Chapter 32: Chapter 27: Scientific Progress goes “fwish”

 

 

Just like last time the local lord, colloquially known as “Mary’s brother,” and several guards showed up to retrieve is wayward daughter. We met him in front of the house to hand off the troublemaker. While it was starting to get closer to winter, my new clothes, made out of heavy wool, helped to cut the chill. It really is hard to beat proper wool for clothing.

The lord was wearing a red outfit today, with details done in gold thread. I’m not sure if it’s just a requirement of his position, but he seemed to put a good amount of detail into outfit coordination, at least from the two times I had seen him. I’m pretty sure the knights with him were the same from last time, same for the bookish guy who seemed to be an aide of some sort

“Ms. Rose,” he spoke. What was his name again? I wanna say ‘Steve.’ “Thanks once again for helping to save my daughter.”

“It was no problem, sir.” I replied. Maybe something like your Lordship might be more fitting, but I usually default to “Sir” or “Ma’am” out of habit. I guess that might have different implications in a world with such a prevalent system of peerages, now that I think of it, but I really can’t be bothered to care too much.

“James, here.” Mary said, reaching up to hand him the letter. “I trust you’ll take care of this for me. My dear apprentice was almost hurt in your city, from one of the guilds in your domain that’s been running amok.”

“What does amok even mean- never mind I’m sure it’s one of those mundane-world sayings you use so often… Naturally the culprits will be dealt with. They attacked my daughter, after all. As to why my daughter was outside my manor to begin with; I’ll be giving her a stern talking to when we get back.” He turned to face me. “Once again, Ms. Rose, I’m sorry for what my daughter has put you through.” He said as he passed Mary’s letter off to gambeson guy. I must have missed the first time he apologized for her behavior.

“It’s fine, sir. I’m just thankful to have your help in dealing with the aftermath of all this.”

“I had previously asked you if you’d be interested in working as a guard for me, but now that I have a firmer grasp my my daughters...focus...on you it seems it’s for the best you turned me down.” He glanced over when he noticed Mary glaring at him. “I guess it must run in the family.” he mumbled, softly enough that I wouldn’t even have heard him had it been two weeks ago. It seems learning magic has started to cure my tinnitus, of all things. Sweet.

“Well, James, you probably shouldn’t keep your staff waiting too long. And I’d imagine Emeralda is worried sick over Liz being away from home again.” Mary seemed impatient to have him leave.

“I know. I will say one thing though, it’s convenient that when she does run away, it’s always to here. That makes things much easier on my end. Thank you for watching out for her.”

“Just try and keep her on a shorter leash. I don’t want constant interruptions getting in the way of me and my apprentice.”

The lord gave her a flat stare for a moment before answering. “Naturally. I’ll see you later.”

“Goodbye.”

We stood there a minute, watching them ride off into the treeline. Then, Mary turned to me, a slight gleam in her eye.

“It slipped my mind with all the drama, but I finally got the final ingredient for that spell I mentioned!” None of the uncomfortable feeling from before remained. “Wanna try it out?”

I thought it through for a minute. If I was remembering what she was talking about correctly, there was no way this would end well.

“Sure, it sounds like fun.”

---

And so we found ourselves outside one of her workshops, a pile of powder in a metal bowl on a table. The powder looked kind of black-ish, but not in the way I was used to black powder looking. It also seemed as fine as powder. Also not how I was used to seeing black-powder. We were about ten yards back, sure to be safe for that amount of powder, but that’s only if it’s the kind I know.

“Mary, that...spell… you said you were following, what did it call this again?”

“Serpentine.”

So the ancestral form of gunpowder. Rather than being properly corned and pressed like more modern stuff the ingredients, potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal, were just ground up by hand and used as-is. That said, it wasn’t like it didn’t work, just that is was kind of shit compared to more modern stuff.

“Okay Rose, I’m going to set it off.”

“How? Oh, right.”

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She reached her hand out towards the bowl. There was a quick flare, a large puff of smoke, and a harsh “fwish” noise as the powder burnt up. Disappointment flashed across Mary’s face.

