“Morning Xander,” said Frazay. “I figured you would have snagged some sleep after your shift.”
“Eh, I figured I’d just get woken after an hour or two by everyone else getting up. I”ll just go to sleep earlier in the evening now that I know I need to be awake from midnight on.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Frazay replied. “What’s your plan for the day? I’m starting to get bored, myself. I was thinking I’d ask you to make me a target dummy for archery.”
“I can do that. I spoke with Huron yesterday afternoon, and he said I could use the training yard when they weren’t doing drills on it, so I’d imagine it would make a decent spot for you to shoot, too. But if I make you a target, you have to help me test out these new distraction devices I made.”
“A distraction…device? What does it do?” Frazay asked, equal parts curious and cautious.
“Well, it explodes…”
“Of course it does,” Frazay interjected.
“BUT,” Xander continued, “it’s designed to create an extremely loud noise and bright light, to disorient people or things nearby. In my world, similar devices were used by police…uh city guard? Forces before they would storm a building or room. I realized I needed a nonlethal type of explosive to help me in fights, since I can’t just throw grenades everywhere around here. I’m actually considering trying to create some kind of irritating smoke bomb, too, since I have those air filters I created for you all. I think it would be a lot easier to fight someone while they’re also trying to cough their lungs out. But I need to talk to an alchemist or an herbalist to find something that would work. Huh, Gabrelle’s an alchemist. Maybe she’d know. I’ll ask her next time I see her, too bad she’s on shift right now. Anyways, back to the flash bang, which is what the ‘distraction device’ I mentioned is called, since it uh, well, flashes and goes bang. I’m not going to test it on you, exactly. It’s just that, since I’m immune to my own explosions, I can’t really tell if it’s enough to really disorient someone, you know? I just want to light a few off and have you tell me if you think they’ll do the trick.”
“I suppose I could help you out. Hell, I might even have you make a few for me, it could be pretty handy to have in a close up fight that I’d need to get away from. But it better be a nice target.”
“Tell you what, for helping me out, I’ll make the target a wooden statue of Atrax.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Xander!”
“Hell yeah. First, though, I want to get some breakfast. I’m starving, and it’s more like lunch for me now anyways.”
“I could eat,” replied Frazay.
“Let’s go then.”
Xander and Frazay shared a quick breakfast. It mostly consisted of different breads, with jams and meats to place on them. The manor was beginning to wake up, and the two of them saw many of the servants beginning to start their day. The two of them made their way out of the manor and out to the training yard. Fortunately, it was unoccupied at the moment, so there was no need to wait to start testing.
“Okay, so, first, I just want to make sure they aren’t dangerous and throwing out shrapnel or anything before we do anything else. The metal is pretty thin, and I’m hoping it will just blow out the side or the top, not rip the thing into pieces. Let me make a few wood boards to see if it’s throwing shrapnel and we can watch from here.”
“Alright, that seems like a smart idea.”
Xander got to work creating a cluster of wooden silhouette targets on the far end of the yard. Walking back to Frazay, Xander withdrew on of the palm sized, tube shaped explosives from his inventory and held it up to show Frazay. “Here it is, let’s see how they do.” With that said, he tossed the tube hard, landing it roughly in the center of the targets. Nothing happened.
“Wasn’t it supposed to explode?” Frazay asked after a second.
“Uhm yeah, why didn’t it – shit, that’s right. I have to detonate it with my own mana. Can’t believe I forgot about that! Okay, here goes the real bang.” Xander willed his mana towards the ranged gathering array on the flash bang, and it detonated. To Xander, it was almost like watching a video of a bright light with the brightness turned down on his phone. He knew that it was bright, but to him, it just wasn’t. The sounds was similar, like listening to an explosion from a movie. It sounded like it was loud, but again, the volume had been turned down.
Frazay was a little more affected, though the distance kept her from experiencing the worst of it. She waved her hands in front of her face, trying to clear the spot the flash had created in the center of her vision. “Uh, yeah,” she said. “I think that that’s pretty damn distracting. And if it had gone off next to me, I think I’d be pretty disoriented.”
