Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. The gang is on the run.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Involuntarily Manifested, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/involuntarily-manifested-the-school

Next up will be chapter 18, Puzzle Pieces

Escape From Ponsonby Hall – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 17

By Ray Tabler.

“We have to get out of here.” Paulus said.

“Sorry about forgetting to shut the door.” Gilbert smacked his forehead.

The mysterious, locked door would have to wait.

Paulus was moving. “No time for sorry now.” He turned to Vayla. “Is there another exit?”

“This way.” She scurried back towards the potions puddle.

“Gilbert,” Paulus pointed. “Go collect Bubba.”

“Right boss.”

Paulus followed Vayla, skirting around the edge of the glowing green pool of expired potions occupying the middle of the cellar floor.

“Hey, what’s up now?” The center ghost in the pool asked as Vayla and Paulus hurried past. “Going so soon? Ya just got here.”

“We’re not exactly supposed to be down here.” Vayla shrugged.

“Oh!” Center glanced at the muffled sounds of approaching authority. He spun about, pinwheeling droplets of loose potion mix. “Scram you guys. It’s the cops!”

The other ghosts, and the spirit immediately disappeared into the shallow potions puddle, evidently not anxious to make the acquaintance of any flavor of law enforcement. Center waved an amorphous arm at Vayla before submerging himself.

“Nice meeting ya, babe. Se ya around.”

Despite the situation, Paulus paused. “He called you babe. What’s that all about?’

Vayla giggled, enjoying the taste of Paulus’s jealousy, just a tiny bit. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

“It’s something. Ghosts don’t go around calling just anybody babe.”

“What do you know about how ghosts behave?”

“Uh, well I don’t. but I don’t like other men calling you babe. Or anything like that.”

Vayla smiled, and patted Paulus’s cheek. “I know. Thank you for that.”

Paulus was confused, but Gilbert brought Bubba along, which diverted further contemplation of the complexities of his relationship with Vayla.

“What’s happnin’?” Bubba asked. Sweat sheened his brow, and he looked pale even in the greenish half-light.

“The watchman found our entry point and is approaching the way we came. We have to find another exit.” Paulus summarized.

“Good.” Bubba’s mood seemed to brighten. “I shore was hopin’ not to go back through that corn-sorned tunnel again.”

Vayla rolled her eyes. “You boys act like you never snuck into anywhere before. Follow me.”

She headed for a low, stone archway in one corner. The lighting was even dimmer through the archway, but a flight of ancient, slate steps led upward. Vayla dashed up the stairs, her companions on her tail.

“Thank the Lord!” Bubba whispered. “We’s headed back up again.”

The steps climbed past several landings, with dust-caked wooden doors leading off at right angles to the run of the stairway. The condition of the stonework improved as they climbed, looking less ancient and in better repair.

After they scrambled past the second closed door on a landing, Paulus had to ask. “Where do these doors lead? Maybe there’s a way out.”

“Forget it.” Vayla hissed. “That’s the way they’ll expect us to head.”

“Where are we going instead?” Paulus panted, struggling to keep his footing in the gloom of the stairwell.

“The roof.” Vayla rounded a final turning, and pushed a door open.

Night air and starlight slapped Paulus in the face. Vayla trotted along, not pausing to see if her companions were keeping up. The roof of Ponsonby Hall was an eclectic blend of flat spaces and steeply inclined planes, sheathed in a chaotic collection of slate shingles and copper cladding. Like most campus buildings, Ponsonby had led an eventful life, serving as lecture hall, administrative center, even dormitory over the years. All that since the shadowy time when it was rumored to house the original robber baron’s keep. Renovations, remodels, and hasty additions all jostled together in an architectural chopped salad, nowhere more apparent than upon the roof of the structure.

Within a few moments it was all Paulus could manage to keep sight of Vayla’s retreating back. She darted this way and that among the broken roofscape of cupolas, gables vaults, ridges, air shafts, and turrets littering the pigeon-infested crown of Ponsonby Hall. Littering that litter was a scree of broken glass from skylights, windows, and transoms which had, until recently, let sunlight in and kept weather out.

Paulus felt pangs of guilt as he crunched through the broken glass which his aetheric shockwave had shattered. Hastily-cut boards had been wedged into previously glazed openings all about. And canvas sheets stretched over gaps too broad for the boards on hand. So distracted by the temporary repairs was Paulus that he almost barged right into Vayla’s back.

“Ah!” Vayla cried out, clutching at Paulus. “You almost knocked right off the edge!”

“The edge of what?”

“The edge of the roof.” She wept an arm at the void before them.

“Oh my! We must be five stories up.” Paulus felt a bit of vertigo, peering at the starlit scene of tranquil grass lawns and walkways below.

“It’s gone!” Vayla whispered, frustrated.

“What’s gone?” Gilbert asked, belatedly arriving with Bubba in tow.

“The tree.” Vayla snapped.

“I don’t see any tree.” Paulus looked again. “There is a big stump down there, right up next to the wall of the building. Must be six or seven feet across.”

Vayla looked like she wanted to smack him. “There used to be a really big oak tree right here. It was perfect for climbing down from the roof.”

“Oh.” Paulus felt foolish. “How long ago was that?”

Vayla sighed. “Ten years, maybe.”

“I guess they cut it down.” Paulus speculated.

“You think?” Vayla knew it wouldn’t do any good, but really was tempted to smack Paulus. “How are we going to get off the roof now?”

“Can we double back, and slip onto a lower floor?’ Gilbert suggested.

“We’d run right into them.” Vayla countered.

Paulus knelt and tried to examine the outer wall in the dim light. “There aren’t a lot of hand holds I can see.”

“That shore is a long way down, Pedro.” Bubba commented, eyeing the drop.

“Didn’t you think to check on the tree beforehand?” Paulus scratched his head.

“Well, excuse me for expecting some tree which has stood for hundreds of years to last another ten without being chopped up for kindling.” Vayla hissed.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Paulus backpedaled.

Vayla shook her finger. “Now you see here, Paulus Pennythwaite…”

The barely audible scrape of a door opening echoed across the rooftop.

Vayla, Paulus, and Gilbert spun in the direction of the sound of pursuit, eyes round, hearts pounding. Only the intervening clutter of turrets and cupolas separated them from discovery.

“They’re on the roof!” Paulus squeaked.

“What’ll we do?” Gilbert whispered.

“Hey y’all.” Bubba muttered just loud enough for them to hear. “Shinny down this here rope. Looks like it don’t reach all the way down. Maybe a ten-foot drop at the end. But that’s better than fifty. I done looped it round this little feller.”

Paulus blinked at the Texan, then his handiwork. Bubba had quickly uncoiled the rope liberated from holding up warning signs, and looped it around a convenient gargoyle carved on the stone parapet of Ponsonby Hall. The small sculpture seemed as surprised at its new employment as Paulus was.

“Don’t lollygag, now.” Bubba chided. “You go first, Vayla.”

After another moment’s hesitation, Vayla eased over the parapet, and went down the rope as if she did this type of thing every day. Bubba kept tension on the line until she dropped lightly to the ground. He turned to Paulus and nodded.

Paulus gulped his fear back down and clambered over the edge. He descended more clumsily than Vayla, stopping briefly once when he almost lost his grip and plummeted. Soon enough, he dangled at the end of the rope, feet kicking free of the ground. With teeth gritted, he let go and dropped a little way.

The impact knocked the wind out of him for a minute. Paulus lay there wheezing and trying to tell if he broke anything. His rear end hurt, but that seemed to be the extent of any damage.

Vayla’s concerned face appeared, blocking Paulus’s view of the stars. “Are you alright?’

“Ooh. I don’t think I’m cut out for this type of thing.”

Vayla giggled. “Oh, you’re doing fine.”

“I don’t share your enthuse— Look out!”

Paulus had just enough time to shove Vayla out of the way. But not enough leverage to roll aside himself. Gilbert lost his grip and dropped directly onto his boss from the end of the rope.

Vayla scrambled over on hands and knees. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.” Gilbert replied.

“That’s because I broke your fall.” Paulus rasped, feeling every single piece of gravel embedded into his backside.

“Oh. Sorry boss.”

From his vantage point flat on his back Paulus observed Bubba sliding down the rope straight at him. This would normally concern Paulus, but the hard fall, followed by Gilbert landing on him, filled the professor with a certain inexplicably casual attitude with regards to further injury. Unexpectedly, Bubba caught hold of a protruding window sill one story up, and clung there precariously.

The Texan proceeded to flip the rope with his free hand, sending standing waves traveling back up the line. After half a dozen quick twists of the rope, the secured loop must’ve worked loose from the gargoyle at the roof’s edge. The freed rope fell upon Paulus, adding insult to the injury of his clumsy landing and Gilbert’s accidental impact. In truth, Paulus almost welcome the sinuous caress as the rope danced onto him. Strange that. He wouldn’t have expected so quick an appreciation of the finer points of items falling upon him.

The rope dislodged, Bubba swung himself a few times from the window sill, before dropping lightly to the grass at one side of the gravel path. The Texan landed in a tumbling crouch. He rolled up right onto hands and knees, spurs jingling softly and hat still on his head.

Bubba spun about, looking down at Paulus. “Land sakes, Pedro!” He admonished in a whisper. “What you doin’ jest laying there?”

“Oh, just taking a little nap.” Paulus groaned.

“Ain’t no time to be snoozin’, Pedro. Them fellers are still after us.”

Sure enough, the sounds of pursuit floated down from the roof top. Fortunately for the four trespassers, there was a lot of intricate rooftop on Ponsonby Hall to search. Still, they’d get around to looking over the edge before long.

“How did you jump down like that?” Paulus asked, curious in spite of the circumstances.

“That?” Bubba shrugged. “Shoot! It’s jest like bein’ throwed by a buckin’ bronco. Ya learn how to take a fall after a time or two. Besides, I’m feelin’ lots better now I’m back on the right side of the prairie.” Automatically Bubba began coiling the rope around his forearm. “Glad I grabbed this rope. We’d a been in a heap of trouble without it.”

“Right about that.” Paulus groaned as Vayla and Gilbert levered and dragged him back to his feet. Embedded gravel sleeted down from his backside with a muted patter.

“Can you move?” Vayla slapped more gravel and grit from Paulus’s rear end.

Paulus suppressed a yelp at the pain, more reluctant to acknowledge the indignity than from fear the sound would draw attention of those searching for them on the roof. “I don’t think I have a choice. We have to get out of here.”

“Which way?” Bubba asked, peering around the starlit quad.

“Head for that clump of trees.” Vayla instructed. “There’s a gully we can climb down into and be out of sight. Unless they filled it in since last I had to run away from here.”

“Oh joy, more climbing.” Paulus wheezed.

Gilbert and Bubba each shouldered Paulus under one arm, and half dragged him across the deserted midnight quad. Paulus groaned at every step. “It’s been a long day.”

“Hush up, you big baby.” Vayla hissed over her shoulder. “You’ll make them look this way.”

“Are you still angry about the tree not being there?” Paulus asked, unwisely. “And that babe thing?”

“What makes you think I’m angry?”

As they slipped into the trees, it occurred to Paulus that Vayla hadn’t actually answered his question. Bubba briefly considered explaining to his friend that arguing with a woman was rarely, if ever, a productive course of action. But, upon reflection, the Texan decided that was a lesson a man had to learn all on his own.

END.

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Don’t worry. Paulus will be alright. Physically, anyway.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Involuntarily Manifested, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/involuntarily-manifested-the-school

Next up will be chapter 18, Puzzle Pieces

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. Ironclad nondisclosure agreements and the nether realm.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Thaumaturgical Hazard, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/thaumaturgical-hazard-the-school

Next up will be chapter 17, Escape From Ponsonby Hall https://raytabler.substack.com/p/escape-from-ponsonby-hall-the-school

Involuntarily Manifested – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 16

By Ray Tabler

Almost immediately four more lumps of similar size grew from the green, softly glowing, bubbling puddle of randomly mixed potions occupying a significant portion of the cellar floor under Ponsonby Hall. Gloppy potion residue drained from the new lumps, revealing more eyes blinking in the chartreuse-tinged illumination emanating from the potion pool. The four intruders unconsciously edged back away from the perimeter of the puddle, surprised that it contained more than the composite of many potions stored way past their best-used-by dates.

“Land sakes!” Bubba whispered loudly. “What in Sam Hill are those? Ghosts?”

“Ghost?” the newly formed mouth of the lump on the far left scoffed in a nasal voice. “I, for one, am a spirit. I resent being referred to as a ghost.”

“Ooh, a spirit! Ain’t we all prissy?” The lump second from the left rolled its eyes.

“I’m not talking to you.” Far left somehow managed to convey a superior disdain of second from left via body language. Which was quite an accomplishment, given that its body consisted of an extrusion of mixed potions.

“You just did.”

“Did what?”

“You just talked to me.”

“I mean I’m not talking to you anymore.”

“You just did it again. How can you talk to me and not talk to me at the same time? Is that something spirits do?”

Far left open its “mouth” to reply, but hesitated, probably trying to figure out what to say without talking to second from left again.

“Can it you two!” The original, and now center, lump ordered. “I am so sick of you morons not talking to each other.”

Far left harumphed, turning slightly away from second from left. Who snickered, obviously greatly enjoying baiting the sensitive adjacent spirit. Second from right and far right also seemed to smirk at the exchange. Although, smirking with an amorphous, semi-gelatinous face was not an easy task.

“You mugs pipe down, and maybe we’ll get some answers this time around.” Center was evidently used to taking charge of situations.

Answers were what Paulus had come down to the cellar in search of. So, maybe he and Center could help each other out in that regard. “Excuse me.”

“Yeah?” Center replied.

“I’m professor Pennythwaite, and I’m down here investigating the incident.”

“Is that what you’re calling this mess?” Center slapped the surface of the potions puddle with an “arm” sending lazy ripples outward to transit the gaps between the spirits and form complex interference patterns on the far sides.

Paulus fought down the urge to appreciate the interference patterns. He had more important matters at hand. “How long have you all been down here. I wasn’t aware of any resident spirits or ghosts with a haunting permit in Ponsonby Hall.”

“Me either.” Vayla supplied helpfully, being the closest they had to an expert on the building.

“Haunting permit?” Center jeered. “That’s cause we don’t got no permits. You’re the first bunch stopped to say a word. We didn’t even know where here is until now. Posleby?”

“Ponsonby.” Vayla corrected.

“Ponsonby.” Far left repeated. “My attorney will need to know that when he files the lawsuit.”

Paulus looked confused. “Well, if you’re not local ghosts, where did you all come from?”

“I am a spirit, not a—”

Far left’s complaint stopped short with a sharp look from Center. “We’re from the nether realm. Where we was all just mindin’ our own business when suddenly we’re here instead.”

Paulus and Gilbert shared a shocked face.

“A portal!” Gilbert whispered.

“A second portal.” Paulus pointed out, the first faint stirrings of vindication arising deep down in his heart.

“You can’t open a portal with just potions.” Gilbert gestured at the broad, greenish puddle.

“Especially not with randomly-mixed, expired potions, without intense heat to overcome any activation energy.” Paulus nodded. “And I seriously doubt even heating would do the trick.”

“So, how did a portal open?’ Gilbert puzzled.

Paulus and Gilbert launched into an arcane discussion about aetheric shockwave mechanics and interacting portal peripheral configurations. Vayla rolled her eyes, long used to her love’s tendency to be distracted by technical details. She decided to get something useful accomplished while the two ran out of steam. Assuming they reached some kind of stopping point before dawn.

Kneeling down at the edge of the pool, Vayla beckoned Center over. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

Smoothing down his greenish goo, Center plowed a wake to the edge and leaned on the dry flagstones, leaving a spreading, iridescent green stain. “You can ask me anything you want, doll face.” He winked, scattering a few viscous droplets.

Vayla smiled with a toleration developed over years of dealing with inebriated patrons at the tavern. “You said we’re the first bunch that stopped to talk. Have there been other people down here?”

“Yeah, and real snooty bunch they was too. Won’t explain anything to the sloppy gloppy ghosts in the puddle. All they do is scurry from the foot of the stairs there.” He pointed. “To that big thick door over there.” Center nodded to an ancient-looking wooden door at the opposite end of the potions cellar. “And back again. Back and forth. Back and forth. Won’t even look at us no matter how much we yell at ‘em. Pricks!”

Vayla studied the doorway in the dim light. It looked old, and substantial. Thick, oaken beams were reinforced with metal bracing and studs. A large, brass plate, heavy with verdigris, formed the locking mechanism. The hinges supporting the door looked to be on the opposite side, eliminating that method of opening.

“What do they look like? The pricks.” Vayla charmed Center with a smile.

“Oh, there’s three of ‘em. Sometimes they all three show up. Sometimes it’s just one or two. One looks to be in charge. He’s got long silver hair, and carries a staff with a silver head. The other two? One’s short, and dumb lookin’. The other’s tall and dumber-lookin’.”

“Fits the description for a bunch I know.” Vayla sighed. “And you’re right. They’re pricks.”

“Sometimes you can just tell.” Center agreed.

“Excuse me.” Far left bubbled up to the edge of the puddle. “I need to speak to your supervisor.”

“Can’t you see the lady and I are having a conversation?’ Center warned.

“I have been involuntarily manifested, and would like to lodge a complaint.”

Vayla shrugged. “I’m a barmaid. So, my boss…”

“Ooh!” Center perked up. “You work at a bar. Man, we could all use a drink.”

“Ghosts drink?” Vayla blinked her surprise.

“You’d be surprised at all the things we ghosts can do, baby.” Center favored her with what he probably thought was a sexy look.

“I have a job to get back to.” Far left huffed.

“Hey, zip it!” Center wagged a finger. “We ain’t supposed to talk about the nether realm. Remember?”

“Why’s that?’ Vayla asked.

“We all signed non-disclosure agreements. It’s SOP. And believe you me. Those suckers are ironclad. They got the best lawyers down there… or the worst. Depending on how you look at it.”

“Thank you for telling me about your other visitors.” Vayla stood gracefully. “I better tell my friends about them.” She turned away before Center could object.

“Ah, you chased her away.” Center groused to Far Left. “Just when I was getting somewhere, if you know what I mean.”

“I did not chase her away. She’s way out of your league, anyway.”

“She is not.”

Vayla detoured to check on Bubba, on her way back to Paulus and Gilbert. The Texan sat on a low, wooden shelf. This particular stretch of lumber was miraculously clear of broken glass and sticky potion residue. Bubba, in contrast was looking rather pale and green around the gills. He held his cowboy hat in one hand, wiping his brow with a red bandana.

Vayla knelt in front of Bubba to bring her eyes level with his. “How are you feeling?”

‘Like I been rode hard and put up wet.”

Vayla, never having heard that expression before, took a moment to figure out bubba had felt better. “We’re out of the tunnel now.” She reasoned it best to emphasize the positive.

“Yeah, but we’s still the wrong side of the daises.” Bubba cast a nervous look about the cellar. “Is there another way outta here that don’t go through that tunnel?”

Vayla searched her adolescent memory of sneaking into, and back out of, Ponsonby Hall. “Sure, there is.”

“That’s good. Cause I might just have to dig my way out with my bare hands if’n there ain’t.”

“Steady there, pardner.” Vayla patted him on the shoulder.

Bubba smiled wanly at her brief Texas lingo.

Vayla rose and approached Paulus, Gilbert, and their impromptu seminar on the pataphysics of interacting, proximate portals. “Excuse me, boys. In case you forgot, we’re trespassing here, and literally don’t have all night.”

Paulus stopped, mouth hanging open halfway through verbal derivation of a special case of Hupperman’s radius. “Oh, she’s right. We can look at this later.”

“Yeah,” Gilbert agreed. “I need a chalkboard to keep track of the exponents anyway.”

“Can’t let those exponents get away from you.” Vayla deadpanned.

“I know, right?” Vayla’s sarcasm sailed right over Gilbert’s head.

“Besides, I learned a thing or two talking to the ghost patrol.” Vayla related what Center revealed about repeated transits of the devastated potions cellar by LeRuvoir and his minions.

“They didn’t even stop to talk to the ghosts?” Paulus was extremely puzzled.

“Not once.” Vayla confirmed.

“How can that be?’ Gilbert wondered. “Simple curiosity alone would make anyone ask about what happened. I mean, LeRuvoir isn’t the most empathic person around—”

“You can say that again.” Paulus muttered.

“But, you’d think he’d at least want to gather more dirt for your inquiry.” Gilbert finished.”

“Yeah,” Paulus agreed. “Although he’s already got plenty to do the job.”

“He’d want more.” Vayla snorted. “LeRuvoir’s the type who’d collect and gloat over other people’s troubles just for the fun of it.”

Paulus and Gilbert nodded, knowing that to be true.

Paulus frowned. “This only makes sense if LeRuvoir already knew all about the second portal.”

“And doesn’t want anyone else to find out about it.” Vayla pointed out.

“Which means he had something to do with forming the pother portal.” Gilbert followed the logical chain to its endpoint.

Silently, Vayla, Paulus, and Gilbert all pivoted their gazes to focus on the mysterious door at the other end of the cellar.

“I’d bet golden coins to goldenrods that the answers we’re after lie behind that door.” Paulus pointed with conviction.

Vayla and Gilbert nodded in agreement.

Giving the potions puddle a wide berth, Vayla, Paulus and Gilbert scampered across the cellar to examine the door in question more closely. The ghosts watched with interest, there not being much else going on in their surroundings. Bubba observed with whatever enthusiasm he managed to scrape up from the pit of anxiety he sat in. The wide-open Texas prairie would’ve been ideal, but he’d settle for a box canyon with an altitude of greater than zero at the moment.

Up close the door looked even sturdier than from a distance.

“The timbers are dusty, but the layer isn’t nearly as thick as on most everything else down here.” Vayla pointed, and sneezed at the residue she’d inadvertently stirred up.

“Bless you.” Paulus said automatically. “There’s no warding.”

“No warding needed with this lock.” Gilbert jiggled the latch gently.

Paulus ran a finger along the brass mechanism. “This lock isn’t old, just been made to look old and unused.” He rubbed his fingers and thumb together. “You can feel the oil on it. I’ll bet it doesn’t even creak when you turn the knob.”

“Now why would LeRuvoir go to that trouble?” Vayla asked.

“Very suspicious.” Gilbert ventured.

“Makes me all that more determined to find out what’s inside.” Paulus said.

Faintly, but distinctly, the sound of voices reached their ears. All three intruders wheeled, staring through the greenish gloom back the way they’d entered Ponsonby Hall. More voices funneled out of the tunnel, now accompanied by the tramp of booted feet and the reflected flickering of lights.

“Gilbert,” Paulus asked, eyes round and heart pounding. “Please tell me you shut the outer door behind us.”

