Advanced Weaponry & The Fate of the Tynrodan?

Interestingly enough, Valtheril hadn't commented on Nira's handiwork, leaving her visibly relieved as she continued. Just after the general had left, Elly came back home and Velariah took her to the kitchen to 'solve' the dinner question.

It took a while to see the effects after the knight returned as no other words were spoken about it, but when it was eventually time for dinner, the results were there. Elly had taken most of the provisions and reworked a meal around them. The fish, however, she'd left untouched and I was able to enjoy its flavor to the fullest.

Like anything else here, it was much better than anything I'd ever had, likely due to how it was caught and prepared. That, and the fact that everything here was natural and unspoiled. I could taste the artisanship of the people that had processed it, and I swore I could see Velariah giggle as we ate.

After dinner, we drew up a few plans. We still had enough gunpowder to make more shells. Plenty, at least, to test Seralyn's compatibility with the new weapon. Nira hadn't finished quite yet, but she went back to work without hesitation. We decided that if we could get all this wrapped up quickly, we could have more practice tomorrow, a prospect that captivated our 'archer'.

By the time we were about done talking, Valtheril finally came walking down the stairs. He hadn't eaten yet and he looked like he could use some. It was obvious he'd been hard at work writing whatever needed to be written, but he managed to hide it well. Elly took his nod as a sign to walk back into the kitchen, and the rest of us took it as a sign to scatter and prepare for bed to give him the peace that he looked like he needed.

After saying our goodnights, Velariah and I found ourselves in our room with me staring at the bucket of bullets, and the bag of gunpowder we still had.

"Tomorrow will be interesting," I finally said. "And I think I could really use a bath after we're done."

"As do I," The elf said, tossing her clothes in the ground before jumping in the hammock, her eyes immediately fixed on Minia's new home. "That looks very neat."

"I know right? That's what I told her as well."

"The question is if you can make something like that."

"You know I can. I just don't know how sleeping is going to be comfortable. This hammock idea was as genius as they get."

"Heh," She chuckled. "Fair enough." She smiled at me as I crawled on top of her and continued her sentence. "But not as genius as you."

"You flatter me."

"No, really. The things you know are amazing."

"While I'd love to accept that as a compliment, I can't really. I'm not the one that deserves credit for these 'inventions', you know? It just feels wrong. Sure, I love to use them, but still."

"Ah, I get it. Don't worry. I'm excited about tomorrow."

"Yeah, no kidding. I'm very curious what Seralyn can do with that inherity of hers."

"More curious than about the question marks on your own sheet, apparently," She said with a grin.

"You have to admit that blasting your enemies to bits, literally shredding them with hot balls of steel, is hella cool, a lot cooler than seeing their faces melt due to the acidity of my venom."

"Eh, it's close," She replied in utter seriousness. She didn't hold it in for long and within seconds started grinning like mad. "No, you're right, that's definitely a cool way of dispatching enemies. Has quite the shock effect too, quite literally."

I smiled and glanced up to the nest on the wall to see Minia standing at the entrance, waving at me.

"Good night to you too, Minia."

She waved again and skittered inside.

"And good night to you too, Vel," I said, before giving her a quick kiss.

"Good night, El," She whispered back as she removed some of my hair from her face, taking me in for a hug.

Morning eventually came. Despite the lack of windows in the room, we always seemed to awake at the right time, our internal clocks in rhythm with the passage of the day.

After a lengthy breakfast in which I ate a decent amount more than usual (for good reason) Nira needed just a bit more time to finish carving the wood in the proper shape. When that was done, we took our stash of gunpowder, and our other firearm necessities including a bunch of bullets, with us to the dungeon. Of course, we also took our previous gun with us, not wanting to lose sight of it at any point.

The best part about our trip to the dungeon was Seralyn who walked ahead of everyone else in great contrast to her usual behavior. She tried hard to hide her excitement with her facial expression, but all the other things about her were just too much of a tell.

If only Arch had a face. I was curious what his expression would look like. It was clear he was curious and interested, but literally talking to walls and having a voice reply in my head gave me a hard time gauging sincerity.

Despite all that, from what I'd gathered so far, he was truly looking forward to what we were about to bring. I wondered if he had prepared some kind of new monster ready to face our new weapon.

Though, he'd have to wait for a bit.

We descended the stairs and greeted our host, who had the massive spider reply with a friendly 'hello'.

