"No I don't think I have, but a name like that I could have forgotten. That supose to be some kinda metal?" only asking because of the -lium in it.

"It might go by another name too. It has high electrical conductivity, but isn't economically viable to mine here."

"Are you talking Kypris? Green, kinda almost looks like it glows in the light? Chemically inert, can be drawn and beat? That shit is expensive as hell right now, practically zero natural sources and few people with the skill to make it. Unless you absolutely can't have any electricity turning into heat I would just look into other meta-materials. You would be lucky to pay less than 100kilo an ounce for Kypris. Your really better off checking with Hades for stuff like that though, that or Mus's if your in good with the Order. Most capable of that level of metallurgy come out of the Mus school with the odd name.... I think some one told me once it meant 'the accidental collage'" He said with a little big of a luagh. "Though I'm at a loss as how you could accidentally build a collage."

She may have actually gone to the Fors Collegis Meruris, but ether way she knows of it. The Order of Hermes built it as a fortress during war times.... they used it though to teach there most promising students in safety. The most promising students and best teachers all gathered together... when the war that brought about building the fortress ended and the military force left they kinda got left with the best collage in the solar system and the safest at that. lol
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:34, Wed 18 May 2016.

Edith remembered the Fors Collegis Meruris. It had been an unusual school; it had a military feel with the chaos of geniuses who were determined to do their own thing.

"Well, I'm sorry we couldn't do any business. Here are my contact details. I'd appreciate a call if anything comes up."

"Well I said I could pay you to fix a few things, not much to fix but I'll pay you 2kilo an hour and a bonus to anything you can improve on. I just can't have you working in any hazard area's."

Oh, she must have misunderstood the man.

"Fair enough. When can I start?"

"As soon as you like, we got an arch furnace that broke down a while back, you can do something like that you can probably fix that."

Said furnace was in bad shape, a power surge had hit the plant and it took the blunt of it. The blast melted out the bottom of the vat and molten metal spilt out over the furnace while the same time the surge blew out a grate many electrical caponates. She would have to use mater sphere to completely rebuild much of it.

Edith texted/emailed/whatever the equivalent is Donovan that she had a job and for him to bring over her toolbag. While she was waiting, Edith checked out the place looking for the supplies, tools, and equipment she'd need (or anything that just looked interesting).

After dropping off her gear, Donovan went off in search of a place to stay for the night. Then he started researching the local grain(ish) alcohol. Although he did a fair share of sampling, Donovan was smart enough not to get drunk.

Meanwhile, Edith found a comfortable place for Paracelsus- hopefully they were out of the dangerously hot environment. Then she went to work.

She manages a fairly ok hotel with what money they have left and trading a dram in for some money, Donovan blows the rest of it... find the local stuff mostly disapointing as there made from what ever they can get to make it. Don't get them wrong, for what it's made from it's good! But they could ready do better if they could afford to grow better tasting stuff. Everything is strong as hell though. He lasts longer than many would thought but he dose end up getting drunk despite his try not to. What he blows most the money on is a suggested honey meed. He didn't like to think about what kinda bee's this came from, the way they talked the hive was the size of a mountain.... shit.... but the meed made from there honey was absolutely divine, and expensive... so there goes all his money in short order.

How dose Edith approach the problem of the damaged arch furnace?

Edith started with a complete analysis of what could be salvaged and what needed to be redone, then determined what could be done just as easily with mundane skills and what required magic. Then she put together a list of all the components she needed and passed tthat along. The repairs fell into two areas- replacing and remolding the physical part of it and replacing the electrical components. Since she'd have to wait for the electrical parts, she started on the furnace itself. Whenever she needed to manipulate the shape of some material and had the necessary privacy, she usually changed it physically into molding clay and worked with it in that form, then changed it back. She worked on it one section at a time, using scrap metal and whatever raw material she had.

(no need for being alone besides it being easier when your alone regardless... though people would give an odd look as it's rare for people to be good tech and metatech workers and able to do magic as simple yet powerfull as turning metal to clay and reshaping it. Worse case people would be watching in fascination and get yelled at to get back to work.)

(also if curious the rolls arn't as bad as they look as you got bonuses for using magic to help skills and skills to help magic and back and forth with it, and taking time)

Well the metal melted over the machine had to be removed with magic, and the warping to it caused by the heat, finally the hole burnt through the bottom of the vat. Besides that magic only helped her find what was wrong, she was able to repair everything on her skill alone. This was the kinda thing she could take apart and put back together in her sleep, there was not a single part in the thing she didn't know what it was.

Even though the thing was good as scrap metal, she was able to fix it in only 5 hours. If she wanted to try and improve it though she could, the parts where old and she could alter them and make them better.

Quality was much more important than speed-she needed to impress her new boss. Besides, it was a matter of pride to make something she had repaired better than it had originally been. So she took her time, focusing on the connections and reinforcing typical weak areas. Meanwhile, Paracelsus took advantage of being someplace safe to get in some much-needed sleep.

