The Khahari trader seemed like a nice man. He bore mottled desert-patterned fur. Sand-colored patches mingled with dark brown spots, revealed by his mostly-bare torso. When Theo reached to shake his hand, the grip was firm and assuring.

“Call me Zol,” he’d said, struggling with the local tongue.

“We can do business in the sacred tongue,” Theo said, speaking in Russian and leading the man toward some shade. It was getting dreadfully hot today already. A taste of the bitter heat to come.

Khahar was a prankster in everything. Boisterous and unerring in his ways. According to the man, when he was transmigrated to this planet he taught his people Russian. As a joke. He convinced them it was the sacred language of their heavens, and kept the joke going for 60,000 years. That was dedication the alchemist could admire.

“I wasn’t aware anyone spoke it outside of the Khahari Desert,” Zol said with a nod. “You were truly a friend of my master.”

Theo found a crate to sit on, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. “Will the Khahari remain in the desert? What are you guys going to do without a master?”

Azrug cleared his throat, then spoke in the Qavelli tongue. “We’re over here if you need us.”

Zol shot a look at the Half-Ogre, then his gaze dragged back to Theo. “They don’t speak the heavenly tongue? Good. My lord’s plans are not for others to understand. We don’t understand them—we don’t question them. From his seat of power in heaven, he’ll give us commands. Now, trade.”

Fair enough. The entire race of cat-people worshiped Khahar like a god. He was a god now, but even before that they considered him a deity. Theo shifted the conversation to trade, but it was difficult. Zol’s Qavelli was bad enough that when Theo had a question for Azrug, there was a brief back-and-forth. But the hour-long discussion bore fruit. Stone was in abundance in the Khahari homeland, but they lacked timber. That wasn’t a surprise. The entire continent was a desert.

Gwyn and Azrug offered some tentative numbers, negotiating a high price for the wood. But there was a concession in their deal. The Khahari weren’t just valuable for their buying power. They had access to the other continents of the world. Existing trade networks that spanned beyond what Theo knew about. While he understood the existence of places like Slagrot, Partopour, and Bantein, he only knew of them by name. Zol had contacts in each of them. Trade empires willing to crack open the fruit of a newly founded nation.

Zol withdrew a bottle of yellow liquid from nowhere, joined by 4 glasses. He poured out a mouthful in each one and passed it out. “To seal the deal.”

Theo let the liquor burn all the way down into his stomach, but another quirk of Yuri’s humor shined through. It was a poor attempt at replicating Vodka. While he enjoyed the gesture, the alchemist drew up a proper magical contract to write the deal in stone. It wasn’t much to start, but the gesture meant more than the flow of coins.

“Advice for you, Archduke,” Zol said before departing.

“Please,” Theo said, gesturing for the Khahari trader to continue.

“You are a friend of the Khahari, because you’re a friend of our god. Others won’t see you as such. When they approach your port… Double your patrols.”

Theo clapped his hand over the man’s fury shoulder. “I appreciate the advice. I’ll let my captain know.”

“That said, I would like to tour your town,” Zol said. “See what he saw.”

“You’re our guest,” Theo said in Qavelli, gesturing for Gwyn to come over. “This is one of my advisors. My administrator, Lady Gwyn. She doesn’t have the time to be your personal guide, but she’ll give you a brief tour.”

“Anything for the Archduke of Broken Tusk,” Gwyn said, stifling a laugh.

Theo departed without seeing them off, making his way to head back into town. Only to be stopped by Laedria Wavecrest. He suppressed a groan, his eyes lingering on her boat bobbing in the harbor. While he wanted to get working on the [Hallow Ground] shooter, boats were more important. They were the most important thing in town, there was no denying that.

“How is it going?” Theo asked, letting the annoyance fade from his mind in an instant.

“How is it going?” Laedria scoffed. She gestured at the boat. “Going pretty damn good! First boat. What do you think? Wanna name it? I bet you wanna name it.”

“The Cork,” Theo said.

“Cork? Oh! Cause it’s small and bobbing in the ocean, right? Hah-hah,” Laedria said. “Seriously, do you like it?”

Theo approached the harbor’s edge, looking out over the first boat built in Broken Tusk. This was a massive achievement, even if it was tiny. “What style of vessel is this?”

“Fishers,” Laedria said. Her crew hovered nearby, as though they expected high praise from the alchemist. “We make Fishers, Traders, and Spears.”

“Light, medium, heavy,” Theo said, nodding. “I understand. What kind of pay are you and your team expecting?”

“Ah, well,” Laedria said. She shifted in place, shuffling her feet along the stone ground. “I’m kinda crap at this part.”

That sucked. Theo was bad at it as well.

“We’ll work something out,” Theo said. “Currently, we don’t have much trade to talk about. And you’re not participating in the trade, yet. How much did you make for crafting a boat like this back home?”

Laedria shrugged. “Couple gold?”

Theo scratched his chin, tapping his foot as he thought. What kind of business was this? He didn’t need fishing boats, so why would he commission more fishing boats? The Cork was a proof of concept, nothing more. He withdrew 25 silver from his inventory and handed it over, gaining a confused look.

