Essy had led the three of them through the forest, looking for the elusive berry bush. It had only taken about 5 minutes of searching on the wing before they had found it. Covering ground was really a lot easier when on the wing, even if they had to duck and dive around the massive tree trunks. Saph had of course decided to try and have a little fun, flinging herself over branches and diving down between the smaller trees to run the slalom between them.

Fengi had followed, the smaller very nippy huntress managing the tight turns just fine. So Saph had put on a little more speed to see just how fast the diminutive Fengi could go down here. They were soon racing along with Essy putting on some more speed too, keeping watch from above as the two of them had their fun. Before long it became rather clear Fengi was trying to catch Saph. ‘Tag it is then. I’ll show you.’

Finding a small stretch of open air, Saph put her larger stronger wings to use, accelerating away from a struggling Fengi. Down here straight line speed wouldn’t win her much though, nor was it much fun. So she locked her wings and banked a full 90 degrees, pulling into a sharp turn around a young ash wood and savoring the familiar feeling as her wings bent like springs under the load, leaving her suspended on a rather smooth ride hurtling around the sharp corner. Fengi could turn sharply, even sharper in fact, but she could not hold her speed in the turn as well. Her wings were smaller and she weighed less.

Saph wouldn’t much approve of anyone calling her a fatarse, but she had to concede that she was larger than Fengi. Glancing behind her, Fengi was indeed falling behind as Saph reversed her turn, rolling back over and pulling up hard once more, looking to bleed all the speed out of Fengi behind her.

Fengi sadly wasn’t stupid though and didn’t follow into said turn, instead pulling up and out through the loose branches, folding up her wings and simply slamming through with a crash of snapping twigs and small branches. “Well I guess that’s one way to do it…” Saph let out, looking at the beam of light peeking through where Fengi had vacated the battlefield.

‘So, where is she going?’ Saph pondered as she slowed down, gliding along while trying not to make noise. Soon enough she spotted Fengi through a hole in the lower treecover, the young huntress flying up under the cover of the heaven oak, clearly searching for prey. Worryingly she had definitely seen Saph and began a dive down at speed.

“Ahr shit,” Saph let out as she tried to pile speed back on again. A quick check behind her confirmed that wasn’t happening before Fengi managed to dive on her back. So instead she flared up to vertical, wings spread wide and tensing from nose to tail tip as she pulled a fair amount of G’s, coming to a near stop in less than a second. Sure enough, Fengi came hurtling past with much swearing as she had to pull up to not smack into the ground. Saph beat her wings just enough to get enough speed to stay airborne then watched what the young huntress would do next.

Fengi elected to bleed her excess speed in a sharp right turn, whipping around with frightening ease. Saph carried on steadily, heading right at the much faster flying Fengi, trying to see if maybe she would be up for a game of chicken.

From above Essy shouted out for them to stop this nonsense, as Fengi took the bait. Saph needed to make sure Fengi didn’t just slap her with her tail or something as the two passed each other, as well as avoiding a collision of course. Luckily forests were full of trees, so with a quick bank she pulled up and to the right, right up into a nice protective treetop where she deftly landed, claws digging into the soft bark.

“You bastard!” Fengi shouted out, seemingly rather upset at her continued failure as Saph snickered, watching the young huntress go by once more having carried far too much speed. Saph had ended up in a rather precarious situation though, and it didn’t take Fengi long to come around and come in for a landing in Saph’s precious treetop. “Come here!” Fengi half-laughed as Saph retreated in among the branches, trying not to giggle too much herself.

“Intruder. Get out of my tree you brute!”

“Damn traitors hiding from the law,” Fengi snapped in reply, clearly having just as much fun as Saph as the two chased each other from branch to branch. Fengi was smaller and faster here, Saph soon finding herself pushed into a corner out on a long lone branch. She considered taking flight once more, looking behind her to check if anything was in the way in case she wanted to jump. When she looked back to Fengi the young huntress had already launched herself kicking off the tree trunk with wings folded out just enough to carry her to her intended target.

Saph did try to duck out of the way, but there was no time as Fengi slammed into her, shoulder-checking her right in the stomach. Arms wrapped around Saph’s waist as she stumbled over backward, landing on the branch rather hard. Fengi let out an involuntary grunt as she landed on top of the older huntress, not letting go.

“Got you!” Fenig laughed out, scrambling for a better hold on her prey.

“Aow,” Saph let out with a groan, rubbing the back of her head, which had slammed into the branch. Then there was a rather concerning cracking sound. “Ahr shit.”

