Talia couldn’t help but feel like they were wasting time sorting out wagon three and dismounting the ash lance. Realistically, she knew there wasn’t much to do about it. They’d already lost one wagon and could hardly afford to leave another behind. And though she felt Torval was getting a little ahead of himself when it came to the lance, she could understand the apprehension. In the end, the expedition spent about an hour getting everything set.

The now drake-less wagon was hooked to the back of wagon five by a pair of runed chains—another silencing enchantment, a Delver’s Guild favourite. The setup would slow the pace somewhat, but the gates to Karzurkul’s Final Outpost stood a bare five hundred metres down the tunnel, so it wasn’t as much of an issue as it might have been. As for the ash lance, Talia found she much preferred working with the triplets when they couldn’t speak. The trio of gnomes were quick and efficient, their bickering restrained to the odd smack upside the head, or stray elbow to the crotch.

On the bright side, all Talia had to do was power the artefact down and empty its particle canister. Once it was safe to transport, she had the two veterans who’d had fun at her expense earlier lug it over to wagon seven, smiling all the while as they huffed and puffed under the weight.

I probably shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as I am…What is it they say about power and corruption? Eh. What’s the point of being an officer if I can’t be petty once in a while?

Talia followed them into the specialist wagon, her mind caught on the hows and whats of making, quite literally, a bomb. The main issues she could think of were threefold: time, size, and time. Time in the sense that she didn’t want it going off accidentally. Size, because while any shmuck with a runecarver and some basic rune knowledge could create something that would explode—given the mana—Talia needed an explosion powerful enough to destroy a stone bridge that had survived for thousands of years and was wide enough to accommodate two, maybe three wagons abreast. Then there was the second aspect of time: the deadline. The arcanist had, at most, a quarter of a day to accomplish the feat.

Let’s be honest, it’s much less than that. Probably closer to four or five hours.

Talia sighed, lost in thought until a quiet ahem reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing. Looking up briefly, she spat out her clicker.

“Oh—ehm—just set it down over there,” she told her helpers, waving towards the workshop part of the wagon.

Then she sat down, pulled out her journal, and got to work.

I’ll use the waste disposal artefact from wagon three. The thing is already damaged, after all, what’s a little more? If I pull this channel from the flame arrays into the air flush function—no, wait—if I do that…

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Talia was deep in her work when she realized that someone was addressing her and looked up—idly noting that the wagons still weren’t moving.

“Oh. Sorry, what’d you say?” she numbly asked.

Osra had taken a seat beside her without her noticing, and peered over her shoulder curiously. A flicker of a chuckle slipped from the apprentice mage’s lips, but it wasn’t a happy thing.

“I was wondering what you were working on,” Osra repeated.

Talia grinned at her, eyes a little wild.

“I am going against everything I was ever taught and making a bomb,” she answered, “Intentionally.”

Clearly, that wasn’t the answer the mage had expected. Her mouth spread into a cute little ‘o’ shape and her eyelids went wide. Talia grinned wider, appreciating the moment. The apprentice mage took a while to put together her thoughts.

“For the fight, right? Wouldn’t you be better off working on something—uhm—less dangerous?”

Talia chuckled—then stopped, realizing something.

“Wait, how do you know about the fight?” she asked, only for Osra to look at her like she was crazy.

“Um…Delvemaster Torval made a whole speech, weren’t you there for it?”

Talia felt mild panic spread through her and she glanced at her timekeeper.

“Oh shit. Is that the fucking time?! Why did no one tell me?!” she cried, hurriedly standing and snapping her journal closed.

Lost in the design part of the process, the arcanist hadn’t noticed the wagons start moving again and then stop, nor had she noticed an hour and a half go by. Frantically, the arcanist grabbed her toolbelt from where she’d dropped it on a nearby workbench and strapped it on as she rushed out the door, leaving a confused Osra to follow behind her.

The fortress outside was a mess. Defenders ran to and fro, carrying supplies and crates of bolts and arrows. A group off to the side was picking through the rubble of one of the few stone buildings and piling up head-sized stones. Karzurkul’s Final Outpost was eerily reminiscent of the one the expedition had passed through on their way out of Karzgorad. If it weren’t for the over-prevalence of metal, Talia might’ve thought she was back there somehow, thrown back in time to before she’d ever left.

A large courtyard took up the central space between the pair of six-or-seven-metre-tall walls. To the right of the gate was a short and squat building of dark alloy that had probably served as a barracks. Facing it on the opposite side was a three-story building whose bottom floor was built of carved granite. The upper floors were the same ubiquitous metal that made up most of Karzurkul’s constructions, but the bottom was an intricate piece of art that seemed to be carved out of a single block of stone.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Beside each building, on either side, two pairs of staircases zig-zagged their way up to the battlements and watchtowers, three on the forward wall and four on the back, the odd asymmetry a result of hundreds of years of decay taking their toll on the stone constructions. It was all somewhat fascinating to see, especially the eerie similarity to Karzgorad, but Talia didn’t have time to take it all in.

The wagon train—minus wagon seven—was lined up and seemed about to retreat across the bridge, and though a little exercise was never remiss, running after a bunch of wagons so she could remove a shit collector from the bottom of one would be a monumental waste of time. Besides, the evils of running had already been long established.

Then, almost as if the preparing non-combatants had heard her thoughts, the wagon-train began moving.

Gods damnit!

“Wait!” she called, her voice echoing oddly through the drone of the waterfall.

Delvers glanced at her in disapproval at the noise, though some appeared more curious, watching her chase after the slowly moving wagon three as it was dragged behind wagon five.

“Stop, damn you! Wait!”

