Chapter 7: 7.

Well, that was.... hasslesome. I didn't expect mom to actually start crying over me going to Academy. I mean, it's been known for years, why... No, nevermind. Moms gotta mom, that's the law of nature. Better just appreciate it for what it's worth. Father has to be in the capital to actually present all the new stuff to the king, get things recorded and licensed, settle new taxes, and while at it, maybe advertise the new and fancy things we're putting on the market. Oh, and if some of our neighboring lords are in the capital, maybe do some preliminary negotiations about expanding tar roads into their provinces. I will always think of the roads as asphalt, but for some reason that word didn't occur here, so people just call them earth tar roads or just tar roads. I mentioned tarmac, but couldn't properly explain what mac should mean and it didn't take off. Bother. My latest attempt was to simply call the roads blacktop, which did gain some traction, but tar road still remains the most popular.

Amusingly enough, we WERE visited by viscount DeGaulle (Seriously? Why so many familiar names pop up in unusual places.) who raved about the apparent quality of tar road, made inquiries if we were amenable to loaning him the expertise (We were, though he was notably flabbergasted on seeing how the process worked. According to him it is "so simple, yet so beyond convention".) and lamented I wasn't free to betroth to one of his sons. I'm not sure if he was jesting or not on the last one, but I am glad the betrothal with prince Ed is a thing right now. Otherwise, things would get hinky real quick.

Anyway, sitting in the carriage now. I had the foresight to pack portable table and writing materials, though apparently I'm somewhat bothering dad with my workbee tendencies. He had, by the looks of it, expected to lounge around. "What are you writing, Alyssa?" - he quips, apparently as comfortable as he can bring himself to be - "Also, I want one of those tables too. Writing in the carriage, why, merchants would turn their purses inside out for that kind of convenience."

"I'm summing up what I have achieved so far, so I could plan ahead. And writing down what I want to achieve but haven't been able to, so far." - I offer to him, corking the ink bottle securely, and wiping the quill tip. I really need to invent a biro. "Do you want to hear the list?"

He hums - "Actually, yes, it does sound like something I should hear. And we have plenty of time for that right now."

So I read out the list to him. It is as follows...

1) Metallurgy.

a) Dwarves - obtained, in process. Ensure they repopulate, collect as many stray refugees as possible. Community should be enough draw by itself, good living conditions and your own kin should sound like a safe harbor. And the only harbor, given everyone else seems to be less than inclined to let dwarves band together.

b) Forge Hall - in progress.

c) Quarry - Rocksaw V1 introduced. Allow for development of proper wire-drawing machinery before going for V2.

d) Mechanization - minimal, so far. Crank-driven bellows introduced. Points of interest to introduce - Vagran furnace, steel converter, better alloys. Explore availability of other metals and minerals. Steam later.

e) ???

f) Profit!

2) Glassworks.

a) Sand! No good sources! Stalled! Looking for places that could be tapped for that.

b) Bottles. Easy enough to import, but not sufficient for latter stage plans.

3) Agriculture.

a) Herbs. In progress. Seeking variety, attempting combinations and extractions.

b) Flowers. Perfume line relegated to mother's care.

c) Crops. In project - improve on selection practices, procure more divergent samples. To develop: Cold-resistant, fast-ripening, recuperative with acceptable yield, winter crops.

d) Tubers! Source more variety. Kartoffel is promising.

e) Mushroom farms?

f) Mechanization.

g) Cotton?

h) Hothouses?

i) Cava. MUST HAVE.

4) Magic.

a) Artificial flowers - in progress. Craft sleeves entered mass production. Consider accessories with floral motif to aid with the most commonly used magics. Rings, bracelets, cufflinks, pins.

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b) Spell research. Scope capital merchants for rare tome availability.

c) Alchemy - investigate in-depth, source rare ingredients for further experimentation. Estate library exhausted.

d) Enchantments - the country is not swimming in magic trinkets. Why? Investigate possible means of mass-producing magic trinkets and foci.

e) Natural law interjection - in progress. Do not overdo!

5) Logistics.

a) Roads - in progress. Mineral tar fused crumbled rock surfaces success, layering method slow but reliable. Develop mixing machines to speed up the process once better forging options become available.

b) River transport - in progress. Barely. Need to investigate available boat structures and use feasibility.

c) Sea trade - on hold until suitable port facilities are available.

d) Better carriages - introduce shock springs. Done on a personal basis, large scale integration pending.

