"It is important to take proper precautions when doing anything involving creating a magical item. It doesn't matter if it's alchemy, enchanting or even condensing elemental mana, things can go wrong very quickly." – Ortisan Rosk teaching a young Kurt about safety considerations when enchanting.

"Are you sure about this?" Kurt asked Kristi.

"Yeah—ugh it will be fine." She answered with a little grunt as she wiggled her butt back and forth. "Please, can we just do it."

Kurt wasn't so sure; it was a bit of a squeeze and more than a little tight fit. But he figured they could try it and take their time. "Alright, just relax and remember to breathe." He said and ducked under the makeshift yoke that stretched between the two lengths of tree trunk.

"Just get back there and get it up." Kristi said and set her yoke across her shoulders.

They were taking what appeared to be the last of the good weather to finish yard chores. That meant clearing the downed tree from the bottom of the driveway and hauling it out to the log piles. Kristi had suggested they just tie a few of the larger branches to them and use that to carry them up the hill. Only problem was, she was way stronger than him, at least in his humanoid form.

Shifting, Kurt controlled his size to stay around the seven-foot height and adjusted himself under the thick branch that was chained to the ends of the two logs while Kristi did the same at the front. Hers was a much shorter section since she wasn't as tall, and they wanted to keep the logs mostly level while hauling them.

Sure enough, they had plenty of power to easily carry the logs all the way to the cross bars they had set up. It only took them a few minutes and some guidance from Val to make sure they set everything down on the wood boards.

"See, easy as pie." Kristi said as she began unhitching the chains on her end.

Kurt was doing the same after shifting back to his normal shape. He had a bit more to wrangle, but it was a lot easier when he could just pull them into his ring after unhooking them. He had originally tried to pull the logs into the ring, but they just wouldn't go in. It seemed there was another limit to them beside weight, but he couldn't figure out what that was.

"I never should have doubted you." He said and got a pat on the butt from Val.

She winked at him. "Gotta trust Kristi when it comes to labors of love."

They both rolled their eyes at her for that comment. They were about done with the outside, having pulled some more wood into the garage to get them through winter, just in case they ran out of what they had split. They had also done some general clean up and sorting of the garage, making sure things that they needed would be at the front.

"Well, looks like we quit just in time." Kurt said when he saw the first flakes of snow begin to flutter down. "Hope it stays cold though."

"Why?" Val asked.

"Mostly because if it warms up, everything gets wet then it freezes again with the next snow, so you have a sheet of ice under a layer of powder." Kurt explained. They had just got inside, and he was looking to the next item on his list.

"So, after lunch, what are your plans?" Kurt asked the girls.

Kristi shrugged while Val answered. "I was going to take that latest ring to Rupert and the other to the Piper. Did you have a list of things for Sam yet?"

"Shit, I forgot about that." Kurt groaned. He pulled out the sandwich materials and laid everything out as Kristi got plates. "It might be something we have to talk about in more detail at some point. I don't even know what she can make, much less what would be useful."

"Kurt, healing potions and such are always useful." Kristi looked at him like he was crazy. "Why not ask for a bunch of those?"

He had his reasons, one of which was at the top of his notes in his grimoire. He had gotten some insight from Sam's request and his brief research had led him in an interesting direction when it came to energy management.

"Yeah, I know but I also need to talk to her about the item I am supposed to make." He finished his sandwich's and put a pile of chips on his plate before walking over to the table. "There might be another route that I want to explore. The talk about energy siphons got my mind working on something."

"Is that why we have been busting our butts all weekend?" Val whined. "Babe, I know you get off on working but sometimes we need a break."

"Personally, I like manual labor, especially when I directly benefit from it." Kristi commented while sitting next to Kurt. She flashed a teasing smile at Val as she took her seat a little closer than usual to him.

Val's ears flattened and she glared at Kristi. "Don't encourage him. He would be working from dawn to dusk every day if it were up to him. While I am happy to help, I still like to enjoy the finer things."

"Like sauna and whiskey?" Kurt asked.

She scoffed. "I am not some lazy spa going drunk."

