Holly felt frustration beating behind her eye in time with the metallic clangs. Above her, zipping around her lab at a speed no multi-ton object should be able to move, was a cannon. A full arcane cannon. Flying like the worlds largest insect above her head. It was not meant to be flying, but something in the construction process had gone wrong. Holly couldn’t even begin to guess what could’ve broken or been set wrong or enchanted wrong to make a simple, run of the mill, cannon fly. Honestly, Holly would be impressed with herself for such a feat if she had been trying to produce that effect.

The cannon slammed into one of her work benches, sending the tools and projects there flying. Literally flying. The damned cannon was now spreading its acursed ability to fly! Wrenches and rune-grafts and nuts and bolts and the entire table were now flying after the cannon, like some arcanotech meteor swarm, slamming back up into the upper reaches of her workshop. There was little she could do but watch as what was a hard task became an impossible one. Even if she had the strength to wrestle the cannon back down the ground, she would be cut up by the smaller projectiles around it before she could do anything meaningful.

The sound of hinges drew her attention, and she watched in horror as her partner hit the floor just barely in time to miss the cannon and its entourage as they rushed through the new opening. Holly could hear screams and crashes start outside as the swarm made a break for freedom. It was probably gathering more flying friends, too, and Holly prayed it didn’t hit a person. If they lived through the impact, Holly had the sneaking suspicion they would be stuck flying until someone managed to disenchant the cannon.

“… I am going to go out on a limb there and say that was not part of the plan.” Her partner, the love of her life, said, voice dry as bone.

“No. No, it was not,” Holly said back. “How mad do you think the professor will be?”