บท 127: Thunder
It was strange that the thought about the Memory was only coming to her now. Professor Noble was an expert on Memories at the Academy!
Yet the battle and its aftermath had left her confused and fatigued. It was still astonishing that she had gotten credit for the kill.
Only now, in the comfort of her room with her body securely tethered about her bed did Noble grasp that her foolish endeavor had earned her a boon.
Relaxing into a float between the floor and ceiling, she dove into her soul sea.
Except for in the Dreamscape, it had been a very long time since Noble had earned a Memory.
Since she didn't venture into the wilds of the Dream Realm, the opportunities to encounter and slay Nightmare Creatures were few and far between.
Mostly she bought Memories or Fort got them for her.
She felt a small exhilaration in the thrill of the unknown.
Her soul sea was awash with the same iridescence as her mesmerizing eyes. The entire world was suffused with radiant light.
A new ball revolved overhead. Noble spotted it instinctively and called it to herself.
The advice she always gave her students was to examine a new Memory in one's soul sea if possible. This was both for safety and practicality. Even though there was no one in the room with her, Noble kept the Memory inside her while she discovered its purpose.
Looking at the runes, her eyes widened slightly.
Name: [Rolling Thunder]
Rank: Ascended
Type: Weapon
Description: [The wind blew. The rain poured. The lightning flashed. Yet nothing could compare to the thunder's deafening roar.]
'Deafening roar, hm? Alright, let's take a look at you.'
Within the soul sea, Noble held out her hand for the memory to manifest. The sparks flickered and faded, leaving behind a weapon in her palm.
'Interesting!'
The professor had expected it to be shaped like a lightning bolt or other stormy object. From the description, this made the most sense.
But the object in her hand was akin to a machinist's hammer. It had two heads: one flat and one rounded. They joined and attached to a polished wooden handle.
'Maybe this can be used to fashion lightning,' the professor mused.
She recalled the ancient myth of Hephaestus's forge. Tools like these had been used to make Zeus's thunderbolts.
There was only one way to find out what the Memory could do.
Noble gripped the hammer. 'It's too bad I don't have Bee Two and my chamber! I'll just have to be careful.'
With no good way to test the Rolling Thunder's capability in her soul sea, Noble brought her consciousness back into her stone quarters.
She had just enough replenished essence to call forth both the hammer and a candle Memory to illuminate her small room.
The professor pursed her lips. 'I really should rest.'
However Noble was pretty sure that she would not fall asleep even if she tried, and there was no way the Awakened would miss the chance to leave at the earliest opportunity. Sleeping, especially oversleeping, was not an option.
'This is relaxing and something I enjoy. It should be fine.'
Lowering herself closer to the ground, Noble placed the [Lucent Taper] to burn in a small alcove carved into the wall.
The hammer looked the same out here as it did in her soul sea. It was very small compared to some hammers she had seen others wield in the Dreamscape. It felt nearly weightless in her hand.
"And you are a weapon?"
The professor focused, listening to her intuition. After examining every centimeter of the Memory, she nodded.
'I need to strike something with it.'
But what?
Noble picked up a pebble off of the ground and held it out in front of her. With the [Rolling Thunder], she tapped the stone as lightly as she could.
Despite her best efforts, the sound wave from the small hit was overwhelming.
The air around her reverberated a hundred times over with a thunderous boom. Her hand, which had been holding the stone, felt the shock of the strike. The bones of her hand nearly broke from the shaking.
The stone? It was no more.
"Blast it, that stings!" Noble wasn't sure whether to nurse her arm or cover her ears.
Hadn't the healer just visited her? She didn't want to have to explain a second set of injuries, especially such embarrassing ones.
Mercifully, the percussive wave was brief, and her arm did not shatter.
The stone walls remained unharmed, though a small amount of debris shook free from the ceiling. Everything returned to normal.
Well, almost everything.
The [Lucent Taper] fell from its perch and was burning a hole in her small wooden table.
"Oops!" Noble dismissed the light quickly, plunging the room into darkness.
The professor could smell the smoke, but at least the fire was out.
"Is everything alright in there?" Someone knocked on the door lightly.
'I was hoping none of the neighbors would have heard that...' Noble knew it was a foolish hope. The sound was far too loud to remain in her small room.
"Just a little mishap. I don't know my own strength. It won't happen again!" The professor called through the door.
After waiting in the darkness for a long time to make sure her neighbor left, she sighed.
'If I want to look into this further. I need a different place to experiment.'
With her luck, a second tap from her little weapon would bring the roof down, and then she would have to explain why all of Ender's Deep was damaged because of her Memory.
Since she didn't want to wait, Noble took herself out of the city to the cliffs above. Many of the ruins of the original kingdom lay barren on the wide plain.
A lot of the usable material had been salvaged from here, but even after countless years, things of worth were still occasionally discovered for those who wanted to look.
One such thing caught her eye just now.
A piece of colored glass was encapsulated by a metal frame. It looked too big to be a piece of women's jewelry. Maybe a sun catcher? The yellow and pink hues spun around one another in a teardrop shape.
"That will be very pretty in my room!" Noble picked up the bauble and placed it near the edge of the cliff for her to pick up on her way back. It would be a shame to break it while trying out her new toy.
Returning to her original mission, Noble found a spot on the surface that she thought was a safe distance from both the cliff and from the city below. It was time to get to work.
Summoning the [Rolling Thunder], the professor immediately began her experiments.
Her first attempt yielded surprising results. Noble hit a section of the city's outer wall with a decent amount of force.
The alabaster wall vibrated and large cracks formed through it, but the sound and force seemed less than when she had tapped the pebble before.
That did not make sense.
More trials were needed.
The second hit brought better results and also taught her that she could direct the sound away from herself. That was incredibly helpful!
If she and her allies were going to be affected by the boom as much as her enemy, then the weapon would only be good at long range.
The third and fourth hits were more devastating than their predecessors, coming much closer to the force of the tap that Noble had experienced in her room.
In time, she realized that the key to this mystery was just that: time. The longer she waited between uses, the more powerful the Memory became.
And apparently, the time in her soul sea counted while she was examining it, or else the first hit would not have caused her so much trouble.
"You're a tricky little thing," she muttered with a smirk.
After playing around with her new toy for a few hours—and pulverizing a few sections of the city's walls in the process—Noble felt she had a decent grasp on how to wield it more effectively.
She found there was also a point at which the hammer could not grow any more powerful. But that limit was higher than the professor had anticipated.
'For an Ascended Memory, it packs a decent punch. I wonder if it has another enchantment I have not yet discovered! I can't wait to get home and see what tier it is with Bee Two.'
Before Noble could get home, she would have to get back to the waking world...
She looked at the setting sun. It was almost time to leave...
…if she even could.
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