As some of you may know... I got slammed at work this past week, or really, a week and a half. Basically, the highlight was being able to end a day at 10 pm instead of running into the next day. I was hoping to get back on the saddle for this Sunday, but I mismanaged my Saturday and ended up getting called in to work a full day today. This coming week is still going to be rough, but I should be able to get the chapter up this upcoming weekend. Meaningless words below because the site, to my knowledge, doesn't have functionally for annoucments. “That’s a bold assertion,” she replied in a distracted manner. She went back to her box and began searching its contents. Extracting a file, she kept it angled away while she read it. “It’s also not one to be carelessly thrown about.”“Do I look careless to you?” He hadn’t realized how that sounded before he heard the words come out of his mouth. “Comment on that at your own peril.” Wait, no. Cal shook his head and reminded himself not to threaten the person he was trying to solicit help from. “What I mean is that there’s a little voice in the back of my head yelling that there’s more here. Are you telling me you don’t hear the same thing?”She continued reading the file, flipping through pages slowly. Cal wasn’t sure if he was getting through to her. Did he have to be so vague? He wondered about that. His hand reached for his pocket, only to hesitate. “What do you make of this?” He flicked the core over to her, getting over the hurdle in his mind. Janice caught with her gloved hand. She held it in her palm and looked at it pensively.“A nearly depleted core? I presume it was taken from your Magical Engineering class.” (...)