The Newt and Demon

5.59 - Bombardment

The distance between Broken Tusk and Qavell was something like a hundred to two-hundred miles. If Theo had to guess. He remembered a time on Earth when making firing solutions was easy. They could poke a screen a few times and send a shot from orbit. The alchemist would have dismissed Zan’kir’s idea right away if it wasn’t possible. Without computers, the shot was difficult. But with a spotter and a lumbering target?

“That’s possible,” Theo said with a nod, putting a smile on the man’s face. “Any idea how you’re going to do it?”

“Shoot and pray?” Zan’kir asked.

“Just about. Work with Aarok to get a scout from Gronro up on the mountains. They can use the communication feature of the alliance to coordinate shots. You’ll have at least a few days to get it rolling.”

“Exciting. I’ll need a ship. Of course. Can’t get a good angle behind the mountains.”

Theo wrote it up in the administrative panel, giving everything he needed to get the job going. So long as it didn’t screw up his job of moving the guns to the northeast side of Broken Tusk, it was worth a shot. The Captain of the Sandscourge company scurried off to get it done. At least he seemed excited about it, even if it didn’t work. Everyone was tense with the approach of the city. A few fun shots might help them blow off steam. At least they could feel as though they were doing something.

With that sorted, Theo headed back to the lab. Salire was practicing with something he didn’t expect. She had commissioned Throk to create a small version of the pressure vessel he had used to create second tier potions. Like him, she didn’t want to glide to the higher tiers without understanding why they were doing things. She seemed shy about it, blushing when he entered the room. But there was nowhere to hide the tabletop pressure vessel, and she couldn’t avoid an alchemist’s keen eye.

“Not a bad idea,” Theo said, crossing the room to inspect the free stills. Only three were occupied. “Add that to the book.”

“Already have,” Salire said, laughing nervously. “Do you think we’ll ever produce books? For distribution?”

They would need equipment to do that. Specialized artifices or maybe a class core. “Keep an eye out for the gear we need to do it. From the traders that come into the docks.”

“Got it.”

Theo pulled one tube from the ceiling, filling several large glass flasks with various essences. He sorted them into crates, making room for his large batch of alcohol. That caught the attention of Salire, who watched him work but didn’t say anything.

“A thousand units of zee liquor,” Theo said, leaving the booze within the building’s storage. “Good, but not enough for what we need to do.”

“Want to do a batch of Spit Juice again?” Salire asked.

“Spit Juice?” he asked.

“That’s what Bilgrob calls it. He’s been buying some from me.”

Theo laughed. “Of course the ogre priest would buy zee-shine. Yeah, I’m thinking about five-thousand units.”

Theo explained all the things he wanted to make. Salire grabbed a sheet of paper and wrote, nodding along. They agreed there was an order to make these things, starting with the restoration potions. If things got bad, they would need a lot of those. The budding alchemist ran off to grab some zee from the farm, leaving Theo to organize the batch in his mind. He needed to save his daily trip to Tero’gal to allow the potions to brew. He instead organized his stock of Spiny Swamp Thistle Root, Moss Nettle, and Mana Shrooms, intending to do full runs of those. Once he had those reagents from his Plant Golem, he checked Salire’s expanding book while he waited.

Salire had a way with words Theo could never hope to achieve. Her writings were informative, but not overly so. Instead of stuffing the text with written information, she relied heavily on diagrams. The alchemist’s favorite figure was the one concerning alchemist advancement, which was a simple flowchart. Each part was labeled with the corresponding information below. She must have written the page several times to get it just write. The corners of the pages were filled with nuggets of information. Notes on where she should move a section, or a revision that required a complete re-drawing of the page.

“I had a thought,” Salire said as she entered the room again. She transferred the zee into a crate, turning to smile at Theo. “I was researching cores that use willpower… You know, since you took the Earth Sorcerer’s Core?”

“I remember,” Theo said, leaning against the table. He watched as she withdrew single zee kernels from the storage, measuring them by eye before placing them in a still.

“You said you were looking for something to spend your free skill point on. I was digging through some old books, talking to that scholar of Zaul…”

“Bob? At Mudball?”

“Yeah. He said there was a universal Zaul skill that enhanced the effectiveness of a person’s willpower. Said you could equip a Zaul core, take the skill, then dump the core.” Salire nodded to herself, unable to hide the expression of pride.

“Did you write the skill down?”