“I forgot.” Gilbert gulped.

END.

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The night watch and trouble incoming!

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Thaumaturgical Hazard, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/thaumaturgical-hazard-the-school

Next up will be chapter 17, Escape From Ponsonby Hall https://raytabler.substack.com/p/escape-from-ponsonby-hall-the-school

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. Surprises await under Ponsonby Hall.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Dragon Tracks, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/dragon-tracks-the-school-of-magical

Next up will be chapter 16, Involuntarily Manifested https://raytabler.substack.com/p/involuntarily-manifested-the-school

Thaumaturgical Hazard – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 15

By Ray Tabler

Paulus followed Bubba, who ducked around one end of a tall hedge near the back side of Ponsonby Hall. The hedge ran parallel to the building, with periodic breaks in its dense, green length. Behind the hedge Vayla, Gilbert, and bubba huddled around a stout, wooden door in the stonework of the building’s ground floor.

“What took you so long?” Vayla scolded Paulus.

“I had ta hurry Pedro along.”

“You did not.” Paulus protested.

“Don’t argue.” Vayla wagged a finger. “We don’t have time.”

Paulus restrained an argumentative reply and forced himself to focus on the task at hand. “Is this the way you used to sneak in?”

“Yes. The lock’s so old it’ll pop open if you know how to jiggle it the right way.” She emitted a frustrated sigh. “But now it’s warded.”

A clutch of arcane runes decorated the weathered oaken door. The script was almost scrawled in a pale red paint. The runes clumped into three distinct groupings, each one above the other set at eye level, around the doorknob, and the third down near the threshold.

Paulus studied the warding runes, frowning. “Whoever did this was in a hurry. Which makes sense. All of the windows and doors of the hall had to be warded quickly.”

“I think recognize the handwriting.” Gilbert said. “Kleinser. We were undergrads together.”

“Well, his calligraphy is atrocious.” Paulus shook his head.

“He always was a bit slap dash.”

“Hmm.” Paulus ran a finger along the lines of runes, not touching, a few inches away from the door.” Sloppy as this is, it’s still quite effective. The top line contains whatever the random potions mingling inside invoked. The middle text prevents this particular door form opening. Which concerns our intentions most immediately. But this stuff at the bottom is a problem. We could simply wipe the locking spell off or merely deface it enough to render it ineffective. But the runes down at the bottom will alert…what’s his name?”

“Kleinser.” Gilbert supplied.

“Kleinser, yes. Anyway, if any of these runes are altered in the slightest, Kleinser will become aware of it. And he’ll likely sound the alarm.”

“Well, we don’t want that.” Vayla said.

“No, we don’t.” Gilbert agreed. He glanced upward, scanning the upper stories of the hall. “It’s a good bet every single window and door has been similarly warded.”

“That’s what I’d do.” Paulus said.

“If only we had a way to get around the locking warding without defacing it.” Vayla said.

After a heartbeat Vayla, Gilbert, and Paulus looked at each other, simultaneously struck by the same realization. Then, three pairs of eyes slid over to Bubba. The Texan had been standing apart from the discussion, which he didn’t understand in the least.

Bubba busied himself tying knots in his new-found rope to form a lasso. Then, he’d practiced twirling the lasso, as much as was possible in the close confines between the hedge and the building. When the others fell silent Bubba felt the gaze of his companions upon him. The lasso fell limp. He looked up.

“What?”

“Bubba, would you try to open this door for us?” Paulus asked.

“This here door, with all the funny writin’ on it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Bubba coiled the rope and let it dangle from one hand. The other reached for the ancient, rusty, metal doorknob. He tried to turn it. “She’s locked.”

“You have to jiggle it.” Vayla advised. “Lift up and to the left as you turn and joggle it.”

“Like this?”

“That’s the way.”

“Careful!” Paulus urged. “Don’t brush up against the warding runes.”

The latching mechanism of the door produced a creaking snick and a hollow clack, echoing in the quiet evening dusk. Everyone froze, expecting the sound alone to attract attention. After a few heartbeats, the group of amateur housebreakers started breathing again. Insects and night birds sang uninterrupted on the far side of the concealing hedge, ignoring the unsanctioned intrusion of Ponsonby Hall.

Bubba gave the door a gentle push and it slowly swung inward, squealing in protest on corroded hinges. A narrow, stone-walled corridor stretched into the gloom before them. The first stars twinkled in the sky above. But little of that illumination penetrated verry far into the opening.

“Shore is dark in there.” Bubba swallowed. “Darker than the bottom of coal mine at midnight.”

Paulus glanced at the Texan, puzzling through the metaphor. Or was it a simile? He probably should’ve paid more attention to the literature class electives he had to take long ago. “Um, I don’t think I’ve ever been in this part of the Hall. Where does this corridor lead?”

Vayla bit her lip. “It’s been a while. I think this goes in a ways, then there’s a bend, and some stairs. Should take us into the potion’s storage cellar.” Vayla took a hesitant step forward. “I’ll lead the way. Here, Paulus, take my hand. So, we don’t get separated in the dark.”

Paulus didn’t need any further encouragement to hold Vayla’s hand. Bubba hesitated a moment before grasping Paulus’s other hand, holding hands not being a normal activity between grown men in Texas. Apparently not in East Trendleshay either, as Gilbert exhibited similar reluctance to take Bubba’s hand.

Daisley chained together, the four shuffled down the close, stuffy hallway deeper into the bowels of Ponsonby Hall. Vayla ran her free hand along the rough stone to keep from colliding with the wall in the darkness. Paulus heard Bubba’s spurs jangling faintly on the flagstones behind him. The floor seemed to slope gently downward, making footing on the damp paving slightly hazardous.

“Why did you sneak into this place, anyway?” Paulus asked in a whisper.

The wistful smile was audible in Vayla’s voice. “Oh, stupid stuff kids do. Usually on a dare. Sneak into the potions cellar and steal a bit of night star or a raven’s feather.”

“Both of those are cheap and common items.” Paulus asked, baffled. “Why run the risk of punishment to steal them?”

“Oh Paulus, didn’t you do anything naughty when you were a boy, just for the fun of it?’ Vayla sighed.

“Uh, no. Why would I?”

Vayla giggled in mischievous glee, a musical sound that seemed to make the gloom retreat just a little bit.

No. the darkness was indeed retreating slowly as the four progressed. Up ahead, a barely perceptible glow waxed with each shuffling step.

The wall under Vayla’s hand curved in a wide arc as she led her companions around a truncated spiral. Halfway through the broad turn, Paulus realized he could see dull illumination ahead. A pale, greenish glow leaked a past the inner curve and reflected off the outer wall of the passage, defining the irregularities of the stonework in stark, if diffuse, relief. By unspoken agreement, the four stopped to assess this development.

“From what I remember, the potions cellar is just past this bend.” Vayla whispered.

Paulus stared at the greenish glow coming around the bend. He was about to take the lead, now that there was some light to see by. But he noticed that, Bubba’s hand was clammy with sweat.

“Are you okay, Bubba?’ He asked.

“Well, I been better, Pedro.” Bubba released both Paulus’s and Gilbert’s hands. He rubbed his palms roughly on his shirt to wipe away the perspiration, barely visible ion the wan light. “I get a bit antsy in tight, little spaces.” Bubba panted. “Me and my brothers was diggin’ a well back in Terlingua Bend when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Durn thing co-lapsed right in on me. They dug me out, and I was fine.” Bubba breathed rapidly. “But I jest don’t like being in holes ever since.”

“Oh.” Paulus didn’t know what to say.

“Is that cellar up ahead bigger than this here spot?”

“Yes.” Vayla answered.

Armed with that fact, Bubba edged past Paulus and Vayla without another word, heading around the bend in frantic haste.

“Okay, we’re moving on.” Gilbert quipped from the rear of the party.

When the other three reached the potions storage cellar, they found bubba leaning against the wall to the left of the hallway’s exit. He panted, mouth open wide, eyes staring. The Texan looked even greener than the diffuse light emanating from the cellar could account for.

Vayla put a concerned hand on Bubba’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I’m better than I was in that gosh darned tunnel.”

“Uh, why didn’t you tell us?” Paulus asked.

“I didn’t want ta look yeller.” Bubba straightened up and shook himself. “I’m okay now.”

“You’re sure?” Vayla seemed unconvinced.

“Right as rain.” Bubba doffed hi hat and wiped his brow on a sleeve. He favored his companions with a brave grin.

Paulus and Vayla looked at each other.

“Alright.” Paulus sighed, accepting Bubba’s assurance at face value, for now. “Let’s see what’s to see down here.”

What there was to see, consisted of an enormous subterranean vault, lined with stone with thick support pillars marching off to a far wall indiscernible in a glowing haze. The place was set up like an underground amphitheater, three levels deep. Each level was perhaps five feet lower than its surrounding ring. Rank upon rank of sturdy wooden shelves crowded the descending stone floor spaces.

Until recently those shelves groaned under the weight of thousands upon thousands of glass bottles, flasks, jars, and jugs, all brim full of the potions collected over the years. Probably since the founding days of the university, the products of undergraduate potions classes, post-graduate research projects, and professorial experiments had been stored here. Expired potions disposal had appeared upon the annual tasks list presented to the regents. With an unsurprising regularity, expired potions disposal had failed to rise above the cutoff line deemed economical to address.

Decades passed. The number of potion containers shoved onto the shelves grew and grew. Administrators tried not to think about when the potions storage cellar would be full. Actually, absolutely can’t fit one more thimble of sorcerous liquid full, that is. The official, rated storage capacity was surpassed long, long ago. There were still a few nooks, crannies, and dark corners not crammed with various sizes of stoppered vessels. And so, the situation was not quite demanding addressing, yet.

Then, the incident occurred. Paulus’s aetheric shock waves shattered all of the potions containers. All of them. Untold gallons of magical liquid had poured down from shelves, washed across the stone floor, and cascaded down the levels, to mix and mingle in one expansive, gloppy, bubbling, sickly greenish pool at the center of the lowest level of the cellar. The result was a grand, glorious, uncontrolled, and accidental experiment. A mad wizard’s dream, still in progress. Thaumaturgical hazard indeed.

“What an awful stench!” Vayla held her nose.

“Yup.” Bubba delivered his assessment, the smell definitely not helping his already wobbly condition.

The greenish glow illuminating the cellar came from the potions pool. The intensity and shade of light radiating from the gathered viscous liquid waxed and waned over about a twenty-second cycle, varying slowly from a dim glow to a twilight gloaming, and from a lime to a shamrock, or perhaps emerald hue. Then back again. Lazy bubbles grew fat and popped on the oozing surface, feeding a hazy miasma crouching a foot of two above the potion/air interface.

“We really ought to get a sample for analysis.” Gilbert looked about for an intact container to capture a small volume of the pool for posterity. Unfortunately, no unbroken glassware was in sight. “Maybe I could soak some of it up with my handkerchief.”

Paulus seemed to consider this option, before sanity prevailed. “Probably not a good idea. Might be corrosive.”

Gilbert was visibly disappointed at the potential loss to magical science.

Paulus examined the cellar. “At least they built this place sturdy enough for this type of incident. More foresight than I would expect from academic administrators.”

“Oh, this didn’t start out as a potions cellar.” Vayla corrected him.”

“No?”

“The story I heard is that this was the foundation of the old robber baron’s castle. When the university took possession I don’t know how long ago they just built Ponsonby Hall atop the ruins. It didn’t become a storage cellar until much later.”

Paulus considered Vayla’s retelling of the little-known historical lore.

However, before any of them could propose the next course of action, the surface of the mingled potions puddle moved in an intentional manner. A small hummock rose form the goo, a foot in height. The lump spun about slowly. Two, soulless black eyes popped open, rotating to bear upon the four intruders. Then, a mouth formed below the eyes and opened wide.

“Hey, you guys.” The mouth said in a deep, gravelly voice. “Get up here. We got company.”

END.

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What will arise from the toxic potions pool?

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Dragon Tracks, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/dragon-tracks-the-school-of-magical

Next up will be chapter 16, Involuntarily Manifested https://raytabler.substack.com/p/involuntarily-manifested-the-school

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

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• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

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• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. Only Bubba can see the dragon tracks. Where do they lead?

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, A Critter in Pain, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/a-critter-in-pain-the-school-of-magical

Next up will be chapter 15, Thaumaturgical Hazard https://raytabler.substack.com/p/thaumaturgical-hazard-the-school

Dragon Tracks – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 14

By Ray Tabler

Paulus, Vayla, and Archie all leaned close to the spot Bubba pointed to. They stared, but only saw an unremarkable patch of sandy soil, interspersed with clumps of forlorn, scraggly grasses. Paulus and Archie looked at each other, then at the Texan.

“We don’t see any tracks, Booba,” Archie cocked an eyebrow at Bubba.

Vayla giggled at the flubbed name.

That’s Bubba.” Bubba corrected, well aware of how quickly an unfortunate nickname could stick on a fellow.

“We don’t see the tracks, whatever your name is.” Archie stubbornly insisted.

“What do they look like? The tracks.” Paulus decided to attack the issue with logic. And the best way to do that was get an idea of what Bubba thought he saw.

“Oh, they’s about this long, and yay wide.” Bubba used his hands to define the scale of the tracks. He surveyed the spoor with a critical eye. “Three toes on each foot, with extra deep marks from some big ‘ol claws. One of the toes on the left foot is splayed out a mite. Maybe it got broke and then healed up.” Bubba stepped off a couple of paces. “’Bout that much between prints. And there’s a drag mark right down the center of the trail. I guess that’s from the tail.”

“Sound right?’ Paulus asked Archie.

Archie’s eyes had gone wide. “Yeah. Even down to the male’s old broken toe.”

“So, why can Bubba see the tracks, and we can’t?” Vayla asked.

“Because he’s got no mana.” Paulus nodded, pulling a small leather pouch from a pocket. “The tracks have been magically concealed, but Bubba’s immune to the effects of magic. Now that we know of the concealment, we can at least try to detect it.”

Paulus extracted an oblong bundle of twine from the pouch and leaned close to where Bubba claimed the dragon tracks lay. He moved the bundle back and forth methodically, a foot from the ground. At several locations, the drooping loose ends of twine hanging limply abruptly stiffened and stood straight out from the bundle. As soon as the loose ends stiffened, they drooped again once the location was passed. Until the next spot, presumably the adjacent dragon print, was nearby.

Paulus sighed and straightened up, stowing the detection charm away again. “A powerful concealment spell was invoked to prevent anyone from seeing these tracks.”

“Tol’ you so.” Bubba muttered, vindicated.

“Who would do that?” Vayla wondered.

“Whoever stole the male dragon.” Paulus reasoned.

Vaya planted hands on hips. “Look, I’m not a wizard but I know that dragons don’t just follow anybody around like a puppy.”

“No, they don’t.” Paulus conceded. “They must’ve ensorceled the beast as well. Some kind of enthralling spell would do the job. But that’s a risky proposition on a creature like a dragon. We must be dealing with a powerful, and highly motivated wizard.”

“Wait a minute.” Archie crossed his arms and frowned skeptically. “Are you trying to say that somebody got Forzhul by me without my noticing?”

“Who’s Forzhul?’ Vayla asked.

“That’s the male dragon’s name.” Archie answered. “The female’s Zantzu.”

“You mean Nellie?” Bubba interrupted.

“Zantzu.” Archie insisted.

Bubba opened his mouth to argue the point, but Paulus dragged the discussion back to more productive territory. “Can we just not argue about names until we’ve sorted out where your dragon went? I mean, he calls me Pedro. And I don’t kick up a fuss about that.”

Vayla suppressed a giggle.

“Pedro?” Archie raised an eyebrow. “What kind of a fool name is that?”

“Pedro was an ol’ compadre of mine—”

Paulus/Pedro held up a restraining hand. “It’s a long story. Which we don’t have time for at the moment.”

“Why can you detect the concealment spell, and the diviners couldn’t?” Vayla asked.

Paulus waved a hand at the invisible tracks. “All spells have a half-life, declining in effect over time at a rate which varies depending on multiple factors. This concealment spell must be front-loaded on defeating divination but built with a long tail for simple visual obfuscation. That will probably fade after a few more days. But the tracks may have washed or abraded away by then anyway.” Paulus looked thoughtful. “Neat trick, keeping the ensorcellment and the concealment invocations from destructively interfering. Wonder how it was done.”

Archie set his jaw, working through Paulus’s logic. Bubba clearly lost the thread not far into the explanation. But adopted an air of casual understanding. “Oh yeah. Obsconfusification.”

The other three stared at the Texan for a moment.

“But that doesn’t explain how they got Forzhul past me. I’m always here to keep an eye of the dragons. Except for my day off. Then there’s a relief keeper who’s on the job when I’m not on duty.”

Paulus shrugged. “Another ensorcellment spell, probably. Do you remember taking a long nap around the time Forzhul disappeared?”

Archie suddenly looked evasive. “Uh, maybe.”

“Well, look fellers. We could stand here and yammer about it all the live-long day. Or we could jest follow these here tracks.”

“That does sound like a good idea.” Vayla said.

“I can’t leave Zantzu.” Archie hooked a thumb at the distant sleeping female dragon.

“You’re right about that.” Paulus conceded. “I think it best if we follow the tracks, and report back to you where they lead.” He looked at Vayla and Bubba. “It could be a longer walk than we anticipated. Are you two up for it?”

“It’s my night off. A nice long walk sounds good.”

“I got me nothin’ better to do.”

“Alright.” Paulus nodded. “Thanks for your help, Archie. Lead on, Bubba.”

Bubba jangled off, following the dragon tracks only he could see. Archie watched the three leave. He wondered how he was going to explain all of this to his boss.

Mercifully, the trail led through mostly open country. Which made sense. A fully-grown male dragon would need a clear path to travel, especially under ensorcellment. Paulus absently concluded that forcing its way through obstacles might’ve degraded the effectiveness of the obedience spell. And proximity to a dragon suddenly and unexpectedly waking from enchantment was certainly not an optimal situation to be in. At least they weren’t having to wriggle through brambles the way they had to on the approach to the warded dragon enclosure.

Because of the longer sightlines, Paulus was able to orient himself with more certainty as well. The trail of the wayward dragon led away from campus, then circled back in a wide loop. The tracks, or rather Bubba’s pursuit of the tracks, orbited perhaps a third of the way around East Trendleshay University before returning. The invisible prints followed a path which consistently kept thick woodlands between them and observation from the campus. No farms or habitations were within sight along the way either. That observation loomed large in Paulus’s analysis. Whoever stole the dragon prioritized stealth and the circumvention of witnesses.

The course of the long, furtive route also travelled unfailingly downhill. East Trendleshay campus perched at the brink of a broad plateau, an upland which afforded a commanding view of the mixed woodlands and meadows that marched toward the faraway coast in picturesque fashion. In a dim, less enlightened era a robber baron’s keep had squatted on the site, extracting tribute from merchants and travelers as they portaged around the water falls where the river tumbled from the plateau. Triumph of a central authority put an end to the practice. The keep and outbuildings had been incorporated into the campus as it grew.

“The tracks end here.” Bubba proclaimed. He doffed his cowboy hat and wiped sweat from his brow. “Whew, that was a hike, sure enough.”

The trio stood at the foot of a tall, steep rocky slope.

Paulus spread his hands. “The tracks lead here?”

“Yep, they march right up to this here big pile of rocks.”

“Did the dragon climb this slope?” Vayla asked.

Bubba shrugged. “Can’t tell. He wouldn’t’a left no tracks if’n he did. Not enough loose dirt. Just rocks.”

“Maybe he just flew away.” Vayla speculated.

“After stompin’ all this way?” Bubba countered. “Course, I don’t know nuthin’ bout how dragons carry on.”

Paulus frowned up at the steep rocky slope. “I think there’s been a recent landslide here. Look how most of the stones have surfaces which are darker and moist. Like they’ve only recently been exposed and haven’t had time to be dried out and bleached by the sun.”

Vayla looked alarmed. “Oh, I hope the poor thing didn’t get buried!”

“Me too.” Paulus shrugged. “That’s possible. In fact, we might find the stolen dragon and his kidnappers under all of these rocks.”

“How sad.” Vayla put a hand over her mouth.

They stood in silence for a long moment. Then, Paulus tilted his head, straining to snatch a faint rumble from the air.

“I hear the waterfall over that way.” He pointed.

“Your right.” Vayla shaded her eyes from the low-hanging sun. “I can just see the tops of the willows which line the banks of the plunge pool at the foot of the falls.”

“Which means we’re standing at the foot of the plateau campus sits on.” He closed his eyes to better visualize the layout of the campus. “Ponsonby Hall should be straight up the hill from here.” He pointed.

“That’s convenient.” Vayla looked both ways along the bottom of the slope. “Doesn’t look like the climb is any easier to the left or the right.”

Resigned to the necessity, Vayla, Paulus, and Bubba started scrambling the rocky slope, slipping and sliding on the loose footing. None of them was all that adept at ascents, and already a bit weary from the long trek following the dragon’s tracks. Those factors combined to slow the climb. It was well into a hazy dusk when they pushed through a fridge of undergrowth at the top of the slope to encounter not just the backside of Ponsonby Hall but Gilbert seated on a convenient bench.

Gilbert blinked at Vayla, Paulus, and Bubba, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere cresting the brush-shrouded clifftop. “What the...”

“We snuck up on ya!” Bubba chuckled.

“You sure did. Where did you come from?”

Paulus raised a finger, about to recount their afternoon stroll, transformed into a lost dragon hunt. Then he decided it could all wait for later. “It’s a long story. What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I got tired of waiting for you three. So, I left a note back at the lab telling you I’d meet you here.”

“Just as well.” Paulus stretched, feeling every bit of the steep clamber up the slope. “Now we don’t have to fetch you. And it’s just about dark enough to, ahem, sneak into Ponsonby anyway.”

At the mention of their planned trespass, the foursome glanced about, suddenly aware that there might be witnesses nearby. Fortunately, they seemed to be alone. The time of day, soon to be night, and the under attended summer semester conspired to render the back side of Ponsonby theirs and theirs alone.

“Alright, let’s get inside before anybody happens along.” Paulus commanded.

They scurried across the lawn between the cliff top path and Ponsonby. Midway there, a series of wooden sawhorses supported a rope strung between them. On signs suspended from the rope periodically were the hastily painted words THAUMATURGICAL HAZARD. KEEP OUT!

Paulus held up the rope for Vayla and Gilbert to duck under. Where was Bubba? Unexpectedly, Paulus felt the rope line go slack in his grasp. Glancing up he was surprised to behold Bubba headed his way, coiling the rope around thumb and elbow as he went. Bubba detached the warning signs and tossed them aside as he came to each one.

“What are you doing?” Paulus whispered hoarsely.

