Vera watched curiously while Niven worked. He sat near an open flame in Stockwell's laboratory, carefully managing the temperature of a flask of liquid. The neck of the flask ran up into a condenser and a clear yellow liquid dripped out of the side into another container.
She leaned in to get a closer look. She had her hair tied up into a bun behind her head since Niven had told her that she needed to do so whenever she entered the lab.
"What are you doing now?"
"Well, we finished topping off the sulfuric acid yesterday so I'm moving on to the other things that master was making before we left for the capital."
She remembered how when she had insisted she help, Niven had had her cast all kinds of fire spells on a container full of brimstone.
"So that nonsense with the brimstone really helped you out then…?"
Niven smiled "Mhmm! I thought master would be impressed at our improvising. Oh! And make sure you call it sulfur and not brimstone, master gets really pedantic about the names of chemicals sometimes. Its atomic number is 16 if you want to look it up."
"Sulfur…" Vera peered at the chart splayed across the laboratory's wall. Niven had called it, "The Periodic Table of Elements."
"...16…"
Stockwell's written language used different numbers than hers, but at least they were organized into a base-ten decimal system like her own so she was able to adapt fairly quickly.
She looked along the fragmented rows and columns of the table until she found element number 16. Its name was written in an alien alphabet: "SULFUR".
Underneath it was its name translated into her own language. It seemed that Niven and Stockwell had been teaching each other their respective languages. She sounded out the beautifully swaying characters written by Niven's hand.
"...Sulfur…"
She wondered how that number and name correlated with the chunks of yellow rock that littered the caustic landscape across the lake from Moot village.
Her thoughts were interrupted.
"So yeah, I thought I'd move on to making some of the other chemicals that master had planned on."
He took out a tattered notebook from his side pouch and handed it to Vera without looking away from the flask.
"He wrote out a lot of his plans in that book, but the problem is that he didn't write down the full process to make a lot of the chemicals, so I've been trying to figure it out myself."
Vera opened the notebook and saw that the entire thing was written in English. Niven had painstakingly translated every word he could in the margins. She barely understood any of the content, it discussed molecules and compounds and words and concepts she had never heard before.
"You understand all of this?"
Niven shook his head sheepishly. "For as long as I can remember, I've always been good at learning new things, and even master said that I was really smart. But even so, most of the things in that notebook are still too advanced for me."
He added some more liquid to the flask before perking up and grinning. "But that's what's fun though! I've never met someone as great as master! He has so much to teach! These last few months I've spent with him have been the best months of my life!"
Vera couldn't help but smile at boy's enthusiasm to learn. In the world she had grown up in, knowledge was sought after because it could be used for power, so much so that they were willing to kill each other for it. But the boy in front of her simply just enjoyed learning for learning's sake. It was refreshing to see.
She thought about the man who was responsible for the boy's smile, Stockwell. When she had first met him in her grandfather's crypt, she too was captivated by his strange knowledge. As far as she knew, he truly was a being from beyond.
Then what was that? She was recalling how she had found him atop a bloody corpse, dagger in hand.
Then perhaps he really is a demon who judges mortals. She recalled how she had returned to her grandfather's crypt to see Stockwell's handiwork. She had already accepted that there was a chance they were going to die before she left, so she was only a little surprised by the result. She had wanted to know a bit more about how Stockwell had managed to do it, but the crypt had a lingering atmosphere of poisonous gas that prevented her from exploring further.
He can't just be a simple human though. Killing nearly the entire cult along with my grandfather would have been a difficult task even for a fully prepared orichalcum adventurer team, and yet not only did he manage to do it alone, but he also did it without any weapons or armor.
'Rhamnusia', I guess they were right.
She looked back at the boy who was smiling so happily.
She remembered how she had stripped and examined his body when she was healing his wounds. He definitely has a normal human body though. Perhaps he wants it that way.
She nodded to herself. She absolutely needed to stick around to keep an eye on him.
It wasn't exactly clear what Stockwell thought of her, afterall, it was entirely possible he saw her as no better than the people who tortured him. But, she still needed to try to ingratiate herself within the operation he seemed to be running here.
She wanted some of the knowledge he clearly had.
"So what is it that you're doing now, Niven."
Niven was watching the flask with intense concentration.
"I'm trying to make something called nitric acid. Master describes it in the book as a really useful chemical, but he didn't write how to make it. But I think I figured out a way to do it! He's going to be so surprised when he finally wakes up!"
Niven reached to adjust the condenser but flinched when he touched it. "Youch! Hot. Oh, that's right, you said you wanted to help, right Miss Vera?"
Vera nodded with conviction.
"Then if it's not too much trouble, could you cool the flask down?"
"Of course."
Vera held out her hands and focused. 「Minimize Magic: Icy breeze」, it was a tier 1 spell that blasted the opponent with chilling winds. She modified it with a metamagic that greatly reduced its effect and corresponding mana consumption.
A gentle, icy cold breeze washed over the condenser.
"Thanks!"
Niven gently tapped the condenser to knock off all the liquid residue clinging to the inside.
"Nitric acid boils at 83 degrees according to the notebook, which is much lower than the sulfuric acid, which makes it possible to be distilled. But that's still pretty hot..."
He rubbed his singed fingers.
Vera smiled. "Be careful, Niven-san. So how did you make…"
She thought for a moment. If she was going to be spending her time with Stockwell and the boy, she needed to remember the names of the chemicals they were dealing with.
"...The nitric acid?"
Niven's face lit up, he got to be the teacher for once.
"Well, the first thing we did was gather up a whole bunch of bat poop!"
"..what?"
"Yeah! Bat poop!"
Niven walked over to the array of mason jars lining the walls of the laboratory. He grabbed a jar and held it up so Vera could see. Inside of it were chunks of a dull white material.
"It's not fresh obviously." Niven smiled. "According to master, centuries of bats living in the volcanic caves built up massive layers of mineralized guano. It's basically rock."
He shook the jar and the hard chunks clinked softly against the inside of the glass. "It's really, really high in potassium nitrate."
He gently swirled the flask. "That potassium nitrate is then treated with sulfuric acid to form nitric acid and potassium bisulfate. Then the nitric acid can just be boiled out the top. Not quite sure what to do with the potassium bisulfate though… maybe master has a use for it."
He watched thoughtfully as little yellow drops of nitric acid dripped into a beaker off the condenser.
"Master mentioned that there was a way of making nitric acid using something called ammonia, but he said that we were a very long way away before getting lots of that stuff."
Vera smiled, "I see. Then speaking of your master, I'm going to go check on him."
Niven smiled and nodded, "Okay."
...
They had been making sure that Stockwell was well hydrated, but he couldn't eat for obvious reasons, so the meal that Vera was preparing was not for the graying man sleeping behind her, but for herself.
Stockwell's house in Moot wasn't very large since he practically lived in his laboratory anyways and only used this house to sleep. It was a one-room building with a small kitchen for preparing meals and a single bed.
When she had arrived in Moot along with Niven, the chief said that she could stay with Stockwell since she said she was a friend of his. She ended up having to sleep on the floor since they couldn't find a cot for her. She didn't have a problem with that. She had endured far more grueling hardships before.
She was in the midst of preparing a stew for herself when she heard Stockwell stir.
She quickly turned around to see that he had rolled over onto his side. His nose sniffed the air several times.
He's going to wake up soon. I should prepare.
...
Stockwell sat up in his bed and felt where his sword wound should've been. He shook the sleep from his eyes.
Vera took a deep breath and bowed to him. "Good morning, Mr. Stockwell."
Stockwell examined the bowing woman. He was still half asleep, but his long rest seemed to at least shake out most of his insanity. Her name appeared in his mind.
"...Vera?"
"Yes, I found you outside the capital and healed your wounds, I returned you here along with your apprentice."
"...Healed…" Stockwell felt his side. The potion had been applied to him while the wound was still fresh so it was able to heal it without leaving any lingering marks.
…that's right. I was wounded. Did she heal me with magic then? Magic? Oh yeah, magic exists now…
For a moment, he had forgotten where he was.
Vera bowed lower to the ground. "Please, let me stay here. Let me follow you. I can assure you I can be a great help."
What? Follow me? Follow me where? Stockwell put his hand on his forehead in pain.