"Yeah…" Kristi agreed, pausing just long enough for Val to smile at her. "…she also likes to read smut while drinking whiskey after the sauna."

"Probably a good thing her tablet isn't waterproof." Kurt muttered.

Grumbling, Val gave up while the other two chuckled at their rather accurate portrayal of the sometimes-decadent fox. They finished their lunch, and Kurt immediately went down to his workshop; he had some ideas that had come while doing menial labor. Kristi followed while Val went to the hub, likely to unload the rings to the other teams.

"What was your idea?" Kristi asked.

"I am going to make a new formation."

"Ooookaaaaay…." She said. After Kurt didn't elaborate, she huffed through her nose and pressed onward. "What do you mean a new formation?"

Kurt pulled out his notepad and a few books from the locker he kept his grimoire in. "So, you have seen me work on things before, right?" She nodded and pulled up a bench. "Well, I have some pre-written enchantments that I use. Some, like the amplifiers on your focus are super common and are pretty much everywhere in various forms. Others, like the ones I used for the ring, or your necklace are a little more guarded and specialized.

"All I have really done, with the exception of the storage rings and your ammo box have been figured out before. I could hand you the tools, templates and materials and you could probably create something perfectly serviceable after I activate it."

"So, what is the point of an enchanter then?" Kristi saw what he was saying as the book he opened was rather old but had clear depictions and information.

"That's the activation part that makes us somewhat unique. While almost everyone that can manipulate mana can gather and condense it, not all of them can focus it into an object, no matter how much help they get from tools and items." Kurt answered while opening a drawer and pointing to the enchanting plate he used.

"Huh, never knew that." Kristi admitted. "But you said there are other types of enchanters?"

Nodding and putting the books aside, Kurt turned to her. "Yup, I do runic enchanting, which is pretty much using symbols that have meaning, a sort of shorthand language, very similar to many ritual circles. Then there are script writers who use a coded language to spell out exactly what they want the object to do. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but they eventually balance out through creativity."

Kristi looked at his drawings for a second while absorbing that info. Kurt continued on with his impromptu info dump. "Then there are chemical enchanters, not to be confused with an alchemist. They infuse materials then forge them into items that have certain magical properties or do the reverse. While they usually can't make something very complex like a bag of holding, they can make the fabric of the bag better for that enchant or they can make a magical steel used in weapons."

"Wait isn't that what Sam does?"

Kurt shook his head. "No, the effect Sam produces is more limited in use, or it doesn't survive being altered very well. Like she can make a weapon oil that ignites upon contact with blood or something but it's still using the weapon as the delivery method."

Stolen story; please report.

If he was honest, that interested Kurt very much. He could think of a lot of effects that he would like to see tested and planned to reach out to the changeling in the near future. One of the ideas floating in his mind was what could be added to a projectile like a bullet.

Turning back to his books, Kurt began to explain what he was doing. He had many runes and symbols that he had catalogued over the years but not as many as his uncle had. He had actually gotten most of his stand-alone runes from his uncle as part of his introduction. Those simple runes were still useful, it was those that he put on most of his house after all.

The runic symbol he was attempting to make was one to perform a conversion. Unlike his already existing conversion runes, this one had to work with the base components of heat, namely energy and turn it into something else, namely raw mana.

What he was using before had been a base half rune that he called 'accept'. It was an unbalanced rune, meaning that if you divided it in half along either axis, it would not be recognizable as that rune and would have several possible outcomes when combined with another half.

He had built off that full rune into a new, balanced one he called 'gather'. That was the rune he had placed on his solar panels to make them more efficient. Now he was looking at that same rune and attempting to bridge off it to create a rune pair that would perform a related function that was still different because it did more than just gather.

Flipping to his section of working runes, he looked through his list for one called 'transfer'. That was a symbol which had three places he could join to the gather rune, making it more efficient than two runes that connected at only one or two points. The best part was that it was easily divided along its vertical access which meant he could easily modify it if needed.

He sketched out half the transfer rune on his pad of paper then returned to his book. He was running down the lists, looking for runes that matched the height and were divided along the same axis. Then he found one he thought might fit the bill.