"We're back with a new iteration of what we brought before and hope you'd be generous enough to allow us to test it once more."

"Looking forward to it."

"Thanks, Arch, although we need a bit of time to set things up. I hope you don't mind."

"Not a problem."

"If I may ask. Do you have some special monster prepared?"

"Nothing special. I sacrificed some power of that beetle to add more defense to it. That is what you're testing, right?"

"Mostly, yes. Thank you once more. We hope you find your efforts rewarded… and that our idea works in the first place. Well, at least Seralyn is confident so that's something I guess."

Was that a chuckle I heard? I wasn't quite sure, but I got the idea it was. Having a translator between me and the dungeon core could be such a hassle at times.

We got through the empty tunnel and made camp at the start of the main floor. The room was illuminated by torches once more, and at the far end of it sat the same giant beetle from last time. Yet, there was a notable difference about it. Its carapace was no longer black. Instead, everything that used to be that color was now a very dark shade of red, likely a result of Arch's further 'modification'.

"Looking good," I commented on the creature while spreading the reagents on the ground before me.

The first thing I had to do, however, was fix the barrels on the stock. Because I feared this one might pack a bigger punch than our previous weapon, I made sure to use a bunch more silk than before. Then, it was time to make a bunch of cartridges. During that process, more questions surfaced.

If Seralyn was able to control which of the three cartridges currently loaded to fire, would it be a good idea to use different shells in one compartment so she could choose depending on the situation?

Something to think about…

For now, I kept things simple and only created three cartridges, all with a large bullet, and loaded them into the cylinder before rotating it so the gun was ready to fire.

"Well," I said with a nod as I stood back up. "It's up to you now."

Seralyn accepted the weapon and closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. The rest of all remained quiet as it was clear she was trying to focus… which, let's be real, was rare enough to see.

She nodded, still in that trance, and without opening her eyes, shouldered the weapon and aimed. I was about to warn her that she wasn't aiming anywhere close to the target, but it was clear she wasn't intending to. She was focusing on the weapon, and nothing else.

"I see," She eventually said, almost whispering. "I think I can see."

She took another deep breath and finally looked in front of her, readjusted her aim, and locked onto her target.

She braced and then, with a thunderous roar, the weapon sounded as it fired… and again, and a third time.

All three cartridges were shot with only a second in between. The result? The beetle creature, even strengthened by Arch to pose a sturdier target, collapsed, its armor blown to bits. The culprit simply stared, her face one of utter seriousness as her eyes went from the insect to her weapon.

"Un…believable," She finally said, taking a pause after the first part of the word, adding a certain dramatic effect to it.

"I honestly can't believe this shit," She continued, finally recomposing, and acting like her good old self.

"I take it that means that this works?" I said. "I mean, it's pretty obvious, no?"

"Yeah, it works, I can feel each individual shot, just like I can with my arrows. I need to put in the necessary effort, but I feel like with experience, I can do it much faster."

"That's why you focused so hard?"

She nodded.

"Yeah. If I didn't do that, I would have fired all shots at once. I mean… how to explain…? I can feel, sense, the casings as you call them, but I could only differentiate between them after taking my time. They were one large clump in the beginning, but then slowly, I was able to make out three smaller ones. Does that explain it?"

"That explains it very well. So, you'd like some more practice right now?"

"If possible, yes. I feel like it would help a lot."

"Should be fine, but we will be out of gunpowder soon. Not that I care too much as it's not the hardest thing to make again." I turned my attention to the dungeon ceiling. "What do you think, Arch? Worth it?"

"Definitely. Seems you made quite the improvements. Mind demonstrating the idea behind it? It looks interesting… and big."

"Heh," I chuckled. "Yeah, it's big for sure, but there's not really any other way to do it. Well, I suppose there is, but I can't create something like that." I shook my head as I heard myself trailing off. "See, the idea is that there are three casings with ammunition in this rotating cylinder that can be fired before it has to be moved so the next three casings are lined up with the barrels. This makes it so you do not have to reload until you've fired a multitude of shots. When you do eventually have to reload though, well, you'll be at it for a while, but the advantage is just too great."

"I see. That's quite the ingenious solution."

"I know, right?" I said as I sat down again to create more ammunition. "By the way, Arch, if you don't mind, I have a question."

"Hm?"

"Well, it's not really a question from me. The dragon that led me to you knows I can talk to you, and she asked if I'd be willing to ask you a question on her behalf."

"Ask away."

