"Working!", Phylis shouts as Aodhan ducks into the workshop. In an attempt to avoid the disaster from his last visit, he immediately crouches low.

"It's me, Aodhan", he says as he carefully looks around. The room is cast in bright light this time, and Phylis is standing in the middle of it, a wooden shield on a pedestal in front of her. Wires run across the room, connecting various objects with the shield. What they are made of he can't tell. Phylis is welding something to the shield and seems not to have heard his reply.

He takes a few steps forward just as Phylis sets her tool aside and touches a plate next to her. Pain flashes through Aodhan as his body suddenly twists and contorts. Then there is a lout "bang!" and something next to him explodes in a flash of lightning. The room goes dark, except for a small fire from the explosion next to him.

"What? No!", Phylis shouts as she looks around, using her gnome eyes to discern things in the almost complete darkness. As she notices Aodhan she hurries over, draws a small metal cube from her belt pouch and sets is on his chest. The object activates with a hum and extends various ... legs? ... towards Aodhan. The pain subsides enough for him to speak.

"Whoa ... where?", he stutters.

"Hush. You stepped on one of the conduits.", Phylis says. She eyes the burning pile of molten metal next to Aodhan. "Great. Without access to arcane power you could have stood on that thing all day, but given your reservoirs the elemental conduit overcharged instantly."

"Er ... conduit?", Aodhan replies, still stuttering as he holds his head. The pain from his limbs is gone, but he is quickly developing a monumental headache.

"The elemental conduit. You see, with the Harden configuration it is aligned to the element of lightning, powering those big torches I used to weld the antlers to the shield. Pretty convoluted setup, you won't ever take that into an adventure, but it's handy if you need to stick two things together with more than glue."

"Er ... so? Why does it explode?"

"It usually doesn't. But I left the arcane dampeners off - they would mess with the sensitive devices I use to measure the repellent magical energies on the shield."

"Er ...", is all Aodhan brings out. The headache has reached a stage where lights begin to dance in front of his eyes.

"Sorry. You probably got quite a bad headache. As if, you know, you'd just cast a couple spells. Which you did. Sort of."

"I ... no. Didn't even cast light."

"Well, not willingly. But connected to an undampened conduit, without proper mental preparation ... well, I'm glad this is all that blew up. I should probably get something from mom to deal with your headache. Be right back."

As Phylis hurried from the room, Aodhan started to compose himself. The headache was still bad, but he had a chance to look around the room. The light was starting to improve as the fire next to him grew larger. He took a step forward and looked more closely at the wooden shield in the middle of the room. A pair of antlers had indeed been somehow attached to it. Branching out from under the antlers was a network of lines, made of some dark substance he could not identify. The lines ended in small crystals set around the edges of the shield.

"Beautiful, isn't it?", Phylis remarks from the door. "Almost makes you forget there is a FIRE GROWING INSIDE MY LAB!"

Aodhan turned around, noticed the fire was instead spreading quickly, and stretched his hands towards it. Just as Phylis jelled "Wait!", a deafening blast echoed through the room as a thundering wind erupted from his hands and blew out the fire. It also blew over pretty much every shelf in the room, spreading their contents throughout the lab.

Phylis stood in the door, mouth open, eyes gliding across the chaos.

"Fire's out.", Aodhan remarked. "Headache's worse."

Phylis slowly turned to Aodhan. "My lab ... MY LAB!"

Aodhan only slowly noticed the side-effects of his putting the fire out. "Oh. Er, headache, you know ... makes it hard to focus. Sorry."

Phylis grabbed him under the arm and - none too gently - helped him towards the door.

"Drink this. I don't want you to have a headache and miss all the insults I want to yell at you."

"Sorry. I'll help replace most of it."

"I hope you will."

"Promise. By the time you get back from Candle Keep most of the stuff will be whole again. What were you doing to that shield?"

His calm tone seems to have an effect on Phylis. Her voice is still angry, but finds herself unable to answer a question about her work. "Infusing it. You see, I use lightning energies to generate a repellent field around the shield. Helps divert enemy blows more easily."

"Doesn't your shield do that already?"

"It does, but it's made of metal. After our delve into the spell scar, I wanted Glenn to have the protection. Hence a wooden shield. With no metal components to generate the field. Which is kind of difficult, you see - metal wires are very good conduits for lightning energies, and with attached amethyst housings this can be easily converted into arcane force. Then all you have to do is ..."

"Hold. Wait. I can't follow anyhow. Did you ask Glenn if he wants this ... arcane amethyst lightning energy thing ... attached to his shield?"