The two entangled huntresses were suddenly reminded that they were currently about 10 meters off the ground as the branch gave way, sending them tumbling toward the ground. They both instinctively flared their wings to make as much drag as they could, result being it only hurt a lot when they slammed into the flat forest floor below, Fengi clutching Saph’s waist all the way down as the two of them screamed together.

Saph had to admit she was a little hazy following the impact, contenting herself with staring at the tree top as broken twigs and leaves rained down around them.

“That hurt,” Fengi let out groggily, head rising up from her rather unfortunate position, looking around and seeming to be just as out of it as Saph somehow.

“Says you. Who was it that just got headbutted in the stomach… twice?” Saph protested, taking a labored breath, lungs raspy.

Then a pair of feet landed next to the two of them, an unimpressed Esmeralda looking down at the mess, shaking her head. “So. What did we learn?”

“Saph sucks at picking branches?” “Fengi’s a fat ass?” came the replies.

“No, Both of you should take a lesson from Kullinger on what something can carry… Honestly.”

Fengi finally moved to get off Saph. Unfortunately she did so by pushing on Saph’s already rather sore belly, eliciting another grunt of pain. “Really?”

“Oh. Sorry… I did win though,” Fengi apologized once she managed to sit up, looking down at the defeated Sapphire.

“Sure… just give me a minute.”

“Well if it helps, I don’t think your antics have broken anything,” Essy added as she started to pace arround the two huntresses looking them up and down. “Well done.”

“Hey now, training hurts from time to time. I would like to see you catch me down here,” Saph retorted, Essy letting out a long sigh, indicating she probably agreed on that one. Besides, Dakota had been talking about upping training again as soon as they could get away with it. Then again with the amount of construction work ahead of them, that wasn’t seeming too likely outside of those weekends.

“Only when you do it poorly. You also failed to notice the berries. They were back there.”

__________________________________________________________________________________

In the forge, Edita and Shiva had set up what Tom could best describe as a sampling. Only instead of wine they had brought out and organized what looked like every single type of metal they owned. Some in the form of bars, some as scrap, others yet as fine instruments. Tinks, Junior, Shiva, Linkosta, and of course chief assistant Kiran had been assembled, though Kiran was only there due to the fact he had refused to climb down after Tom had gone to check on Jarix.

As it turned out, Edita mostly just wanted to work out what Tom called them all. And he did have to give her that would be quite useful down the line. What he was interested in, though, was some of the things that he didn’t have any clue what they were.

“Soo… It’s not tungsten?” Tom questioned, inspecting the odd dart Edita had produced. According to her, it was supposedly used by an ancient type of arcane firearm. One which relied on externally supplied steam pressure to fling the dart at terrifying velocities. Quite why they weren’t going with gunpowder or even blackpowder was beyond him, but one thing at a time for now.

“Which one was that again?” Edita replied, paging through her notes. “No, not that one. Assuming we got it right. This is also a magically forged alloy, much like mithril as you call it.”

“Fair… well what can you tell me about this one?”

“It is incredibly hard yet surprisingly resistant to shattering hence its use for many types of projectile.”

“Sounds like another miracle metal. Any downsides?”

“Yes, it is very sensitive to heat. Melting point is a mere 500 degrees: that is still a substantial improvement over the lead and mercury it is made from.”

“Ahr… so wait, the what now?” Tom said, looking up at her before putting the dart back down gently. ‘Maybe gloves for that one.’

“Oh not to worry it is quite safe… until you melt it.”

“They said the same thing about both lead and mercury back in the day… out of curiosity, what happens when it melts?”

“Oh it splits, but at that point it is beyond the boiling point of the mercury.”

“Mercury gas… noted. Let’s not try to do that.”

“It would probably be for the best, yes. It is quite useful though for any low temperature applications. When used together with cold steam it works wonderfully.”

“With what now?” Tom questioned. He had heard of superheated steam alright, but what on earth was cold steam?

“Cold steam… You know what you get when you boil… oh you wouldn’t have that either now would you?”

“I am very confused,” Tom admitted, bracing himself for some laws of physics to get buttfucked beyond recognition.

“If it is any help, I don’t know what she is on about either,” Tinks added, giving Tom a pat on the shoulder, the inventor having taken a seat and watching the artificer intently.

“Right, so we call it okraz xarzith.”

“That means ice water, or liquid ice, I think” Linkosta added helpfully, Tom giving her a polite nod before looking back to Edita.

“Riiight,” Tom replied slowly, as Edita waited to see if he had any questions.

“It is made from frost powder and water through a rather basic ritual I could teach Linkosta… you know, if you want to.”

“Of course,” the young mage responded enthusiastically. “Is it much like the rituals upon the blood for inscribing?”