“This here’s good rope, Pedro. Maybe my shootin’ iron won’t shoot around here. But I can fix me up a lasso, sure as shootin’.” Bubba paused as the illogical nature of his logic dawned on him. “So to speak.”

Vayla and Gilbert were already across the lawn, leaving Paulus and Bubba standing out in the open. Bubba’s odd wardrobe alone would attract attention of any passersby. Add to that, they’d crossed a posted boundary. And Bubba had stolen university property, the rope. Paulus didn’t see much upside in standing there in plain sight arguing with Bubba to return the rope.

“Come on. Let’s get out of view before anyone sees us.” Paulus growled.

“Sure thing, Pedro. I was kinda wonderin’ why we’s lollygaggin’ around out here yammerin’.” Bubba took off for the building.

Paulus huffed, rolled his eyes, and scrambled after the Texan.

END.

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What will they find inside Ponsonby Hall?

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, A Critter in Pain, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/a-critter-in-pain-the-school-of-magical

Next up will be chapter 15, Thaumaturgical Hazard https://raytabler.substack.com/p/thaumaturgical-hazard-the-school

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. Bubba demonstrates an unexpected talent.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Trendleshay Holdem, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/trendleshay-holdem-the-school-of

Next up will be chapter 14, Dragon Tracks https://raytabler.substack.com/p/dragon-tracks-the-school-of-magical

A Critter in Pain – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 13

By Ray Tabler

Bubba dove int the underbrush, holding his hat on with one hand and sweeping foliage aside with the other. Paulus and Vayla shared a surprised look, hesitating. In a few seconds Bubba had disappeared from sight.

“What should we do?” Paulus wondered.

“I think we have to follow him.” Vayla answered. “I mean, he doesn’t know his way around campus. He could get lost.”

Paulus sighed. “You’re right.” He waded into the bushes, holding them aside for Vayla. “Careful.”

“Thanks.” She patted Paulus’s arm and kept close.

Like all campuses, the foot paths of East Trendleshay University were a living study in pedestrian efficiency. Official, paved and/or graveled walkways existed, to be sure. But those were merely the fantasies of architects and landscapers, laid out to flatter the arrogance of planners and decorate blueprints. Much as water seeks its level and carves paths to suit its whims while obeying the law of gravity while flowing to the sea, students readily, perversely, abandon those official thoroughfares in search of saving a few steps.

The motivation can be to save time while scurrying between lectures in a tight schedule. Or, the budding scholar might simply be too lazy to walk an additional dozen steps to where the sanctioned pathway branches, when a level stretch of grass beckons quick shortcut. Perhaps the student in question merely wishes to exercise his limited autonomy by slicing across not-all-that-forbidden territory.

Regardless, a birds’-eye view of a university typically reveals an orderly network of walkways, and an overlay of scruffy, alternately dusty and muddy paths people actually trod. The wise administrator always reserves a small fund to gradually pave or gravel the more-traveled impromptu walkways, bowing to the inevitable and attempting to keep mud from being tracked into lecture halls. This is also, ultimately a futile quest. The informal paths shift over the years as students cycle through, and crowded class schedules migrate from university buildingto university building. The paths shift like a river meandering across a landscape.

As a long-term resident of East Trendleshay university, Paulus knew all of this. The trail Bubba blazed through the woodland undergrowth with broad, spur-jangling boots, ignored all pathways, official and informal alike. Paulus struggled to fit the direction of travel to a mental map. He of course had some idea of where they were headed, but a firm grasp of exact location escaped him. A creature of habit, like most people, Paulus more or less ignored portions of the university he didn’t have need to frequent.

The mournful keening drew Bubba on like a siren song, steadily increasing in volume. The Texan remained just barely visible, a dozen paces ahead of Paulus and Vayla. At times they lost sight of him but could hear the rustling of the undergrowth and see the thrashing foliage of his passage. Paulus could’ve hurried ahead to catch up with Bubba, if not for his gentlemanly aid for Vayla’s progress. Good thing she’d already dressed for an expedition.

After some minutes, the thick, brush-choked woodlands abruptly gave way to a flat, well-trampled expanse of dirt and sparse patches of low, tough tussocks of grass. Paulus and Vayla stopped and surveyed the new landscape. A couple of paces into this new terrain a series of wooden stakes were driven into the ground, rising to perhaps ten feet in the air. The stakes were square in cross-section, with arcane runes carved into all four surfaces from ground level to the upper ends. The stakes marched around the edge of the flat land in both directions.

Paulus stepped closer to the midpoint of the distance between two stakes and put a hand out. His palm met an invisible, but tangible resistance which stiffened the closer his hand got to the imaginary line between stakes. Before his hand came within a foot of crossing the barrier, the obstruction felt like a stone wall.

“This is a warded enclosure.” Paulus said.

Vayla snapped her fingers. “Of course, the dragon sanctuary.”

The pair looked at each other in alarm.

“Dragons!” Paulus yelped.

“Where’s Bubba?” Vayla gasped.

And, of course, there was Bubba already a hundred paces into the dragon pen, approaching the dragon. Vayla and Paulus simply hadn’t noticed him, or the dragon, up to that point. Not that a Texan stomping across open terrain, or a full-grown dragon, were in any way easily overlooked. But they’d been distracted by the sudden change of scenery and the appearance of the warding stakes.

“How did he get past the warding stakes?” Vayla wondered.

“He’s functionally immune to magic.” Paulus smacked his forehead. “With no mana for the warding to act on they’re just lumber with funny markings to him.”

Vayla drew a large breath to warn Bubba.

Paulus hurriedly put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t shout. The dragon hasn’t noticed him yet.”

That was so. The dragon lay on the ground, curled almost into a large, green, scaly ball. Periodically its head would rise up on a long, sinuous neck to emit a plaintive, resonate ululation. The dragon then flopped its head down onto the dirt again in obvious sorrow.

“The thing’s in pain.” Vayla frowned.

“Bubba’s going to be in a lot more pain any minute now.”

Vayla looked to the left and the right. “There’s got to be a keeper around.”

Without warning, Vayla picked a direction and took off, sprinting along the outer edge of the enclosure to the right.

Caught flatfooted by Vayla’s sudden, decisive action, Paulus stared dumfounded. After a moment her words penetrated, and he stumbled after her. If Paulus had spared a few seconds for thought, he might have run the other direction around the dragon enclosure. The theoretical dragon keeper might just as well have been closer that way. But Paulus was already chasing after Vayla when that realization entered his head. Just as well. Paulus didn’t want to let Vayla out of his sight this close to a dragon, no matter what logic advised.

Luck was with them. A few panting minutes later the keepers shack hove into view around the continuous curve of warding stakes. This had been the right way to run after all.

The keeper himself noted their arrival with rationed attention. He was more focused on Bubba and the dragon. “What is that fool doing?”

Paulus and Vayla staggered to a stop, gasping after the frantic run.

“Our friend…” Paulus puffed and pointed at Bubba and the dragon.

“Your friend is about to get himself stomped to jelly or burned to a crisp. Maybe both. Eaten too.”

“Dragons don’t eat people. Do they?’ Vayla wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

“Not usually.” The keeper admitted. “But look at that idiot. He’s walking right up to her!”

In the distance, Bubba slowly stepped closer to the dragon, arms spread wide, apparently calm despite being well within lethal range of the beast’s teeth, tail and fiery breath. In the stillness, the Texan’s voice carried across the open space. He spoke in a soothing tone.

“Shh. Simmer down there, Nellie.”

Bubba sidled right up to the dragon’s face, holding his hand out, palm up. The dragon tilted her great head, apparently puzzled at the novelty of a human walking right up to her. She sniffed at Bubba’s palm, then the top of his cowboy hat.

Moving with exaggerated care, Bubba reached up and gently patted the side of the dragon’s jaw. “What’s ailin’ ya, Nellie?”

The dragon crooned a plaintive call, raisin her head to allow the sound to reverberate across the enclosure. Bubba stroked her neck, hand sliding along and smoothing the scales. The dragon seemed soothed by the action.

“I’ve never seen the like.” The keeper whispered.

Bubba began to sing in a low, raspy, but comforting voice.

“Oh come a-long, boys, and listen to my tale,

I’ll tell you of my troubles on the old Chisholm Trail.

Come a ki yi yippee yippee yi yippee yay

Come a ki yi yippee yippee yay”

…

Bacon and beans most every day

Just as soon be eatin’ that prairie hay

Come a ki yi yippee yippee yi yippee yay

Come a ki yi yippee yippee yay”

Twangy and off key as Bubba’s singing voice was the dragon seemed pacified by it. Her crooning was noticeably less strident, perhaps even happy. After a few more verses, Bubba patted the dragon on the flank and slowly walked away. The giant, scaley beast crooned after him, before slowly laying her man-sized head upon the earth and shutting her big, golden yes. She was snoring softly, for a dragon, before Bubba had crossed the distance to where Vayla, Paulus, and the dragon keeper stood in shock at what they had witnessed.

“That’s one big gator, Pedro.” Bubba commented walking between two warding stakes as if they inert wood. Which, for him, they were.

“That’s no gator. Whatever a gator is.” The keeper croaked. “That’s a dragon. And how are you still alive?”

Bubba glanced back at the sleeping dragon. “A dragon? Don’t that beat all? Well, I got a way with critters, big and small. They like me.” He shrugged.

“A way with…” The keeper shook his head. “Dragons are dangerous. They breath fire. They’re very bad-tempered. You’re lucky she didn’t rip you to shreds!”

Bubba tilted his head. “Maybe you jest never gave ‘em a chance.”

“Give them a chance to light me up like a candle?”

“It must be your lack of mana.” Paulus speculated. “She didn’t know how to react to you. Then you calmed her down. And she must’ve decided you weren’t a threat.”

“What do you mean, lack of mana?” The keeper scoffed.

“I got no mana. Pedro here proved it.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“No, really.” Paulus confirmed. “He’s from another realm, where no one has mana. Or so it seems.”

The keeper looked Bubba up and down, noticing for the first time his odd wardrobe.

“She.” Bubba nodded. “I thought she was a filly. Kinda felt like one. “What ails her. The big gal is feelin’ mighty poorly. Never clapped eyes on a dragon afore, and I saw that right outta the chute.”

The keeper puzzled through Bubba’s accent and terminology. “She lost her mate.”

“How sad.” Vayla frowned. “Did he die?”

“No. he just up and disappeared, four days ago. She’s been distraught ever since.” The keeper explained.

“What do you mean, disappeared?” Paulus pressed.

“I came out of my shack in the morning and he just wasn’t here.”

“Did he fly away?”

“He can’t have.” The keeper pointed at the sky over the dragon enclosure. The warding extends up and arcs over to completely isolate their habitat. Otherwise, they’d be flying all over campus, setting fires and causing all kinds of mischief. Besides, this is the only breeding pair of zenubian broadwings south of the sea. They’re priceless.”

“Well, dragons don’t just vanish into thin air.” Paulus protested. “I know that much. He must’ve gotten out somehow. Did you try a scrying spell?”

The keeper harrumphed. “Of course we did! Three diviners spent a whole day circling round and round trying to figure it out. They found nothing.”

“That’s just not possible.” Paulus scoffed.

“You’re telling me.” The keeper planted hands on hips, defying Paulus to explain the mystery. “Maybe there’s something wrong with the warding. I don’t know how this fellow got in otherwise.”

“No. Your warding’s working fine.” Paulus assured the keeper. “It kept Vayla and I out. That’s why we had to run around the outside to get here.”

“Who’s Vayla?” The Keeper asked.

“That’s me.” Vayla waved her hand.

“Pleased to meet you.” The keeper bowed slightly, interrupting the quarrel for a momentary pleasantry. “I’m Archimedes. Archie for short.”

“Nice to make your acquaintance, Archie.” Vayla offered her hand.

Bubba had been looking down at the ground. “Well, why don’t we just follow the tracks, Pedro?”

“What tracks?” Paulus and Archie simultaneously growled.

“Why, them tracks right there.” Bubba pointed at an unmarked stretch of dirt just outside of the dragon enclosure. “Can’t you see ‘em? They’s plain as day.”

END.

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Bubba see’s the tracks no one else can. Where do they lead?

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Trendleshay Holdem, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/trendleshay-holdem-the-school-of

Next up will be chapter 14, Dragon Tracks https://raytabler.substack.com/p/dragon-tracks-the-school-of-magical

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And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. Paulus gets a deadline. Bubba initiates some Texas cultural exchange.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Analyses, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/analyses-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 13, Critter in Trouble https://raytabler.substack.com/p/a-critter-in-pain-the-school-of-magical

Trendleshay Holdem - The School of Magical Engineerting- Chapter 12

By Ray Tabler

“Dean Sparrowsmith, what are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, Paulus.” Sparrowsmith stood and dusted off the seat of his robe.

Paulus thought about that for a moment. “It’s about the inquiry.”

“Yes, it is, unfortunately.” Sparrow smith sighed. “The inquiry will be after noon, the day after tomorrow.”

“So soon?”

“Yes. The consensus among the regents is that the sooner this matter is dealt with the better. Certainly, before the fall semester starts.”

“I assumed I’d have more time to investigate, gather evidence. This whole business is a lot more complicated than it seems—”

Sparrowsmith held up a hand. “Stop right there, Paulus. Don’t say another word about this. It would be highly inappropriate for you to plead your case without the other members of the inquiry board being present. Especially given our previous relationship.” Sparrowsmith looked even more unhappy. “Ahem, considering I was your thesis advisor I felt it proper that I recuse myself as a voting member from the inquiry. I will of course be present, but only to hear evidence and comment. Not vote.”

That was a blow to Paulus. He’d subconsciously counted on Sparrowsmith to vote his way. Then things got worse.

“In that spirit, another senior faculty member will chair the committee. Professor LeRuvoir has volunteered to fill that role.”

Paulus hadn’t expected LeRuvoir to be telling the truth about that. But apparently, he had.

“LeRuvoir—”

“Yes?” Sparrowsmith prompted.

“Nothing.” Paulus lied. Without proof, accusing LeRuvoir of extortion would not help. And Sparrowsmith might feel compelled to disclose the accusation to the rest of the board of inquiry. Which wouldn’t help at all.

“Well, that’s all I came to say.” Sparrowsmith said. “That’s all I can say without compromising the process. Be in the seminar room down the hall from my office, halfway between lunch and teatime day after tomorrow” The awkward silence stretched. “Good day.”

Sparrowsmith whirled abruptly and strode away into the bright, pleasant morning. Paulus watched him go, admiring the man for his integrity even as he wondered what he was going to do. And how he was going to get it done before the day after tomorrow by teatime.

Paulus didn’t remember the walk back to his lab, hands shoved into pockets, kicking at rocks in the path, and plodding stubbornly around the same circular logic in his head. He couldn’t see a way off this treadmill, at least not before the deadline Sparrowsmith had just dropped on him like a ton of bricks. Precedent, procedure, and proper conduct seemed to have trapped him and wrapped him in chains stronger than reason was able to unlock. Paulus was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that these chains were going to require breaking instead. The question was, where to find a hammer big enough.

An unexpected sight greeted Paulus as he climbed the stairs and walked through the door to his lab. It took a moment for the scene to register, so profound was his brown study about the troubles afflicting his life. He blinked and leaned back out the door to make sure he was in the right room.

“Come on in and drag up a seat. Pedro.” Bubba urged. “We been waitin’ for ya!”

Seated around a large wooden crate were Bubba, Gilbert, Vayla, and Grumblethrash, the orc from the tavern the other night. And they were playing cards.

“Morning, Paulus.” Vayla winked at him, holding her cards close to her vest.

She was dressed in trousers and boots. It occurred to Paulus that she was set on accompanying him on the hastily planned expedition to Ponsonby Hall. He really ought to try and talk her out of that. But, somehow, Paulus grasped that would be a futile quest.

“Hi boss.” Gilbert said. “What did you find out about those bullet things from Alchemy?’

“Oh, not that much. The powder is a mixture of brimstone, saltpetre, and charcoal.”

“Hmm. Doesn’t sound explosive.” Gilbert commented.

“It’s not.” Paulus approached, his troubles momentarily forgotten. “What are you doing here?”

“We’s playin’ poker, Pedro.”

Grumblethrash tapped a big, green, impatient finger on the crate, rattling cards and other objects scattered across the crate pressed into service as a gaming surface. “Two cards.” He rumbled.

“Hold your horses, Grumb. Remember what I told you about keepin’ a poker face.”

Bubba peeled two cards off the deck he held and slid them over to the orc. Grumblethrash picked up the cards and fitted them into the cards into the fan of others, tiny in his enormous paws. Black eyes narrowed as he evaluated the new additions to his hand.

“What is poker?” Paulus asked, confused.

“What is poker?” Bubba shook his head. “Poker is a game of skill. It sharpens the mind and tempers the soul. And fills your pockets if you know what you’re doin’.”

Vayla chuckled, fetchingly. “One card, please.”

“A single card for the lovely lady.” Bubba dealt one card to Vayla.

“I’ll stand pat.” Gilbert declared.

“Gil’s got hisself a good hand right outta the chute and is pickin’ up the lingo.”

“Is that a tarot deck?” Paulus surveyed the cards.

“That’s what Gil said. We had to throw out some of the cards.”

“The upper arcana.” Gilbert interjected.

“Once we done that, she plays purty good.” Bubba explained. “There’s all kinds and flavors of poker. I’m callin’ this ‘un Trendleshay Holdem.”

“See and raise two eye of newt.” Grumblethrash rolled a pair of small, desiccated spheres from the pile fore him into the pot occupying the middle of the crate/gaming table.

“Too rich for my blood. Fold.” Vayla tossed he cards face down onto the wood.

Gilbert eyed Grumb’s big green face. “Call!”

“Read and weep!” The orc spread his cards out, rumbling with amusement.

Gilbert huffed. “Where’d he get that seven?”

“Now, now boys. This is a friendly game. We’s jest learnin’, not playin’ for real money.” Bubba soothed Gilbert’s ire as he gathered the cards and shuffled.

“I know.” Gilbert jotted down notes on a parchment beside him.

Grumblethrash chuckled greedily as he swept the pot to his side of the crate and ostentatiously sorted the various ingredients into piles.

“Grumb, you’re taking to this game like a duck to water.” Bubba finished shuffling and dealt Paulus in for this hand.

“I don’t know how to play.” Paulus protested.

“Neither did we a little while ago.” Vayla patted a stool next to her. “You’re a smart boy. You’ll pick it up soon enough.”

Sitting close to Vayla was more than enough to tip the scales for Paulus. He sat and scowled at the various magical ingredients piled on the table. The aforementioned eye of newt, mandrake root, frost moss, and others, no doubt borrowed from the supply room downstairs, stood in for coins.

“What are you doing, Gilbert?” Paulus asked.

Gilbert glanced up from his scribbling. “Collecting data for a little side experiment. I have a hypothesis that Bubba’s lack of mana inhibits the natural enchanted tendency of the tarot deck to predict future hands.”

“That’s interesting.” Paulus raised an eyebrow. “Of course you’ll have to run a control experiment without Bubba’s presence to skew the results.”

“I know.” Gilbert warmed to the subject. “It’ll have to be a double-blind—”

“Hold on there, fellers.” Bubba interrupted. “Y’all can talk shop later. We’s playin’ cards now.” Bubba held up a finger. “Nobody touch their hands yet. I’ll explain the game as we go, Pedro. But the most important part is to keep a poker face. You don’t wanna give away how good or bad your hand is by showin’ it in your face. Grumb here has got that part down pat already.”

“Hmm.” The orc affirmed his skill by exhibiting a commendably unreadable expression.

“Here, I’ll show ya my poker face.” Bubba’s visage transformed into the most naively neutral appearance Paulus had ever seen.

Vayla snickered.

“Hush!” Bubba chided. “Who’s learnin’ who here?’

Vayla put a hand over her mouth and unsuccessfully attempted to stifle another giggle.

Bubba rolled his eyes. “Now, let’s try a different variant.” He reached down and picked up a card from his hand. Without looking at his card, he inserted it face forward into the band of his hat so the others could read it and he couldn’t. “This here is how they do it up Oklahoma way.”

Grumblethrash nodded sagely and imitated Bubba. He licked the back of a card from his face down hand with a big slimy tongue and slapped it onto his forehead, face forward. Where it adhered, leaking saliva lazily around the edges.

Bubba shrugged. “That’ll work.”

By afternoon, Grumblethrash had accumulated a large pile of various potion ingredients in front of him. The other players had effectively nothing with which to ante up. Gilbert, however, clucked gleefully over a growing stack of data with which to test his hypothesis about the effect of Bubba’s functional immunity to magic upon randomized samplings of tarot cards. So, at least two of the group were happy.

Bubba shuffled again and eyed the orc with suspicion. “You sure you never played poker before, Grumb?” He wiped one card from the stack to wipe Grumb’s residual saliva off on the table.

Grumblethrash smiled, tusks glistening. “Beginner luck.”

Bubba looked doubtful. “Gal-dangedest run of luck I ever see’d. Good thing this is just a friendly game.”

Grumblethrash shrugged and smiled innocently. “Time go work.” He stood, ponderously.

Bubba looked out the window. “It’s way past noon. What kinda work starts now?”

“Construction. Grumb contractor.”

“You start a construction job in the afternoon?” Bubba almost dropped the deck of cards.

“Grumb management. Work smart, not hard.”

Bubba rolled his eyes. “Well, that’s one thing the same here as in Texas.”

Grumblethrash rumbled amusement and trundled out the door, floorboards creaking beneath his big feet.

Bubba set the deck of cards down, tilted his hat back, and crossed his arms. “Something tells me I ought not ta play for real money with that ol’ boy.”

Gilbert had been busy reviewing his notes. “What’d I miss? Where’d Grumblethrash go?”

“Off to run his construction empire.” Vayla joked.

“His what?”

“Never mind, Gilbert.” Paulus glanced out the window, judging the time of day. “We won’t want to approach Ponsonby Hall before full dark. Who feels like a stroll, to pass some time?”

“Sounds good.” Vayla nodded.

“I could stretch my legs.” Bubba stood. “How ‘bout you, Gil?”

Gilbert frowned. “No, I think I’ll stay here. I want to start analyzing this data. And I have to get these items sorted and back in their drawers before the stock room clerk notices I borrowed them.”

“Good point.” Paulus nodded. “She’s the one who really runs this department, no matter what the administrative chart says.”

“Gilbert began the process of separating eye of newt from mandrake root, frost moss, and moon flower petals. He was already mentally drafting the introduction for the tarot/poker paper in his head. Although, properly, the recommended sequence was data analysis, draw conclusions, then write the paper backwards, section by section, from there.

Paulus and Vayla exited the building to another gorgeous late summer afternoon, hand in hand. His troubles seemed to fade into a faint background hum, happy as he felt walking along with his love, down the broad, leaf-dappled path. Paulus wanted to simply stop time and hold this moment forever.

