Clawing for Battle (The Dragonclaw Sword Book 5) by Kevin McLaughlin & Michael Anderle

Author:Kevin McLaughlin & Michael Anderle [McLaughlin, Kevin & Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2021-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Vala knew her lab in Cranbook was not the most impressive out there. For that matter, it was likely not even the most technologically advanced lab in her hometown. But knowing something academically and seeing it with her eyes were two completely different things.

The one in the Steel Guard headquarters in Detroit made her quite aware of how amateurish her cobbled-together devices and repurposed tools must look. It wasn’t only that the Steel Guard lab was big, although it did take up three entire floors of a skyscraper.

Nor that it was technologically advanced, although there were machines that she thought were still supposed to exist only in development. It wasn’t the team of scientists and engineers who worked around the clock, although they were more impressive than the digital avatar of herself she had created to live inside their broken television.

She decided it was the sum of all this. Either that or the fact that absolutely everything was finished in burnished steel and glass. No plastic table tops for this lab, no, ma’am, and no repurposed soda bottles turned into beakers either. The whole place matched and while the dwarf did not think she could ever make a lab that fit together so well, she could certainly be impressed by one.

“Vala, this is our forensics lab,” Amy Williams said with about the same level of grandeur she had displayed when showing off the coffee maker. This was not to say there was no grandeur in her voice. The dwarf merely thought the coffee maker had deserved a little less and this magnificent science lab deserved considerably more. But moose and beavers preferred different parts of the tree, she reminded herself.

“Forensics nerds, this is Vala Gagnon. The orders aren’t official yet, but Mr. Stormwing and I will go fix that. In the meantime, I need you to treat Miss Gagnon like she was the Steel Dragon herself. Whatever she wants, she gets.”

The team of scientists all straightened, faced the mage while she gave her orders, and replied with a full-throated, “Yes, ma’am!” when she was finished.

But as soon as Amy left with Galen, they all returned to whatever they were doing before they were interrupted.

“Hello!” Vala said to the backs and sides of people’s heads. “I was hoping to run a few tests on the general frequency of…erm…hello?”

One lab tech finished loading a sterilizer that made the bucket of bleach she used to clean her instruments look positively disgusting by comparison. He looked at her through thick glasses.

“Oh, you’re a dwarf,” he said.

“And your hairline is receding,” she snapped but regretted the words as the man reddened. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. That was rude of me. I like dwarves. Honestly. But we don’t see many of you in the lab, is all. My name’s Jonathan, by the way. What is your specialty? Medical? Bioscience?”

“I specialize in magical engineering, specifically the interface between magic and machines. I’m a mage who can affect machines.”

“Oh, right, a mage. Cool.” Despite the word, his tone did not sound like he thought it was cool.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.