The rune he had almost looked over was called 'mutate'. It was one typically used by botanists to try and create variance in their plants and introduce different strains. It was a rather weak rune on its own or in a sentence since it only had one possible bridge in its balanced form. But when divided in half…

Kurt quickly and efficiently copied half the divided rune onto the paper with the half of 'gather' that he had made earlier. Then he looked at the creation as a whole and tried to spot any mistakes in the newly named 'convert' rune. He wasn't sure if this was an original creation or not but that was what he would call it.

The rune would function, he knew that just by looking at it. He also knew that since it input at three points and then the conversion ended at what was now three points, he wouldn't end up with a bottle neck. That was one problem he had with the original rune he had been working with, it never put out an equal power to what went in and easily overloaded. That could be fixed with more runes to feed into the next set but that was a less than elegant solution.

Looking up, Kurt rolled his head on his shoulders, stretching for the first time in…how long? He turned to look at the clock on the wall. It had been nearly an hour and a half since he sat down. "Shit." He muttered and then turned to see Kristi sitting on a folding camp chair with her switch.

"Spent too long in the zone?" She asked with a smirk.

"Ah, yeah. Got a little too focused." He rubbed at his eyes. "I think I forgot to blink there for a little bit."

"Hmm. Been there before. Usually, it's when I am playing a game though." She waved her handheld a little.

"Is Val back yet?"

"Yup, she got back a little while ago and came to check in but didn't want to mess up your groove."

Kurt stood up and walked over to Kristi. He leaned in and gave her a kiss, something she seemed to very much appreciate. "I am going to get some water and I'll be back in a minute." He said and quickly went to relieve himself and get a drink.

When he came back it was to see Val had wandered down and was chatting with Kristi. He caught her up on what he had been working on. She seemed particularly interested in the enchantment since it wasn't like anything he had made before.

"So, how do you want this to work?" Val asked while spinning the blank, gold disks in her fingers.

Kurt took the disks from her and placed them on the bench. "Pretty much I am going to make a battery that will reside in the necklace. Its job will be to hold and then release the energy that it gathers when the body is exposed to certain things."

"Such as? And how is it going to gather them?"

"Well in this case it is going to project a sort of barrier over the skin. That barrier will then absorb energy from heat above a set limit and from ultraviolet light, as Sam requested." Kurt said. "Then it will convert it to raw mana and store it in the crystal I put inside."

"But won't the barrier interfere with things?" Kristi asked.

"Umm, I don't think so? The way I want to design it is so that the barrier sits just under the skin until the conditions exist that it is meant to absorb." Kurt pulled out the book he was referencing again and flipped until he hit the page he was after. "Yeah, this barrier enchantment puts the effect just below skin level until… Hmm."

Kristi and Val shared a look. "Until what?" Val asked.

"Oh, I was just considering if it could be an on or off effect. That would help with the energy consumption and perhaps prevent the over absorption or energy." Kurt flicked through the book and took his seat at the bench while reaching for the other one.

The girls just shared a look then backed out of the room. Kristi turned to Val as they shut the door. "Should we be worried?"

"Nah, he is a big boy, he can handle it." She said. "I am actually more worried about Rupert."

"What's going on with him?" Kristi was curious about why Val would worry about another team.

"I think he feels inadequate after the other night." She said while leading the way back up the stairs. "Tig confided that he has been in a right state ever since. Apparently, he had been looking into a lot of different things that he could specialize in."

"Oh, by the way, are they… you know?"

Val smirked at her. "Yeah, it's actually kinda weird how that all worked out, but they are a nice couple." She tilted her head in thought for a second, one ear flicking slightly. "Actually, I'm pretty sure one of them is taking advantage of the other but I can't tell which one."

Stopping in her tracks, Kristi looked shocked. "What! Who?"

"Ya see that's the thing, I don't know." Val began and sat down on the couch, pulling her in for a little snuggle. "On one hand I think Rupert is taking advantage of Tig's naive and curious nature to bring him into a relationship. On the other hand, Tig is taking advantage of Rupert liking him to get that physical interaction he didn't have for so long."

"Sounds like everything works out?" Kristi ventured as she settled down to lean into Val.

