The plan took a few hours to formulate, and everything changed when Arnold revealed that he had never been her Servitor. Willow had the beginnings of an idea, but Nicholas and Finn had some surprising input as well.
“Here,” she said as she wrapped an iron knife in several layers of cloth as he was putting on a belt to hold it, while Nicholas armed himself with only chalk as he looked at a book. “Be careful with that, I’ll want it back.”
Arnold nodded vaguely, but if the plans didn’t work or he lost the knife he would have to count on Jaeger and the dwarves. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel any more comfortable with either of their choices in weaponry than the knife.
“You really think that your sword will do better than their…what are those things?” Arnold asked as he turned and indicated the large metallic pack that weighted down the dwarven warriors.
Nchledame grinned excitedly as he looked at the weaponry with pride, despite how ridiculous they appeared to the cat, “It is a tono-neutronic device that was only developed in the past thirty years or so, and they are designed as our foremost, long range, offense against all aetheric entities!”
“Tono-what?” Arnold sighed and shook his head. Canergak had sometimes spoken about this where he could hear, but he still had no idea what it could mean. “What exactly is Tonal science?”
“It’s a poor translation into our tongue is what it is,” Willow explained with a dissatisfied twist to his mouth. “Their ‘Tonal Architects’ are people who study and manipulate aetheric vibrations.”
“It is far more complex than that,” Nchledame stated, looking dismayed at their lack of understanding in his life’s work. “But, essentially, he is correct. The translation is far from perfect, but we feel it is still the most accurate.”
“Oh…” Arnold said softly as he finally felt he understood some of what Canergak had been doing up until now. “Aethric vibrations…” He had to suppose that aetheric entities gave off interesting vibrations…but what did they do with that knowledge? Looking at the packs on their backs he supposed he might find out soon.
One of the warriors moved forward and clapped him in irons and attached heavy chains. While they set up the trap he turned back to Jaeger who was inspecting her sword. “And you don’t want one of those or a gun that shoots iron bullets?”
Jaeger answered confidently, “Our enemies are on fire as often as not, and so is the surface. If you want to wear something that combusts then be my guest, but I will keep my blade.”
Arnold paused and nodded, he was more glad than ever that he had thrown his gun away that day on top of the north wall. It would have exploded the instant he entered this realm and blown a hole into his leg probably. Now that it had been brought to his attention he had seen Hono and now even Maddox perform a few fire tricks, and Jason Moriarty shot lightning out of his hands. What if they ignited a fire inside the weapon? He would make it a point to never carry a gun ever again. “But a sword against fire cats and Fae seems just a little…one sided.”
“If I can pierce her heart, my blade will fell her.” Jaeger sheathed her blade and muttered softly, like a prayer, “May she find rest in the Darkness beyond should it come to that.”
The cat stared at her for a short time, unnerved, and confused. As he looked at her closer he finally saw something he should have noticed before and then shortly after came to a realization and nodded. She lived in a world consumed and destroyed by the Light…it only made sense that they might have turned to Darkness to save them.
Maddox tilted her head, intrigued. “I never did think of igniting the firing mechanism in a firearm before…” She got a wistful grin and let him continue as she began hastily scribbling her own notes on the side of her session notes.
Arnold twitched at her comment. He hadn’t wanted to give her or Helio horrible ideas like that…