AN: my group started playing again so i had to go back to this story. But after this story arc they want to change things up. We're working it out now but i think we'll follow a secondary team for a few chapters or for a few intermissions to go on missions so they can play test a few new characters. If it eats up too much i'll cut bait and drop the story for a while. For those of you that keep PM'ing me about Investigator Harry Steel. Chapter 59 went up on monday but it was pointed out to me that my author's note was in the chapter 58 slot so i deleted that note and renamed the new chapter 58 like it was supposed to be. The new chapter is still up and titled chapter 58. the next one should be up either next week or the week after that.
Two days after Thanksgiving Harry set up the handgun course on the farm and invited half the Marshals from Salt Lake, Denver, and Idaho Falls over. They had 85 men show up. Harry had shooting stations set up, tables with B&S guns for them to look at. They had six long tables set up, buckets of cold beer, a big grill going with king snake fillet sandwiches and burgers, and big baskets of fries at every table. Harry cast a warming charm over the area and there were three pot belly stoves set up around the tables to keep the area warm. By the end of the day they had the marshal's vest sizes and over a hundred orders for Model 2's and 3's. On top of that both Walter and Chuck each ordered 51 plane jane Model 3's, one for every marshal under their command. They repeated the process the next day for the other half as well as the local sheriffs from Eureka, Hamilton, and Ely.
When the party ended at three they got to work on the guns. Harry made 175 handles for Model 1's out of dragon teeth with the silver marshal's star and 'US Marshal' engraved under it, and 58 Model 2 handles out of dragon claws with a silver sheriff's star and the name of the town engraved under it. As he did that Neville made crate loads of speed loaders and trays for all three models while Abby made the king snake vests and black leather gun belts. Hermione used the goblin spell to turn three trees and a bolt of green wool into 250 model 1 gun cases. As they were doing this Smith was finishing up the engravings for the shell ejection on the last few Model 1s for the order.
After Harry made the sets of handles he helped Abby make vest and gun belts. When Hermione, and Neville were done making batches of parts and cases they helped Smith's nephews add handles to the guns, and put them in the case along with 2 loaded speed loaders, a brass cleaning rod, a cleaning brush, 25 .38XL rounds and ten buck and ball brass shotgun shells in the two small ammo holders. When they had enough for an order. They packed up a vest, a gun case, the gun belt, a box with 4 extra speed loaders and the loading tray, two 50 round boxes of .38XL, and a box of 25 brass 20 gauge buck and ball shotgun shells. They folding the paper bag over, tied it with twine and wrote the name of a marshal and the town he worked in on the package before setting it in a trunk.
When they had all the custom Model 1 orders filled they started on the Model 3 orders. Harry made 110 sets of finger grooved Model 3 handles and they spent time attaching them to the Model 3s they made while Neville turned two deer hides and three coyote furs into 110 small fur lined leather gun sleeves for the guns. Like before they added handles, inspected the guns, and slipped them into their little sleeves. Once they had enough for an order they put a box of .38 Xl ammo into a smaller paper bag with a small box with 6 speed loaders and the loading try, the sleeve with the gun and a small brass cleaning brush. Again they rolled up the loose end of the bag and tied it up with string.
The last thing they did was turn two deer hides and three more coyote furs into 75 bigger sleeves and they packed up the local sheriff's Model 2's the same way as the Model 3's. They finished the last gun by eight. They headed off to the crew house and Jon Philip had a hearty beef stew waiting for them. They ate it with fresh rolls and beer. They ate until they felt food drunk and headed back to the cube to pass out.
They next day they worked on personal orders. It really wasn't much different from the night before but these guns got wool lined wood cases like the Model 1's. They had a lot of orders for Model 2's with 6 inch weighted barrels. For the most part the orders were for plane guns or just engravings. Some sprung for the gold filled engravings, and leather shoulder rigs. Almost all of them wanted the finger grooved wood handles, but some wanted ivory, or dragon tooth. Harry was all too happy to oblige them. For him it was a bit of magic and concentration for them it was $25- $50. It's not like they needed the money now but B&S was about their future. Harry's goal was to arm the American military like Colt did for close to 300 years. Harry also wanted the company to do well to get them off the ground so the expansion of the company paid for itself.
By the time they were done filling the orders the stock of pre-made guns took a hit. They both spent the rest of their energy making crates of Model 1s, 2s, and 3s for Smith and his boys to put together. That was their life now. If they weren't reloading buckets of ammo they were building guns. Smith spent his time engraving runes on guns and looking over the fit and finish of the guns his boys were making.
Tuesday the whole group popped over to Salt Lake city to hand out the guns. The Salt Lake City Tribune was tipped off by Chuck and they were on hand to interview Harry and Neville as well as take pictures of the guns and vests they were handing out. Harry was as charming as ever and he made sure to add that if you wanted a B&S gun the only place to buy one at the moment was Smith's gun shop in Eureka Nevada by mail order, but they were going to open a store in the city soon. As they talked to the press and handed out the custom Marshal guns the girls handled the personal gun orders. Between the order for the 51 Model 3's and the 36 personal orders they made $4,285 and they were selling guns at a half price discount!
They headed to Denver next and they were met by the same thing, a reporter from the Denver post. They split up again with the boys acting as the face of the company as the girls settled up the 57 orders they got from Denver Marshals. Whereas the Salt lake city marshal's tended to go with plane guns with wood grips, Harry's words about having extra cash burning a hole in the Denver marshal's pockets proved right. They made $7,735 on mostly gold engraved guns with dragon's tooth grips and boxes of extra ammo. They finished the rounds with Idaho Falls where they were met with more press before heading to Ely to hand out guns to the new town marshal and the sheriffs. They dropped off the guns for the Hamilton sheriffs and finally they handed out the 7 Model 2s to the sheriffs in Eureka.
