Sigmund was lost in his work as usual. For several months now he had been working on a radium-powered engine, but was still having trouble regulating the power flow in the system. The only solution he had found so far required the use of water-manavices to stabilise the engine. Upon starting his latest test run, one of the water-crystals started whining harmonically and shattered in a shower of blue shards. The engine roared into overdrive, its restraints now removed. Sigmund swore as he hit the fail switch on the engine. He installed such a switch after the first problem caused him to wait five hours for the radium to deplete. "What happened to the bloody protection crystal? Why didn't that break instead?" exclaimed Sigmund. "Oh. It's broken as well." he said, finding a pile of white powder where there was once crystal. The lamp then began to glow brightly and followed suit.
He grabbed his coat and stumbled out of the now darkened RGIR workshop. There was a strange feeling in the streets that evening. People seemed more worried and hurried to get home. There was less friendly chatter and more huddled discussion. Of course, Sigmund didn't notice an of this as he strode through the streets muttering about "bloody unreliable manavices."
"Sigmund! How is my best customer?" greeted Alphred the crystalist. "I was just about to close up."
"I need another water-crystal carved, and a protection crystal. You still have my design specs? Oh, and another fire-crystal for my lamp. They just seem to break like nothing this last week."
"Always straight to business." joked Alphred. He fished out a replacement fire-crystal for the lamp. "I doubt I'll be able to carve your special requests for some time."
"What do you mean? Aren't I your best customer?"
"Yeah, but quality crystals are very hard to get since the Hades Caves disaster."
"The what?"
"Hades Caves... The mine that caused the great earthquake."
"I don't care where you get them from."
"That's the only place you can get them from. How can you not have heard about the earthquake? Don't you read the newspaper?"
"No! I don't care about trade talks with Franconia or who the Iberian Prince is shagging today."
"Here." said Alphred, tossing Sigmund a week-old newspaper. "It's on me."
