Chapter 23 – To Summon a Demon

  “Yeah, it’s creepy. I swear he has a 6th sense about some things but also knows more than he lets on.” - Kurt to Val regarding Jay.

  The ring that Kurt was designing was four separate components. Well, eight separate components if you counted the physical parts and counted the enchantments. The trick was how to make them all work together.

  The first part was the dimensional pocket for the items to go into, mostly straight forward and well-known bit of enchanting. The second was a summoning enchantment better described as translocation magic, to move things in and out of the space. Then came the general sizing and binding enchantment that would make the ring fit perfectly and prevent people from removing it. The final part of this version was a very common spell for many craftsmen and enchanters.

  Inventory management was a big deal, especially when dealing with rge amounts of unreted product. Kurt had met several craftsmen that had such an enchantment pced on their storage rooms that would let them know the contents. It was designed to help with buying and selling but it could serve any purpose with knowing about and locating products.

  Kurt’s ring would have an enchant to store things, an enchant to know what is stored and where it is, one to conceal and size, then a final enchant to move things in and out of the area. Very simple, not very elegant, which suited his form over function needs.

  After Kurt put the box of ring parts on the work bench, he went and got another box which had simir contents but in a different material. He wanted his final product to be high quality but needed to test his theory first.

  The second box of parts had the same pieces but made in brass. The metal was rather low in the magical capacity category, but it met his other needs for a test bed. Easy to work with and expendable.

  He started by assembling one of the brass rings, fitting all the pieces together. After everything had snapped into pce, he scribed a line using a small square and his marking knife. This line was meant to index everything across the four pieces.

  After the line had been scribed, he pced the whole assembly in a soft jaw vice and got out a small rotary tool with a drill bit. He drilled a small hole all the way through the face then into the underside of the ring without going through, using the scribed line as the center. He didn’t need to be to precise since the line was just for reassembly.

  With the prep work done, Kurt disassembled the ring and put the first piece in his engravers vice. He then began carving the inscription on the inner section, starting at the hole he had drilled, using it as the focus point for the translocation enchantment. Next up was his dimensional pocket, once again using the hole as its focus. The first edge piece got the sizing and binding Enchantment.

  Finally, he carved the st enchantment on the second edge piece that bridged the inner and outer ring. This one was slightly different since he needed to line up the focus point with his scribed line. It would intersect with the bridges he made into the other two engravings.

  After an hour and a half, all his engravings had been cut and Kurt stepped back to take a breather and stretch before the next part. He hadn’t done his best work but, in the end, it was only a proof of concept.

  He then pulled out soldering supplies and brought them over along with an adjustable torch. He thoroughly coated the interior parts of the ring in a flux paste. Then he got out his solder wire and made sure everything he needed was at hand. With everything ready and the assembled ring cmped in a heat safe vice, it was time.

  Kurt lit the torch and moved it over the ring, adjusting the fme to heat it without ruining the brass. Once he had it at the right temperature and saw the flux begin to react, he touched the solder to the hole he had drilled. Just like when he did the plumbing, the flux sucked the solder in, and he kept feeding it until it wouldn’t take any more.

  Kurt cut the heat and let it cool naturally. He watched as the sprue on top began to shrink but stayed just proud of the surface. He breathed a sigh of relief and just hoped there weren’t any voids within it.

  After several long minutes, Kurt removed the now only slightly warm ring and looked it over. Everything appeared to be in order with none of the solder leaking from the joints, so he moved to his next step. He fired up his rotary tool and buffed out the ring, polishing away the discoloring and the excess solder.

  Everything was looking like it should, so Kurt moved to the final step in making the ring. He went over to the enchanting pte and activated the enchantments. He noted that it took significantly more energy than he was expecting. Then he remembered that not only was he activating four spells, but he was also doing them all at once and binding them together.

  The light faded and showed a slightly glowing ring that seemed to shimmer for a moment before fading to a normal luster. Suddenly Val was leaning over his shoulder again.

  “Shit! How do you keep doing that?” He swore as she once again startled him.

