Chapter 32: Ch. 032 – (Then) Under Pressure

After a couple weeks of convalescing, Jonathan finally returned to work. He’d been there with the guys most of the time he was recovering anyway, but that was just because laying alone in a dark warehouse for hours on end was the worst fate he could imagine. It was much better to hang out with his crew and get called a freeloader and slacker by the only dwarves in the city that seemed to care if he lived or died. At least their insults were good natured and brought a smile to his face. 

Even the banter and the stories eventually wore thin though, as he could only sit and watch. Fortunately it wasn’t too long after that, that everything stopped hurting enough for him to get back to work. By then taking it easy had morphed into tedium and he was almost grateful for the chance to be busy again. Even when he had no idea what they were working on it was always interesting. Today they were overhauling a boiler and Kaspov’s explanation for how it worked so disagreed with what Jonathan had been taught by his tutors, that they laughed at him while he tried to explain men’s understanding of how dwarven locomotives work. 

“So what yer sayin’ is,” Kaspov said, failing to suppress a chuckle, “The fire and the water inside the boiler are at war and that’s what pushes the train forward?”

“In conflict,” Jonathan said, correcting the dwarf, “But yes. Normally the two opposing elements seek to escape or eliminate the other, but you’ve built a clever trap for them that prevents that, and so their conflict accelerates the engine, and you use steam to keep it from getting too hot.” All the dwarves that could understand Wenlish got a good laugh from that one. Jonathan was chagrined, but that didn’t stop him from continuing the conversation. He’d already learned that all sorts of things he thought he knew weren’t really true according to the stone men, and he desperately wanted to learn more - even if they laughed at him in the process. 

“That’s not it at all lad,” Kaspov grinned. “It’s the steam that moves the whole thing to begin with. Why do you think it’s called a steam engine?” 

“Because it’s an engine that produces steam as a side effect of—” Jonathan started to say, preparing to go at the idea from another way before he was drowned out by the laughter of the rest of the crew. He took it in stride, amused at their certainty of his wrongness when he was the one that could feel the fire circulating in the engine in ways they would forever be blind to. Even now they were slowly bringing a boiler up to pressure to make sure that a joint in the piping they’d fixed was going to hold pressure. He could feel the fire in there, struggling and throbbing as it sought to escape it’s vessel and be free, but they wouldn’t… Jonathan stopped, concentrating. Part of the boiler wall seemed much hotter than the rest. Like it was going to…

The laughter stopped when Jonathan suddenly strode forward two steps and shoved Kaspov as hard as he could, sending the engineer tumbling away on the gravel. 

“What in the hells do ye think yer doing—” Erkom demanded. For the last twenty minutes everyone had been looking at Jonathan like he’d gone crazy, but now they were staring at him like he’d really flipped his lid, and not in the friendly way they had up until now. A couple stepped forward like they might have to restrain him. 

That was when the boiler wall let loose, and a foot wide rent opened in the side to the awful sound of tearing metal. Jonathan had his hands raised, but they weren’t going to do anything to protect his face from the flesh melting steam that suddenly whistled out of the whole in a white jet of death that enveloped Jonathan on the spot where Kaspov had stood only moments ago. It was a terrifying moment, but he did his very best to concentrate despite his pounding heart as he tried to rob the steam of its fire and redirect it harmlessly away. It was a desperate race. Every moment he pulled as much energy from the steam coming towards him as he could, and every moment there was more coming in the next wave of steam right behind it. Jonathan couldn’t pull that heat away until he dealt with the fire he’d just stolen. So with every beat of his heart, and every second that passed he stole whole bonfires of heat and shunted it into the stones at his feet. 

It was a life or death ordeal, and he had no real idea how much time was passing while he tried to contain this monster. It was a losing battle though, and he couldn’t keep this up forever. If it went on much longer he would crumble beneath the elemental onslaught. It didn’t though. After half a minute the tide relented, and Jonathan could feel the boiler sputtering as his efforts combined with the water slowly drowned the fire below a critical threshold, extinguishing the steam, and leaving him standing there utterly exhausted. 

“Ummm, Jon,” Kaspov said, pointing down Jonathan’s feet. His eyes followed the finger and found his boots smoldering, with flames licking up around the soles of his feet. 

As he jumped frantically away from that area to the cold iron rail he realized that he’d heated up the ground so much by transferring so much fire that the area he’d been standing on had basically become a cooktop. That made him think about just how much energy he had transferred, and how easily the steam could have cooked him through instead. It was a sobering thought, but one he couldn’t think much about as he crumpled to the ground, as he passed out from the exertion. 

