“Provided you close the cover!” barked Buster.

“Drat.” Boomer wiped thick threads of egg from his mustache as he stared up at the showroom’s new skylight. “But still, we’re all unsinged, right? Nobody’s on fire, hey? And look!” He reached into the bag and produced three unblemished eggs. “Perfectly safe. Provided you close it.”

Gorm whistled as he climbed back into his chair. “We’ll take six.”

“There’s only three in existence.” Boomer accepted a towel from a helpful attendant. “You can have two.”

“Fair enough,” said Kaitha. “Got anything exciting to put in it?”

Boomer and Buster stopped cleaning the egg off themselves and shared a sidelong glance.

“Should we?” asked the Scribkin, a hint of a smile twitching his mustache.

“If it wasn’t the dragon…” Buster said uncertainly.

“But it is!” laughed Boomer. “Wait here!”

Buster addressed the mages as the Scribkin darted from the room. “You’re familiar with the principles of arcane oscillation?”

“That’s the theory that you can use low magic to send waves along threads of sorcery,” said Laruna.

“If done correctly, some mages believe it may have exciting applications,” said Jynn. “But it’s just theory.”

“And if you do it wrong…” Laruna made a worried face.

Buster nodded. “Exactly. Except it’s not doing it wrong if you’re hoping for a chain-enchantment to create force distortions in the weave.”

“Ohhh,” Jynn and Laruna said in unison, their voices dipping low and their eyebrows rising high.

“We found that you can prime an oscillating reaction along threads of magic within an occult sphere,” said Boomer.

“What’s an occult sphere?” asked Kaitha.

“An occult circle in three dimensions,” said Jynn.

“Like this one!” Boomer returned carrying a small, shimmering ball, bound with two grooved, brass bands crossed over each other at the poles and covered in runes and mystic symbols. The surface of the sphere between the bands alternated silver and gold in a checkered pattern. “I give you the Occult-Primed Arcane Oscillation Explosive. This one’s inert, of course. Just a demonstration model.”

On the edge of perception, Gorm heard the gentle whisper of every muscle in the room relaxing a hair.

“To arm it, you twist like so until the colors are aligned.” Boomer gave the ball a turn, and the brass band around the sphere allowed the halves to rotate. Another twist, and the explosive was half-silver, half gold, bisected down the middle. The Gnome set it on the podium. “Once it’s ready, all it needs is an external stimulus to detonate.”

“Like what?” asked Heraldin.

The Gnome shrugged. “Almost anything. A fire. A smaller explosion. Drop it. Cast a spell on it. Look at it cross-eyed, ha! That last one wouldn’t set it off. Probably. But it won’t take much.”

“So… can we throw it?” asked Heraldin.

“Oh no, the OPAOE ain’t for a fight. You want to be well away from it when it goes off. Very limited combat applications. Like a suicide mission.”

“Or tossing it down a deep chasm,” suggested Buster.

“Or if you come across, say, a cavern with a hive of Dire Spiders, this will take care of it.”

“The entire hive?” asked Gorm.

“The entire cavern, I should think,” said Jynn.

“If not the entire mountain,” said Laruna.

Heraldin whistled.

“Well, that’s a bit extreme,” Buster said, then thought for a moment. “But I wouldn’t set it off under the city,” he conceded.

“Or anywhere in sight of people you care about,” said Boomer.

“So how do we use it if we can’t throw it or look at it?” asked Gorm.

“I thought you’d never ask! Let’s go to the next podium.” Buster’s crest quivered with excitement as he scurried to another station, where attendants had set up a small blast shield and a flat, brown box set on the podium.

The Gremlin flipped the top of the box open and selected a cigar bound with gold foil and topped with a rounded red cap from a row of identical cylinders. “This may look like an ordinary cigar,” he told Gorm, “but it’s actually a remote detonation device. You just twist the blast cap off like so, and place it next to your charges.” He expertly removed the red tip of the cigar and handed it to an attendant, who hurried off to set it in place behind the blast shield. “Then, travel as far away as you like—the enchantment will hold anywhere from here to Chrate or Ruskan. And when you’re ready, you smoke the cigar down to this red line.” He pointed to a thin strip of scarlet foil a little way down the cigar. “Like so. Boomer?”

“With pleasure!” The Scribkin accepted the cigar, then gave it a few deep puffs as his partner lit the end with a small wand of flame.

“Once the enchanted foil ignites, the blast cap will detonate, and so will your payload.” Buster shook out the wand. “You can detonate a bomb from anywhere!”

The heroes turned to the blast shield in polite anticipation.

The blast shield remained unmolested by fire or force. An intermittent chorus of uncomfortable throat clearing began after a while.

Gorm glanced at Buster. “How long does this usually take?”

“Two or three minutes, depending on how vigorously you puff,” said Buster. “I call it the smoke bomb!”

“I’m pretty sure that name is taken,” said Heraldin.

Boomer shook his head, sending clouds of blue-gray smoke twirling around his mustache. “I told you. I told you people would think of the other one.”

“It’s not trademarked!” snapped Buster. “Marketing can deal with the name when we get closer to wide release.”

“I like ‘exploding cigars,’ myself,” said Boomer.

“Does the cigar explode?” asked Jynn, leaning away from the Gnome.

“Aha!” Buster’s crest and dorsal ridges extended in triumph. “See? I told you people would think that!”

“But… why a cigar at all?” asked Laruna.

Gnome and Gremlin turned the full force of their flabbergasted scorn on the solamancer. “What do you mean?” asked Boomer.