《Pasted Gunner》#27-New era
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Next morning:
"Ugh"
My head felt like splitting, I felt dehydrated and my D was a little sore.
[Daaamn, I haven't drank for a while and its evident]
After my little amorous adventure, I went back to the festival and had several mugs. Or amphorae, or whatever they poured into me.
However, as hardened European, it wasn't big deal to withstand such trivial amount.
I welcomed morning, or to be precise, noon Sun. Then I saw my old owl companion, which I let loose since she was already old enough and she really liked the habitat of village.
It looked like the habitat of fields and forests was great since there were enough rodents that liked to eat crops. And she liked to eat them.
I greeted Aima at his house which he shared with that dumb gorilla of warchief.
I told him to gather the smartest craftsmen in village so I can keep my part of deal. This day, I wanted them to learn about metals and maybe we could look for some ores. Before he left, he told me where to go to get some food. I could have chosen from one of the family houses and have what they have. They greeted me politely and offered me some bread, some kind of unknown vegetables and freshwater fish. Well, it was ok, but there wasn't much of salt since it was sparse. But I made it up from my salt stock. They also granted me big fruit, which looked like red mango and was white inside. Taste was sweet and mysterious.
There were five men standing beside Aima. One of them was much thinner and cleaner than four others.
"So you gentlemen are the local craftsmen right? Tell me what do you do"
"I am acolyte and next shaman, I seek all kind of knowledge and wisdom" (The slim one)
"I always help others with bows and other weapons"
"The two of us are best at making any kind of wares, equipment and so on"
"I command building structures, or repairing them"
When we got to know with each other, I started lecture with question.
"Tell me guys, what are you making things from?"
"Well, the basics. We make from everything we found. Stone, flint, wood, bones, leather and fibers from plants"
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"And what is the problem with for example flint?" (Me)
"It cracks easily. And it's hard to find."
"And?" (Me)
"That's all I think??"
"And can you freely change the shape of stone?" (Me)
"Hell no! Why are you asking such dumb questions? I thought you were going to teach us, not making us fools. Fuck you!"
"Hey! Keep your tone low bastard!! I want to teach you something, so shut up or leave."
(Me)
I then pulled my knife and passed it to them.
"Have you ever met such material? Try it. It is very sharp and durable. You can chop wood with it." (Me)
One of them knocked on it and looked at it with surprised face.
"What is this weird stone? It feels absolutely strange in hand?!"
"Hahaha, this isn't stone. This is totally different kind of material. This kind of material is called metal. And this metal is named steel." (Me)
"And where it can be found??"
"That is the problematic part. There are many kinds of metals, but they are very reactive. For example, wood reacts with air. This reaction is called burning. Wood is composed of different materials and it reacts with oxygen, one kind of stuff in air. Parts of wood connects with oxygen and it produces heat and smoke. Metals are similar. They can react with some things and they form compositions. These compositions are called ores. Ore can be found in many places. Mostly as part of some rocks. When you have the ore, which contains the metal you want, you need to get the metal from it. How to get it? You need to reverse the reaction between the metal and that other element. So you just basically give the ore some heat. You literally put the ore into fire."
I spent almost an hour of explaining the process of smelting, but i looked like they got it.
"So tell me, is there some place in vicinity, where teren is rocky and the rock is bare and naked?"
"Yes, it is far away, but we could get there in two hours. The stream has made the rock split there."
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"Nice, lets prepare for journey. It will be better to depart tomorrow. You lot are preparing things to start a fire, something to dig with and an axe."
Next day:
The craftsmen, acolyte and old geezer took me to a place where rock was hollowed by a stream. I firstly analyzed the rock. Well, it was ordinary rock, nothing special. But I found some parts which contained lot of iron. I was examining rock when I saw a little speck of azure color. Just a little bit, bug that was good. Good enough.
"I need some of you to take the pick and mallet and dig out as much as possible of this azure thing here"
The work was very laborious, full of curses, many mistakes and it took two broken picks (just a piece of hard stone with oval shape). But in the end, out mining team was able to get some malachite and azurite.
It wasn't any stellar amount, full of impurities, but hey, their first metal ore ever.
"Good, now clean the rock from the ore. We just want the blue parts, not the rock. Some of you, can make small pit and start fire inside."
We constructed the most primitive smelting furnace ever. It was pit full of burning wood. I made a groove for the makeshift bellow we made yesterday. Then I sprinkled the pulverized ore on the burning coals and covered it with piece of grass with roots. We took turns at bellowing the air inside, while I instructed the architect guy to make melting furnace. It was just clay and stone pit, where crucible could be attached.
In two hours of bellowing, the smelting process was finished. I poured some water inside the pit and took out all copper beads.
"Look, this is what we came for. This metal is called copper. Even though its soft, it is still better than stone" (Me)
"And what do we do with such small pieces?"
"Melt it. When you heat it enough, the metal will melt into liquid"
The copper beads were dirty, full of slag and coal parts. So we made a fireplace and put it inside to burn the coal out. The smelter was already lit and red hot coals from wood were visible. I put all more or less purified copper pieces into the crucible and closed the lid. Then we once again bellowed the air, until even the crucible was glowing red. The liquid copper was poured into another ceramic vessel.
"And this is how you make copper" I told them when the copper metal cooled.
Several hours later.
We arrived back to the village and the craftsmen were all happy to show the ingot we made. I told then to prepare mallet, hearth and some large, flat rock.
When hearth was lit, the whole village was there to watch us. The amount of copper we had was enough only to make one tool. I thought the axe would be best, but I finally decided to make hammer. If we were to make some other metal tool, hammer would be of the essence. And I could always lend them one of my metal tools. But I don't have any hammer since I always used my Shapeshifting skill. This entire ordeal was in the end for show. I let the copper heat up in the hearth and started to hit it with the stone mallet. It went as good as forging metal with piece of stone could possibly go.
But in the end, I managed to create quite pretty hammer. It was from copper, so it will probably deteriorate after several hits, but beginnings are never easy. The complete product was polished afterwards.
"Dear people" I approached the crowd "you have now entered whole new era. The era of metals. Soon, you will throw out all tools made from bones and stones and use totally new material. Metal!!"
"Blueprint acquired: Copper smelting"
"Tittle achieved: One who writes the history
Des.
You changed the lifestyle of people. Brought new era and gave new course to the people
+5 Will
+Charisma enhanced (depends on Will)"
"1000xp."
"Level up (2x)"
[This is pretty neat]
[Equip: One who writes history]
"Name: John Novak
Race: Human (otherworldly)
Level: 19 (remaining 804xp)
Titles: Jackass, Chemician, One who writes history. Goblin slayer (inactive)
Hp:290/290 Mp:300/300 Sta:280/280 Qi:0/0 Spi: 90/90
Str:79 Int:62 Dex:49 Agi:38 Will:51
Per:52 End:89 Luk: 30(+15)
Professions:
Main: Gunner
Secondary: Chemist
Skills:
Shapeshifting(4)
Extract(6)
Scan(5)
Mana reinforced shot(0)
Aimed shot(0)
Chemical analysis(1)
Affect(1)
Drop (unique)(-)
Abilities:
Gunnery(4)
Chemistry(6)
Survival(8)
Arithmetic(5)
Camouflage(6)
Quickdraw (1)
Crafting(5)
Perks:
Universal language
Toughness (8)
Steady aim (1)"
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