I Transmigrated Into a Weak Body

Chapter 3

The rain fell in thick, cold sheets, turning the narrow streets of Camelot’s slums into rivers of dark mud. 

Brandon ran. His lungs burned as if he were breathing in hot ash, and a violent cough ripped from his throat. A spray of red blood painted the muddy stones in front of him, but he did not stop. He could not stop. His arms screamed in pain from the weight of his ten-year-old sister, Veronica, who was clinging to his neck like a frightened monkey. 

Behind them, the deep, bone-rattling boom of the Inquisitor’s horn was replaced by a new, more terrifying sound. 

SimmonsAwoooooo!Simmons! It was a howl, but it did not sound like a normal dog. It sounded like metal scraping against stone, mixed with the roar of a starving beast. The armored hounds had been released. 

"Brandon!" Veronica sobbed, her face buried into his wet wool collar. "They are coming! The Empire’s dogs are coming!"

"Don't look back, El, just hold on," Brandon gasped, his voice raspy and weak. 

He forced his broken body to move faster. The memories of the original Brandon acted like a map in his mind. He turned left down a narrow alley filled with rotting garbage, then right into a dark tunnel beneath a crumbling brick building. The people of the slums, hearing the hounds, were slamming their wooden window shutters closed. No one was going to help them. In this city, helping a hunted man meant death for your whole family. 

“I need a defensible position,” Brandon thought, his scientific mind trying to override the panic of his physical body. “Running is a waste of energy. We cannot outrun four-legged predators in an open sprint. I need a chokepoint.”

"We are almost there," Brandon whispered, blood dripping from his shattered jaw. 

At the end of a dead-end alley stood a heavy, rotting wooden door partially hidden by climbing dead ivy. This was the original Brandon's secret place. In his spare time, the poor scribe had tried to teach himself alchemy, hoping to create a potion he could sell to buy his sister's freedom. 

Brandon kicked the door hard near the rusted lock. It splintered and gave way. He rushed inside, kicking the door shut behind him and dropping a heavy wooden beam across the iron brackets to lock it. 

He collapsed against the wood, sliding down to the floor, panting heavily. The room was dark, damp, and smelled strongly of dried bitter herbs, old paper, and rust. It was a basement, with only one small, high window letting in the grey light of the storm outside. 

Veronica slipped out of his arms and knelt beside him in the dirt. She reached out with small, trembling hands to touch his bleeding face. Her blue eyes were wide with a mixture of terror and confusion. 

"Brandon..." she whispered, her voice shaking. "How did you do that? Back in the street. You didn't say a prayer. You didn't chant to the Sun-King. You just... blew the guard into pieces." She pulled her hand back, looking at him as if he were a stranger. "Who are you?"

Brandon looked into the eyes of the starving little girl. He felt the original body’s intense love for her ache in his chest. He reached out and gently squeezed her cold, muddy hand. 

"I am your brother, Veronica," he said softly, giving her a reassuring smile, even though it hurt his broken jaw. "I just finally opened my eyes. Now, go hide under that heavy oak desk in the corner. Cover your ears and do not come out, no matter what you hear. Do you understand?"

Veronica hesitated, then nodded quickly. She scrambled under the massive, rotting wooden desk in the far corner, pulling her knees to her chest. 

Brandon forced himself to stand up. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. 

Outside, the howls were getting louder. The hounds were sniffing the blood Brandon had coughed up on the street. They were following the trail. He had maybe three minutes. 

Brandon turned to the long wooden table in the center of the room. It was covered in the scribe's failed alchemy experiments. To anyone else, it was just a pile of useless junk. To a materials engineer from Earth, it was a toolbox. 

His eyes scanned his assets rapidly. He found a spool of thick copper wire, normally used for hanging dried roots. He found a mortar and pestle sitting next to a pile of rough, uncut quartz stones. Sitting at the edge of the table was a large, heavy glass bottle filled with cheap, high-proof moonshine—alcohol the scribe used to clean his tools. 

"Perfect," Brandon muttered to himself. 

He grabbed the heavy iron pestle and smashed it down on the quartz stones. He pounded the stones until they were nothing but fine, glittering dust and sharp little shards. 

Quartz was a piezoelectric material; in his old world, it could generate an electric charge under mechanical stress. In this world, according to the scribe’s memories, quartz was used to hold small amounts of raw magical Aether. 

Next, he grabbed a rusted metal file from the table. He took the copper wire and filed it down violently, creating a pile of fine copper shavings. Copper was one of the best conductors of energy in the universe. 

Finally, he looked at his own right hand. The deep cut from earlier was still slowly dripping blood. 

“I need a primer. I need a connection to the Aether,” Brandon thought. 

He walked to the space of bare wooden floor just three feet in front of the locked door. He dropped to his knees. Mixing his fresh blood with the copper shavings and the crushed quartz, he created a thick, metallic, glittering paste. 

Using his fingers, Brandon began to draw on the floorboards. 

He did not draw the religious, mystical shapes the priests of the Empire used. He drew something from a textbook on Earth. He drew a parallel-plate capacitor circuit, connecting it to a step-up energy transformer diagram. It looked like a series of harsh, sharp geometric squares and intersecting lines. 

The blood would bind the mixture to the floor. The copper would conduct the magical energy. The quartz dust would store the energy, acting like a sponge for the ambient magic in the air. 

"Brandon," Veronica whimpered from under the desk. "I hear them. They are outside."

Heavy claws dragged against the stones outside the door. A low, wet growl vibrated through the rotting wood. 

Brandon did not stop. His hands moved with desperate speed. He drew the final line of the circuit, extending it from the center of the geometric trap all the way to the side of the doorframe. 

Then, he grabbed the large glass bottle of high-proof moonshine. He uncorked it and poured the strong-smelling liquid directly over the center of the copper-blood drawing. He smashed the empty glass bottle on the table, taking a sharp, jagged piece of glass and placing it carefully at the very edge of the circuit. 

The trap was set. It was a crude, highly unstable Aether-capacitor.