As I reloaded the rifle for the next shot, an idea entered my mind. I had thought about paper cartridges but I had something that may work even better.

And I had it with me right now.

That idea immediately gave me another—a more sinister, even deadlier one.

“Not sure if I like that smile,” Velariah mentioned casually as she watched me halted in the middle of loading.

“I just had… an idea,” I replied with a devilish grin. “I’ll see if it works.”

I finished preparing the weapon and heard loud skittering coming from the tunnel leading to the next area. Its source soon became known, and I was left staring at a gigantic, black beetle with an enormous horn on its carapace-plated head.

“Holy crap, Arch. You really took the armor thing seriously.”

“Do you think this would suffice?” The dungeon asked.

“Hell, yeah,” I replied. “I don’t think I would be able to come up with anything better. Thanks a bunch!”

Sticking to the agreement, he had the insect, roughly the size of a very large dog, stand idly in the center of the room. Seralyn immediately took the weapon from me when I held it up, but I asked her to hold on for a bit.

Her eyes told me ‘awww, why?’ but she nodded and waited as I wove a large patch of silk on the ground before me. There was no doubt I’d turned myself into the center of attention again.

I then started cutting the pieces of silk into squares and measured the exact amount of gunpowder we were currently using before taking the correct caliber bullet and turning everything into a small roll with the gunpowder separated from the bullet by a thin layer of silk, just like in actual bullet cartridges. I cut away excess silk and finished the shell by wrapping a very thin line of sticky silk around the whole. I repeated this process three times before smirking widely as I started with the next roll.

But then, when I reached for the bullet, I took several of the smallest ones instead, all while chuckling a bit too maniacally.

Sometimes I scared even myself.

“That looks… deadly,” Seralyn commented as I created another one of these special casings.

“Our modern weapons all use these things we call cartridges, and although they are made of brass, most weapons eject them after firing automatically. Then, the next cartridge is loaded into the barrel. This allows for fast firing. I mean, you will see. As with any weapon, there are many variants, and guns that shoot this kind of cartridge we call a shotgun. They fire several small bullets to inflict maximum damage at the cost of reduced range and accuracy. I figured it would be a great idea to test considering we have all these different sizes of metal balls.”

“Is it possible to make something like this on a… larger scale?” Draco asked cautiously.

“A cannon,” I said. “Yep. There are guns that are drawn by horses and transported to the battlefield. They weigh incredible amounts and will literally cause you to go deaf without ear protection. They are often referred to as the destroyer of walls. Even the toughest stone bulwarks were no match for the repeated assault of cannons.”

I chuckled.

“I suppose now you know why ships carry this powder. Guess what they used to fire at other ships?”

“I can’t even fathom the extent of it all,” The lizardman admitted. “A constant arms race? Would that be a term to describe your world?”

“In a way, that fits perfectly,” I said with a nod. “But now imagine when you turn a cannon into a shotgun, and you fire it at enemy infantry lines.” I shook my head just thinking about the carnage. “People would literally splatter over the grass. I’m happy to not have lived in those times. I think the sight of it would have scarred me for life.”

“That sounds less than pleasant to observe,” Draco continued. “I suppose this world is a lot more laid back in that regard.”

“It is in one way, but it’s also more dangerous in another. It’s… complicated, that’s for sure. But hey, let’s answer Arch’s challenge.”

“Finally,” The ‘archer’ said impatiently as she shouldered the rifle. “Can I?”

“Go for it,” I said as I held the other casings and the ramrod at the ready.

Seralyn fired, and the chitin armor of the beetle proved to be no match for the gun. A large chunk of the chitin on its head was penetrated and shattered into pieces. A wound with green blood oozing from it was left where one of its eyes had been, and the creature collapsed.

“Holy,” Velariah let out. “Is it dead?”

“It looks like it. Arch?” I asked.

“It is.”

“It is,” I relayed the information.

“Unreal,” Nira said softly.

The five of us closed in on the insect and checked out the damage. That bullet had done more than just penetrate armor. I took a chunk of it with my pedipalps to inspect its strength and stabbed it with one of my blades, but I couldn’t pierce it easily. I could, but I’d have to use weight behind it, possibly a charge.

“Wanna see if these work?” I asked, holding up the silk casings of ammo.

“I don’t see why they wouldn’t,” Seralyn replied. “Let’s try.”

“You know what I’m wondering about?” I said as I inserted the cartridge and pushed it into the barrel. “What if, instead of normal metal, we used lightning steel or any other special steel to make bullets from?”

“But anything hit by this is likely to be dead either way,” Seralyn came with a quick reply.

“Hmmm. Maybe, but I reckon there are going to be scary things in dungeons for which it may prove to be helpful? I guess?”

I was questioning myself in those sentences, but at the same time, I was confident we had yet to see the scariest monsters.

