Hospital porters pushed an oak bed frame towards the cathedral’s inner sanctum. Melting snow coated their hard leather boots, whose soles squeaked against a smooth granite floor. Every step forceful, every grunt full of vigor, they battled whistling winds invading through broken windows.

Dimitry’s employees were laborious. They were motivated. But they also lacked training.

Not a single porter knew how to turn over a bed-ridden patient to prevent pressure ulcers from forming, nor did they understand the importance of sterilizing surgical equipment and surfaces. It would be several weeks before Dimitry’s lessons imparted the basics they needed to perform their roles.

Until then, Dimitry mobilized their labor into anything that hastened the assembly of a proper hospital. He didn’t care whether they moved furniture or hauled supplies. Anything was better than having idle staff. In a time of scarcity, they were the worst type of resource—wasted resources.

As Dimitry strode past his porters, he smiled to motivate their efforts.

One man waved, and another bowed.

Although he checked up on his employees whenever there was time, they weren’t why Dimitry traveled through the inner sanctum. His destination was a chamber just beyond. The second largest room on the cathedral’s first floor, and its most powerful.

The kitchen.

At one point, it served as the Church’s primary weapon for tethering believers to Zera’s teachings. Their ‘generosity’ in Ravenfall showed as much. By distributing food during morning mass, the desperate poor had no choice but to attend sermons. People initially there for sustenance grew dependent on the Church for emotional support. Then, once they became devout followers, attendees demonstrated their devotion by joining Zera’s army or donating children to serve in their stead.

It was a devious system.

Devious and effective. To this day, Malten’s believers defended the Church despite living in abandonment for eight years. Removing its influence was impossible. That was why Dimitry wouldn’t try. Instead, he would use it to his advantage. Why fight against religious zealots when they were the most motivated to dedicate their lives to a cause?

If Dimitry convinced the populace that he inherited the Church’s mission to feed the ailing and provide Zera’s light, he could transform the scriptures and beliefs. It was possible. People knew him as the Jade Surgeon who cured the plague, he ran a miraculous cathedral, and just like the Church before him, Dimitry would soon distribute food to the populace.

Doing so accomplished multiple goals. The most important among them was feeding the needy. There was no excuse for letting people die from starvation when Dimitry had the means to prevent it. He had accumulated over a hundred gold marks worth of grain and dried meat from when he sold modified preservia blankets to Sophie. She kept his supplies stored within her granaries and larders. Supplies Dimitry intended to distribute. Just like idle workers, uneaten food was a wasted resource. He just hoped he had enough to feed the poor until his crop hybridization project showed results.

However, even if it didn’t, Dimitry’s new position as a religious authority provided other means for gathering food. He could slowly enhance the myrmidon’s despised image as corrupted creatures, allowing them to trade with and visit the city. Fish imports would increase. No longer afraid of aquatic demons, fishermen could take to the western shores, providing jobs and sustenance to a famine-ridden kingdom. If oceans on Earth supplied sprawling metropolises with enough food, feeding an overcrowded city of forty thousand was an afterthought.

All the while, the real Church’s influence would plummet. The informants they planted throughout Malten wouldn’t have the pull necessary to manipulate the struggling masses to take arms against aquatic demons. Why would the poor fight Dimitry if they relied on his handouts to survive? Conversely, they would become the cheapest professional workforce in existence. Starving laborers, craftsmen, and farmers lived in the streets.

With Dimitry being their sole source of food, he could assign them simple tasks in exchange for a meal. An important one would be the collection of urine and feces for nitrate production—the bottleneck limiting black powder manufacturing. Charcoal was simple to make, the myrmidon could harvest all the sulfur he needed, but potassium nitrate was an expensive commodity. It was cheaper to trade food for human waste and use it in nitrate extraction than buying the chemical from a merchant.

Although requesting hundreds of people to turn in urine and feces would attract scrutiny, Dimitry could frame his demands as a means for cleaning the streets. Still, he wondered if all the excretory matter in Malten was enough to synthesize the nitrate required for black powder production.