Bubba tagged along a few paces behind, hands in pockets, spurs jangling, and smirking at the wizard whenever Paulus happened to glance back.

After a little while, it dawned on Paulus that he no longer heard Bubba’s spurs rattling with each step. That demanded some attention. Paulus stopped, turning to locate the Texan.

“Where’s Bubba?” Paulus muttered.

“He’s right behind us, isn’t he?”

“I don’t hear him.”

A moment’s visual search revealed Bubba standing stock still in the middle of the path, perhaps fifty paces back. Paulus and Vayla reversed course, hurrying to see what had cause Bubba to stop.

“Bubba, what’s wrong?” Vayla asked as they approached.

“Shh!” Bubba held up a hand. “You hear that, Pedro?”

“Hear what?” Paulus asked.

The wind brought a distant sound to Paulus’s ears. He could barely discern it from the birdsong echoing through the trees. It was a despondent, mournful keening, rising and falling with the shifting breeze. The vagaries of acoustics alternately amplified and then attenuated the cry. But the sound persisted, tearing at Paulus’s heart.

“It’s so sad.” Vayla whispered, feeling the sobbing cry deep in her elvish soul.

“Some critter’s in trouble.” Bubba declared, leaving the path in search of the source of the despair.

END.

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Tune in next time to see what Bubba finds.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Analyses, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/analyses-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 13, Critter in Trouble https://raytabler.substack.com/p/a-critter-in-pain-the-school-of-magical

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. There’s more to Bubba than meets the eye. And Paulus gets a little help from a friend.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Misfire, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/misfire-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 12, Trendleshay Holdem

Analyses – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 11

By Ray Tabler

“He’s what?” Gilbert obviously thought Paulus’s conclusion in error. “Nobody’s immune to magic, functionally or otherwise.”

“Bubba is.” Paulus tilted his head at the Texan. I just cast a displacement spell on him. That should’ve knocked him back a foot or two. He didn’t even move. His hair didn’t even stir.”

“Well, he must have a protection spell him.”

“How?’ Paulus argued. “Did you put one on him? I didn’t. Besides, he’s got no mana for a spell to latch onto.”

Gilbert frowned. “Maybe the lack of mana was temporary, and Bubba has some now.”

“Well, our manameter is right over there. Let’s find out.”

“Let’s just do that.” Gilbert huffed to the bench against the wall.

“What in the name of Sam Hill are you boys jawin’ about?’

“We’re going to measure your mana again.”

“Oh, that again. At least my boots are already off.”

“I think a non-contact reading will do.” Paulus put up a calming hand.

Gilbert ran the meter up and down, and all-around Bubba in a circle. Then he tested Paulus to confirm the meter was working.

“Alright. He’s still got no mana.” Gilber secured the meter and deposited the device on a bench. “I guess functional immunity would explain why the illumination sphere didn’t react when he waved his hand through it. This just gets stranger and stranger.”

It took Bubba’s shrugging off a levitation spell, two different varieties of somnambulance incantation, and a prank hex which should’ve turn the Texan’s hair an electric shade of blue before Gilbert shared Paulus’s conclusion.

“How can he be immune?” The blue hair trick had never failed Gilbert before.

“Different realm, different physical laws.” Paulus theorized. “Apparently this pistol thing works in Texas, but not here. The little brass and lead cylinders don’t work here, rather.”

“I wonder if we could figure out why he’s immune and maybe transfer that condition to others.” Gilbert rubbed his chin. “That would be something.”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing.” Paulus said. “We should be careful about trying anything like that though. Magic is so integral to everything in this realm. It could have unforeseen consequences.” Paulus’s eyes hardened. “I can think of someone who wouldn’t hesitate to barrel down that road though.”

“Quentin LeRuvoir.”

“Exactly.”

“First LeRuvoir acted so strangely when he touched Bubba. Then he came right out and threatened you.”

“What’s that about Quent?” Bubba’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh,” Paulus sighed. “He’s going to get me thrown out of the university if I don’t do what he says.”

“Ya don’t say. Somethin’ didn’t sit right with me when that ol’ boy shook my hand. Made me want ta count my fingers. Make sure they was all still there.”

Gilbert snorted a laugh.

Paulus yawned. “It’s late. Maybe we can start to figure this all out in the morning.”

“How about you bunk with me, Bubba?” Gilbert volunteered. “My place isn’t far.”

“Thank ya, Gil. I had me a long nap, but that darn bird shook me loose of a good dream. I could use some more shuteye.”

“No problem.” Gilbert discreetly rummaged in a lab bench drawer for some cotton to stuff in his ears once Bubba started snoring again.

Paulus caught Gilbert’s eye and mouthed a thank you. He desperately needed a relatively good night’s sleep after being involuntarily stretched out on a beer-stained tavern floor. Bubba was a good fellow, but turmoil seemed to follow him around like an eager puppy.

“Bubba, you mind if I borrow a couple of these bullet things?” Paulus selected a pair of the brass and lead cylinders from the pile, one misfire and one pristine. “I’ll swing by the alchemy building on my way here in the morning. See if they can tell anything about the contents.”

“Sure, Pedro. Take as many of the dad gum things as you want. They don’t work here anyways.” After a moment’s thought, Bubba unbuckled his gun belt, slipping his revolver into the holster. “Might as well leave my pacemaker here too. Just dead weight.” He tossed the gun belt on the lab bench with a frown. “Do feel kinda nek-ked without my shootin’ iron. But she don’t shoot round here.”

Paulus nodded and deposited the gun and gun belt in a drawer for safe keeping. Gilbert and Bubba headed for the door.

“You are going to get some sleep, aren’t you?” Gilbert paused in the doorway and asked Paulus with a concerned look.

“Yes, mother.” Paulus smiled.

“Gotta watch you, boss. If I don’t you’d chew on your troubles until you collapse in the middle of this room.”

“I go home. I promise.”

“Good. I’ll hold you to it.”

Paulus could here Gilbert and Bubba as they walked down the hallway.

“Ya live far, Gil?’

Gilberts reply was lost in the clatter as they clomped down the stairs.

It had been a long, eventful day. Paulus had woken up to the news of an official, and ominous board of inquiry. Then made what appeared to be two, separate unprecedented thaumatological discoveries, Bubba’s lack of mana and resulting functional immunity to magic. Along the way, Paulus got functionally engaged and functionally extorted by a fellow academic. That was a functionally crowded agenda for less than twenty-four hours of elapsed time.

Yes, some sleep was needed. Paulus spared a last, probing stare at the map etched on the wall. No further insights presented themselves. He extinguished the illuminating orb with an errant wave of his hand.

Rolling the two bullets around in his hand, Paulus headed for the door.

*

Bright and early the next morning Paulus strolled through the doors of the Alchemy department and down the hallway to his old friend Erasmus Jones’ cramped office.

“You owe me a new pair of shoes, Paulus.” Erasmus pointed a chubby finger at him.

“How do you figure that, Raz?”

“Because I was concentrating some aqua regia when your blast wave rolled through here. The glassware cracked wide open and strong acid cascaded everywhere, including my brand-new shoes.”

“Why were you wearing your good shoes to distill aqua regia?”

“Unlike some frumpy barbarians,” Erasmus tilted his head impudently at Paulus. “I seek to maintain a higher standard of tasteful wardrobe.” He brushed some imaginary lint from his sumptuous, blue velvet lab coat.

Paulus rolled his eyes. “Don’t know why you’re making your own aqua regia anyway instead of just using the stuff from the suppliers. A professor of alchemy ought to have better things to do. Hardly proper safety equipment either.”

“I like to keep my hand in. Besides, my attire meets the requirements. I checked.”

“You’ll have to get in line. Everybody wants a piece of me lately.”

Waking to the fact that Paulus was genuinely stressed, Erasmus smiled. “You know I’m joking, don’t you?”

“I know.” Paulus looked about for a spot free from stray lab equipment and alchemical samples, then flopped into a chair. “Just a bit on edge the last couple of days.”

Erasmus shrugged. “I can see why. Sort of like that time you and I let that chrysopoeia project get away from us?”

Paulus laughed in spite of his mood and rubbed his forehead at the undergraduate memory. “We were scraping the residue off of the ceiling of the lab for a week.”

“And none of it turned out to be gold either.”

“No, it didn’t. Smelled more like sewage than gold.”

“Well, you know the old saying about alchemy. The worse the odor the better the result.”

“You know as well as I do that’s hardly ever true.”

“I realize that. But why let facts get in the way of a good proverb?” Before Paulus could reply, Erasmus continued. “You look like you could use a good cup of tea, Paulus.”

Not waiting for acknowledgement, Erasmus spun in his swivel chair and tapped a vessel in a complex apparatus on the credenza behind him. “Thank goodness this setup survived the glassware apocalypse intact. The entire university, certainly the alchemy department would shudder to an abrupt halt without tea.”

The baffling, multi-component apparatus reached almost to the ceiling, water boiling up from a central pot to condense in an elevated domed receiver then cascade down through tea leaves packed into a trickle column. A tannin-stained round-bottomed flask the golden beverage after it had leached flavor from the packed tea.

Erasmus rummaged about, to unearth two stray graduated lab beakers. These he blew clear of debris and filled with strong, dark brew, setting one down in front of Paulus. Paulus briefly contemplated the risks of drinking from alchemy glassware of indeterminate provenance. Sudden and mysterious deaths were not uncommon among alchemists, and this habit might explain a lot of them. Still, it would be rude to refuse Erasmus’s hospitality. And the chubby alchemist seemed healthy enough.

Paulus sipped cautiously at the steaming tea, and sighed. The taste was pungent but satisfying in a soothing herbal way. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. So, what brings you to my humble temple of the alchemical arts this fine morning, Paulus?”

Paulus reached into a pocket and set two of Bubba’s bullets on the desktop between them. “I’ve brought you an interesting problem to solve.”

Erasmus raised an eyebrow. “Brass and lead? What’s mysterious about that?”

Imitating Bubba’s technique, Paulus bit down on the bullet, and wriggled the cartridge apart. Then he poured the gunpowder onto the desktop. “Maybe you heard about the man I accidentally dragged from another realm. He brought these with him. And he claims that this powder explodes when this flat part is struck hard enough.” Paulus pointed at the rear of the brass cartridge. “It doesn’t work here. Don’t know why yet. Maybe you can tell me what the powder’s made of.”

“Hmm.” Erasmus stirred the powder with a finger. He sniffed. “Brimstone.” Next, the alchemist wet his finger in his tea and dipped in the small pile of gray powder. He raised the finger to his extended tongue and tasted. A puzzled look overtook Erasmus for a few heart beats, before clearing into a blink of surprise. “Niter, more commonly known as saltpetre. A few uses for that.”

“Like what?”

“Curing of meat. Makes a good fertilizer. It is reported to inhibit urges of a sexual nature.” Erasmus spit, making sure to expel any residual niter from his tongue.

“No explosive properties?”

“Certainly not!” Erasmus rubbed the remaining moistened powder between a thumb and forefinger. “Some charcoal in here too, unless I miss my guess.”

“You can tell that just by feel?”

“One gets a sense for these things, after a while.”

“Hmm.” Paulus was impressed.

“Even so, this mixture won’t explode. The best you could do is get it to smolder.”

“My visitor swears it’ll explode with sufficient force to send the lead slug down a metal tube fast enough to be used as a weapon.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. How extraordinary.” The alchemist picked up the emptied brass cartridge and held the open-topped to the light from a window so he could peer down into it. “There’s some kind of coating in the bottom.”

“That must be the stuff that Bubba, the visitor, claims generates sparks when struck. Called it a primer. That’s supposed to set off the powder.”

“Really?” Erasmus pulled a metal probe from a drawer and inserted the tool into the brass cylinder. A bit of scraping yielded a tiny heap of reddish-orange crystals onto a sheet of parchment pressed into service. The parchment was covered in scribbling, apparently some student’s exam paper. Absently, Paulus noted that the grade at the top of the paper was nothing to be proud of.

Erasmus pulled a heavy paperweight over and struck the colorful crystals with a smart rap. The result was a small puff of pulverized crystal, which the alchemist waved away coughing, and a symmetrical impact pattern across the disappointing test paper. Erasmus brushed adhered powder from the bottom of his paperweight before returning it to the tall stack of exam papers it held prisoner.

“No sparks.” Erasmus observed.

“I noticed.” Paulus sighed. “At least now I have an idea of what this gun powder is made of, if not why it works in that other realm.”

“Well, thanks for the little mystery.” Erasmus picked up the emptied brass cartridge. “Mind if I keep this? Might not explode, but I’ll have the world’s smallest teacup.” He held up the souvenir and smiled with a twinkle in his eye.

“Won’t you ever grow up, Raz?”

“I’m fighting it tooth and nail, my friend. Tooth and nail.”

Paulus chuckled on his way down the hall from Erasmus’s crowded cubbyhole of an office. His good mood lasted a few steps out the door of the Alchemy department’s leaf-shaded home. Then a sight brought him up short.

“Good morning, Paulus.” Dean Sparrowsmith was waiting for him on a bench just down the walk. And the look on Sparrowsmith’s face belied the cheery greeting.

END.

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Paulus just can’t seem to get a break.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Misfire, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/misfire-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 12, Trendleshay Holdem

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• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

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And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. Paulus’s perfect picnic takes an ominous turn, and Bubba is rudely awakened.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Picnic, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/picnic-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 11, Analyses https://raytabler.substack.com/p/analyses-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Misfire – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 10

By Ray Tabler

“What a touching scene.” A voice behind Paulus caused him to spin about in surprise.

Ten or fifteen paces away, Quentin LeRuvoir sat leering upon a fallen bough, legs spayed and walking stick grasped lightly in one hand.

“How long have you been there?” Paulus growled, temper straining at a frayed leash.

“Oh, long enough to witness your dalliance with that tawdry bauble of a barmaid.”

Paulus was threes strides yards closer to LeRuvoir before he realized he was moving, hands curling into fists.

Eye widening, LeRuvoir hurriedly scrambled to put the large piece of horizontal wood between them. He held his cane before him to ward off the advancing Paulus. With some visible difficulty, Paulus halted himself, fuming.

“Have a care, Pennypacker.” LeRuvoir warned. “You really can’t afford to indulge in any more brawling at the moment.”

“Maybe I don’t care.”

“You should care. A physical altercation with me would seriously impact your case before the board of inquiry.”

“How’s that?”

“Because I have graciously volunteered to act as chairman of that board, out my boundless concern for the dignity of this institution.”

Paulus stared, silent.

“Thought that might cool your ardor.” LeRuvoir gloated. “So, yes. As you’ve no doubt concluded I did follow you and your trollop up here.”

“Don’t call her that!”

LeRuvoir rolled his eyes. “You and I need to talk, as gentleman, Penny farthing. Not that I consider you anything more than a jumped-up bumpkin with delusions of adequacy. But it’s in your long-term best interest to act civilized.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. You are in serious trouble. That trouble can grow and consume you. Or it can shrink. Not go away, mind you. But I can make it manageable.”

Paulus said nothing.

“More reasonable now, aren’t we Pennyante? Stop poking your big clumsy nose into matters which don’t concern you, or vanishing chances at tenure will be the least of your worries. Be a good boy. Accept your station in the grand scheme of things. Dance to my tune, and we can make all of this unpleasantness much less noticeable.” LeRuvoir made an absent brushing gesture with his free hand. “Find you a nice safe, unimportant position where you won’t cause such widespread destruction as you have. Perhaps an adjunct, non-teaching professorship way back in some dusty archives.”

Only the cold analytical part of Paulus’s mind, puzzling over the mystery of why LeRuvoir was taking a personal interest in his troubles rooted Paulus to the spot. The rest of him desperately demanded he chase the hemomancer down and beat him bloody with his own walking stick. Perhaps LeRuvoir glimpsed some of that inner battle raging in Paulus’s eyes and decided he would be safer elsewhere.

“I can see you need time to think things over.” LeRuvoir cautiously eased back, a slow, gliding step at a time. “I’m sure a smart boy like you will come to the right conclusion.” Judging he’d put sufficient distance between himself and the seething Paulus, LeRuvoir risked turning and slipping away through trees of the arboretum. “Until later.”

Paulus stood in the dimming light, sorting through the encounter. If LeRuvoir had intended to scare Paulus off of getting to the bottom of this matter, he couldn’t have chosen a less effective method. A hard core of resolve was forming in Paulus’s gut. Hot with anger over insults to the woman he loved and icy cold with the chill of a scholar’s scrutiny.

Dusk was full upon the campus by the time Paulus climbed the stairs and walked through the door to his lab. Gilbert hunched over a score of parchments, dense with arcane calculations. The map on the wall bore refinements added in Paulus’s absence. It was clear to Paulus’s experienced eye that Gilbert had employed a modified form of aetheric fluid mechanics to consider how the blast had been channeled around and between obstacles large enough to direct the flow. This accounted for various local variations and concentrations that didn’t quite fit the overall elliptical pattern of glass destruction.

Paulus admired the work silently and unnoticed, allowing Gilbert to continue with his calculations. The lad was actually a very clever fellow. It wouldn’t be long before he stood examination for his own robes. Paulus felt a paternal pride for his assistant, slightly embittered by the probability that Gilbert’s career would always be tainted by association with his disgraced mentor.

Gilbert looked up from his scribbling and grinned. “Oh, how was your picnic?”

“It was wonderful.” Paulus sighed. “The aftermath, not so much.”

Paulus related the confrontation with LeRuvoir, the exact words uttered burned into his brain. Gilbert listened, his face troubled. This was a puzzle which, to his keen mind, made aetheric flow equations seem elementary in comparison.

“I sure don’t buy that codswallop about concern for the dignity of the university.” Gilbert scratched his head. “I mean, he’s always been a condescending twit. But there’s more here than meets the eye. Maybe he sees you as a rival.”

Paulus scoffed. “I don’t see how. Hemomancy is a completely separate discipline than portal mechanics. One I have absolutely no interest in. And he’s tenured to boot. I’m no threat to his position.”

“That we can see.”

“That we can see.” Paulus conceded.

The pair leaned against the lab bench, scowling up at the diagram upon the wall as if it could be stared into yielding up an answer to their questions. No answers appeared, and the room was getting too dark to allow proper examination of the map anyway.

In the shadowy stillness a tawny-winged nightingale, an early-riser for her kind, flew up and lighted upon the glass-free windowsill. Delighted at the new-found perch, she started singing. Alternating trills and chirping echoed throughout the darkening lab.

Across the large room, Paulus and Gilbert found the loud, high-pitched birdsong slightly annoying, but tolerable. A mere arms span directly below the nightingale, the racket rudely ejected Bubba from a sound sleep and a pleasant dream wherein he was reunited with his beloved palomino, Dusty. Bubba’s eye flew wide open.

“Corn sorned bird!”

The Texan yanked some metal and wood contraption from an open-topped pouch at his belt. He straightened his arm, bringing the implement close to the serenading nightingale. Paulus and Gilbert observed this odd behavior, aetheric blast waves and conniving tenured professor momentarily forgotten. Bubba pulled the trigger.

CLICK.

Bubba blinked.

The nightingale tilted a quizzical head at this new music.

Paulus and Gilbert looked at each other, baffled.

“Misfire!” Bubba growled, disgusted. He pulled the trigger again.

CLICK.

CLICK.

CLICK.

Upon due consideration, the nightingale decided she didn’t like this new perch after all. With a final, indignant chirp, the bird leapt into the air and flew away into the darkness.

“Well, I’ll be double dipped!” Bubba huffed. “That’s the most misfires I ever had in a row.”

“What in the name of Glamphor’s beard are you doing?” Paulus pushed off the lab bench and stepped across the room to stand over the Texan.

Bubba was ejecting small metal cylinders out one end of his device, one at a time, to cradle the things in his fist. “These here bullets didn’t fire.” He stood and dropped the collection into Paulus’s outstretched palm. “They’s duds!”

Paulus squinted at the cylinders in the darkened lab. Crossing back to the bench where Gilbert waited, he decided that more light was needed. With an absent wave of his free hand, and a muttered incantation, Paulus summoned a bright spere of yellow radiance, The globe of light, about a hand’s breadth in diameter, followed Paulus lazily above and behind his shoulder. Paulus adjusted the brightness down a bit with another, modifying spell, and deposited the cylinders on the bench top. One or two of them attempted to escape by rolling under stacks of papers. But Gilbert retrieved the fugitives and returned them to the pile.

The cylinders were almost half an inch in diameter, and more than one and a half inches long. Flat on one end, the other was domed. Most of the cylinder looked to be polished brass, the rounded end was a dull, metallic gray color.

Bubba, standing at Paulus’s side, gaped at the floating ball of radiance. He shifted back and forth, standing on tip toe and squatting down to examine the wonder from all angles. Cautiously, the Texan passed a hand above the globe, expecting to encounter the string from which it hung suspended. He found none.

“What in tarnation?” Bubba whispered.

“It’s a simple illuminative spell.” Gibert explained.

Bubba swept a hand through the light. His fingers transited the glowing volume as if it wasn’t even there. “Not hot. Not cold. Don’t feel like nuthin’.”

Gilbert’s eyebrows shot up. “It ought to have at least wavered when you touched it. That’s very unusual.”

Paulus had registered Bubba’s interaction with the globe in passing and added it to his growing list of odd recent events, for later contemplation. “Bubba, what are these things?” He stirred the half-dozen cylinders laying on the lab bench with an index finger.

“Them’s bullets, Pedro. Ain’t you never see’d one?”

“No.”

“You don’t have bullets round here?”

Paulius shook his head.

“Well, don’t that beat all?”

“What are they for?”

“For shootin’ at stuff. Sometimes at folks, who need it.”

“What happens then?”

Bubba narrowed one eye and peered at Paulus under a bushy brow to determine if he was joking. “Nuthin’ good. The brass part stays in the gun. The lead part goes a-zippin’ down the barrel, real fast. And whatever the lead hits tends to regret it.”

“What’s a gun?” Gilbert asked.

Bubba drew his revolver from the pouch on his belt and laid the contraption on the lab bench. “This here’s a gun. Guess you don’t have them either.” Still not entirely convinced Paulus and Gilbert weren’t playing some elaborate prank on him, Bubba picked up one of the bullets and partially inserted the round into an opening on the rear of his gun, before removing the bullet again. “See, this’n has got a divot from where the hammer struck the primer. Right then she shoulda fired and skeered that darn bird away. I wasn’t aimin’ right at her. But this bullet is a dud. Just like the other three that didn’t fire.”

Paulus was heartened to hear that Bubba didn’t intend to harm the nightingale. “I noticed this hanging from your belt. I assumed it was some sort of odd amulet.”