They headed home for lunch and Hermione looked at her sales book. They ended up making just over $15,000 that day. Harry took $150 off the top and put it in a lockbox for Smith, the rest went into the money trunk. They would take all the small bills and coins to a bank and cash it out for gold $50 coins. The coins were good because if they held onto them and didn't spend them all they would be worth a crap ton later. They had trunks full of the gold coins. They filled small canvas bank bags with 200 coins each. When they had 25 bags or 5,000 coins in one trunk they shrank the trunk and put it in a safe. Each trunk had $250,000 they had four trunks in the safe and they were starting a new one. Any time they had a lot of loose cash or coins they traded them in. They also traded in most of the silver they had for gold coins. The price of silver would never rise high enough to catch up with the gold coins. They did the same thing with half the gold bars they had. And the mine was still producing gold and silver. They were also taking all the steel, lead, copper, and tin out of the mines for less gold and silver. They had hundreds of shrunken trunks full of 25 pound working metal bars.
Their stockpiles were huge but as soon as the business started to take off they were going to be burning through steel and brass by the ton. Harry figured out you got 25 Model 1s from 3 steel bars. 25 Model 2s from 2.5 bars of steel. And 20 Model 3s from a bar of steel. And orders were coming in. what they failed to take into account was the enchanted part of the guns. Muggles in the west were willing to pay a lot of money for a gun if it was enchanted. The fact that it was magically accurate and almost indestructable were major selling points. The fact that the guns were magically hand crafted by wizards was another selling point. But the new swing out cylinder was huge. Also word of mouth was helping their sales. By the end of that first week they had to open temporary pop up stores run by the girls to take orders in Salt Lake, Denver and Idaho Falls. They got 350 orders most of them for more than one gun in three days of the newspapers printing their stories.
To combat guessing how much steel they needed and to get ahead of the rush they were now expecting, Harry and Neville stockpiled gun parts five days a week for two weeks straight taking themselves to exhaustion each night. Things got even better when Harry figured out he could engrave the runes as he cast the parts the second day he was making gun parts. They just had to charge the runes on the guns once they were put together which Hermione figured out he could do by the box load.
This meant Harry was going to be really tapped out during the weekend too. Between making 25,000 model ones (10,000 plain, 10,000 engraved, and 5,000 gold in engraved) and 35,000 Model 3's (15,000 plain, 15,000 engraved, and 5,000 gold engraved) plus all the rune engraved parts of the Model 2's every week Tuesday through Saturday and charging the ten trunks full of guns the boys made that week Harry was tapped out until he got up after noon on Monday after crashing the night before. Neville was in just as bad a shape. He was making 25,000 Model 2's a week (10,000 plane, 10,000 engraved, and 5,000 gold engraved.) he also made a few of the bulk parts like screws and small parts for the Model 1's. He also hade crates full of speed loaders from aluminum and brass.
By mid-December they had 50,000 Model 1's, 50,000 model 2s, and 70,000 model 3s. It took all of the steel they had, just a bit over 15,000 bars of steel, or 375,000 pounds of steel. It also took the twins, WIlliam, and his four boys pitching in to help build all the guns. But they were hoping the order trends held up and they wouldn't need to make guns for a while. They would just need to make handles, cases, or sleeves as the orders came in. They also reloaded most of the brass Harry made. They started with the .38XL ammo before moving on to the .45-70 ammo when they were finished loading a bucket of bullets they packed them 50 to a box and 50 boxes to a crates. They had more than 250 crates of .38XL just waiting to go out.
In the two weeks they spent making a back log they sold 628 Model 1's, 481 Model 2's, and 929 Model 3's. They made just over $210,000. But gun making wasn't the only thing that happened in the two weeks, they still had jobs to do. But with the boys down for the count five days a week, six in Harry's case the job of town marshal fell to the girls. They patrolled every other day and they worked in the pop up stores selling guns the other days. They had a few interesting days but for the most part it was quiet. The cold temperatures and the snow stopped most things from causing a ruckus. The local town Sheriffs doing a bang up job killing anything close to their towns also helped. It was funny but if you gave boys new guns they tended to shoot more things. Who knew?
But two weeks was enough for Hermione who was missing out on a lot of research by playing lawman and sale's girl. So the girls made two hires. Marshal Copeland's daughters Beth and Susan Copland. The girls were in their early twenties (21 and 22), magically powerful but untrained, and pretty as hell with long blond hair, big blue eyes, and nice smiles. But they were raised by their daddy and older brother to be tomboys. They could out shoot half the marshal's under their daddy's command and they could handle themselves in a fist fight. They were given vests, gun belts, and model 1's. Hermione offered the sisters $15 a day and $1 commission on ever $100 they made.
They bought two small shops in Salt Lake and Denver and warded the hell out of them. They hired two guards to watch the two stores. The twins funny enough volunteered for the job when they saw the two girls. They made display cases with all the guns they sold. The girls ran their shop Monday through Thursday and each took a tent and headed to smaller cities and town nearby on Friday and Saturday. Soon they were raking in the cash. They were the queens of the upsell. They could talk a man into buying anything. By the third week in December and their first week on the job they made over $180,000 in sales, almost twice what Abby and Hermione made. That was $1,800 in commissions split between the two of them in six days. They were on pair to make more money in a month then their father and brother made in a year.
As soon as they handed off the work to their employees they got back to work on their real jobs of protecting the county. They also took time to decorate. The boys uprooted a small tree and planted it in a big clay pot they set up in the living room. They put magical lights and bulbs on the tree and started stacking gifts under the the tree or at least the girls did, the boys still had to do their shopping. By the end of the third week Harry was spending a lot of his free time keeping to himself in his study with a sign on the door reading 'do not enter, trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again'.
The other thing they started doing was eating at the boarding house with the crew. Harry still liked cooking and he did it three or four nights a week and breakfast was on him, but lunch and some of the weeks dinners were on the chef and his boys. They were also spending more time with Alice and her family who were all invited to dinner. The chef liked to cook for at least 30 people. In fact all of his pots and pans were huge. After working to feed upwards of 150 a day on a cruise ship and then cooking for a band of 45 pirates cooking for less than 12 felt wrong.
