I'd just finished up cataloging all the various enchantments and was about to break everything down when Oliver and Devlen arrive in a carriage.

"Hey guys." I call out with magic. "We're just down the path, come on over."

"Ah, Sorrel." Oliver Windwhispers back. "I received some interesting reports about a trio of foreigners..." He trails off as they round the corner to see the piles of junk/treasure.

"Yeah, some of Lan's countrymen. I may have gotten into a slight disagreement with them." I chuckle at the looks on their faces. "You want any of this junk? I'm keeping that pile there, but the rest is going to get decomposed or disintegrated."

"So, the 'flowers of death' report clearly wasn't exaggerated." The old mage sighs before joining me in a laugh. "I've heard that the best defense is a good offense, but I think you may have taken that a bit too literally. Mind if I ask what they were here for?"

"They were after me, but think I'm dead now thanks to Sorrel." Lan procedes to tell them his story. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't spread my true identity around. Right now, I'm just Lan; a traveling mage that's looking for a place to rest for a while."

"We can keep your secret." Oliver says, obviously seeing the potential of having another strong mage in the country.

"Thank you." Lan nods to him.

"So, what did you guys stop by for?" I interject. "The reports may have drawn you out, but that doesn't explain Devlen."

"Ah." The Earth mage starts hesitantly with a look at Lan. "We have your, uh... share."

"Nice, just let me finish up here and we can deal with that." I've got a good feeling about Lan, but I'm not about to let him know we're sitting on a goldmine like that. "You sure you two don't want any of this stuff? Their scout was a big 'art' fan." I joke.

"I can see you have business to attend to." Lan says to me. "And, I still need to find an inn to stay at, so I'll get out of your hair. Thank you again, Sorrel." He bows to me.

"You're more than welcome." I bow back. "Here take a phone so we can keep in touch, and..." I swiftly make a cubic meter of paper for him. "here's that paper you needed."

"Interesting communication Rune." He opens the box and leafs through the instructions. "I'd say that this is even better than what we use in Freraskir. I'll include what I know about those and other enchantments as well." He puts the phone in a pocket and the paper in his inventory. "I'd let you examine my old one, but I left it behind for fear of being tracked." He nods to everyone and walks off.

"Amelia?" I look questioningly at the merchant's daughter that's found herself attracted to that treasure chest like a moth attracted to flame. "If you're done playing with the gold, how about we head inside? I still haven't finished breakfast yet. I promise I'll build you a big tub full of coins so you can swim around in it later."

"Were they really carrying all that?" Devlen asks a bit agog at the sheer amount of riches.

"Just one of them, actually. He seems to have been a bit of a thief." I show off the cloak of shadows and burglars tools.

"And a big 'ol perv." Apricot adds from where she's still looking over his porn stash.

"Well, I guess he got what was coming to him then." Devlen laughs.

***

"So, do you have any idea what to do with this stuff?" Devlen asks after transferring over a couple large crates full of Metallic essences.

"No, but this should help." I hold up the book I copied from Lan, and take a moment to make a couple translations for Devlen and Oliver. "One of the assassins after Lan had a chunk of iron essence, I sold it to him in exchange for knowledge, this book being part of it." A shit eating grin spreads across my face as I pat a crate with hundreds of times what I gave to the Freraskirite.

"Hahahaha!" Oliver cracks up laughing as Devlen’s mouth hangs open in shock.

"Yeah, I thought you'd get a kick out of that." I put the crates away with a low chuckle of my own. "There's some interesting stuff in there, much more than the tid-bits in the guild library. Almost half the book is devoted just to the iron and steel alloys."

"Oh goodness, Del is going to go mad." He's looking at the section related to enchanting.

Copper, silver, and lead essences are quite useful in that they conduct/amplify, reflect, and absorb mana, respectively. You'd think gold would be in there with them, but it's trait is that it's malleable enough to just take on the properties of whatever it's alloyed with.

"I knew about mithril and a couple iron alloys, but all this..." He trails off while flipping through the book.

"Yeah, there's some interesting stuff in there." I smile at the earth mage. "I quite like nickel, it pretends to be other essences, but can be identified by looking at its reflection in silver essence. And then, it can be used to enhance the other metals even more.

There's a few other interesting things in there, like how titanium can be turned into the strongest, most unbreakable tools. But, only if forged on a tungsten essence anvil, which is so hard and heavy that it's nearly unusable for anything else.

Then there's stuff like magnesium which is said to be false mithril because it's lighter and stronger initially, but will eventually shatter once it takes too much punishment. The book even says that the two can be alloyed together to form a stable alloy that's even lighter and stronger.

But, I think my favorite has to be zinc." I finally wrap up my little speech, all the information is fresh in my brain from translating it, and I had let some of it gush out.

Devlen flips through the book looking the section on zinc. "It heals you?"

"So, the book says." I nod. "There's no other uses listed because apparently everyone that finds a piece turns it into jewelry that they never take off."

"And we have kilograms of the stuff." He lets out a giddy laugh.

"Yes, we do. Thanks to that stupid worm." I laugh along with him. "I've got a little project in mind for some of this stuff, but I think I'm going to let you mess around with these essences first. Once I get that security Rune done for the palace, I think I'd like to start work on building up Arcadia. I've got a few ideas that could greatly improve the people's quality of life."

"Well, they are your lands." Oliver starts. "But, you should probably speak with Queen Vivian before introducing anything too grand."

