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Chapter Twenty Two:
Intergnoll Affairs
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It was a quiet afternoon, as they usually were these days. With most of the Adventurers working deep in the Dungeon from noon to nightfall, Hestia and I had the time to ourselves. The two of us, well, three if I counted Snarf, were up front today. She was buried nose-first in a massive tome written in incomprehensible hieroglyphs, blushing and giggling indecently to herself. At some point over the last month, she had taken up reading during the lulls. Taking the initiative to borrow books from Orario’s Great Library, if only to make her shifts pass more quickly.
Though I was suspicious of what kind of material she was really studying… mostly because I had caught her furtively slipping a much smaller, very pink colored book into her tome. But, as long as all the inventory was squared away and the customers were happy, I didn’t really care what she did when her work was done.
I was currently wrapping mithril Stator coils around magnets by paw. A boring, menial task that I should have automated weeks ago, but never got around to it. In an effort to get out of my stuffy workshop, which I could no longer open the garage doors and air out because of the cold, I decided to take my work out to the front of the store, where there was at least some natural light to enjoy.
We whiled away the afternoon in companionable silence, both doing our own things–until the door was thrown wide with a resounding bang; A familiar face staggering in from the cold. Dormul shut the door behind him with his back, face ruddy and nose running. Rubbing some warmth back into his hands, he looked up–his eyes finding me, and crinkling up with good cheer.
“Max!” He boomed, his voice carrying the barest twinge of a nasally cold. “By Odin’s scraggly beard–it's colder than a Frost Giant’s balls out there. How have you been, you big lug? It’s been too long.”
I huffed a laugh. “You were here just last month, man. And I’ve been good-” I lifted up the half-spun coil in my paws. “-Busy, but good.”
“Really?” He tilted his head, his grin dipping into something contemplative. “Huh, I guess you're right, it felt like it had been longer…” He shook his head, his smile coming back in full force. “Either way, being busy is better than being idle, eh? Or so my da’ always said.” He marched across the room–armor clinking merrily away as he leaned up against the counter.“Not complaining about the money, just wish I had some more time to work on my own projects,” I said, glancing over his shoulder to get a better look at my hammers strapped to his back. “Speaking of, how’s Equal and Opposite treating you? I hope you’ve been keeping up with their maintenance."
His grin turned downright feral as he patted a hand on Equal’s handle. “Like a dream, my friend. I haven’t had this much fun adventuring for years–I’ve been following that book you gave me to the letter–sacred oils and all, they deserve nuthin’ less. It’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.” He shot a furtive glance over to Hestia, who, after seeing that I would be handling him, had gone right back to reading. Presumably tuning us both out in favor of her risque novel.
Beckoning me to lean in, the dwarf cupped his hand, whispering across the table. “I just Leveled Up the other night, but don’t spread it around, yeah? Magni wants to keep it under wraps, so he can surprise the rest of ‘em at this month's Denatus.”
“Oh!” I perked up. “Congrats, man! Level Four, right?”
“Yup, finally broke through after being stuck for years.” He nodded, grinning madly over his furred collar. He cast another glance Hestia’s way before leaning even further in, his eyes hardening from their happy twinkle. “And it's all thanks to you, Max. I’d still be slogging my way through the Middle floors if it weren’t for these beauties.”
His voice dropped another octave, forcing me to swivel both ears around just to catch the last part. “The party won’t be ‘till after the announcement, but I was hoping you’d be willing to be there. It’d mean a lot to the Magni familia if you could find the time to attend, but no pressure, Max. We all know how swamped you are.”
A flash of happiness shot through me; The sheer warmth of inclusion was enough to bring a sincere smile to my lips. “I’d be honored, Dormul. Just give me a time, and I’ll be there.”
“Good man. I’ll get word to ya’ as soon as we figure out the details.” He straightened up with an ear-to-ear smile, crossing his arms over his chest. “Also, I’ve been leading full squads, kicking arse, and stacking more Valis than I know what to do with. But…” He rapped his knuckles against his chest plate. “The better I get using Equal and Opposite, the clearer it becomes that the rest of my kit is… lacking. So, I wanted to ask how much it’d cost me to get a full set of equipment.”
Falling into ‘business’ mode, I looked his armor up and down, and what I found was, indeed, lacking. The design of his chest plate was incomprehensible. It was just two curved plates that covered only the sides of his chest. The two panels met together at the collar line, diving back down in a gold-covered spike, forming an ‘M’ shape… which of course left two huge swaths of his chest totally unprotected by armor. Other than some greaves and the ubiquitous ‘giant pauldrons’ that all dwarves are required to wear, no exceptions, he had very little in the way of protection.