W-What, what was I doing again? It was something important. He saw the dagger sticking into the end table.
He remembered stabbing the caster to death. His initial perturbation at the memory quickly faded, replaced by the memories of all that had transpired. Memories from both this world and the one that came before.
This is a kill or be killed world. Walking around with only a dagger and a hand cannon isn't going to be enough when magic casters are walking around. We need to arm ourselves.
He had a feeling that his kill count had only just begun.
He looked once more at the woman bowing to him.
She's the woman from the crypt. She's trustworthy. At least, I don't think she's going to try and capture me and torture me for all I'm worth again. And from what I can remember, she's someone who's been killing people since the moment she could hold a weapon, she shouldn't have any problems doing dirty work.
"What's in it for you?"
Vera had already expected this question.
Vera steeled her conviction. "I want to learn from you. About this 'science' you talked about. You came from the realm of the gods, I know that to be true. The knowledge that you wouldn't share with Aamon. Please."
She pressed her head into the ground.
"I'm willing to work. I can be useful. I really want to know."
"Why are you so eager?" Stockwell asked.
The question gave Vera a moment of pause. For as long as she could remember, gaining knowledge had been the central goal of the cult.
Everyone she had known had sacrificed every waking hour of their lives in pursuit of magic schemes to gain knowledge. She herself also had similar motivations. She enjoyed the process of gaining more and more magical power and spells as her knowledge of the arcane increased.
She simply knew no other way of life.
"I just want to learn. It's the goal of all wizards."
Fair enough. Stockwell thought.
"Then it seems we'll be spending lots of time together from now on, Vera."
Vera looked up and smiled full of relief. "Yes!"
"Now let's go practice science. But first, we need to build some shit."
...
"Master! You're awake!"
Stockwell and Vera appeared at the entrance of the laboratory.
"It seems like you've been busy my boy." He was looking at Niven who was standing over a small furnace evaporating liquid in a flask with a pair of tongs.
He smiled joyfully. "That's right!"
Stockwell looked around at the jars lining the laboratory, it seemed that Niven had done his best to fill and label them.
"So what are you doing now?"
"I'm distilling nitric acid."
"Oh? Now how did you manage that?" Stockwell walked over to the boy and watched the flask with him.
Niven grinned proudly. "I used potassium nitrate and sulfuric acid!"
"Oh ho! Nice thinking my boy, I hope you remembered to wear gloves and not burn your hand."
Niven blushed sheepishly "O-Of Course."
Vera chuckled silently.
"How concentrated do you suppose it is now?"
Niven looked at the small volume of liquid in the flask, "Hmmm… I'd say maybe 70% so far."
Stockwell's eyes grew wide and he hurriedly grabbed the tongs, bringing the flask away from the heat. "Woah woah woah, be careful, that'll nitrate the pants right off of you."
He laughed lightly. "You can go ahead and store it later, that's plenty strong enough for what we'll need it for."
Niven looked down and blushed. 'S-Sorry."
"Don't worry about it, it's about time we've made some proper safety gear. Now come with me, we have a lot of work to do around here."
…
Several weeks passed.
…
Faber looked up from the intricate drawing to see Stockwell and Niven approaching him. "Ah! Mr. Stockwell, I've been waiting for you."
"Yes, sorry I know. I've been a bit busy."
Faber shook his head politely, "Not at all, not at all. I've been making some adjustments as well."
He motioned to the huge contraption set just outside his workshop. Such a thing could only be described to the new worlders as a mechanical monstrosity. It consisted of a massive, centralized boiler that connected to all kinds of heavy gears and weights. Tubes and valves stuck out of it like branches of a metallic tree.
Faber held up the drawing he had been working off of to compare.
"It took a few weeks to make sure all the metal was shaped exactly to your specifications," Faber said, "so I hope everything is alright."
Stockwell eyed the steam engine. There were magical skills that certain blacksmiths in this world possessed that allowed them to shape metal as though it were clay. It boggled his mind no matter how many times Stockwell saw it in action.
If he managed to make all of this in a matter of weeks by hand, he might not even need steam power… Well, can't hurt to have more tools at our disposal.
A solid steel crankshaft distended from the side of the engine and disappeared into a hole in the wall of the building.
They stepped inside the workshop, taking heed of all the new mechanical additions. Giant weights and pulleys hung from the ceiling connected to steel beams. Mechanical lathes, rolling machines, and saws stood silent, ready for action.
They knew they worked well enough with manual rotation, all that was left to see was whether or not there were any hiccups when they transferred over to steam power.
"Alright then. Let's fire her up and see how she runs."
He stepped outside and signaled to the two men standing by the boiler to light the coal and start it up. They shoveled coal and the furnace blasted to life. Blackish ash began to spill from the smokestacks.
They watched in anticipation.
A whole minute passed.
"Is something wrong?" Faber asked.
"No, no," Stockwell said. "Just give it a moment. We're starting from cold water here. These things take time to get up to speed."
Eventually—
Creeeeeeeeeeeek
The boiler whined and the great steel flywheel began to turn.
"Well then gentlemen, welcome to the era of steam power."
Niven and the blacksmith had sparkles in their eyes as they watched the massive wheel, over two men tall, crawled to life and the crankshaft began to roll.
Stockwell smiled. Ever since he was a kid, he had loved steampunk and it was always his dream to build something like this. He remembered how back when he was a boy he would stay up all night drawing pictures of steampunk aircraft and steampunk warships before his mother caught him and forced him to go to bed. Needless to say, he knew how to design a steam engine with his eyes closed.
Stockwell carefully observed all of the steam engine's componentes for several minutes to make sure everything was in working order.
"Be careful the boiler doesn't get too hot. If you assembled it exactly the way I had designed it then it should trigger a safety valve if the pressure gets too high, but it pays to be careful nonetheless."
It wouldn't be hard to get this producing electricity for Faber's workshop later down the line as well.
They began to hear High pitched whizzing coming from the inside of the workshop. Evidence that the steam-powered saws and lathes had come online and were functioning as expected.
He looked at Niven who was excitingly jumping up and down at the haunting sights and sounds of the mechanical beast
"Ahh~ The joys of creation indeed, yes?" Stockwell murmured.
He laughed and shook his head, they still had a load of other things they needed to be doing right now. He smiled and patted the boy's head.
"Why don't we let Mr. Faber get acquainted with his new tools? We'll come and play around with them later, we have many more things we need to take care of right now."
Niven looked up at his master and gave him a big cheesy smile. "Okay!"
...
Vera poked her head into the workshop. "Hello? Mr. Stockwell-"
"-Ah-ha! Nice job Faber, you never cease to amaze me. They fit perfectly."
Stockwell was sitting at a workbench fiddling with varying sizes of metal tubes. He was fitting into each other and turning them around with a lever. He had just finished assembling them and he turned and locked the lever into place.
The blacksmith called out from across the room. He held his head high with pride.
"D'aww well, it's thanks to this lathe of yours that I can make everything so precise."
A small mechanical clink of a transmission engaging echoed in the distance as he pulled the lever that controlled the lathe. The metal cylinder he was working on began to spin rapidly and as he guided a bore into it.
"I'll have this next barrel done in no time."
Stockwell looked up and saw a pair of mismatched eyes staring at him from the doorway.
"Ah, Vera, you're here. I'm assuming Niven finished the batch then?"
Vera walked in and closed the door behind her. It was night so most of the villagers were sleeping and she didn't want to wake them up.
She revealed a mason jar with a small volume of white, crystalline powder. It was labeled "Potassium perchlorate".
"This was all he was able to make."
"That's fine. I would much prefer to use something like lead azide or styphnate since they're not corrosive, but making those from scratch sounds like a headache. Potassium chloride comes in natural abundance and all it takes is a little electrolysis to produce the chlorate. We shouldn't get picky. This will be more than adequate for now."
Vera simply nodded because that was all she could do. There were only two people on the planet who could understand that level of jargon.
Stockwell took the jar from Vera and examined it.
"We're only using it as a primer, so this much is probably good for at least a hundred rounds or so. That's okay, mass-producing jacketed rounds is a ton of work, so we'll just keep them to ourselves and let everyone else use muzzle-loading muskets and rifles."
He took a tiny brass tube that had been lying on the workbench and put a small amount of the powder from the jar inside. He took a pair of tweezers and clamped it close. He then placed it face down on the table.
