Part 1

While doing all of this, I get disturbed by a knocking on the door.

*knock* *knock*

Annoyed, I stand up and move to open the door. The person is about to knock again when I rip open the door a new one. The handlanger jumps in fright after seeing my face. That the door got opened this violently also played a role in this reaction.

“Si – Sir Osr – Osric, Our B-Boss is re-ready for y-you” The handlanger stuttered his sentence through his teeth. Fear and horror evident on his face. Is my annoyed face really this ridiculous.

*HAhahaha*

I think that I heard someone chuckling for a while. It sounded like an older man. Not sure whether it really happened; I turn my attention back to the guy stammering in my doorway.

“So is he coming inside or not? I don’t have all do to listen to you stuttering” I say. The man who knocked turns red from shame and makes his way back to his boss. Who is close by. Sitting on a chest in the hallway.

Amused, he stands up and winks to one of his men close-by. Getting the hint, two of them walk towards the chest and pick it up, following their boss. While carrying the box, one of the man trips, nearly falling to the ground. This scene ruined the cool entrance the guy had planned. Not my problem really, but is it really needed to walk so slowly?

After they managed to come into my room, we continue our conversation.

“Alright, I have the ginger, can I have a look at those babies again?” I say. Not bothering to greet him at all. I don’t care about him, I care about that medallion he has in his possession.

“Yes, a good day to you too Osric and yes I do have them, take a look,” he says, pointing his fingers to the chest.

One of the guys open it and this time, his chest is a bit different. It opens up like a closet. It reminds me of some joke project from a classmate of mine. He explained that he was inspired by an ancient game called Borderlands. Never heard of something this old.

It is still impressive. There are also some more stuff inside it. I don’t really understand why he is bringing his stuff around like that. If someone, say an unscrupulous individual steals it, what will happen? A question for him.

I lead him to the other side of the room, and point to the formless ginger lying on the table “Is this thing what you are searching for?” I ask the obvious.

Excitement can be seen on his face. He tries to reach it, but my body blocks his way. Obviously, I won’t let him get it before I get my stuff from him.

“Aham” He coughs “Sorry, I was a bit excited,” He says, then he looks back into the chest he brought with him. “You can have one thing”

“Two, do you know how hard it was to find one of these gingers? I had to risk my neck for it” I say. Overplaying it a little bit. I acquired it on the fly, without any difficulties, but he doesn’t have to know that.

He looks a bit unsure and reluctant, but in the end, he cracks. “Alright. The amulet you were interest in last time? You can have it as a sign of friendship. Now choose something please, I have to get back into making the potion” He urged, throwing the amulet towards me. He most likely found it somewhere and thought that is something expensive. I doubt his ability to get out any of the secrets from this amulet. Even I, who has absolutely no idea what it can make, only knows that it is special, nothing more. Oh, it is also somehow connected to that black order.

“Then I pick this,” I said and picked up a strange metal. “Fine” he said. “Boys pack up we are leaving” He said. Closely before the door closed, I heard someone cheering. And guess who this someone was? When the door closed with a click, the tranquillity returned to my room. Taking a look at the two loots I acquired from that idiot, I grin and then throw it into the amulet. Deciding to bother with them later. A weapon is waiting for me to finish it and I can’t wait to use it.

“Where was I? yes there” I go back into my work. The feeling from before got back. Until now I wasn’t able to categorize it, but now I am sure that someone is observing me. I don’t know how or why. Theoretically, not even the tower can spy on me effectively. They never thought about spying on the apprentices. Yes they can monitor the outside, but the minute details are over them. At least that is what I heard from multiple people. I do believe it only with a grain of salt of course. Control of information is far too easy in a society like this. Not bother about it anymore, not like I could change it, I go back into my work. The gun isn’t going to build itself.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

In a dark corner, somewhere unspecific.

A dark figure is enshrouded in a mist-like environment. His surrounding is an ever-changing black. In his hands is a small dagger and a mirror. The dagger is blood red on the edges, while violet-silver inside. It has beautiful engravings on all sides. It has the appearance of a piece of art than a weapon for murder. The mirror is also heavily adorned. Not tasteless, but eerily fitting. Inside the mirror, the black man is watching interested a young man working on a metal-looking worktable. Fumbling around with a strange metal cylinder.