“A bit like that, yes. I do recommend thick gloves though, it’s very cold to work with.”

Tom didn’t even comment, instead just watching and trying to work out what the use of what sounded more or less like supercooled water with extra steps might be.

Edita seemingly got the memo as she noticed Tom staring. “Right yes, the result is a liquid that stays well… liquid all the way down to negative… one hundred fifty degrees by your measurements,” she carried on paging through her notes, probably for a conversion chart of some sort.

“Riiight… why?”

“So that it may be boiled at room temperature of course.”

“So… wait if this stuff is sitting it just returns to minus a lot or something then?”

“Oh no, once it is made it cools down to at least minus one hundred, but if it is then heated from there it boils into a gas. At room temperature as much as… 40 bar can be achieved. I am sorry I would need to calculate the exact conversion, but it is approximately that.”

“So it’s a cheatcode for making high pressure gas. No need for a pump to put it in there.”

“I’m not sure I know what a cheatcode means.”

“Right, sorry… well what is it used for then? Forty bar is a heck of a lot.”

“Not sure what a heck is either. But yes, and if the temperature is raised further even higher pressures can be achieved. The weapon which fires that dart on the table is said to operate at seventy degrees to offset the cooling effect of the gas expansion.”

“Right… yeah, wouldn’t want your hands frozen off,” Tom replied, deep in thought of just what this all meant. He knew the grav oil was all about heat and pressure. It would seem the route of dragonette tech had a theme almost. Or whoever it might be who had come up with all this stuff.

“Precisely. The product is often known as cold steam. Not many such devices remain since they are all classified as old tech and thus locked away securely except for rare occasions.”

“All hail the Inquisition, I guess,” Tom remarked, taking a seat as well and leaning back a bit. Edita looked a touch confused at the comment, glancing to Linkosta before continuing.

“Yes of course, but with our mission we should see such weapons restored, but we will be using your technology of boom powder.”

“Right then, I’m guessing we don’t need to worry about any steam rifles getting pointed our way, right?”

“Oh no,” Edita replied, smiling with confidence for a second or two until she broke into a more pondering expression. “Well unless they were found alongside the vessel Joelina fears they may have uncovered.”

“Marvelous. So we may or may not be seeing dark knights wielding some sort of high caliber armor piercing rifle…” Tom sighed, trying not to sound put down by the notion. At least it sounded like the chance was slim to none. “Were they at least single shot?”

“The one firing the dart I brough, yes.”

“You didn’t happen to bring the gun, right?”

“No, I did not have access to one. I have seen one though. It was quite fascinating. The steam is delivered either from an external line or a backpack due to the raised temperature requirement, though some fully handheld versions operating at room temperature existed.”

“Marvelous, guessing the rounds for it simply became material stockpile then.”

“Precisely, we cannot melt them down, but if heated up they forge very well.”

“Let’s maybe hold off on forging the metal with a tendency to boil into mercury gas for now. At least until we know we need it for something.”

“It would present a fine challenge if you ask me,” Shiva added, seeming confident as ever in her abilities to work the fancy metal. Tom had to grant it to her that if anyone could pull it off, it was probably her. But it didn’t sound like a risk he would like to run unless he had to. “But should we not get to work? This has gone on long enough, is it not possible to work and talk at the same time?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess we did get everything here more or less. Actually Edita, what was the mercury for if I might ask?”

“Oh, that was for the mold I was given by acolyte Hanna. She wanted me to bring it for if ever I managed to incur the wrath of a huntress. She had read they can be vicious and unforgiving creatures.”

Tom blinked a few times, thinking back to some of his memories of the keep’s huntresses. There was at least some grain of truth in there, but still…

“Well what is it then? Why would a huntress want a metal mold anyway? If needed, I could trade you for something,” Tinks offered.

“It makes mercury arrowheads.”

“But that stuff is liquid?” Tinks questioned, rightfully puzzled as Shiva let out an annoyed grump at work once more not continuing. Tom was guessing it purely to hold up appearances; she wanted to know this as much as anyone.

“Not when cooled down by means of magic. You fill the mold and insert a shaft, then you hold it with both hands and the arrowhead is cooled down by the enchantments until it becomes solid. Once solidified it is far stronger than even crucible steel. Heavier too.”

“No kidding,” Tom let out with a huff. He had never thought of using a metal like that before. Didn’t sound nice to get hit by at all either. What would even happen as a chunk of mercury started to melt inside you? On second thought, that didn’t sound like something he wanted an answer to.