“I said a couple gold,” Laedria said.

“And I don’t need a fishing boat,” Theo said. “I want you to make this work as a business. Find the fisherman in town, and sell the Cork to them. Build me a Trader-style boat, and I'll pay you in full. How large are they?”

“Well, they’re more than four times the size of this little guy. Twin-masted and high-running in the water. Big hold for a lot of stuff,” Laedria said.

“And how much did you earn for those?”

“10 gold under contract. That is to say, we had employment under House Wavecrest, so the rates were lower than if we were freelance,” Laedria said.

“Then you’ll have your 10 gold,” Theo said, producing 5 from his inventory and handing it over. “Under the assumption that you and your people will serve not only as my shipwrights, but trainers.”

“For sailors?” Laedria asked. “Get some [Sailor’s Cores] and we’re in business. Anyway, you have a deal.”

Theo drew up a simple contract for the deal. He set no time limits for the shipwright to produce a ship, only that he’d pay a flat rate. The alchemist didn’t neglect to detail the part about him giving her 5 gold upfront for the construction of a new boat, promising to deliver the other 5 on completion. It was a petty sum for something so important, but that was only the start of the cost.

Laedria was happy and signed the contract, leaving the alchemist to depart from the harbor. He headed up the slow incline, back toward the town proper, and thought about the additional costs. Cores for the sailors, payment for the farmers working his fields, and the seamstress working his cloth. Then enchantments for the boats, some way to attack [Dimensional Storage Crates], and so on. 10 gold was the least of his investment into this project, and it needed to produce results soon. But those were worries for another day. He just hoped his typical incentive of payment would push the shipwright to new heights.

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The next problem Theo needed to solve was one he didn’t know all the conditions of. He saw enough from Throk’s designs of the potion-spewer to know the challenges, so he headed off for the lab. Alex chirped when they entered, begging him to let her out to greet their shopkeeper, Salire.

“Awww, you missed Auntie Salire?” the Half-Ogre woman asked. “I missed you too, little feathered thing.”

“How’s business?”

“Slow,” Salire said with a vague shrug.

Theo offered an equally apathetic shrug.

“You have a few orders, if you wanted to tackle those,” she said, scratching Alex behind the left wing. “A scatter of copper coins to insult your illustrious title, Archduke.”

“So, how long do I have to suffer these jokes?” Theo asked.

“Until you build a prison. And throw us all in for making them.”

“Fair enough.”

Spacing out for a moment, Theo connected his willpower to the lodestone network outside. He sensed his golems working hard on the tasks he’d given them. The [Lesser Plant Golems] were doing well in the greenhouses, making sure his stock never ran dry. There was something in the network about the [Lesser Metal Golems] fighting something, but that was standard for the mine. There were often low-level monsters spawning there, even if they were the weird tentacled dogs. But the crates upstairs were filled with enough [Hallow Ground Essence] and [Swamp Truffles] to work for today’s experiments.

Leaving Alex downstairs, Theo began his experimentation by brewing a large batch of [Hallow Ground Potion]. He made a small offering at his shrine to Lord Drogramath before considering the best approach. The massive flask on the table held enough potion to create 50 individual [Hallow Ground Potions], so his next step made sense. Stuffing the flask in his inventory, he left the lab and found his way to an empty field to the west. He passed by his seamstress' house, locating a decently vacant area. Alex stayed behind with Salire, too busy enjoying the scratches.

Adding 50 units of the [Refined Aerosolize] modifier to the mix, and watching the subsequent bubbling reaction, Theo prepared to experiment. First, he scooped a single unit of the potion from the mix into a flat-bottomed vial and tossed it on the ground. Nothing happened. He inspected the massive flask to ensure the main potion was still stable, despite being at an odd measure.

[Hallow Ground Potion]

[Refined Aerosolize]

[Potion] [Modified Potion]

Epic

Created by: Belgar

Alignment:

Drogramath (Middling Bond)

Grade: Excellent Quality

Shatter to create a cloud of denial.

Effect:

Throwing this potion creates a fifty pace circle around the point of impact with the [Hallow Ground] effect. Undead, ghost, etc creatures may cross into the cloud, but will be banished when they do so.

It was perfectly fine, unlike that bit of silvery liquid on the ground. Theo went over, knelt down and watched it turn a foul shade of brown. With his mental command, he inspected the liquid.

[Inert Potion]

[Junk]

Common

Created by: Belgar

This potion has been measured incorrectly. It is now useless.

As expected, when the potion was separated from the base in an odd number, it was turned to junk. He returned to the large flask and scooped out the correct amount of potion and splashed that on the ground. The system was happy enough with that delivery method, creating a massive cloud of silvery-white that hovered just above the air in a circle. According to the description of the potion, it was fifty paces in a circle. Any undead that crossed the line would be banished, whatever that meant.

The testing was clear, and Theo returned the large flask to his inventory. When Throk created his device to shoot the liquid, it needed to dispense an exact amount. The advantage was that it didn’t need to hold individual potions. The thing could have an alchemically inert tank that dispensed the liquid. A 100 unit capacity tank could shoot 50 times, as each potion took 2 units of the liquid. That might not be practical, but it was something that a [Dimensional Storage Crate] might help.