“Ah, excellent. It seemed like it was loud and bright to me, but it’s just hard to judge. Let’s see if it shredded the targets or not.” Xander made his way over to the targets to inspect them. The casing of the flashbang had indeed blown out the side in a ragged tear. The targets seemed to be intact though. One had been scorched near the base, but no shrapnel had been thrown out from what he could tell. Xander considered it a success. After all, flash bangs weren’t perfectly safe even on Earth.
“Nice, seems like they work well enough. That oughta even the odds if someone tries to get in a fight with me. Actually, evening the odds is wrong. I’m trying to find as many ways to cheat as I can.”
Frazay nodded. “No such thing as a fair fight when your life’s on the line.”
“Guess I’ll make you that target, then.” Xander repurposed the wood he had used to make the targets and added some more to the mix, molding it into a statue of Atrax. He was glad the [Improved Manipulate] skill took more from his mind and intention than from his hands, as he’d never been very artistic. The statue was the spitting image of Atrax, down to the way his beard was often ruffled from him running his hand through it while he was reading.
Frazay laughed as the statue took form. “Oh, this is just too good. I’m gonna pepper that smug face with some arrows and then show it off to him! Thanks again, Xander. Staring at a bright light for about a second was a small price to pay for this!”
As Xander vacated the space between Frazay and her new target, he could see the woman already drawing her bow. A translucent, magical arrow absolutely obliterated the faux Atrax’s left arm.
“Oops, might have gone a little too heavy-handed there,” Frazay said to herself.
“Well, have fun, Frazay! Don’t completely demolish that thing before you can show it off.” Xander waved to her, though he wasn’t sure she even noticed from how hard she was concentrating on putting arrow after arrow downrange.
Xander had decided that he would visit Gabrelle to take up some more time in the day. He really wanted to know if she had any ideas about any plants that were irritating to the lungs or eyes when burned. Plus, this was her first contract, and he thought she might appreciate having someone check in on her. He hoped that she was getting along well enough with Alesse. The two were close enough in age that they might even be able to become friends.
Arriving Alesse’s door, Xander heard the sound of raised voices, though he couldn’t quite understand what was being said. Alarmed, he tried to open the door both quietly and quickly at the same time, but only succeeded in opening it quickly.
“And he wouldn’t let you even practice on your own?! The nerve of that man!” Alesse half-shouted, sounding frustrated.
“He caught me with a stick once as a child and broke it in half in front of me! I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven him for that.” Gabrelle said, angrily.
The two of them looked at Xander, who was standing in the doorway, awkwardly.
“Xander? Everything alright?” Gabrelled asked, more quietly than she or Alesse had been speaking before.
“Uhhh… I heard yelling?” He said, the awkwardness of barging into a conversation like that was overwhelming him.
“Oh, apologies for that,” Alesse answered. “I was just so irate at how Gabrelle’s father treated her passion! Swordsmanship, or rather swordswomanship in our case, can be just as much of an artform as dance!” She turned back to face Gabrelle, “Next fencing lesson I take, you are coming along with me! We’ll put those arms to use and get you to drop that ugly mace!”
“Hey…” Xander interjected defensively, “I think it’s a pretty good mace!”
“It’s a brutish weapon, completely devoid of any finesse!” Alesse argued, passionately.
“Well, yeah. That’s kind of the point, I’d rather finish a fight as fast as possible with as little flourish as possible,” Xander said in counterpoint, gesturing to the mace at his own mace hanging by his belt.
“Ugh,” Alesse lamented, throwing her arms up, “another mace user! I’m surrounded by animals,” she said in jest.
“I could go get Freyja and really surround you with an animal,” Xander suggested.
“That actually sounds quite nice.”
“It is, she’s really soft,” Gabrelle chimed in. “Anyways, what brings you here, Xander?”
“Oh right. I’d almost forgotten. Two things, actually. The first is I just wanted to check up on you, since I know this is your first time doing something like this. Though it seems like you’re getting along just fine,” he added with a smile. “The other is that I wanted to get your thoughts on an idea I had involving plants, since you’re an [Herbalist]. Do you know any plants that are irritating to the throat or eyes when burned? I was thinking I could make some kind of smoke bomb that would also make it harder to fight inside of its smoke. I’ve already created a mask that can be worn to filter smoke out of the air.”