He chuckles as I get to springs and thumps his fist on the bench. "That alone made this journey twice as tolerable." - he offers - "You can actually relax in the carriage now." The list is still far from over and I am about to continue, when an arrow enters into the open window and sticks into the upholstery. It is obvious that the carriage is being stopped, given the displeased neighing of horses and panicked shouts of the stagecoach. The hell? Who is so stupid as to attack a carriage with a clearly displayed lord of the land emblem?

It's obvious father is not keen on me stepping out along with him, but he is cognizant of the fact staying in the carriage won't gain me anything. As he opens his mouth to demand explanations... I step in front of him, lifting my hand to cover his face. Another arrow enters my palm, goes through and halts half-way through. This is NOT robbery, this is murder disguised as robbery, and that realization fills me with towering rage the likes of which I haven't felt since the transmigration. Snorting, I STOMP on the ground, channeling magic through the soil. The archer across the road barely has time to round his eyes in surprise before the tip of rapidly hardening rock spike rams into his crotch. He lets out a gurgling yelp of pain, as the stone pole abruptly passes through his abdominal cavity, shredding intestines and stomach on it's way in, rips the heart in halves and emerges out of his esophagus only to sink into the roof of his mouth and burst out of the top of the skull.

I don't let the other attacker time to do more than gape, as I pass by him, exhaling an incandescent cloud of metal dust into his face. He clutches his face and crumbles to the floor, howling as superheated metal dust cooks his eyes and most of facial muscle. He pulls his hand away and most of his nose comes off with it, drips of liquid copper sliding down his sleeve, searing its way downwards. Dead in fifteen, give or take a minute, a faceful of metal dust at two thousand kelvin wrecked his lungs for good.

The third one in front of me is notably smarter than his fellows. He throws away the knife he had in his hand and drops on his knees as soon as I turn my eyes in his direction, hands raised above his head as he bows submissively. Four other fellows are frozen in indecision. Me leaving the surrendering guy unmolested in favor of taking another step towards them tilts the scales and they throw their weapons down, kneeling as quickly as they can without harming themselves. I'm still homicidally angry, but not enough to go with summary executions. Just yet.

"I am Alyssa Gillespie, and this is my father, count Gerard Gillespie." - strange, but the would-be assassins pale further as they hear that.

"Miséricorde, madame! On nous a menti! Nous n'avons jamais voulu attaquer notre seigneur!1Mercy, madam! We were lied to! We never wanted to attack our lord!" - hm. What are they saying? A case of mistaken identity? I do understand ‘misericorde’, at least. Goodness, the old tongue from the sticks and the old tongue from the palace might as well be two different languages by now.

Thankfully, dad is more on the ball with diplomacy than I am. "J'accepte votre reddition. Qui vous a engagé?2I accept your surrender. Who hired you?" - he proffers, towering over the cowering men.

"Nous ne savons pas. Notre chef a négocié ce travail et ma dame, vous venez de lui brûler le visage. Je peux vous dire qu'il a parlé avec quelqu'un du royaume de Kraut mais c'est tout ce que nous savons. Notre chef ne nous a jamais permis de nous rapprocher lorsqu'il a négocié le travail.3We do not know. Our boss negotiated this job and my lady, you just burned his face. I can tell you that he spoke with someone from the Kraut Kingdom but that's all we know. Our leader never allowed us to approach when negotiating the job." - the man volunteers. Krauts, huh? Klaus. Has to be. Bastard keeps sticking his oar everywhere. Gonna sit on this, though. Thankfully, I have already arranged for Bridgit to follow me with the rest of my luggage from home later. As my personal maid, on the surface. Well, she will actually do the job fine, but that's not the only reason I want her along.

It takes a little while for me and father to decide what to do with the men in question. He borrows my table and quickly jots down a note, while I wreck my brain for what little bits of french I still remember.