“I concur, that would make a fine gift, now can we get to work already? Oleg knows we have plenty of it. Edita, would you mind sharpening the big saw? We will be using it plenty, that is assured,” Shiva then grumbled, even if her tone was not so hard as was often the case when people were being lazy.

“Oh of course. Right away, master smith.”

‘Well she sure knows how to play to Shiva’s weaknesses,’ Tom mused to himself as he watched the approving smile on Shiva's' face. One which promptly vanished when she noticed him staring. “And what are you looking at? Get to work, you’re the one who wanted all this done first thing. Act like it!”

“Yup, right away!”

__________________________________________________________________________________

“Who is the god of weather again?” Yldril sneered, fangs baring as she trudged along, chains dangling along her sides like wind chimes. Chimes that were letting them know that the wind was in fact picking up right now. It had been raining even before they got up in the morning, though the trees had taken the worst of it before they got waterlogged. It had been going so well yesterday, even if the little training accident had left Saph sore all day, and she could still feel it for that matter. They had gotten the berries, the bark, and even found some tasty mushrooms.

Before dinner all the trees had been either packed up ready for hauling or stowed up on top of a pair of sacrificial logs to keep them dry, and the people had headed for home. Fengi and Saph had made dinner in the clearing while Yldril turned in early. Saph thought it was more about the dragon not wanting anything to do with them right now. She could understand that after the long walk. She didn’t much care for the company of the murderer either. Dinner had been quite good. They’d prepared salted venison fried up with the mushrooms and some bread also crisped off in a frying pan. It wasn’t like they were lacking in wood, and a cast iron pan was suddenly not a problem to bring when you had a dragon with a harness you could just hang things from.

That was yesterday though. Today had started out with getting Yldril hitched up all while listening to a considerable amount of bitching from said dragon. No matter though, they had every intention of being home for dinner. If for no other reason than to keep from getting too wet in the rain.

Forwarding a few hours and it was pouring down, and they were all completely miserable. Not at all the ‘bit of rain’ Raulf had promised, Saph couldn’t remember the last time that guy had been wrong about the weather. His magic had always been infallible. So infallible in fact that she was starting to suspect some foul play was at hand. Her money was on Dakota telling him to underplay it so Saph and Fengi would actually go with a minimal amount of complaining. She would never risk them though, so surely it couldn’t be that bad, it would just be a rather shitty day that was all.

If the water kept coming, they would soon be walking through a quagmire. Well, they wouldn’t be. Yldril would, and the dragon was already struggling with the heavy load. Saph was starting to wonder if perhaps the dragon had been boasting about her abilities. Or perhaps her weakened condition or constant hills were to blame. The terrain was almost like a washboard once they were clear of the forest. Most of the hills were easily a few dozen meters tall.

Fengi and Saph had set up camp on the black dragon’s back using the furs and blankets they had brought to try and keep the rain off and stay warm. It was getting damn cold already though.

“I said who is the damn weather god!” Yldril snarled again, after having been ignored for a bit.

“Kinda depends on who you are asking. For this I would say Lotek, since we are traveling,” Saph replied sarcastically, trusting the dragon’s ears to pick her up without a problem.

“It could also be Micka, if you consider this farming,” Fengi added as thunder cracked in the distance, illuminating the skies above them for a split second.

‘He was soo told not to tell us how bad it would get, the bastard,’ Saph cursed, watching as the rain once more turned everything into a grey haze above them. “I’m blaming Raulf for this.”

“Well they can all kiss my ass!” Yldril roared out as she started climbing the next hill, rear claws digging in deep as Fengi and Saph felt her put her weight into the harness. It was sturdy work, but even so that was an awful lot of weight. Saph really didn’t wanna be around in case a chain snapped.

“You can take a little break if you want,” Fengi shouted out, sounding more than a little concerned. “They won’t mind if we are a little late I’m sure.”

“And do what?! Sit in the rain! Look around, it’s completely open. Where would we go!”

“I don’t know… If you find some place, maybe we just stop there for now. It looks like it might get worse.”

“Fine, I’ll let you know if the gods give us a cave to hide in,” Yldril sneered angrily, clearly not convinced by the prospect. Saph was just looking back at the logs concernedly.

They had been wrapped up in tarps to try and keep them dry, but surely they were still getting wet right now. Meaning all this work would not come to much. Saph didn’t know much about wood though, so maybe they could save it? Kullinger hadn’t sounded that happy about how dry it had been to begin with even, and it took quite something to make that man criticise someone like Kalestine.

“We could really use a fire right now,” Saph grumbled as she felt her fingers starting to go numb where she was holding the pelts and getting wet. “And a dry place.”