“No, he didn’t have a copy of it written. Just his memory from his time with the cult. You can infuse your willpower into any class-based action, but it costs something. No, he doesn’t remember what it was. Maybe an item or currency.”

“That’s interesting.” Theo helped Salire get the lid on the still, starting their first thousand-unit batch. “Seems like a good pick. I just need to put a piece of Zaul in me.”

Salire laughed nervously. “Yeah, might be awkward. Have you seen him in the heavens?”

“Nope. Most of the Prime Pantheon doesn’t care for Tero’gal. At least they haven’t reached out.”

“Perhaps contacting him first would be prudent.”

“Good idea, Salire,” Theo said, popping the lid from the second still.

There were enough restoration essence on hand to create enough Bound Enchanted Dilution for about a thousand units of each restoration essence. Theo didn’t want to think too far ahead, only focusing on one project at a time. He and Salire worked to get all ten stills running zee liquor, which might have been too much for the intended purpose. But it was always worth having more liquor for third tier binding on hand.

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The brew time for ten stills wasn’t long. Most of the work came from loading and cleaning the stills, but with the Internal Liquid Storage upgrade, Theo could store the zee liquor as it was distilled. The artifice sucked the liquid up as it dripped, removing the need to sort it. This allowed Theo and Salire to take seats, relaxing in their stuffy lab. Neither liked the air-conditioner too cold. The alchemist knew it was her way of blending in with the locals, even if she wasn’t born here. The brewing booze didn’t even smell great, coming out as clear, colorless, and odorless.

Although it wasn’t as bad as it used to be, half the day was gone by the time Salire and Theo finished with the zee liquor. But that would sort them for the entire batch of potions meant for the fight against the flying city. They moved on, cleaning each still with Cleansing Scrub. The alchemist pulled a hose above his head, filling one still with the exact amount of alcohol he needed to make a bound dilution. He added second tier Refined Healing Essence and set the heating element to the right temperature. He repeated the process for mana and stamina, filling three stills and setting them to work.

“Strength, Dexterity, and Vigor. Right?” Salire asked, rummaging through dimensional storage crates.

Wisdom and Intelligence attribute potions weren’t as useful for the people of Broken Tusk. They were mostly ranged and melee classes that had little need for those attributes. This wasn’t Theo’s first time brewing third tier attribute potions, but he had done so infrequently enough to make the process seem strange. With the restoration potions sorted faster than he expected, he moved on to filling three more stills with liquor and binding those to the Strength, Dexterity, and Vigor refined essences. At least that part of the process felt familiar enough.

“Getting something higher than good quality on these potions would be nice,” Theo said, adding the amount of essence he needed to each mixture. “But I think this is a wall for me to bang my head against.”

Salire only offered her reassuring words to him, helping as much as she could with the stills. Her level wouldn’t allow her to interact with the bound dilutions. An explosion would result if she touched any part of the process. The task was made more annoying by the amount of steps, but the alchemist had expected this. He powered through the monotony, treating the brewing potions like an assembly line. Once the restoration bound distillation was done, he started the final leg of that brew. When the attribute potions were ready, he started those as well.

“Could you prime the fermentation barrels for more Holy modifier?” Theo asked, stepping back from a still. A plume of smoke rose from within as he applied Cleansing Scrub.

“Maybe. Not convinced I can handle it.”

Theo watched as Salire did a test on the modifier fermentation process. She had the skill, but needed more practice with her mana. Like him, she had trouble controlling magical things, falling flat without close tutoring. Although the Holy modifier was hard to extract, she got the process going. The alchemist studied as she applied her mana and nodded with approval. It was better to use one’s own mana when practicing. Using the artifices provided by Zarali was a poor way to practice the skill of fermentation. At least Salire understood that.

The administrative panel was on fire with discussion. Alise was worried about the plan to fire at the floating city, but she gave up after a while. From what she wrote, Theo assumed she was worried about starting anything, But if the city was going to attack, it was going to attack. No amount of hopes and dreams would keep them away. Instead, it was better to be prepared. It was better to launch an offensive before they rained death on the small town in the southlands.

