As it turned out, Herb the Alchemist had a lot to say on the topic. By the time Chase got a word in edgeways about his own project, Herb had covered the basics of titration, plant cell structure, the amazing functions of the blood brain barrier, and a few other words and phrases that Chase was sure he’d never hear again.
“But you were saying?” Herb said, his hands waving in circles like he was fluffing up dough. “Speak now or forever hold your peace, my good sir. Idle hands are the devil’s plaything, you know. Though I say it’s idle mouths that’re problematic.”
Chase waited for him to take a breath. “I was wondering if you could help me make some bullets. Ones that can hurt monsters.”
Herb’s eyebrows danced and his face twitched. He wrung his hands together. “Bullets for monsters? I s’pose I could, yes, I s’pose I could. Would you like a gumdrop?” He handed Chase a jar with smudged fingerprints all over it. Chase declined. “Normal metal can’t hurt monsters, no-no. But if it were infused or imbued or fandazzled, perhaps…”
Chase interrupted him before he went too far. “I’ve done it before. Shot a Demon using a bullet that I dipped in magic acid. I came to you because I don’t think I could repeat the phenomenon, at least not consistently. Brought samples, if that helps.” He placed his backpack in the small amount of clear space on the central table then pulled out what he’d collected, placing Nebula’s Talent residue closest to Herb.
The alchemist picked through the assortment, running his fingers over the gems, and balancing one of the mana sticks on his nose.
“Wait here.”
Herb got up, went to a cabinet, and shoved his whole head and part of his chest inside. There was rustling, a frustrated grunt, a sound like an electric shock, then he reappeared with a peculiar device in his hands. He laid it on the table, plugged it in, then pushed one of the mana sticks through an entry point. It came out as a thin blue paste, dropping into a sealed collection chamber. The chamber had a chute connected to it, and into this went some of Nebula’s crushed up gems. Herb sealed the chute like an airlock, then pressed a button to drop the gem fragments onto the mana paste. He pressed a second button, a red one this time, and the whole thing started shaking, mixing together.
“Come back in two hours fifteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds,” Herb said. “Bring bullets.”
Chase yanked the box of 9mm out of his backpack. “Will do. More than this?”
Herb’s eyes went wide. He shook his head.
**************
After a cup of tea with Marla’s father, two games of chess (they called the second game a draw even though Aroon had mate in three on the board), and multiple assurances that Chase and Marla weren’t dating, Herb came up from the basement and beckoned for Chase to follow. He’d finished the creation, and it looked glorious. Didn’t smell too bad, either.
“You reckon it’ll work?” Chase asked.
Herb shrugged. He was already tinkering with something else. “Maybe. How you gonna test it?”
Chase thought for a moment. That’s a damn good question.
**************
The answer was actually quite simple, which was great. It was also extremely dangerous and illegal, which was not so great. He wasn’t even sure if his gun license would stand up to the task. Sure, it allowed him to own and shoot his Luger, but that didn’t mean he could shoot it anywhere he liked. There wasn’t exactly a precedent for jumping into a Dungeon with a WWII antique and going Rambo.
But he had to try, because he had to know. He couldn’t let his life slip by, hauling and shovelling and hauling and shovelling. If this worked, he could be a Hunter. A powerful Hunter.
So, with just a couple days of preparation and a well-timed refresh on the sketchy GateFinders forum, Chase stood before a tiny Gate in Eight Town at two o’clock in the morning, loaded Luger in his dominant hand and earmuffs on his head. He had some other gear like his drink bottle, torch, medical supplies, all the spare ammo and a carving knife. The metal blade wouldn’t do anything to the monsters while they were alive, but once they died and their Soul wisped off to wherever Souls went, the knife would do a fine job of lopping off a leg or a horn for him to sell.
It was presumptuous, but why not?
Chase popped out the Luger’s magazine one last time before going in. Herb had done a fantastic job, at least judging by the feel and the look of the bullets. If he closed his eyes, he couldn’t tell the difference between the ‘magical’ ones and the original product. Visually, the magical bullets had veins of blue and purple pulsing around the outside of the casing, most intensely focused on the actual projectile. Chase’s biggest concern was that this would negatively affect some aspect of the bullet, like air flow, speed, accuracy, all that fun stuff. Even worse would be if the integrity of the casing itself was compromised. If it blew up in his face, it wouldn’t be pleasant. He had contemplated taking the gun to a firing range and testing it in safer conditions, but he was just too eager.
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Living a little, he called it.
He waved his foot in front of the Gate, checking for the security devices that some bigger guilds used to detect people ‘stealing’ their Gate. No alarm sounded. This was a tiny gate, probably conquerable by a guild of drunk D-Ranks, but it was worth checking.
Chase entered the Gate.
The first room was as dark as a psychopath’s dream journal. He flicked on his torch and swung it around his surrounds. There was only one tunnel through which monsters could attack, but it split into two after the next room. That was good. As for décor, the walls were dotted with moss and large groping weeds that swung between the rock walls and latched on anywhere there was water.