“I don’t know what a am-u-late is. But this here is my Colt peacemaker. Paid twelve dollars for her, gold. Just a little bit used, off’n a tenderfoot who done decided he’d had enough of Texas, if you can believe that, and was headed back east. Most everybody in Texas has theyselves a shootin’ iron. Tends to make folks right neighborly.”

Gilbert picked up the pistol and was peering down the business end of the barrel.

Bubba gently moved the muzzle away from Gilbert’s face with an extended finger. “’Don’t do that, Gil. She ain’t loaded right now, but it’s a bad habit to git into. Liable to get a mite breezy inside your skull if’n you make a mistake.”

“How often does your…peacemaker misfire?” Paulus asked comparing a used bullet to one without the dent in the flat spot at one end, with a wrinkled brow.

“Oh, she works almost every time. Except when she don’t. I mean, like I said, never had four misfires in a row. And my shootin’ iron worked fine. It was the bullets that didn’t. That can happen if you get ‘em wet. But I ain’t fell in the creek or anything like that.”

“Do these bullets come apart? I’d like to examine the internals.”

“Sure.” Bubba picked up a bullet from the pile, checked to make sure it was one of the misfires, then bit down on the lead end. A moment’s wriggling separated the cartridge, lead between the cowboy’s teeth, brass casing grasped in his fist.

Bubba spat the slug into his palm and tilted the casing toward Paulus and Gilbert. “That there is gunpowder. She’s supposed to ex-plode. That’s what sends the slug tearin’ down the barrel and into what you’re aimin’ at.”

Paulus carefully took the brass from Bubba and repurposed a ceramic crucible from where it was weighing down a stack of invoices. He shook the dark gray powder out into the crucible and stirred it around with a finger. “Why does this explode?”

Bubba opened his mouth, as if he were about to launch into an explanation, but looked puzzled instead. “I don’t rightly know. Not the book-learnin’ whys and wherefores. But, when the hammer strikes the primer, there’s supposed to be sparks inside the cartridge, and that sets off the whole darn shebang.”

“I know that look,” Gilbert said. “What are you thinking, boss?”

Paulus held forth his right hand and enunciated a spell in an arcane language. Small, blue sparks crackled from his fingertips. A brisk, uncanny wind stirred papers stacked on benchtops, blowing some onto the floor. Bubba gazed about at the odd happenings but otherwise seemed completely unaffected.

“Gilbert, we’ll have to do more testing, but it looks like our friend Bubba is functionally immune to magic.”

END.

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Apologies to Chekhov. Bubba tried to get the gun to fire. It just wouldn’t cooperate. Different realms, different rules. Find out what happens next.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Picnic, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/picnic-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 11, Analyses https://raytabler.substack.com/p/analyses-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. Paulus is taking the afternoon off and making some life choices.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Maps, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/maps-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 10, Misfire https://raytabler.substack.com/p/misfire-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Picnic – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 9

By Ray Tabler

What are you boys up to? Fingerpainting?” Vayla asked, standing in the doorway to the lab.

Paulus and Gilbert spun around, startled out of their contemplation of the map on the wall by Vayla’s playful question.

“Oh, hi Vayla.” Gilbert smiled. “You snuck up on us.”

“A dragon could’ve snuck up on you the way you two were staring holes into that wall.”

Paulus wanted to say something clever. But the way the light sparkled off of Vayla’s smile, and the breeze wafting in through the pane-free windows teased at her dark hair struck him dumb. “Uh. Um,” was all he managed to utter.

That seemed to amuse Vayla even further. “Don’t tell me. You’re both transferring to the Fine Arts program, and this is your joint application project.”

“Uh, no.” Paulus forced out. “This is a diagram of the portal collapse blast wave propagation across campus, assuming that it correlates to degree of glass breakage.” A return to technical matters slowed his racing heart and allowed his mind to focus on something other than Vayla’s lovely face.

“Probably a valid assumption.” Vayla nodded, stepping forward to rest a basket she carried on a lab bench.

“We thought so.” Paulus said.

Vayla scanned the map. “Looks very detailed. What does it tell you?”

“Oh, it’s quite revealing.” Paulus turned, sweeping his arms and warming to the subject. “We had assumed that this lab would rest at the epicenter of the blast wave, with concentric circles of destruction radiating outward symmetrically. But no!”

“No?” Vayla arched an eyebrow in a way that nearly derailed Paulus’s impromptu lecture.

“Ah, no.” Paulus wrestled his focus back by sheer force of will. “Instead of a circular pattern, the data clearly show more of an ellipse. My lab is at one foci of the ellipse but look at where the other focus is.” He pointed an accusatory finger.

“Ponsonby Hall?” Vayla helpfully supplied.

“Yes!” Paulus beamed. “Ponsonby Hall.”

“Why? What does it mean?” Valya asked.

Paulus opened his mouth and seemed to freeze in place. “We don’t know. Not yet. We only finished this diagram, crude as it is, immediately before you arrived. But the important part is that the situation is more complicated that we believed. We must investigate Ponsonby Hall.”

“Good work.” Vayla smiled. Paulus’s heart leapt again. “You should take the rest of the day off.”

“Take the day off?’ Paulus frowned. “How can I do that? Look at what we just uncovered.” He pointed at the map.

Vayla sighed. “Paulus, have you eaten anything at all today?”

“No, I’ve been busy.”

“I thought so.” She shook her head and laid a hand on the basket before her. “I brought some lunch, although it’s already way past noon. You and I are going on a picnic.”

“I can’t go off on a picnic, not now.”

Wiser than his boss in some ways, Gilbert interrupted. “Sure, you can boss.”

“No.” Paulus pointed at the map. “Ponsonby Hall…”

“Ponsonby Hall will be there after you take a break.” Gilbert gently steered Paulus around the lab bench, picked up the picnic basket and folded his boss’s hand around the wicker handle.

Vayla smiled and mouthed a thank you to Gilbert. She snaked a hand into the crook of Paulus’s arm and pulled him toward the door.

“Have a good time.” Gilbert waved.

Under the window, Bubba stirred and rolled onto his back. “Dadgum claim jumpers!” he muttered sleepily before embarking on a furious sequence of snores.

Away from the lab it was a glorious summer day. The sun shone down upon the lush, green campus of East Trendleshay university. Since it was the summertime very few students cluttered the walks. A dreamy, timeless atmosphere wrapped the place in pleasantly warm cotton wool. If he ignored the fact that his life was falling apart around him, Paulus would’ve found the walk extremely enjoyable.

Then, Paulus woke to the undeniable fact that he was on his way to a picnic with a beautiful woman on a perfect summer afternoon. And not just any beautiful woman. But Vayla, the object of his secret, unrequited longings for some time.

At that moment, Vayla glanced up and met Paulus’s eyes. She blessed him with a smile. It wasn’t a dazzling smile, exciting like the first glimpse of some new puzzle to solve. Vayla’s smile was warm, comforting, and comfortable. It was possessive, in a heartwarming way. Paulus began to realize just how much trouble he was in. Trouble which had nothing to do with aetheric blast waves, boards of inquiry, or plainspoken visitors from another realm. Comforting, comfortable trouble, as unbelievable as that combination might sound.

They left the path, and trekked uphill to the edge of the arboretum. A tall, mighty oak tree shaded the grass at the crest. The ancient tree had probably been watching the world pass in serene silence for centuries before the university was founded. Stuffed into the top layer of the picnic basket was a tablecloth borrowed from the tavern. They spread it upon the lush grass, laughing at the wind’s effort to liberate the fabric, and weighted it down with dishes and plates.

“I only brought bread, fruit, cheese, and some milk. Your stomach’s probably not ready for anything as greasy as fried chicken after last night.” Vayla portioned out the food.

“It’s not like I drank much.” Paulus protested.

“Don’t argue.” Vayla poured some milk in a cup and handed it to him.

Paulus sipped at the cool milk, surprised at how agreeable he felt.

‘How does your eye feel?’ She probed the black eye with a gentle finger.

“It hurts.” Paulus winced.

“I’ll bring a poultice for it.” She pursed her lips in a fetching pout. “Maybe a salve would work better. I don’t trust you to keep a poultice on for very long.”

They ate, watching the sleepy campus doze under a hazy, languid afternoon. Presently, Paulus cautiously reached out and took Vayla’s hand in his. Vayla glanced down at their joined hands, beamed and sighed a contented sigh. With his back resting against the bark of the venerable oak, and Vayla holding his hand, Paulus felt as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

That paradise lasted a long, golden span of time.

“Paulus, we need to talk.” Vayla announced with soft reluctance.

“Do we really have to? I was hoping we could just sit here until the end of the world.”

Valya laughed, ruefully. “Thank you. That’s sweet. But we don’t have time for that right now.”

“Okay.” Paulus dreaded what would come next.

Vayla wriggled around and sat so she could look him in the face. She locked eyes with Paulus, a suddenly serious expression on her lovely face.

“Paulus Phoebus Pennythwaite, I am deeply, hopelessly in love with you and have been from the moment I first laid eyes on you. And I need to hear how you feel about me. Right now. Before we go any farther down this road.”

Paulus’s mouth dropped wide open. “Uh.”

“That’s not an answer.” Vayla’s bewitching eyes began to gather storm clouds.

Alarmed, Paulus held up both hands. He felt like the world was shifting below him. Which it was, in more ways than one. He needed to come up with an answer, and he needed to do it before another minute slipped away.

Fortunately, Paulus was a smart man. In fact, he was a very smart man. The only problem was that his usual pathways of mental endeavor ran along magical and thaumatological theory and practice. Interpersonal relationships were unexplored territory for Paulus. If there were textbooks, guides, and treatises on the subject he was unaware of them. And there wasn’t any opportunity to run down to the library for a quick read through.

Denied access to other research into the matter, Paulus grasped he would have to look for the answer to Vayla’s question within himself. And he was going to have to find that answer right there and then. He focused his eyes on Valya’s, and his mind upon his own heart. And there it was, plain and simple for any fool to see if that fool had ever bothered to look.

He did love Vayla. Maybe he’d been too afraid to admit that before. In case she didn’t feel the same. But she did.

Paulus reached up and took her face between his palms. “Yes, Vayla. I do love you.”

“You’re sure?” Vayla gasped. “Because this will be a long-term commitment. It’s an elvish thing. Even though I’m only half elf.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Some time passed. There was hugging and kissing, and laughter and tears.

The sun was nearing the horizon.

“Why didn’t you say something before?” Paulus asked.

“Paulus, you are the smarted person I’ve ever met but you can be dumb as a bag of acorns sometimes. I’m nothing but a barmaid.”

“I don’t care about that.”

She kissed him and wiped a tear away. “I know. I love that about you. But I had to be sure you loved me. I was giving you time to figure things out on your own.” She shrugged. “And I think you were. Slowly.”

Paulus rolled his eyes in some embarrassment.

“Then this thing with the portal, and the broken glass, and Bubba happened. And you need my help, Paulus. I’d have given it anyway, but I needed to know how you felt. So, I took matters into my own hands and sped things up.”

In the sheer joy of Vayla’s confession, and his own epiphany, Paulus had quite forgotten about the sudden and unexpected wreckage of his career. “Oh no! I can’t drag you into my scandal.”

Vayla clapped a firm hand over his mouth. “Hush. Don’t talk nonsense. You won’t be shed of me that easily, Paulus. Doesn’t matter if you end up hawking cheap potions from a roadside stand. I’m not leaving your side, now or ever.”

Paulus blinked at his lady love, gaining an understanding of just how lucky he was.

“Now, to business.” Vayla changed the subject deftly. “We need to check out just what’s up with Ponsonby Hall.”

“We?’

“Yes, we. Pedro.”

Paulus laughed. “You sound like Bubba.”

“What if I do? He’s not such a bad fellow. Probably useful to have around.”

“You can’t come with us into Ponsonby. It’s dangerous.”

“That’s why I’m coming along. To make sure you don’t stumble into something and get hurt. Besides, do you know how to sneak into the place?”

“Uh, no.”

“Well, I do. I grew up on campus.”

“Really?” It dawned on Paulus that he didn’t know very much about the woman he’d just made a lifelong commitment to. The fact that it would be until death do they part struck with delayed action as well.

“We can discuss my sordid past some other time, Paulus.” Vayla sinuously untangled herself and ran hands over her head. “My hair must look a mess.”

“You look perfect to me.”

Vayla smiled down at him, then busied herself with gathering up the dishes from the picnic and packing them away in the basket.

“It’s too late to invade Ponsonby tonight. We’ll have to put it off until the next evening at the earliest. Which works out better since that’s my night off at the tavern. Help me with the tablecloth.”

The wind had picked up, and wrestling with the tablecloth was more of a project than it should’ve been. Eventually, the basket was ready, and Vayla stood over it. The sun was westering, rendering the campus into a golden green landscape.

“How did you find out my middle name is Phoebus?” Paulus asked, reluctant to part from her, even for the night.

“Oh, I have my ways.” She smiled, her dark hair glowing in the sunset. “I’ll come by your lab tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll make a plan.”

“Okay.”

Vayla kissed him and headed back down the hill. Paulus watched her until she disappeared around a bend. He sat down in the grass and pondered the setting sun.

Even though the future remained unknown, this week would divide his life in two decisively, before and after.

END.

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Paulus has crossed the Rubicon. Tune in next Tuesday to find out what’s on the other side.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Maps, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/maps-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 10, Misfire https://raytabler.substack.com/p/misfire-the-school-of-magical-engineering

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Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. At least Paulus might win a Zumpfeller Prize, on his way to the unemployment line.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Measurements, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/measurements-the-school-of-magical

Next up will be chapter 9, Picnic

Maps – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 8

By Ray Tabler

“Bubba, is it?” Marshlark asked, setting down his copious notes, and uncoiling two wires from a recess in the cabinet of the big manameter.

“Yes sir.”

“Take hold of this.” He shoved the apple-sized crystal orb at the end of one wire into Bubba’s hands. “Put your toe on the other.” Marshlark placed the orb terminating the other wire on the floor in front of Bubba’s boot. “We’ll get some contact readings as well.” Marshlark scurried back to his dials. “Shouldn’t be any difference from the proximity sensors, but we’ll document that to be complete.”

“Should he remove his boot, Dr. Marshlark?” One of the metrologist’s grad students asked. Paulus’s recognized the lad. His name was…Peetlby, Podborrow…something like that.

“Hmm. Good point.” Marshlark scowled at Bubba. “We’ll do it both ways, boot on and boot off. Can’t record too much data.”

Paulus and Gilbert waited patiently while Marshlark and his assistants probed Bubba’s nonexistent mana level in as many ways as they could conceive. The Texan tolerated the combinations and permutations, yawning and blinking in the morning light. Both boots on. One boot off. Both boots off. Peetlby/Podborrow discreetly stepped away from Bubba’s momentarily unoccupied boots, holding his nose.

Presently, Dr. Marshlark had exhausted his repertoire of mana measurement techniques, including repeat readings to establish error bars for planned graphs and statistical analyses. Peetlby/Podborrow and the other grad student reluctantly packed up the big manameter, anticipating the arduous portage of the instrument back to the metrology lab. Paulus felt some sympathy for the pair. The return journey would be up hill.

“Paulus, my boy, I want to thank you.” Marshlark clapped Paulus on the shoulder. “Opportunities like this don’t come along every day. No one has ever documented a living person with no mana before. I would’ve scoffed at the very idea if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.” He tapped his notebook. “I will include you as a coauthor on the paper I’m planning to write. And I wasn’t kidding about that Zumpfeller prize. This discovery will be a prime contender.”

“Thank you, Dr. Marshlark. I appreciate it. But you might want to leave my name off your paper, and the prize nomination. My reputation has suffered some damage of late. And I wouldn’t want that to cheat you out of a Zumpfeller.”

“Ba!” Marshlark scoffed. “To the nether with that! Your name will be on both. What are we? Scientists? Or gossiping old busybodies? He headed for the door, followed by his burdened grad students, groaning under the weight of the big manameter. “I’ll be in touch, Paulus.”

“Marshlark is a real one.” Gilbert smiled.

“That, he is.” Paulus agreed.

“You fellers mind if I take a little siesta?”

Paulus and Gilbert pivoted at Bubba’s question to see him approaching, boots dangling from one hand. A single, big toe poked through a hole in his left sock.

“Uh, sure.” Paulus said. “Sorry I can’t offer you a soft spot to lie down. The couch in my office didn’t survive the blast.”

“That’s fine, Pedro. This floor’s no worse than a patch of prairie. And I stretched out on the ground more times than I can count. Besides,” He yawned, jaw cracking. “I’m so tuckered I could sleep through a longhorn stampede.”

“How about over there in the corner?” Gilbert pointed to some cleared floor space under a western window, on the far side of the lab.

“Thank’ee kindly.” Bubba tipped his hat and moseyed over to his place of repose. Boots leaned against the wall, the tall, Texan was soon stretched out, hat over his face and fast asleep. The big toe poking through the hole in his gray sock stood guard, at attention and pointing at the ceiling.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone snore that loud before,” Paulus whispered loud enough for Gilbert to hear him over the snores erupting from the Texan’s mustachioed face like a log chain being dragged over an oaken barrel.

“I’m surprised his hat doesn’t fly off with every breath.” Gilbert whispered back.

Paulus stifled a guffaw at the mental image of Bubba’s broad-brimmed cowboy hat alternately launched into the air and sucked back down with the reversal of flow. “Uh, let’s take a look at those papers you brought.”

Paulus and Gilbert rifled through the pile of orders for replacement window glass, laying them out on the longest lab bench to survive the portal mishap. First, they ordered the papers by total cost, reasoning damage would correlate to cost. But that method was called into question when it became apparent that large panes were more expensive than smaller ones. This skewed results to an unknown degree, as larger windows probably shattered more easily than smaller ones. There being a greater expanse of unsupported glass to rippled and shatter under the effects of an impacting pulse in the aether.

An attempt was then made wring sense from the data, sub-organizing each structure on campus by arranging invoices as to broken window dimensions. That seemed to help some. But, now the stacks and substacks of papers spilled out onto surrounding benches, tabletops, and adjacent floorboards. Gilbert weighted papers near Bubba’s hurricane-force snoring down with random beakers and crucibles, as a precaution.

Paulus stared at the chaotic collection of invoices, pulling at his bottom lips in quiet frustration. “I still can’t get a clear picture in my head.” Inspiration struck, and he snapped his fingers. “We need a map.”

“A map?”

“A map of campus.”

“I don’t think this will fit on the maps of campus I’ve seen around.”

“We need a big map.”

Paulus yanked one drawer open and scowled at the contents rolling around inside. Not finding what he was after, Paulus moved to another drawer. Gilbert watched as his boss repeated the frantic search, rummaging through a dozen more drawers before finding what he sought.

“Ha!” Paulus called out in triumph. He snatched an object from the depths of the drawer, crowded with the type of occasionally useful junk which accumulates in the recesses of a working lab. Paulus held a thick, black crayon aloft as if it were a long-lost treasure made of pure gold.

Paulus’s eyes scanned about, before settling upon the wall of the lab away from the door to the hallway. He stalked toward the wall; eyes fixed like a predator approaching prey. Pausing only to drag a chair along with him, Paulus reached the wall and stretched his arms out, sizing it up in a handful of hurried fathoms.

Paulus pulled the chair up close to the wall and climbed up onto the seat. The thing wobbled under his splayed feet, one chair leg slightly shorter than the others. He steadied himself, one hand leaning on the wall. An ancient, yellowed, framed, five-foot-wide chart of Glamphor’s Scheme for the Secondary and Tertiary Interactions of the Elements had somehow remained hanging in all the events of the past day, from a nail driven into the wall. With barely a glance, Paulus swept the chart aside. It dropped to the floor, and flopped face down with a low, hollow clonk.

“Gilbert,” Paulus instructed, eyes and hand roaming the expanse of now bare wall before him, and legs automatically compensating for the tremble of the chair upon which he stood. “Go find as many crayons of different colors as you can. Crayons, pencils, quill pens and inks, brushes and paints, I don’t care what. As long as I can use them to make a mark on this wall.” The chair creaked. “And see if you can find a step ladder, tall enough for me to reach to the ceiling too. Before I fall off this wobbly chair and break my fool neck.”

Gilbert nodded and dashed out the door. Paulus started to scratch on the wall with the thick, black crayon. Bubba snored rhythmically under the glassless windows. Paulus knew it was just his imagination but could swear that the wall rattled under the lash of the cowboy’s thunderous snoring.

By the time Gilbert returned, red-faced and huffing, Paulus had sketched out a rough diagram of the University of East Trendleshay’s campus upon the wall. The map covered the entire stretch of wall, only truncated by Paulus’s limited reach at the top. Paulus hopped own from the chair with relief. He’d already almost lost his balance twice and did topple off the darn thing after that. Without more than a bruise to his backside, thankfully.

Gilbert dumped his load of drawing implements upon the seat of the chair and hurriedly set up the step ladder he’d liberated from a closet in Frippleson Hall. A couple of the crayons and colored pencils rolled off the chair seat during Gilbert’s frantic deposit. Converting the chair from makeshift work platform to a worktable seemed the best way to keep Paulus off of it.

Paulus retrieved the fugitive implements before they rolled under a bench and placed them back on the chair seat. He peered at the collection. Gilbert’s quick raid on the surrounding buildings had yielded up a diverse collection of crayons, pencils, pens, inks, and a single paint brush, bereft of any paint. None of the drawing implements were in pristine condition, except for the paint brush. Which was currently useless without paint. Fortunately, the remaining items existed in a near-rainbow of hues. Paulus judged he could work with that.

He mounted the step ladder, instructing Gilbert over his shoulder. “I’ll finish the north end of campus now that I can reach the top of the wall. I only concentrated on the larger structures so far. Please fill in as much as a I missed.”

“Sure.” Gilbert selected a crayon close to the same color as Paulus was already using, and stared at the map, looking for missing buildings and landmarks. After a minute’s study, he identified at least three or four.

The next hour passed with the pair busily adding details to the map, coordinating occasionally over the background noise of Bubba’s snores.

“You forgot Ashman Hall.” Gilbert pointed out.

“Hmm.” Paulus acknowledged and corrected the oversight.

Presently, Paulus climbed down from the step ladder, surveying progress. “I think that’s all of the structures bigger than a garden shed. Sketch in the river and the duck pond in blue. I’ll plot the arboretum and the larger stands of trees I can remember in green. The blast wave may have propagated differently over water and through trees.”

Once Paulus was satisfied that the map was detailed enough, they started noting the toll of broken glass within each building on the diagram. Paulus, with his longer arms perched on the step ladder, scratched the data upon the plaster in a bold hand. While Gilbert moved methodically from one stack of invoices to the next, reading out the entries. They settled on one entry for each size of broken panes per structure.