  “Did it work?” Val asked, ignoring him. “Do you have a storage ring?”

  Kurt didn’t move to touch the ring, instead grabbing a special magnifying gss that was essentially a highly advanced inspection tool. He held it over the ring and looked through, reading the information that was given by the numerous enchantments.

  The first thing he looked at was the energy potential. On a storage device like a bag of holding it represented the maximum capacity of the item. After recording the value at ‘1320’ he looked at the other information dispyed.

  The mana seemed to be circuting within the enchantment like it should be, only one slight choke point but it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. The other thing he saw was the receptors for the translocation enchantment and inventory enchantments were in a ‘ready’ state.

  He spent a few minutes recording his findings while Val stared daggers into his back. “Just wait a moment.” He said eventually. “I am checking for stability unless I want this pocket dimension to colpse or invert itself unexpectedly.”

  “Oh, yeah that could be bad.” Penny said from where she had sat at the other end of the room. She had brought in a cushion off the couch and was perched atop it.

  Several minutes having passed, Kurt reinspected the ring and saw the same value of ‘1320’. That was a relief since it meant that his enchantment was stable and wasn’t about to either colpse into a point of nothingness, taking most nearby objects with it. Now he had to determine what the hell the value of ‘1320’ meant.

  He opened a drawer in his workbench and pulled out his scales, specifically grabbing the weight beled ‘1 KG’. He put the ring on his finger and felt the enchantments interact with him. The sizing enchant worked just like his other ones and it shrunk to be a perfect fit on his right middle finger. The inventory feature seemed to work as it brushed against his mind and he instinctively knew that nothing was in the ring, and it impressed the ‘1320’ number on him. Now he had to test the other features.

  He pced the 1-kilogram weight on the scale and banced it, adding two of the half kilo weights to the other side. After confirming it all matched, he held the one kilo weight in his right hand and willed it to be inside the ring, focusing his elven mind hard on the process.

  A lot of things happened at once. First, the inventory spell reacted and told him that he was holding a one kilo weight made of brass. Next the translocation enchantment told him of all the pces it could send the weight. Then that enchantment sensed that he wanted to move the weight into the space that was touching it via the solder.

  Pop. The weight disappeared with a little pop that was so faint Kurt thought he imagined it. Then the inventory enchantment sent him a feeling that there was a one kilo brass weight in the ring. After he stopped focusing on it, the sensation went away, and he just felt it was a pin ring on his finger.

  He then focused on the ring and saw the inventory spell dispy different number. This time it showed ‘1310’ and also showed the weight. Kurt stopped focusing on it and made a note that the value was ten-to-one value to kilogram. He then pulled roll of shop towels off the shelf and willed it into his ring.

  The value went down by four showing his version of the spatial storage was based on weight rather than volume. It wasn’t good or bad either way, just how his enchantment worked. He then summoned the paper towels out into his open left hand. That confirmed that he could control where he summoned and dismissed the items from.

  After making some more notes, he summoned the weight again. He tried to pce it directly on the bench, but it appeared a couple inches above it and banged onto the worktop. He figured that might take some experimentation so see what the limit on range was of the translocation spell.

  He took the weight and pced it on the scale. It had been in the ring for a total of thirty minutes between his note taking and stalling. Val was pacing back and forth behind him while Penny sat patiently waiting.

  The scales banced perfectly, showing no loss of material. He let out the breath he had been holding. Not only was his ring not a ticking time bomb, it also didn’t consume items. He had heard of poorly made bags of holding that left little breadcrumbs of its contents as the items slowly disintegrated.

  Kurt turned around with a frown on his face, Val instantly picked up on it. “What? What’s wrong with it? Does part of it not work?” she rattled off the questions rapid fire at him.

  “No, none of that.”

  “THEN WHAT!” She practically yelled, about to lose her mind with the suspense.

  “I think we are going to be very popur.” Kurt said and smiled, holding the ring up to the light. “It works.”