So everyone was invited to dinner. He made a big roast every night and any left overs were tomorrow's soup or stew. The dinner table was huge and anyone was invited to dinner. Whether you couldn't cook for yourself, or couldn't afford a meal, or you just didn't want to deal with it that night you could always find a seat at the table. And if the table was full then you could sit in the kitchen.
Between the supplies from the ship and the hunting Harry, Abby, and Neville did the meals were almost free. Although some people paid for their meal. It wasn't much but it was what they could pitch in. Jon Philip felt funny about taking the money so Doris set out a tip jar by the door to the dining room. Jon Philip in turn handed the money off to Harry to pay for groceries. Jon Philip was never worried about money, he just wanted to cook. find new tastes, flavors, and ways to make the odd and obscure. He loved working with random meats. Dire wolf, king snake, dragon, it was all new and fun for him. If he could he'd try to make goblin stew and troll burgers if Harry wouldn't stop him.
Doris on the other hand was a caregiver and as Jon Philip filled their bellies Doris checked up on everyone. She liked to clean up after all the men in the house and she took over the job of mother to the house faster than anyone would have expected. Within days of moving in she was cleaning, organizing, and telling the men what to do. For the most part they found it funny and went along with it. William did not find it funny. I took Harry talking to the two to get to the heart of it. Will felt like she was trying to muscle in and take over where his dead wife left off and Doris felt bad that the boys had to grow up without a mom. After the meeting the house fell in line and became a bastion of light in the town.
Eureka was a mostly secular town, there was a small church, but no one was forced to go and the pastor was more interested in not having to work to maintain his quality of life then saving the townsfolk. Doris was all too happy to fill in. She took over Harry's mission to save the two towns, Eureka and Hamilton. She checked on the elderly, she helped Hermione make potions and distribute them to the sick. She took pots of stew to people that couldn't make it out of their house and all too soon she was gaining a following. A few of the other church ladies saw how much she was doing and jumped on the bandwagon. By January Doris had a small army of ten older out of work women that helped her take care people in need.
As the month of december came to a close Christmas rolled in with a small blizzard that covered most of the town in two and a half foot of snow with huge snow drifts. Harry and Neville saw the snow coming down the night before and got up before the sun on christmas day to clear the streets and paths. They flew around on brooms in high cold winds summoning the snow off the ground into expanded barrels with heat charms that turned the snow to water. It took three hours to get all the streets and fronts of houses and shops clear in Eureka and Hamilton. They then went around and checked on folks making sure to tell them to stay inside as much as possible until the fest later. By the time they came in out of the cold at eight they were freezing, sweating, and soaked to the bone, but most of all tired. They girls stripped them out of their wet clothes and handed them warm flannel sleeping pants and heavy knitted sweaters. They sat them down on the couch in the living room and handed them cups of coffee.
"Feeling better or do you want Pepper up?" Hermione asked running scans on the two of them.
"We're fine Mia, it's just a bit of snow." Harry said.
"It's in the low teens out there and the high winds are making it worse." Abby said.
"We're good, let's open gift and watch christmas movies." Harry said.
"Now you're talking." Neville said.
"Okay, let's get started." Abby said grabbing a few gifts off the top and handing them out.
Hermione got a stack of books from everyone. She got a full length black fur coat, with a grey Russian style hat and a muff from Abby and a bunch of old spell books. A huge ruby and diamond necklace from Neville, along with an antique potion's kit full of shiny brass and wood tools and hand blown glassware, and a stack of old potions books. Harry gave her a black CZ 75b SP-01 he engraved and enchanted. The engravings were filled with gold and the grips were carved ivory with a red and gold Gryffindor house crest made of gold and ruby dust. It came with three enchanted 170 magazines in a nice wood box. He also gave her signed first printings of all of Jules Verne's works.
"I love the gun Harry, did you make this with the goblin spell?" She asked looking at her gun.
"Not really, I made the slide and frame but everything else is from a donor gun from the trunk. I did do all the enchantments on it using the skills you showed me." Harry said.
"Good job. I love it. It's not a ruby and diamond necklace but it's nice." Hermione said looking at the gun.
Neville got a brown Russian style fur hat and a Winchester 1885 high wall rifle in .50-110 from Abby along with a leather bandolier of 100 very big red brass bullets. The gun was nothing special, just meat and potatoes, and made to kill something very big.
"It's a copy of the gun Harry bought at the junk shop when he got the Model 1's. I talked to Smith and he did some testing on the gun and he was impressed with it. I bought a few of the guns in Salt Lake and did the enchantment on the guns myself. Mia helped me make the rounds. They are extremely powerful and the bullet nose is magical. The shell casings are expanded on the inside and packed full of Smith's gunpowder and the bullet nose expands once it leaves the gun like the 500 nitro rounds, but this one becomes an 6 inch long 2 inch wide 12 pound red brass spike with a steel core. The spike penetrates a foot deep into the mountain when I tested it. I made the gun for me to replace the 500 rifle for magical big game hunting. But I figured why should I be the only one to have fun. Besides the ammo was easier to make in batches of 500." She said.
"Nice, less kick and almost the same damage. I like it. But it's one shot, we're going to need to practice the reload on this bad boy." Neville said with a big grin on his face.
"Well practice with normal rounds. The ammo is a bitch to make just like the 500 nitro ammo. That first batch of 500 rounds cost almost a $1,000 and it took a week to make and enchant." Hermione said.
"God Damn!
"That's about three times cheaper and easier than the 500 Nitro rounds." Hermione said.
"No shit? Well from now on, unless it's life or death we are saving the 500 nitro rounds and we'll look for something bigger, better, and cheaper than the Nitro rifles for huge game like dragons. $3,000 for 500 rounds..." Harry muttered.
"It's closer to about $3,750. It's about $7.56 a round. Tungsten is expensive and the magical gunpowder we used was temperamental. It's why we don't have recoil charms on the gun. Too much magic around the volatile nitro rounds. It took years of testing to figure that out. It's why the rifle is a 500 nitro and not a 700 or 900 nitro rifle. Too big of a round, too much magical gunpowder, too big of a boom. You meat head operatives have no idea how much work goes into your gear." Hermione said listing off facts with a smirk.
