may ask...?
From an error on my part.
So, ahem, I misread that as 20A@240v for 1 year, not 20 years.
(Never mind that I confused GW and GWh ...)
I see technical porn when I see it. Reminds me of Startrek or Stargate before someone speaks plain english again.
Did you invented Gary Stu and Mary Sue on steroids?
The overwhelming amount of technobabble is not all that enjoyable. Lore-dumping/techno-splaining is not a substitute for actual storytelling.
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You have just spotted one of the main reasons this story was discontinued.