 

When he woke up he was propped up on a stack of railroad ties, with a wadded up tarp for a pillow. “How long was I…” the boy asked, still feeling faint. Movement at all was a struggle and Jonathan felt sluggish and weak. 

“Just rest easy” Erkom said, “Ye were out only a couple a minutes, and ye seem to be just fine.” 

“Really?” Jonathan asked, incredulous that he’d made it through the ordeal unscathed. 

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“Just a few burns on yer hands I think. Nothin’ too bad. Ye—” the dwarf continued before Kaspov cut him off. 

“That was unbelievable lad,” the engineer exclaimed. “How in the blazes did ye know that was going to happen?” 

“Well, it just felt different - I felt a build up fire on the boiler wall and—” Jonathan explained as best he could, his mind still fuzzy.

“That’s human magic then is it?” The dwarf nodded. “Can’t say I approve of that part, but as ye saved my life and this here train, I’m willing to look past it. So that makes ye a fireblood then, right? I thought ye said the Shaws were earth bloods?”

“They are, mostly.” Jonathan said, “My mom wasn’t though, and I take after her. It's complicated, but mostly hereditary.” 

“Complicated or not, it’s a hell of a trick lad,” Kaspov praised him while slapping him on the shoulder. “Steam is as deadly as it gets, and I’ve never seen someone pick a fight with it without losing an arm or worse. Do ye know what this means?”

“That you have to report me to the magistrate?” Jonathan answered glumly, closing his eyes. 

“Nah!” Kaspov said. “It means that while the smiths get over here and see what can be done about this mess we’re going to my favorite pub to get hammered!”

Jonathan shuddered at the thought. A trip to the magistrate seemed almost preferable by comparison. He had little enough experience with drinking on the surface and knew that dwarven stuff might just be enough to kill him. “That’s very kind of you but I think it might be bad for my recovery if I—” 

“Nonsense,” Kaspov declared. “A mug or two of ale and ye’ll feel good as new. Ye just rest easy while I get everything sorted, and then we’ll all head out. The first round’s on me boys!” That last part raised up another cheer, but to Jonathan it seemed like Kaspov just wanted to change the subject. Dwarves were squeamish about the topic. They were happy enough to discuss it or make fun of it in a theoretical sense  - especially if they had some solid engineering principles ready to tell him why he was completely wrong. The last thing they actually wanted was to see it in action, and though the engineer was obviously grateful to Jonathan for saving his skin, the way in which he’d done it had left him almost visibly shaken. In that sense Jonathan supposed that the drinks were for the dwarves' nerves as much as for his own pain. It was a fair trade off. He could accept that as long as they could, he decided.

Ten minutes later they were walking down the street to a section of the city that Jonathan had been in before but not often. It was sandwiched between the warehouse district and the bazaar. Technically it was called the mercantile district, but its main feature were the alehouses and pubs that dominated the street level, with many of the larger counting houses and trade offices hidden away in the stories above them. Kaspov’s favorite turned out to be something to do with a troll. Jonathan could tell that much from the carved wooden sign, though he couldn’t read the actual name. Fortunately it’s common room was more than tall enough for a man to stand in it without crouching, though none of the seats were large enough to fit him. That was fine. Once the food Kaspov ordered started coming out, Jonathan could forgive the inconvenience of sitting on the floor while he sampled the sizzling meat pies and braised short ribs. 

The beer itself Jonathan tried to drink sparingly, but it was no use. The dwarves with him kept offering up new cheers and toasts, forcing him to drink to his own victory over and over until he’d emptied two mugs and was well and truly drunk for the first time in his life. Well - first time if you didn’t count Kaspov’s medicinal whiskey, and Jonathan didn't. That was a hammer to the face, as he went from sober and aching to drunk and pain free almost instantly. This was different. It snuck up on him. One minute he didn’t really get the joke that Erkom was telling everyone, and a few minutes later everything was funny. It was a good time too - for a while, but after an hour of feeling like he didn’t have a care in the world, the room decided it would be a good time to start spinning. It wasn’t long after that, that he ended up in an alley behind their nameless dive, heaving his guts up into the gutter. 

“Don’t worry lad,” Kaspov said, coming out a few minutes later and patting him on the back while he stood there, trying to stop the world from spinning before he started to dry heaving again. “I’ve known plenty of men, and there ain't been a one of ye that can hold yer liquor.” After that he escorted him home before going back to rejoin the rest of the crew. 

“Come in a little late tomorrow if ye need to,” the dwarf said as he poured Jonathan into his pallet fully clothed. Jonathan was resolved not to show such weakness of course but fell asleep before he could even answer. Between the channeling, the drinking, and his wounds he was completely wiped out.

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