The Gadget Forge had been in a sorry state for the last few days. A sadder state was probably a better descriptor; it had always been an empty husk just waiting to be filled with something. Thus far it had been a workshop, but now the owner had larger plans. Lightforge stood in the middle of a space that looked like a small replica of the Scrap Heap.
There were piles of parts filling the formerly empty space of the shop, though he had at least made sure to include clearly defined walkways that he could use if needed. There was even a rough organizational system to the clutter, although that was mostly thanks to Sam. She had dropped off the parts in batches by function, so it had just landed that way.
Slowly but surely, he was making his way through the enormous order of parts. Beside him at the workbench were two piles that were noticeably more ordered than the others. The first held parts that he’d restored or upgraded to the level that he needed before using them. The second contained his finished products.
That was the smallest pile. He still didn’t have many trustworthy designs to work from. He had several pairs of goggles that could identify people and a quickly growing stack of something else.
It had been disturbingly simple to craft bombs. Sam had given him an ample supply of explosive charges, and all he’d needed were batteries and shells to hold them. That was it; there wasn’t so much as a single trick to worry about. That had been bad enough.
But then he’d had a thought. Explosive charges were nice and simple, but he thought that he might have an alternative. So now he was standing at his workbench staring down at a pair of batteries. They were probably the single component that he had the most of; almost all gadgets contained them. But what were the limitations of them? He was about to find out.
He’d picked two relatively small batteries for this test. They looked like common batteries that you would put into a remote control or something like that, only a bit bigger. It was time to experiment.
He took a short length of wire and touched it to either end of one of the batteries. It was now completing a circuit with itself and should have electricity surging uncontrollably through the wire. Within seconds the wire turned red and began to glow. It went from red to white as it heated up, and then the center of the wire simply melted away.
Well, that was sort of a success. At least, he was pretty sure that was realistic to real world physics. Or maybe it was just what he’d been expecting to happen. Either way, he tried it again, this time with thicker wire. The same thing happened, but it took a little bit longer before the wire evaporated from the heat.
The third attempt used even thicker wire, and that was the first time that something changed. The wire still glowed and eventually melted, but the battery was not so untouched this time. It had grown noticeably warmer to the touch. That’s what he’d been waiting for.
With the thickest wire that he had, he wired the two batteries together, each one positive to negative. The wires glowed, but held for long enough. The batteries themselves grew hot and it wasn’t until that moment that Lightforge thought to summon his shield and hold it between himself and the potential bomb on the table in front of him.
He barely made it. The batteries exploded from the overload, expanding outward in a wave of concussive force and small sparks. It wasn’t huge, but it had also come from two of the smaller batteries that he had at his disposal. He didn’t bother to suppress his grin; that had been an excellent test.
A few more tests taught him the limitations of his battery bombs. There were, fundamentally, three significant flaws compared to the regular explosives that he had built so far.
The first flaw was timing. The explosion never happened at the same time, even when he thought that he’d built identical units. It was only a second or two of difference, so he was hoping that it would be fine. If he’d been better informed about explosives, he might have known that such discrepancies are a part of most explosive fuses.
The second flaw was reliability. Out of his first five bombs, one simply refused to work. No matter what he tried, the wires simply melted before the batteries could explode. An 80% success rate didn’t seem very good for a homemade grenade, but it seemed like that might be the best that he could manage at the moment.
The final flaw was power. While the batteries provided a little bit of shrapnel and even a mild electrical charge, they simply paled in comparison to true explosives. If you had to rely on them in a fight, it would always take more battery bombs to defeat an enemy than normal bombs.
But even with those flaws, he was happy with the end result for a very simple reason: the cost. He could buy six batteries for the cost of a single explosive charge, more than that if he bought barely functional batteries from Sam. Throw in a few other parts, and he could potentially build five battery bombs for the cost of a single true grenade. The grenade would be better in every way, but probably not five times better.
That was the key, and it made him feel very comfortable with the work that he’d done so far. Now all he needed to do was wait for the customers that would supposedly be coming his way.
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New Item Crafted!
Name: Overload Grenade
Type: Explosive
Quality: Common
Base Power: 9
Reliability: 80%
This explosive is a double whammy: unstable and unreliable! It’s frankly perfect as a grenade because the only smart thing to do with it is to throw very far away from you. Handle with extreme caution.
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The first knock on the back door came after he’d been working in the shop for a few hours. A sudden rush of panic shot through him; this was the real deal. Circe wouldn’t bother to knock, so this had to be someone new. His panicking brain began to run through questions that he hadn’t considered before.
