The palace was even more in Turmoil than for the previous garden party.

Every speck of dust was cleaned, any weed rooted out, any guard's armour polished till it was a bronze mirror and all decorations were taken out. Crystals were hung everywhere to shed light and heat in all the castle. They even had to put some braziers when they ran out of crystals.

The training yard of the princess was not deemed important enough to keep its crystals and I know had to make do with candles and braziers, which was worrying me a lot when working with explosive powder nearby... Putting a flame near my workbench wasn't the best idea ever.

To me, all this was mostly distractions from my work. Since it wasn't safe to work with gunpowder, I moved on to gun-barrel making. I couldn't attend the event so I'd rather not agonize about it like Melodi and Balout were. They really wanted to have a peek at all the strange peoples and a bite at all the delicacies that were going to be eaten there. Gelcaria was trying to console them, they would see from afar and would have a taste at the leftovers, the princess would make sure we all got something nice to enjoy after the party.

Transports in this world were time-consuming and I don't know how all the delegations will make it here. There is no convenient teleportation magic to make long-distance travels easy. The most common way to travel fast and safely is by boat. Land roads are both slower and more dangerous.

For high-ranking people like our expected guests, they might come by riding flying beasts. There were few and they were costly to maintain and unsuited to carry goods but were the best for “fast” travelling. A flying beast could cover many kilometers per day. You would still need to find places to rest and feed it, leaving you vulnerable but flying beast riders were often strong Chi users.

Finally, the high-level Chi users could just run for days and faster than a train but that was possible only for very few people. Even maintaining a fast communication line this way would be out of reach, who would ask the Marshall to act as a postman?

* * * * *

To have my first gun barrel crafted, I went to my father's smithery. This way I was more confident that no one would try to scam me and my father would know who the best smith was.

I went with Balout there since the girls were training with the princess and not interested in my shopping.

We walked through the industrial district of easthill and took a snack like we did when visiting the mines. It waas something like a corn-dog with a side of grapefruit-like salad and a cup of warm spiced peppery tea. Such was the price to pay to have Balout come along.

My father's smithery was a small one. They weren't dealing with precious metals, only processing the common bronze but had quite a good reputation for the quality of their products.

I gave money to my father and had him deal with one of the smiths, the best around here he told me.

This was official palace business so I used this to avoid most questions. People were curious about my strange order but wouldn't dare refuse a commission from the castle.

I had them mould a bronze plate and then the smith rolled it to form a tube. A rough welding sealed the tube on the side and bottom. I then had them pierce a small hole at the bottom so that I could either insert a fuse or later think of some way to make a flintlock or hammerlock.

This was very crude work and a rudimentary gun barrel. I wasn't even sure how much strain their bronze could handle before breaking apart. The welding was a source of concern too. Small explosions should do but I'll carefully stand a few feet away for the first tries.

I'll have to figure out something for steel barrels. Moulding needed to be made out of one piece or I'll need to find out some way to bore or drill the cannon in a steel rod. Just even more to-do to add on the unending list.

I spent the rest of the day with my father, observing the smiths at work to get a better idea of what they were able to do. Knowing what I'll have to make do with was the first step.

My father was quite proud to both show me his workplace and to flaunt his son 'working for the Shieldlord' in front of his co-workers.

Back at the palace, I made my first gunshot in the evening.

After loading the cannon with a bit of powder and some gravels as grapeshot, I used a long fuse made of a thin rope coated in a mix of oil and resin that the alchemist provided me with.

This gave me enough time to walk away from the thing when it fired.

The sound was a bit louder since the explosion was more contained, there was a small flame followed by a cloud of smoke. The tube did hold on.

The wooden panel I used as a target was just 3 meters away but only got a few dents. I might need to put more powder.

The sound attracted a few guards, the princess, and Gelcaria. With the help of Moatimu, we disposed of the guards. This was still some kind of secret project. The princess harshly commented on the flimsy looks of my rod.

I made three other trials with an increasing amount of powder before the tube exploded. This last time, the panel was shredded on multiple locations but so was my gun.

The girls weren't convinced by the concept but seeing the gun barrel explode made them change their minds a bit. It was inconvenient but might have some use. Tomorrow I'll have to go back to the smithery and commission a thicker one.

* * * * *

The Palace was as teeming as my mind was.

Servants were busy everywhere with the last-minute preparations and I was pestering the smiths.

Money was starting to become a problem. I received a “stipend” from the Prince but it was already running out. Metalworking wasn't cheap, even with my father negotiating for my sake.

After wasting another gun barrel, I wanted my third one to be moulded from one piece instead of folded and welded.

To that end, the smith used the red bone of a beast as mould. The thing was part of a “fiery” quadruped that should look like a horse according to his description: ponyta is that you?

The bone was highly heat-resistant yet easy to carve, so it was often used as material to mould metals. The only downside was that it was pricey.

I asked for more resistant alloys but despite adding some things, powders and crystals, to his bronze mix, I doubt it made it any better. This is more a show of goodwill than a real upgrade, I bet that the real good stuff is too pricey for me. I need to get them working on steel soon.

I now had a thicker bronze gun. It was as thick as my arm which made it heavy for me but Balout could swing it around like it was a light stick. I had it made shorter so that it will get light enough for me to manipulate. I'll lose in precision and firepower but my goal was to make a prototype and proof of concept rather than a functional hand-cannon. The thing was now between a gun and a musket in length, more like a shotgun.

I also commissioned a satchel of lead balls to make my own “grapeshot” with a wooden sabot and some sawdust. Bullets would require more work and would thus be costlier. I'll ask for iron bullets once I get more budget.

