Beers and Beards

Chapter 18: Boom?

Today’s the day. I got time off of work from Grim, and more importantly?

I have charcoal! Tim brought in my supply of charcoal along with a ton of sulfur. I knew getting his help would pay off!

So now I’m sitting in the kitchen with some measuring glasses and a bunch of bags of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur. The next step is to –

“BY THE UNHOLY YAMS OF YEARN! WHAT IN THE NETHER ARE YA DOIN IN THE KITCHEN WITH ALL THIS DIRT AND SHIT?!”

“Sorry Bran.”

---

20 minutes later

I’m sitting in my cabin with some measuring glasses and a bunch of bags of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur. The next step is to –

“BARCKS BEARD PETE, WHY ARE YA STINKIN UP OUR ROOM?!”

“Sorry Balin.”

---

20 minutes later

I’m sitting at a table in the common area of the camp with some measuring glasses and a bunch of bags of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur. The next step is to –

“TIARA’S TEATS PETE, DIDN’T YA SAY THIS STUFF WAS DANGEROUS? GET OUT OF THE CAMP!”

“Sorry Grim.”

---

20 minutes later

I’m sitting at a makeshift workstation far away from the camp with some measuring glasses and a bunch of bags of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur. The next step is to –

I paused and looked around. No dwarf appeared to angrily demand my immediate eviction, and the only sound was the beating of my excited heart. Alright! It was time to get cracking on my escape plan! That’s right, I never planned on using gunpowder to earn enough silver to end my indenture. I was always planning to blast my way free from this prison and then escape to the town where I would smash into a bank and then steal enough gold to live the next 400 years in peace.

Muhahahahahahaha! The fools have handed me their own doom! DOOM!

I put some saltpeter into the first measuring pot and sighed. No escape from Alcatraz for boring old Pete. As much as I wanted to use my ‘superior technological knowledge’ to get all OP and stuff, I found it unlikely to succeed. I strongly suspected that a police force that had a teleporter and who knows what other crazy magic was way above my ability to deal with. Besides, there was a good chance I’d make actual long-term money with gunpowder.

I’ve thought a lot about the ethics of bringing gunpowder to a world like this. I know the creator of dynamite was so distraught about the death his invention brought that he started the Nobel Prize. The Winchester gun guy's wife went similarly insane and built a crazy house. Honestly though, I didn’t think I needed to be too worried. Let’s say Minnova develops mass arms and then puts a thousand guns in the hands of some dwarven infantry. The magic of guns is that they can turn a simple civilian into a killer with next to no training so it would be easy to do. There was just one big problem: real magic exists.

I’ve had a lot of opportunities to watch events down at the dungeon, and stuff gets crazy down there. I’ve seen lightning strikes, earth spikes, fireballs, tornadoes, water dragons, you name it. Simply put, guns and gunpowder are never going to be an instrument of death here. They’re simply too inefficient. Those thousand dwarven soldiers with guns would run into one [Mattershaper] or [Stormcaller] and they’d all be toast. Bullets would bounce off shields and the mages could kill hundreds in an instant.

Plus, Tiara’s Blessing gives strength to ‘held’ and ‘worn’ items, and bullets don't count. Apparently, there’s a similar problem with arrows, which means bows and crossbows just aren't used outside of hunting for food. Adventurers here are melee or magic, full stop. Finally, I did some reading and learned that monster acids and other terrible alchemical items make pistols look like a joke when it comes to murder.

On the other hand, nobody is going to put a [Mattershaper] in a mine! That’s where mass produced gunpowder could really pay off. Honestly, I’m may be missing some possible source of death and destruction, but I'd come up with enough evidence against that to salve my conscience. I want out of this prison, and gunpowder was my ticket out. Please be good, world!

So, I sat down and got a trio of containers. I filled one container with saltpeter, another with charcoal, and the last with sulfur. The first step was to grind these down and then measure them out into portions.

