Meet Chrome

After the grave message, Sayra quickly busied herself with healing their injured guild members, and a few messengers were sent out to the king and the other guilds to notify them of the current predicament.

Kurai chanced a glance at Zane, "If they are 12 000 strong…how many of us are left after the last few battles?"

Zane didn't even try to sugarcoat things as he turned to him, holding his gaze, "There are only about 2 000 of us left without major injuries. They have managed to either kill or majorly wound about 700 of our forces, but even with them it would be a lost cause."

Kurai didn't know what to think or feel as his mind tried to process the shock, but then he realized that something could be done to lessen the impact on their forces.

He hadn't been studying toxicology and chemistry for nothing.

He turned to Satoru, "Is there a way that I can get items such as brine, fluorite, and salt as well as a big vat of water?"

The man blinked at him in confusion at the sudden change of the subject, "Well, normal merchants may have salt and water, but I doubt you would find the other items with them. The only ones that would have those items are the Micromero, but those that can call upon them are few and far between. They have many ways to get any product you need. Within reason, of course."

Kurai tilted his head in confusion and frowned, "Micromero?"

Satoru laughed, "The Micromero are tech-fae classed as pixies. They live to create, repair, and trade, but only with certain individuals."

Kurai's eyes went wide, "So they can fly? That must be fun."

Satoru chuckled and shook his head, "They may have wings, but because they go around on small hoverboards all the time, they have slowly evolved, or devolved as some might say, to lose their full use of them. They can still hover for a bit and glide, but nothing more than that."

It didn't make any sense, "Why would you use a machine to fly if you can do it yourself?"

Satoru shrugged, "They claimed that it was faster than flying with their wings. Meaning more trades and clients and so on."

Kurai nodded, deep in thought, "How do you get into contact with them?"

Satoru motioned toward Zane and the man grumbled playfully as he removed something from his bag and handed it to Kurai, "This is a special token that you can use to summon them, but they can ignore the summons as well. Once the summons is complete you can form a contract with them, but you can only be contracted to a single Micromero at a time."

Zane sighed theatrically, "The one connected to this token decided that they didn't want to make a contract with me because I'm too boring and lazy…can you believe that?!"

Kurai glanced at Satoru only to find that the man was awkwardly trying to hide a laugh behind a cough before he winked at him, "I wonder what gave them that idea… If I remember correctly, you wanted to order some apples because you were too lazy to go to the vendor two streets away."

The Guildmaster gave him a halfhearted glare before motioning to the token, "To activate it you would need a drop of blood. It is how they ensure that the ones that summon them don't have a previous contract or that they haven't been rejected before."

Kurai nodded and Zane held out his sword so that he could make a small cut in his thumb before allowing a single drop to fall onto the token.

The blood spread until a red thin layer enveloped the entire token before vanishing, leaving it golden once more.

For a few moments Kurai thought that he'd failed, but then a light came from the token and he was left blinking at the figure that suddenly stood on the token.

At about 20 cm tall, she had white hair that faded into purple. She wore glasses over her large blue eyes as well as an interesting headset.

She wore a tech suit that seemed to slightly cover the base of her wings and she had a small hoverboard in her one hand as the other rested on her hip in a clear display of irritation, "This better be good! I swear if you called me here just to buy bread or something mundane then I am going to murder you! I was in the middle of a very important debate!"

Kurai blinked at the ranting pixie in shock, "I-eh wasn't going to ask for something like that."

The pixie looked at him before narrowing her eyes in suspicion, "That is good. Remember, I reserve the right to accept or refuse your offer and the only rule is that you never order something that you can easily get at a vendor yourself."

Kurai nodded and the pixie watched him carefully for a moment before she made a small bow, "Name's Chrome. What can I do for you?"

As he listed the things he wanted, Chrome became excited and she kept on making suggestions for a few things as Kurai explained the alternate uses.

The list of things that had been required to make the chemical he was thinking of, became longer as he realized that there were quite a few snags to work out, seeing as the game didn't have access to actual beakers and burners, but with Chrome's craft magick, some of the things had easily been adapted to suit Kurai's needs.

His actions attracted the attention of quite a few other individuals, and by the time they finally finished, there were about 50 small round objects that had carefully been placed down all around him.

Chrome was sitting on his shoulder, looking just as exhausted as he felt, but he could tell that she was happy about something as she slowly stood and grinned at him, "Contract approved. You can call on me at any time, just remember the rule. You can have this one as a freebie, seeing as I also learned quite a bit."

Kurai nodded his thanks and Chrome gave a small wave before she disappeared again.

Zane and Satoru, who had left earlier to speak to the king, came closer and Zane was just about to pick up one of the objects before Kurai's voice stopped him, "I wouldn't pick that up if I were you. If you accidentally drop or even shake it too much you might not survive the results."

The older man quickly yanked his hand away and the people around them all took a step back.

Satoru frowned, "What are you planning on doing with it?"

Kurai picked up a few arrows that Chrome had given him, "They will be attached to arrows and shot into the enemy ranks once they arrive. The compound is heavily unstable so it will burst into flames once it breaks as the impact will cause the water in one-half of the bottle to mix with the other half."

This sent a murmur through the crowd before a new voice rang out, "And you are sure that this will work?"

It took Kurai a moment to realize that it was the king himself that was addressing him, but he stopped them from bowing and Kurai could hear the sense of urgency in his voice as he spoke, "How many do you think it would be able to take out?"

Several variables entered Kurai's mind at the king's question and he slightly tilted his head in thought, "It depends on where they land. The archers will have to aim for groups of no more than 10 at a time, depending on whether the chemical-fueled fire will be able to spread far enough."

The king nodded, "Only allow our most-experienced archers to handle them. Would you be able to make more if we can gather everything for you?"

Kurai nodded in shock and the king left without another word.

He then turned to find that Zane had already selected a few archers and that the other guilds were doing the same while keeping in mind that they only had to make use of a few archers at the time to prevent the arrows from crashing mid-air instead of hitting their targets.