"Hopefully this works."
He grabbed the tiny hammer he had been using and hovered it over the little piece of brass. He quickly and precisely smashed it.
Pop
A devious smile crossed his in response to the tiny explosion.
"Seems like this will work just fine as a primer. Maybe I'll have you start assembling bullet cartridges now that you're here…"
"Bullet cartridges?"
"Yes, of course." Stockwell's head looked back down to whatever he was working on before. "I took the time to whip up a few kilograms of nitrocellulose. Should be enough for a couple hundred rounds."
Vera was still at a loss. "Nito...what?"
"Nitrocellulose. A bit of cotton, a bit of sulfuric acid, and a bit of nitric acid; very simple to make on a small scale. I thought about using black powder but hey, we have the ingredients, let's just go the extra mile. But then again, our acid supplies are limited at the moment and it's a bit of a hassle to make a whole lot of the stuff. I was thinking that we should just keep the nitrocellulose for ourselves and give the cheap, easy to make black powder to whoever else who needs it."
"That didn't…" Vera shook her head. "Never mind."
Suddenly, Stockwell perked up like he remembered something. "Ah! Speaking of which, you're just in time, this is yours."
He picked up the tubular metal contraption he was working on and handed it to Vera. She looked at it questioningly. She had been told earlier that he was making weapons for the two of them.
"It's the chamber and reload mechanism for your rifle."
"Rifle?"
"Oh yes indeed." Stockwell grinned. "Rifle. You said you have a talent that makes you better with ranged weapons and that you fancied yourself an archer, so it's only natural you take the next step up. I made yours a bolt action because I figured that it would be a better fit for someone who is likely to stay at a range. You strike me as a Mosin kind of woman, Vera."
"Anyways," he said, "It's much less convoluted than this—"
He reached underneath the workbench and pulled out another amalgamation of metal. It was bulkier than Vera's and it had a long tube sticking out of it, it also used a couple of springs unlike Vera's.
"This is the reload mechanism for my rifle. I made it a lever-action because I figured that the extra fire rate would be invaluable. It has a faster fire rate and a sixteen-round magazine, but the disadvantage is that it could be prone to jamming and I have to use blunter ammunition. Yours on the other hand will hopefully never jam and you can use better ammunition. Oh, and since yours is better suited for sniping I had Faber cut these."
He reached under the workbench once more and pulled out half a dozen pieces of glass. They were cut into convex and concave circles.
"I was surprised to find out that this world's understanding of optics is actually pretty good. Mr. Faber is talented and it only took him a couple of tries to get the right shapes. We can definitely fashion a working scope from these."
A hint of eagerness leaked into his otherwise pleasant smile.
"You'll be a force to be reckoned with."
She had zero idea what he was talking about so she nodded in feigned understanding.
The blacksmith's voice called out from the other end of the room. "I finished boring the lass's barrel, I should finish rifling it in no time."
"Excellent work Mr. Faber, hopefully we'll have everything assembled by next morning."
...
Stockwell directed the villagers as they lowered large steel pipes into trenches dug into the ground. They were on the side of the lake opposite the village where the geothermal activity was closer to the surface.
"Okay, lower it in men! Steady now!"
They set the last pipe in place and beheld their handiwork. It was a huge artery of steel pipes set within trenches dug deep into the ground. These pipes would inject cold water into the sulfurous earth to heat up and provide a channel for the heated water to rise back up.
"Okay, now cover it all back up, that should help keep a lot of the heat in."
"Yes sir"
We were lucky we found this sweet spot. It would've been difficult to build this closer to the hydrogen sulfide vents without proper respirators. The magma chamber must be close to the surface. I can practically feel the heat through my boots.
"Niven, stand by on the reservoir!"
"I got it!"
Stockwell pinched his forehead in a vain attempt to suppress his stress. They had already tried two previous times to get this design to work, and if they failed again, it would take a lot of effort to convince the villagers to dig everything back up just to replace it again.
They were jumping through a lot of hoops to create a functioning geothermal generator. For all the effort it was taking, it would've been the obvious choice to simply use a generator powered by coal.
But Stockwell had already done the math.
Coal was cheap. However, it wasn't dirt cheap. Without the economies of scale, the mining infrastructure, and ludicrously high demand of the 21st and 22nd centuries, coal was just too expensive to be burned en masse to produce electricity.
And they would need a lot of electricity.
It would pay dividends in the long run if they just sucked it up and put in the work now. The geothermal heat beneath Moot was free, after all. They didn't have the ability to drill the hundreds of meters deep needed to get the water to boiling in one step, it was simply too unsafe and would require industrial equipment and drills, which is why he had opted for a binary cycle geothermal generator. Instead of using the hot water directly to spin a turbine, it could instead be fed into a heat exchanger to heat methanol, which had a much lower boiling point. The vaporized methanol would then be used to drive a turbine.
It was dangerous. As dangerous as pumping a super heated, gaseous, flammable, highly toxic chemical through pipes could be, but methanol was the only liquid in the New World that had the properties they needed while still being easy enough to create in large quantities.
And they would need large amounts of electricity in the first place in order to manufacture safer liquids that had more ideal boiling points.
"Vera, keep ready on the magic just in case this becomes dangerous.'
"On it!"
Having a walking cooler is handy.
He looked around one final time to make sure everything was in place.
"Alright! Niven, let her rip!"
Niven manually turned the pump on the reservoir and water rushed into the underground artery. It didn't take too long for hot water to rush out the other side. Eventually, the methanol in the heat exchange began to boil and the turbine began to spin.
The turbine whined and the armature got up to speed.
"Quickly everyone. Go around and smell for leaks."
The villagers milled about for a few seconds around the pipes smelling for the signature sweet scent of methanol. Nothing about this was OSHA compliant.
Upon seeing that no one sensed anything off, relief flushed through Stockwell's face.
"Okay! Niven, stop turning the pump, It should be powered now!"
"O-Okay!"
Niven let go of the pump and stepped back.
Everyone held their breath.
"What the…"
"How is…."
The pump was working all on its own.
He laughed quietly to himself. A few coils of copper wire, some magnets, and a bearing was all it took to turn a rotating turbine into a power that made the world move.
"It looks like it's stable, you can relax Vera."
She relaxed her hands that were preparing an ice spell.
Stockwell clapped his hands together and addressed the villagers, "Well then gentlemen, we have electricity."
The electric motors they were capable of making were rudimentary at best, so they would need to use steam power for anything that needed any sizable amount of mechanical force. But that did not dampen the mood in the least.
Stockwell stretched his arms and neck and brought his hands forward to crack his knuckles. With electricity, an entire universe of chemistry opened up before them.
...
Stockwell sat in his laboratory obsessing over a small piece of blackish-blue metal. He was beginning to lose his mind.
I don't understand at all!
He was currently trying to determine the nature of the metal known as adamantite.
Is it even a metal!? It's a poor conductor of electricity, it's a poor conductor of heat, and it's unreasonably hard yet still malleable!
He glared murderously at the little piece of metal.
It won't react with any of the chemicals I throw at it! How does this thing even exist!? Does it just completely exist outside the realm of chemistry!? Ah... This is hurting my head...
He put his palms to his face and drooped his head in defeat.
I have to accept that the only explanation is that it's a completely new form of matter. It's probably made of magic or some bull shit like that which is why its chemical properties are so vague.
According to what he had researched from the people who mined and dealt with adamantite, as he saw it now was its native form. Like gold, it was found in rock already as a metal rather than as an ore, nor was it known to rust or corrode.
Strangely though, it could still form metallic bonds with other metals such as iron, since it was known that blacksmiths would introduce small amounts of adamantite into blades and armor to strengthen them. This fact alone ment that at the very least, adamantite still had chemical properties in the basest sense of the term.
"Fine, whatever. I've exhausted enough brainpower on this."
He picked up the little piece of metal and laid it atop a larger ingot of the same color.
It had been unreasonably expensive to purchase, costing several times its own weight in pure gold. His steel business was prospering and growing at the desired rate, but even so, just the single ingot of adamantite was enough to put a notable chunk in his profits. That's not to say he regretted the purchase, even if it had cost him double, his curiosity wouldn't have allowed him to pass up the opportunity to study it.
He picked up the ingot and headed for the door of his laboratory.