I paused.

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20 minutes later

I’m sitting at a makeshift workstation far away from the camp with some measuring glasses and a bunch of bags of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur and a MORTAR AND PESTLE. The next step is to grind each of the three components into a fine powder. First, I scooped the saltpeter into the stone bowl and began grinding. Honestly, it’s kind of relaxing. There’s a groove to it, where your arm finds just the right motion and then you can watch everything turn into dust. After around 10 minutes of grinding my arm didn’t even feel tired and I wondered anew at my high vitality. Being a dwarf is AWESOME!

After the first saltpeter grinding, I dumped the resulting white powder into a separate bucket. I was going to try a couple different mix ratios so I’d need a lot of saltpeter. As such, back to grinding! The grinding of the pestle and the psychedelic purple light of the cavern brought to mind an old Judas Priest song. I started a more rhythmic pounding with the pestle and started singing to the beat.

"Grinder

Make gold for Pete

Grinder

He wants to eat"

Soon I had all the saltpeter I needed, and after carefully cleaning out the bowl and the pestle with a soapy bucket, I started on the charcoal. Over an hour had passed, and even my muscly arms were starting to get tired. I decided to push through and finish the charcoal before taking a break. I waited MONTHS for this charcoal and I wanted it done yesterday. My arms were burning at the end, but I got all the charcoal done. I wiped the sweat from my brow and sat down in a heap.

I stared up to into the stars of the ‘sky’ and thought about my future. I didn’t plan on becoming some kind of mining magnate. I wanted to brew beer. No matter where gunpowder goes, I’m not going to let it take over my life. I’ll probably just leave it all to Grim and ask him to stick any excess gold into my account. He’s a stand-up guy, and he’d probably appreciate the chance. Maybe Tim, if Grim can’t do it.

“How’s it goin’ Pete?”

I looked up, startled, as Balin appeared before me like magic. Which in a world with real magic is an incredibly stupid statement. “Just some grindin Balin, do you want to do it?”

“Not with you.” Balin eyed the buckets and pots with wariness. “Will I need ta shovel that saltypeter again?”

“No, I did that already, there’s just the sulfur.”

“Ah, you don’t want to work with tha stuff that almost killed ya?” Balin winked at me. “I understand. Let yer good friend Balin do it fer ya.” He walked over and began scooping sulfur into the mortar.

“AHHHH!” I screamed.

“What!?” Balin stopped with a jerk.

“Clean that first! You’ll kill us both!”

“WHAT!?”

I grabbed the mortar and doused it in the soapy water and began rubbing it down. “I have been talking about how this works for months, Balin!”

“Pete, I’m a carpenter, not an Alchemist, I dunno how this stuff works.” He paused and seemed struck by a terrible realization. “YOU WERE MAKIN IT IN OUR ROOM?!”

“I know what I’m doing.” I muttered petulantly. To be fair, that had been a terrible idea. Then something he had said caught my attention. “There’s alchemists?”

“Changin that subject…. Aye, there’s titled [Alchemists].”

“Do they change lead into gold and stuff?”

“Not unless they want every miner in Crack to come an murder them. They mostly make potions and salves and such. What yer’ doin here looks a lot like alchemy to me.”

Huh. Well, maybe I could make a book on modern chemistry and sell it to the alchemists. Then again, world of magic, so everything I know could be completely wrong. I took out the mortar, dried it and handed it back to Balin. “Here, now do it. We are making a low explosive, that means that each of these ingredients can react violently with each other. We have to be really careful and make sure nothing gets bumped or mixed when we don't intend to.”

"Thank ye fer tha explanation." Balin took the bowl, filled it with sulfur and began grinding. I had to show him the technique but he picked it up quick. My man Balin is a quick learner, and good with his hands. Annie will be pleased. By his hard work. At the brewery. Heh.

