The guards were practically vibrating with excitement. To them, this glowing hunk of brass and copper was a one-way ticket out of this "boring" town and into a decorated office in the Capital. They hauled the "interceptor" out of the quarry as if they were carrying a live bomb, and I followed them, wringing my hands and looking like I was on the verge of a nervous collapse.
By the time we reached the Academy courtyard, the news had spread. The remaining soldiers had cleared a perimeter. I stepped forward, my face pale, holding my surveying clipboard like a shield.
"Gentlemen, stay back!" I shouted, my voice cracking perfectly. "As an Architect trained in high-resonance materials, I must warn you—this device is in a state of terminal molecular agitation!"
The guards froze. "What are you talking about, Verne?"
"The blue glow!" I pointed a trembling finger at the harmless resonance stone. "That is a sign of Atmospheric Ionization. If the copper coils are exposed to the oxygen levels of this valley for too long, they will create a localized toxic pocket of... of Aetheric Lead Vapor! It's highly poisonous! One deep breath and your lungs will turn into literal statues!"
They scrambled back five paces. I didn't give them a second to think. I rushed toward the device, pulling a small hammer and a bottle of "neutralizing agent" (which was actually just vinegar and blue ink) from my bag.
"I have to stabilize the core!" I screamed over my shoulder. "If I don't dismantle the resonance path now, the entire courtyard will be uninhabitable for a decade! Think of the paperwork!"
For the next ten minutes, I performed a masterpiece of destructive "science." I wasn't just hitting it; I was "disassembling" it with an essay's worth of verbal nonsense.
"You see this gear?" CLANG. "That's the primary intake for the poisonous vapors! And this coil?" CRUNCH. "This is the source of the rebel's encrypted frequency! By shattering the molecular lattice of the blue stone—" I brought the hammer down, smashing the glow-stone into a thousand unrecognizable shards— "I am saving all of our lives! The toxins are being neutralized by the acidity of my solution!"
I poured the vinegar over the wreckage. It hissed and bubbled. The guards watched in horror and awe as I "heroically" reduced the Empire's greatest find to a pile of wet, rusted scrap metal.
"There," I panted, wiping "sweat" from my forehead. "The threat is neutralized. The device is destroyed, but the structural evidence of the rebellion is... well, it's mostly dust now. But you saw it! You saw the glow! You are heroes!"
The Return of the Grey Cloak
Three hours later, the thunder of hooves announced a familiar arrival. The Grey Cloak had ridden back from the Capital in record time, his face a mask of pure, desperate hunger for the prize. He leapt from his horse before it had even stopped.
"Where is it?" he demanded, his eyes scanning the courtyard. "The guards sent a telegram. A Northern interceptor?"
I stepped forward, looking exhausted and covered in blue ink. "Commander! Thank goodness you're here. I had to act quickly. The device was leaking Ionic Silt-Gas. I had to perform an emergency structural dissolution to prevent a mass poisoning event."
The Grey Cloak looked at the pile of wet, smashed junk on the table. He picked up a piece of a rusted gear and a shard of the blue stone. His face went from excitement to a very dark, very dangerous shade of purple.
"You... you destroyed it?" he hissed, his voice like a freezing wind. "This was the only physical evidence of the Northern cell in this entire province, and you turned it into trash?"
"I saved the Academy, Commander!" I argued, my voice full of "innocent" pride. "I have written a forty-page report on the internal schematics I observed before the 'dissolution.' I can describe the exact way the copper was wound! It was a masterpiece of treasonous engineering! Would you like to hear about the molecular tension of the casing?"
I started opening my notebook, ready to launch into a three-hour lecture that would make his ears bleed.
The Grey Cloak stared at me. He looked at the junk, then at my earnest, "boring" face, and then at the guards who were nodding along, still terrified of the "poison gas." He looked like a man who wanted to scream, but there was no logic he could use against me. I had acted as a "loyal, concerned citizen" protecting the Empire from a "poisonous" rebel trap.
"Verne," he whispered, leaning so close I could see the reflection of my glasses in his eyes. "You are either the most helpful idiot in the world... or something else entirely."
"I'm just a scholar, sir," I said, offering him a dry, dusty smile. "I just hate to see a bad foundation. Especially a poisonous one."
The Grey Cloak is back, and he is absolutely furious, but he has no evidence left to study. He's stuck in our town again, and this time, he's watching me like a hawk.
I walked through the front door, the smell of vinegar and blue ink still clinging to my vest. I barely had time to set my tool bag down before Avaris was on me.
She didn't say a word at first. Her hands moved with practiced, surgical speed—checking my ribs for impact, spinning me around to look for tears in my coat, and scanning my face for the pale look of someone who'd been chased.
"I'm fine, Avaris," I said, catching her hands and giving them a reassuring squeeze. "Not a scratch. The only thing I injured today was the Commander's pride and a perfectly good hammer."
Arin and Lysa were already at the kitchen table, their schoolwork pushed aside. They were watching us with wide, analytical eyes. They had seen the commotion at the Academy from the classroom windows—the guards running, the blue glow, and then the sight of their father frantically "saving" the Empire by smashing a pile of junk into oblivion.
"Everything is clear now," I announced, pulling a chair out and exhaling a long breath of relief. "The Grey Cloak has officially returned from the Capital, but he's in a bit of a... structural bind. He has a pile of smashed gears, two terrified guards who think they almost died of poison gas, and forty pages of my 'scientific' nonsense to explain to his superiors. He can't arrest me for being a hero, and he can't report the find without admitting the evidence was destroyed under his watch. He's stuck in a loop of his own bureaucracy."
Avaris leaned against the table, a proud, sharp smile tugging at her lips. "As expected of the Ghost Architect," she murmured. "You didn't just hide the truth; you buried it under a mountain of logic."
Arin just stared at me, his jaw slightly slack. "Father... I watched you through the telescope in the library. You looked like you were having a nervous breakdown while you were hitting those gears. I actually felt sorry for you for a second."
"The 'Frizzled Scholar' persona is a masterpiece of load-bearing deception, Arin," I said, winking at him.
"Observation," Lysa added, tapping her chin with her pen. "You achieved a strategic victory over an Imperial Commander without a single weapon, zero physical combat, and a 100% success rate in protecting a neighbor. You used the Empire's own fear of 'unknown tech' against them. It's... statistically impressive."
"It's more than that," Avaris said, looking at the children and then back at me. "It's a reminder that strength isn't always about how hard you can strike. Sometimes, the most dangerous person in the room is the one who knows exactly where the foundation is weak."
I sat back, the warmth of the kitchen and the safety of my family surrounding me. For now, the Grey Cloak was paralyzed by the very "idiocy" I had displayed. We had won another day of peace, not with steel, but with the sheer, crushing weight of a well-told lie.
The Grey Cloak is currently sitting in his office, staring at a pile of blue-stained scrap metal and wondering how his life went so wrong.