I'll see what Mr. Faber can make with this.
Just as he was about to open the door, someone came barging in from the other side.
"M-Master!"
"Niven, what's the hurry?"
Niven's messy black hair bounced excitedly with his body and his eyes were sparkling.
"I've got good news master! We found a whole bunch of the pink rocks you were looking for in the mine!"
"Oh, you found bauxite?"
Niven nodded and smiled proudly. "Uh-huh!"
Stockwell looked back at the ingot of adamantite he was holding in his hands.
This gives me an idea.
…
Stockwell, Niven, Vera, and a skeleton shoveled salt into a small pond dug next to the geothermal generator. In the center of the pond was some kind of membrane that bisected it into two halves.
"I can't believe the villagers didn't chase me out when they learned I was a necromancer. You must be really respected if all it took was one word from you to stop them, Mr. Stockwell."
Niven cut in, full of smiles. "Well of course! Master saved our village after all!"
"Is that so…"
Stockwell nodded. "They were facing a water crisis so I gave them a method of cleaning their water with chemistry. Oh, and please, call me Wesley."
He asked me to call him Wesley when he was still a prisoner, but I thought he was only pretending to be friendly...
She nodded. "Okay, Wesley-sama."
"What's that? Sama? I'm not one for outlandish honorifics."
"Wesley-san?"
"What is it with this world and everyone using Japanese honorifics all the time? Just call me Wesley, honorifics aren't a big deal where I come from, and I'm already calling you Vera anyways.
The forthrightness startled her. "I-If you insist... Wesley."
Stockwell nodded and stopped his shoveling.
"Alright, looks like that's all the sodium chloride she'll take, stop your shoveling."
They nodded and put down their shovels, the skeleton crumpled into a pile of ash.
Stockwell walked a little way over to the geothermal generator and grabbed a pair of electrodes. They were simple pieces of iron connected to copper wires. He dragged them over to the pond.
"Niven, Vera, put the cover over it."
"Yes."
They dragged the heavy ceramic cover over the pond. Two holes had been cut into it that rested over either section of the pond.
Stockwell held one of the electrodes up.
"This is the cathode, it will readily give away electrons."
He lowered it into one of the holes. He gently laid down the copper wire, making sure the cathode was safely suspended in the brine underneath.
"This will create hydroxide ions and hydrogen from the water as well as attract the positively charged sodium ions to this side. We should get sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas forming on this side once we complete the circuit.
He held up the other electrode.
"This one is the anode and will readily accept electrons. It will attract the negatively charged chlorine ions to this side of the pond and form chlorine gas. So let's see if this works."
He gently lowered the anode into the other hole.
Niven and Vera waited in silence as Stockwell began to sniff around the anode. He nodded when he smelled something.
"Yes, it's working, I'm already starting to smell the chlorine. I imagine hydrogen is already coming out of that side as well. Vera, um..."
Stockwell quickly looked around for a stick or a small piece of wood around them. He found a nearby twig and handed it to Vera.
"Could you go ahead and light that with a fire spell? I'm not exactly carrying any matches on me."
"Of course."
She focused and her hand went aflame. 「Fire Bolt」. A thin streak of fire launched from her hands and struck the twig. It caught alight and began to burn.
"Excellent, go ahead and hover it over the hole on that side."
She held the burning twig over the opening. The flame jiggled lightly and the three of them could hear faint popping noises.
Stockwell nodded. "Perfect, it seems that bubbles of hydrogen are being produced on that side as well. Alright, go ahead and put the compressors on top."
Niven and Vera placed two small steel drums over the holes, making sure to leave a small opening for the wires on the electrodes.
Stockwell hooked them up to the geothermal generator and they began to hum quietly. "These are rudimentary electric motors, but they should be good enough for simple gas compressors… hopefully."
Stockwell clapped his hands together. "We'll go ahead and let this run for a while."
They nodded and began to head back to the village across the lake.
They now had a usable source of sodium hydroxide, hydrogen gas, and most importantly, chlorine gas.
Given enough time, it could produce enough chlorine to drown a whole town.
…
Stockwell presented the blacksmith with a huge glob of silvery metal. The moment Faber got his hands on it his eyes grew wide. He had initially thought it was silver, but instead-
"I-It's light! What is this!?"
"It's called aluminium, and it was hell to make. Don't even ask." Stockwell shook his head ruefully. "Vera got pretty messed up from 'mana exhaustion' trying to get the temperature hot enough during the process of isolating it. Thankfully we had her lightning spells. That, and enough sodium hydroxide from electrolysis for the Deville method."
The blacksmith rolled the blob of light metal around in his hands. His mouth quivered with excitement as he imagined all of the incredible things he could make with the mysterious lightweight metal.
"Don't get too excited Faber, all we have right now is that glob and a dozen more kilograms back at the lightning fueled pit of hell we made isolating that stuff. Probably only enough to make a small set of armor. And while I think aluminium wouldn't be the worst thing to make armor out of, I think we can do it one better."
"So what do you want me to make with this then?"
"I used the last of the coin from our most recent shipment of steel to buy two ingots of adamantite. I want you to alloy it with the aluminium and make a set of armor. From what I hear, adamantite can be alloyed, yes? People mix it into steel and the like. Correct me if I'm wrong."
The blacksmith nodded frantically. He was already fantasizing as to what incredible properties an alloy such as that would have. His muscular face curled into a gleeful smile.
"So what kind of armor are you aiming at then?"
"Not sure actually. I wanted your opinion on the matter seeing as how you're more experienced when it comes to these things. I need the armor to be as thin as possible so that I can still move my body and fingers freely while wearing a heavy coat over it and insolation under it."
Faber nodded his head slowly in contemplation. "I'll need to take a look at that insolation and cloak and do some tests."
"The coat and insolation in question should be able to mitigate most blunt trauma attacks," Stockwell said, "So the armor needs to be optimized for deflecting piercing attacks."
The blacksmith nodded in agreement.
"I don't know how the adamantite will take to the alu- uh aluin-."
"Aluminium." Stockwell supplied.
"Yes. I'll need to do some strength tests and such to get the mixture right." Faber put a hand on his forehead and pulled up his hair. His excitement was clear in his voice. "I feel like a young man again learning how to forge a breastplate."
"Well I'm glad I could make your week." Stockwell siad.
Faber smiled and patted Stockwell's shoulder. "I'll get right on it."
The blacksmith disappeared to his forge with the glob of metal and Stockwell went the rest of the aluminium and adamantite.
...
Stockwell's focus was at its peak as he hunched over the small ceramic plate in front of him. He was carefully using tweezers to precisely lay out glowing metal wire into various shapes.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Master?"
Stockwell did not respond. He kept focusing on the ceramic plate and murmured. "Mr. Faber, keep the wire coming."
"Y-Yes."
The blacksmith was handling a glowing chunk of copper and was using 「Shape Metal」 to slowly feed wire to Stockwell.
"Niven, capacitor."
"Yes."
Niven held out a small bowl filled with weirdly shaped metal, glass, and ceramic objects. Stockwell swiftly grabbed one and planted it into the ceramic plate he was working on.
"Diode."
"This is the last one."
Niven presented a small glass tube with metal inside. Stockwell grabbed it without looking.
"That's fine, that's the last one I need."
"What are we doing again master?"
"I'm no electrical engineer, but I do know enough of the basics to make a simple voltage multiplying circuit— Ah ha, we're done."
Stockwell gripped his forehead in pain. He was having a bad headache.
"What is it?"
They both looked at the strange thing that the scientist had made. It was a weird criss-crossing of wires and other metal bits. There was a pair of wires sticking out from one end of it.
"It's a taser. However, it will probably all fry the moment we get any real current going through the circuit. It's likely a one-time use only."
"What's a taser?"
"It's an electrical tool that creates a high voltage to stun targets. Do you remember that Zinc you showed me the other day that you were so proud of isolating?"
Niven put his hand on the back of the head and nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, what about it?"
"I made this with it."
He reached under the table and produced a large black box about a foot in diameter.
"I combined it with some of the pyrolusite, manganese dioxide we had to make a battery. It's pretty simple, but I already tested it out and it's definitely capable of generating a nasty amount of electricity."
It's basically just a big car battery at this point. In the wrong hands, it was more than capable of killing someone.