Of course, the panes weren’t standardized in size, standardization not being much in vogue in Trendleshay, exacerbated by the lengthy period of time over which the various halls of the university had been erected. Paulus mentally sorted glass pane dimensions into rough buckets, recording the data frenetically building by building.

When Gilbert had read out the figures from the last stack of invoices, he and Paulus stood, frowning at the wall from the middle of the lab. The map was crowded with crayon and penciled lines, crude, rushed, and not quite to scale, but instantly recognizable as a bird’s-eye-view of the University of East Trendleshay detailed to an admirable degree. A brief, welcomed silence ensued as Bubba rolled onto his side, knocking his hat off but returning to sleep and snoring.

“Let’s connect the broken panes of similar sizes in each building with isoclines.” Paulus decided.

“That’ll be interesting.” Gilbert nodded.

The exercise consumed another hour. Gilbert initially planned on using red crayon for the isoclines. But that didn’t provide sufficient contrast to pick out different pane sizes, even using dashed or dotted lines for the larger panes. So, a compromise was adopted. Black, red, green, and blue isoclines were traced out in dashed lines, to differentiate them from building, trees and water features.

Map complete, data added in both numeric form and graphically enhanced by connecting lines of similar levels of glass destruction, their labor painted a clear picture. Paulus and Gilbert stood back, examining the wall-spanning plot. An unavoidable conclusion leapt out at them.

Paulus crossed his arms and shook his head in disbelief. “Well. Would you look at that?”

END.

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What did Paulus see? Tune in next Tuesday to find out!

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Measurements, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/measurements-the-school-of-magical

Next up will be chapter 9, Picnic

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally magicked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. Things are not looking good for Paulus. The buzzards are circling his career.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Very Disappointed, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/very-disappointed-the-school-of-magical

Next up will be chapter 8, Maps

Measurements – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 7

By Ray Tabler

“Uh, I sure didn’t aim to get you crossways of your foreman, Pedro.” Bubba apologized as he helped Paulus to his feet from the debris-strewn tavern floor.

Paulus bit back a bitter reply. “It’s not your fault, Bubba. Not entirely.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Oh!” Paulus put a hand over his eyes as he hobbled out the door of the tavern, and the full fury of the rising sun slapped him in the face.

“Here, lean on me, Pedro. Maybe you’ll feel better once we walk a ways.”

“I don’t think I’ll feel better, ever again.”

“Now, don’t talk that way. If’n you get let go round here, you’re welcome to come back to Texas with me. Once you get me back there. I’ll teach you ropin’ and brandin’, everything you need. You’ll learn fast cause you’re such a smart feller.”

Paulus didn’t feel like such a smart feller this morning, staggering along in the golden, dawn’s harsh glow. Somehow, he’d managed to shatter his comfortable existence in less than a day. Bubba prattled on, providing a twangy counterpoint to the birdsong filtering down from the overhanging trees.

“Vayla can come too. She’s a good cook. Them bacon and eggs was tasty. She can get hired on in any ranch cook house from Nogales to Amarillo.”

After an interminable, cross-campus death march, Paulus was somewhat relieved to summit the stairway in his building. Strange voices echoed down the hallway. The voices were coming from his lab. Paulus and Bubba stopped in the open doorway to blink at three individuals sizing up his workspace with a tape measure.

“Twenty-five feet, three and one quarter inches!” A younger man on his hands and knees under the window called out.

Another young man, at the other end of the tape measure scrambled to the far corner, readying to hold his end of the graduated ribbon against the wainscotting there. Paulus recognized both lads stealing his dimensions as grad students of Dr. Hophster, of the Anemancy Department across the breezeway in Frippleson Hall. Sure enough, Hophster stood in the exact middle of Paulus’s lab, jotting down the measurements in a notebook.

“Hurry up.” Hophster barked. “We need to see if my desk will fit in Pennythwaite’s office before he shows up.”

“Too late for that.” Paulus informed Hophster, more calmly that he felt.

The effect was electric. The grad students sprang to their feet, each attempting to reel in the tape measure from both ends at once. They met in the middle and promptly fumbled the device. It fell to the floor, unspooling right up to Paulus’s feet. Hophster slammed his notebook shut with an echoing snap.

“Paulus!” Hophster, a tall, rotund man, stammered. “You’re early.”

Paulus frowned at Hophster, and at the grad students frantically trying to gather up the tape measure at his feet.

Bubba narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “Looks to me like these boys is fixin’ ta jump your claim, Pedro.”

“No, no!” Hoffster protested. “That’s not what we’re doing at all. Whatever that is.”

“You are here literally measuring up my lab and office!” Paulus was losing his temper. He realized that was a silly thing to do, which would only provide more examples of erratic behavior for the upcoming inquiry. But tempers are a slippery thing, once they smell a chance to roam free.

Hophster harumphed. “Well, who can blame me? The word is that you’ll be out on your ear within the week, Paulus. If I don’t start lobbying for this lab now, Sonfuss over in Summoning is going to grab it first. He’s been coveting this space for years,”

“What have you heard about my situation?” Paulus demanded.

“It’s all over campus.” Hophster rolled his eyes. “LeRuvoir told me you’d be lucky to last two days.”

“LeRuvois? Him again.” Paulus frowned. “Why do you want my lab?”

“With the cross breeze, it’s perfect for wind magic experiments. Just look at those enormous, east- and west-facing windows.” Hophster swept a hand at the windows, still bereft of glass. “What’s left of them.”

“I figure you boys oughtta high tail it outa here before we toss y’all out them there big winders.” Bubba growled.

It took a fraction of a second for Hophster and his underlings to puzzle out Bubba’s Texas lingo. Then another moment passed before the tall wind magic researcher realized the cowboy was serious. Hophster and his grad students managed to get temporarily stuck in the doorway, all trying to exit simultaneously.

“I’ll be sure to tell the board of inquiry all about how you threatened us with bodily harm!” Hophster threatened from the safety of the hallway.

Bubba took a spur-jangling step toward the anemancer. “Git!”

Hophster bolted for the stairway.

“I hate claim jumpers.” Bubba spat on the floorboards. “They’s lower than a sidewinder’s belly.”

Paulus didn’t know what scared him more, the, admittedly true, rumors about him flying round campus or the undeniable thrill he felt at Bubba’s suggestion of defenestrating Hophster and minions. What was going on? What was happening to him?

Gilbert appeared in the doorway, both arms full of papers. He looked back into the hallway. “Weirdest thing. Dr. Hophster and two of his grad students just almost trampled me on the stairs. They looked like they were running for their lives.”

Bubba giggled.

Paulus sighed. “Never mind. What’s this about rumors that I’m already done?”

Gill looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, I was trying to figure out a way to tell you about that.” Gill belatedly noticed the battered condition of Paulus’s face. “What happened to you?”

“We jest had us a little set to with some orcs. They sure can throw a punch but turned out to be good ol’ boys after all the ruckus died down.”

“You had a fight with orcs? And survived?” Gilbert asked, incredulous.

“Yes, we did.” Paulus answered, suddenly thoughtful, Hophster and looming boards of inquiry forgotten. “You traded punches with that biggest one—”

“Gruimbletrhrash.” Bubba supplied the name.

“And you’re barely scratched.” Paulus leveled a finger at Bubba. “And the way LeRuvoir reacted when he shook hands with you. I don’t understand, yet, but you’re the key to all of this, Bubba. I’ve got a hunch. Gilbert, is our manameter still intact?”

“I think so. It’s in a cabinet on the far side of a wall from the blast.”

“Get it, please. Let’s see what Bubba reads.”

Gilbert tossed the double armload of papers onto a convenient shelf with a grunt and hurried to the storeroom. Presently, he returned huffing and puffing under the burden of a brass and wood scientific instrument about the size of bushel basket. Dials, gauges, and crystal coils festooned the tops and sides of the manameter.

“It looks okay.” Gilbert settled the heavy device on a surviving lab bench with care. He flipped switches and needles swung full range on dials before settling on the zero reading.

“Step over here, Bubba.” Paulus guided bubba to a spot on the floor in front of the business end of the manameter.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just stand there while we measure your mana.” Paulus instructed.

“What’s that?” Bubba asked.

“Mana is the amount of magical energy in a person’s aura.” Gil explained, fiddling with knobs. “Everybody’s got some.”

“Ya don’t say.”

“I do say.” Gilbert responded.

“Everybody’s got some, but Bubba.” Paulus’s eyes widened at the null reading on the gauges.

“What?” Gilbert scoffed. “That’s impossible!”

“See for yourself.” Paulus shook a finger at the manameter.

“How can that be?” Gilbert gaped at the manameter.

“How indeed?” Paulus scowleded at the readings, brain grinding away at the puzzling results.

“Maybe the aethereal shock wave blasted his mana away.” Gilbert speculated.

“Doubtful.” Paulus reasoned. “Mana emanates on a cellular level. Bubba’s cells weren’t appreciably damaged, so there should be some mana left. According to this,” He tapped the manameter. “He’s got absolutely no mana.”

“That can’t be.” Gilbert scoffed. “The meter’s broken, even if it seems to be working correctly.”

“Easily checked. Swap places with Bubba. Let’s see if you move the needles.”

Gilbert and Bubba awkwardly do-si-do-ed to place the post-doc in the focus of the instrument. Bubba peered at the meter over Paulus’s shoulder. All four needles, measuring the respective aspects of de-convoluted aural emanations swung into the normal, green zones on the respective dials.

“You read mid-range normal.” Paulus reported. “Measure my mana, now.”

Paulus deflected the needles similarly to Gilbert. To be sure, they then measured the Texan again, with the same, null, result. A repeat test with Paulus and Gilbert confirmed the earlier readings. Paulus rubbed his chin and pondered the Texan.

“Bubba, do people have mana in Texas, or whatever you might call it there?”

Bubba pursed his lips and rolled his eyes in thought. “Nope. Never heared tell of anything like that.”

“That’s impossible.” Gilbert shook his head. “How would anyone live without mana?”

“Different realm, different physical laws.” Paulus shrugged.

“But he’s in this realm now.”

Bubba watched the technical discussion bouncing back and forth between Paulus and Gilbert like he was watching a tennis match, an interested but clueless expression on his mustachioed face.

“True.” Paulus sighed. “I can’t explain it. Not yet. But I’ll bet a week’s pay that LeRuvoir felt Bubba’s lack of mana when they shook hands.”

Gilbert snapped his fingers. “Of course! Hemomancy enhances mana sensitivity, especially with physical contact.”

Paulus tapped the manameter. “I still don’t completely trust these readings. Run over to the Technomancy Department and borrow a set of mana standard samples. We need to calibrate our manameter against them. I don’t trust our set of standards. It was too close to the blast, and months past the requalification date anyway.”

“Their standards are certified too. They’re very painstaking about that.” Gilbert nodded and commented on his way out the door.

After an awkward fifteen minutes of small talk, during which Bubba regaled Paulus with more tall tales of his life as an itinerant cowhand, sounds of a commotion floated up the stairs. Paulus, grateful for the interruption, scurried out into the hallway. Sure enough, Gilbert carried a set of mana standards up the steps, ensconced within an elegant, wooden case. In addition, Dr. Marshlark, head of the Technomancy Department supervised two burly grad students, bearing a large, elaborate manameter up the stairs.

“Careful with that!” Marshlark cautioned. That thing is worth more than all of us put together, plus interest!”

Paulus arched a questioning eyebrow at Gilbert as the postdoc summited the steps.

“Dr. Marshlark wouldn’t let me borrow the standards until I told him why I wanted them.”

“Darn right I wouldn’t!” Marshlark scoffed, momentarily peeling his focus away from the sweating assistants bearing his prized instrument. “Null mana reading? Hogwash! Your manameter probably hasn’t been serviced properly in years.”

“We could’ve just brought Bubba over to his lab.” Paulus whispered to Gilbert.

Gilbert shrugged. “You know him. Can’t argue with the man.”

Under Marshlark’s stringent supervision the big manameter was set down in the middle of Paulus’s lab and powered up. No less than four mana standard samples were measured to establish a baseline before Bubba was allowed to approach. Paulus and Gilbert observed from a safe distance as the elderly and persnickety Marshlark fiddled and peered at the numerous dials muttering. Marshlark chased Bubba away, recalibrated his machine, and remeasured the Texan’s mana.

“Astonishing!” Marshlark siad. “I have never seen a null reading from a living person before.” He scribbled in his notebook. “Even golems and reanimated corpses measure above background levels.” He blinked at Bubba. “Unprecedented! There’s a paper worthy of the Journal of Magical Metrology in that alone. Maybe even a Zumpfeller prize.”

“I guess we have our corroboration on the null mana reading.” Gilbert murmured to Paulus.

“I’d say.” Paulus nodded. “By the way, what were all of those papers you carried in before all of this happened?”

“Oh, I forgot.” Gilbert scurried around Marshlark and his set up to retrieve the papers from the shelf. He placed a hand on top of the bundle once he was next to Paulus again. “Working with the maintenance crew yesterday, they mentioned that their supervisor was compiling a list of how much replacement glass to order for each building on campus. I thought that might be useful to us. So I asked for a copy. She’d already sent off the invoice, so she let me borrow the building-by-building listings of broken windows until the new glass is delivered.”

Paulus frowned at the stack of papers. “Good thinking. Thanks. You know, Gilbert, I ought to be figuring out what I’m going to say to the board of inquiry. But I’ve got a hunch that the answer to why all of this happened lies in here.” He tapped the papers. “Or at least the start of the road to an answer does.”

END.

Paulus is hot on the trail of some answers. Tune in next week to see what happens next!

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Very Disappointed, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/very-disappointed-the-school-of-magical

Next up will be chapter 8, Maps

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Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. When last we left Paulus and Bubba a dance floor accident had spun out of control.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Sweet Betsy, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/sweet-betsy-the-school-of-magical.

Next up will be chapter 7, Measurements https://raytabler.substack.com/p/measurements-the-school-of-magical

Very Disappointed – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 6

By Ray Tabler

Big, green, rough hands seized hold of Paulus by his lapels and lifted him with ease. The tavern seemed to tilt about the startled professor as the orcs stood up from their chairs. Spilled ale and remnants of their dinners sluiced and pattered to the floor. The tallest, broadest, most ale-drenched orc held Paulus at arm’s length and bellowed.

“Look what you do!”

“I’m terribly sorry about all this.” Paulus squeaked, feet dangling a foot over the tavern floor.

The apology did not mollify the orc. While still holding Paulus aloft with one hand, he growled and balled up the other hand into a ham-sized fist. This clenched appendage was then hauled back, in preparation to deliver what promised to be a truly devastating blow to Paulus’s face. Paulus screwed his eyes shut, hoping against hope to survive the impending punch.

Suddenly, Paulus felt another hand grasp him by the back of his collar. The unexpected hand jerked Paulus free from the furious orc’s grasp and flung him backwards.

“You let go of Pedro, you big, green son of a…” Bubba skidded to a stop as he stared up, and up, at the enormous orc before him. “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, you is a big goomer. Ain’t ya?”

The orc, surprised and deprived of Paulus, quivered in rage for a long moment, growling and spitting.

“You handle the rest of ‘em, Pedro.” Bubba called over his shoulder. “I done bit off all I can chew with this ‘un.”

Thinking fast, Bubba realized it would be best to not close with the orc. He rose up on the balls of his feet and commenced bobbing and weaving about. One fist held close to his chin, the other stuck out in a boxer’s stance he’d seen in a newspaper illustration.

“Bubba.” Paulus placed a hand on the Texan’s shoulder in a forlorn hope to diffuse the situation before blows were exchanged.

Bubba, unfortunately, mistook Paulus’s hand for that of another orc sneaking up on him. The Texan twirled and struck Paulus with a whistling haymaker.

“Aw, shoot!” Was the last thing Paulus heard before the light dimmed, and the tavern tumbled about him.

*

“Yallow…rose of Texas…” Paulus perceived a bass, gravelly voice mangling a song through a thick, hazy veil of vertigo and pain.

“That I’m gonna see...” Bubba’s off-key voice continued the lyric.

“Yallow…rose of Texas…” The first singer repeated.

“No, no. That ain’t what comes next.”

“Yallow…rose of Texas…”

“That ain’t the way it goes, Grum.” Bubba chided.

Paulus slowly rolled his head to one side and forced one blood-shot eye open with a supreme effort of will. Across the tavern floor, upon which he lay, Bubba sat next to an enormous orc, both with their backs leaning on the wall. It appeared to be the very same orc which Paulus remembered determined to punch his head off with one blow. Briefly, Paulus wondered if his head was still attached to the rest of his body. But no. The aches, pains, and general intense discomfort he felt flooding his nervous system indicated otherwise.

“Ooooh.” Paulus groaned.

“Hey, Pedro’s awake! How you feelin’ there, Pedro?”

“Am I dead?”

“Naw. I don’t think so.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Haw haw! You sure is a card, Pedro.”

“Time go to work.” The orc pointed at dawn’s glow leaking into the tavern through east-facing windows. He grunted and climbed to his feet.

“Well, lookee there. Sun’s comin’ up. Time sure do fly.” Bubba also stood up.

Grum patted Bubba on the head, staggering the Texan slightly. “Good fight. See tomorrow, Bubba.”

“Vaya con Dios, Grum.”

Grum stomped across the tavern and out the front door, floorboards creaking softly under his tread, the dawn light painting his massive form in silhouette.

“That ol’ Grum ain’t a bad feller, once you get to know him.” Bubba helped Paulus to a sitting position on the floor, leaning against a tipped over table.

Paulus waited for a bout of nausea to pass. “What…happened?”

“Uh, what exactly do you remember?”

“That big orc had me by the lapels and was about to hit me…The rest is all a blur.”

Bubba looked immensely relieved. “Oh. Well, you is one scrappy feller, Pedro. You went down a swingin’. That’s for sure.”

“I did?” Paulus put a hand up to his cheek. “Why does my face—Ow!”

“You got one heck of a shiner, Pedro. But you give back as good as you got. Them green fellers knew they’d been in a fight.”

“My whole body hurts.”

“You might’ve got stepped on and kicked some after you got knocked out. Accidental like.”

“That orc you were singing with. Was that the same one who picked me up? You seemed to be getting along famously.”

“Grumblethrash? Oh, we tussled some.”

Paulus blinked at Bubba. “You traded blows with an orc? No human should’ve survived that.”

Bubba put a hand up to his face and worked his jaw. “Grum’s got a right made me feel like I been kicked by an army mule. But we was just having fun.”

“Doesn’t make sense.” Paulus rubbed his forehead and discovered that hurt too.

Movement caught Paulus’s eye. Vayla was approaching, carrying a tray, and Bubba’s hat. She put Bubba’s hat back upon his head, slightly askew.

“Thank you for looking after my hat, ma’am.” Bubba straightened his hat with care.

Vayla knelt and placed the tray on the floor between the three of them. On the tray was a plate, heaping with scrambled eggs, bacon, and griddlecakes, as well as a steaming mug of tea and another cup of muddy brown liquid.

“Thank you, Vayla. But I don’t think I could eat a bite at the moment.” Paulus said. The smell of the food was threatening to overwhelm him with nausea.

“The breakfast is for Bubba.” Vayla laughed. “I checked on you a little while ago and mixed up a draught.” She pointed at the questionable drink on the tray. “It’ll fix you right up.”

Paulus picked up the cup, sniffed, and almost retched. “Gah! What’s in it?”

“You don’t want to know. Especially before you drink it.” Vayla gently pushed the cup back up to Paulus lips.

“If I must.”

“You must.”

With unnecessary drama, and a disgusted expression, Paulus sipped at the draught. It was horrible. Automatically, Paulus tried to identify the components. Until he realized that the exercise was actually increasing the unpleasantness of the experience. Resigning himself to the inevitable, Paulus gulped down the rest of the potion. It sloshed around in his gut, threatening to reverse course. Only the loathsome promise of having to taste the mixture again allowed Paulus to forestall keep it from coming back up again. Bubba watched with interest.

“Thank you, kindly for breakfast.” Bubba tipped his hat to Vayla. The Texan, ignoring utensils on the tray, then picked up a griddle cake and piled eggs and bacon atop it with his bare hands. He folded the loaded griddle cake and wolfed the construction down.

Vayla arched an eyebrow at this new method of eating breakfast but did not comment.

Paulus set the now empty cup down on the tray. “Yes, thank you. I think.”

“You’ll feel better in a little while.” She assured.

“I hope so.” Paulus’s pulse raced. He broke out in a cold sweat.

“What do I owe you for breakfast, ma’am?” Bubba asked around a mouthful of his second griddle cake breakfast burrito.

“It’s on Paulus’s tab.” Vayla sighed and glanced around at the wreckage. “Along with three tables, five chairs, and about a dozen tankards.”

Paulus groaned.

Vayla put a gentle hand on Paulus’s face. “Take care of him for me. Won’t you, Bubba?”

“I will, ma’am.” Bubba nodded. “Pedro and me is pardners.”

Vayla looked concerned, stood and walked away, taking the tray with her.

Through the nausea and aches, Paulus could only think about the exquisite feel of Vayla’s hand on his cheek.

“Things ain’t so bad, now is they, Pedro?”

Paulus had a goofy smile on his face, staring at the kitchen door through which Vayla had disappeared. When he noticed movement at the front door via peripheral vison. Automatically, his head pivoted to behold the dean of the School of Magical Engineering approaching. The dean had to detour around numerous piles of smashed furniture but presently stood over Paulus. He peered down from what seemed an elevated height, far taller than reality would support.

“Dean Sparrowsmith.” Paulus struggled to rise from his undignified spot upon the floor.

“Don’t bother, Paulus.” The dean held out an open palm to halt Paulus’s efforts to stand. “You look like you should be sitting down.”

“Um.” Paulus felt even more inarticulate than that stammer would indicate.

The dean glanced over at Bubba. “Is this the…individual you accidentally extracted from another realm yesterday?”

Paulus nodded. The room only swum slightly. Vayla’s potion was working, slowly.

Bubba lifted his hat an inch, “Howdy.”

Dean Sparrowsmith assessed Bubba like he was a lab specimen. Which, technically, he was.

“Wha…what are you doing here so early in the morning, dean?” Paulus managed to ask.

“Before dawn, someone slipped an anonymous note under my front door, informing me of your riotous activities last night. I decided to come over here and see for myself.” The dean glanced about at the scattered debris. “Which I have done.”

“I can explain.”

“I’m sure you can, Paulus. And you will, at the appropriate time.” He sighed. “Under the circumstances, I feel it my duty to convene a board of inquiry. You will be informed of when and where to present yourself for testimony…and judgement.” With that, the dean turned on his heel and strode for the door. After a few steps, however, he stopped and addressed Paulus without facing him. “Two days ago, Paulus, if someone had asked me about your future, I would’ve said you’d get tenure soon and go on to contribute significantly to the field of portal mechanics. Now, I…I just don’t understand. Dangerous, wild experiments. Brawling in a tavern! What happened to you man? You had such promise.”

