Night 68: M-B Block Hallway

[armoredsoul]

[from here]

"M58...M58..." Al shined the light down each of the hallways, checking the room numbers at the beginning of each. After looking down the first two, it seemed he'd gotten lucky in his choice of direction. "Ah, this one!" With a grin, he turned down the third hallway of the block.

[to here]

Comments

[redcladidealist]

Lloyd shook his head, though he hesitated before answering. Still transfixed by Ed's now-hidden hand, his mind skipped back to a man he'd met months ago. A man with a hand that had a machine attached to it, an arm cannon that could blast him with mana. He'd always just thought Forcystus had his hand inside it like a glove, but what if his hand wasn't there at all? What if he'd lost it and replaced it with that cannon? Lloyd's stomach turned uneasily at the thought, despite the fact that the half-elf had been an enemy.

"So it's... some kind of magitechnology?"

[armoredsoul]

Al shook his head--magitechnology? What did that even mean? "No, it's just regular mechanics, hooked up to the body's nerves so the wearer can move and control it. There's nothing magic to it."

He was getting a feeling that this sort of conversation was going to happen quite a lot. It was going to get old very fast--especially for Ed. Al may have attracted more odd looks when they went into towns, but the stares when Ed took off his coat and gloves weren't much better.

[fullmetalheart]

"Magitech--what even is that?" Ed asked crossly, still keeping his hand out of sight.

He also had a feeling there was going to be a lot of this and was pretty sure he was going to be snappier about explanations as time went on. At least he won't have to deal with Lust wanting to know what it was and he could console himself with that.

[redcladidealist]

Lloyd cringed at the description. "It connects to your nerves? Doesn't that hurt?" He couldn't think how it couldn't, with metal buried in your flesh deep enough to make that kind of connection.

"Magitech is machines and mechanical stuff too, stuff that needs mana to run." He frowned, eyeing Ed's hand again. "I guess that's using your own mana to work instead of lightning mana or something." He didn't begin to understand all the details of how magitechnology worked, but that felt like a reasonable guess.

[armoredsoul]

Al sighed and shrugged. "That's probably a close enough description. There's a battery in there that stores and converts metabolic energy from the body into power for the automail."

[fullmetalheart]

Ed shrugged. "Getting everything connected did, yeah. Anyway, that's why I want to check out the kitchen. I need more to eat than most people."

Hint hint, people.

[redcladidealist]

Lloyd's mouth opened, a question of what a "battery" was on his lips, when Ed's pointed hint cut across his words, hammering an importance into their goal that Lloyd hadn't realized had been there before. "Oh!" Ed needed mana to make his arm work. Food helped people recover their mana; Lloyd knew that much. Of course it made sense that he'd need more food.

Taking a step toward the door leading to the next hall, he turned his head to keep talking to the other two. "Let's get going, then. We can keep talking on the way."

[To here.]