Crystals, Dim? It is curious that you dabble in this subject. There is much I can teach you. What is it that you are after, I wonder? You are up to something interesting and I don’t know what it is. I get so little time to experiment with my own magic these days. How I wish I could join you in pony so that we might work together.

The wind tugged at his hat but a simple spell kept it anchored in place. Inches away from his face, he kept a blob of liquified salt that somehow did not burn him. From this glowing mass of liquid salt, he drew away small quantities and allowed them to crystallize while he tried to infuse them with magic. Magic that he pushed through the liquid salt changed, though he could not say how, not exactly, other than there was a distinct difference.

“Salt purifies,” Dim muttered to himself, an act that was unnecessary because the pink presence in his mind could share his thoughts. “So does chalk. I don’t understand the how or why, not completely, but I do understand the end result.”

Dim, what is the end result? The presence seemed curious and eager. I mean, of whatever it is that you are after.

“I don’t know yet,” Dim murmured as he pulled away a little more of the boiling liquid salt and began to cool it. “I wish to create an explosion of ultimate purity… fire…. cleansing fire that will purge corruption and evil. Magic bears a taint, I have discovered that in my studies, and Grogar and his minions I assume, have some means, some measure of magic resistance because of this taint. It stands to reason that if I can purify magic on the spot, then I can purify Grogar’s minions—”

You mean burn them to death!

“Yes!” Dim hissed and a passing minotaur jerked and shivered at the sound.

On its own, the salt began to grow in some odd way as it cooled and transitioned into a crystalline form. The chaotic fractal sprouted like a weed and Dim watched with keen interest while also trying to keep it thoroughly infused with magic. Floating nearby, a pen scratched away in his journal, scribing his observed results. This was the most difficult sort of magic, channeled spells involving components, and this was why wizards needed extensive educations. Any nattering boob could cast a cold spell filtered through a blue sapphire, but to create a new spell entirely from scratch was an epic undertaking, an accomplishment that Dim was already hankering to be able to boast about.

You’re trying to purify raw aetherfire, aren’t you? Dim, that’s insanity… that is a raw element that manifests when magic is being channeled. This isn’t an element that is controlled, not in the traditional sense, it is raw chaos that is harmonised when channeled by will. It is the primary element that emits light and sometimes heat given the circumstances… Dim, don’t do it! Not even Celestia or Twilight tries to tap aetherfire directly to ignite it!

“Then I shall be the first.”

No! No! No! The pink presence was so panicked that there was a physical pressure inside of Dim’s head now, pushing on the inside of his ears and the backs of his eyeballs. I am supposed to keep you from blowing yourself up! The world too! Auntie will be furious with me! With a violent pop that threatened to make his eyeballs go squirting out of his skull, the pink presence fled and Dim felt alone… so utterly alone, the voice in his head keeping him company having gone silent.

Free of distractions, Dim focused upon the task at hoof. All of magic was inherently corrupted due to the Black Star—a subject that his mother had been obsessed about. It had come to Terra a long, long time ago and the impact had been catastrophic, to say the very least. Magic became wild and dangerous for a time. Monsters were spawned from the introduction of strange, new energy. The dust from the impact almost destroyed the sky and left Terra’s natural system of weather in a state of perpetual, inoperable chaos.

With the skies forever damaged, pegasus ponies and griffons were needed to control the weather and the corrupted monsters that prowled the skies. The ground too, also suffered as the dust settled, and earth ponies were needed to maintain the surface, while diamond dogs dealt with the corruption that gathered far below. The world had survived this potential extinction because all of the sapients had come together and pooled their respective talents. Unicorns and those who could directly channel magic wrestled with the state of magic itself to bring order back to chaos.

All of the surface had been corrupted from the dust of the Black Star, but as Dim had discovered during his time on the Grittish Isles, there were pockets—pools—wells of purified magic far down below the chalk and the salt. He had felt them, touched them, and it was with much pleasure that he recalled the sensations experienced when touching them during his studies.