His tests rapidly consumed reagents, and the results were consistently weak. Every bomb he detonated was a heartrending disappointment. At this rate, Dimitry would need ridiculous explosive quantities to pierce a heathen’s armor.

The relic hinted that granulation solved his impotent weaponry. It was the only visible difference distinguishing what he made from the rapidly burning black powder he saw in his vision. However, converting black powder into chunks proved harder than he imagined.

Dimitry inhaled deeply. Perhaps flintlocks and explosives were an inefficient endeavor. A warm cloud smelling of freshly baked black bread and burnt wood rushed into his nose, waking him from his musings. He stood in a spacious kitchen whose wall adjoined a massive oven.

A chimney traveled from the clay structure’s top and into the ceiling, carrying most of the hot smoke towards the roof. Some seeped through a small barred window only for a frigid breeze to whisk it away. Aside from the oven, not much else remained. Racks and shelves lay bare, the tools they carried stolen by looters long ago. Fire pits which haven’t seen burning charcoal in nearly a decade bolted their granite grills into the corners.

Two ladies worked in the room’s far end.

One was a little girl whose teal-tipped hair danced as she cranked the handle of a rotary grinding stone. Despite lacking the strength needed to operate the grain milling device at full capacity, she made up for it with enthusiasm. Nelly was the orphan Dimitry had treated for frostbite when he first explored the cathedral.

Beside her stood a woman who was Nelly’s acting mother and the hospital’s chef. She hovered over a nearby oak table, her deft hands filtering ground flour through several circular sieves. Every movement shook her amethyst engraved silver earrings. Perhaps alerted at Dimitry’s approaching footsteps, Valerie glanced back. “It’ll be ready soon, surgeon!”

“I can’t wait,” he lied. Although the smell of fresh bread tempted Dimitry, hunger didn’t bring him here. He wanted to know if Valerie could prepare enough food to feed hundreds of starving refugees.

A barrel still half-full with grain, remnants from yesterday, indicated otherwise. Her slow consumption of resources hinted at lacking food production.

Dimitry avoided bringing up the topic directly. “Just wondering, are you comfortable here? Is there anything you need?”

“Don’t worry about me.” Valerie giggled as she reached over to pinch the little girl’s cheek. “Nelly is everything I need.”

Nelly didn’t respond. Her monotonous grain grinding task kept her entranced.

Dimitry felt uncomfortable having a child no older than ten perform manual labor, but she seemed content enough. “Glad to see you two getting along.”

“Of course.” Valerie tapped the sieve in her hands, causing flour to sprinkle from its mesh. “That’s because when we’re together, we’re unstoppable! Right?”

“Yeah!” Nelly shouted.

Thrilled at having someone willingly mind and entertain a child in his stead, Dimitry could only smile. He enjoyed talking with kids, but having to look after one without a bottle of whiskey in hand drove him insane.

His gaze traveled from Nelly to the five loaves on the counter beside her. He hoped that wasn’t this kitchen’s peak food production. “Valerie, how much bread do you think you can make a day?”

“Why? Should I make more?”

“Would you be able to if you tried?”

She dipped a jug into a cauldron of water lying by her boots. “I don’t know. It depends on what kind of bread you want. White would take me all day to separate the germs from the husks, while horsebread is much easier to prepare.”

Dimitry didn’t need something as luxurious as white bread to feed the homeless and wasn’t interested in horse food. Or maybe he just misunderstood Valerie. Keeping up with a former miller’s medievalesque baking terminology while his closest experience to cooking was ordering takeout proved difficult. “If you were to guess, what is the most bread you can make a day? I don’t care about the quality as long as it’s edible.”

“Horsebread, then. Maybe twenty loaves a day?”

That wasn’t anywhere near enough. “Does it take that long to make?”

“No. Baking is fast.” Valerie pointed at the device Nelly operated. “We spend most of our time churning the hand quern.”

Dimitry examined the device. As Nelly rotated the crank, dust flew from its sides. They reminded him of black powder. Could he use a similar tool to grind chemicals? Perhaps his explosive experiments failed because a pestle and mortar didn’t have the precision necessary to reduce reagents to a fine enough size.

Unlikely. As Dimitry’s situation grew more desperate, his ideas grew wilder. This one, like most others he had, was useless.