"No shit. If we ever give you shit about things like that in the future you have the right to kick my ass. Now open my gifts Nev." Harry said nodding to the two boxes, a handgun case and a rifle case.
Harry gave him the Sig Sauer P226 X-Five. The gun was covered in bear engravings filled with gold and dark blue sapphire dust. For the grips Harry used bear femur bone and carved the House Blackwell crest into the white bone. The crest was similar to House Steel but instead of a wolf head there was a bear head he filled it in with sapphire dust and the Blackwell name in gold. The gun came with three 190 round magazines. In the second box was a Rock River Arms 458 AR-15 with an 18 inch barrel, full length key mod handguard, a magpul angle grip, a magical scope, an adjustable stock, and magpul pistol grip. Engraved on the lower was the house Blackwell crest in gold. The rifle came with five 100 round magazines.
"Fucking nice work Harry!" Neville said.
"I made a rifle for each of us. I had to strip a few other ARs to make them. I figured it's another tool in the tool box. 458 id good for taking out big things like trolls. But it's a modern gun so we can only use it when no one is around to ask questions." Harry said.
"I always wanted a 458 rifle! It's so cool and ridiculous. I also really love the Sig. I've always said we should carry the X-Five." Neville said looking at the X-Five.
"I agree. It's why I started to carry one. Now that we're not Operatives we should look at all of our gear and see if we can change out some stuff." Harry said pulling out his gun from the undercover shoulder rig. It was almost the same gun but Harry's gun had the Steel crest on it with the wolf's head instead of the bear.
Abby got books and enchanting tools from Hermione. A Winchester Rifle in .38XL with a shorter 16 inch barrel, a carved wood stock and gold engravings from Neville. He also gave her a box with tribal indian beads. Harry gave her a Wilson Combat 1911 X-Tac in stainless steel, the gun had scroll engravings but mixed in the scroll work were personal things like the state of Texas on the top of the slide. On the side of the slide was "Lone Star Lady" in a banner. All of the engravings were filled with blue sapphire and red ruby dust. The grips were ivory with a gold Texas Ranger star. It came with six 90 round mags also engraved with long horn bulls.
"I love it Harry." She said looking at the gun.
"I also got you this." Harry said handing her a flat wood box. Inside was a huge 40ct square cut emerald on a necklace made of 100 1ct square cut diamonds and platinum.
"Holy Shit!" She said looking at the huge stone.
"Yeah, the goblin charm works on stones as well. It takes a fuck load of power to do it but that was a bag of loose emeralds at one point." Harry said.
"I love it, I love you too but you know… big ass emerald." She said laughing.
Harry got an enchantment copy book full of useful enchantments, a set of very small jeweler's engraving tools, and more enchanting supplies from Hermione. He got a black Russian style fur hat and a gold pocket watch with wolf head on the front from Abby, as well as a note telling him his present was waiting back in their room with a smiley face. From his brother he got a pair of handmade Holland and Holland double barrel shotguns in a leather wrapped case.
"Handmade and there is not one spot on those guns were there is not engraving of some kind." Neville said.
"Nice. We need to go hunting for birds." Harry said.
Harry made breakfast after that. And they sat and watched White Christmas and Home Alone. Or the girls did, the boys never made it passed the first movie. They passed out holding their girls. They had an early lunch and got dressed for the day. They headed off to the ship which was parked on the farm by the gate. Jon Philip, his boys, Kate, Alice, Doris, and her friends were in the big kitchen cooking up a storm. The guys were setting up tables and chairs with white table cloths, plates, flatware, and glasses. All of it was conjured or transfigured but it would last a few days and they could just vanish it all when they were done with the meal. They were expecting somewhere between 500-750 people. So they cooked for 750 and made enough place settings for everyone. They were expecting at least 250 people from the town as well as almost all of the town of Hamilton. They had invited Marshals from all the cities and towns they knew and they were expecting Chuck Copeland and his three children to show up as well as Walter and his wife. Harry headed to the kitchen to help as soon as they got there. The rest of the group pitched in helping to set up.
People started arriving at five. They had them mingle as a enchanted string quartet played soft waltz style music. There were tables with glasses of beer and wine set up and trays of finger foods. At six when they were sure everyone was there they sat down and Harry did a head count. 734 people showed up. They started bringing up bowls and trays of food. They had roast duck, prime rib, venison, rabbit, elk, dragon, and kingsnake. Three different kinds of potatoes, corn, green beans, and carrots. They even had stuffing, and cranberry sauce.
After the meal Harry stood up and thanked them all for coming. He then opened a trunk and showed them it was full of silver medical style bracelets.
"These are emergency medical portkeys. These will save your life one day. They have two functions. One, they monitor your health. If you get very hurt, or too sick, or you get attacked by something this bracelet will put you in a magical stasis and take you to the marshal's office here in town where we have potions and access to healing. Also we can back track the portkey and go take care of anything that hurt you. But it's also an emergency portkey. If you see something bad happening. If you find yourself stuck somewhere like a mine cave in. All you have to do is take the bracelet off, twist and pull the this small silver plate apart. You will be transported to the marshal's office where you can get help." Harry said showing them how the bracelet comes apart. "I made 5,000 of these. One for each person in Eureka, Hamilton, and Ely. I will be making more of these for people in Salt Lake, Denver, and Idaho Falls. It's my goal to make these a standard thing for everyone. At a certain point we have to take back our land from the magical and wild threats. With these we can walk with a bit more confidence that we won't die just because we wandered outside the gates of our towns." Harry said and got a round of applause. "These are sterling silver plated brass and they will hold up to anything. Put them on and don't take them off. Form a line and I'll start handing them out." Harry said.
They spent the rest of the evening dancing on the ship before they escorted everyone back home. Harry walked into his room with Abby following him. He ditched his clothes and dropped into his bed.
"YOu ready for the other gift I got you?" Abby asked in a sexy tone.