I've scoured through my memory of chemistry classes for things to boost my gun powder with. I should be able to somehow make either mercury or silver fulminate. Those were explosives of their own but also igniters that would allow me to skip directly to percussion hammerlocks.

I have no idea how much this will cost to research though. So I need to present interesting results first.

My experiments were put to a halt by the arrival of the first delegations.

The ones coming from the farthest were also the first to arrive. They had to factor in the possible delays so it wasn't surprising that they would arrive early if their journey went smoothly.

Melodi bothered us to go stand on the walls to have a better look. I was curious myself so I was happy to oblige.

The view from the top of the eastern wall was breathtaking. The clouds were high up enough in the sky that we had a clear vision of all of the eastern part of the city. I could see our neighbourhood, the river, and the pier; but also the fuming kilns on the other side of the river and even the in-wall farmlands. The wind was howling around us, we were outside of the strongest barriers and at such height, the strength of the winds had nothing in common with what it was at the foot of the lord's mountain.

If I turned my head to the right, I could follow the river till the horizon. Only plains and groves were to be seen but farther away to the south were the farmlands. If I looked to my left I would see the shaft and its lighthouse and far to the north the white wall of the northern mountain range blocking the view.

The envoys of the Elven court were the first guests to arrive. They rode on a ship coming from the north, the Awanui river's upstream. This was surprising because the Elven continent was far to the south. I would have expected them to arrive from downstream after passing through the coastal free cities.

The third princess was the one to solve this riddle for me, “They sailed the undersea, at least for the end of their journey.” The wind was waving her black hair like an inky sheet and messing it all. Dishevelled like that she looked more like a beautiful girl out of a fashion magazine rather than an uptight princess. I liked her more like that, as a friendly girl acting her age rather than when she was forcing herself to act like the adult she wasn't yet. Those were the moment where I knew she dropped the mask and was the real Moatimu.

“The undersea is what the name implies,” she explained to Melodi loudly enough for the rest of us to hear her, “a sea in the underground world. It is dangerous and full of monsters but so is the sea above ground. The main difference is the weather, no tempests or cyclones underground.

Winds in the huge natural caves are more steadily blowing in the same directions.” I was prou of my former student, all those translated books weren't for naught.

Since Melodi was greedily looking at her for more information the princess lightly giggled before giving her another treat, “If you have a sturdy ship, strong warriors, and the means to propel your ship, it is a safer way to travel quickly. They must have followed a stream until they reached the emergence of the Awanui River.” She was elegantly pointing at the north.

There, the underground river was magically rising back to the surface and not far from our city, just at the bottom of the northern mountain range.

I'm really curious as to how this is possible. From what I've read there are two main explanations favoured by the alchemist association. The first is a theory that stipulates that an earthquake brought a vein of wind crystals in contact with the bed of the river, pushing the water upwards. The second is more complex. Beastkin alchemists have a strange conception of the elements of the world and they believe that when two conflicting elements meet they tend to repulse one another. So they believe some fire stones are at the bottom of the river and are acting a bit like two magnets of the same polarity repulsing one another. No one ever dived to check those theories. The waters are teeming with strange beasts and monsters.

The third explanation came from the Temple. Amidea made a resurgence as a show of power and to help the crossing of the mountains. This was during a great war with the monsters thousands of years ago. When she saw that sapients were losing and with the mountains roads cut, Amidea made this new way of travel to allow the Beastkins to come to the help on the frontline of the west.

Surprisingly, I tend to favour the temple's explanation as it also explains how a river can flow towards mountains... Unless there is some very unique topography explaining this bizarre behaviour.

These elves were more diverse in their looks than the ones I met in the city. There were the usual dark-skinned, silver-haired ones but also “golden” elves with skin like brass and hair shining like gold. The leader standing at the bow of the ship was a regal-looking elve with pale white skin and snowy hair as white as an elderly. Was he an underground Elve or just a very old one?

The second delegation to arrive was the Trollkins. They emerged from the mine, riding on pack lizards that were looking like my koati pet: Godzilla, just that they were five times bigger, almost the size of a small house each. They must have also travelled underground and faced many dangers. Not only were their mounts caparisoned in plate armours but even the Trolls were wearing shiny metal on them. Not armour per se, but more like they had been dipped in liquid metal. I wonder if it becomes part of them or if this is some kind of magical mercury alloy?

The leading diplomat was a silver golem. All the stones making his body were shining and silvery and there were lapis lazuli growing on parts of his body. Every time a ray of sunlight fell on him he flashed in blue and silver.

Then came the Fungi representatives. Just like the Elves they went with the undersea route and sailed on a giant nenuphar-like “boat”. Despite looking vegetal in nature, their boat was swimming!

Its fin-like leaves were slowly undulating underwater and propelling it.

When it came in contact with sunlight it bloomed and opened up while the leaves were becoming greener. Was this thing powered by sunlight? How was it working underground? I couldn't wait to talk with one of them.

Not that I should get my hopes up, we had received instructions not to bother the ambassadors and the crew should be under surveillance. Each delegation was only authorized an ambassador and a handful of servants and said servants were not allowed to be powerful ones. This was to prevent assassinations and other trojan horse tactics.

No other delegations arrived today. When the sun was finally setting down and the col winds of fall were becoming too chilly to endure, we left our observation point.

Melodi wanted to stay a bit longer, her fur was helping her fight back the cold but the rest of us convinced her to come back tomorrow to watch the next delegations.