After the young men look around for a second, the old man freezes in astonishment. “His affinities are this strong? He is just an apprentice for fucks sake. Meh whatever, maybe he is worthy and, more importantly, fun” The men mumbles to himself and leaves his place in the void. His destination as unknown as his arrival to anyone else.

PART 2

So the first prototype is finished after a day of work. It isn’t pretty, but it is already usable. I went in with a bullpup design. Smooth and it also allowed me to leave out the trigger. You can imagine it like an oversized underside of a p90 and in the middle is the revolver for the grenades. The grenade launcher has to be reloaded one at a time, unfortunately. I am unable to make it like a normal revolver so that I can reload 6 at a time. Not really a problem. Putting the grenades on my belt is fairly efficient and I can hide it under the robe. Now for that belt, I let a tailor make one for me. I have no idea how to tailor and make stuff like that. Yes, I can cheat a bit like I did with the armguard, but that is the extent of it. And the belt isn’t a magical artefact, so it isn’t a problem. The only thing I am going to do later makes it more durable with some runes. Nothing more.

Now the first test. I pick up the oversized grenade launcher and immediately notice that it is too heavy. It weighs 23 kilogrammes. I can use it, but I would tire too fast. Combined with the recoil I will get, this will get too hard to handle. So for the next day, I organized myself some lightweight wood, and re-designed the whole gun. Cutting iron out and making more out of wood.

These changes cost me half a day. In changing the upperparts and working on my woodworks skill, the gun received a new shape at the end of the day. I had quite a bit of fun making it. Working with wood is something I enjoyed in particular. Wood was something rare and precious on earth. Using it for something like a gun would get you shot. So expensive, was it? It was a special kind of fun making something with your hands. Even if that thing is a weapon of mass destruction. The new weapon looks similar to the old one. The upper body still had an unrefined iron colour. The bottom part is made out of a dark, oak-like wood. It has a nice flowing design. From afar, it looks kind of cool, only up close can you see the unrefined spots The iron isn’t smoothed out and the wood is still rather raw. Here and there are some rough edges. Not always flowing like the design is supposed to look.

The purpose of this prototype isn’t to look great, I can bother about it later. Picking it up again, I notice how out of balance it feels. It is a bit too heavy on the top. This time I am pretty comfortable with the weight. I might be able to add some metal at the bottom to even out the wight. A too high centre of weight would make it unhandy. Harder and more unnatural to use.

I lay the gun to the side for now. The design is somewhat okay. Yes, I can make improvements and redesign it a couple of times, but that right now is inefficient. I better make the finished grenades and then I can put some finishing touches on both.

Now for the grenades. I make out one cylinder and make it a bit smaller than the other one I used for the gun. Apropo other guns. I also take out one of the two cylinders, which function as the champer, and make one just a bit smaller, so that it fits, but doesn’t get stuck. That was fairly easy, after taking the dimensions for the other cases, I continue my design process. So this case is going to be closed after it is finished. The making of the case is a fairly straightforward process. Making a bottom for the cylinder, then I put a small iron bar inside. This one is used to orient the scrolls. So that they don’t go in a random direction. In case that I need that. They also help the stability of the grenade. Making sure that the thing doesn’t crack and the scrolls explode. That would make this thing way too dangerous.

On the note of magic scrolls. I use a more expensive kind of scroll. This new scroll is made from the skin of black stripped boas. Then these strips are used to make the scroll material. Now, these strips are usually made into a 15 x 15-centimetre scroll. The perfect size for my grenade launcher. Now for this scroll, I also need a better quill and a somewhat better ink. Buying these isn’t really expensive. The ink is made with normal ink, tiny amounts of monster blood, and a tiny amount of materials to bind the two together. So not really expensive. The quantities necessary isn’t that much either. The best thing about them is, that compared to potions, alchemists can’t scam people, because making inks is too easy for that. Basically, as long as someone finds any kind of combination, and they are usable, then they can sell it. They are classified into how much mana they can hold. I am unsure how they made these classifications. It is too complicated then it needs to be, but after some tries, I found the right one. So, the most costly part are the scrolls used in the grenades. The other parts like the metal an ink are negligible. One grenade is still a lot more expensive than their old model though, so I did make some of them. Either to sell them at a high price, and I was complaining about scammers a moment ago right?, or use them when I don’t need the grenade launcher.