…
Now that Stockwell had the head space to think about it, it was time to get to the bottom of the language question. It was unthinkable to Stockwell that everyone from this unknown world knew perfect english. When he had asked Niven about it, the boy had told him a story about how when the great god descended, they decreed that every being should speak the same language and so it came to be that even all the monsters of the world came to understand each other over night.
But this was a little too fanciful an explanation for Stockwell to accept without at least poking at it a little bit.
"Niven!" He shouted, his voice projecting towards an area behind him in the laboratory.
The boy's response responded, muffled from behind a door. "Are you done setting up?"
"Yes! Pause what you're doing for a moment and get over here!"
"Alright!"
There was a muffled sound of glasses clinking and papers shuffling before the door opened and Niven entered the room.
"Over here." Stockwell said.
Set up before him on the cluttered workbench was a large bell-like construction with a membrane spanning its rim.
"Alright so here it is." Stockwell explained. "When we speak loudly into the bell, it vibrates the membrane in accordance to the frequency of our voice. This vibration is translated into a rod attached to the back of the membrane that moves a stylus."
He placed a sharpened pencil into the small arm. "If we quickly move a piece of paper beneath the stylus as we speak, it should draw out the waveform of our voices."
Niven nodded in understanding. He comprehended how the device worked, but still was unsure exactly why they were doing this experiment.
"I refuse to believe everyone on this planet knows perfect english. No one can explain the etymology of their words. And so…"
He turned to face the bell and placed a piece of paper beneath the stylus. He loudly enunciated a phonetic pangram, a statement that covered all the sounds in the English language.
"That quick beige fox jumped in the air over each thin dog. Look out, I shout, for he's foiled you again, creating chaos."
The stilus vibrated as he spoke, drawing out the wave of his voice on a long sheet of paper.
"There." He proudly showed Niven the undulating lines of graphite on the paper. "Now you do it."
Niven shrugged. "Alright. Ahem."
He leaned into the bell. "That quick beige fox jumped- Wait what was it again?"
"That quick beige fox jumped in the air over each thin dog. Look out, I shout, for he's foiled you again, creating chaos." Stockwell supplied. "Here, I have it written down."
Niven looked at the phrase written in english. "I only know a few of those English words, master."
"Oh, yeah…"
The two went back and forth for a few minutes before Niven could perfectly recite the phrase from memory.
"Got it, here it goes." He leaned into the bell. "That quick beige fox jumped in the air over each thin dog. Look out, I shout, for he's foiled you again, creating chaos."
Niven's words were translated to the paper without issue. They both eagerly went to compare the two waveforms.
As Stockwell suspected. The two drawings were entirely different
"No shit…" Stockwell said. "Look, all the crests and troughs are in wildly different arrangements."
"But how?" Niven asked with bewilderment.
"Hmm… Some kind of universal translation is going on here, it must be relative to the primary language of the listener. At least that's my theory. "Stockwell mused. "On Earth we had software powered by neural networks to do this kind of thing, but even that had some delay in it. I'm sure there must be some magical thing going on. Niven."
"Yeah?"
"Say the phrase again. I'm going to watch your mouth closely."
Niven nodded and spoke the phrase again. Stockwell didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. In his eyes, it appeared that Niven's mouth moved according to the English sounds.
Stockwell scrounged around his workbench for a moment. "Put this in your mouth." He gave Niven a pencil.
"Ah- Okay."
"Press it into your tongue so it can't reach the top of your mouth. Now try to say 'That tinkling cloud of clout.'"
Niven did as instructed. "taad dinklink cloud of claad." His words were obviously awkward, but it was intelligible.
"Fascinating." Stockwell said. "I clearly heard those L sounds and most of those Ts. Which shouldn't have been possible without your tongue like that."
Niven contemplated for a moment. "That must be why it's so hard to figure out each other's written languages. They use totally different sounds and words altogether."
Stockwell shared the same conclusion. "But the same meaning can be conveyed in the same period of time. One more test. I want to see how your mouth is physically moving, since I'm pretty sure I'm seeing an illusion on my end, but how…"
Niven thought for a moment. "I could strap a stick to my jaw while talking with my face over the table, and you could listen to the tapping it makes. Or maybe you could watch my shadow, I hear that illusions often don't replicate shadows perfectly."
"Now there's a thought." Stockwell said.
He went to the window of the laboratory and opened the blinds, allowing for a stream of sunlight to flood into the dusty air. Niven wordlessly moved into position perpendicular to the light. The profile of his face was made clearly visible in the shadow
"Alright my boy, have at it."
"That quick beige fox jumped in the air over each thin dog. Look out, I shout, for he's foiled you again, creating chaos."
Watching carefully, Stockwell could see an incongruence between Niven's face and the profile of the shadow. It was an odd feeling. A mixture of satisfaction from a positive test of their hypothesis, and a fleeting sense of existential dread on confirmation that even his very ears could and eyes were not reliable for sensing the true reality of this world.
"...spooky." He muttered. "Yeah, that pretty much confirms it. This auto-translate effect affects even our ability to read lips."
"Woah…" Niven laughed lightly with bemusement.
Stockwell smirked. "This magical force must not be calibrated correctly for me since I'm hearing a lot of Japanese honorifics. That might be due to me being in Japan when I was transported. Go ahead and list off some elements, some names, and some English words you learned from me."
"Sure." Niven said. "Hydrogen. Helium. Wesley. Niven. Science. Industrial…"
He continued listening for a whilst Stockwell watched the shadow.
"Excellent, seems proper nouns and previously unknown words are not affected. Oh-! And one more thing to test actually."
He turned to Niven. "Kannst du das verstehen?"
Niven's face went blank with confusion. "What?"
"So I guess it only translates first languages as well. Strange" Stockwell said.
He thought about everything they had just learned over a few times. "Well, that's probably all we're really able to investigate for now. It might be helpful to reconstruct each other's languages' phonetics to try to make sense of the written words. But given that we have no way to speak to each other without the auto-translate, that seems like more trouble than it's worth."
Stockwell scoffed. "Clearly whatever 'gods' did this didn't do a very good job. After all, our software could translate speech and text."
He decided to leave it at that and the two of them returned to what they were doing.
…
Vera walked into the laboratory holding a heavy black coat.
"I finished the coats, Wesley."
Stockwell pulled a crucible out of the furnace in the corner of the room using a pair of tongs and placed it on top.
"Ah, excellent. Did you coat it with the fire retardant?"
"Yeah, the chloro...chlorina…"
"The chlorinated alkyds, nice job— Well, I say alkyds, but I was using glycerol from animal tallow so it's probably riddled with impurities. Regardless, it should still work as a fire retardant. Did you also finish the gas masks?"
"Yeah, here they are."
She revealed a pair of masks from underneath the coat. They were made of leather and plastered with the same dark waxy substance as the coats. They had large glass windows for the eyeholes and a pair of oddly shaped cylinders distended downward from where the mouths and cheeks were. She shivered when she looked at them. Something about the way the eyes looked like the hollow eye sockets of a skull and how the maw transformed into an unnatural looking cylinder made the masks eerily sinister.
"Good, just in time, I just finished activating the carbon."
He dumped the black powder out of the crucible into a cup and walked over to Vera. He took the masks from her and opened their cylinders.
"—Ah, nice job. Exactly how I drew them in the diagram."
He poured the activated carbon into the filters.
"This should protect us from much of the chlorine, but to make sure we are completely safe, could you go ahead and hand me that beaker sitting next to you?"
Vera looked at the workbench and saw the beaker he was referring to. It was willed with small white crystals. She put the coat down and handed it to Stockwell.
"Thank you, this is sodium thiosulphate. It was pretty simple to make with just sodium hydroxide and sulfur. And don't let the 'thio' in the name scare you though, the sulfur isn't bonded to carbon so it's completely odorless, so you can rest easy. It will react with any chlorine gas that manages to get past the activated carbon so we should be 100% safe."
Vera simply nodded. She was a long way away from the chemical jargon Stockwell was constantly spouting.
He finished putting the sodium thiosulphate in the filters and closed up the gas mask.
"That should do it."
He perked up suddenly as if remembering something.
"Oh, I've been meaning to test something out. Come with me, we're going to go play with lightning."
...