Luckily, whoever was driving wagon five heard her, and the whole line came to an abrupt halt from an unheard clicker call as Talia rushed over with Osra in tow. Immediately, the arcanist slid up under the back of wagon three for the second time that day and began unbolting the chest-sized box that was fastened to its undercarriage.

“Go let ‘em know that I’ll be done in a second, would you?” she grumbled at Osra.

“Uhh—sure?”

While the girl had a chat with the bewildered driver, Talia made quick work of the bolts. Thankfully, whoever had installed the artefact had foreseen a day when it might have to be replaced, leaving everything exposed and ready for her to work with. Once she got to the last nut, Talia carefully double-checked that she’d deactivated the artefact before sliding over and letting it fall to the ground with a thump.

Phew. Mission accomplished, no running necessary.

Brushing off her pants and slipping her wrench back in its slot, Talia made her way to where Osra was having an increasingly confused conversation with the driver and Dhustrun, who’d made his way over from the front of the train to see what was going on.

“Alright, sorry about that, gentlemen, you should be all set to go now. Just make sure no one uses wagon three’s water closet, it’s out of commission,” Talia declared.

The trio stared at her, befuddled.

Wagon five’s driver shrugged and hopped back onto his bench, not questioning her words. Dhustrun, on the other hand, was more curious.

“Jus’ what in the blazes do ye need a toilet fer?” he asked.

Osra nodded in agreement, her lips pursed and her expression blank.

“Well, you see, the good delvemaster has ordered me to create an explosive,” Talia replied.

The quartermaster shared a confused glance with Osra, then looked back at Talia.

“Righttt…en wut does a toilet ‘ave ter do wit’ tha’?”

Talia grinned.

“It’s going to be our explosive,” she explained, deadpan.

Dhustrun frowned, his bushy brown eyebrows drawn to a tight ‘v’.

“The’ toilet—”

“The waste tank,” Talia corrected.

“Right, the waste tank, is gonnae explode?” he asked, somewhat rhetorically.

Talia nodded, her grin still plastered across her face.

“Yup.”

“’En is this a normal occurrence fer toil—ah—waste tanks?”

Talia rolled her eyes.

“If it was, I think you’d have noticed by now, don’t you? I’ll have to make some modifications, reroute some channels—”

Dhustrun raised a hand to cut her off.

“Ye know wut, I don’ need ter know. As long as ye replace it eventually,” he grumbled, not waiting for Talia's response before heading back to the front of the wagon train.

Osra and the arcanist watched the wagons move down the bridge in silence for a moment before the apprentice mage spoke up.

“Uh—Talia?” she hazarded.

“Yesss?”

“Are you really going to turn a toilet into a bomb?”

Talia turned to look Osra straight in the eye.

“First of all, it’s not a toilet. It’s a waste disposal artefact designed to incinerate piss and shit to a fine powder,” she answered, utterly serious, “And second of all, believe me when I tell you that if we actually need to use this thing, then the biological need to shit will have saved my life twice in less than a year.”

“Uh—O-Okay… Talia, are you alright? You seem a little…off,” Osra said.

Talia’s expression faltered.

“Huh? What do you mean?” she asked.

Osra hesitated, seeming on the cusp of saying something, but shook her head.

“Nevermind. Do you want my help? With the arcanistry, I mean?”

The arcanist’s grin returned.

“I thought you’d never ask! Follow me,” she replied, putting the girl’s concern out of her mind.

The pair made their way over to the box-like artefact, its silverite-and-mithril-plated girth coated in elaborate scriptwork that they would have to vandalize. Talia decided to keep it outside while they worked on it. She could just imagine the look on Lazarus’ face if she blew up his infirmary. Well, if he wasn’t immediately killed in the blast.

Crouching down and pulling out a charcoal pencil, Talia began drawing a new set of runes over the enchantment, explaining herself as she went—yet another thing the Arcanists’ Guild would frown on. Talia understood the sentiment, after all, the world was almost certainly a better place without every passing layman knowing to turn random enchantments into explosives. She comforted herself with the knowledge that Osra was a gentle soul, and that the thought probably hadn’t even crossed the girl’s mind.

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It was only after they were done that Talia realized she’d been an idiot. The modifications weren’t the problem, those had gone off without a hitch. They’d isolated the capacitors to save on mana and carefully redrawn the rune array, and Osra had done it so well that Talia couldn’t even nitpick her work. No, the problem was one of installation.

Dammit, I should’ve had the wagons ferry us over to the centre of the bridge! Now we have to lug it all the way out there. Ugh, idiot.

Talia let out a long-suffering sigh, prompting Osra to look at her questioningly.

“What? Did we break something? What’s wrong? It’s not going to explode, is it?” Osra rambled, worry spilling out of her mouth and onto her features as she backed away.

Tempting…Ohhhh so tempting…

At any other time, in any other place, Talia would’ve indulged in a good laugh at Osra’s expense, but seeing as the whole compound was preparing for a fight, that particular idea seemed ill-advised.

“Calm down,” she said instead, “You did fine. I just realized that because I didn’t think ahead, now we’re going to have to get a few lads to lug it over onto the bridge. We should’ve just gone with the wagon train and stopped in the middle. Not a big deal, just annoying.”

Osra took a moment to sag in relief, then looked at Talia like she was stupid.

“Why would we need someone else to carry it?”

“What do y—”

Talia broke off as the box began hovering a few centimetres off the floor, raising her eyebrows.

“I’m an idiot.”

Osra giggled, covering her mouth with her gloved hand. Talia came just short of patting the girl on the shoulder.

“Can you sustain that with your Capacity?” Talia asked.

Osra nodded, hiding a slight smirk.

“I’m not that weak. Besides, it’s only a few centimetres. I could keep this up all day if I had to. Now, shall we?”

Talia smiled.

“Lead on,” she said.