"Abby, don't take this the wrong way, but right now if you started something I would pass out before we even got things going. Right now the best gift you can give me is keeping me warm as a pass the fuck out." Harry said half asleep already.
"I take no offence at all. I think cuddling up to you sounds great. Let me go wash my face and I'll be right back." She said heading off to the bathroom. By the time she came out five minutes later Harry was snoring.
They handed out the rest of the bracelets the next day and it turned out to be just in time. Minors in Hamilton blasted through to an underground cave made of rock, gold, copper, silver, and glowing blue stones where the miners were promptly attacked by four lizard men with spears. They stabbed three miners before they were able to shoot the four lizard men. At the same time the three miners were being looked at by Hermione. Harry and Neville, who were on patrol at the time, were called back. They took the tracking portkey to the mine and found the miners looking freaked out with guns in hand standing over four dead lizard men and looking at the illuminated tunnel that went deeper into the mine.
The lizards were about four foot tall and humanoid with alligator like heads and three foot long tails. Harry turned the four lizard men into coins. He picked up the spears. They were made of a gold colored metal and had glowing blue stone tips. He shrank the spears and looked at the shields on the ground. They looked like they were made of some kind of exoskeleton and held together with leather. He took them as well as a bag of blue stone and sealed up the mine shaft with a barrier spell before leading the minors out of the mine. He set up guards to watch the mine before they popped back to Eureka. They found the girls working on the three miners with Alice's help in the back room Harry made for medical emergencies like this.
"How are they doing?" Harry asked.
"Good for now. They were stabbed with something sharp, jagged, and dirty. If we weren't here they would all be dead. If the nasty wound wouldn't kill them the infection would have as it was I needed to use a bit of magic to cleanse the infection. What did this?" Hermione asked cleaning her hands to get the blood off.
"These things. I have no idea what they are." Harry said expanding the four lizard men on the floor. "They attacked with these." Harry said expanding the spears and shields.
"Those are kobolds. They came over the rift." Alice said looking at the lizard man.
"Of course it did. What else did the rift bring over?" Harry asked sarcastically.
"The rift wasn't just one rift. It was a lot of them. There was one massive hole in the grand canyon but there were hundreds of smaller rifts that popped open, spat out odd creatures and people. Creatures like that, and smart dragons that breath poisons and frost, huge birds big enough to carry away a cow in each talon. Owl bears, orcs, dwarves, elves, mind flayers, huge purple worms, beholders and hundreds of other things I hope to never come in contact with. People came over too. Some evile, some good. Most of them died in the fight to close the breach but some still remain. And when we closed the rift it left us with magic that messed with alot of things. It turned some things bigger and more aggressive. Like the kingsnakes and dire wolves. It made some magical creatures change too like werewolves. They became bigger and more aggressive. It turned some rock into oddly glowing blue, green, and red crystal that is full of magic. Without the blue stone airships like the one you have would not fly. There's also redstone that amplifies dark magic. Green stone helps speed up the healing process but it's rare." Alice said.
"Okay, then we know what we're dealing with, we need to go deal with it. Let's load up on supplies and head back down into the mine. If you don't hear from us in a few hours call us on the magical communicator." Harry said pointing to the magical glass tablet that acted as a big version of their smart phone.
"Will you four be alright? We've seen something like this before. A rift could have opened up under ground and that mine could be full of all kinds of nasty things." Alice said.
"We are going to be very heavily armed and we will be taking a cube with us so we can have a secure location to rest or retreat." Harry said leading the group back to the cube the gather supplies.
"Good luck. And just so you know. Blue stone goes for about $5 an ounce." Alice said.
"Good to know." Harry said walking into his cube.
"Okay what are we doing?" Neville asked.
"We need to load up on bulk ammo 9mm and 5.56 in the extended mags for our MP5s, M4s, and Sigs. I want each of us to walk into that mine with 5,000 loaded rounds. Full tactical vest over our dragon hide vest, and dragonhide coats. We don't need to take our revolvers. This is going to be operative wet work. Keep your large caliber guns on hand and loaded. We don't know what we're walking into but I can tell you this. That cave is big. I did a quick scan and I felt out for mile and there were a lot of those kobolds." Harry said pulling guns out of his bag.
"Okay. we'll take my cube. We don't want to move this one. This is our home and if anything we could leave my cube down there and retrieve it later if we have to fall back. My cube is empty. Just the standard two bedrooms, kitchen, living room and dining room." Neville said.
"Alright. Let's load up." Harry said.
For the next hour they spoke very few words. They kept their heads down and kept working. They filled the dining room table with guns and loaded magazines. Once they had everything they checked it all over one more time before they started loading up their empty bags and pockets. The first thing they did was pull on their tactical vest. The vest was made like a plate carrier but thinner with expanded pouches. They each had 5x 300 round MP5 mags as well as 10x 30 round MP5 mags in their bags. They had 5x 300 round M4 mags as well as 10x 30 round M4 mags in their bags. They had their new guns as well as their operative guns on them. They had three extended mags and ten stock mags for both hand guns. Also on their vests were six frag grenades and six flash bang grenades. For Harry he ended up with 1,800 rounds of 5.56, and 2,820 rounds of 9mm on his person. Less than 5,000 but more than he ever carried at once.
After they loaded up the mags in their vests they slung their MP5Ks over their shoulders and their bags around their chest and opposite shoulders. They pulled on their coats and slung their M4's over their shoulders. They checked their shotguns in their bags to make sure they were full of buck and ball shotshells. As well as their new 1885 high wall rifles with the magical ammo. Their 458 SOCOM rifles, and finally their 500 nitro guns. They added an ammo can to their bags with ten more MP5, M4, and hand gun mags. Harry took six ammo cans full of bulk NATO 9mm and 5 cans of 556 ammo and put them in a trunk along with ammo cans full of more grenades, and RPGs. He was not fucking around and his family felt it too. They put the trunk in the entry hall of Neville's cube and Neville shrunk it and put it in his pocket.
