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The triple-layered, fire-hardened oaken doors to the Hanover Brothers’ chambers in the uppermost levels of the Dungeons beneath the Tower stood sealed and double locked. They opened for no one, not even the Dungeonmaster. But the Dungeon Wranglers were not away on one of their epic hunting trips. The iron-bound portal barely muffled a massive but indistinct ruckus; the Brothers were in, the doors locked solely for the safety of the other denizens of the Tower as they conducted yet another perilous experiment in the name of Science!
A stoppered aperture next to the doors provided access to one of the Scientists’ most recent innovations, consisting of a long tube composed variously of copper, horn, and sinew, curved and recurved, into which a person might speak. This tube extended so far and widened so much that anything spoken into it required a great deal of time to make its way from one end to the other; vibrating membranes further delayed transmission. As writing was not a talent usual to the staff of a Dungeon, and the Wranglers were too often too busy to take messages in person, such an apparatus was deemed necessary, and all Scientists allow that ‘Necessity is the Mother of Invention.’ With those facts in mind, the Brothers designed their message tube after a careful study of echo chambers and the mechanics of reverberation within in the dungeon itself: the practical result being that they received any messages spoken into the one end of the tube as soon as the stopper was removed from the other end, releasing the pent-up sounds.
Thus were found Melvin and Kelvin, the Hanover Brothers, grinning at each other over the wreckage of a spring-powered engine designed to mimic the power and tactics employed by the standard cave troll. They were identical twins, tall and broad and hairy. The only manner in which an observer might distinguish between the two was via their vocalization: Kelvin sang with a resonant basso profundo, while Melvin piped along with a warbling soprano that anyone only ever commented on once.
“The message tube is working quite well, is it not, my Brother?” Kelvin rumbled, wiping sweat from his dusky brow.
“Indeed,” Melvin piped, tightening the knot that bound his thick, kinky hair. “Another triumph for Science! It is a pity, however, that the reverberation baffles so distort the sound they record. Perhaps a subtle refinement of the second or third magnification chambers might be in order? That we might better know who leaves us our messages?”
“Your suggestion has merit, I think. But we are first presented with an immediate and undeniable opportunity to demonstrate the Power of Reason to a servant of the Dark Arts,” Kelvin said.
“Huzzah!” Melvin cried. “But pause a moment, my Brother. Can a fire wizard, by creating fire which is a source of light, be said to be a true Servant of the Dark Arts?”
“An interesting point.” Kelvin’s brow contracted, then he brightened and raised a single digit. “However, his fires are not controlled, and lead solely to destruction and disorder, which are the enemies of Reason, and therefore must lead to darkness. We must subdue his unrestrained fires that the Light of Reason may be preserved and spread.”
“Well said, my Brother! Oh! We can perform a real-world test of the pressurized water thrower!” Melvin said, excitement turning his voice into a mousy squeak.
“An even more thorough test of the Theory of Oppositions would perhaps include selkie urine,” Kelvin rumbled. “Perhaps a pair of hide shields soaked in that effervescent liquid will provide an efficacious alternative.”
The brothers grinned at each other over the pile of debris.
“Kelvin!” Kelvin sang in his deep, chest-rumbling voice.
“Melvin!” Melvin joined in with his pure, angelic tone.
“The Hanover Brothers, Masters of Adventure!” they sang together, and struck a pose that made their leather breeches creak. “Hurrah!”
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Some hours later, the Hanover Brothers marched out of their chambers, kitted up and looking grim and heroic, but all too frequently breaking into enormous grins. Melvin even whooped a little.
“Now, my Twin,” he piped. “It is time for us to once more strike a blow for Reason!”
“Yes! The Hanover Brothers will bring the Light of Science to the Dark Places of the World,” Kelvin rumbled.
“Huzzah!” they chorused together.
They turned and marched deep into the dungeons, eventually arriving at a pair of fire-scarred doors otherwise identical to the Hanovers’ upper level lair. The lock yielded to the Dungeon Wranglers’ key, and then the doors yielded to their shoulders. The scene that greeted them was straight out of the upper levels of Hell.
Diminutive horned figures like reptilian canines scampered around a wide space cluttered with makeshift buildings constructed out of whatever scraps of masonry, lumber and hide might be found. The air hung low with a pall of smoke drifting up both from the kobolds’ cook fires and from structures engulfed by a fire wizard’s attempts to force an exit. The kobolds squealed and yipped at each other in a frenzy, although whether in reaction to the Hanovers, the fire wizard, or their burning homes was unclear.