“Some of the other spells I tried worked much better. All the effort just for a little ‘fwish’...” She said in a forlorn tone.

“It’s not exactly a spell. Plus the results are much more impressive if it’s in some sort of...actually, I was going to sketch out the plans for that later.”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“Gunpowder? Of course I have. Ever since ammo prices shot up and the Goex plant shut down I even considered getting an FEL so I could make some for personal use. You skipped out on a bunch of steps. Honestly I kind of had assumed you had the more modern instructions for this. I mean, you do keep something far more dangerous by the front door. Oh, do you have any more mixed up?”

She ran off into her workshop, bringing back a large bowl. I checked and, thankfully, the bowl was made out of brass. It’d be really bad if that much caught a spark, obsolete Serpentine or no.

“Thanks. Now, could you grab some distilled spirits? The more spirit-y the better. Oh, and a brass mixing rod.”

It seemed at least for the moment, our roles as master and apprentice had been reversed. Normally I would have been content with letting her experiment with this on her own more, but my thoughts about getting a rifle the other day were nagging at me. And I can’t fulfill my dreams of a long-hunter LARP if I don’t have proper powder.

Mary quickly returned with the alcohol and mixing rod, eager to see what I was going to do with it. I poured enough on the powder to get it wet, slowly stirring until it turned into a paste. The excitement in my dear teacher’s eyes urged me onward. Kind of a shame really, since the next step is to press it into a cake and let it dry. Actually…

I pulled Mary back to what I guessed would be a safe-enough distance, no need to be too precise since OSHA doesn’t exactly exist in a fantasy world, and began to concentrate. Much the same way as with brewing, I chose to use magic not so much as a complete cheat to will things into existence, but more of a short-cut. But, since I can’t exactly be sure what weird mystical energy would do to a block of gunpowder, I felt a little bit of caution was justified.

Going back to the bowl, I saw the paste had solidified into a dense block. Groovy. Now for the “fun” part. Using the rounded end of the brass mixing rod as a pestle and the brass bowl as a mortar, I began to grind the dried block down into granules, praying the whole time that nothing bad would happen. After all, the origin of the term “Mortar” for the kind of artillery supposedly comes from a similar incident, with a monks mortar causing a spark that sent his pestle flying into the ceiling. The amount I was mixing here likely would see my fingers flying with it.

Once my task was finished, I measured about the same amount of serpentine Mary had set off earlier into the smaller bowl. I was skipping the whole step of grading the powder for consistency, but this is more of a pyrotechnic display anyways.

“Mary, could you put this back in the workshop? We really don’t want this to catch any fire or sparks.”

She nodded, carrying it off. When she returned, we took up positions away from the bowl. This time it was my turn. I willed a spark into the small pile of corned and pressed powder on the table. It still was just a flash of smoke and fire, but it was much larger.

“Oooh!” Mary shouted. “It’s still not as impressive as the explosion magic we use, or that other recipe I tried, but it looked prettier!”

“It’s all about how you use it! Hold on, let me explain it further. Do we have paper inside? I’ll put on some water for coffee first.”

I dragged Mary inside, getting ready to talk her ear off about the wonders of deflagration and how it can be used to launch small lead balls at stuff from far away… it sounds kind of stupid when you explain it that way, but I’m sure she’d find it just as interesting as I do.

---

After a long day of discussing various bits of technology with Mary, I dragged myself into bed. She may be weird, but at the core of things it seems like we have a lot in common. It could be argued whether things like making obsolete firearms in a world of magic may not be the most productive use of time, but we both enjoy talking about it so who cares.

It may sound weird but I was really starting to feel comfortable here. There may have been a lot of trouble to deal with, but learning magic and spending time with Mary was fulfilling, and gave me a sense of meaning I didn’t have back in my previous world. I’m starting to think that coming here, on its face unfortunate, has in the long run been positive for me.

I listened to the light breeze and the noises of the night that could be heard. Then, faintly, I made out noises that didn’t quite fit with the sounds of nature.

“Rose Snyder...where are you...”

I froze for a moment. You know what? I’ll just ignore that.