"Vous, les brigands, irez sur notre terre de comté et prierez d'être remis au capitaine des gardiens. La lettre de mon père leur fera connaître votre crime et votre punition. N'arrivez pas à temps et dans l'ordre, et la magie sera mise en action.4You, robbers, will go to our county land and beg to be handed over to the captain of the guards. My father's letter will let them know your crime and your punishment. Don't arrive on time and in order, and the magic will happen." - I tell them slowly, cherry-picking my mental vocabulary on the proper words. They seem to notice how I struggle to speak french, but are still more than a little fearful. In order to reinforce this, I stick my finger in the direction of a particularly dense bush and reiterate "La magie entre en action.5The magic will happen.", simultaneously channeling a burst of heat into the bush. As it bursts into flames, a figure of man rises from the bush, shrieking as he tries to run away. He is dressed much like brigands, and probably was associated with them, given that he neglected to surrender or offer help in this altercation. Unfortunately for him, I have used the version that spikes temperature up to six thousand kelvins for about twenty microseconds, more than enough for anything flammable to ignite. His clothes certainly qualify, but even worse for him, so does subdermal fat, which flash-liquifies and soaks into his clothes, turning them into a giant wick, and he goes up like a man-shaped candle, still howling as his movements slow down and taper off along with the sound. Two minutes later, we have a roasting corpse and two of the five surrendering brigands had lost control of their bladders. The remaining three are not in much better shape.

"Quatre jours. Si vous n'êtes pas sur le gang des chaînes au coucher du soleil du quatrième jour, allumez. Courir.6Four days. If you're not on the chain gang by the fourth day sunset, ignition. Run." - I offer to them, as father tosses finished note to the one who surrendered first. He grasps it with both hands, holding it like it's his firstborn and crawls backwards on his knees, not daring to face away. I stop paying attention to them. That arrow in my hand... Thankfully, I had the foresight to imitate bleeding when it went in. Now, I snap off the shaft of the arrow, toss away the feathering, then finish pulling the remains of the shaft through the wound. A moment's concentration with healing spell closes the wound off entirely, much to the relief of father and further terror of brigands, who by now have had crawled a significant distance away. Casting a disinterested glance towards them, I quip - "Je crois que j'ai dit courir.7I believe I said run." Oh. Wow. I was not aware it's actually possible to kick off a dust cloud by running away until now.

"How did you know there was a spy in the bush?" - dad asks in a low voice, as the driver calms the horses and repositions the carriage on the road properly.

"I didn't." - I give him a truthful answer - "I just looked for densest bush to set on fire to scare them. The fact that the spy was hiding under it was just lucky coincidence."

He snorts. "Well, they are definitely scared, I'll give you that. Terrified to the depths of their souls." - he comments, growing serious - "And honestly, I'm a little scared too. How did you end up learning battle magic?"

"I didn't? I mean, all of those are various spells I cribbed from dwarves. Metalworking, stoneworking..." - and I'm not selling it, given his expression. OK, explaining more in depths - "First spell? Simple shaping and hardening, it was meant to strengthen the earthwork ditches initially. I just overpowered it and made it push more and more hardened soil upwards in a spike instead of flattening the effect over the ground. Second is just me conjuring some copper dust, and sending it flying with a mix of fire and air. Third is straight up fire magic, drastically overpowered fire-starting spell. You used that one last night to light up the torch, actually."

He blinks. Thinks about it. Opens mouth. Closes mouth. Raises finger. Opens mouth again. Closes it again. Sighs. Coughs. "...Very well." - he finally manages - "I'd ask how you focused, but I've seen you running experiments with your embroideries before." I smirk at him and brush off the hems of my embroidered sleeves surreptitiously. He subconsciously tugs on his own, less extensive but still quite present embroidery. It's been a hard sell initially to persuade my family not to bother with fresh flowers for every single thing, but they did see the value of facsimiles for day-to-day application. Eventually. After I disseminated "work sleeves" to all of the house servants and made it a point to teach all of them utility spells that come in handy for their jobs.

He looks at me with a sober expression. "Alyssa." - he begins, groans, then forges on - "I really don't want to ask you to curb your enthusiasm for magic, but please be careful about what you show to people outside our family. Anyone not familiar with you would come away from this scene fully certain you must be an experienced war witch. Try not to do that in the capital, alright? I know you're capable of subtleties and I'm certain there won't be an immediate danger like this one. Not in public, at least. And not without at least pretending you need fresh flowers for that. Because channeling enough fire to burn a man to death through an embroidered flower is simply preposterous. You are very likely the strongest magician in the world by far."

Oh dear. If only you knew... "I'll hold you to that." - I retort with a smirk. If what I remember and suspect is correct, there is at least one confrontation on the level above that in the works, because I'm going to roast Klaus over a slow fire and eat his liver with fava beans and chianti. (Note to self - try to find chianti and fava beans to truly recreate this scene.)

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