“Then why don’t you two little leeches go find it?!” Yldril roared out, easily enough picking up on what was being said despite Saph not talking overly loudly.

“Cause the chances of us finding you again in this weather are next to nothing. I mean look around, what do we have? 20 meters of visibility, maybe!?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Fengi echoed, peeking out from under her wolfskin. “Next time we will bring more blankets.”

“If we didn’t have wings maybe we could steal one of Tom’s Jackets. They look nice and warm.”

“Or just go with full travel clothes. I didn’t think we would need them yet.”

“Yeah, maybe that was quite dumb not bringing those. A coat would be nice right about now.”

“Fucking princesses. I don’t have anything!” Yldril complained, for once rightfully so. Saph wouldn’t be happy if she had to be out here buck-ass nude aside from a harness. But Yldril was a dragon. Not like they really had anything to fix that problem with either. Well maybe short of trying to sew a bunch of skins together to make a sort of makeshift coat… skins that they had sent to be sold not even a week ago now Saph came to think of it. At least most of them. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have done that.’

__________________________________________________________________________________

“That isn’t looking like just a little rain,” Tom grumbled, looking out one of the window slits of the forge at the increasingly darkening sky. The rain was already falling, so he went to close it up again before he got too wet. It had been raining ever since they got up, and steadily so. Raulf had begrudgingly admitted that maybe it had felt more like a mild storm yesterday rather than just a constant steady rain, but he had maintained it was nothing to worry about. This morning though he’d shamefully admitted that his estimates might have been off a little bit.

Tom didn’t know much about how magic weather prediction worked, but if it was anything like meteorologists back home then he was not comforted by the trend. He had been up early as usual, wanting to get some work done before Jacky rose so they could actually keep up their little workout routine. One look out the window slit though had more or less convinced him a cheat day would be fine.

Right now Tom was considering going to ask for an update on if it had gotten even worse still. He didn’t know much about storms around here aside from how to crash during them and how hard flying in one was. Or the art of hiding indoors with the rest of the dragonettes, which he certainly preferred to being the one designated to go get whatever might have been left outside that day. A fate he was sure would befall him more and more as winter approached.

“Do you think they will be alright?” he asked, looking into the warm yet dark smithy, the fire of the forge illuminating all the faces either looking at him or busying themselves with their work. The only exception being the bright white light which Edita’s fancy goggles had apparently been able to project. Tom guessed that he just hadn’t found the button when fumbling with them.

“They have been doing such work for years. It isn’t rare for hunting parties to get caught by bad weather, even if it is rather cold today,” Shiva replied reassuringly, her stern face lit up further by the springing sparks as she brought her hammer down on the anvil.

“It’s damn cold. I had to go out and take in the washing earlier, much colder than yesterday. It didn’t look like something I would try to climb above either. Or fly much in for that matter wind is getting worse too.” Jacky added with a shrug, as she worked the bellows to heat up the forge, Shiva putting the metal stick back in.

“No, that would be reckless. If they are smart they will simply hunker down somewhere, they have their shelter walking along with them.” The old smith replied without a hint of worry.

“I guess a slave dragon really does have its advantages, huh?”

Tom sorta wanted to say something to that, but she was right in the end and Fengi wasn’t here. He just hoped it wouldn’t get that much worse. Things had been going so well thus far.

Yesterday Jacky hadn’t hurt anyone with the chainsaw and her ears were still working, so she had probably used the eardefenders for most of it. And they had in fact finished all the cutting and trimming in just one day. Glira had returned home with good news. Everything seemed to be in order. The construction crew hadn’t been thrilled, but the promise of some rather above-standard rate pay soon enough had them on side too. More to the point, they had a mobile saw with them for cutting beams for the keep. It was designed to be packed up and transported by dragon. And they just so happened to be done with it. At least Glira claimed so.

Said dragon had looked like she was expecting a medal for carrying it all the way first to Deriva and then back to Bizmati “free of charge” as she put it. And she had brought along one of the workmen from the crew to help them use it. That had of course led to a discussion of how Tom might be able to speed up the device. At the moment it was powered by a rather intricate system of wheels, pulleys, and rope that allowed either a large group of people or, more practically, a dragon to use it by pulling out a length of rope.

Tom rather quickly saw a chance to put the quad bike to use. Much as he would find it funny to see Jarix walking up and down all day, the dragon would be useful for other things. And Yldril would be hauling for at least a while. That would have to wait for tomorrow though, since he was not going out to start taking measurements in this weather if he didn’t have to, even if the thought of snuggling up with Jacky to keep her warm after she inevitably went with him didn’t sound so bad.

__________________________________________________________________________________