The two of them stood near the geothermal generator. In front of Vera was a target that stood behind several metal poles that stuck out of the ground like stalagmites.
She focused and guided her mana to her hands. She unleashed her most powerful spell. It was a third tier spell enhanced by her skills as an air elementalist.
「Lightning!」
A bolt of lightning shot forth from her fingers in a straight line. It beelined directly to the target, completely ignoring the metal rods.
Stockwell shook his head ruefully. "It amazes me every time, the spell completely ignores the basic nature of lightning and ignores the conductors as if guided by magic."
Vera chuckled, "It is guided by magic, but I do indeed feel a slight pull from the metal rods but it isn't much, it would probably collide with one of them if I wasn't focused on aiming. I think people sometimes use that to their advantage and make the lighting jump from person to person when they're wearing metal armor."
Stockwell nodded. "Hmmm, I see. In that case, why don't you try aiming for the target again? And this time, try as hard as you can to avoid the metal rods."
Vera nodded and channeled her mana once more.
「Lightning!」
The moment she released her spell, she suddenly felt a tug on her fingers as if she was being pulled forward by the lighting bolt.
"What the—!?"
She stumbled forward and the lightning bolt absorbed into one of the metal rods that had a coil of wire around it.
Stockwell smiled, he seemed pleased.
"Ahh, it seems all it needs is a little encouragement and the caster loses control of its path."
He stepped forward and examined the rod that the lightning had just struck.
"If you're wondering about what had happened, I connected this up to the generator when you were channeling your mana. It began collecting a positive charge on its surface. Your spell got absorbed into the terminal and harmlessly ran aground... though it is a little odd that it took so much effort to alter its path in the first place… the conductors alone should've been enough… they looked damaged too… are you sure that's actually electricity you're firing…?
"What does that mean?"
Stockwell began reclaiming the copper wire. "Erm, not too sure. I can only assume that when you're aiming your spell, it's forming 'step leaders'; Ionized channels of air that the lightning follows that natural lightning bolts make as well. As such, an electric field should be able to affect its path."
He scratched his head. "But as for what your actual lightning bolt is made out of is still kind of a mystery. We'll need to do a lot more testing on this matter."
"Regardless!" Stockwell said. "It means that we're finally ready to raise some hell."
Aside: Spider Hunt.
The two of them made their way slowly through the forest. It was very early in the morning and the sun had just risen above the canopy casting them in green-tinged shade.
Stockwell leafed through the pages of the bestiary to see if they were still on track.
He muttered quietly to himself. "...Giant Shadow Orb Weaver… I thought I bookmarked it…"
Vera traveled along behind him. Progress was slow, in part because the terrain was rough, but it was mostly because she was trying her best to maneuver an oversized wheelbarrow through the foliage. Nestled inside the wheelbarrow was a bear-sized steel cage and a few other tools.
Vera had a pair summoned skeletons helping her to push and stabilize the wheelbarrow and cage while she did her best to keep it on the muddy trail. It was a grueling exercise and she wished for nothing more than to be done with this excursion and return to their wagon as soon as possible.
"Ah, there it is." Stockwell found the page he was looking for.
On it was a diagram of a huge black spider with several paragraphs underneath it. Between each line of Re-Estize script were squashed lines of English text. He had written down the translation after Vera voiced it out for him.
The steel cage wobbled with the rhythm of Vera's steps. "I still don't get what's so special about this spider…" She said.
Stockwell's eyes scanned the bestiaries pages. He then quickly glanced up at the canopy, and, after confirming their direction, continued marching forward.
"It isn't necessarily that the spider is special— well, actually no I do think it is special in some ways. At the very least I think the spider itself deserves extensive study. And That goes for all the 'monsters' in this world, they are all remarkably interesting." Stockwell said.
"But no, what I want to know most right now are the properties of its silk. And Ideally, whether or not it can be farmed."
"Why would you want to farm spider silk?" Vera asked.
Stockwell chuckled as they continued down the trail. His steps were very deliberate, careful not to stumble into anything he didn't want to.
"You probably don't know this, but spider silk has remarkable material properties… well, at least the silk from my world did," Stockwell said. "It was light, strong, and elastic, and could theoretically be used in several applications. I remember hearing that thick cables made of the stuff would've likely been stronger than steel in many applications. The only problem was that it was impossible to get your hands on usable quantities of the stuff. Spiders are just too damn small."
He looked down to the diagram of the spider splayed across the bestiary pages. "Well, at least the ones from my world were..."
Vera thought for a moment.
She had heard of people getting caught in the webs of giant spiders before, but she had never heard the webs themselves as being particularly remarkable. But then again, she also hadn't heard of people going out of their way to collect webs and weave them into cables.
Stockwell examined the trees carefully on either side of the overgrown trail. "These arachnids are also known as 'Horse-stealers' for their propensity of ensnaring horses. If their silk is strong enough to do that, even accounting for their enlarged scale, then I imagine the silk's property is still similar to that of Earthling spiders."
After continuing for a little while longer, Stockwell stopped his march and crouched down.
The wheelbarrow jostled as Vera tried to not run him over. "What is it?"
"Hmm, I think this is it. This is what we're looking for." Stockwell said.
A pair of tall trees stood before them on either side of the trail.
"According to the bestiary, the Giant Shadow Orb Weavers are prolific web builders."
He carefully inched forwards down the trail. "They migrate to a new area of forest every once in a while and build a new web over the course of a single night. It's how they catch diurnal animals off guard that know the area. The animals wake up one morning and suddenly, boom, spider web in the middle of their normal trail. That's why the best time to go looking for their unbroken webs is early in the morning."
He shifted to the side of the trail to get a different viewing angle. Sure enough, he caught the reflective glare of a transparent spider web in the early morning sun.
It was more than twenty meters in length and five in height. It spanned the entire width of the trail, from tree to tree.
"Yep, there's one right here."
Had he not been consciously looking for one, he would've likely stumbled into it by mistake.
"Clever bastard knew what direction the sun would rise and built it at an angle to avoid glare."
Vera set down the wheelbarrow and crouched beside him. She examined the web up and down. "So where is he?"
"She." Stockwell corrected. "They're dimorphic. Only the females build webs."
He pointed towards the trees on either end. "She should be hiding up in one of those trees."
"Well, actually." Stockwell got up and went to the wheelbarrow. "We should make sure she's home first before doing anything else."
He retrieved a live, brown rabbit bound at the feet from the wheelbarrow.
He carefully undid its bindings while keeping his grip tight on its feet so it could get away before they were ready. Vera got up and to the side to not interfere by spooking the rabbit.
"Okay then."
He pointed the rabbit down the trail.
"Fly and be free little one."
The moment Stockwell loosened his grip, the rabbit was already gone. In a single motion, it leaped from his grasp and darted down the trail.
It did not make it very far.
Oblivious to the nigh invisible trap, it barreled face-first into the web, like a furry brown ball colliding with a sticky trampoline.
The web held true and only recoiled mildly. Suspended in the air and now realizing it had been caught, the rabbit began to struggle fiercely.
It kicked and squealed, which only resulted in it getting further tangled in the web.
Stockwell and Vera watched patiently from a distance.
"There," Vera whispered sharply.
Stockwell followed her gaze. His eyes narrowed.
"Fascinating…" He said under his breath.
A form emerged from the canopy of one of the trees.
The sum of its head head, thorax, and abdomen was the size of a grizzly bear. It was very dark, almost black-green in color, and its hard exoskeleton shimmered in the morning sun with an iridescent gleam.
From its thorax protruded eight long, slender, seven-segmented legs, each larger than a full-grown man. And at the end of each leg sprout a triplet of serrated tarsal claws.
Its thick, hairy mandibles quivered in anticipation and its beady black eyes glowed with hunger.
After emerging from the tree, the spider did not waste any time securing the rabbit.
Its large body moved gently across the invisible web, giving it the illusion of it climbing through the air, its heavy body fully supported by the thin strands of silk.
Upon reaching the thrashing rabbit it curled its abdomen underneath its body and began to eject silk from its spinnerets. And using its front legs, spun the still living rabbit into a tight cocoon.
It then detached the cocoon from the main structure of the web and started to drag it upwards towards the canopy.
"What?" Vera whispered. "What's it doing?"
