Chapter 3

Before lunch had been served Dusty had already spoken with the King.

Even though he tried hard to keep the crystal phones they created a secret from the public, the King while bragging about them, had shown his off to a few of the nobles and visiting dignitaries.

That was enough to spark a huge interest in them.

Suddenly it was seen as a favor to the crown to have a few people outfitted with them, and a few others tried to curry huge favors with him to get one. Dusty and his friends kept getting more and more money for this idea, even though he never wanted it to get out. Because they all helped in the testing he split the money received four ways.

Lori, before the phone craze happened, was frustrated by the fact that often times when she wanted to call someone, if they were either on their phone or she had to call more than one person at the same time, she had to always make multiple calls.

So she figured a way to use a normal communication crystal as a base and have it relay and open multiple calls to multiple phones at the same time. That way she could have conversations with a lot of different people at the same time.

In doing this the phones lost their 3-D images of who was speaking, but in return they could speak with multiple people at the same time. Though one on one calls still showed the images of the person they directly spoke with.

When she showed this new development to Dusty he was blown away that she had even thought about this, and he asked her how she came up with the idea for "conference calling". Lori had no idea why he called it that, but to her it made it as good a name as anything else to call it, so she went with that name as she described her thought process.

She had three crystals stationed close by, one in her home, one at the Castle, and one at Dusty's home for redundancy and to have access to three separate sessions. She called them crystals one, two, and three. As a favor to the King and Queen, and to keep peace, theirs was called one, Lori's two, and Dusty's three.

This way Lori could talk to all her friends at the same time without having to be there or chain call.

But only certain people got these phones as Lori didn't like the idea of having it get out yet, and it helped limit how busy it would be. Thanks to how Dusty's spell interface worked, so far no one had figured out how to unravel the spells used behind their phones design, and so no one even knew where to begin making any form of knock offs of them.

For now they had a lock also on this beginning market. So far his liquor sales as well as his light bulb ideas were catching on. With no need for power, and with Charles and Lori's help, he finally found a way to incorporate green magic to power the bulb.

It would run until the filament burned out, but it was good enough that short of damage it was good for about six months. Since materials were cheap he could afford to outfit the homes of wealthy first and others later.

He wanted to offer them to everyone, but basically only the wealthy was interested in the idea first as a status symbol, though he knew that eventually everyone would want one as soon as they saw how practical they could be.

But Dusty really liked how Lori was expanding on his ideas. Once she was let loose with something she had interest in she seemed to take it to the next level easily.

She had also found a way to clean up his spell interface so that it was easier to use and more command friendly.

Thanks to her Dusty only had to load the names of the components once in his personal interface in the language of the mages, and then once finished he could make a spell using something that was in English and that he was more familiar with. It made building his spells far easier and more intuitive.

This way he could build spells with actual words he knew and not translate them into something that he had to remember based on what they were in magical language. It made experimenting with spells much easier as well.

But this was far too dangerous to get out.

One of the checks with magic was that it was tedious and time consuming to learn all of the ins and outs of magic and how words and components interacted with everything. But something like this would take most of that effort out and anyone with power wouldn't bother to learn the basics before they were unleashed on the world.

Dusty thought about hackers from his world who used tools made by other more experienced hackers to cause problems. He didn't want that happening here and so he and Lori kept this little development to themselves.

So far Lori was able to expand on various things because she had nothing but time on her hands right now, because she already had her third child with Mark by the time they had Marilyn.

They already had children who were five, four, and now a three seasons old, so at times Dusty wondered if she was trying to get all of her kids out of the way early and then concentrate on "sexing" Mark into an early grave.

For a while it seemed that every time he spoke to her, she seemed to be either pregnant or just finishing her plans of a new idea for something they were working on jointly.

Not that it was a problem, but she never seemed all that interested in motherhood when they adventured together. Now she was doing everything in her power to have a family and the down time gave her access to working on many various projects she had in mind.

But either way, they didn't see Lori as much any more as they used to, but they did talk to her a lot via the crystals. Dusty just knew it would be a matter of time before she came up with the spell, components, and requirements for converting everything over to telecommunications on a massive scale.

She was just too smart for her own good it seemed.

After speaking with the King and telling him that they were planning on a spring wedding he asked about how he and the Queen were doing.

The King relayed that the Queen, as hard as it was to believe, seemed to be Marie's new best friend, or was trying hard for the position. She was always calling and speaking to Marie on her phone throughout the day, inviting her over, and generally going out of her way to spend a lot of time with her.

At first Marie was suspicious of her behavior, but over time the Queen seemed to be sincerely winning her over. The more he watched her the more he realized that Marie was the closest thing the Queen ever had to a friend, and so he encouraged it.

It also didn't seem to hurt that the Crown Prince was publicly announced to be the betrothed of Marie and Seth's oldest child Samantha. Marie also was also currently expecting another child in a few months.

But the crown prince had just turned six to Samantha's four, and even at her little age she shared many of Marie's facial features. Enough that one could be sure she would look a great deal like her mother as she got older. The Queen was very happy with this fact and the outcome of their expected union. She counted on Marie and Seth's ties to be the same ties that bound the others to her son.

The royal couple also had a new daughter that was the apple of the King's eye. He took to walking with her in his arms every chance he got, and even though it distressed the nanny and wasn't seen as very "Kingly" for him to do. He always said that he didn't really care and then said "He was the King after all" and that was always that.

While talking with Dusty the King had mentioned that everyone was doing well and he was happy to hear about Anita finally making her choice and he approved of the young Baron as the one she settled on. He then joked and said that maybe all the other young men could get their minds back on their own lives now that she was taken for.