Should he wear some kind of disguise? Or change his voice? He was supposed to be someone else to the villains, wasn’t he? Or maybe that would just make things more awkward. But what about prices? He had barely given a thought to those, and now he needed them close to hand.
He slapped himself across the face and his mind stopped racing. There was no point in asking himself any of those questions, because he wasn’t going to come up with any answers between now and the moment that he opened the door. That somehow calmed his nerves and he strode through the small office at the back of the shop. He closed and locked the office door behind him; he might as well keep the backroom dealings out of sight.
He walked to the back door and unceremoniously yanked it open. Behind it was the empty storage unit that served as the backdoor’s cover. And in the doorway stood an anxious looking man who was, unsurprisingly, covered from head to toe in spandex. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet and visibly shaking looking around as if expecting to be attacked at any moment. Which, Lightforge realized, was probably a good instinct for villains to cultivate.
“What do you want?”
It was meant to be an honest question, but the gadgeteer’s own nerves put an edge into his voice that he couldn’t possibly replicate on purpose. The villain in the doorway jerked back slightly and cleared his throat at least four times before he got the words out.
“Are you the– the Forgeman?”
The man’s voice was scratchy and dry, as if he hadn’t used it much in a long time. Lightforge felt a slight pang of sympathy; if he hadn’t found a few friends in this world, he could see himself with a similar problem. That alone eased his mind and softened his voice.
“I am. What do you need?”
The visible relief on the man’s face was enough to convince Lightforge that he’d been right to listen to Circe. This man obviously wasn’t some hardened criminal looking to terrorize and destroy. He was scared and looking for ways to protect himself. Even if he was a villain, the gadgeteer could sympathize.
“Right. Well, I’m sure you’ve heard about all the tension around here, right?”
“I have.”
“Ok, good. Well, I don’t have a horse in this race: I’ve just been trying to stay alive out there. But when the fighting starts, nobody’s going to care about that. I need protection.”
“I get it, but what brings you here specifically? Why come to a Gadgeteer rather than a bodyguard or something?”
“I don’t have that kind of cash. But some armor upgrades or cheap weapons? I think I can manage that.”
“Fair enough. I can probably upgrade any gear that you’ve got, and I have a few weapons I can provide. Grenades, mostly.”
“Are they any good?”
“That depends. The good ones are fairly expensive for one time use items. The cheap ones are cheap in every sense of the word: less power, less consistent, less reliable. But you can get four for the price of one of the good ones.”
The skittish villain blinked a few times, unable to hide his surprise. He stumbled for words a few times before taking a deep breath and slowing his jitters.
“Sorry, I was just surprised. I figured you would claim everything you sell is top quality.”
“I’d rather you know what you’re buying up front. Some of the cheap stuff are duds, but four out of five should work just fine. Keep that in mind and it might help you live long enough to come back and buy more.”
“Oh, right. That makes sense. Alright, give me five of them and I’ve got an armor piece here that I need upgraded.”
There was a little bit of haggling, but the deal was done within another few minutes. Lightforge handed over the battery bombs and took money and armor in return. The villain agreed to return later in the day to pick up the armor. With that he left and Lightforge closed and locked the back door.
He took a few moments to stare at the rough hole in his back wall and the sturdy metal door that had been installed there. He really needed a way to cover that up when it wasn’t in use. For now he would just have to make sure to keep the office door closed and off limits to any hero customers that might come by.
His first villainous customer hadn’t given a name, and Lightforge hadn’t asked for one. If and when he started hearing rumors about criminals with high tech equipment, he would prefer having the ability to lie to himself about whether or not they’d gotten it from him. Not having names just seemed like the smart thing to do.
He returned to the front of the shop and set about working on the man’s armor. It wasn’t exactly high-end equipment, but he hadn’t expected it to be. In truth he probably could have told the villain to simply wait a few minutes and he would be done, but that hadn’t seemed like a smart move. Better to keep his customers in the shop for as little time as possible. There would be fewer chances to have incidents occur that way.
He almost instantly regretted even thinking such things, as a flash of light appeared in the sky and shot right for his front door. He groaned internally and braced himself as the figure wrapped in a golden glow raced through the air and shattered the glass of his front doors.
Sunbird came to a sudden halt a few feet in front of him, breathing heavily and slicked with sweat. Despite the hunted look on her face, she smiled when she saw the Gadgeteer. There wasn’t so much as a hint of shame at the way that she’d made her appearance.
“Hey buddy! I need some help.”