“I know you’re angry, dean—”

“I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed. Very disappointed.”

The dean departed, lost in the dawn glare.

END.

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Paulus’s life seems to be disintegrating all about him. Tune in next week to see what happens next!

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Sweet Betsy, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/sweet-betsy-the-school-of-magical.

Next up will be chapter 7, Measurements https://raytabler.substack.com/p/measurements-the-school-of-magical

Bonus content! Dean Sparrowsmith is Bob Newhart (and he’s very disappointed):

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• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

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And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. Paulus has taken Bubba to the tavern, and things are about to get lively.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, The Elven Maid, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/the-elven-maid-the-school-of-magical.

Next up will be chapter 6, Very Disappointed https://raytabler.substack.com/p/very-disappointed-the-school-of-magical

Sweet Betsy – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 5

By Ray Tabler

“What?” Paulus frowned at Bubba.

“Oh, nuthin’.” Bubba replied, an annoying smirk on his bristly face.

Paulus narrowed his eyes, convinced he was missing something. Perhaps something important.

A raucous cheer erupted from a table near the back of the large room which apparently occupied the majority of the tavern’s ground floor. Paulus and Bubba swung their attention that way to behold about a dozen orcs ringing the table. The party of orcs had evidently all drained their tankards at the same time and called for refills.

Vayla rolled her eyes. “You’d think they were all dying of thirst.”

Bubba raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised at the acres of green skin and protruding dental architecture of the orcs.

Vayla pointed a sassy finger at Paulus. “You two go find a table, and sit down. I’ll bring some ale once I silence that caterwauling with another round. I want to hear your side of this.”

“Why?” Paulus asked. “What have you heard?” But he was talking to her back. Vayla whisked off, dodging between tables with a well-practiced grace.

“What kinda critters is that over there, Pedro?” Bubba tugged at Paulus’s sleeve, jerking a thumb at the table of orcs.

Paulus sighed, as much over his unasked-for new nickname as for Bubba’s faux pas. “They are not… what did you say? Critters? They’re people. Simply a different kind of people.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it is so.” Paulus pursed his lips. “Come on, let’s find a seat. “My feet hurt almost as much as my head, and I don’t feel like having this discussion standing here in the entryway.”

In fact, a party of three was crowding behind them, eager to slip past. Except that the trio was obviously curious about Bubba. The closest one was eavesdropping, and doing a poor job of hiding his interest.

Paulus took hold of Bubba’s elbow with a brusque temerity, and dragged the Texan toward a dark corner away from the broad, front windows. Those windows were swung open wide, the better to catch a cooling breeze in the late summer, afternoon heat. In passing, Paulus noted the undamaged condition of the windowpanes, confirming the limits of the blast wave through the aether. It must’ve dissipated by the time it reached the tavern. He was grateful for that small favor ladled out by fate.

The Elven Maid was filling up. The university ran a short summer semester between the two, full Spring and Fall terms, but few students attended over the truncated period of classes. The summer was traditionally a time for the faculty to focus on research, and relaxation, truth be told. As such, the tavern usually echoed mostly empty through the long, sunlit summer days and balmy, evenings. Paulus suspected that his accident had stopped work all over campus as a collateral effect. Then, many scholars, assistants, and students had simultaneously been struck with the brilliant idea of heading over to the pub, to see what the rumor mill had to say about recent events.

No one stared at him with a mixture of curiosity, shock, pity, and disapproval, yet. But he knew that would come as the word of what happened spread. Suddenly, going to the tavern didn’t seem like such a great idea. But Vayla would not be happy if he snuck out the back way now that she was bringing a round for him and Bubba. Maybe he could back himself into a shadowy corner, and escape notice.

Paulus knew just the spot. A secluded table lurked under the stairs to the second floor, near the doors to the kitchen. It provided a clear view of most of the main room, but blended in behind the intervening tables nicely.

Paulus took a seat with his back to the stucco wall, its rough surface reassuring through his shirt and vest. Bubba sat down next to Paulus, scanning the room with open curiosity. Paulus watched the Texan, wondering where to start.

“Uh, you must not have orcs in Texas.”

“Orcs? You mean them green folks, with tusks like a Arkansas razorback?”

Although Paulus had no idea what a razorback was, Arkansas or otherwise, he decided to circle back to that question later. “Yes.”

Bubba narrowed his eyes at the table of orcs across the big room. Vayla was in the process of unloading a tray crammed with pail-sized wooden tankards onto the table. The gal was stronger than she looked, to manage the load with such ease. The orcs eagerly upended said tankards, slurping and smacking their lips.

“Nah. No green folks in Texas, or anywhere else I hear tell of. We got white folks, black folks, brown folks, red folks, and yaller folks. There was a cowpoke I rode herd with, name of Caleb Hendershot. He tol’ me that there was even some blue folk way up in the hills of Kentucky where he was from.”

“Blue folk?” Paulus asked. “You sure about that?”

“Well, that’s what he said. But, ol’ Caleb was tale teller. He mighta been joshin’ me. And he never said he laid eyes on these blue goomers. Just heard tell of ‘em.” Bubba shook his head. “I guess I am a ways from Texas if’n there’s green people roamin’ about round here. Even if their teeth was normal sized.”

“That is normal for them.” Paulus said, then frowned. “What about Vayla?”

“What about her?”

“You did notice that her ears come to a point?”

“’I sure did. I just didn’t think it was polite to point that out. People with differences like that is sometimes touchy about ‘em. Feller I knowed back in Killeen had himself six toes on each foot. Run him no end of trouble, ‘cause he couldn’t hardly find boots wide enough for his feet. Every time he got drunk that ol’ boy got it into his head to try and lop off the extra toes with a butcher knife or an ax. Me and the other boys in the bunkhouse had a heck of a time talkin’ him outta it too. Full o’ tequila is the wrong time to go a sawin’ on your toes. Liable to take off the more than the ones you want gone. And where would you be then?”

Paulus blinked at Bubba. “Yes. Well, Vayla’s ears are normal for her people too. She’s an elf. Which, unless I miss my guess, you don’t have in Texas either.”

“Nope. Nary a one from Texarkana to El Paso.”

Paulus was about to continue explaining other differences between Texas and East Trendleshay Bubba might encounter, when he noticed that annoying smirk was back on the Texan’s face. “What? And don’t say nuthin’. It’s something!”

“Sure you want ta talk about it?”

“Yes!” Paulus paused, reining in his irritation. “What?”

“Well, I was just thinkin’ how right I was to call you Pedro, Pedro. Just like that other Pedro, you got a way with the ladies.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Vayla, Pedro. Why, a blind duck in a thunderstorm could tell right away you’re sweet on her. She’s sweet on you too. So, I guess it works out.”

“She is?” Paulus asked, eyes wide, then recovered his demeanor. “Vayla? No. We’re just good friends.”

“Sure you is, Pedro.” Bubba executed an exaggerated wink. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Paulus opened his mouth to set Bubba straight. But at the very moment Valya appeared, a tankard of ale in each hand.

“There!” Vayla pulled out a chair and flopped down. “Finally got a free moment. Now, Paulus, you’re the talk of the tavern. Is it true you broke every window on campus?”

Paulus groaned, and buried his face in his hands. “I’m never going to get tenure.”

“Don’t feel bad there, Pedro.” Bubba patted him on the shoulder. “There’s a bright side to every sitch-i-ashun, no matter how gosh-darned deep ya gotta dig to find it.” He picked up his tankard of ale and sipped. “That’s right tasty!”

“Pedro?” Vayla blinked.

“Well, ya see-” Bubba began.

“Never mind!” Paulus hastily interrupted. “What exactly have you heard, Vayla?”

Vayla obviously wanted to hear more of Bubba’s explanation but addressed Paulus instead. “Heebleson and d’Artois were in here a little while ago, buying rounds and spreading the tale that you dabbled in things best left alone, and destroyed half the campus, and caught the rest on fire.”

“Well, that ain’t so.” Bubba pointed out, after another gulp of ale. “We didn’t see no fires.”

“Heebleson and d’Artois” Paulus frowned. “Why they’re LeRuvoir’s post-doc assistants. How would they know anything about what I’ve done…or haven’t done?”

“Good question.” Vayla nodded. “And they are both notoriously tight-fisted. The fact that they were buying drinks drew as much attention as what they were saying.”

As the three talked, a group of musicians, consisting of a lutenist, a fiddler, a concertina squeezer, and a drummer, had been setting up for the evening’s entertainment. They briefly tuned up and made sure alcoholic refreshments were close to hand. From long experience, the band knew that music was best when well lubricated with wine and ale. Presently, a lively tune filled the tavern, supplemented and fortified by a rumbling, rambling, bass humming, supplied by the table of inebriated orcs.

Paulus found the music distracting. He glared down into his untouched ale, struggling to fit the baffling pieces of a puzzle together in his mind. The outlines of his experiment’s failure, Bubba unexpected appearance, LeRuvoir’s visit, Heebleson’s and d’Artois’s unprecedented largess, and the possibility of Vayla’s interest in him, all swirled about. It threatened to make him dizzy.

Vayla arched a bemused eyebrow at Bubba. Who rocked back and forth with the music. His booted feet tapped under the table, spurs jingling.

Bubba bounced a glance between Vayla and a profoundly distracted Paulus. “Well, land sakes, Pedro! If you ain’t gonna ask the lady to dance, I sure will.”

Before Paulus noticed what was happening, and before Vayla could do more than squeak in amused surprise, Bubba had jumped to his feet, snatched Vayla’s hand, and dragged her to the open middle of the tavern’s main room. When Paulus glanced up from his funk, Bubba was dancing Vayla about in an exuberant two step that sailed past the band and the front tables at speed. The patrons approved, cheering and clapping. Other dancers filtered onto the floor, and joined in.

When the song ended, there was applause, and shouts for more.

“Hey, do y’all know Sweet Betsy? It goes like this…”

Bubba sang, hoarse and off key.

“…Did you ever hear tell of Sweet Betsy from Pike,

Who crossed the wide mountains with her lover Ike,

Two yoke of cattle, a large yeller dog,

A tall Shanghai rooster, and a one-spotted hog…”

Halfway through the verse, the musicians eagerly joined in, picking up the melody and spontaneously adapting it to their instruments. Bubba and Vayla, and a dozen other patrons all started in again, dancing with abandon.

Paulus watched, much open wide, and the beginnings of a deep jealousy kindling deep in his heart. Woodenly, Paulus stood and stalked across the floor. He dodged among the fast-moving dancing couples, hurrying to catch up with, then stay close to Vayla and Bubba.

“Vayla. Bubba. Stop this. You’re drawing too much attention.”

Bubba grinned. “Hold yer horses, Pedro. We’s jest dancin’.”

Vayla laughed, a tinkling sound that plucked at Paulus’s heartstrings. “Don’t worry, I’ll dance with you next…Pedro.”

The music echoed off the wooden rafters and made Paulus’s head ring. Scrambling to keep up with the pair, he reached out to pull Vayla away from Bubba. But his shoe caught on a slightly uneven floorboard, and he tripped. Arms flailing wildly, Paulus stumbled and twirled away. He careened off of other dancing couples like billiard balls on an expanse of green felt.

By the time Paulus reached the edge of the dance floor, he was pinning out of control, confused and struggling to stay on his feet. By random chance, Paulus’s pinball path of glancing, haphazard collisions aimed him squarely for the large table of drunken orcs. Who were rather enjoying the music, tapping big, green toes and bouncing half-full, bucket-sized tankards of ale, to slosh considerable volumes of beverage across the tabletop. Paulus came barreling out of the crowd, wide-eyed, shouting, and twirling.

The orcs barely had enough time to emit basso yelps of alarm before the professor impacted the edge of the table and rolled horizontally across its breadth. Like a relentless, high-speed human steam roller, Paulus swept over the table, driving tankards, plates, silverware before him. Ale, wine, candlesticks, dinner leftovers, and a few unidentifiable articles flew far and wide, pummeling and soaking all orcs within range.

Paulus’s momentum was not expended until he dropped into the laps of three orcs seated directly across from the edge where he’d struck and begun his involuntary maneuver. There was a moment’s shocked silence as Paulus stared up at the orcs, and the orcs stared down at the professor in their laps. Then the bellowing started.

Back on the dance floor, Bubba and watched in surprise as Paulus transited the floor and then devastated the orcs’ table. The musicians didn’t miss a beat. Which testified to commendable dedication to their craft, as well as the frequency of their audience coming to blows in the middle of a set.

“Uh oh, Pedro’s in trouble.” Bubba commented on events playing out across the dance floor. “Hold my hat, darlin’!” He whipped off his ten-gallon hat and flung it at Vayla. “Yee-hah!” Bubba screamed as he ran to Paulus’s rescue.

END.

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Tune in next week to see what happens next!

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, The Elven Maid, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/the-elven-maid-the-school-of-magical.

Next up will be chapter 6, Very Disappointed https://raytabler.substack.com/p/very-disappointed-the-school-of-magical

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. There was wide-spread collateral damage. But Paulus’s headaches are just beginning.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Quentin, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/quentin-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 5, Sweet Betsy https://raytabler.substack.com/p/sweet-betsy-the-school-of-magical

The Elven Maid – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 4

By Ray Tabler.

Gilbert couldn’t help but laugh out loud at Bubba’s comment, a hearty guffaw.

Paulus managed to restrain himself to a rueful smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen LeRuvoir flustered like that.” He pivoted upon Bubba. “What did you do?”

Bubba shrugged. “Shook his hand. That’s all. Seemed like the neighborly thing to do.”

“Well, it wouldn’t surprise me he if he doesn’t like physical contact with us peasants.” Gilbert picked up the now-emptied tea pot.

Paulus frowned. “I have a feeling it was more than that.”

“Like what?” Gilbert asked.

Paulus shook his head, and scanned his ruined lab. “I don’t know. So much has happened that I don’t have a clue where to start figuring things out. LeRuvoir’s odd behavior is way down my list.”

Gilbert sighed. “Why would he show up now?”

“Besides gloating at my misfortune? I mean, that would provide plenty of motivation. But he did try to steal you away. Maybe you should take him up on the offer.” Paulus scowled at the surrounding destruction, wrought by his experiments. “The grass is certainly greener on that side of the fence at the moment.”

Gilbert scoffed. “I’m hooked on portal metaphysics, just like you. Besides, hemomancy creeps me out. All those blood sacrifices…” He shivered, the teapot clattering.

“I know what you mean.” Paulus scratched his head. “Still, we can’t proceed until I figure out what happened. The poorly-seasoned focusing staves no doubt didn’t help. But I feel like I’m missing something important.”

“Look, why don’t you get out of here?” Gilbert suggested. “I’ll start cleaning up. Maintenance is supposed to be sending a crew around to help with that. You won’t be able to think with all of that going on.”

Paulus looked doubtful. “It’s my mess. I should help clean it up.”

“It’s our mess.” Gilbert countered. “My name will go on the paper we write, won’t it?”

Paulus chuckled. “Yes.”

“Good. Glad we got that cleared up. Now, let’s divide the labor up the way that makes the most sense. I’ll stay here and supervise the cleanup. You, go think up some answers.” Gilbert tapped Paulus’s forehead and smiled.

“Now I know why LeRuvoir is trying to poach you as a grad student.”

“See? You’re figuring it out already.” Gilbert leaned close and spoke quietly. Maybe you should take our new friend with you.” He tilted his head at Bubba. “I have a feeling we should keep him from gossiping too much with the crew Maintenance sends over.”

“Good point.” Paulus conceded. He faced Bubba. “Why don’t you come with me, Bubba? I’m going to take a walk.”

Bubba looked over from gawking at the big hole in the ceiling. “Stretch our legs, heh Pedro? Sounds like a great idea!”

Paulus and Bubba negotiated their way past the door, hanging from one compromised hinge, and descended the stairway, over random pieces of paneling and ceiling tile adorning the steps. Various academic and athletic trophies still sat on shelves in cases lining the walls of the building’s first floor lobby, apparently too heavy to be shifted very much by the incident. The glass which until earlier that day had fronted those cases now lay shattered and distributed across the lobby floor.

Paulus noted the distinct outlines which the pulverized glass particles described upon the floor as he and Bubba crunched over them. The glass lay in classic interference patterns, likely resulting from constructive and destructive interactions of the blast wave as it was channeled down the stairwell, reverberated off walls and ceiling, then propagated out the entryway, disintegrating the double doors in the process. Normally, Paulus would’ve at least paused to admire the elegant evidence of nature’s laws arranged in crumbled glass like a sand painting. Now, it only reminded him of his failures.

Outside, the day mocked Paulus’s black mood with bright sunlight, a blue sky, and chirping birds. Automatically, Paulus turned right, and shuffled along the sidewalk, hands shoved into pockets and head down. His plan to ignore the destruction of the morning by looking neither left or right was thwarted by the unmistakable sound of broken glass being swept and shoveled all about.

“Pedro, you look like somebody done shot your dog and mounted him over their fireplace.”

Paulus stopped, briefly shaken from his funk by the unusual simile. “Um, well. You see all of this damage?” Paulus swept a hand at the obvious lack of window glass in every building within sight.

Bubba dutifully scanned the scene. “Yep.”

“That’s my fault. Whatever brought you here, caused all of this. I set it in motion. And I don’t know what I did wrong.”

“Hmm.” Bubba nodded. “Anybody get hurt?”

“Not that I know of. I mean, if anybody was injured, or worse, I’d likely have heard about it by now. So, probably not.”

“Well then, things ain’t all that bad. It’s jest some broken glass. Land sakes! I done lost count of all the saloon winders I been tossed through.” Bubba grinned with rueful recollection.

Bubba’s philosophical outlook forced Paulus to realize he’d been wrapping himself in his dejection like a cozy blanket. There was no denying he was in a pile of trouble. But feeling sorry for himself would not help, and might hurt. With a physical shudder, Paulus shook off the cloak of gloom. If Gilbert was handling the physical cleanup, and Bubba was looking on the bright side, the least Paulus could do was apply some brain power to tracing root causes of the situation.

“Pedro,” Bubba continued. “What was that you said about causin’ the twister?”

Paulus chewed at his lip. “I’m not sure how to answer that. You’ve probably already figured out you’re far from home.”

“A good ways farther than Houston, I’m bettin’.”

“I don’t know where Houston is. But, yes. In fact, that twister, as you called it, was one end of an interdimensional portal. It plucked you from your realm of Texas, and deposited you here, in East Trendleshay.”

“You don’t say?” Bubba raised a bushy eyebrow.

“I do say. Uh, I mean yes. You are in a completely different world than where you were.”

“Don’t that beat all?” Bubba doffed his hat and scratched at his unruly mop of hair.

Paulus sighed. “And, it’s all my fault. And, I have no idea how to get you back.”

Bubba grinned. “That’s alright, Pedro. Don’t fret. Truth is, I always been a rollin’ stone. From the day I got kicked outta the nest, I been punchin’ cows and bustin’ broncs from Laredo ta Cheyenne, and from Ogalala ta Neevada. Now, I’m here.” He shrugged. “Better than bein’ dead. Which, I was beginnin’ to wonder if I was.”

“You mean, you’re not mad about being whisked away from your realm?”

“Naw. Mind you, a Texan always wants to end up back in Texas, sooner or later. But, don’t mean he can’t mosey about in the meantime. Only thing I’m worried about is my palomino, Dusty. She’s smart enough to head back to the barn, but she’s probably worried about me.”

Paulus smiled, his troubles lightened fractionally by Bubba’s forbearance.

“Say Pedro, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, seein’ as how you and Gil served me that tea, and all. But I’m feelin’ a might parched. I don’t suppose there’s a place around here where a feller could git hisself a shot o’ redeye? Whiskey, ya know.” He put out a reassuring hand. “Purely for medicinal purposes.”

“Well, there is the Elven Maid. It’s a tavern.” Paulus looked about, surprised. “In fact, we seemed to be headed that way. Didn’t realize that.”

“See there, Pedro?” Bubba clapped Paulus on the back, staggering him with enthusiastic friendliness. “Things is lookin’ up already!”

“This way.” Paulus beckoned.

They set off again, perhaps with a bit more purpose in their strides. Even if that purpose was to seek some alcohol in which to drown some sorrows. After a dozen paces Paulus slowed to a stop. He paused, listening. Then walked slowly forward, only to stop again. Bubba mimicked his host; a bushy eyebrow cocked in puzzlement.

“Looks like you got yourself a hitch in your git along there, Pedro.”

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“A kind of metallic jingling sound.”

“Oh! You mean this?” Bubba stomped a boot upon the pathway.

“Yes, there it is!” Paulus bent forward slightly, peering at some contraption fastened to Bubba’s heel. “Why they’re on both your feet. What are those?”

“Why, that’s my spurs.”

Paulus was normally observant of tiny details. But, it had been a long, trying day. He blinked at Bubba’s mysterious accessories as if he’d never laid eyes on such things before. Which he hadn’t. “Does everybody where you come from wear these…things?”

“Most everybody in Texas does.”

Paulus bounced a look between Bubba’s spurs and Bubba’s face. “This Texas place gets more and more odd the more I hear about it.”

“Ya know, Pedro,” Bubba grinned and winked. “You ain’t the first ta say that.”

Paulus sighed. “I think I need that drink now, more than I thought before.”

The Elven Maid Tavern lay a few minutes stroll farther on. Normally, the journey was even shorter. But Paulus had to make a wide detour around Ponsonby Hall. Ropes linked hastily placed saw horses and convenient, path-side trees to direct traffic at least fifty yards away from the building. As the dean had said, wisps of greenish smoke wafted from basement windows, to curl lazily skyward. Accompanied by a cloying odor, and unidentifiable noises issuing from the compromised potions storage facility, the smoke gathered in a brooding lump, before dissipating reluctantly some twenty yards into the sky. Paulus studiously ignored the display. Bubba eyed it quizzically in passing, but didn’t bother to comment.

Mercifully, the percentage of broken windows diminished steadily the farther from his lab they traveled. By the time the tavern loomed ahead, the effects of his failed experiment disappeared altogether. Automatically, Paulus noted the rate of decrease, street by street, mentally filing the observations away for later analysis. Another piece of a puzzling puzzle.

A signboard swung languidly in the balmy breeze, above the doorway to the tavern. On the sign, the painted image a buxom, elven woman bore a dozen tankards of ale in her two fists, smiling warmly down at thirsty customers who passed within. The sight of that sign always gladdened Paulus, and, even today, a faint joy kindled deep down in his heart.

“This looks like the place, Pedro.”

