Synergistic use of Demolitions and Extra-dimensional Storage Space in effect.

You have used 10% of your level 9 potency on artifacts labeled. 'Super Flame Resistant Cloth.' and 'Balls of Fire!'

You have successfully put together two dozen Big Surprises!

You have successfully put together two dozen Little Surprises!

Scholarship check FAILED! Unfortunately, you still have absolutely no idea how to properly fire a bronze cannon, how to change the angle of fire, or what the ideal black powder to grapeshot load might be. You clearly slept through that part of your personal trainer’s lectures, having absolutely no idea that one day you’d need that info!

Insight check successful! - Nothing says you can’t make your own variation, and if you keep the loads light, in deference to the fact that you have absolutely no idea what your doing and don’t want to blow up your cannons, you have no doubt your weapons will still do some damage!

Maybe a hell of a lot of damage. Here's to hoping you didn't totally mess up, and they won't go off the moment you pull them out of storage!

Demolitions skillcheck successful! You have ascertained which cannon is Fatally Flawed, and have mentally marked that one for the scrap heap!

Demolitions is now Rank 5!

Eric flashed a pleased smile, wiping the sweat from his brow after the nerve-wracking work of making multiple deadly packages filled with black powder surrounded by grapeshot, all contained in cases made of ligaments, bones, and scale, both large and small packages, in multiple shapes. Most important of all, had been inserting grapeshot pellets covered in layers of gradually heated essence-infused blood, the final layer being a steel melting 4,000 Fahrenheit. With each and every pellet carefully wrapped up in thick wads of blood-infused cloth infused with the essence of Fire at precisely 77 degrees. One pellet for each of his deadly packages. Each wrapper now linked to his soul, the perfect barriers between powder and spark.

A barrier he could reclaim at will.

The most perilous part of the whole process would be testing each individual box, of course, and the 11 cannons he trusted, intending to use them far more cautiously so that they could be re-used, preferably by people who actually knew what they were doing.

Of course it was only when dusk had covered the night sky that he was hit with a sudden epiphany, smiling as he glimpsed the starry heavens through the broken windows of the abandoned apartment he had claimed as his own. He leaned back on the old spring mattress still smelling faintly of perfume as he mentally went over all the finer points of what he was about to put together with the resources he had stored away in his ES Space.

He couldn't help but admire his gleaming bronze muzzle-loading cannons, appreciating both their glorious potential in this brave new world, and the arduous time it would take to reload and fire them.

But not for him, he thought, visualizing what he should have at the start, mentally emptying each that he had loaded in his ES Space before mentally redesigning the shrapnel head and explosive charge with the hot, cloth wrapped primer just waiting to be triggered into being, now surrounding grapeshot and powder in a double compartment, surrounded and separated by a hard shell of toughened lizard hide and bone.

He was in no hurry, worried only about doing it right as seconds and minutes became hours, until he had no less than a hundred zombified shell casings, each filled with powder, grapeshot, and blood primed triggers that had cost him another whopping 15% of his total experience.

But he knew he wasn’t done.

Not yet.

Not until he had tested every last primer.

Not until he knew that pulling a single one of his deadly prizes free wouldn’t result in a catastrophic eruption that would paint dozens of laughing orcs with his own entrails.

He took a deep breath, gazing down at the cast iron pan still on the gas stovetop that, with just a few seconds concentration, had a very light dusting of black powder.

Upon which he instantly summoned, a blood-linked, pellet wrapped in crimson cloth, both infused with his blood. He braced himself for a sudden flash, letting loose a relieved breath he hadn't even known he had been holding when the gunpowder remained perfectly inert. But he didn't call it a success until the whole thing was covered with a dusting of gunpowder, as inert as he could hope for.

It was only when he brought the pan into the apartment bathtub, stepped in the adjoining, and pulled free the crimson piece of cloth with a single controlled thought that the faintest of wooshes could be heard, as well as the smell of steam and sulfur filling the air.

Quickly, before it could melt through, he returned the white-hot iron pellet to storage before wrapping it once more in heat-proof cloth.

He then repeated the gun powder test with each and every one of his primers.

And only once out of all those times did the gunpowder erupt unexpectedly, an occurrence which instantly wiped the smile off his face, as he sunk into a plastic chair and shook his head.

Taking deep breaths as his heart pounded, forehead prickling with a cold sweat.

Because that particular primer had been for one of his big boys. A ball bearing-filled present that would have wiped him out in an eyeblink, if he had been foolish enough to use his tools without even the most precursory of tests.

Not even the notification that Demolitions had gone all the way up to Rank 7, along with a growing gut sense of which of his munitions was the most stable and which the most likely to blow up in his face, was enough to assuage the chill he felt racing down his spine, forced to reconcile with himself just how close his own daring had come to killing him.

Because there was no way in hell that his skill could have shot up so quickly, unless the Potency he was claiming, the endless potential he was either rescuing or imperiling… was his own.

It was a thought that chilled him to the bone.

Worst of all, his need for bold, decisive, and potentially suicidal gambles would only grow in the upcoming days.

He flashed a bitter smile in the bathroom mirror, gazing back at features that were almost handsome, even if filled with a certain amount of dread. Because as perilous as things had become, if he was to have any hope of growing stronger and truly becoming a force to be reconned with in this brave new world, he damn well couldn't afford to hesitate. Not for a single second could he let fear serve as anything more than the extremely useful tool that it was.

A tool to keep his senses sharp, while he pressed on with everything he had.

Always.

If there was one bit of consolation, it was that each of those blood-wrapped cloths and the superheated iron pellets were now bound to his soul, so he knew without question which was which, and firing the correct one in the correct cartridge or bomb would be no more difficult than pointing at a chalkboard with the correct finger, since all of them were now just extensions of himself.

Even if he had effectively used another Soul Point to bind the material, in addition to the price he had paid in experience points.

Because blood magic was powerful. Damned powerful, in the most unorthodox of ways.

But between the cost of creating his weapons, and the 95% reduction in experience he would garner from any fatalities with his newest toys… one definitely paid a price for killing with gunpowder instead of sharp steel.

With a final satisfied nod, and stopping only to reload his crossbows for ½ incendiary and ½ inert bolts, Eric collected his gear and left the apartment, eager to discuss his plan with his friends.