"Okay, let's do this. I'm taking point. Neville you're on my back. Abby you're next and Mia will watch all our backs. At any point we run into a totally fucked situation we fall back, drop a portkey, and get out of there. We can always come back with a team of Marshals if we have too. We will try to do this with some stealth, we have our cloaks if we need them but I hate using them if their are four of us out there. We could shoot each other on accident." Harry said holding out a portkey to the mine. They all took hold and they vanished.
They reappeared in the mine standing in front of the magical barrier Harry threw up. Harry watched as they formed up behind him and he walked through the barrier. As soon as they walked into the first tunnel they encountered three kobolds that looked like a patrol. Harry took them down with three head shots from his M4 and they kept moving down the hall Hermione shrank the three gold spears and put them in her bag and kept moving.
They came to a bigger cavern and Harry held up his hand stopping the group. He checked out the cavern and saw a campsite with a fire in the middle of the 60 foot room and eight kobold sitting around the fire. Harry held up eight fingers and pointed at himself and Neville and pointed to the left. He pointed at the girls and pointed right. They lined up two wide and rolled into the cavern and they each took out two. They checked the camp and saw mining carts full of mined blue stone. Hermione pulled out a trunk and boxed it all up. They also took their gold spears before moving on to the tunnel on the other side of the room.
They moved down the hall at a good clip using the light from the glowing blue stones to light their way. It was like the tunnel was lined with blue neon. It was enough light to see but not make out all the details. It helped that they all had night vision spells on their eyes. Once they cleared out this mine they were going to be rich as hell. The walls were lined with blue stone veins as well as gold, silver, copper, and iron. Harry was going to have fun strip mining the whole area to get all of it.
They headed down the mine shaft deeper and Harry spotted a group of six kobolds he and Neville took them down. They slowed down just long enough to take their spears and kept moving. In the next tunnel they found a patrol of four kobolds with four big white spiders on chains the size of big dogs. Harry didn't even fuck around once he saw the spiders. He dropped his M4 to full auto and sprayed the group with a thirty round burst. Neville followed his lead a second later. In three seconds there was nothing left of the group and Harry banished the viscera out of their way as he lead them further into the mine.
six hours, 119 kobolds, and 36 big white spiders later and they came to the mouth of the tunnel into a huge cavern that housed a town of kobolds. The cave had be 500 foot across and 150 foot up and shaped like a rough carved dome. There was about thirty feet between the mouth of the cave and the small wall that marked the edge of town. There had to be about fifty tent like buildings made of gold metal poles and leather and it was full of five foot tall bigger kobolds with darker skin and longer spiked tails wearing gold colored plate armor. Infact on closer inspection Harry could see the bigger kobolds treated the smaller kobolds like slaves. Harry pulled out his cloak and broom and did a recon flight over the city to see what was going on. As he flew over he got a better idea when he saw a big 20 foot wide tunnel headed up to the surface. The tunnel was being carved by a huge purple worm that was being controlled by a team of five bigger kobolds holding blue stone topped staves and dressed in tabard like tunics. It looked like the tunnel, unlike the ones they followed to get here, was not following the veins of glowing blue stone but instead it looked like they were headed up on a steep but manageable angle.
Harry didn't like the look of it. He also didn't like the look of the camp. All the the structures aside from the short two foot stone wall that looked thrown together marking the front of camp were temporary. He also noticed that there were no women in the camp. This was a war camp. All of the bigger kobolds had gold plate armor and spears or gold swords. He counted the buildings and did a scan with his magic to see how many they were looking at. He counted about 150 king sized kobolds and 95 regular kobolds. He also saw cages with big white spiders, and cages with odd looking worms the size of dogs. Harry also spotted a cave that headed deeper underground on the other side of the cavern.
He flew back to the group and they headed back down the tunnel before they opened Neville's cube. They piled in and shrank the cube once they were inside. Harry lead them to the smaller dining room table and laid it all out for them.
"I wonder where we are right now?" Neville asked.
"We were traveling north when we first came into the mine but we've been going east for the last five hours. I bet I know where they're headed, Ely." Harry said.
"You think so?" Abby asked pulling out a meal bar. She passed out a few of them.
"I bet you they are, and I bet if we keep following the other tunnel back we'll be deep under Salt Lake or Provo they are both east of here." Harry said.
"Why hit Ely? Why not hit a smaller town like Hamilton? Or a bigger town like Provo?" Neville asked.
"I don't know? Who's to say they weren't going to hit Hamilton? They were digging to the mine. It just so happened that the miners broke through first. Even then they took out three men before those four kobolds were taken down. If they would have broken through at night and attacked the town while it slept? As for why Ely, the only thing I can think of is the mine? Ely's mine is full of gold and silver but I bet it's full of blue stone too but it's also deep. I bet that tunnel is on an intercept course with their mine. And if Eureka's mine was deep under ground instead of in a mountain I bet there would be a tunnel coming for us too." Harry said.
"Food too. One of the men had a bite mark on his arm. I bet humans make for tasty treats. Especially if they are stuck down here. They can't be farming anything that requires sunlight. That leaves fungus and insects. Or each other." Abby said.
"They do treat the smaller ones like slaves, I bet they eat the weak ones like some lizards and insects." Hermione said.
"And without us here to stop them the towns out west would have been fucked. You have to remember, without us here Hamilton falls is a matter of minutes if a good sized force attacked at night. The same with Ely and Eureka. No fifty marshal could have just done what we did to get down here without half of them dieing. For us we hardly broke stride." Harry said.
"Silent guns too. The marshals would have been using black powder rounds. Between the smoke and the sounds of the gun fire this tunnel would have been crawling with kobolds and spiders." Neville agreed.
"Also, if this is what they are willing to throw at an assault on a town the size of Ely then what are their numbers like? How many of them are down here?" Harry said.
"Hundreds, maybe thousands. We need more supplies and rest after we take out this camp." Hermione said looking winded. For the boys and Abby six miles at a jog was nothing. For Hermione six miles was six miles.