In hindsight, his mother’s knowledge—Dark Desire’s knowledge—of the Black Star made sense and Dim wondered how much of what his mother knew must have come from Grogar himself or sources close to Grogar. He had no doubt that his mother’s intimate knowledge of this subject had come from those who had witnessed the dreadful event. On that day, a seed of evil had been planted.

It stood to reason that if the surface magic had been corrupted, it could be purified, much like it was down deep in the hidden clefts of the ground. Magical radiation rose through the ground, which acted like a filter, and then ambient magical energies were channeled by the various sapients of Terra. There was passive magic, like the earth ponies and the diamond dogs, the pegasus ponies and the griffons, and there was active magic such as what he himself could do.

Entranced, Dim watched the salt flowing, changing shape, and in the crystalline salt lattices that formed, he could see tiny dancing lights—the glow of aetherfire, the visible light of magical radiation that came from thaumaton particles. Thaumatons, which interacted with everything and changing their properties profoundly. Things like Celestium—two neutrons, two protons, two electrons, and at minimum one thaumaton—allowed airships to fly. Solestium—a hydrogen atom infused with a thaumaton—was a volatile substance that Dim had been warned many, many times not to play with.

And of course, he had played with it.

Manfrit the Minotaur had a mechanical hand and was endlessly fascinating. He was older, greying, and had more than a few scars. From the battlefield or the boiler room, it was impossible to tell. The old minotaur was kind, patient, and knowledgeable, answering just about every question that she could throw at him.

For Blackbird, it was the perfect, welcome distraction after everything that had happened. The tour of the engine room—no doubt a jarring experience for some due to the noise—had done a good job of settling her nerves. The coal fired turbine was an amazing contraption; with so few moving parts, it had remarkable reliability and could be depended upon to run and run and run.

The ship’s turbine wasn’t direct drive—though the wash from the turbine was ported through thrusters for maneuverability, she had asked about that to satisfy her feline curiousity—but was electrical. The ship had a tremendous electrical demand to maintain lift and the remaining electricity was used to power airscrews. Anything left over flowed into batteries and in the event of an emergency there was a bank of pegasus pony spark jars—containers that held compressed lightning bolts suspended within glass.

It was the most amazing thing ever and had almost left Blackbird in a freakout state.

“Never had a day in school beyond what I saw as a calf,” the old minotaur bragged as he pulled out a small brass flask from beneath his apron and unscrewed the stopper. “Learned by doing. Became a stowaway on a ship full of griffons. Good sorts. After dangling me over the rail for a while, they decided to keep me and I started a tinkering away. I went from crew to crew as the years passed, learning all I could.” Tilting his head back, the old bull took a nip from his flask and grimaced.

“The engine degreaser keeps you going, old timer?” Blackbird asked and she hoped that her good natured teasing would not offend.

Manfrit laughed, a sound that was far too soft, all things considered, and didn’t seem quite right coming from the minotaur. He put the stopper back onto his flask and then he made it vanish back beneath his thick, scarred leather apron. “It helps me manage pain,” he said in a muted voice, and offered no further explanation.

Blackbird decided to not push the issue any further and felt it necessary to change the subject. “So, your hand, I’ve never seen its like. How does it work? It is an impressive replacement and I’m dying to know more.”

Reaching out, the minotaur pulled a rickety wooden chair away from the battered steel table, threw his leg up over the back of the chair, and then sat down. The chair let out an alarming creak and its wooden legs all bowed from the minotaur’s weight. Blackbird too, sat down to join Manfrit and her eyes remained focused upon his mechanical hand. She leaned against the edge of the cool steel table, eager, her felinoid nature demanding to know all that could be known.

