The Builder (The Young Ancients) by P.S. Power

a snap decision when he should take time to reflect. So yeah, weak acid, and no explosive weapons sold in the student store.
    The design, a stylized D with wiggly line after it – D for dry – turned out well on all but four out of the hundred. He'd make those anyway, and just give them to other students or something. Some of the other scholarship kids might want them, right? Or maybe the boy with the wash from the other day, since Tor hadn't shown him how to properly wring out clothing yet? For that matter he could just set one up at the wash area, so anyone could use it.
    That made sense.
    Then he took half of them back to his room for safekeeping and took the rest with him to one of the empty work chambers. The floor in the room was softer than his bed, which he knew firsthand helped a lot, especially if he wasn't going to be moving for several hours.
    Sitting on the deep red cushion, weight sinking in slowly for a few seconds, Tor set up the work space. The template went into the guide frame in front of him, of course, just like he'd done for class work. He had to adjust it to take the slightly oversized wood, but it worked after a few moments of tinkering. Then he counted out ten of the metal tiles and started to reach for the focus he'd need to make the transfer.
    The first set wasn't that hard, and the next two were only a little boring to do, not difficult in any way. After that things got rough. Tor felt tired already, and it wasn't even midnight yet. The fourth batch pulled at his mind. Really it was a feeling like waking up in the early morning and knowing that you had to use the restroom badly, but also feeling like you didn't want to bother moving. Normally when that happened he just waited, discomfort or no.
    Right now he couldn't do that. He had to keep his mind sharp and focus tight or else the copies wouldn't take, then all this work would be wasted, which would suck. The last batch ate at his mind, almost making him ache with boredom, but he kept at it until finished.
    Finally. It was good practice at least.
    Every muscle in his body screamed at him to stretch and move. Tor hadn't gone stiff yet, but everything inside told him that he should run away from this evil place before some meany came and made him do more of that boring work. He laughed a little as he walked out, his legs protesting just a tiny bit. His left ankle must have had some of the blood cut off to it, because his left foot was getting a pins and needles feeling. No numbness. It was interesting... Maybe just didn't notice that he'd gone numb because of the pain difference that came in trance? He knew that he didn't feel pain as much in a deep working state and some people could block out even severe pain that way if they started to meditate before the injury happened. It could be useful if he was ever being tortured. Hopefully he'd never have to find out if it really worked or not.
    As he walked back towards his room, the feeling got a little stronger. Then as he moved between the advisors' offices and the main class build, a wave of tingling hit him so hard it nearly took him off his feet. It didn't hurt so much as feel like he'd hit the back of his elbow too hard, his funny bone, only all over his body. His hands and feet went limp, weak. He could move them, but they suddenly felt like they lacked any kind of power at all.
    He stopped walking, wondering what heck this was. Had he made himself sick? Or... he couldn't think of anything that fit. Could he have transferred the field incorrectly or had one of the fields attached itself to him directly? That would be, well, not impossible, but highly unlikely. He'd been careful, even when he got bored. Besides this kind of field shouldn't make him feel like this. Maybe a medical device of some kind could, but his clothes dryer? Not likely.
    Torrence started walking again, as hard as it was, and noticed the two figures fighting as he got a little farther into the central commons area. He froze,