“Have you heard from Annie, Balin?” I asked as I turned my eyes towards the purple glow of the city. We couldn’t see Minnova from where we were, but the glow of the central crystal was an ever-present reminder of where it lay.

“Nah, can’t get visits in the prison mine. I’d need ta wait until the next visitation day.”

“When’s that?”

“Five years.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sam’s bagpipes wreck yer ears? I said five years.”

“Oh, I heard you, I just thought that was insane. Five years?”

“Aye, it’s normal. Most of us are out before that though.” Balin paused and shook his shoulders. “By my beard this is tough work Pete!”

“Whining about physical labour? Are you an elf?”

“Shaddup!” We grinned at each other and he went back to work. Soon there was a third bucket full of ground sulfur and it was time to start.

The next step was the most dangerous. It was time to mix the three ingredients together. One misstep and the entire mixture could go boom right between my fingers. I admit that I was shaking a little bit.

“How are we doin for time Balin?”

Balin shrugged and thought for a moment. “I came right after me shift. We missed lunch, thanks fer that, so we’ve got about an hour or two till dinner.”

“I wasn’t even trying to hit lunch, so I don’t mind if I missed it.”

“What?”

“Just give me the mortar, Balin.”

I didn’t know the exact ratio I was going to need, so I started by putting the saltpeter into a measuring cup. Then I stared at the cup.

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20 minutes later

I’msittingaamakeshiftworkstationfarawayfromthecampwithsomemeasuringglassesandabunchofbagsofsaltpeter,charcoal,andsulfur,amortarandpestle, and A SCALE.

By the Firmament, I’m bad at this.

You do chemistry portioning with a scale, not measuring cups.

I don’t know the exact ratios so I was going to start with a 33/33/33 then do a 50/25/25 and finish off with a 75/12/12 for each of the different ratios. If it wasn’t one of those then this was going to take forever. With shaking fingers, I added some water to the mortar along with some carefully weighed portions. Then I started grinding. If something was going to go wrong, it was going to happen here, explosively. The water helped lower the chance of an explosion, and makes the gunpowder into a paste.

The first set of ratios went off without a hitch and I started the next one. It took the rest of the hour as Balin watched in trepidation with the occasional. “You got this Pete!” and “Don’t die, Sam has money on ya!” I finished three sets of 50/25/25 and started on the 75/12/12s. When I completed the final mix, I heard a *bing* and a blue box appeared before my eyes.

You have created an incredible new invention that can change the world! You have caught the attention of Barck and he wants to give you his Blessing! If you accept you will receive a Title.

Do you accept?

Yes

Huzzah! That message means that I got it right! It must have been the 75/12/12! I mentally clicked on ‘No’ and turned towards Balin. “Balin! We did it!”

“Are ya sure? Nothin happened?”

“I know it must have! I got a Blessing from —”

In the corner of my vision, a blue box began to blink.

You have created an incredible new invention that can change the world! You have caught the attention of Barck and he wants to give you his Blessing! If you accept you will receive a Title.

Do you accept?

Yes

Didn’t I hit ‘No’, on this? Why was there no ‘No’? What was happening? As I watched, the blue box changed again.

You have created an incredible new invention that can change the world! You have caught the attention of Barck and he wants to give you his Blessing! If you accept you will receive a Title.

Do you accept? You have 10 seconds to choose:

Yes

“What?”

“Somethin tha matter Pete?”

“I —”

9

“Balin, somethin’s wrong!”

8

“Are we gonna die? I don’t wanna die, I finally got a girlfriend!”

7

“No, I can’t hit no on this Blessing!”

6

“Who hits no on Blessins?”

5

"Sam does!”

4

“Sam’s a loony bard!”

3

“I turned down all the Blessins, I want Archies!”

2

“Wait, ALL the Blessin’s? How many Elfin Blessins have you turned down Pete?”

1

“NOOOOO!!!”

You have accepted the blessing of Barck!

“Arrrgghhh!!!”