"A floating rabbit would be a dead giveaway for her web. She's bringing it back to her hiding spot." Stockwell replied. "Just watch, after she's done, she'll come back down to repair that spot in the web."
They watched in silence as the spider disappeared into the canopy with the rabbit. A minute later, it reappeared to clean up the small portion of the web.
Stockwell scratched his chin as they watched it work.
"It won't attack us, will it?" Vera asked.
They were not that far from the web, and it was more than likely the spider had already noticed the two humans. The spider seemingly paid them no heed and continued to work diligently on fixing its web.
"It's an apex predator around these parts, Vera. What does it have to fear from a couple of hairless apes?"
Vera looked at Stockwell. There was a strange passion in his eyes as he looked at the spider.
"Why are you so fascinated?"
He chuckled. "Why else? It's a giant fucking spider."
Vera glanced back and forth between the spider and Stockwell to make sure she wasn't missing anything. "Yeah? So?"
There were monstrous forms of most creatures. She would not be surprised to find a giant snake, or turtle, or bird, or anything really. A giant spider just seemed like the natural extension of already understood morphology. It wasn't strange to her in the least.
Stockwell sighed upon seeing that Vera did not share his enthusiasm. "Tell me, Vera, do you know how spiders breathe?"
"Breathe?"
"Yes. Breathe."
The expression on her face showed no signs of understanding what Stockwell was getting at, so he continued.
"All animals need to breathe, or more precisely, they need a way to get oxygen into their cells and carbon dioxide out of them. Spiders are no exception to this rule."
Vera recognized the words 'oxygen' and 'carbon dioxide', but only had a vague understanding that they were the 'good' and 'bad' parts of air. She stayed quiet and let Stockwell explain.
"Orb Weavers like this one have a pair of trachea and rudimentary book lungs. They don't have diaphragms or any other means of cycling air into said lungs and rely entirely on natural diffusion to allow for gas exchange. What's more, they have blue blood. They use hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin which, while having some advantages in other areas, is worse at transporting large amounts of oxygen quickly throughout the body."
Stockwell marveled at the diligently working spider. Its legs moved quickly and precisely, which to support a body of that size, meant they used a considerable amount of energy.
"That system works fine for a normal-sized spider, but as something gets larger, it suffers more and more from the square-cube law."
"Square cube law?" Vera asked.
"Yes. It means that as something's dimensions increase by some factor, its surface area increases by the square of that factor, and its volume increases by the cube of that factor. You see, the rate a creature can absorb oxygen is based on the surface area of its lungs, but its oxygen demand is based on its volume, ie. the number of cells it has."
He watched as the spider finished its work and retreated once again into its hiding spot in the canopy. "That's why you can't just scale up an animal's dimensions proportionally and expect them to function. Their oxygen requirements will quickly outpace what they can hope to actually absorb. This applies to other things too. A muscle's strength is based on its surface area but its weight is based on its volume. And even for flight, lift is a product of surface area and weight a product of volume."
"All I am saying is that things like giant spiders and dragons shouldn't be able to exist. Even on my own planet, 270 million years ago when there was 50% more oxygen in the atmosphere, only very, very few insects managed to approach the size of that spider. And that doesn't even begin to address how metabolism factors into all of this…"
He saw the lost look on Vera's face.
He rubbed his forehead. "Ah, sorry. Seems I got a bit carried away."
She averted her gaze. "Er… it's fine."
They both looked back to the canopy where the spider had disappeared.
"Anyways," Stockwell said. "In the name of both science and technology, we need to capture this specimen so I can study its body and silk."
Vera nodded in agreement.
"Okay, so what is the plan?"
He went to the wheelbarrow and retrieved a few items. A handful of tiny chemical jars, a pair of squirt guns, and a few cloth rags.
"So here's plan A." He opened a couple of jars and began to mix their contents. "I've got some linalool and myristicin here. I'm going to dissolve some in some in a bit of ethanol and load the squirt guns with it."
"I'm sorry. What?" Vera asked. "You have a what and what?"
"Linalool and myristicin. One is a pest repellent and the other is a powerful pesticide. Hopefully, our spider here will recognize the scent. If we're lucky, it'll keep her away from us."
She watched as Stockwell carefully mixed the chemicals. "You're saying you can use them to wrangle that monster? Where did you manage to find all that?"
"Don't act so impressed," Stockwell replied. "The linalool was extracted from lavender and the myristicin from nutmeg. Oh, and fun fact about the myristicin, it can theoretically make you high."
"High? You mean like euphoric?"
"Yes indeed. If your body metabolizes it into MMDA, it can potentially give you all kinds of hallucinations, so don't touch it." He slapped Vera's encroaching hand away from the open jar.
He finished loading up the squirt guns. He spritzed it a couple of times into his palm and took a quick sniff. It smelled strongly of alcohol but also had a light floral scent attached to it.
He held the palm up to Vera's face so she could have a smell.
She nodded. "...that actually smells quite nice…"
"Yeah. It's got an almost… sweet kind of herby smell. I like it too. But I bet that arachnid is going to despise it." He chuckled and gestured toward the web.
"Okay. So onto the next part of the plan." He set the squirt guns aside and opened another two jars."
He unscrewed their lids, but instead of lifting them off all the way, he let the unscrewed lids rest atop the jars. This was because their contents were fairly volatile and he didn't wish to breathe in any of the vapors.
"This one here is triethylamine, and the other one is chloroform." He quickly raised a finger at Vera. "Don't smell either of them. Just a whiff can make you dangerously dizzy, so don't try it."
"...Duly noted."She muttered.
"Alright, so." He carefully began wetting the cloth rags in either chemical. "Either one of these should hopefully knock that spider out cold. The triethylamine is non-toxic and shouldn't hurt the spider in any way, so ideally that one should work first try. But just in case, I brought chloroform as well. It may or may not have messed up while making it so it might be heavily contaminated with phosgene and other nasty stuff, but if worse comes to worse, better to accidentally poison the spider than for the two of us to join that rabbit."
He then spread a healthy coating of glue around the edges of the rags. "There should be some small openings beneath the spider's abdomen. Those are her trachea and the openings that lead to her lungs. If we can just stick one of these rags over those, she should drop fairly quickly."
Vera nodded in understanding.
She took a squirt gun and a few of the soaked rags. "How should we start?"
"Well…" Stockwell eyed the canopy to where the spider had retreated. It was far too high up for him to reach it himself.
"You can use magic to fly right?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, why?"
"Okay, then it's simple. Just fly up there and harass it until it comes down. One of us should be able to get a good vantage on its trachea… eventually."
"That's the whole plan?" Vera looked up at the canopy. "Provoke it and hope for the best?"
Stockwell shrugged. "Look, if something goes wrong, I've got plan B right here." He gestured to the rifle strapped on his back.
Despite being a seemingly unintelligent beast, an adult giant shadow orb weaver was a difficulty rating 50 monster; a deceptively formidable threat that should only be tackled by a team of platinum or mythril adventurers.
As far as Vera herself was concerned, she considered herself on par with a mythril or orichalcum adventure since she was proficient in the use of several 3rd tier spells, but even still, she was only one person. A difficulty 50 monster could probably defeat her by itself.
Vera didn't know precisely what Stockwell was capable of, what his skills were, and whatnot. But she did ultimately trust his judgment.
"...Okay. I'm on it." She said.
「Fly」
She rose into the air and floated up into the canopy.
She carefully rose alongside the tree, peering through branches and leaves.
As she rose, she saw several cashes of web covered skeletons of large animals. There were remains of boars, wolves, deer, horses, and even humans nestled in the crooks of the large tree.
Eventually she caught sight of the gleaming black carapace of the giant spider. It was completely motionless.
She slowly and silently approached, gliding through the air like a ghost. She made out the form of its abdomen. It was facing away from her with its two front legs on the web that spanned the forest trail.
Okay… Here goes nothing.
She raised the squirt gun and shot a thin stream of liquid at the spider.
"Hello! Come down Spider-san!" She yelled.
The spider hissed and turned towards her. It skittered out onto the branches towards her in a sudden burst of speed.
Holy shit it's fast!
Its speed was similar to that of a normal spider if it was scaled up to its size. It was able to move several dozen times its own body length in a matter of moments.
She fled backwards away from the branches of the tree so it couldn't reach her. Just in time too.
