Chapter 185: 185: Slime Salesman

Sent from the desk of Tom Spendle **Error, receiver not validated!**

Cooper! I finally fucking did it! I found the other half of the recipe! For the longest time I was looking at spiders as the other ingredient, because everyone knows how famous they are for it, right? It was a mental blind-spot.

Well, something about this whole rebellion must have jostled something loose, because I started comparing my samples against anything I could get my hands on, and I finally found it. Spittlebugs.

Yeah, those gross little bugs that make spit-bubble houses. I had a sample from a defunct generation ship’s conservatory. Some of the only ones that still exist at all, since Earth went boom.

I compared the spittlebug proteins to the sample, and Bam! My Bioengineering Skill lit up like a Christmas tree. I could see Exactly how to make the spittlebug proteins react the way I wanted them to. I spent the night in a goddamn fugue state, and by the time I was done, I had a couple thousand eggs tweaked.

I’m absolutely sure that when they hatch, these little guys are going to start producing Don’s formula. In the morning, I’m going to hop in my plane and swing by the wreck to the east to see if I can borrow one of their Rosen emitters.

I don’t know when the military cordon of the planet is going to end, so I’m putting my process on the cloud. When you get this message, don’t wait for me, just get started on a way to industrialize it. We can’t be reasonably expected to milk beetles for the rest of our lives.

-Document Attached.

***Calvin***

“This is beautiful,” Calvin said, overlooking the train. Every car was filled to the brim with Juntai wood. Wood that was nearly worth its weight in gold to the Uleisans far to the north, and possibly it’s weight in copper to the Ilethans even further above them.

Each car was fifty-five feet long, eleven feet wide, and twelve feet tall.

Calvin had to crane his neck to see the massive logs that were poking their out above the train car, precariously stacked nearly sixteen feet in the air. People could, and had, climbed up to the top of the pile to get a view from above.

Standing atop a pile of logs on a moving train was stupid and dangerous, but damned if it wasn’t satisfying.

There were one hundred and five cars, and seventy of them were packed entirely full of lumber, literal hundreds of tons of wood. Enough to launch a fleet. Twenty more held specialty goods that Calvin wanted to see if he could find a market for in Uleis and Iletha. They were unlikely to make very much right away, but there might be some surprises in there.

The last fifteen cars held the logistics. The personal effects of the train car operators, their families, etc. It took an estimated ten Juntai men working two hour shifts to keep the train going nonstop. Elliot commented on an actual train only needing one operator, but it was still a good number for the sheer quantity of freight they were moving.

A caravan capable of moving that much would be closer to a wandering nation. The price of ten men’s salary was negligible by comparison.

Ten of those cars looked like little houses, with beds and tiny little kitchens, while the last five had dry foods, tools and huge barrels of clean water.

It’s like the Oregon trail up in here! My Great, great great grandad loved that game when he was a kid. I got bored after I figured out the horse bartering infinite money glitch.

“Alright, let’s head out!” Calvin shouted, pointing forward.

The train was slow as the helmsman unloaded a crackling bolt of energy into it, but  gradually the train began moving forward, the massive iron spokes on the wheels beginning to turn. Slowly at first, then faster, and faster, until the  rods were spinning nearly too quick to see and wind was beginning to tickle Calvin’s scalp.

Now the proud owner of way too much lumber.

Next step, build tracks to Uleis, get someone else to handle the haggling over details, and I can go back to researching Warped Monster parts.

Calvin frowned. That being said, I wonder what Learner’s Warped ability is? She can obviously copy other Warped creature’s abilities rather easily…so some sort of supernatural mimetic effect? I would ask for a sample, if I wasn’t pretty confident the sample would try to eat me.

SCREEECH!

Calvin winced as the train took a gentle turn, the socket connecting the cars he was sitting on top of letting out an ungodly noise, threatening to pierce his very brain.

The sun was just starting to go down, and the shadows were getting longer, the last of the days sun playing off of the red-tinted bark of the – SCREECH! –

The couplings across the train screeched again as they straightened out, working their way up the gradual slope Calvin had carved into the mountain.

Okay, that’s intolerable, Calvin thought, hopping off the log he’d been riding and climbing down into the space between cars, glaring at the couplings with ire.

Let’s see if you can keep making that noise with some lube. Calvin thought, leaning down, one hand on the safety rail, the other tapping his Ooze Weaver slime component.

Gradual Split.

39/47 Bent remaining

Calvin knew that Ooze weaver slime would dry eventually, so he arranged for it to have a gradual split, forcing more slime into the space between the steel as it dried out.

That should last the rest of the day, Calvin though, nodding. If it didn’t he could try coming back with Toad fat from his personal car. That stuff might work even better, given how tough it was, without the hassle of drying, seeing as it was fat.

Calvin listened, waiting for a squeak.

They gently turned a corner, the cars slightly shifting relative to each other, steel silently sliding against steel.

Excellent, no ear-piercing screech, Calvin thought with a nod, aiming to stand and go back up to his seat atop the wobbling log perched sixteen feet in the air.

Calvin cast one look back at the coupler before he began climbing up the ladder.

There was something…white…oozing from the steel bits.

What…the…heck?

Calvin took his hand off the ladder and went back down to the steel platform, balancing precariously on the tiny bit of steel as he leaned down over the edge, reaching out to put a finger on the coupler.

Calvin ran a finger over it, and brought it up to study.

There were…white lumps suspended in the ooze weaver slime. They were half formed and kind of mushy, reminding him of cheese curds or overcooked oats.

The heck? Calvin smelled it, but couldn’t make out anything in particular other than the smell of wood and steel. The slime didn’t have a smell, after all, and whatever was suspended in it didn’t either.