Forcing his attention back to bread, he approached the hand quern. “Excuse me, Nelly.”

The little girl stepped back.

He glanced inside the pressure cooker-sized tool. Only three handfuls of grain fit inside its crowded interior and most of the product remained half-ground despite Nelly operating it since before he entered the kitchen. An inefficient use of labor.

Dimitry would ask the queen to have Malten’s millers grind grain for him. With the kingdom lacking food, mills doubtlessly stood idle. He wouldn’t have much trouble getting it done for free. His goal of feeding the poor benefited Her Majesty Amelie as much as it did him—the homeless would eventually resort to violence if they starved.

“If the grain was pre-ground, how many loaves of horsebread could you make every day?”

Valerie’s flour-coated hand fiddled with her amethyst engraved silver earrings. “Easily over a hundred. I won’t even need much more firewood. At the moment, I have to rewarm the oven every time I bake, but if I kept it hot, I could make bread all day.”

“That’s good news. How many people does each loaf of horsebread feed?”

“Back when I lived in Volmer, each one lasted a family of six for breakfast and supper. But they ate other food, too. Our wealthier customers didn’t even eat the horsebread—they sliced it into trenchers. So it varies.”

Dimitry ate from trenchers at a castle banquet. It was a massive slice of bread people used instead of plates, then threw away after eating. A waste of calories. He doubted a house-less refugee would imitate the process. “Assuming everyone ate their horsebread entirely, would you be able to feed at least a thousand people every day?”

“Me?” Valerie’s hands dropped the lump of dough they molded. “A… thousand?”

“Can you do it?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Jade Surgeon.”

“I want you to feed the homeless.” Dimitry approached the kitchen’s only barred window, which overlooked a narrow road. “Right now, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, starving on the streets. It’s our duty to help them now that the Church is gone.”

“People can’t survive on bread.”

“I understand that. That’s why I will eventually have fish delivered here as well.”

“Fish?” Her gaze traveled across the barren room. “I-I don’t have the tools to cook fish. I’d need cauldrons, pots, pans—”

“I’ll get you whatever you need.” Dimitry turned to face Valerie. “Naturally, I don’t expect you to do everything by yourself, that’s why you’ll have assistants to help you. They’ll do whatever you need them to do. Of course, you’ll have to train them first.”

“I don’t know if I can train anyone.”

“You taught Nelly to prepare grain just fine.”

Valerie ran an outstretched hand through the girl’s teal-tipped hair. “That’s because she’s Nelly.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to teach an adult?”

“It’s not that,” she mumbled. “When it’s just Nelly and me here, I feel comfortable. But ordering other people around… I just can’t do it. That’s something my husband always handled.”

“Why not just try?” Dimitry asked. “If you find it too difficult, I’ll figure out another way to get it done. But I’ll need time. Right now, you’re my best hope for feeding the homeless. They’ll die if we don’t do something soon.”

Valerie’s shoulders, now devoid of strength, dropped. “Sorry. I can’t.”

Her closed posture, her stifled voice, her trembling arms.

Was Valerie anxious?

Dimitry knew the feeling well. As a surgeon, it was often his job to guide anesthesiologists, surgical techs, nurses, and medical students through a procedure. His mistakes were always on display. Whenever a nerve was accidentally cut, a patient bled out, an x-ray he ordered remained undone, it was his fault. The overwhelming dread that came with potential failure resulting from his carelessness disappeared only after years of experience.

Although Valerie’s role wouldn’t entail deadly mistakes, her hesitation was similar. Assuming a leadership role wasn’t easy.

“Are you afraid you can’t do the job your husband once did?” he asked.

Absently molding a dough ball, she nodded.

“Fear is the normal response, and it was the one I felt when I decided to become a surgeon. But what if I didn’t take that first step? How many would the plague have killed if I never made that decision?”

“Not everyone can do what you did.”

“And not everyone can do what you can.”

Valerie looked up. “What if I can’t?”

“What if you can?”

Her eyes flitted across the room, then locked back onto Dimitry’s. Valerie’s irises pleaded for mercy.