“Alright, what are you looking for, exactly? Just armor, or something more?”
“I want everything–new armor, new equipment, new clothes–the works.”
“Hm,” I hummed, cupping my chin in my paw. “Any preference for make? Are you looking for light armor, or something more substantial? And do you have an idea for how much you’re willing to spend?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m leaving it entirely up to you. Give me what you think I’d need. I trust ya’ to do me righ’. I won’t know how much I have to work with until after the party, but I could drop fifty mil’ now, so maybe a bit north of tha’.”
“Fifty, huh?” I slowly nodded. “I can work with that. Get ya’ some real armor, maybe some underlying mananetic enhancements, closed-helm visor, combat webbing on top–yeah, I’ve got some ideas. I’ll get started on drafting it up tonight, but I won’t be able to put a hammer to metal ‘till I'm done with Hephaestus’s workshop. Which I should be wrapping up in a week or two.”
“Works for me,” He said with a toothy grin. “Looking forward to it-” He stuck his arm out for a shake, which I gladly reciprocated with a bicep clap. “-Friend.”
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With my tongue poking out from between my teeth, I screwed the last mana-compressor into place, spot welding it into the assembly with a flash of Heat Metal. I gave the machine one last look-over before crawling back out from the engine compartment. Standing with a back-cracking stretch, I slammed the access panel shut and locked it. Padding my way over to the control panel for Hephaestus’s forge hammer, which I decided to name Lulu, I began flicking up the safety covers for the switches with a claw. I started flipping the priming switches in sequence, keeping a careful ear out as the forge hammer revved to life with a threatening, impatient growl. The air filled with the sweet scent of boiling ozone as mana roared down the mithril rails, causing the whole machine to vibrate violently, like a dog waiting for the command to sic ‘em.
With a fang-filled grin, I slammed the firing button home, and Lulu responded with an eager howl. The adamantine hammerhead shot down faster than a bolt of lightning, slamming into the anvil with a veritable tidal wave of sparks and an earthquaking boom. As the hammer slowly retracted back up to the ceiling, the iron ingot I had been testing the machine with fell off it–now a wafer-thin disk. The disk hit the anvil and rolled to the floor, spinning to a stop like a record.
My feral smile dropped down into a merely self-satisfied one as I throttled Lulu back into an idling purr and turned towards my audience. Hephaestus stood, expressionless, with her arms crossed and her sole eye laser-focused on the hammer as it slid back into its casing. At her side, Tsubaki was staring at me with her hands on her hips.
While both of them had already seen Betty and therefore knew what to expect, the same could not be said for the rest of their hangers-on. The members of Hephaestus’s familia who had wandered in to watch the demonstration were slack-jawed, looking around their new workshop with eyes wide open.
“I think that’ll do it,” I said, clapping my paws together. “One Artificer-designed workshop, as requested.”
The goddess of the volcano tore her eye away from the still-smoking Lulu and met my own. “So it is,” She paused, her head tilting to the side as she examined my face. “I’ll have the rest of your money transferred to your account by tonight, along with a bonus for the expedited delivery.” She stalked forward, her high-heeled boots clicking loudly in the echoing silence of the room. She ran a hand over the arching curves of a lathe, her fingers trailing a line through the sawdust left over from when I tested it.
Rubbing the grains of wood between her gloved fingers, her eye drifted back to stare at Lulu. “Will you be available to train my blacksmiths on how to operate and maintain these machines?”“Hell no,” I snorted derisively. “I’ve got my own shit to deal with; I don’t have time to babysit a bunch ah’ kids playing with dangerous toys.” I ignored the crowd bristling as I tossed my nose to the far wall, where I had taken the liberty to hang some PPE, along with a book thicker than my own fist. “Everything you need should be in that manual. If I were you, then I’d design a test around what's in it, and not let anyone even near this room until they can ace it–else you’re just gonna’ end up with a bunch of Adventurers with broken bones and missing fingers.”
“I’ll take your advice under consideration.” Hephaestus sighed, turning to face me fully. “What if one of the machines breaks down? Will you fix it?”
“If one breaks down, then sure. All my creations come with a ten-year warranty.” I readily agreed, before dipping into a severe frown. “But if you break it, then repairs will cost ya’.”“Fair enough,” she shrugged, before sticking out a hand. “Then I suppose our business is concluded for the moment, Max. Thank you for all your hard work.”
“I should be the one thanking you,” I accepted her hand and gave it a firm shake. “That money is going to be put to some real good use.”
Her lips twitched up into a rueful smile. “I don’t know if I should be excited or if I should flee to the hills.”
“Tell you what,” I said with a grin. “Be excited to see some cool shit, but if you see me running, then try to keep up.”