"We'll set up a barrier, drop a portkey, and head back to the surface. We can have the miners in Hamilton start mining out the blue stone. We've been summoning the spent brass as we've been going so we don't have to worry about them. We'll resupply and come back tomorrow. For now let's reload our expanded mags and be ready for a good fight. I figure we got two options here. We can try to go silent for as long as we can. We'll fly up on our brooms under our cloaks, find a place to perch somewhere high up, cast obscuring charms over the area, and start taking them out one at a time until they figure out something's wrong before we go full auto and rain hot lead down on them. Or we go in hot. One or two of us on brooms fly up and start dropping frags and flash bangs on the camp. When they're all fucked up we'll attack the camp and take them out with bursts of full auto as the flyers pick off the stragglers. Either way I want to hit that huge purple worm with an rpg. I have a feeling that thing is going to be our biggest threat." Harry said opening the trunk with the ammo.
"I say we try to take as many of them as we can before they figure something is off. As soon as they do we'll lob frags into the camp and tear them a new one." Hermione said topping off her two 300 round MP5 mags.
"M4's to start. Go for headshots. Take as many as you can. The second any of us see the shit hit the fan. Toss a grenade and get the party started. If we cause a cave in, portkey out and we'll regroup." Harry said.
Ten minutes later found Harry flying around the cavern forty foot up looking for a good shelf to set up. He found a small divot in the rock face just to the left of the cave mouth and using the goblin magic he made a small balcony. He cast obscuring spells around the balcony and flew in. The small duck in was just big enough for him to lay on the floor and shoot off the edge. From this position he was about 300 foot from the center of the camp. Harry laid on the floor of his small cave and using his ACOG scope on his rifle and his mage sight he scanned the cavern for signs of his team. He spotted Hermione in a similar cave to his to his left. If he was at the six o'clock position she was at the 8 o'clock. Neville was across from him at the 11 o'clock position in a small cave and Abby was at the 4 o'clock position to his right. Harry checked his watch and waited for the secound hand to tick by. He waited almost a minute and a half before he sighted in on his first target. A kobold guarding the tunnel they came from at the front of camp. He was so close his eye filled up Harry's scope. He squeezed the trigger and the kobolds head exploded. There was a small flash of light that was blocked by the charms, the bolt carrier cycled, and the brass shell spit out the side of the rifle making a small clinking sound. Harry took out the guard ten feet to the left of that guard and he too dropped.
For close a minute and a half they took out a combined 112 kobolds all around the camp. Harry was going to drop his next guy when a shout sounded from the camp and a frag grenade exploded from his left. That sent the remaining 133 kobolds into a panic. Shouts sounded. Clattering of armor sounded. And over the top of all of it was with sound of three more grenades going off rocking the cavern. Harry rolled into a kneeling position on one knee and used his left elbow on his knee as a tripod as he he started dropping the remaining kobolds. He saw a kobold run to the cage with the spiders and try to open it but Harry got him before he could. He took a few seconds to spray the cage with bullets killing the spiders inside. He did the same with the other cage with bugs in it too. Harry saw the big purple worn backing up down the tunnel.
He pulled the rpg out of his bag and took aim at the big worm's ass. He fired and the rpg hit the back of the worm blowing a huge hole in it and casing it to let out a screech. Harry slammed a fresh rpg into the launcher and hit it again. This time the worm stopped moving. Harry sprayed the big worm with a burst of M4 fire to make sure it was dead. He spotted the five kobolds wizards that were controlling the worm and dropped them with a short burst. When they fell the cavern fell silent. Harry scanned the camp with his eyes and magic and felt just a few weak dying life forms.
"Call out!" Harry called out.
"CLear!" Neville called out.
"Clear!" Abby yelled.
"All Clear from my end but I feel a few of them down there!" Hermione said.
"I'm Headed down to do a sweep! No more explosives!" Harry called out before he hopped on his broom and flew down.
He switched to his MP5 and swept into the camp from the front checking tents as he went. There were a few tents on fire thanks to the grenades upsetting oil lamps. He put them out as he went. Neville joined him in the search. They found a few wounded kobolds and put them down as they swept through. It took ten minutes to check all the tents. They found 26 half dead kobolds and they finished the job on them. Harry called the all clear and the girls came down to check things out. Harry threw up a barrier spell over the tunnel leading deeper into the mine and lit a cigar as they looted the camp. They found carts of blue stone. Crates of swords made of the gold material. Hermione finally got a chance to study the gold metal as they boxed up all the swords, spears, and plate armor off the dead kobolds.
"This is electrum, well it's more brass and iron but there is gold and silver here too. Figure about 40% brass and 40% steel rest is 10% gold, and 10% silver. This sword is about three pounds. 19 ounces of steel, 19 ounces of brass, 5 ounces of gold, and 5 ounces of silver.
"So every what, 21 swords is a 100 ounce gold and a 100 ounce silver bar, a 25lb steel ingot, and a 25 lb brass ingot? Not bad. We can use the steel. In fact I have half a mind to strip mine the land between Hamilton and Ely using cutting charms and dynamite. It's all good usable ore. With my control of the spell I can refine tons of ore with one spell." Harry said eating a sandwich from his bag.
"I'm more interested in the blue stone. All crystals and gemstones have a place in potions. When you pulverize rose quartz into a fine dust and add it to healing tonics it increases the potency. That was what the potions book I found said. I wonder with pulverized blue, red, and green stone does?" Hermione said looking at the baseball sized glowing blue crystal in her hand.
"We'll have time to look it over. For now we need to clean up and clear out. We need to get teams down here to excavate, clean this all out. I'm not kidding about strip mining the land. We don't really need money but the raw ore is too good to pass up. Maybe we can figure out how this blue stone works to make flying ships." Harry said chomping on his sandwich.
"How can you eat in here? It smells like burnt flesh and shit down here." Abby asked.
"Easy, I'm hungry and I hate the meal bars. I didn't eat I just loaded mags. This is lunch, super late lunch by the way, and this is a chicken bacon club sandwich. This dungeon crawling is a lot tougher then I thought." Harry said with a smirk.
"Dungeon crawling! Man I love this time line!" Neville said turning dead kobolds into coins and pocketing them.