Just as she cleared the branches, she saw the two front legs of the spider shoot out towards her before stopping just shy of her face.
She descended quickly expecting the spider to follow.
However, the spider seemingly lost interest.
It turned back around and lumbered back to its original spot.
"Hey! Get back here!" Vera yelled.
She yelled down towards Stockwell. "It isn't following me! It just turned around and went back!"
"It's not!?" Stockwell yelled back.
"No!"
"Did you at least see a clear shot to plug up its lungs!?"
"Not really! IT's too fast!"
"Too fast!?"
"Yeah!"
Stockwell thought for a moment before responding.
"Well I guess you'll just have to piss it off more then! Get it to follow you down to the ground where we can come at it from both sides!"
"Okay! I'll try!"
Vera sighed.
Okay then… Piss is off more I guess.
She rose back up into the canopy to where she saw the spider.
It had returned to its same position like last time.
She looked at the squirt gun in her right hand.
Here goes nothing.
She threw the squirt gun at the spider. And with her left hand she immediately cast a spell.
「Firebolt」
A small mote of fire manifested in her palm and shot outwords, colliding with the squirt gun in mid air above the spider's position.
The squirt gun along with the liquid inside burst into a cloud of hot, sweet smelling steam.
This action seemingly pissed off the spider because it ellisted a hiss several times the volume it had before.
Vera was ready for its initial charge this time and had already begun diving down the tree by the time the spider was in motion.
Her feet touched the ground and she could hear from the violent snapping of branches and the rustle of leaves the spider was hot on her heels.
"Okay! I think it's off!" Vera shouted.
"Great! Now keep it distracted!" Stockwell yelled.
Keep it distracted he says!
Vera dived out of the way with the assistance 「Fly」 as the spider crashed into the ground behind her like a cannonball of black, arachnoid flesh, kicking up a huge cloud of dirt and leaves with the impact.
"Over here!" Vera cried.
She flew some distance perpendicular to Stockwell and shot a small spell at it.
「Spark Bolt」
A small stream of electricity shot from her fingertip at the spider. A spell of that magnitude wouldn't do much to a monster with a difficulty rating of 50, she was just distracting it according to the plan.
The spider turned its attention towards Vera as the cloud of dirt cleared.
"Great job Vera!" Stockwell yelled as he ran up behind it with a chemical soaked rag.
But as he got within arms reach of the opening of its lungs, the spider shot away from him and towards Vera with another explosive burst of speed.
"What the hell!" Stockwell shouted. "That's insanely fast!"
"That's what I said!" Vera replied.
She dodged out of the way once again as the spider rushed past her.
Did it slow down? Does it have less movement speed on the ground?
As the spider passed her, it was seemingly going slower.
Suddenly the spider stopped its tracks and Vera realized the spider had done this on purpose in order to set up the perfect angle.
In another burst of speed that caught Vera off guard, the spider spun on its legs and struck her in the chest with the back of an extended leg.
She was thrown across the trail and into the trail spanning web.
The spider web reverberated like a trampoline as she stuck to the threads. She tried to escape it, but as a magic caster her physical strength wasn't too great.
"Wesley do something!" She cried.
"I'm trying!" Stockwell shouted as he ran after it.
Apparently, the spider did not consider him a threat because it maintained its focus on Vera. It shot towards her where she remained stuck in the web.
Is this what they mean by a difficulty rating 50 magical beast! It's smart! Stockwell thought in panic.
「Silent magic: Paralytic burst」!
Vera cast a spell. Luckily, the web did not restrict her spell casting.
A wave of blue light pulsed from her body and washed over the spider. Its movements froze just before reaching her.
However, Stockwell was still too far away to attach the chemical rag to its breathing holes, and the paralysis spell Vera cast would wear off almost immediately.
Seeing no other option, Stockwell picked up his rifle and shot at the spider.
Bang.
The bullet smashed into the spider's abdomen with a splash of blue blood. He didn't expect to kill it with just one bullet, afterall, the monster was bigger than a bear and probably tougher too.
The spider turned its head towards Stockwell and flared its mandibles.
"Got your attention now, girl?"
He racked the lever on his rifle while backing up. With a mechanical click, the spent casing was ejected out of the side and a new round loaded into the chamber.
Bang.
The second bullet landed in the underside of its thorax and splashed blue blood into the spider's eyes.
With a pained screech, the spider turned away from Vera and charged at Stockwell.
Stockwell calmed his breathing as he looked down the sights of his rifle. He aimed carefully, planning to land a bullet in its head. Now that it was charging at him in a straight line, it should be a makeable shot. He pulled the trigger.
Click.
No bullet fired.
Click.
Oh come on! A jam now of all times!
He could clearly see venom dripping from the spider's flared fangs as it approached.
He hurriedly tried to clear the jam as he ran backwards in a panic. His fingers wormed into the trigger assembly and frantically shook the innards of the file.
He felt himself back into a tree as he felt the jam clear. He racked the lever once more and the stuck round ejected as per normal.
Yes! Got it-
As he raised the rifle back up to his eyes he saw the spider curl its abdomen over the rest of its body in an odd display of contortionism.
「Web Shot」
Suddenly a ball of web shot manifested from its spinnerets and shot out at him. Before Stockwell could even register what the spider had just done, the rifle along with the hand that he gripped it with flew backwards to the behind, glued to the bark under a ball of spider web.
Since when the hell could spiders do that!?
With his one free hand he drew the squirt gun at his waist.
This was a very bad idea!
He frantically squirt the pesticide at the approaching spider.
Surprisingly, it seemed to have some effect. The spider slowed its approach, rearing back on its hind legs with a pained hiss.
"Eat shit!"
The spider shook its head as though steeling itself against the sweet smelling liquid.
It prepared for a final lunge to envenom Stockwell with its fangs.
「Lightning!」
A bolt of bright lightning interrupted it, blowing off one of its legs.
Both the spider and Stockwell turned to see Vera struggling in the web still, though it appeared she had managed to free one of her hands. Energy sparked at her fingertips.
As the spider turned back around to Vera, she unleashed another spell.
「Lightning!」
It hit the spider in its side eliciting a screech from the monster.
It stopped in its tracks as though hesitating to approach her now.
「Maximize Magic: Lightning!」
After the third lightning bolt blew off another leg in a geyser of blue blood, the spider hurriedly dashed off into the forest on its six remaining legs.
They waited for a moment for it to return.
But It did not return.
It had evidently decided that it was smarter to run off than risk its life killing the two humans.
Once the threat left their mind and both were able to catch their breaths, Stockwell called out to her from across the trail. Both of them were still stuck in the spider webs.
"Thanks Vera!"
"I don't mean to be rude Wesley, but that was a stupid plan! My mana isn't unlimited you know!"
"Hindsight is 20/20! How was I supposed to know it would be that damn quick on its feet!"
"20/20!? Was that supposed to be some kind of analogy!?"
"It must not work with the auto-translation!"
After about five minutes, Stockwell was eventually able to free himself using the dagger at his hip before going to free Vera.
"Wesley." Vera said. "Maybe it's better to hire some adventurers or workers for this."
"What?" Stockwell said, "Not at all. We can do this ourselves now that we've seen what the spiders are capable of."
…
Stockwell handed over the agreed upon money to the leader of the worker team. A giant spider thrashed about in the cage behind him.
He had had to commission workers to do it instead of adventurers because the adventurers guild probably would've asked some leading questions if he posted a request for a live monster. With workers, he could easily pass himself off as a pioneering alchemist who wanted to farm the spider's venom to make tonics and antivenom.
"So how did you actually manage to do it?" Stockwell asked, "If you don't mind me asking. As I understand it, their speed is quite formidable."
The leader of the group who went by the name Hekkeran answered. "Their speed is formidable indeed, I wouldn't expect anyone of platinum rank or lower to be able to handle it. But luckily they tire out quickly. After that first three or four bursts of speed, its movements slow drastically."
The wizard of the group named Arche continued. "Once it slows down, it's trivial to bind its legs with magic and force it into the cage."
Stockwell ran a hand through his hair tiredly as he beckoned a pair of employees to begin winching the cage into the back of a large wagon.
"Well, thanks for the help guys. Hopefully I won't need your help again."
The four workers bowed politely as he turned to leave. "Thank you for the business."