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“What a novel idea,” Alesse commented.
“It’s actually something that was used back where I come from. It was called ‘tear gas,’ and it was used to clear out crowds or flush people out of buildings by law enforcement on occasion. The name tear gas is because it irritates your eyes, nose, and throat, and causes your eyes to tear up and cry and your nose to run. Vomiting is pretty common, too. I’m trying to recreate something with a similar effect, though I don’t think I’ll be able to make something quite so effective. I’ll be happy if it just makes people involuntarily cry and cough.”
Gabrelle had been quiet, listening to Xander’s description and looking thoughtful. After he was done, she said, “Well, itch weed might work. It is irritating even when not burned, it can cause rashes and even blisters if you’re really unlucky, if you brush up against it. Gods help you if you get it in your eyes, I’ve heard the burning is hellish. When it’s burned, the smoke is almost as irritating to the eyes and throat as it is in plant form.”
Xander raised his eyebrows at the description. “Mm, that does sound promising. Does it need to be fresh or does is the smoke still irritating after it’s been dried?”
“Its irritating properties should persist even when dried. The oil of the plant is what gives it those properties, so even dried and powdered it can affect the skin. It’s actually a common, if somewhat cruel, prank to play on someone: put a little bit of powdered itchweed in their clothes and they’ll have a miserable week or so.”
“There’s a similar plant where I come from,” Xander said. “It’s called poison ivy. I can’t even begin to imagine how pissed I would be if someone put poison ivy in my clothes. God, and the stuff spreads when you scratch is because you’re spreading the oil around.”
“Itchweed has the same property when it comes to scratching.”
“Is it common?” He asked, “Or will I need to find a shop somewhere to get it? Is it even used in anything?”
“Not that I know of,” Gabrelle answered. “But it is quite common. You can likely find some here on the estate. It’s a tenacious plant, and I imagine the gardeners here spend at least some of their time each day keeping it from spreading into their garden beds.”
“Oh, I know there’s some around,” Alesse said. “I accidentally rolled into a bed of it when I was eleven. I think I cried at least once a day for a week. Baths were agony, and that’s just the warm water, let alone the actual scrubbing. In fact, I can show you some if you’d like. My legs could use a stretch, and I’m quite interested in how this ‘smoke bomb’ would be created.” She smiled mischievously “I can think of a use or two for something like that.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Xander said. “And I don’t mind teaching you how to make a smoke bomb. They aren’t particularly dangerous, at least compared to some of the other things I can make. They do get quite hot, though, so don’t set them on anything flammable,” he explained.
The three of them made their way outside, and Xander remembered that Freyja was still in the stables. “Oh, by the way, would it be a bother if we swung by the stables so that I could let Freyja out? She doesn’t like being cooped up for too long.”
“It’s no trouble at all, the extra walking will do me good,” Alesse replied. Gabrelle seemed less enthusiastic about the prospect of extra walking but stayed silent.
The two young women and Xander soon became two young women, Xander, and a giant loravian panther. Freyja was happy to be let out and showed her gratitude by rubbing her entire body against Xander, chuffing. She nearly knocked him over. She proceeded to rub against the two girls, as well, eliciting laughs from them as they struggled to stay upright. Once Freyja was done with her greetings, they headed to the gardens.
“The patch I rolled in is still there, assuming no one’s ripped it out since I was there last.” She pointed to a large tree near the edge of the gardens, surrounded by its own copse of smaller trees. “I used to love climbing that tree as a child. I still like to visit the area when I need some time to myself. It’s out of the way from everything else in the estate. There’s not even a path to it, you have to step over one of the beds to get there.”
Alesse led Xander, Gabrelle, and Freyja to her personal spot amongst the trees. There, she pointed out a patch of scraggly looking vines with small, serrated leaves. “That’s itchweed. Try not to fall in it like I did.”
Xander walked over to it and crouched down, bringing a gloved finger close to it.