In the next room, a small Echin lay amongst a crackling pile of shedded skin and carapaces. It was smaller than the one he’d cleaned up just before the Dungeon Break. He approached, his Luger loaded and trained on the head of the monster. He flicked the torchlight around the walls and the rest of the damp ground, checking for more foes. There was a bundle of three ant-like monsters called Noctants at the back of the room, maybe ten metres past the Echin. They could move fast, so he’d have to be careful. He didn’t have a spare magazine, meaning he had eight chances to take them all down, unless they gave him time to reload.
Unlikely.
His heart thumped like a first kiss. The Echin could see him now, no longer blinded by the torchlight. It gave up its nest and raced toward him. The Noctants followed. He stepped back a few paces, trying to get as close to the Gate as he could in case a quick escape was required. In a moment of inspiration, he dropped to his knees and lodged the torch between his kneecaps, giving him a free hand to steady his grip on the pistol.
He fired a shot. It went wide, and his heart lurched. The bullets could be faulty, or it could be nerves. He fired again, and the Echin flinched as the bullet grazed its tough carapace.
It works. Holy shit it works.
It might have broken through if it weren’t such a glancing shot. Now the Echin was rushing at him, its front ten legs raising and its mouth making room for its pincers to—
BANG! The third shot punctured the monster’s face, a small dot flowering between its eyes. It collapsed to the ground, instantly dead.
Chase Mendleton, Talentless Hunter. The words seemed unreal. This was a moment he’d only dreamt about; a desire he’d tucked away into a dark alcove reading ‘Do Not Enter!’.
The Noctants gave him no time to celebrate. Startled by the noise and light, they scuttled at their foe. Chase couldn’t work out which to shoot first, and in his indecision his first shot passed perfectly between two of the monsters. His next shot sent the creature on the far-left slumping to the dust, and the one after that took two shots, since one went through its abdomen and only slowed it down.
One more bullet.
He backed up to the Gate, the hood of his black jumper flirting with the swirling border. The final Noctant got closer and closer, and he allowed it. He needed to be sure. It rose, clacking its pincers only metres from him, before he took the final shot and put it to rest.
Four kills. The stress might’ve taken years off his life, but he’d done it.
He immediately popped the mag out and reloaded using the bullets in his pocket. Complacency was a killer in these situations — all the movies said so. He’d have his back turned while chopping up a Noctant and wham! — there’d be a pincer in his back.
Once the mag was back in and the gun was ready to be fired, Chase took a moment to celebrate. It was ugly, it was cringy, and the part with the waltz would’ve been better if he had a partner to dance with, but he didn’t care. He was giddy. Not only was this proof of concept, this was a goddamn landslide victory. A revolution.
He shook out his nerves, pacing back and forth by the Gate. For now, he wanted to keep this a secret. Herb knew his intentions, though Chase got the feeling that his secret was safe with the alchemist. Marla might be curious of his recent shenanigans, but right now she was probably wrapped up in the tragedy she’d witnessed the day before. Chase wasn’t very close with Pete — he knew he liked to drink until the cows came home, and that’s about it — but Marla was friends with the man. No one could take that on the chin and show up to work the next day, not even a big tough Majesty Hauler.
So for now it’s just me and Herb, taking on the world.
With that in mind, Chase whipped out his carving knife and set to work. He’d never thought his experience as a Hauler would have value outside the hours of 9 to 5, but now it was paying dividends. He knew where all the valuable bits were, right down to the best technique for gouging out Noctant eyeballs. He also took the Noctant’s pincers (no practical use, people just like them for decoration), a section of the Echin’s carapace (a common food additive once ground up), and as many Echin legs as would fit in his backpack and under his free arm. He stacked them up like kindling, waiting for the last dregs of juice to drain. Fifteen legs of that size (about eighty centimetres each) would fetch around a hundred Credits.
It was a tidy profit on his eight bullets, but there was one glaring issue.
The clean-up.
At some point that day, or maybe the next, a band of Hunters would come through the Gate and see four dead monsters laid out before them. At best, they might just be pissed off that someone stole their fun, but at worst they might think that the Dungeon had already been cleared and they’d leave it behind, resulting in a Dungeon Break. Somewhere in between those two extremes was someone finding a spent bullet lodged in a wall and wondering who put it there and how.
Chase umm’d and ahh’d for a moment, checking the time. He still had about two hours before Hunters might start showing up for their day’s work, but he wanted to be home at least an hour before that happened. If he was seen on the train with a bundle of Echin legs, there could be questions.
Got them from the Exchange Bank, he’d say. Why are they still dripping, you ask? You’d better ask the guy who sold them to me.
He started checking the monster’s heads. If there was an exit wound at the back, that meant one of his bullets was sitting in the dust or the cavern wall, waiting to be found.
Two of the Noctant’s had exit wounds. The Echin and the last Noctant didn’t. Taking into account the three bullets that he missed, that meant he had five spent bullets to find.
Is finding a bullet in the dark worse than finding a needle in a haystack?
He started by picking up the eight shell casings scattered on the ground around him. At least they didn’t go far. Then he shone his torch around the cavern, watching for that glint of reflected light.
I think I better buy a metal detector.