"Why wouldn't he? I took care to use no metal."

"Well, maybe he doesn't like being fried. Or starting fires."

"That had nothing to do with the shield, that ..."

"My point is: Maybe there is a reason. People have all kinds of reasons for all kinds of things. You should have asked. You still should."

"Er, well. Ok. You know him better than me, I guess. Lead the way."

Aodhan nods, his headache quickly receding thanks to Nessa's potion. He turns around to leave the small gnome house.

Phylis joins in after him. "You still owe me a lab, though. Just so you know."

---

"Glenn, we need your opinion on something," Aodhan says as he enters the room without knocking, finding a startling Glenn sitting cross-legged on the floor.

"It wasn't easy, but after you almost died three times during our expedition, I've found a way to make you safer", Phylis bursts out, entering right after Aodhan. "What do you think?" She unwraps a shield-sized bundle containing her latest creation.

"Good afternoon to you, too!" says Glenn, getting up. "What am I looking at?"

"It's an enhanced shield," Phylis says, " that makes it easier to deflect blows. You see, usually, the shield's metal makes it easy to gather lightning energy and convert it into arcane force, but since you don't use a metal shield, and I totally respect that, I have attached these collectors, of course making sure that they don't directly attach to the wood, that's what these discs are for, and together with these amethysts, and I hope you're ok with using amethysts, if not then I'm sure I can figure out some way around it, anyway, " Phylis makes a pause just long enough to take a breath, " as I said, the bottom line is that the shield will make it easier for you to block the blows of your enemy. How do you like it?" And she looks expectantly at Glenn.

"Wow, thank you, that looks like an obscene amount of work and skill. I couldn't do it myself. If it's similar to what you're already using, and Alasdair and me have these enhanced shields, it would surely increase our chances of success! I like it!"

Phylis blushes a bit. "Erm... about that. That's unfortunately not how it works. It's hard to explain exactly why, but it mostly comes to the recharging, but I can only have one enhanced shield at a time. But you've seen me, and I've seen Alasdair, and we've seen you, and no offense, but I think you have the greatest need for this."

The room falls quiet for a while, until Glenn says "Thank you, I really mean it, but if there can be only one, then I have to pass."

Aodhan speaks up. "Glenn, your sister has worked very hard for this generous gift. Don't you want to share your reasoning?"

Glenn sighs. "It's hard to explain in words. But I think lately I wasn't where I should have been. I'm not a fighter, and as much as I would love the added safety for myself, I think resources should be used where they have the greatest impact. It's about not being wasteful, which would disrespect nature. We've been through a lot, and I've noticed that things work best when everyone contributes in a way that plays out their strengths. You and Alasdair can hold your ground pretty well, even when you're outnumbered. Whenever I've tried to imitate you, it usually ends badly, so I've decided that I should be more careful in what I do. I think if one you guys have it, then I don't have to worry as much, and can concentrate on doing whatever needs doing. If that makes sense?"

---

"Huh. You were right. He even had his reasons.", Phylis says as they enter her home.

Aodhan nods, a slight smile on his lips.

"Still can't quite get it, but in the end it's his call.", she continues. "I'll probably put mine up again, then. Seemed like Alasdair has little issue staying on his feet in battle."

Aodhan smiles at her, relief apparent in his eyes. "I'm glad. I wasn't gonna suggest it so as not to appear overprotective again, but yeah, Alasdair can take care of himself."

They enter her lab, and Phylis touches the stone in her hair to shed some light on the chaos. After a short sigh, she starts collecting the burned and destroyed equipment into a basket. Aodhan stays near the front and carefully pulls one of the shelves back upright. He touches the broken foot, and after a moment it snaps back together.

Phylis looks over to him. "Ah. Forgot you could do that. It seems you can be of help in here, after all."

Aodhan chuckles and shakes his head. "I'll help you set things up again, but then I'm out of here for good. I'll take your word we'll meet outside somewhere."

Phylis smiles. "Sure. Thanks for the heads up. You know, regarding Glenn."

Aodhan looks at her. "You don't seem particularly upset about the wasted work."

"Wasted? I discovered the antlers actually do work if connected correctly to the crystals."

"That's the primary lesson you learned today?"

"No. The primary lesson was, of course, from you."

Aodhan nods, a content smile on his lips. That is, until Phylis continues.

"I though the stuff in the books about arcane dampeners being of utmost importance if arcane magic users are around was a bit over the top. Turns out it really isn't."