---Objects [Analyze]d---
Itchweed
“Thanks for showing it to me,” he said to Alesse. “You two ready to learn how to make a smoke bomb?” Gabrelle perked up, excited to be included in the activity. The two of them nodded enthusiastically.
“First things first, you’re gonna need a good work station! Let’s gather some wood up and I’ll make you a table and at least one chair you can keep here for when you visit. Just grab all the sticks you can find.” After about fifteen minutes of gathering sticks and fallen bits of wood from the trees, Xander deemed they had enough for a small table and single stood. Using [Improved Manipulation] he joined the various wood bits together to create first a rough table, and then used the remaining to create a stool with a small back. He created two more chairs with his own created wood. Freyja had opted to climb into the large tree and lounge.
“How come you had us gathering up sticks if you can just make the wood appear like that?” Alesse asked, slightly miffed.
“Ah, my materials turn into dust if they spend more than a day away from me,” Xander explained. “This way, you have your own table and chair out here. Now, for the fun part! Let’s sit down and start. All you need to make a smoke bomb is a pan, some fire, sugar, saltpeter, and some paper or a tube. A fuse helps, too,” he added, “but it’s not necessary.”
Using [Improved Creation] Xander created two small bowls, one filled with saltpeter and the other with sugar, before making a simple cooking pan. “Okay, let’s get our fire set up, gimme a minute for that.” Using his skills once again, he created a small plate with several flame runes on it, and then suspended it on several legs to keep the flames farther from the table. Etching the mana gathering arrays on the bottom of the plate and connecting them to the flame runes, small flames sprung up from the metal. It reminded him of a camp stove, without having to use any gas. “Now that we have that, we can start. It should take, oh, roughly twenty minutes or so to prepare it. Oh, and we’ll need that tube.” He belatedly created a tube.
“Why is this so exciting?” Gabrelle whispered to Alesse.
“I don’t know, but I’m really enjoying it.” Alesse replied.
Xander smiled, having heard them. He liked teaching people things. The last opportunity he’d had to teach someone something had been when he showed Atrax how to make a fire bottle, and he’d yet to see the man ever use one.
“So you take your sugar and your saltpeter, and you mix it together, roughly half and half. Maybe a little bit more saltpeter than sugar.” Xander dumped the two bowls into the pan. “Now you just have to put the pan over the flame, make sure it’s not too hot, just a small flame is all you need, and keep the mixture nice and well stirred.” Xander reached down and fished an unused stick from the ground, using it to stir up the mixture. A few minutes passed of this, as Alesse and Gabrelle watched, waiting for something to happen. “After a bit, it should start to turn brown. There, you see that? It’s actually the sugar starting to brown and turn into caramel. Another few minutes and it should be ready.” Another five minutes passed of rapt attention from the two women, before Xander interrupted the silence, saying, “Ah! There we go. See how it’s turned into a thin paste all of a sudden? That’s what we want, it’ll start to burn if you keep it on much longer. Now we can just sort of… push it into the tube.” Xander took the pan from the small flame and tilted it over the tube, scraping it out of the pan and with his stick, filling the tube up. “Now let’s add a fuse to it, because I like fuses. You can just light this stuff on fire without a fuse, though.” Creating a length of black powder fuse, he stuck it in the top of the smoke bomb while it was still warm and malleable. “And there you have it, a smoke bomb!”
Gabrelle and Alesse looked at the tube inquisitively. “And that’s it?” Alesse asked inquisitively. “No magic, no fancy ingredients, just… sugar, saltpeter, and heat? I can just make this whenever I want?”
“Yep! Well, maybe not whenever you want. Setting off smoke bombs all the time might get you in trouble. But there’s nothing particularly special about it. You can get saltpeter from most alchemists, hell, they might have some in a shed around here, it’s good for removing stumps, too. Makes mushrooms grow on it, I think. And sugar, well, you can find that in the kitchen. Who wants to do the honors and light it?”
“Ooh, me! I want to!” Gabrelle enthused with childlike glee.