Dimitry gave her none. Although he extracted no joy from guilting a woman into facing her fears, this was a hospital. Saving lives at a personal cost was what they did.

She glanced away. “Can you get me that temse?”

His eyes furrowed at the unfamiliar word. “This thing?” Dimitry pulled a circular sieve from an otherwise empty rack.

Valerie snatched it from him. “I’ll do it, but I won’t promise that I’ll be any good at it.”

“Your best efforts are all I want.”

“And that’s all you’ll get.”

Despite her sharp words, Dimitry was proud of Valerie. Many crumbled under the pressure of anxiety. She didn’t. Marching into the terrifying unknown was an undertaking too difficult for most people.

And Dimitry was no different. He fished a pouch containing the latest variation of black powder from under his cloak. Or would calling it his latest failure be more accurate?

After a defeated sigh, Dimitry’s gaze traveled from the pouch, to the raw balls of dough, to the temse in Valerie’s hand, then back to his pouch.

He froze at a sudden realization.

What if the process for black powder granulation resembled dough rolling? Dimitry could use water to bind the dark-gray mixture together as if it were flour and then press it through a net. The result would produce clumps similar to those in the relic’s vision.

It was yet another silly idea.

But maybe this one could work.

Dimitry rushed towards the kitchen exit.

“Do you want to take a loaf with you?” Valerie called as he reached the room’s threshold. “They’re still fresh!”

He stopped. “I’ll have some later. For now, can you tell me where you bought those temses?”

Round and flat sieves of varying mesh sizes resting under his armpit, Dimitry barged into the chemistry lab. His lungs heaved after a rapid trip to the market. Anxious wisps fluttered in his abdomen, impelling him forward as they burst with the excitement of long lost hope found once more.

He was ready to run more trials.

However, what met his gaze weren’t the backs of busy employees pulverizing chemicals, but four people staring at a rock surrounded by shards of glass. His chemists silently endured winter’s evening gale, which howled through a shattered stained window’s remnants.

Transparent orange fragments crunched under Dimitry’s boots when he stepped forward. “What happened here?”

“Dimitry!” Clewin glanced back. “Did you see anyone throwing rocks outside?”

“I didn’t. When did this happen?”

“Just before you came in.”

Dimitry furrowed his brow. “Why would someone deface the lab?”

“Don’t know.” Clewin scratched at his gray hair. “Maybe it was an accident?”

“What if someone just doesn’t like churches?” an apprentice muttered.

“Probably some kids playing,” another responded. “Wasn’t shit else to do when I lived out there.”

Although having to pay for another window repair at the hands of a mysterious assailant troubled Dimitry, he didn’t let it show. “We’ll figure it out later. For now, I want to make another batch of black powder.”

Clewin sighed. “What’s it this time? Are you going to make us press it under a hammer again?”

The demoralized chemist in training referred to a previous experiment intended to replicate granulation—one failure among many.

Dimitry felt this trial would be different. “No. It’s something new.” He threw his cloak over a vacant chair and dropped his sieve temses onto a granite table. “Would someone bring me some alcohol from the cellar?”

A woman in a brown apron grabbed a pair of keys before dashing towards the church’s domed entrance. “I’ll get it.”

“Much appreciated. Clewin, mix me a small batch of the best black powder we’ve made so far.”

“The high sulfur one?”

“It’ll do.”

The gray-haired man massaged the burn scar on his neck with his palm and hunched over a table. He weighed powdered charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate by eye before correcting his approximations with a zeroed balance scale. Clewin’s time spent mixing chemicals might not have produced a useful product, but it gave him a platform to exercise the basic skills necessary for any chemist. His self-assured movements demonstrated that fact. “So, what are we doing different this time?”

Dimitry leaned back against an icy wall. “We’re going to wet black powder to get it to clump up, then run it through a sieve.”

“A sieve? How’s that supposed to help us?”

“I think it’ll create the chunks we need for granulation.”

“That again?” Clewin shrugged. “We’ve been trying everything we could think of for days now. Are you sure this black powder stuff isn’t a waste of time?”