  Val squealed, rushing in for a hug. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him firmly on the lips. Then she pulled back and punched him in the arm. “That’s for pying jokes in such a serious situation.”

  Penny came over. “Congratutions Kurt.” She was absolutely beaming at him. “What next?”

  Kurt managed to pry Val off him and answer Penny. “Next I have to find out what happens when it breaks.” He didn’t want to but had to know. He hadn’t heard any reports of what happens when a bag of holding is destroyed. Given how difficult it was to break enchanted items, he wasn’t sure if it would be possible.

  “Wait. You are going to break the item you just made? The first of its kind ever to exist?” Penny was looking at him like he had grown a second head. “Why?

  “Mostly curiosity but also a healthy amount of caution.” Kurt began while packing everything up. “I really don’t want to take a hit that breaks the ring. My hand would regenerate because I’m a lycan but what happens if the ring is shattered? Does the ground get littered with items or does the ring convert it all into energy and make a bomb?”

  Penny’s look of incredulity vanished and was repced by one of consideration. Val had taken to helping put the tools and other instruments away while Kurt secured his supplies and grimoire. They all trooped upstairs and followed him out to the garage.

  Kurt retrieved a piece of firewood and put it in his ring. Then he grabbed a cinder block that was currently unemployed but loitering in the corner of the shop area and put it in the ring too. After having a couple items in his ring, he went to the work bench. He picked up a pair of air powered metal shears, a very long section of braided airline and a portable compressor. He recharged the compressor before they all trooped out to the far corner of the field behind the house.

  Kurt found a nice stump and put the shears atop it, then ran the airline all the way behind a still uncut pile of logs. He set the compressor down and went back to the stump to position the ring in the jaws of the shears before headed back to the compressor. He propped his phone up on the logs, recording the event while he went around the back side with the girls.

  “And here we go.” Kurt said as he plugged in the air line and opened the valve. He could hear the shears start to close followed by a loud pop that bordered on soft bang for noise level. Then they heard nothing.

  Cautiously, Kurt peaked an eye out from behind the pile of logs and looked across the field to the stump. He couldn’t see the shears or the ring but there was a bck patch where they once were. He unhooked the compressor and snagged his phone.

  Watching the video showed a fsh of light shortly after the air started flowing. When the light faded and the camera readjusted, they saw the stump as it is now. With nothing else to do, they walked up to inspect the damage in person.

  They found the shears ying a couple feet from the stump. The bdes needed repcing but that appeared to be the extent of the damage since they still worked other than that. Next, they found a cinder block that was slightly sooty but looked fine. Right next to that, they found the piece of split firewood, also just slightly covered in a yer of soot.

  “Any signs of the ring?” Kurt asked as they looked around in the grass and dirt.

  Val leaned down and picked at something. She held it up, squinting as she examined it. “I think this is part of one of the edges?” she hedged and handed it over to Kurt.

  Indeed, the section was a small brass ring, bent and deformed with a little solder still clinging to it. The brass was bckened, the same as the cinder block and wood but otherwise just looked like it had burst.

  “Well, I think that is an absolute success.” Kurt decred. “The stump is actually intact and undamaged other than the very light soot that came from something.”

  “So does that mean you will make more?” Penny said. She had started picking up the section of air hose, coiling it as they walked back and picked up the rest of their stuff.

  “I pn to make one within the next couple hours. We have some time before dinner, and I can finish one up.” Kurt said and they all trooped back to the house.

  True to his word, Kurt went straight to work. Val just gave him a kiss on the cheek and left him to it while she and Penny went to find other activities. Kurt pulled out the box of titanium parts and some gold wire along with a few ftter pieces.

  He had originally intended to do a tungsten material but found that it was a little too hard to work. The machine shop had a hard time cutting it without chipping and Kurt had an even harder time engraving it. In the end, they settled for a metal that was very mana conductive, light and easier to work despite the high tensile strength.

  For tools, Kurt had to use his enchanted ones to make the process at all possible. The enchanted tools were some of the first he made, finding it would become necessary to engrave on anything harder than mild steel.