"There used to be a people living in this area called the Tynrodan. They'd visit Ember from time to time, but one day they completely stopped coming and she's never been able to figure out why. She was wondering if you have more information on what happened. There doesn't seem to be any out there. She had already asked Valtheril who had never even heard of them, and he knows a lot."

"The Tynrodan…?" Came a questioning voice, to which I nodded in reply.

"The Tynrodan… That is a rather sad story. It's also the reason for my dormancy. Their adventurers once used my premises to teach others the art of combat, but in the last couple of weeks that they came to me, I often heard questions about a threat of another race - the Akredinions, brutal conquerors from what I got to hear of them. In the final days, they visited me more and more often as training intensified, and I heard It mentioned the Akredinions left no trace behind of the races they vanquished. That in itself would explain why no knowledge of the Tynrodan has managed to survive."

"That's… wow."

I halted my work as I reflected on his words. Velariah saw the look in my eyes and knelt next to me, a hand resting on my shoulder in comfort.

"That must be brutal. I don't know their relationship with Ember, but this piece of knowledge seemed important to her. To know they were most likely literally wiped off the face of the world… I just… wow."

"None of the Akredinions ever visited me, which leaves me to believe they traveled further to continue their conquest. Without a steady supply of mana, I was eventually forced to slumber. When creatures escaped my confines due to my waning power, I decided it was enough. Then, the first people to show up again were you."

"And it's several thousand years later now, according to Ember. That's insane."

"Just a drop in the ocean of time."

"I can see why Ember calls you an Ancient One," I said with a grin. "But thanks for that. I think she'll appreciate finally getting an answer. Any answer."

There was no further reaction and I continued working in silence, creating the many cartridges needed to fully load the weapon. When it was finally finished, I had just enough powder left over to make three more shells before I was out. It was likely we'd have to put some more effort into making sure we could make a steady supply of the stuff. This would be particularly important if it was necessary for Seralyn to evolve her inherity further, but the way inherities worked dictated that she'd need to get both kills with a ranged weapon AND experience with it in order to optimize her powers.

All of that became even more clear when the archer took more shots.

After every three shots, she'd have to refocus and take several seconds before firing again. She told us that was necessary as she couldn't instantly 'find' the casings. This meant there was still somewhat of a delay between the series of shots, but it was nonetheless exceptional.

Hey, I wasn't going to complain about this. This was already far exceeding my initial expectations.

She continued firing until all rounds had been expended, but even at the end, we noticed no difference in firing speed, leaving us to believe that evolving her inherity would be key in order to improve effectiveness.

"Well, I'm happy with the results," I finally said, loading the last three casings into the weapon. We weren't going to use those, but rather keep them in case it was ever needed. "I hope all of you are as well, and also, Arch, I'm sorry about all the smoke. There's very little I can do about that."

"That's of no concern," Came his reply. "I thank you for this demonstration. It's not every day I come to learn new things."

I smiled in reply.

"Thanks a bunch. We'll be back soon for some proper combat."

We took the remainder of our resources, took a small bow and made our way out of the dungeon. Seralyn, as expected, was in an awfully good mood, so much so that even I decided to comment on it.

"That looked like you had a lot of fun."

"I had. I never would have expected to find something like that enjoyable."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I told you before, about your crossbow, the idea of having unskillful people kill trained soldiers doesn't sit well with me. This weapon falls in the same category, but actually using it, damn."

"To be fair, that's not really the case. For crossbows, maybe, one can kill, but it still takes decent training to be able to use it from long range and hit the shots. For guns, one needs to practice quite a bit to be good as well. As with the bow, the longer the range, the harder it is."

"I suppose that's true. I just have my inherity help out a lot, but I can see it not being that simple."

"I mean, you saw my shot, right?" I said with a chuckle. "It was horrible. This weapon is not anywhere close to the quality of my world's contemporary guns."

"That was a horrible shot, for sure."

"Thanks," I said with a cynical grin to which she couldn't help but grin as well.

"So," I said, turning to Velariah. "Any plans for the rest of the day?"

"I was thinking we could check out if there's anything interesting posted at the guild. Could use the opportunity to stuff you as well."

She said it with such a straight face that I must have reacted with a comical look on mine as when she looked at me, she burst into laughter.

"Well, I mean, it's not a bad idea," I replied. "Who knows, maybe Kantasia has some more of those 'secret quests'."

"I do like that," Velariah said. "Secret quests. Has a good ring to it."