“Always looking to improve, eh?” She said with a grin. “And hey, there’s my inherity too. Who knows what it can do with this kind of weapon? I feel like I can enhance the shots as it is, but I have yet to gain some more experience with it.”

“What about that other weapon you mentioned way earlier?” Velariah interjected.

“The crossbow?” I furrowed my eyebrows. “Well, Seralyn can I borrow your bow for one sec?”

She nodded and handed it over.

“You see, this rifle is supposed to have a trigger here, an iron pin that you pull back and then the powder is ignited by a burning match, or a piece of flint that smashes into the metal to create a spark. A crossbow uses the same mechanism to release a bowstring.”

“But how does it work?” She continued. “You said any commoner can use one and required little to no training.”

I placed Seralyn’s bow on top of the gun, where it would be if it were a crossbow.

“That’s it?” Velariah asked in disbelief to which I nodded.

“Yeap. You pull the string back. It’s held by a pin. Then, you load the arrow, or bolt as it’s called, and you aim with it just like a gun and pull the trigger. That’s it. Crossbows shoot with immense force, partly because you don't have to keep the string drawn yourself. The mechanism keeps it in place for you.”

“You better not tell anyone,” Seralyn called. “Such a lack of skill shouldn’t become widespread.”

“Don’t worry. You know I won’t. Also,” I said with a sly smile. “You never mentioned lack of skill when it came to this weapon. Could it be that you’re… you know, impressed?”

“Tsk.”

She shook her head, but that reaction told me everything I needed to know as she quickly distracted from the subject by taking her bow and gun and creating distance between the beetle corpse and her. The rest of us, with Velariah grinning wickedly, followed her lead and let her take the shot once more.

As she had predicted, the weapon fired effortlessly, and the already dead creature received another wound to the head as the bullet penetrated the tough carapace. In a way, it was macabre to shoot at a corpse, but on the other hand, why not? It still made for excellent testing material.

“That certainly speeds things up,” Seralyn commented.

“Wait until you hear about the concept of a revolver,” I replied. “I reckon that is something I can pull off, and by me, I mean Dworag.”

“I’d love to hear all about it,” She said as she reached for the shotgun cartridge I’d made and shoved it into the rifle. I was left grinning as I assisted her by pushing it down. “But I wanna know how this thing combines with my inherity. You said it has a shorter effective range and lower accuracy. Well, let’s see if that’s the case.”

I nodded as I took a peek at the weapon’s integrity but still found no visible damage. When I gave the head’s up, she repositioned herself at the side of the beetle and kept the same distance as before. Then, she fired.

A barrage of smaller pellets caused chitin and ooze to splatter as they collided with the insect. The result of the shot was even more impressive than I could have ever imagined. The new type of ammo had impacted in a relatively small area, way smaller than I’d expected. I would have imagined that the bullet spread of a primitive shotgun would be far, far wider but that wasn’t the case.

“Holy crap,” Seralyn commented. “I reckon that’s more than enough to blow a troll to bits, maybe even a troll warlord.”

We walked closer and took a closer look at the immense damage. There was nothing left of the insect's protective shell where the shot had landed. It had foregone any armor and sent its power directly into the animal’s innards. If the first few rounds had not killed it, this one definitely would have.

“I am under the impression this would take something far stronger down than a troll warlord,” Draco mentioned as he pulled out an axe and brought it down onto part of the animal that still had armor.

The blow did penetrate the chitin but didn’t go much further than that. It wasn’t nearly enough to kill.

That didn’t mean that this beetle would otherwise have been invulnerable, though. Arch’s strength wasn’t enough to pull off something of that scale. The insect had obvious weak spots between its plating where significant damage could be inflicted, but for this test in particular, it had been excellent.

“Well, I suppose we learned a bunch here. I’d say this was some successful testing,” I said, concluding our findings.

“You still have two more of those cartridges as you call them. I say we use them.”

I looked at the brunette whose eyes twinkled in anticipation.

“Okay,” I said. “Let's have your fun, but you owe me.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

I grinned as I loaded one of the two remaining casings and had Seralyn shoot whatever was left of the beetle. With every shot that she fired, she seemed to get faster at aiming, and after the very last round was fired, she assured us that she was getting a better feel for the weapon which would hopefully allow her inherity to grant additional effects soon.

I started wrapping up by gathering the remainder of the items we had used but kept one bullet in Velariah’s pack; the caliber that was best suited for the rifle. We’d have to get copies of that one. Then, there was the question that I had expected to hear much earlier.

“What’s a revolver?”

Interestingly enough, it was Nira who asked that.

I chuckled once more before I started another lengthy explanation. I showed and told the others using our current weapon what the rotating part of a revolver looked like and where it would be located, how in modern weapons it would automatically rotate after each shot, and how this meant that multiple shots could be fired before reloading. I then went on to something that had come up in my mind regarding multiple-barreled revolvers and whether Seralyn could control which barrel would fire as I had no idea how to make the firing mechanism that was used.