The brothers pushed the doors shut and nodded to each other; Melvin took a slightly forward position while Kelvin set his shield aside and started pumping furiously with the handle of the brass canister he’d carried from the lab. The noise of the koboldian panic easily covered the ferocious squeaking produced by a heretofore unrecognized design flaw. Both Melvin and Kelvin grinned at the realization. Once he wass satisfied with his efforts, Kelvin stepped forward and Melvin stepped back to complete his final preparations. They then advanced, brass canisters held behind urine-soaked shields while their right hands clamped off rubber hoses attached to the bottoms of the canisters. They squinted both against the smoke in the air and because it made them look more dangerous.
“Perhaps some kind of protective eyewear might be placed in our queue, Brother,” Melvin whispered.
“Yes,” Kelvin whispered back. “It’s necessity is well-demonstrated in this hostile environment.”
The kobolds by this time had quieted and found places to hide within the ruins of their little settlement. The brothers found their quarry near the rear of the chamber, next to a wide fissure in the wall. A tall man with a sharp black beard slumped against the wall, lost in the sleep of exhaustion. His robes had once been of the finest red silk, brocaded heavily with occult symbols, but were now encrusted with dirt and dung.
Melvin motioned his brother to take a flanking position, and once satisfied Kelvin was in place opened the nozzle of his canister. A stream of the purest double-filtered and recondensed water arced forth, fifteen feet long and following the mathematically predictable gravity-induced section, and struck the reposed figure forcefully. The wizard gasped and sputtered and waved his hands in front of his face as he tried to deflect the stream. Melvin closed the stopcock before the canister lost too much pressure.
“Now, foul user of Dark Arts,” he piped in his surprising voice, “Your powers are countered! Will you come quietly?”
The wizard scrambled to his feet, still sputtering. “What are you on about?”
Kelvin loosed a stream of water from where he crouched next to the wall on the wizard’s left side. He aimed for the wizard’s chest, succeeding in soaking the robes and cleaning a little of the grime from the silk. He also closed the valve before losing too much pressure.
“Verily, Evil One,” Kelvin belted out, “You are subdued by the powers of Reason! For you are quelled by….”
Melvin joined Kelvin as they sang together, “The Hanover Brothers, Masters of Adventure!” The straps on their armor groaned as they briefly struck a pair of powerful, manly poses.
The wizard wiped water from his eyes, saying, “You must both be completely mental.”
“Oh, so you still have some fight left in you?” Melvin said.
“I’ll show you fight,” the fire wizard muttered. His fingers flickered as he deftly described a few arcane symbols, and his hand became engulfed in flame. He bared his teeth and pitched a fireball at Melvin, who barely interposed his shield in time.
“Time for another application, my Brother,” Melvin cried as the fireball fizzled against the urine-soaked leather.
Kelvin responded by loosing another stream of water at the already wetted wizard. This knocked the bedraggled pointy hat from the wizard’s head. The wizard sputtered and flicked his fingers again, launching a ball of flame at Kelvin, who ducked behind his shield.
“And you, my Brother!” he shouted.
Melvin ducked around the edge of the shield and loosed a stream of water at the wizard, who by this time was wise to the brothers’ tactics. Even as the water struck him full on the chest, he called a rain of fire down upon Melvin’s head. Melvin looked up and lifted his selkie-shield just in time. The wizard prepared to take advantage of Melvin’s distraction, flicking his fingers again to launch a fireball at the soprano’s unprotected chest, when Kelvin loosed another stream of water, striking the wizard’s head.
“By the Powers!” the wizard shouted. “I’ve just about had it with you!”
His aim spoiled, the fireball sailed off over Melvin’s head and half way across the chamber, into a hut. There was a brief moment of yipping panic within the structure, followed by a mighty explosion. The blast toppled Melvin and several nearby huts.
Kelvin yelled “Melvin!” and started to run to his brother’s side, even as the fallen twin began to rise.
The Hanover Brothers noted that the temperature in the chamber was dropping even as the wizard produced ever more fire. It seemed to them each an important fact, but neither was presently able to pursue the line of reasoning due to the circumstances.
“That’s more like it!” the wizard shouted, throwing another fireball at Kelvin.
Kelvin moved his shield to intercept the spell and continued moving to his brother’s recovery. This fireball, far from exploding, dissipated with a quiet puff against the hide shield. Kelvin interposed his shield between them both as Melvin regained his composure and put out the few small fires that had started on his armor. Then Melvin added his shield to his brother’s to make a sort of shield wall, behind which the Scientists regrouped.
“Send your witless, spineless lackeys to face me, will you? Eh, Kaerghil? Too cowardly to defend your own Tower?” The fire wizard’s words were punctuated with a constant stream of fireballs. “You don’t deserve it! I’ll deal with them and then I’ll deal with you and this Tower and its secrets will be mine!”
