The Wizard's Terrarium

Chapter Two

Jaap stepped back to admire his handiwork. A part of him knew that anyone else who happened to glance at it would only see an assortment of gears and pulleys, but his analytical mind always sought potential. He could see what each gear's purpose was, could even "see" the amount of kinetic energy that passed through each one. And what he saw pleased him.

"A newcomer arrived today," a voice announced from down below.

Jaap turned and looked over the side of the scaffolding. A short figure with a distinctly feline facial structure stood gazing up at him. "Ah, Six! A moment, if you please." The Melesi engineer ambled over to the ladder and began his descent, the scaffolding creaking in protest with every step. Jaap had calculated the exact acceptable load the supports could endure before failure, had figured as long as he didn't gain more than ten pounds, he should be just fine.

He was about halfway done when he remembered he had eaten a particularly large breakfast that morning, and had been so excited to finish his project that he had forgotten his morning constitutional. Pausing to calculate his current mass, he realized he was in trouble. The scaffolding seemed to realize it at about the same time he did, because it shuddered briefly before collapsing all at once with a terrific crack. "Oh Meklorn," he muttered as he began to calculate the probable amount of injury that would be inflicted by such a fall.

Suddenly, nonsensically, he heard Six Candy's voice in his ear. "Gotcha," said the Felinari, and Jaap felt strong arms grasp him about the waist. The two of them fell to the ground at a more controlled rate, Six landing first and setting Jaap gently down.

"You are as resourceful as ever!" exclaimed Jaap, putting his goggles down over his eyes and looking his friend over. Six Candy had an relaxed expression on his face, as always, but his lips were curled slightly in an expectant smile. "Let's see, residual energy from your ring and your belt, and I know your ring is what grants you those extraordinary jumping abilities. So it must be your belt that grants you strength?" Jaap clapped his hands in delight when Six nodded. "I'm getting better at this!"

Six Candy's smile broadened, but he shook his head and said, "I still don't understand how you could be so unfamiliar with such common magic items. You really don't have any in this Bottle World of yours?" The Felinari insisted that they all lived inside a bottle.

"If there are any, I've never seen them. And as far as I know, there are no wizards to make them." Jaap grinned suddenly. "But I have a different kind of magic. Technology!" He lumbered over to the control box on the side of his workshop, pulled a few switches, then turned back to Six and made a flourish. "Ta-da!"

The vine-like chains on the side of Jaap's workshop whined as they came to life, creaking along on their tracks. A spot of oil should take care of that, thought Jaap. Then the flower boxes he'd installed along the vines emerged from their hidden compartments and began circling the outside of his workshop in whimsical loops. But these boxes were not empty crates of dirt, they were filled with blooms from every kind of flowering plant that Jaap could collect from all across the Known World.

Even Six Candy looked impressed. "I'm not sure any mage back home could've come up with something like this," he said. "How did you manage to make the flowers all bloom at once? Don't they normally bloom at different times and in different climates and so on?"

Jaap beamed with pride. "See, that's the fascinating thing. I did extensive research about every single one of these 879 species of flowers, about the amount of light and water they needed, the temperature, and so on. To get them all to bloom here, in the Steam District, seemed impossible. But I found these." He reached into his apron and pulled out a handful of tiny crystals. "I call them life gems. A single one of these planted in a flower box will sustain life for years."