Theo headed over to Throk’s place and found the blacksmith’s shop devoid of the Marshling. Instead, he found the apprentice Thim. Thimamuri Ironmoore was a strange Dwarf. Not in appearance, though. He had a bushy beard and a bad attitude, squatter than the Humans of this world by several heads. The brusque Dwarf gave him a nod and a grin.

“You’ve driven the Blacksmith from his workshop,” Thim said. “That’s a crime worth punishment under Borhig.”

“Borhig has no power here.”

“Calm your ass, Demon,” Thim said, waving him away. “The Marshling is in his workshop. The artificer one.”

Theo rolled his shoulders. He didn’t realize that other gods were a sensitive point for himself, but there it was. It didn’t help that he knew little about Borhig, Dwarven God of Blacksmiths. “How are you settling in?” Theo asked.

“Well enough. Throk gave me a thrashing when he figured out I wasn’t actually an apprentice. But we’re on good terms now. I fill in for him here when he’s too busy. Hey, thanks for asking. Mister Archduke.”

Theo shot him a glare and then walked away, not breaking eye contact. After disappearing behind the workshop, the alchemist reappeared to glare a little more. Just to send the point home. The Dwarf laughed and then he was off again. Throk’s artificer workshop was right around the corner, and the sound of creative Bantari cursing from within revealed that the man was inside. Three sharp knocks and another series of curses.

“Come in, you idiot!”

Theo let himself inside, finding Throk laboring over something that looked vaguely like the drawings he’d seen.

“Oh, if it isn’t the—”

“Make an Archduke joke. I dare you,” Theo said.

“Big old stupid Archduke. I was getting there,” Throk said, slapping his hand on his newest artifice.

Theo spotted the barrel. It was the design that would work best. So the Marshling had gone ahead and worked on that concept. Good. “Alright. I did a simple test, and this design is going to work best for shooting the potion.”

“It was my favorite design. Look here… Yeah, right behind the tank. It’s just a simple pump like the ones I used for the water. Only high-capacity.”

“Interesting,” Theo said, leaning in. Delivering bad news to Throk was an art. The alchemist hadn’t mastered that art, but he was trying. He stalled for a moment, pointing at various things he didn’t understand before he gave up. “You’ll have to change the design.”

“Why?”

“The potion needs to come out in exactly 2-unit bursts,” Theo said.

“Why?”

“That’s how the potion works,” Theo said. “I don’t make the rules.”

“Yeah, maybe you should. Archduke over here can’t even make the rules.”

Theo let out a dramatic sigh. “Well, if you’re not up to the job. I’m going to need to—”

“Alright, alright. I get it. Sorry for giving you a hard time about the title,” Throk said, grumbling. “What do I need to do again?”

Theo explained the problem in detail, but the genius mind of the artificer had a solution. Instead of just drawing from a tank and spitting it out the front, he could attach a 2-unit tank near the barrel. Once it was loaded, he could apply pressure with his artifice magic and then release the potion all at once.

“Does it matter if it comes out as a wild spray?” Throk asked.

Theo shrugged. “This requires more testing. I’d say work on this design, and then we can test it… Actually, I’ll just leave some potion here for you to test with.”

“You’re alright with me just shooting the magic undead-killing potion like that? Isn’t it precious?”

“Sure, but I have a cave filled with the truffles,” Theo said. “I’d rather have a functional artifice. And… Well, it just seems like too much effort to use anything else.”

“Fair enough,” Throk said, prodding at his artifice.

Theo measured his expectations for the artifice weapons. There were already system-generated weapons they could mount to the north-facing walls of Gronro-Dir. Those ran on motes, a relatively abundant power supply. The one thing Throk’s idea had going for it was that it could spew whatever potion they wanted. For the [Hallow Ground] potions, that meant dousing the land with something that would instantly kill all undead. Assuming banishment was the same as death.

The potential for an anti-undead weapon like this was more than just in service of Gronro-Dir. This was the first step forward to something bigger for Theo. When the threat of undeath first arose, ideas had been swirling in his mind. Because if something was undead, it was difficult to kill. That was by definition of the word, but the reports he’d received from Gronro proved that true. It wasn’t enough to just destroy the undead, they needed to be banished. All of them.

Thus Theo’s idea of dropping potions from the air—however that might work—was born. It had evolved with Throk’s idea, becoming a different plan entirely. Now he had the desire to spew massive quantities of the potion down onto the undead from a safe height. How to get to the safe height was another question, but the alchemist took problems one step at a time. Which led to the next thing that would piss the poor Marshling off.

“I need some more stills,” Theo said. “Drogramathi Iron, if you can swing it.”

Throk gave him a flat look. “Isn’t your lab full enough already?”

“Yeah, but… You know,” Theo said, shrugging. He hadn’t planned on lying about this. “Drogramathi Iron is better.”

Throk let out a belabored sigh. “Alright. I’ll work with Thim to get you a few. How many do you need?”

“At least 4.”

“You’re going to be the death of me.”