István was pacing in front of me. Well, somewhat off to the side, but I could see him easily. He was waiting for something but I wasn't quite sure about what that might be. I'd been supplying my Nebula for about 15 minutes now, which felt like longer than it actually was.

I had likened it to standing, but most people know that even standing gets to be a lot once you've been doing it long enough. I wasn't there yet but I was definitely starting to notice the output, which was new.

"Oh, and there it is," István said, almost as if he was reading my mind. He reached into a complex basket of Seal glyphs he'd been working on for the first five minutes after we started and kind of… turned something?

It was difficult from my perspective to see what exactly he did, but it gave me the feeling of something within the sphere of my Nebula's influence shifting, and suddenly the 'power draw' I was feeling increased. Still very manageable but now I had to devote real focus to it,

Despite my better judgement I enabled my vision and was able to determine that the Seal on the BeetleMech was actively consuming energy, which I'm pretty sure - going just by feel - wasn't happening before. I peeled off a third tendril of energy and directed it straight into the vortex of Nebula disappearing into the Seal, which reduced the consumption noticeably.

I didn't know a ton about electricity (since most of the time we didn't have much if any of it at home) but I did know that resistance wasted it from tidbits I picked up from hanging around with Grandpa in his shop as he disassembled motors. He'd kind of go on about things he knew like no one was listening, it was very educational.

I think he might of had a bit of a hang up teaching such things to a girl and this was his work around - if he just said things into the ether than he wasn't really teaching me directly, now was he? Either way, I learned, and he seemed to enjoy my company, so win-win as far as I was concerned.

Back to my project with István, where I was also hoping for a win-win. He had started manipulating glyphs on the seal with his hand, erasing them with fingers and precise blasts of steam while reaching out with a brush and more of the metallic pigment to write new ones in his beautiful script.

I would never tire of watching a handsome gentleman create symbols in expressive swoops and loops. You go, István; work that brush!

Don't get me wrong, there was no romantic or physical attraction or anything - it was like watching an artwork being painted. His impeccable fashion sense was just the icing on the cake - I'm also sucker for anyone who knows how to work a good outfit into their repertoire.

So watching him combine the two was just peak happy brain fuzzies.

Cause I am the smart.

After he'd shifted a half dozen of the symbols entirely and modified about as many more into different versions of themselves, I felt the hunger of the 'core' of the formation wane.

"You can let go now," he said, almost at the same time, before cautioning me: "Slowly, please."

I carefully eased the flow of Nebula, which was easier said than done. It had this sort of inertia to it - Nebula in motion want to stay in motion, and all of that. I suppose the equal and opposite reaction part probably applied as well, only in my case I was apparently using some high-output version that everything overreacted to, so I had to be twice as nice to it to get it do the same things others could pull off more easily.

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Which didn't seem fair, but at the same time, István and his Ember couldn't pull off the things me and my Core could, so there was definite advantages. Or was it a Mote? I couldn't quite remember the difference from our discussion the other day.

"Do you have a Mote or an Ember?" I asked.

"Ember - both Viktor and I have had success in combining our Mote with others and the inherited will from an Artifact. I assume your process was similar?

"No?" I started - thinking pretty hard about it and realizing I'd kind of cracked open a big ol' barrel of exposition and questions as far as István was concerned. Guess I was going to have to ride that monkey out a little bit, since I made him put a pin in it yesterday. Dude was probably bursting at the seams out of an overload of curiosity at this point.

"Oh? What happened with you then," István followed up, jolting me out of my internal thoughts. I realized I'd forgotten to explain myself and continued.

"I kind of jumped from nothing to an Ember of sorts, that flame I told you about. Remember that day that what's-his-nuts almost got a courier converted into a fine pink mist?"

"Crass way of putting it, but his name was Jakób," István helpfully filled in while also simultaneously making me regret my lack of brain-mouth filter. I wasn't even fully sure which part he was calling crass, which was more of a me thing than a him thing. I mean, he didn't seem that offended by it, so it was also possible he was just giving me some sass and my meter wasn't finely tuned enough to detect it.

'Uh, yeah, so Jakób," I continued once my brain restarted, pronouncing the name as `YA-kohb`, mirroring István's accent. "Remember how the artifact exploded? I actually found what was probably inside of it later - it was a black feather with bright orange edges."

István nodded his affirmation on my memory, as currently he had the brush in his mouth so he could physically adjust the BeetleMech before scribing on it again. I had since fully ceased my job as a portable, noisy battery, so I was just observing at this point.

"Well, I was carrying the feather back," I continued, quietly omitting the fact I didn't intend to bring it all the way back, as it wasn't and would never matter due to the next part: "And it kind of just got 'sucked' into my hand. Burnt like crazy, too. Not sure I'm saying it right, but yeah, one moment I was clutching it in my hot little hand, and the next my hand was actually hot. If you know what I mean. I guess."

I just couldn't seem to help adding extra little… extras to whatever I said, could I? It was like communicating normally was completely outside my skillset or something. Good grief.

If István minded, he didn't seem to show it. "And then?"

"No 'and then'. I just had an Ember, I guess. That flame you might recall me mentioning, the one that's like a candle. Didn't even need the Mote, it already had everything I needed, I guess." I thought about our conversation yesterday before adding: "Oh, and I haven't gotten permission to talk to you about Cores and stuff yet. My 'mentor' of sorts has been giving me all kinds of the silent treatment as of late. Hopefully that will change soon, I have a feeling we're going to need the advice."

Istvan nodded again, although me mentioning I'd straight up skipped a step in what he'd come to understand as the traditional cultivation ladder for our world definitely seemed to have tweaked some interest. But as things were…

"There, I have it completed," he said, suddenly hoisting back a foot and kicking the BeetleMech, which promptly fell apart into BeetleBits. "Deconstruction successful." He appeared tired, but happy.

"I will admit that I thought there might be some more steps in that process," I said, one eyebrow raised at the results, "But progress is progress, right?"

He nodded at me, brain already working on something else, either my special process or - more likely - what he wanted to do with all the bits we'd just 'liberated' from the Umbral Veil's control.

Hopefully whatever he came up with was easier to drive than the current version… you know, for reasons. Ones that have absolutely nothing to do with my terrible driving skills. Promise.

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