“What do you mean my brother is dead?” A rather savage man asked angrily in a large handsomely decorated office.
“We are still investigating the specifics, Duke Shag,” an assistant replied while standing in front of the desk before continuing. However it seems he died while traveling through Oakforest, from what we have been able to ascertain so far, it seems your brother's caravan was attacked by wild animals as there are blood trails and signs to indicate two bodies were dragged off into the forest.”
“Damn fool, why didn’t he take more guards instead of that wench he found in a bar.” Dinroc Shag cursed.
“Apparently he thought too many guards would draw attention since he normally only traveled with his personal bodyguard.” The assistant answered.
“What of the dagger?” Dinroc asked with concern.
The assistant took a moment to find the right words but his silence was all Dinroc needed to understand.
“Fuck!” Dinroc cursed before asking. “Do we have any leads on it? You know what we promised the Emperor.”
“I have sent people to investigate, however Oalforest City is currently under lockdown so it is impossible to enter legally and that limits the number of our people who can sneak in.” The assistant answered.
“Lockdown? Why?” Dinroc asked, surprised.
“It seems that a string of murders have taken place over the last twenty-four hours that seemed to be mainly focused on the leaders of the criminal organizations.”
“The leaders are dead?” Dinroc asked with even greater surprise.
“Damn, why did they suddenly have to get killed off.” Dinroc said with a grin. “We were already planning on eliminating that trash after I took over the city and kicked that idiot Glador Rosk out, however for them to die so soon complicates things.”
“What about the plan to use them to create enough chaos that the citizens protest against King Rosk?” The assistant asked.
“That would have made things easier when I arrive in Oakforest City and use the dagger as proof that I am acting in the emperor's name to proclaim that Rosk has been replaced. I could claim that his lack of control over the city and that his citizens are upset with his rule has forced the emperor to replace him with someone more competent.”
“I lent the dagger to Berel in the first place as he had already secretly taken over the criminal organizations using money, threats and fake promises, he was to use the dagger to prove that the emperor was backing him and that he could back up his promises.”
“Even if I could make it work without the criminal leaders causing chaos, without the dagger I can’t do anything, and worse once the emperor learns that we lost the dagger there will be hell to pay.”
“Your orders sir?” The assistant asked.
Dinroc went silent for a time before he sighed and said, “All we can do now is try to retrieve the dagger, I want it found no matter the cost and I will reward the one who finds it handsomely..”
“Do we know what happened to that wench my brother took with him on the journey for entertainment?”
“No sor, she appears to have vanished, the report from the city guards make no mention of her which leads us to believe she escaped when the caravan was attacked.” The assistant answered.
“Put a bounty on her head, alive if possible, dead if necessary.” Dinroc ordered.
“Yes, Duke Shag.” The assistant said with a bow before leaving the room.
A few seconds after the assistant left the room a beautiful woman wearing extremely revealing clothes entered from a side room before asking in a silky voice, “All done with your important meeting my lord?”
“Yes, sorry for the interruption.” Dinroc replied while ogling the woman in her revealing outfit.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Hmph so you should be.” The woman pouted before saying, “It was just starting to get enjoyable.”
“Then come here and let us continue.” Dinroc replied in a perverted tone.
The woman sashayed over to Dinroc and wrapped her arms around his neck from behind before whispering “You know your wife just got home right?”
“And?” Dinroc replied before adding, “That’s never stopped us before and she knows her place since she has already bred me a son, she can’t satisfy me as you can my dear so all she needs to do is look pretty on my arm at engagements.”
“Well then let me continue where I left off.” The woman whispered playfully as she helped Dinroc remove his trousers before going down between his legs and taking his cock in her mouth.
As Dinroc lifted his head slightly in enjoyment he didn’t notice that the woman’s eyes were full of laughter and scorn.
***
After Tommy was done with his work in the backyard he decided to head towards Nele Alchemy to start work on the next phase of his bullet production.
Before leaving the Forest Inn he asked Merno and the twins to let Kele, Rizi or Chel know where to find him if they came looking for him since he knew that the princess would be coming to see him with her mother sometime today.
As Tommy passed through the red light district and entered the region where Erden’s forge and Nele Alchemy were located he noticed a sharp increase in the number of guards compared to when he visited here the first time.
(It seems the guards are looking for me.)
((Probably didn’t help that we stole all of Erden’s forging equipment and goods kekeke))
Tommy kept to the alleyways and in the shadows as he sneaked past the guards, it was not that he feared facing them, however he knew that if he did start a fight with them only more guards would come. It seemed that when it came to the master blacksmith Erden, the guards didn’t want to get on his bad side in case he stopped serving them, Tommy also figured that the King was adamant about doing anything he could to help Erden so that the blacksmith would owe him.
With Tommy’s skill in sneaking it wasn’t hard for him to bypass any guards and successfully sneak inside Nele Alchemy.
As she heard her door bell ring, Nele looked over and giggled upon seeing a familiar figure sneaking into her shop.
“Well if you're going to go around killing city guards you need to expect some consequences.” Nele said in a jovial tone.
“You don’t seem bothered about me killing them?” Tommy asked in return.
“Everyone knows those guards only care about themselves and were actually on the pay from the criminal organizations, though I was surprised to see that Erden got them to come after you, he must have offered them something. What did you do to piss that grumpy man off?” Nele asked.
“Nothing, he backed out of a deal we had by trying to get me arrested so he could get something I have.” Tommy replied before explaining the situation to Nele.
Tommy wasn’t too bothered about telling Nele about the bullets since she was going to learn about them soon enough anyway.
She was obviously watching what happened when Tommy killed those guards and seeing as how part of the deal was that she could watch Tommy produce the Nitrocellulose or gun cotton seemed smart enough to put two and two together, and as if to prove his point she asked.
“Is what you're going to show me how to make something needed in these bullets of yours?”
“Yes, the end result is called Nitrocellulose or gun cotton, however we can’t make that until our lightning magic user arrives so first I’m going to show you how to make concentrated Sulfuric acid.” Tommy replied.
Nele’s eyes lit up upon hearing this and she nodded happily before asking, “What do we need?”
“Sulfuric acid, an empty one of these beakers you have on your shelves and something that can heat the Sulfuric acid to very high temperatures.” Tommy replied before adding. “We also need to be able to control the temperature as we are going to need to slowly raise the heat.”
Nele nodded before going to grab the necessary items, one of which was another fire element crystal.
“Can you control the temperature of these crystals?” Tommy asked with interest as the two he had seen so far both had a set temperature.
“Yes.” Nele said with a nod before explaining. “We can adjust the temperature the fire elemental crystal releases by feeding it our mana, I’m surprised you don’t know this.
Tommy just shrugged before explaining the process, So basically what we are doing is heating the Sulfuric acid and boiling off the water that is diluting it, this will leave us with concentrated Sulfuric acid.”
“That's it?” Nele asked in surprise.
“Yup,” Tommy replied before explaining.”We need to get the Sulfuric acid to 100 degrees centigrade so that the water starts to boil off and steam is produced, this is called the boiling stage.
“After a substantial portion of the water has boiled away, thick, white, gasses will begin to come from the boiling acid as we slowly increase the temperature, this is called the fuming stage because of all the fumes.”
“Finally we keep this going until only about a quarter or twenty-five percent of the Sulfuric acid remains in the beaker, at this stage we turn off the heat and allow it to cool.
Once it’s cooled we put it into an appropriate storage container, preferably one with a lid or seal. Concentrated Sulfuric acid is hygroscopic which means it will absorb moisture from the air if we don’t seal it and once again become dilute.”