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I woke up the next day to find two and a quarter billion Valis dropped unceremoniously into my bank account. The half-breed elf who I’d been talking to looked like she was about to have an aneurysm when she saw the total. I’m pretty sure she did have a fit when I asked how much it’d cost me to buy all the property surrounding my house.While most of the buildings in the Black Districts were still marginally owned by private parties, like the rest of Hephaestus’s old forge, some had fallen back into the hands of the Guild itself–Either because the original owners died in the fighting, and it escheated back to the city, or the owners just sold it to the Guild for coppers on the gold coin just to rid themselves of worthless property.
Either way, that meant that there were a whole lot of buildings worth practically nothing, just sitting there and rotting away. And while I doubt Hephaestus would be willing to sell more of her old home, there were still plenty of buildings just across the road that would be perfect for my needs.
When I started negotiations with an opening offer of two hundred million, the half-breed was very quick to stutter out an apology and flee–running off to fetch her manager. I was soon ushered back into Royman Mardeel’s office. The obese elf showed none of the previous fear that colored some of our past interactions. Instead, he was all smiles and well-wishes.
He seemed to want to steer the conversation towards some public projects he had in mind that he wanted my input on, but eventually I was able to guide him back to what I actually cared about. He didn’t even haggle when I offered the same price for the rest of the buildings lining the street. In fact, I’d say he was even relieved to be rid of the things.
Well, his loss is my gain.
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“My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.”
“Oh, quit being so dramatic, you great big furball. It's not that bad.”
I harrumphed, petulantly glaring at Hestia over the tip of my nose–who hadn’t even had the good graces to stop reading that book of hers. “I was told, over and over again, that Evilus was a group of evil geniuses who terrorized the strongest city in the world with their inventions.”I jabbed an angry finger into the disassembled wooden box before me, glaring daggers at the unbelievably disappointing bomb. “This-This thing isn’t even fit to be called an IED! I’ve seen fuckin’ fertilizer bombs more complex than this!”
Over the course of surveying my new property, I stumbled across another intact Evilus bomb. This time around, I was a lot more careful in disassembling it; meticulously checking it over at every step for secondary and tertiary firing devices. And my reward for all my hard work? Two glowing rocks and a copper heating element.The firing mechanism was simply a copper wire connected to a Monster Stone, separated by a cork plug that acted as both the safety and the trigger. When the device was triggered, either manually or by tripwire, a spring-loaded piston would push the cork out of battery, allowing the wires to make a connection to a basic bitch ass Monster Stone. The raw mana would heat up the copper wire, igniting the actual payload.
-which was just a normal drop from a Deep-Dungeon monster, called a Kaenseki. The Kaenseki is just a crimson-colored gem that explodes when exposed to fire.
That was it.
It was just an over-engineered box that causes a magical MacGuffin, which only use is to explode, to blow up. With how much these things were hyped up, I was expecting to find some masterwork of enchantment or something. But instead, all I have to show after nearly getting blown up is a Ye Olde’ pipebomb. Hell, they didn’t even have the sadistic intelligence to load these things up with scrap metal to make them fragmentation bombs. They relied solely on fire and concussive force to kill.
My opinion on Orario’s own home-grown domestic terrorists was already low, for obvious reasons. But now it's sunk through the floor and straight down into the Deep-Dungeon, because now I know that they weren’t even good at being bad.Fuckin’ amateurs.With a disgusted growl, I picked up the Kaenseki I had scavenged and swept the rest of the parts into a nearby trash can, where it belonged. What a waste of time.
I was just about to throw the Monster Drop Item into my storage room and forget about it when an idea suddenly came to mind.
What would happen if I tried sanding one of these things down into a powder?
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I’d already earmarked the buildings I bought on the surface for macro-construction projects, vehicles, and the like. So I still needed a reinforced hard room to store my more volatile experiments in. My workshop had come with a basement, though at the moment it was little more than an unfinished cellar that I had been storing my raw materials in.
Based on the schematics of the building I was able to borrow from the guild, the sewer system was level with the basement. Meaning that there should be nothing below the floor, leaving me free to build a secret lair sub-basement to my heart's content.
So why, after taking a drill to break up the stonework and using Levitate to move the dirt out of the way, was I looking at a giant slab of adamantine bricks?
Only ten feet down, and the dirt ended abruptly–Replaced by a floor made up of the eye-wateringly expensive material. My original goal was swiftly tossed out the window as I turned to fully explore this mystery. Following the bricks, I dug horizontally. Chasing it well over fifty feet in one direction, until I figured I was standing somewhere below the main street, and even then, there was no end in sight for whatever this was. Deciding to go at this from a different angle, I started digging out the channel fully, discovering that whatever this was was frequently branching out into many different little side-channels at irregular intervals.