There was a little dispute over working after they close up, but he had some work to do so he staied late, he wasn't going to let her work more than 10 hours though... but it only took 8 to bring it up to today standards, and a little better.

When they head out he hands her a 20kc credit chip. "I know it's not what you could make for this kinda work else where but it's all I can pay right now, if you want to work here at night bringing some of the other machines up to specks I could pay you more though... they could use the maintenance anyway and getting up to standards and upped production will make everyone happy."

Edith felt much better after improving the furnace. She took the pay happily- she didn't need tons of money, just enough to keep them alive until she figured out what their next move would be.

On the way home, Edith picked up a late dinner for the three of them.

She was none too happy to discover Donovan's condition when she finally made it to their temporary home.

He never tried to drink some one under the table before, and not with enhanced drinks, so no suprize there..... least he learned a lot in more than one way.

Donovan's discomfort- and Edith's anticipation of his misery the next day ameliorated her annoyance. For his part, Donovan immediately launched into a drunken, mostly coherent report of his investigations into local grain-based alcohol. He knew all was forgiven when she was drawn into his description and joined in with his speculations about the giant bees.

Paracelsus didn't care about what the others were discussing until he realized that the bees they were so interested in lived outside the city. From then on, he kept a careful ear out for any signs that they wanted to go see them.

When Edith told Donovan that she had found a job, he excitedly - and a bit disjointedly- began to tell her his plans to study the dirt inside the city. She didn't quite catch everything he intended to do, but it was in furtherance of his studies, so she approved.

They went to bed with new plans for the next day.

She was tired and didn't really put it together.... but both Paracelsus and Donovan could figure out one clear thing:

The price he paid for the drink.
The size of the hive.
What was known about normal sized bees/wasps and the like.....

Getting honey from that hive had to be one of the most ridiculously stupid and dangerous things to do on the whole planet unless you where very skilled and had VERY good gear to make them not notice them.

Paracelsus immediately filed "getting honey from giant bees" under "Things to not do".

Donovan began wondering how you'd go about avoiding giant bees- since killing them would destroy the source of the honey. Maybe there were bee pheromones that made you "look" like a bee or maybe you could use smoke or gas to put them to sleep.

Well it's more that fact of numbers.... lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and ..... to many bees.

A hive that size one would have to go with making themselves look like one of the bee's to them, make them unable to be seen by the bee's, or try smoking out a small segment.... that or dig into the hive from bellow. Not to many ways that wouldn't bring down a swarm of death.

Donovan idly wondered how bees could identify whether a bee was from a different hive. He assumed they must have a way of doing that; otherwise, one hive could just steal honey from another more easily than collecting pollen.

In the morning, Edith and Paracelsus went to work while Donovan began analyzing dirt from inside the city. Once he had some preliminary work done, he divided up the dirt and set it up under specific conditions starting with different amounts of water, sunlight, and air.

Anyalizing the soil took some time, 45 minutes for any result... would take 105 to get enough to get the jist of what was done, and an hour and a half to finish working it all out.

It was awful meticulous work due to his lack of skill in magic.

The data showed they used some kinda metatech poison to saturate and alter the soil to make it unable to sustain life for hundreds of years. What they spray on a daily basis is just a chemical that reacts to the poison, sustaining it's affect.... it is toxic in and of itself but it seams the main reason for it is to keep the soil barren.

Edith don't need to be to work till the plant shuts down and everything cools off enough to be safe (though still way to hot for poor paracelsus lol)

Edith slept most of the morning while Donovan worked. She knew that she could use magic to answer his questions in a fraction of the time, but the point of this was for him to learn the hard way so he could understand how it worked with magic.

When she got up, Edith started working on a comfortable place for Paracelsus while she worked. About the size of a large cat carrier, she incorporated elements from the suit so he would be comfortable without having to be stuck in the suit itself.

It wasn't to hard to make but he might find that a little demeaning, But it was not like there was much to see at the place she was going.

Donovan would have been done investigating the soil by the time she woke.

"What's your next step," Edith asked Donovan when he had explained what he had discovered so far.

"I've got samples under bright light, no light, damp conditions, dry conditions, plenty of air, and no air. I'll measure the amount of poison left in each sample every day to see how quickly it degrades and what conditions affect it," Donovan explained.

"I'm heading out to talk to some of the local farmers to find out how they keep weeds from destroying their crops. Maybe that will show something too."

"Sounds good," Edith said.

"Maybe I'll find out more about the bees too," he added.

Edith nodded noncommittally. She was curious about that herself.

After finishing her work on Paracelsus' climate-controlled carrier, she called him over. He walked around it, then inspected it carefully, sniffing every inch of it inside and out. Finally, he sat down in front of it.

"I don't like it."

Edith sighed, "What don't you like?"

"It's too enclosed."

"But that's the only way to keep you cool. It's either this or the suit."

"I don't like that either. I'll stay here while you work."

"Why didn't you tell me that's what you wanted earlier?"

"You didn't ask."

Edith wondered which of her companions would drive her insane first.

"Fine," she said. "Let's go out and look around some more."

Paracelsus was in favor of this as long as he got a shoulder ride.