Zan’kir had taken over every boat available to him and had fitted them with Throk’s rail guns. He’d be taking random shots soon enough, although Theo doubted he would deplete the warded rounds he was provided. Those would expire soon, so perhaps it was a good idea to dump their stock. Instead of waiting for Grot in Gronro to get his butt in gear, Tresk had volunteered to ride Alex and spot the city. But the goose was tired from their adventure, and they barely made it out of the town before Alex gave up. To cover such a distance in so little time seemed like an amazing feat. Until Theo realized they took the train to Gronro before flying to the east, over the mountains. It sounded like cheating, but he wouldn’t complain.

The mission was, of course, not approved by anyone. But that didn’t stop them. Theo’s mind was soon filled with Tresk’s reports, which he was expected to enter into the town’s administrative panel. Zan’kir used some questionable notation to record. ‘About one thumb to the right of that big rock’ didn’t seem like an accurate range-finding technique.

Theo had all six stills working to brew the final third tier potions as he took a break. He watched the action from Tresk’s point of view, swallowing hard as she dodged attacks from the floating city. Alex was more nimble than he expected, but they used the mountains for cover, only poking out to see if shots hit. A round whistled through the air, striking against a barrier without doing damage. After a few more shots, Zan’kir getting their aim dialed in, an enchanted shot slammed into the shield. It flickered before vanishing. Two more rounds followed, hitting the stones of the outerwall and flashing with red-blue energy. The city tilted to one side, barely maintaining altitude.

“That’s actually working?” Theo asked, laughing to himself. “Why is that working?”

“What?”

Theo explained the situation to Salire, who was confused as though he was babbling to himself. As he did, he watched through Tresk’s eyes. Enough shots landed on the city to bring it into the water, sending a tidal wave radiating in all directions. The alchemist could only imagine how angry King Hanan was within those walls. He giggled to himself as he thought about it. A few minutes later, and more relentless attacks, and he was summoned to the harbor to enchant more shots.

“Gotta go,” Theo said, waving at Salire. “Can you handle this?”

Each produced potion would be sucked into the internal storage, meaning Salire didn’t have to touch it. “Got it, boss. We’re working on the heavy stuff tomorrow. Right?”

“Yeah, we’ll do the fun stuff tomorrow.”

Zan’kir had assembled four ships in the harbor. Theo knew they were working on a few boats, but hadn’t expected them to be fit to sail. Each was fitted with one rail gun on the deck, and all were firing into the sky. The angle was impressive, but not as entertaining as the ear-shattering sound they produced. The alchemist saw why it was easy for them to zero in on the target. With a spotter and enough rounds, they had closed the distance with ease. Rail guns on Earth could achieve that range, but not without computers.

Theo found a place behind the harbor wall to enchant rounds. He chugged mana potions as he applied wards to each one, not stopping his chanting until each was ready to fire. Zan’kir commanded the guns, but Tresk and Alex were pulling out by the time he was done. The alchemist watched as they retreated, seeing a sad-looking Qavell among the surf. He almost felt bad for it. They must have expected the plan to work, or at least get them closer to Broken Tusk. But that’s why people don’t invest their efforts into airship fleets. He had been warned about this when he had the idea. Anything that could fly would be knocked out of the sky by magical interference. And they had developed a weapon targeting one flying city in particular.

The firing died. Theo’s ears were still ringing, but a Health Potion sorted that out. Zan’kir was soon with him, smiling that bright white smile.

“How’s that for results?”

“Absurdly impressive. They didn’t have counter-measures.”

“Just like Throk said. Anything that’s gonna fly is gonna die.”

“Wise words. What’s your plan?”

“Tresk agreed to be my eyes, along with Grot in Gronro,” Zan’kir said, shielding his eyes to look at the fading sun. “We’ll resume bombardment until the thing doesn’t move anymore. If I had to guess, they’ll fix whatever we broke by morning.”

What a brutal approach to the problem. An old part of Theo appreciated it. They would make whatever god that pulled Hanan’s strings pay for every inch of that coastline. And the nuclear option wasn’t off the table. If this didn’t work, he was ready to see the city stopped forever. If Fenian didn’t arrive in time, that might be the only option.

“Make sure someone gives you a bonus for this idea,” Theo said, wrapping his arm around Zan’kir’s shoulder. “Go get Zan’sal. We’re gonna have a feast at my mansion.”

“Oh, fancy boy,” Zan’kir said, freeing himself from Theo’s grasp. He performed a dramatic bow. “I’ll bring my finest attire, my lord.”

“Only the finest, Lord Zan’kir,” Theo said, matching the absurdity of the bow with one of his own.