Jack pulls his capacitor out of his robes, taps his index finger to it, and a glowing green band can be seen trailing to the gem as he pulls his hand away. Jack then flicks his finger at the fireball, and the loop connects with the glowing ball of orange flame. Jack releases the green line from his finger, and it snaps back at the fireball. An instant after it impacts, the return path to the capacitor grows thick and bright as the fireball shrinks down to nothing. Once the fireball is gone, the green band is yanked back into the capacitor, and its glow increases slightly.
Jack "Hmm, not much was recoverable from that fireball. Ah well, it's something."
Jack tucks his capacitor back into his robe, and watches the golems head his way, still carrying the tree.
Jack "As for the lead - I suppose it might not have happened here; lead became the medium of exchange after an alchemist discovered a method to get enormous amounts of energy out of it. Unfortunately, the alchemist didn't live to enjoy the fruits of his labor, as he wasn't prepared for the discharge. The city didn't fare too well either."
The golems arrive, Jack directs them, and they head off to drop the tree.
Jack "It took four specialists to figure out what happened - a psychometrist, an alchemist, a minisculist, and an animatronist - but after a month they were able to recover his work. As an alchemist, he couldn't directly manipulate the forces he needed to, so his method was rather roundabout. However, he managed to convert roughly five percent of the mass of the lead to energy - three protons, three electrons, and seven neutrons per atom - leaving the rest of the material undisturbed. The pound of lead he had used released more energy than he was prepared to handle. After the investigation, it was found that the method lent itself surprisingly easily to magic, with the benefit that a mage could capture the energy to power spells. The result is a rather worthless yellow metal, useful for its conductive properties, low melting point, and color, but little else. Unfortunately, only natural lead works. There are a handful of transmutation spells that can produce lead well enough to be used for the conVersion, but they all require an energy input in excess of the amount gained from burning the lead."
At this point, the golems throw the tree down the hill, and the poor bandits that can't get out of the way in time are left lying flat in the mud.
Jack "My fee is just double my costs; it takes a little over a terawatthour to produce one of these gems, which can be obtained from burning two pounds of lead. Normally, I just get that out of my capacitor; unfortunately, it's drained at the moment, so I'd need the lead in advance."
ooc:[A unit conVersion can be gotten
here; beyond the conVersion to English units and some rounding, the numbers come off of E=mc^2 and the relative masses of the two elements (to get the element left behind as ash, find lead on a periodic chart, subtract three from the atomic number, and check the matching element.]
[ August 30, 2003, 07:38: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]