“Alright, alright. Let me get rid of this burner here,” Xander reshaped the runed metal into a small cube. “And get out my lighter.” He removed his magical lighter from his inventory, its flame springing into existence around its stip. “Here,” he offered it to Gabrelle. “Now just touch the flame to the fuse and take a couple steps back.” He went ahead and took his own advice, stepping back from the small tube.
Gabrelle extended her hand out to the fuse, and the flame from the lighter touched it. It immediately caught fire and burned towards the tube. Gabrelle hadn’t expected it to burn so quickly, and stepped back quickly, startled. The fuse reached the mixture Xander had created and the tube began to release smoke and short gouts of flame, the area quickly becoming enshrouded in a fog of smoke. Being a rather small tube which was filled with only a small amount of the mixture, it burned out fairly quickly, but it still released a prodigious amount of smoke.
Xander had placed his helmet on to filter the smoke from the air one it had begun to spread, while Gabrelle and Alesse were trying to wave it away from their faces, laughing and coughing intermittently.
“Oh, this is going to be so much fun for next time I play a prank on Selle! The poor girl will be mortified, I’m sure. I can imagine the look on her face already.” Alesse was already thinking of ways to use the smoke bomb.
“I can’t imagine putting itchweed in this without some way to filter the smoke,” Gabrelle said to Xander, handing him his lighter back. “If you do plan on using it, you’ll need to make us goggles and masks like you mentioned or we’ll be just as affected by it as any enemy.”
Xander nodded, “Yeah, I need to get some more leather, glass, charcoal, and some cloth to make you four some masks to protect against it.” He looked up at Freyja, who had wrinkled her nose at the smoke which had risen to reach her as well. “Don’t know what I’ll do about Freyja, though. Think I just won’t be able to use it, it would be pretty hard to get a mask with a good seal on her with all that fur. If I have to use it, I suppose I’ll just have to instruct her to get out of the area.”
As he finished speaking, Xander heard a few yells, coming closer. “By the trees!” He heard, faintly, through his helm. Soon, several guards, along with Frazay and Graffus rushed into the clearing, weapons drawn. They were a bit confused to see Xander, Alesse, and Gabrelle standing in the mostly faded smoke. Freyja evaded detection for the moment, still perched in her tree.
“Is everything okay?” Graffus asked. “When we saw the smoke and couldn’t find Alesse or Gabrelle in Alesse’s room, we feared the worst!” He sounded angry, and Gabrelle was shrinking in on herself, while Alesse remained defiantly unconcerned by the chastisement.
“Ah, that’s my fault, Graffus,” Xander said, rubbing the back of his head as he took off his helm. “We got to talking about some ideas I had for another device, and we ended up out here to take a look at some plants that could be useful for it. Aaaand then I taught these two how to make a smoke bomb. Which is where the smoke came from, if you hadn’t guessed by the name. Maybe not my most well thought out sequence of actions, you’re right. I should have let someone know that we were going to be leaving the room. The smoke bomb just kinda happened, though. I got excited about teaching.”
Xander could see Graffus’s eyes roll near to the back of his head. “Honestly, Xander, I expected a little more consideration from you. Gabrelle may have the excuse of being new and still young, but you acted like you were Alesse’s age!” Alesse bristled at the comment, looking like she wanted to say something, though no words came from her.
Xander slumped his shoulders and said, “You’re right, I’m sorry Graffus. It won’t happen again. Still getting used to some of the quirks of mercenary life, I guess.”
Frazay butted in, saying, “Ah, don’t take him too seriously, Xander. He’s just mad he had to run all the way here. You’re gonna have to teach me how to make one of those, too, some time. They look fun.”
“Uh, yeah, I can do that later. I guess we should all get back to the manor for now, though,” Xander said, feeling embarrassed to have been the cause of such a situation.
Freyja dropped from her perch on the tree, landing lightly on her feet, startling a couple of the guards. “Yeah, come on, girl. Let’s go back inside,” Xander called to the cat. The group of them returned to the manor. Alesse and Gabrelle returned to the noblewoman’s room, while Xander, Freyja, Frazay, and Graffus went back to the suite. There, they found Atrax napping on one of the couches. Frazay returned to her own couch, and Graffus marched back to his room, grumbling something about ‘kids these days.’