"Yeah, they are pretty perfect for each other." Val confirmed.

They sat on the couch for several minutes, gossiping about the other teams as Val recounted her trip. She had spent a little while with each group but not long enough to make it seem like she was snooping. That's to say, she was snooping but they just weren't aware of it.

While the girls were catching up, Kurt was trying a little experiment. His conversion rune had given him ideas and he wanted to make a quick prototype to try something before he committed to one action.

He had quickly made a simple blank of stainless steel that was nothing more than a bar a few inches long and a quarter inch thick. He etched an inscription to convert heat to mana then release it into the air. It released the mana freely since he hadn't told it to do anything else and he just wanted proof of concept.

The etching had gone without a hitch, his tools more than capable of carving the soft steel. Then he inlaid the copper wire he had to act as a bit more of a conduit. Again, that part went flawlessly, and he didn't even have to go back over any areas after sanding. Then he moved over to his enchanting plate and began the process to activate the enchantments with mana.

He cast the base spell without any problems, helped along by the nanobots. Things started to go awry when he cast the activation spell and the rune circle overlaid on the base circle. He felt it was a little sluggish in taking the mana so he pushed a little harder, thinking it was perhaps a flaw in the material or carving.

It was when he felt a sensation like falling, a sudden vertigo sweeping through him, that he knew he fucked up. His mana that had been pushing against the strange resistance suddenly gave way and he felt a huge draw on his reserves.

"Ohshit." He said, eyes widening as he pulled his mana back.

While he was able to prevent the pull on his mana reserves, it didn't prevent the reaction that was happening from what he had already put in. This was new, something he had been warned of but never experienced or even witnessed before.

Acting quickly and with the mechanical muscle memory that he had been drilled on, he lurched forward and opened the drawer that sat right below his enchanting surface. He yanked it open, the lid automatically lifting on the heavily enchanted steel box as it cleared the face of the drawer.

He grabbed the enchanting plate and pulled it forward, shoving it into the oversized box below then slamming the drawer shut. As soon as he closed the drawer again, he hit the small metal stud on the front of his bench and pushed some mana into it.

The battery that he had installed to run the shield spell buzzed slightly as the mana began to drain from it and a silvery shield popped to life around that part of the bench. He then quickly ran for the door but only made it halfway out when it happened.

A surge of energy rippled out as the enchantment overloaded the resistance of the base material. The entire reaction went critical as the mana he had put in was suddenly released without any direction and turned the item he was working on into a frag grenade.

KRUMP. The explosion was dulled by the isolation box he had made. Then it was contained by the shield spell he had activated around the drawer holding that box. Finally, the bench muffled the sound, resulting in a strange sharp, thumping noise as metal twisted and wood splintered.

Sadly, that wasn't the end of it as the formerly restricted mana rippled out at a much more sedate velocity. The force of the mana was enough to knock him to the ground, tumbling through the doorway to the lower living room. It was no longer in danger of dismembering him or ripping a hole in the fabric of reality, but it was still enough to have another effect.

Every race reacted differently to large amounts of raw or unaligned mana suddenly introduced to them. Humans handled it best, feeling a tingling, warming or sometimes a numbness on their skin. Orcs said they often gained a hard and sudden clarity of mind that was disconcerting but not dangerous, yet startling none the less.

Kurt had several problems. One he was part human, so he got a pleasant tingle across his body that made him groan in pleasure. Secondly, he was half elf which came with the endorphin rush they often got when exposed to raw mana. Thirdly, as a lycan, the sudden influx of energy made him shift. He managed to keep from shifting to his full size but he ruined the clothes he was wearing as he ended up around his previous nine foot height.

He faintly heard Val groan and a very strange noise from Kristi that reminded him of a big cats purring. He couldn't think on it very much since he was trying to flatten himself out on his back to prevent damaging his house as he suddenly shifted.

In the span of a second Kurt went from a half elf trying to escape a mana bomb to a very high and horny oversized werewolf spasming on the floor. He looked up, or in this case over, to see two sets of feet running toward him. And the only question he had was if he was going to get chewed out or laid as Val's flushed face and massively dilated pupils came into view.

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