"Yes, I know." I nod to the Court Wizard. "I'd planned to anyways, I just want to get the enchantments working first. Oh, and speaking of." My face turns a bit sour. "Here's some diagrams for Deluca. They may not have come from the best sources, but that doesn't mean that they aren't useful. I can already see how to adapt some of the torture devices into healing tools."

"This..." He trails off, holding the book on essences in one hand, and a sheet of enchantments in the other. "Why are you so generous? You've given away what you could have beggared half the country by selling."

Oliver looks like he's going to speak up, but I raise my hand to forestall him. "A few reasons; I needed to gain support after my sudden rise and, I believe that knowledge wants to be free, but mainly because "No man is an island". I can't take on the world by myself, and the stronger Larendath as a whole is, then the safer I and my family can be."

Amelia and Apricot look up from their breakfasts to smile at me.

"And besides, who said I'm going to give everything away for free?" I chortle at the look that crosses Amelia's face. "Just wait until I upgrade the phones, I consider the ones I gave out to be base models. Imagine if they could not only take pictures like those Runes from last night, but send them to each other. Wouldn't you want to buy that? And that's just the least of the ideas I have for them."

"And, we're about to start selling the chocolate too." Amelia adds. "Even if we couldn't make Mana Stones, that alone would make us rich. And, Sorrel wants people to buy the improvements he has in mind for Arcadia with service for the public good."

"Truly?" Oliver gets a glint in his eyes.

"Yes, I know that war is likely still inevitable." I say with a sad sigh. "I obviously still need to speak with Her Majesty about this, but if we can bolster the troops by making them want to serve in exchange for say a house that stays warm in the winter, or some magical lights." I give a couple examples. "It may not be how things are done by most nobles, but I'm me."

"I will definitely need to speak with Her and Patrick about this." He says with a thoughtful look. "I know you said you want to work on things first, but do you have anything you can show me now?"

"I do." I say out loud while also using a spell so that only he can hear. "but, it involves that thing I'm not sharing with anyone."

"Devlen." Oliver says after a pause. "I'm going to look over what he's got. Why don't you head back first?"

"Yes, I can't wait to show this to Deluca." He nods having clearly missed our little subterfuge.

...

"By all the gods, Sorrel!" Oliver exclaims when I take him down into the sub-basement to see the giant Mana Gem. "What is that?"

"Storage." I shrug. "The reactor can generate power continuously, and it'd be a waste not to capture it. I plan to use these to transfer that power across Arcadia." I pick up a loop of Mana conduit from a table along the wall.

"That is all Fire Mana?" He holds his hand over the gem like he's afraid to touch it.

"Yeah, and yes it's safe to touch." I laugh. "It may be big but it acts just like any other stored Mana." While he's examining the gem I create a simple Flame Rune only with a connection for the cable instead of a Mana Stone. "I want to keep the reactor safe here, and run these cables out to Riverton and eventually the rest of Arcadia." I explain and touch the other end of the cable to the big Gem and light up the Rune.

"You found a way to send the Mana over such a long distance?" He looks at the cable in my hand quizzically.

"I've tested up to a kilometer long cable with zero loss, the thing is basically just a flexible Mana Stone." I hand it over. "It is somewhat tedious to make, but doesn't take all that long."

"This would let us use your cars at the border, or wherever you laid the cable out to."

"And, any other enchantments really, I'm focusing on those that use Fire Mana right now, but the conduit can handle any Mana type." I open up a tunnel and pull one of the motorcycles from the garage over. "Imagine your scouts riding these. Thanks to Damita and her grandfather I can finally get rid of the manual transmission, so all they have to do is twist this handle, and not fall off."

"Your iron horse." He gives it an avaricious glance.

"Yours, if you want. Just give me a minute to swap transmissions." I do just that, and am so glad that bikes don't have reverse. This means no complex gears just the cogs for the chain and a clutch for neutral.

"Oh, I've been wanting to try one of these since I heard about you hauling Westra around." He chuckles and straddles the bike.

"I know you can protect yourself with magic, but I'll probably have to build special armor for the soldiers in case they fall off." 'That, and dead man switches to destroy the bike if they "fall".' I think sourly to myself, but don't let it show on my face.

"You got us to Riverton in a night with that big box, but how fast would it take with just this baby." He pets the tank.

"On its own it can top two-hundred kilometers an hour, easy. But, if you use Magic to reduce the air drag and keep the tank stocked with Mana, then you should be able to nearly double that." I sure did. "Your biggest problem would be finding a clear stretch of road."

"Less than three hours? Hahahahah." He breaks into a full-throated laugh.

"The engines aren't just good for transport either, but I'm not sure how much of that I wish to introduce, if any at all."

"How do you mean?" He turns serious upon hearing my tone.

"Farm equipment for one." I say the biggest worry that popped into my head. "One man with the right equipment could do all the farming that an entire village does now. But, then what happens to all the other farmers? I want to help people not take their livelihoods away."

"I'll bring that up with Vivian. But, you know that if it comes down to it, we may need something like that just to field enough troops." He pauses for a moment. "Of course you know, you wouldn't have brought it up otherwise."

I just give him a sad smile. "Yes, but enough depressing crap. Let's ride!" One of the other bikes rolls up next to me.

"Hah! Last one to the gate loses." He revs the throttle and takes off down the tunnel to the garage.

***