Paulus sighed, but didn’t answer. He simply ducked through the entrance, and paused to let his eyes adjust to the cool gloom within. Bubba followed, and they both stood just past the wide-open door, letting the soothing shade and sound of merriment wash over them for a moment.

“Been waiting for you to show up.” A throaty, female voice announced from the left.

Paulus and Bubba pivoted to follow the voice. A lithe figure leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and body language shouting a sassy amusement. She straightened, arms still crossed, and stepping into the light. The daylight streaming in form the open door painted her in relief, a young woman, raven-haired, gray-eyed, and pointed ears.

Bubba’s reaction was immediate. He snatched the hat from his head, and smoothed eyebrows and mustachios with the thumb of his free hand. A reflexive maneuver, likely practiced hundreds of times when encountering a pretty girl.

“Bubba McAllister, ma’am. From Terlingua Bend, Texas. Pleased to make your acquaintance!” He smiled a broad, toothy smile.

The woman raised her eyebrows at Bubba, then glanced over at Paulus. “Oh my, Paulus. Sounds like you’ve got a story to tell.”

“I…uh, yeah.” Paulus stammered, avoiding meeting the elven woman’s eyes. “Vayla, this is Bubba. Bubba, this is Vayla. Bubba is…New in town.”

“I’ll bet.” Vayla ran a bemused look up and down Bubba’s outlandish clothing, with particular attention to the boots and spurs.

Bubba noted Paulus’s reaction to Vayla, and smiled back at the eleven maid. “Land sakes!”

END.

If you’re still here, scroll down for some bonus material.

I don’t usually provide much physical description of my characters, letting the reader fill in those blank spaces. But, in The School of Magical Engineering, Paulus (Pedro), Bubba, and the rest have demanded faces. So, here they are. They popped into my head as notable actors. Images are from imdb.com.

Paulus (Pedro) Pennythwaite is Alan Turdyk, who appeared in Firefly, Resident Alien, and other shows.

Bubba McAllister is Diedrich Bader, of The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), The Drew Carey Show, and Office Space. Diedrich is a bit of a chameleon, so, specifically, as he appears in the movie Office Space, playing the main character’s neighbor, Lawrence.

Vayla, the elven maid and (spoiler alert) Paulus’s love interest, is Angelina Jolie. ‘Nuff said.

Gilbert Broadcloth is Rick Moranis, without the glasses.

And, finally, Quentin LeRuvoir is… Who am I kidding? He’s Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. Why mess with perfection?

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Welcome to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. There was wide-spread collateral damage. But Paulus’s headaches are just beginning.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Quentin, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/quentin-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 5 , Sweet Betsy https://raytabler.substack.com/p/sweet-betsy-the-school-of-magical

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. There was wide-spread collateral damage. But Paulus’s headaches are just beginning.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Bubba, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/bubba-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 3, The Elven Maid. https://raytabler.substack.com/p/the-elven-maid-the-school-of-magical

Quentin – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 3

By Ray Tabler.

It wouldn’t be a great exaggeration to say that Quentin LeRuvoir was Paulus’s least favorite person at East Trendleshay University. In fact, Paulus would have been hard put to name anyone at East Trendleshay, or anywhere in the realm, whom he disliked more than Quentin LeRuvoir, full and tenured professor of Hemomancy. This was not a situation Paulus was particularly happy with. He prided himself on getting along with everyone, no matter how difficult some individuals seemed determined to make peaceful coexistence possible. Paulus was not yet ready to admit defeat in the matter of getting along with LeRuvoir. But that outcome was looking more and more like a forlorn hope.

“Professor LeRuvoir.” Paulus carefully set his tea cup down on a relatively debris-free patch of flooring, and reluctantly rose to greet the newcomer. “What a pleasant surprise. May we get you some tea?”

“Thank you, but no.” LeRuvoir peered down his long, pointy, aristocratic nose at Paulus. “I have an appointment, and can’t tarry long,”

“How disappointing.” Paulus replied. “What brings you by our humble laboratory today?”

“Oh, I was out for a stroll, and noticed the lack of intact glass all across the campus. I decided to travel in the direction of increasing destruction. And what should I find at the epicenter of devastation? Your little shop of horrors, that’s what.” Quentin smiled a thin, nasty, sadistic smile. “What have you been up to, Pennyfarthing?”

Paulus sorted through several responses, discarding the most obvious and inflammatory retorts. “Just an experiment in portal mechanics.”

Remembering the dean’s comments about the experiment’s goal of improving portal stability, Paulus intentionally edited that descriptor out. No doubt LeRuvoir would’ve seized upon the detail like a cat upon a juicy mouse.

LeRuvoir stepped daintily over the wreckage, gingerly holding his robes up so they wouldn’t brush against the charred rubble. He poked his staff at a half-vaporized focusing stave, lip curling in an infuriating, aristocratic sneer. The wobbly stave splintered into a half-dozen fragments and clattered to the floor.

“Indeed.” LeRuvoir cocked an eyebrow at Paulus. “I don’t believe I’ve seen anything like this since Funkwaller blew the roof off of Heepswallow Hall. I recall people were finding random bits of his apparatus all over campus for the rest of the semester.” He emitted a cynical chuckle. “Random bits of Funkwaller too.”

Paulus held his tongue. LeRuvoir was on the tenure committee, and could cause trouble when the body next met to grant that status to assistant professors when they next met. To be honest, only a fool would bet LeRuvoir wouldn’t cause trouble for Paulus come next time the tenure committee met. But, no sense in handing him excuses to do so on a silver platter. There was already plenty of stones for LeRuvoir to throw laying all about.

LeRuvoir shook his head, long, silvery hair shimmering in the light reflected from the hole in the ceiling. His gaze fell upon Gilbert. “Broadcloth. What are you doing wasting your time in this area of research? You seem like a marginally competent fellow. I happen to have an opening for a junior position on my staff. Why don’t you pop over? We’ll talk.”

“Uh,” Gilbert grimaced. “That’s a generous offer, professor LeRuvoir. But I’ve invested a lot of time in portal mechanics.”

LeRuvoir shrugged. “It would mean starting over from scratch. But hemomancy is an up-and-coming discipline. I have grants coming out of my ears, and not enough graduate students to pursue all of the lines of inquiry.” LeRuvoir cast a pitying eye upon Paulus. “Certainly not an academic dead end.”

Paulus fumed, silently. He was surprised his burning ears didn’t ignite the plentiful kindling littering the lab. The gall of LeRuvoir, poaching his grad student right in front of him!

“Thank you, professor. But portals have always been my primary interest. I’ll have to decline.”

“I admire your loyalty, my boy.” LeRuvoir tilted a skeptical eyebrow at Paulus. “Misplaced as it is. Do look me up, once you find yourself at loose ends,” He scanned the wreckage with a bored air. “The sooner the better. I’m sure I can find you something useful to do.”

LeRuvoir’s slow look about finally brought Bubba to his notice. “Hello, who is this? Perhaps some poor unfortunate undergraduate you are luring into your clutches. Eh, Pennypacker?”

Bubba rose, took off his hat, and stuck out a hand. “I’m Bubba McAllister, from Terlingua Bend, Texas.”

LeRuvoir regarded Bubba’s hairy, outthrust hand as if it were coated in something disagreeable. After a brief hesitation, Quentin must’ve resigned himself to the fact that simple courtesy demanded he shake hands with the Texan. Thus, trapped by social convention, however distasteful, LeRuvoir detoured around the intervening remains of some support scaffolding, and approached Bubba.

“Professor Quentin LeRuvoir.” He extended his right hand, attempting to grasp Bubba’s hand with as little contact and duration as possible.

“Pleased to meet ya’, Quent!” Bubba thwarted LeRuvoir’s intent by enfolding the professor’s soft, well-manicured hand with a meaty paw, and pumping up and down vigorously.

The effect on LeRuvoir was immediate, and remarkable. His eyes went wide, and his jaw dropped open in surprise. LeRuvoir freed his hand from Bubba’s grasp with a spasmodic jerk. He jumped back, briefly stumbling over a small pile of debris before recovering his balance. If not his previous air of bored disdain.

Bubba blinked in surprise at LeRuvoir’s actions.

“Uh. Um.” LeRuvoir stammered, eyeing Bubba with an unreadable expression on his usually haughty face. He absently wiped the hand Bubba had grasped on his robe, as if a sticky residue clung to it. With a shiver, LeRuvoir regained some presence of mind. “Well, I’m late for my appointment.” Abruptly, LeRuvoir spun about and strode rapidly out the door, kicking the remnants of a lab bench out of his way in the process.

Paulus, Gilbert, and Bubba watched LeRuvoir depart with puzzled looks.

“Jumpy feller, ain’t he?” Bubba commented, replacing his hat upon his head.

END.

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Welcome to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. There was wide-spread collateral damage. But Paulus’s headaches are just beginning.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Bubba, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/bubba-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 3, The Elven Maid. https://raytabler.substack.com/p/the-elven-maid-the-school-of-magical

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

Welcome to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. There was wide-spread collateral damage. But Paulus’s headaches are just beginning.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Shattered, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/shattered-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 3, Quentin. https://raytabler.substack.com/p/quentin-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Bubba – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 2

By Ray Tabler.

All things considered, Bibba was reacting to his trip through the collapsing portal with remarkable equanimity.

“You know, you’re lucky to be alive.” Paulus eyed the man, dressed in faded blue trousers, a plaid shirt, topped off with a broad-brimmed hat.

“Shoot, Pauley!” Bubba winked. “Ah been throwed off’n broncos and bulls more times than I can count. Whatever happened ain’t nuthin’ compared to when ol’ Diablo sent me flyin’ halfway ta Amarillo. I was out cold for so long they started measurin’ me up for a pine box and a nice spot up on boot hill.”

Paulus sorted through that, only catching enough to puzzle out that Bubba was feeling fine. “Um, would you mind not calling me that? Pauley. Brings back some uncomfortable memories from my childhood.”

“Oh, sure. My momma raised me to be polite.” Bubba held up a hand. “Usually with a switch I had ta fetch myself from the wood pile.” He laughed and slapped a knee. “How ‘bout I call you Pedro? I done rode with a caballero named Pedro down ta El Paso way. Ol’ Pedro could strum a guitar like nobody’s business. Was a ladies’ man too, was ol’ Pedro. Me and the other hands always figured Pedro was gonna meet his end from a jealous husband. But it was a senorita who done him in…”

Paulus let Bubba ramble on about poor old Pedro and his tragic romantic end. He reluctantly resigned himself to being called Pedro, as Bubba seemed to have some mental block around using Paulus. At least it was better than Pauley.

The two of them sat on packing crates, dragged to form a convenient spot for conversation in the middle of the wreckage of Pedro’s-uh Paulus’s lab. There hadn’t been time to even start the cleanup before Paulus had been summoned to the dean’s office. The failed portal stability experiment succeeded in knocking over every lab bench in the room, shoving some of the lighter furniture against, and even into the walls.

Paulus rubbed his forehead, amazed that he and his assistant, Gilbert, hadn’t been squashed flat in the burst of trans dimensional energy released in one massive wave from the collapsing portal. Only the mound of sandbags behind which they crouched protected them from death and dismemberment. And to think he’d openly scoffed at the mandatory safety precaution mere moments before the blast.

“And that’s what happened to ol’ Pedro.” Bubba removed his large hat, and briefly held it over his heart, a mournful expression on his long, bearded face.

“Um, yeah.” Paulus paused, pondering exactly how to proceed.

Gilbert provided a welcome interruption, entering the lab with a tray of steaming tea pot and cups. He navigated a twisting path around, between, and stepping over wreckage and debris. Paulus cleared kindling off of nearby a crate to create a makeshift table for the tea.

Gilbert carefully set the tray down on the crate, and lowered himself to sit on the remnants of an upended lab bench. “Thought we could all do with some tea.”

“Thank you, Gilbert.” Paulus commented.

Gilbert poured into each of the three cups. Which were actually glass labware, graduated markings for ease of formulating printed on their transparent sides. That gave Paulus a moment’s pause. He couldn’t remember what the beakers had last been used for. Oh well, Gilbert was a diligent type. He’d probably at least given the containers a rinse before pressing them into service as tea cups. But, why weren’t the beakers in pieces from the trans dimensional blast wave, like most of the glassware on campus? Paulus resolved to explore that question later. He had bigger potions to brew first.

“Bubba,” Paulus began, while they waited for the tea to cool. “There wasn’t time for proper introductions in the aftermath of your…arrival. I am Paulus Pennythwaite, Assistant professor of Magical Engineering here at the university.” He laid a hand upon his chest. “And Gilbert Broadcloth here is a post-graduate student, helping in my lab.”

Gilbert rose slightly from his capsized lab bench seat, and bowed.

Bubba offered each a firm, and vigorous handshake. “Pleased to meet ya both. Gilbert, Pedro. I’m Bubba McAllister, from Terlingua Bend, Texas.”

“So, Bubba.” Paulus gingerly picked up his tea and blew on it. “Do you know where you are?”

“Not really.”

“You… this is the University of East Trendleshay.”

“Is that so?” Bubba glanced about. “Never been to a university before.”

“Yes.” Paulus continued. “Exactly how do you think you got here? From…Texas, did you call it?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know. I figure it was because of that twister.”

“Twister?” Paulus looked at Gilbert. Who looked back, clearly confused as well.

“Yeah, a twister. A tornada. Big spinnin’ wind. We get a lot of them in Texas. They come rip snortin’ in off the prairie, pickin’ stuff up and puttin’ ‘em back down who knows where.” Bubba shrugged, and picked up his tea. “I guess a twister done picked me up, and put me down here abouts. What’s this spot called? East Trendywhat?”

“East Trendleshay.” Gilbert supplied, helpfully.

“Trendleshay.” Bubba rolled his eyes up. “Trendleshay. Is that near Houston?”

“Not exactly.” Paulus sighed. “Is that what you saw? A…twister?”

“Shore did. Biggest, blackest one I ever clapped eyes on. That ol’ boy come down on me from clear, blue Texas sky like a swoopin’ prairie hawk on a jack rabbit. I was afoot, takin’ a closer look at some coyote tracks. My palomino, Dusty, got spooked by the twister and bolted. I just had time to hold onto my hat. Then the next thing I know, here I was.”

“The portal manifested as an atmospheric disturbance on his end.” Gilbert pointed out, quietly. “With spontaneous torsional momentum.”

“Very unusual.” Paulus stroked his chin. “What would induce such an effect?”

Gilbert scratched his head. “Well, the focusing staves weren’t properly seasoned.”

“But that wouldn’t propagate rotational misalignment through the portal, even if they weren’t seasoned at all.”

Gilbert shrugged. “What happened then?”

“I don’t know.” Paulus frowned. “There’s more going on here than we thought. Something we’re missing. Somehow, the portal not only reached much farther than we intended, it tapped into a lot more power than it should have.”

Both Paulus and Gilbert turned their heads to look at the black scorch marks on the lab floor where the portal had been. A ragged, three-foot-wide hole in the ceiling of the room opened to the lecture hall above. Only pure dumb luck had prevented the stadium seating up there from being packed with undergraduates when a searing fireball vomited up like a belch from hell.

“Frankly, in retrospect, we’re lucky those focusing staves vaporized under the strain. There’s no telling how much unrestrained interdimensional energy would’ve been released if the portal had remained in operation even a few seconds longer.”

“Why wasn’t Bubba vaporized like those staves?” Gilbert tilted his head toward the Texan. “He was at the epicenter of the blast.”

“Off the top of my head, I’d suggest a bubble of isostatic topographical equilibrium. But that would have to be microscopic to last even a split second. Much smaller than a human body could fit safely within.”

“You sure do use a pile of fancy words, Pedro.” Bubba marveled. “Where’d you learn how to talk like that?”

“Oh, I just picked it up along the way.” Paulus frowned. “Bubba, in all honesty, we don’t have a clue how you survived this incident.”

“Jest lucky, I guess.” Bubba sipped his tea, and smacked his lips. “She’s got a little bite to her. Better than chicory coffee, though.”

“What a mess!” A cultured baritone echoed through the disheveled lab. “I believe we have found the source of all the disorder. And, surprise, surprise. It’s all because of professor Penny-ante.”

Paulus closed his eyes, and struggled mightily to maintain a firm grip on his temper. A surprise visit from Quentin LeRuvoir was the last thing he needed at the moment.

END.

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Welcome to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. There was wide-spread collateral damage. But Paulus’s headaches are just beginning.

The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.

The previous chapter, Shattered, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/shattered-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Next up will be chapter 3, Quentin. https://raytabler.substack.com/p/quentin-the-school-of-magical-engineering

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

This is the 1^st installment of a new serial, The School of Magical Engineering. Which follows the academic adventures of Paulus Pennythwaite, Assistant Professor of Magical Engineering at the University of East Trendleshay, in another realm. Paulus is a hands-on, nuts-and-bolts researcher in the Department of Magical Engineering. He considers it part of his job to push the envelope. Sometimes the envelope pushes back in unexpected ways, when it doesn’t just rip right open. I hope you enjoy the tale.

A bit of housekeeping. This serial will be filed in a section on my Substack, https://raytabler.substack.com/s/the-school-of-magical-engineering. The ol’ menu bar is getting a little crowded. So, I will be, once I figure out how to do it, moving the last 2 serials, Containment Protocol & Planets 4 Sale, into a “Completed Serials” section. If I can’t figure out a Substack-approved way to accomplish that goal, I might have to move them into Archives. Or something else. Hope that doesn’t cause anyone problems.

But, for now, please enjoy chapter 1 of The School of Magical Engineering, Shattered.

Shattered – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 1

By Ray Tabler.

If the glass in the door behind Paulus were whole, it would’ve read DEAN, SCHOOL OF MAGICAL ENGINEERING. However, not much of the glass, or the lettering, clung to the door frame. It read, instead, AN... SCH... ICAL...RING. And that left looked as if it might fall at any moment.

The dean’s fingertips drummed on his desktop in discordant rhythm to the rasping sound of broken glass being swept into dustpans in the hallway outside. Unbidden, a drinking song Paulus had heard in the tavern last week started playing in the back of his head. This was not the time for such woolgathering, but the song was there all the same.

Almost as if the dean could hear the bawdy ditty as well, his scowl deepened, and a near-feral growl rumbled up from his troubled stomach. It occurred to Paulus that the dean, being a rather accomplished wizard, might actually be able to hear the ballad in Paulus’s head. Concerning the amorous adventures of a not-so-innocent elven maid and an itinerant dwarven stone mason who fell into a well, it was hardly appropriate for the circumstances. So, Paulus hastily banished the memory.

That didn’t seem to improve the dean’s mood. Oh well, it’d been worth a try.

“Do you hear that?” The dean pointed at his office door. “That is the sad sound of broken glass being cleaned up.”

“Yes, sir. I—”

“Shut up.” The dean snapped. “I’m not anywhere near done admonishing you yet.”

Paulus opened his mouth to apologize for speaking. But the dean pointed and used his other hand to make a gesture which indicated Paulus should clamp his mouth shut. Which he did.

“Do you realize that you shattered every pane of glass on campus?”

Not daring to risk a verbal answer, Paulus shook his head in silent denial that he knew of the extent of his glass-breaking exploits.

The dean plucked his pointy hat from his head and flung the headgear to his desk. He rubbed his temples with a weary sigh.

“What exactly were you attempting to do?”

“Just a small experiment to construct a more stable inter-dimensional portal.” Paulus explained.

“More stable?” The dean raised a sardonic eyebrow.

“True, this particular configuration proved rather...fragile.”

“Fragile.” The dean let the description hang in the air. “Did you at least research this subject first? Or are you a practitioner of the school of thought that two weeks in the lab will save you two hours in the library?”

“Oh no! I followed Funkwaller’s procedures to the letter.”

“Funkwaller? Funkwaller?” The dean shook his head. “Funkwaller blew himself to kingdom come!”

“Is that why his notebooks are so scorched and smoky?”

A custodian in the hallway dumped a dustpan into a bin with a prolonged, tinkling clatter.

“Anyway,” Paulus concluded. “When the portal collapsed it must’ve propagated a shock wave through the aether of a resonant frequency to excite crystalline materials. Although glass isn’t technically a crystalline—”

“I am perfectly aware that glass is not technically a crystalline material. I taught you undergraduate magical material science, if you recall.”

“Yes, I do.” Paulus acknowledged meekly.

The dean consulted a parchment on his desk. “In addition to the window apocalypse across campus approximately a third of the orbs in the Department of Crystallomancy were cracked wide open by those shockwaves.”

“Did they really?” Paulus looked thoughtful. “They must’ve had hidden flaws. Wouldn’t get an accurate prognostication from those, anyway. Crystallomancy should thank me for uncovering the faulty ones.”

“Somehow, I don’t think they’ll see things that way.”

“Still, the ones that weren’t flawed will need recalibration. I can help with that.”

The dean chuckled. “I already offered your services. They don’t want you within a mile of their surviving crystals.”

“I supposed that’s understandable.”

“Someplace else you can’t go near is the potions storage cellar under Ponsonby Hall. No one can. It’s been roped off to restrain the curious, and heavily warded to contain whatever is brewing down there. You accidentally started another uncontrolled experiment when some unknown number of ingredients leaked from shattered bottles and jars to mix on the floor. Greenish smoke, foul odors, and ominous sounds have been wafting out ever since.”

“My portal experiment was not uncontrolled.”

“Then what went wrong?”

“As near as I can tell, the aspen focusing staves weren’t properly seasoned. They started to arc. Then, half of them vaporized.”

“Why didn’t you use hawthorn staves?”

“Procurement insisted I use the lowest bidder.” Paulus shrugged.

The dean scrubbed his hand over his face in frustration. “At least nothing came through the portal in the brief time it was open. Who knows what hellish realm it led to.” Something about the quality of the silence from Paulus made the dean eye him with dread. “Nothing came through. Right?”

“Well...”

“What” The dean demanded. “What fresh horror afflicts us now?”

“His name is Bubba. And he’s from somewhere called,” Paulus consulted his notebook. “...Texas.”

The forlorn glass clinging to the doorframe chose that moment to surrender to gravity and crash to the floor.

END.

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The School of Magical Engineering serial will be housed here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/the-school-of-magical-engineering

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

Check out my novels at Histria Books https://histriabooks.com/product-tag/ray-tabler/ and on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ray-Tabler/author/B09H62RZB9

• The Diesel-Powered Starship (due for release in September 2025) https://histriabooks.com/product/the-diesel-powered-starship/

• A Grand Imperial War (Book 1 of the Grand Imperial series) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-war-grand-imperial-series-book-1/

• A Grand Imperial Heir (Sequel to A Grand Imperial War) https://histriabooks.com/product/a-grand-imperial-heir-grand-imperial-series-book-2/

• Fool’s Paradise https://histriabooks.com/product/fools-paradise/

And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!