Only when I had dug out so much dirt that I was starting to worry I’d compromise the foundations of the building did I stop, and instead turned towards a different angle of attack–blasting my way into this thing.However, I had no way to currently get my paws on either aluminum or acetylene, so I’d have to get creative.
The next morning, I made my way to the Guild. Picking up all the materials gathered by my standing quest, I tore that one down and put up a new one: A request for as much Kaenseki as possible, with an offer to pay out for the stuff at fifteen percent above market value for expedited delivery.That very night, I found nearly a hundred pounds of the stuff sitting on my doorstep, all wrapped up in white cloth stamped with the insignia of the Guild, along with a letter from Royman himself emphatically telling me that in no uncertain terms would the Guild be storing enough explosive material to level a block on their property. Jumping right into it–I took out one of the crystals for testing, and dumped the rest into a barrel of water for safekeeping. My first thought for how to grind one into dust was simply bruting two of them together… but that plan almost immediately backfired.
Now sans my eyebrows, my second plan was to simply smash one flat using Betty.
The resulting explosion was magnificent, and definitely gave me some ideas on how to really weaponize Kaenseki, but I also had to spend the next half-hour picking out smoldering embers from my fur.
My third idea was to try a jet mill. A mock prototype was quickly assembled out of spare parts I had lying around, and a test nugget was thrown into the chamber. And as the universe dictated that comedy comes in threes, so too does it declare that the third try always succeeds. Running one of the gems through at a decently high pressure for an hour results in a coarse grain of crystal residue. Moving as quickly as I dared, I reduced my crystal supply down, and mixed the dust at a two-to-one ratio with clay plaster.After they dried, I took a few of the rolls of what I decided to name Compound-K and snuck out to a quiet part of the Black District. After giving the area a once-over to make sure that there were no squatters living in the nearby buildings, I found what was once a gaudy Greek-style temple, complete with Roman columns and faded marble stonework. I wrapped the rolls around each of the pillars and wired them all up to one black powder fuse. Lighting the end with a quick flash of Prestidigitation, I took off down the street–sprinting for my life.Diving bodily through the door of a random building, I curled myself up into a ball below one of the windows, tucking my head into my crotch with my hands, and making sure I kept my mouth fully open.
And I wasn’t a moment too soon, as I hadn’t even finished bracing before the night became day.
The resulting explosion was cataclysmic.
A deep, earth-shattering whump tore down the street, blasting through the window with a punch of bone-breaking force. The world shuddered like a wounded beast and groaned just as loudly. The building I was hiding in swayed dangerously, rocking back from the explosion as if struck by a firm backhand from the Almighty himself. Plaster and debris rained down from the ceiling in a blanketing, choking haze. Even with my mouth open and ears covered, I was not spared from the consequences of my own actions. The world faded away, replaced by the agonizing howl of tinnitus–Only to be brought back to razor-sharp focus as a wave of rolling heat flooded in–flames trailing behind and licking at the walls.
Then, just as quickly as it started, the flames died away, the flash-over crashing against the rotted, moldy wood and failing to find purchase. The super-heated air remained, however. Scorching my chest with every stabbing breath.I levered myself back to my paws with a groan and risked a glance over the window’s ledge. Even through the high-pitched whine in my ears, the sound of grinding stone was unmistakable. As the initial roar of the explosion echoed off into the rest of the city, the rolling thunder of collapsing masonry replaced it as what remained of the old temple collapsed into itself.And I mean ‘what remained’.
The front of the temple was simply… gone. Reduced to atoms.A massive crater was all that was left, one that was slowly filling with debris as houses lining the pit broke apart and slid in in miniature avalanches of glass and wood. With one final gasping wheeze, the temple gave up the ghost, shooting up another giant mushroom cloud of dust as the stonework finally failed.
Turning my attention away from what was supposed to be a controlled demolition to test Comp-K, I gave myself a quick pat down just to be sure I still had all my extremities. My whiskers were nothing but curled-up husks, and one ear was ringing louder than the other, but otherwise, I felt fine!
Better than fine!
A slow, rippling giggle built up in my belly, coming up and out as a mad cackle as the world finally settled back into stunned silence at the awesome power of something I cooked up in my basement over the course of an afternoon.
That cackle cut off abruptly, however, when I suddenly remembered why I was making Comp-K in the first place. Right, I actually needed to just cut open a wall, not erase it from existence.
Making a mental note to reduce the next batch down from two parts Kaenseki to one part clay, to one part Kaenseki to four parts clay, I skulked off into the night–eager to skedaddle before someone comes along to investigate who turned a city block into a parking lot.