“I have no idea,” She admitted earnestly. “But I’d be more than willing to help find out about it.”

“Sure you are,” I replied, trying to sound serious but still letting my mischievousness manifest itself. “But in all seriousness, we should have plenty of time to find out IF we want to pursue this. I don’t see us leaving anytime soon, especially with the new dungeon found and all.”

“Well, there’s plenty of time left today to visit the smith. Wanna stop by?”

“Not you too,” I replied to Velariah who was getting a little bit too excited as well.

“I’ve already thought of a great excuse, too,” She continued with a smirk. “We’ll just tell him we’re working on something that will make coffee even better. You know, high-pressure tubing and whatnot. We’re doing this experiment on behalf of my father, but simply can’t tell him everything as it’s a trade secret.”

“How long have you thought about this?” I asked in disbelief at how well her story would fit. “And just to let you know, highly-pressurized coffee is totally a thing.”

“Two days now, and wait, what?”

“Yep,” I said with as neutral an expression I could muster. The sight of her confused visage made it hard, though. “Espresso as we call it is strong coffee brewed under high pressure, usually served in small amounts or used for other coffee drinks.”

“And here I thought I came up with something unique.” She was visibly disappointed, yet she also saw the humor of the situation. “In any case, I suppose it only helps our story.”

“True, but you have no idea what you just did.”

“Lemme guess,” She said with the most mischievous smile I’d ever seen. “Now you want this Espresso stuff you mentioned.”

I nodded, my eyes closed, and heard her explode into laughter.

“We should ask my dad if the treemenders have made any progress towards removing that energy-giving stuff.”

“Caffeine,” I said. “And that sounds like a good idea.” I turned to the others. “Is everyone okay with stopping by Dworag?”

As usual, there was nodding and not one bit of complaining. It certainly made things easier, even though it had me feeling slightly guilty for dragging everyone around.

Then again, they all seemed to be impressed with the little demonstration today, and I reckoned they were eager to see more.

“Alright then. Arch, thank you so much for helping us out. I hope you had a great time observing. If you liked what you saw, we’d be more than happy to try it again some other time if our new plans work out nicely.”

“Glad to help, and I’d love to see more. When you’re done testing, I’d also like to give you a bit of a challenge on this matter.”

“We will accept that challenge then. But allow us some time so we can see if this new project works as intended.”

“Certainly.”

“Awesome. We’ll see you soon!”

After gathering all our stuff and covering the gun, we left the dungeon with a small bow of thanks. Our first stop was the mansion to unload and lock everything in our room, but after that, we were quick to make our way to Dworag’s workshop.

When we arrived at the building, we heard a ticking sound coming from the workplace, and as such, Velariah didn’t bother to enter and led us straight to the back. The dwarf was indeed present and carefully hammering out dents from a legplate.

He looked up from his work, acknowledged us, but went back to hammering, seemingly focused to a degree that I hadn’t seen before.

There were no words, not even flirting, which was totally unlike him.

After several minutes, he finally put down his hammer on his anvil and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a sigh. Then, he turned to us.

“Sorry to make you wait. I needed to get this done right. Now,” He said as his eyes found mine. “Those beautiful eyes of yours tell me you have a challenge for me, correct?”

“You could say that. We’re back with a follow-up from our previous request.”

“Something similar?” He asked, his eyes glowing.

“Yes, but more intricate.”

“I live for intricate.”

“I hope you know what you’re signing up for,” I said with a chuckle.

I then went on to explain the concept we talked about earlier. About the triple-barrel idea and about the rotating cylinder that would have the holes line up precisely with the tubes. He seemed interested in the idea, but needed some time to picture it in his mind. After a bunch of questions and answers, he seemed to have an idea of how to do it.

He did appear to be confused as to the purpose of this thing, but when Velariah saw it, she went on to explain that it was for a new idea her father had come up with that we worked out to a certain degree.

“I see,” He said. “That sounds like an interesting new way to make coffee. I wonder how it changes the taste.”

“It makes it stronger,” I said. “Much stronger. We already tested it on small scale and are quite happy with the results. Now, we want something that can do it on a larger scale.”

“So why this spinning thing?”

“Trade secret,” The white-haired elf replied quickly. “Can’t tell you everything, you know.”

“Heh,” He chuckled. “All right. I will have you know that the cost will be more than tripled due to the intricacy of the whole, but I suppose if it’s for your father it will be no issue.”

“None,” Velariah said happily.

“All right, I’ll get straight to work then. If you can drop by tomorrow, please do so. I might need your input on things.”

“Will do.”

I nodded after Velariah’s words and said goodbye to Dworag, after which he couldn’t help himself to wink at me, causing me to leave the workplace with my head shaking.

At least he was good at his job.