Weeks and weeks passed as the politicians of Eiovi decided what to do with us, during that time I worked with Larry on a real-time translator enchantment.
"This rune is super useful, you can filter basically anything through it and it will convert it to any other language, as long as you knew it already," I said as I drew the rune Lit.
"To be honest with you I never thought I would use this because no one ever crosses the borders, it's too expensive to use the toll roads in the gaps between the arrays." Larry infused the spirit paper with his Eneru because he knew the language.
Minutes later we bonded the paper to a pin that would display Gluaze Common when fed Eiovian and vice versa.
"We need a lot more of these. Keep the pins and paper coming." I spoke while activating the dragon-shaped pin.
[Em pilv cen ban Teru.]
"That right?" I asked Larry.
"Yep, let's do a stress test."
I gave a paragraph's worth of dialogue to the pin and it printed about half of it.
"Hmm, there is a character limit for some reason, maybe it needs more energy to display that much?" I said as I studied the spirit paper.
"That would make sense, we could fuel it with the user instead of just the ambient Eneru." Larry pondered along with me.
"That could work, we can do that but we need to find a way for the humans to use them, I'm sure the Eneru battery would overload the enchantment."
"We could maybe work on reducing the amplitude of the energy, I don't know how that would work though."
"Let's just finish making the natural version first."
********
[You are welcome here as long as you share your technology.] My Translator displayed in front of me.
"And where will you house us?" I asked
[Hen bo lan gei?]
The diplomat responded and my Translator lit up once more.
[We will hold you in a mansion in our capital, you will not be allowed to leave.]
'That makes sense, we are unknown people who just arrived without invitation.'
After much deliberation about the allocation of resources and accommodations, I spoke.
"We accept these terms."
[Neade unere kap.]
With that, we were relegated to a few mansions in the capital and I was assigned as the Lead Engineer in their military with the stipulation that I would learn their language.
********
In the following days, we were given books on language and I worked on a transformer for the Eneru battery.
"Alright, here is the plan, the smaller the battery is, the less it can output at a time, so to reduce the output we can just wire the Eneru into a smaller battery. This would be easy if not for the overloading that happens when you fill a battery over its capacity." I explained my newest experiment.
"So what do we do about it?" Devin asked, uninterested.
"That's the kicker, we are going to introduce the Eneru in bursts, the new sphere will be half the size and the Eneru will be put in at half the rate!"
"Couldn't you just use a smaller battery right off the bat?"
"Nope, they don't have the capacity to run for a reasonable amount of time. I don't want the humans running to get a natural to recharge their translator every ten minutes."
"Cool, how many of them do you have?"
"I have two, but we have four humans that need them."
"Let's see it do its thing then."
I put my hand on the battery and pumped it full of Eneru, then removed my hand and activated the useless enchantment that I had set up for this occasion. The infused wire transferred the Eneru but would disconnect for a second every other second so the smaller Eneru battery would never fill completely. The smaller battery flattened the current, making it come out as a steady stream.
The enchanted board lit up and made a minute noise.
"There. See?"
"Impressive, now get on with making more of them." Devin turned back to his potion.
'He's right you know, if you don't finish this soon the Eiovians are going to get annoyed.' Spirit whispered in my mind.
"Easy, now that I know how it should take just a moment."
My hands moved like a conductor and the materials danced to my tune, assembling an Eneru transformer in seconds. I relaxed my hands and wiped my brow.
"Phew, one more."
I reached out with my hands once more. The tune was slower this time, selnatite formed double spheres as I hummed a crescendo, infused wires took shape with a whistle, and ceramic covered it all with a final note.
"All that's left is to hook them to a Translator that accommodates them, but I need a nap after all of that."
I laid in the hammock that they gave me for my new workshop and instantly fell asleep.
*******
My life fell into a routine for the next nine months, I would learn Eiovian in the mornings, teach Engineering to a class of Eiovians in the evenings, and invent in the night until I went to sleep. But tonight I was tired of it and Laveki, as always, was up for a talk.
"What am I even doing?" I asked Laveki, defeated. "I have to stop the impending civil war in Gluaze, not sit on my ass over here developing weapons and armor!"
"Isn't the rebellion over since they all escaped with the Dragon?"
"The rebellion will happen regardless of if we are there because the king is oppressive. We just delayed it a few years."
"Isn't that a good thing, you have a few years to fix it, no need to waste energy trying to solve it now."
"If I leave it for two years and a rebellion kicks off who knows what will happen!" Panic and anxiety pervaded my voice.
"In that case, teach the Eiovians how to build an airship, then aim them at Gluaze and hitch a ride back, I'm sure you could figure something out."
"You're right! I've been holding back on the airship because they could go to war with Gluaze with it, but that's a great plan. If we can cut through their outer layer with airships, we could get to the capital without any bloodshed!"
"Sounds like a plan to me." Laveki put on a smug grin.
"Sure is, let's get to it."