Dimitry wasn’t confident in his ability to recreate functional explosives. However, to let his insecurity show would only demoralize his employees. “We’re making progress. It’ll only be a short while until our efforts pay off.”

“If you say so. Honestly, I don’t even understand why granulation would help. All the powder does is make warm smoke. Why would making the pieces bigger help?”

Clewin’s question was one Dimitry pondered over the past couple of days. His brainstorming resulted in only one explanation.

“The black powder we have now is a very fine sand. When we keep it inside a jar or pile it on the floor, the grains are so densely packed that they block the hot air from the initial combustion from reaching deep inside. That means the internal grains can’t heat up enough to ignite. Currently, only the black powder exposed to the surface can burn. That’s why the reaction is so slow and weak. Does that make sense?”

“Maybe a little.”

“If we granulate the black powder into chunks, it’ll leave pockets for hot air to flow through no matter how it’s stacked. The combustion reaction can take place everywhere at once instead of only on the surface. That’s what makes it powerful.”

“I’m not sure I get it.”

“That’s fine.” Dimitry smiled. “It’s something you will come to understand.”

The apprentice dashed back into the former church. “I’ve got it, Jade Surgeon.” She placed a small jug nearby.

“Thank you.” He wafted the solution’s vapors towards his nose. The liquid reeked of concentrated alcohol—perfect for Dimitry’s purposes. Unlike the water Valerie added to flour, ethanol had a lower boiling point, which meant it would evaporate faster and expedite black powder’s drying process.

“Done.” Clewin pushed a cup, whose ceramic base rumbled as it slid across the granite table. “Now what?”

“Watch carefully.” Careful not to drown it in excessive liquid, Dimitry slowly poured alcohol into the black powder Clewin prepared. Every onyx-colored grain melded together.

Dimitry grabbed the clumped product and molded it as if it were a ball of dough. The clay conformed to the shape of his hands. Then, like one would shred provolone against a cheese grater, Dimitry pressed the black powder orb into a temse sieve.

The tool’s horsehair mesh tore the black clay into small chunks. Unlike the uniform pieces in the relic’s vision, some granules were large and round, while others small and spiky. Clewin collected every fragment and allowed them to dry on a warm incendia blanket.

Before long, two piles of explosives rested on a table. The first was the powder from Dimitry’s pouch, and the other comprised nonuniform black granules.

Would the new product burn faster?

Would it allow the production of bombs and flintlocks?

Would he finally achieve success after countless tests and trials?

Dimitry’s heart beat faster. Excitement and anxiety bubbled within his abdomen, bursting as they rose into his chest. Although he maintained a calm expression, he couldn’t stop his heel from restlessly tapping the floor. “Clewin, light the powder first.”

“Got it.” Flint and steel in his hands, the gray-haired man produced sparks, which fell onto a pile of black powder.

White smoke smelling of spent fireworks filled the air. Then, after smoldering for several seconds, the fire petered out. Despite this variation of black powder burning faster and cleaner than the initial trials, it showed the same disappointing performance as always. There wasn’t enough power to create an ineffective weapon.

But it was the result Dimitry expected. The powder wasn’t the star of this show. His breathing growing ragged, he ushered forth another command. “Now the granules.”

“Right.” Clewin ran the flint across the steel rod’s surface.

A falling spark shot towards the granulated black powder. When it grazed the surface, the entire mound combusted into light and smoke.

Clewin jumped back.

The apprentices looked on with wide-open eyes.

A grin spread across Dimitry’s face. It was the relief of a man who found an oasis in a boundless desert. The satisfaction of a doomsayer who predicted the apocalypse amongst countless naysayers. Salvation in a war-torn land.

Dimitry’s granulated black powder wasn’t as powerful as the one in the relic’s vision, but it was strong enough for explosives. And there were still many improvements to make.

Clewin scratched the back of his gray-haired head. “That was fun, but how is it supposed to kill a heathen?”

“You’ll see soon.” Dimitry grabbed his cloak with a shaky hand. “Until then, I want you to repeat the process I showed you until you turn all the black powder you prepared into granules.” He pointed at the stack of sieves with varied meshes. “Afterward, separate them by size using the temses. Send a messenger when you’re finished.”