Xangô POV: Day 61
Current Wealth: 2 gold 11 silver 41 copper
Solitaire had on, for a moment, one of his “freaking out” faces, and I was about ready to try and hold him down with Beam before he could turn any nearby appliances into an improvised explosive. Old habits of course, given the technological disadvantage, it took him quite a lot more work to commit acts of terrorism in Redacle than it had back home, but even if it hadn’t, he didn’t go the direction I’d been expecting.
A calm broke over him, thoughtful and considering. I was so relieved to see my friend not start attempting to re-enact the Vietnam War that I almost didn’t think to ask what was on his mind. Almost.
“Solitaire-”
“-My power.” He interrupted, not even looking at me. “I must have been right, this reacted far, far too quickly. Happened before, too, must be something about me. Revolutionary. I’m not just going to spread Marxism to everyone.” Solitaire turned, affixing me with a stare of solar intensity. “My powers let me see elements, predict reactions. I think they can speed them up, too.”
The look I gave him must’ve been a particularly blank one, because he actually got annoyed upon seeing it.
“If you can speed up a reaction, then there’s no reason you can’t make reactions happen that wouldn’t normally.” He snapped. “Like a catalyst, sort of, except not really because- ugh, just….This means a lot, it means we might be able to skip a few steps in our chemistry, might even be able to combine things…More easily.” He trailed off, words clearly turning incoherent as his mind detached from the conversation, and Solitaire eyed the equipment and resources set up across the room. He was quick in plucking crystals out of the cauldron, dropping them into a vat of water he’d started boiling almost as soon as he entered, then eying it.
Even I saw what happened next, crystals breaking down near-instantly, dissolving within moments. A grin tilted his mouth.
“Mix that yellow powder with the charcoal dust.” He ordered. I realised the instructions were for me, and I quickly got to performing them, handing him the mixture just in time for him to continue his work with it. Once again, it all reacted near-instantly, dissolving, mixing, synthesising. Solitaire’s excitement was growing, and mine was rising right alongside it.
Within ten minutes his frenzied work was done, and he turned to the room at large with one of the biggest smirks I’d ever seen him wear.
“Two things to note.” He declared, much to the relief of a now-thoroughly-perplexed Helena and Argar. “First, we have our explosive powder a lot sooner than expected. The second…Is that I actually am a wizard, after all.”
Neither of them looked particularly impressed, but his words reminded me of something.
“Your magical instruction.” I cut in. “How did that go?”
Solitaire glanced at me, almost distractedly.
“Oh, right, turns out I’m the most gifted magus in history or something.” I stared at him, and he grinned. “You probably are, too, by the way, Beam as well. I mentioned you both to the woman who taught me and she agreed to test and train you both, though she seemed sceptical as hell. She’s playing a long-term game by basically investing in people who she believes have the magical talent of the Emperor of Mankind.”
We’d been getting a lot of good news lately, and at the risk of sounding like Solitaire, it was making me start to worry about what was in store for us. One couldn’t have this much positivity without some karmic balance in my experience.
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Still, that was nothing to let actually affect my decisions. A gut feeling was nothing near as accurate as a brain feeling.
“I’ll head over as soon as I can.” I agreed, then glanced at the chemistry set up. “What are we doing with this?”
Solitaire hesitated.
“I know we wanted to keep this all a secret, but…I think we might be able to sell it on for money.”
I chewed a thoughtful lip, waiting for him to continue.
“Just think about how much people would pay for this sort of thing, think about what it could do to tip the tables for basically any military who had them. Yes, that’d make us extremely noticeable and attract a lot of unwanted attention, but we’d be enriching ourselves so quickly it’d barely matter. What are they going to do when we’re standing behind two hundred hired men with pointy sticks and chainmail?”
He had a point, as he always did. But Solitaire’s issue had never been pointlessness, it was that, when he did have a point, he tended to try and forcibly insert it into other people’s urethras. My metaphor was getting away from me, so I replied.
“What sort of money do you suppose we could be getting from this?”
I’d directed my question to the room at large, and Helena replied quickly.
“For a weapon like the one you used against the rotters, you could easily ask-”
“Not that.” Solitaire cut in, quickly. “Never that, I don’t want these simpletons to get their hands on guns, how much for a big explosion in all directions? Probably enough to kill a few dozen rotters, maybe more.”
She looked slightly confused, and chastened, but moved past it quickly enough to reply.
“Dozens of gold.” Helena replied. “Easily.”
Solitaire glanced at me, and I sighed.
“Okay, yes, we know it’ll be a lot, but the risk is insane.”
“We’ll be quick about spending it, then.” Solitaire suggested. “First thing’s first, armour for everyone. Proper armour, steel plate, chainmail beneath, the works. We’ll have that smith work on more Solis guns-”
“Solis guns? Really-” He ignored me.
“-And within a few weeks we’ll be blowing off heads from hundreds of metres away.”
“If someone tries to copy our work?” I asked. “Just barges in and insists on seeing it?”
“I’ll keep an explosive charge here ready to blow everything up.” He shrugged, smirk playing at the side of his mouth. That earned a sidelong glance from a few of us, Solitaire’s pyromania was getting a bit difficult to ignore.
We went back and forth a while longer, then eventually reached an agreement. We’d sell the gunpowder.
Something in my gut twisted at the thought of handing people weapons, I didn’t like the idea of being responsible for what was done with them. Certainly not these people. I’d spent plenty of time criticising western countries for selling arms to dictatorships back on earth…In fact, so had Solitaire. And yet he hadn’t even blinked at this.
I eyed my friend, trying to gauge what I could of his feelings, but as usual he was a locked box. Whatever cracks had appeared after the vampire fight, they were closed up now. Either that, or he was just turned to keep them from my sight.
“So tomorrow is probably the best time for you to head off and see the magus woman.” He cut in, snapping me from my thoughtful stupor. I nodded.
“Right, yeah, tomorrow, makes sense.” I nodded, forcing a smile. It wasn’t hard to make the excitement wrapped around it seem sincere. Despite everything, the idea that I might be some wizard demigod was one hell of a mood lifter.
Solitaire, though, seemed to catch my apprehension anyway. Face flashing with something for just a half-instant, then falling back to normal.
“I’ll finish our first batch, then. You won’t be able to do much practising until tomorrow so this seems like a convenient time for you to head out and find a suitable buyer for the gunpowder.”
It seemed that a lot of what I’d been doing lately was negotiating prices and purchasing or buying. Then again, that had been an even greater lot of what I’d done with my teenage years, I supposed I couldn’t complain. If nothing else, I wasn’t boiling shit for hours every day. I trudged out of Solitaire’s workshop, money in my pocket- just a few silvers for safety- and Argar at my back, eager to find the source of our next success.
Something told me it wouldn’t exactly be hard.