Somehow Dusty doubted that they would give up so easily when he said that. Something told him there would be a lot of desperate last minute callers trying to changer both of their minds on her choice.

Before he signed off the King asked if Dusty had spoken to Daniel lately, and Dusty was caught off guard by the question. While Rachel and Suzan spoke a few times a week, it had been a few days since anyone had talked to them.

It seems the King had been informed yesterday that Daniel and Rachel's oldest daughter, who had just turned six seasons old a few days ago, had started to show signs of being a magic user.

She was already being trained in the basics by her father in the use of weapons that she seemed to take quietly easily too, and the King mentioned that her three season old brother would have to wait until he was older to handle a sword but did show the same eagerness she always had. Although the king also noted that the boy had already shown some shocking strength for one so young.

But it seems that the King had said that Daniel had mentioned to him that one of the chambermaids had told him that she had seen her hands glowing red after she was angered about being asked to pickup after herself in her room.

Startled by this new information Dusty promised to ride over and check on Daniel and Rachel as they were his other closest neighbors.

Dusty started to wonder if little Amber really was going to be a Battlemage and if so he needed to check into it quickly. Daniel must be keeping this information close to the vest as a way to protect her. Though with her younger brother being a strong as he is at three it's not like either of them will be able to hide from the attention as they get older.

Thinking about the child, Dusty could see that even at five she had rich yet thick auburn hair, which she often wore in a ponytail to keep it out of her face, and with her father's same emerald green eyes and deep dimples. She was an impossibly cute little thing.

Dusty could see by her little face, which looked a lot like Rachel's that she was going to be a heart breaker when she got older.

Amber also often played with his son Logan, but she seemed to have very little patience with him or others her age when they made mistakes. She always seemed to act older than her five seasons old and expected the same from others around her.

Dusty often wondered if that would change as they both grew up, and maybe they might be destined for each other, but for now they fought like cats and dogs.

But regardless, someone who might be a Battlemage would need to be protected if they were being preyed upon by anyone. He would have to alert the council and Melkin. They were still angry with him for his various inventions.

They said that they brought him to stop the spread of this "technology" from his world, not have him increase it. While they grumbled from time to time over what he was doing they still didn't actively do anything to stop what he was doing.

Dusty couldn't understand why they had such an aversion to his making everyone's life easier. There were some things he would never bring here, such as the weapons he had fought a few seasons back, but other things would make life more convenient.

But still they fought him at every turn on his ideas. Why were they so resistant he wondered?

Though this time he would need to talk to them about this before it became public knowledge to soothe some ruffled feathers and make sure he had their support in protecting Amber if she indeed was a Battlemage. That and she needed a teacher now, and Melkin would be the choice he insisted on, as well as making sure everyone understood she was under his protection.

Though before any of this happened he first planned to have lunch with Brian and then ride out to meet with Daniel and see if what he heard about Amber was true.

Coming out of his office he was thinking about various things he needed to do that day when he ran into his wife who was looking for him.

"Dusty, Brian is here and he's nervous as a cat in a new environment. He's already asked to speak with you and also asked for me and Anita to be there as well," said Suzan with a smile.

"I bet you know what he's here for right?" said Dusty with a smile.

"Now now, don't spoil all his efforts and hard work. It takes a lot to seek the hand of a family member from someone so famous and so dangerous at the same time. It speaks volumes since he's the only one of her suitors to even try," said Suzan with a smile.

Dusty smiled back and reached for her hand and he gave it to him. Hand and hand they then walked into the parlor.

At their quiet approach they could see Brian seated next to Anita and holding her hand while she was smiling at him as he softly spoke to her. During that moment his whole world consisted of her.

Upon entering Dusty waited a moment and then cleared his throat.

Brian jumped up like he was kicked and looked at Dusty and Suzan.

"Lord Reynolds, Lady Reynolds, thank you for welcoming me into your home and granting me the privilege of seeing Lady Anita," said Brian haltingly.

Smiling Dusty waved him back at his seat on the couch, but he knew that Brian wouldn't take a seat until Suzan had seated herself first.

After Suzan was seated in a chair next to Dusty both Brian and Dusty took their seat.

"So Brian, how many times have I told you already to call me Dusty? So what brings you by this fine afternoon?" asked Dusty with a knowing smile.

He was curious if Brian would go through with his obvious plans for being there.

"Sir I ... well we ... I mean I ... would like to talk to you ... I mean about ... well ... what you already know about ... I mean about Lady Anita and myself. I ... would like to again formally request her hand in marriage," said Brian all in a rush at the end as he looked at Dusty almost pleadingly.

The poor boy was flushed but determined and Anita smiled and reached out and held his hand as he spoke. He seemed to gather strength from that.

"Well you know, the King and I were talking about that just this very morning, about you and Anita I mean," said Dusty with a smile as he leaned back in his chair.

He sat for a moment with his arms on the arms rest of his chair, fingers bridged in front of his face and smiled at the two of them sitting in front of him on the couch.

Brian, though desperate to know the outcome, sat and waited for the conversation to continue as befitting a member of royalty, even though it was a lower branch.

Anita as well seemed to be barely containing her interest in knowing the answer as well. With Brian being a ranking noble, the crown had to be notified of impending marriages incase they had other plans for the noble in question. She worried that the king had said no because he had plans to marry Brian off to someone else that would benefit the crown more.

Suddenly, Suzan quickly leaned over and smacked Dusty hard on the right thigh. The sound reverberated loudly in the silence of the room and caused Dusty to jump in surprise.

"Dusty you better stop if you know what's good for you. Tell them what you know already," said Suzan frowning as she returned to sitting upright.