  The process went rgely the same, no real differences until he got to the part where he would bind everything together. He had to use a different torch and get everything much hotter to melt the gold and get it to flow. The flux was also a different type that wouldn’t boil off until much higher heats.

  First, he put the inner and outer bands into one of the edge pieces. Once those three were stuck together loosely, he pced some of the fttened gold wire inside. His pn was to make it so the gold didn’t have to flow as far to reach the bottom when he pced it in the outer hole.

  He snapped the other side on and fired up the torch. It took way longer but after forty-five minutes, he was left with a mostly cooled ring with a little gold seeping out. He had been a little heavy handed on the heat and gold to make sure everything was coated inside the ring.

  Once he had it all buffed to a mirror shine and took the edges down a bit, it was off to the enchanting pte. The drain on his mana was massive and he had to concentrate to pull in more atmospheric mana to supplement the pte and get the four enchantments to set.

  After taking a quick breather and making a note to build a mana battery, Kurt inspected the finished product. The titanium was polished to a perfect luster, just enough to catch the light but not so much it was garish. The little circle of gold in the center of the top band was a nice touch to go along with the little rings that formed at the edges of the band, really rounding out the corners and giving a nice banced look.

  “Moment of truth.” He sighed and pulled out the magnifying gss. Circuits looked good, mana flowed well, no bottlenecks and the enchantments were all active and waiting. Taking a breath, he looked at the ‘value’ of 18550.

  “Eighteen fucking thousand!” He almost shouted. Apparently, it was more than loud enough, and Val streaked into the room.

  “What happened!?” She was looking over his shoulder in an instant.

  “This has an energy value of 18550.” Kurt said and grabbed the weight out of the drawer again. He stored it and checked once more. The value went down by 5. “Oh my god…”

  “WHAT!” Val all but screamed as she grabbed him by the face with both hands, smushing his cheeks and putting them nose to nose. Penny had come rushing down the stair and was hanging halfway in the door, cell phone in one hand.

  Kurt did some very quick math and figured out the actual value. “This ring will hold three thousand-seven hundred and ten kilograms of stuff.”

  Val stared at him for several very long moments. Her eyes were wild as the possibilities fshed through her mind. Penny still looked like she didn’t know what to say, just standing where she had stopped in the doorway.

  “Oh. OH!” If Val moved any faster, she might actually be vibrating with excitement. “This is amazing! Holy shit, just wait until the figure out it was you that made it.”

  Just then, the phone in Penny’s hand began to ring. Out of reflex she accepted the call and pced it to her ear, still dazed. “Hello?” She didn’t say anything else, just standing there, while Kurt heard someone trying to talk on the other end.

  A moment ter, the line disconnected. A few seconds after that they felt a vibration run through the whole house, foundation and all, like an earthquake. Then a few seconds ter, they heard a rather frantic knock at the front door before they heard a familiar voice call out.

  “Hello? Kurt? Penny? Anyone?” came the voice of Jay.

  “Downstairs.” Kurt yelled back while Val was, by his best guess, attempting to rub herself over every inch of him, clothing be dammed.

  “Where the hell are… oh, never mind.” Jay said, yelling the first part before muttering the second half. They heard him thump down the stairs and he rounded the corner, coming up behind Penny. “What the hell Penny! I thought something happened.”

  Thump. Penny once more fainted, the stress of the situation too much for her to bear. Jay raised an eyebrow then looked from her to Kurt then back to her before his head snapped back to Kurt and his eyes zeroed in on the ring. Kurt held out his hand, palm up and summoned the weight that had still been in the ring.

  Jay, very calmly, pulled his phone out of his pocket and speed dialed a number. “Hi, Stef. Hey, listen, I need you to cancel everything I have until Tuesday. Just push it all back to the next week if you can. Yeah, I’m sorry this is te notice but just make up an excuse that I came down with a sickness or something. Thanks, you’re the best. Bye”

  The demon then took a slow, deep breath through his nose and calmly let it out. “Tell me everything.”