“There are those who say that we minotaurs are too heavy to be skyfarers who ride upon the wind,” Manfrit said as he squinted and made himself comfortable. “Those little ponies, like your companion, there’s not much to him… they are an ideal species of skyfarers. I envy them in a way. Small bodies, light weight, it must be easy to pack in tight. I hold a lot of affection and fondness for the little buggers.”

At this minotaur’s rumination, Blackbird found herself smiling.

Manfrit extended his arm to reveal his hand and all of his mechanical fingers relaxed into a neutral position as steam shot out of the vents. The hand itself was made of brass and what appeared to be nickel to Blackbird’s eyes. A faint glowing golden light could be seen emanating from the vents and when Blackbird leaned in closer, it was like standing with the sun on her face.

“How does it not burn you?” Blackbird asked as she pulled her head back.

“I have to drink a potion every day,” Manfrit replied as something within his hand hissed. “If I don’t, the hot metal will start to burn my stump. It’s not a complicated potion though, thankfully. Just a tincture of winterwort.”

“Oh.” Blackbird nodded, knowing what winterwort was. The ponies back where she called home grew it for use in alchemical powered refrigerators to keep things like milk cold.

“It’s quite simple, really. It depends on pressure and mechanical energy,” Manfrit began. “Inside of each finger there is a stout length of cable that runs from the fingertip all the way up to expanding cylinders in the arm. The pressure in the cylinder can be regulated, and this drives a piston out up into the arm, extending it and making the actuator longer. This pulls the cable inside the finger, and the fingers curl into a fist.”

Blackbird did her best to visualise this and found that it made sense. Real anatomy worked in a similar way, so she reckoned, because fingers—or in her case, talons—had tendons and such that made the fingers curl when they went tight.

“It’s powered by thaumaturgically infused coal,” he continued as he made one finger wiggle and each movement was accompanied by puffs of steam. “It doesn’t so much burn as it gets hot. It has to be exposed to a certain type of magic and this causes a reaction that makes the coal slowly crumble away while giving off intense heat and residual magic. The water is collected from magical condensers and it takes a while to build back up to full pressure if all of it is released. It’s slow, it’s clunky, it takes constant repair, but it is better than not having a hand.”

“I think it’s amazing.” Blackbird reached out and gingerly poked Manfrit’s wiggling brass finger with her claw. “There is such a demand for industrialisation… I learned about this in school, you see… and the cost of industrialisation has been a whole lotta maiming. City states and provinces have actually made mandates prohibiting industrialisation because they don’t want their subjects maimed and all of this stuff fascinated me to no end and now I get to see stuff like this and it just overloads my mind because I can see so much potential in it even though it takes something awful for this to be necessary—” Blackbird inhaled, wheezing, and then gave Manfrit an apologetic glance to make up for being a motormouth.

“It’s all so futuristic,” she whispered, trying hard to contain her growing excitement.

“Aye, in my own lifetime, I have seen airships go from steam boilers to coal dust fired turbines.” Manfrit allowed his mechanical hand to drop down to the table and his brass fingers tapped against the steel surface. “I’ve seen which way the wind is blowing. Soon, things will be too complicated for an old gearhead like me to understand. Not without a whole lot schooling. The world is changing faster than we can keep up with.”

“Thank you… really… for everything. You’ve been wonderful, Manfrit.”

“It’ll be a short trip, but I can teach you all I can in that time. I wouldn’t mind competent help.” The big bull minotaur grinned, revealing a fair number of missing teeth. “It’d be nice to pass along even just a little of what I know.”

“I’d like that.” Blackbird nodded and held out her talons, waiting.

Manfrit, still grinning but also solemn somehow, took Blackbird’s offered talons into his own hammy, fleshy hand and gave them both a squeeze and a shake. “We can start by getting you acquainted with the steam piping… the blood vessels of this ship, and her old brass heart. There’s a dreadful leak somewhere and pressure for vital systems is far too low. Want to see if we can fix it?”

Still nodding, Blackbird replied, “That’d be wonderful…”

Author's Notes:

It's a pleasure cruise!