Was there something living in there? Calvin thought, eyeing the coupler. He turned the speed of Gradual Split up, and watched in awe as more and more lumpy white bits were pushed out. More than could have ever fit in the tiny space between the couplers.

That means the lumpy white is coming from the slime component. Calvin thought, standing and tugging the shiny steel vial out of his belt.

At first glance it was the same as ever, but under careful inspection, Calvin could see where the steel walls of his oldest component were bulging outward ever so slightly.

Interesting.

Calvin tucked the component back into its bandolier and climbed up onto the train, settling down on his wooden seat and preparing an area to work on.

Trait Doctoring.

Shifting.

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37/47 Bent remaining.

Calvin selected a flat area of the log in front of him, along with a slight dip into the material, making them all the viscosity of air and light as a feather.

Calvin blew on the surface of the wood, and the grained wood dissolved away, floating off and mixing with the air before settling back down on the ground behind him.

What remained was a nice clean, flat wooden surface with a wooden bowl in the center, and places to put his filters.

Normally, Calvin wouldn’t be doing this atop a moving train with wind and contaminants blowing through everything, but he wasn’t patient enough to wait until he got back home, and he wasn’t impatient enough to leap into the sky and fly back posthaste.

Plus the sensation of motion and wind was nice.

Splitting.

36/47 Bent remaining.

Calvin pulled out the slime component and replicated about a pound of the material into the bowl

What he got was a thick, soupy mess riddled with white chunks from the size of a fish-egg to about as big as the tip of his finger.

It definitely wasn’t eggs, though. Nothing could survive that pressure, for that amount of time, then suddenly decide to start growing out of nowhere.

Then how did my slime get riddled with this stuff? Calvin thought, squishing a bit of white gunk between his fingers. It was in little hard nodules with slimy, half-formed gunk around it, seemingly in a transitory state between ooze-weaver slime and something else.

Frowning, Calvin put the ooze in the filter and washed several rinses of water through, scrubbing meticulously to get all the slime out of it.

Once Calvin was sure he’d rinsed as much slime out as possible, he dismissed the water, leaving a sort of white sand in the bottom of the bowl.

The heck is this? he thought, pulling out a few grains and rolling them between his fingers. He scooped up the scraping at the bottom of the bowl and hefted it in his hand.

It’s really light. Also fairly white…Wait a minute. Calvin fished out the seal that Trade had stamped on the trade agreement…using a very thick, clear substance.

Calvin compared the two. Calvin’s lightweight sand was off white, more of an ivory, compared to the seal’s bright white.

That could be due to impurities, Calvin thought, considering.

Trade had used a little metal circle on the back of his hand to solidify the seal.

Force had used a similar circle on the back of his bracers to scramble Calvin’s brain during their fight.

I wonder…

*** 1 week later***

“Can I ask you to do something?”

“Depends on what it is.” Trade said with a shrug. The young man was currently being attended by several young women, being fed fruits by hand. Calvin wasn’t sure if this was a regular thing or if he was just trying to impress Calvin.

Probably the latter, considering Trade wasn’t fat.

“Can you make this goop solid like the seal earlier?” Calvin asked, pushing forward a glass jar filled with Ykuinge’s slime. The ooze-monster was reluctant to give it to him at first, but when Clavin explained that someone might actually be interested in buying it, the ooze weaver was more than happy to fill a jar for him.

In private.

Calvin wasn’t sure it the giant bug-lady was shy or secretive. Both? Who knew?

“Huh.” Trade glanced down at the vial before tapping one of the serving wenches on the hip. The only thing he could reach from his vantage. “Could you fetch my emitter, please?”

The woman nodded and hurried off to retrieve the ‘emitter’, while Trade studied the jar. “Well, it looks kind of similar to our Godsbone, but it’s a little thin.”

He held it up to the light, peering through it for a moment before breaking out in a smile.

“So how’ve you been?” Trade asked.

“Annoyed,” Calvin admitted. “Following the ‘rules’ for talking about electricity is an enormous pain in the ass. Like ten chapters worth of history and digressions into niche topics that could be summed up in like, two sentences.” Calvin held up two fingers to illustrate.

“Attribute everything other than lighting to disturbances in the force, and motors are a gift from the gods. It’s a pain in the ass trying to follow the minutia.”

“Better than the alternative,” Trade said with a shrug. “I know for a fact they were probably going to decide to kill you in last weeks meeting if you hadn’t showed them how bad of an idea that would be.”

“Thanks for that, by the way.” Calvin said, taking a drink of the Diocese’s wine.

“I had my own agenda. I want you to remember me as the nice one when favors are being thrown around.” Trade said with a cunning smile.

Calvin chuckled.

The servant woman returned, bearing the metallic disc attached to a copper bracer.

I need to take one of those apart. Maybe the Knick-knacks would be able to recreate them.

“Thank you,” Trade said, taking it from her and sliding the glove onto his hand. He reached over the table and picked up the jar, inspecting it for another moment before a look of concentration crossed his face.

A moment later, there was an inaudible hum that Calvin felt in his gums.

Tiny little crystals of white began to form inside the jar, growing outward like salt crystals before stopping once they had exhausted some unknown resource in the clear medium.

“Would you look at that,” Trade murmured before glancing back at Calvin. “Where did you get this? I assume this isn’t the seal I gave you rendered down.”

“Trade secret.” Calvin said with a smile.

“We’d be willing to buy more.” Trade said, appraising the contents of the jar. “We could probably refine this easily, given the nature of the material.”

“I could refine it for you, if you gave me one of those emitters.”

Trade smiled in a way that let Calvin know that suggestion was never going to happen.

“I’ll write up up a list. The producer of that” – Calvin pointed at the jar –  “would rather barter.”

Macronomicon

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