“I think we might investigate the effect of more pressure, Brother!” Melvin piped, and he started pumping furiously. “Perhaps the resulting increase in applied volume will prove more efficacious!”
“An excellent hypothesis, my twin!” Kelvin said, and he followed suit.
The fire wizard meanwhile tossed fireballs with wanton abandon. Where they were on target and impacted the shields, they dissipated harmlessly. When the incendiaries intersect a kobold’s hut, there resulted another great explosion. Soon not a single structure remained intact in the whole of the chamber.
“Where are you, Kaerghil? I haven’t fought my way for three days through these dank, infested pits of yours for nothing! I’ll have satisfaction!” The fire wizard began to glow.
“Quickly, my Brother!” Melvin said, peering around the edge of his shield, “I believe yon magus is preparing a most potent finale!”
Kelvin poked his head up. “By the Science!” he cried. “I do believe you are correct. However, I do not find in myself a desire to test this hypothesis. Let us dispatch the blackguard swiftly!”
“Agreed, my Brother!” Melvin said. “Ready? Go!”
The Hanover Brothers whipped their nozzles around the edges of their shields and hosed the wizard down most thoroughly. But rather than sapping his power, the streams of water simply evaporated into a cloud of steam. He shouted some unintelligible phrase of power and loosed a new specimen of more massive fireball, which exploded at the base of the shield wall. The Hanover Brothers were sent cartwheeling through the air and landed in a heap atop a pile of rubble, the bulk of their equipment scattered. For a dazed and head-shaking moment, they both feared they might have underestimated the wizard, that Science might at last taste defeat, but Lady Fortune smiled upon them a little and they retained their shields.
Seeing their disposition, the wizard threw even more fireballs, cackling in a manner that suggested mental instability. The temperature in the chamber fluctuated between freezing cold and scorching heat in a manner that guaranteed the onset of an influenza in the survivors, should there be any. The Hanover Brothers were pinned down, often literally, beneath their shields. Then probability caught up with the fire wizard, and one of the uncontrolled fireballs struck one of the abandoned brass canisters.
The metal instantly glowed cherry red on the top end, fusing the handle and the pump into immobility. The water inside as swiftly vaporized, “exceeding the operational parameters of the device, resulting in the failure of the seal between the hose and the canister. Finding only a single point of egress, the highly pressurized steam proceeded to spew from the half-inch wide hole thus provided, and in accordance with Mithandantolous’ Second Law of Expansion shoved the entire apparatus forward, and at an alarming rate. Instantaneously, the canister accelerated toward the wizard, bounced into the air, and transformed from a water-delivery system into a missile. It unerringly connected with the fire wizard’s head and proceeded through that object until stopped by a combination of an immovable object, to wit: the wall of the chamber, and an increase in system entropy, to wit: a complete loss of pressurized material.” At least, that is how the Hanover Brothers would later explain the matter to Kaerghil, the Dungeonmaster.
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Presently the Hanover Brothers picked themselves up off the pile of rubble.
“I’m a little miffed, Melvin,” Kelvin grumbled, brushing ash and dust from his armor.
“What troubles you, Brother?” Melvin said, likewise sprucing himself up a bit.
“Well, I should have thought our pressure canisters would have performed rather more effectively. The theory is sound, after all. Water opposes fire, and defeats flame in every bench test we’ve so far developed. So why did the canisters fail? Perhaps the magus had a Magick charm against his power’s mortal foe?” Kelvin walked slowly toward the headless remains of their opponent.
“That is a possibility,” Melvin piped. “But mind that it was not the canisters which failed us. They worked perfectly to plan, if I may say so. Apart from the squeaking.” He shook his head, promising himself to attend to that detail in due time. “Rather, it seems that it was the quality of the water which was lacking.”
“I think you have a point there, Brother. The Theory of Oppositions might be refined in light of this experiment by a distinction between the qualities of the opposing forces,” Kelvin said.
He kicked one of the selkie-shields, still intact and unharmed after a score of direct hits from the ex-fire wizard. He suddenly straightened. “However; I am suddenly struck by a thought concerning a modification of our design, as demonstrated by the fortuitous intervention of your canister between your body and that final fireball.”
“Indeed,” Melvin said, brightening. “The effects of steam as a source of motive energy were quite educational. I am certain we shall discover some means of harnessing this new insight.” They start walking back to the exit.
“I quite look forward to your thoughts, Brother,” Kelvin said. “Perhaps we should frame this as a challenge? See what a little friendly competition might spark in terms of innovation?”
“I quite like the idea, yes!” Melvin said, almost squeaking with excitement.
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The brothers’ conversation trailed off into the aether as the passion for Science! pulled them away from the scene of their most recent experiment and on to the next, inevitable innovation.
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