A Post-Magic World

 I'd always claimed that we had an over-reliance on magic. When only 15% of the population holds up the entire world, that's a problem. Even more so when that part of the population is treated as "elites" who don't have to follow the same rules the rest of us do. Even more so when they only use their abilities on causes they consider to be "worthy".
 So, I wasn't upset when the magic died. No one knows why it happened, since we can't use magic to investigate. One day, the second sun, the one that's known to emanate magic, simply went out, taking magic with it. Suddenly snatching away everything that holds up a people's standard of living is bound to make them angry, and the mages were an easy target. With excuses like "They used too much magic and used up the sun," or, "The sun didn't like that they were hoarding their magic as a political tool", most mages were summarily executed by angry mobs.
 It felt like I was the only one who kept a level head. Of course, that's a bit unfair. I was the only one who didn't eat magic-grown food, live in a magic-built house, or sleep on a magically-comfortable bed. I didn't travel with teleportation, I rode around on a dinky little vehicle I call a bicycle. Sure, it's not fast enough to travel between cities in any reasonable time, but I'm not exactly a world traveler in the first place. And once I added a small steam engine to it to help the wheels turn, it got much faster, despite the extra weight.
 So as the world burned around me, I kept working in my cave workshop outside the city. Occasionally scavengers would come by, and I'd offer them some of my crops, grown by irrigation and sprinklers. They're nowhere near as big and juicy as before the fall, but I doubt the farmers out there are doing as well as me after the art of agriculture had been forgotten for centuries. If any of them threatened me, or tried to take more than I could afford to give away, I'd give them a demonstration of my flintlock. That was usually enough to drive them away.
 One day, I guess a local settlement that cropped up got a bit too big for their britches and marched a small militia over to my place. Non-magical killing is an art that we kept over the years, not every member of an army could be a mage, though most were still used to being enhanced by mages. Anyway, as I watched the group approach from my telescope, I could tell these were former soldiers with real weapons and not some riff-raff.
 I considered blasting them away then and there, but decided against it. Instead, I let them approach until they were within earshot of my megaphone. "What do you come here for?" I asked them.
 They murmured amongst each other until one of them stepped forward, yelling with his hands cupped around his mouth so I could hear him. "Hermit, we hear that you have wondrous weapons hoarded here. We have come to confiscate them."
 I sighed. I was hoping they just wanted to learn to build my machines, knowledge that could be shared around the land, but they just wanted better ways to kill their neighbors. No one ever wanted to learn. No one even considered that their life could be made better without magic.
 I spoke into the megaphone, "I warn you against this. Turn back now, unless you want a demonstration of these weapons you covet."
 They marched forward, and I sighed. I estimated their position and looked over to my switchboard. It showed a map of the area around my cave, with holes in key positions I'd set up. I took out the pin strapped to the side of the switchboard and stuck it in the hole corresponding to the soldiers' position.
 There were a few survivors after the explosion. As it was only courteous, I tended to their wounds and carted them off to within eyesight of their settlement. Having to make more explosives and fill in all the land with dirt again was a huge pain, but no settlement ever bothered me again after that, so I'd say it was a good use of labor.
 As the years went by, I would always ask any passersby if they wanted to learn from me. Maybe, I thought, I could get an apprentice. But none would. Maybe they saw the merit in my inventions, and they would agree that they could make the world better, but in their subconscious they could not accept the idea of such a reality. To them, it was either magic, or crawling around in the dirt.
 I knew that, in a few generations, this mindset would die out. So I waited, and continued working on my masterpiece.
 I was a young man when the magic disappeared. Now I'm 88, and it's been 67 years since the fall. I completed work on the components last year, and began bringing them outside to assemble. Presently, I hammer in the last bolt, connecting the head to the torso. I open up the hatch in the chest, climb inside, and start the steam engine, a marked improvement on the one i first invented decades ago.
 As the various motors whir to life, I work the controls until my creation stands. My magnum opus, which I called a mechanized human, stands 36 feet tall. I pull the levers to move its legs, walking it towards the nearest settlement.
 With a demonstration like this, people won't be able to doubt my inventions any longer.