"I wonder how far we are from the Ely mine." Harry said looking at the big purple worm in the tunnel.
"I'm not sure. We can tunnel through once we clear out the mine." Hermione said.
"Yeah, we need to finish clearing the mine. What do you think is down there? More kobolds? Spiders? Something bigger?" Harry asked as he finished his sandwich and started helping with the clean up.
"Yes to all of it. I have a feeling we're going to be really tested before this is over." Neville said with a big grin.
"You my dear brother have issues." Harry said patting the bigger man on the back.
It took the better part of an hour to clean up everything into trunks. When they portkeyed out the only thing they left was the shoddy built stone wall. When they landed in the cube it was close to six. They all headed off in different directions with Harry headed to Hamilton to talk to the mayor about reopening the mine and also talk about mining the blue stone. He brought up the idea of strip mining and they would look into it as they started excavate the blue stone along with all the ore in the walls. Abby took the dead bodies of the kobolds outside the town walls and burned the them on a big pire before coming back to the cube to help Hermione and Alice run tests on the blue stone.
Neville took all the trunks full of junk to the storage room and dumped them out before he cast the goblin spell on all the electrum. He turned 259 spears, 221 short swords, 149 sets of plate armor, 143 daggers, 16 mining carts, 167 pic akese, and 357 long heavy tent poles into 190 gold bars, 190 silver bars, 1,900 brass bars, and 1,900 steel bars. He also had a pile of blues stone and 50 leather tents. After he put away all the bars he headed out to the dining room and saw the women working with the blue stone. Harry walked in, saw them working and headed into the kitchen to get dinner started. By the time dinner was ready an hour later Hermione had a good understanding of the blue stone.
"SO what does it do?" Harry asked.
"Blue stone absorbs and conducts magic. Like a power stone used in wards it takes in ambient magic, stores it, and when you need it you can pull from it to power something. That's why they use them for the airships. The enchantments that keep the ship in the air draw power from the blue stones which in turn draw power from the air around the ship." Hermione said.
"And red stone can amplify magic cast into it. Like dark ritual magic." Alice said.
"Can it hold a spell to be released later?" Harry asked.
"I'm not sure. What are you thinking about?" Hermione asked.
"Like a bombarda spell, can we make magical hand grenades?" Harry asked.
"In theory sure? For now I want to run some tests on this blue stone." She said.
"I'm going to clean our guns and load up more mags incase we run into something bigger tomorrow." Harry said.
"Good thinking I'll help you with that." Neville said.
For the next three hours the boys went over all the weapons, stripping them down, cleaning them, and loading them. For the most part they used their M4's a lot that day so Harry made a few more expanded mags for the guns and they loaded them up for the next day. Harry and Neville set the four vests loaded down with mags and grenades on the dining room table and saw Hermione, Abby, and Alice working on a potion in the kitchen.
"Oh good Harry, can you turn this blue stone into a fine powder?" Hermione asked looking over the potion.
"Sure, what are we talking about? Sugar grain? Flour? Corn starch?" Harry asked walking into the kitchen.
"As fine as the goblin spell will make it. Then I want yo the dump it in the cauldron." She said mixing the big cauldron with a big gold ladle.
"Okay, but then I'm tapped out." Harry said.
"Good you can be our test subject." Hermione said with a grin.
"I don't like the sound of that at all." Harry said turning the big box of blue stone rocks into a big pile of super fine powder. In fact as soon as the spell ended the room was covered in glowing blue dust. Harry waved his wand around the room and soon all the blue dust was in the cauldron.
"Safe to say that was fine enough." Neville said coughing up blue stone dust.
"Yeah Mia, this stuff's not going to kill us right?" Harry said sneezing.
"No and in fact I think this might be done." She said hushing out the fire and ladling a few ounces of glowing blue potion into a glass test tube. They could all feel the power coming off the cauldron.
"Mia, what did you make?" Harry asked.
"Mana potion. Or that's what I'm hoping it does. It's a way to let us keep fighting. Look at today, we went for six hours and we were almost all tapped out. You could have kept going but the three of us were done. With this potion we could have kept going. It's a potion from the book you found in the office of the mayor's mage. The book says the potion has it's roots in Pepper Up and it does. It's based on Pepper up and the logic of how that potion works. Everything we looked at says this will work." She said looking at the glowing blue potion.
"Mia, if it's based on Pepper and easy to brew then why don't they sell it in stores already? Why does this all sound like theory?" Harry asked.
"Because it's based on our Pepper up. The one from our timeline. In fact as soon as I looked at the root of the potion and the ingredients list I knew it. We've been brewing it since we were in second year! But our Pepper up is not their pepper up. Their potion is the old way of doing things with rift magic added to the mix. Ground crystal is the way their magic works." She said excitedly.
"Look, I trust you with my life and you know I'm not as smart as you are when it comes to this stuff. If you can explain it to me in dumb down talk I'll happily take your potion." Harry said.
"Right, um, Meatballs!" Hermione said looking around the kitchen.
"Okay, you got my attention." Harry said.
"Say you make meatballs one way. Let's say you make them out of beef. But here they make them out of pork. You follow me so far?" She asked.
"Beef Pork, got it." Harry said as Neville nodded next to him.
"Okay now say there's a cookbook that has a recipe for tex mex meatballs. The recipe calls for beef and chili powder. Now if you've only ever made pork meatballs and you have no idea you could make beef meatballs then you would fuck up the tex mex meatballs until you got it right. But if you know how to make beef meatballs and all you have to do is add the chilli powder you'd have a leg up right?" she asked.
"So you're holding Tex Mex meatballs in your hand?" Harry asked following along.
"Bingo! The problem is we don't know how much chili powder to add to the mix so we need someone that can handle the spice to try it first before we burn our mouth. Got it?" She asked.
"Got it. We made a potion that restores power to our cores and you added an ass load of blue stone and you need me to go first because I have the biggest core to fill up before I'm maxed out." Harry said putting it all together.
"You know you're not as dumb as you let on." Hermione said.
"I practically failed my way through five years of potions. But cooking I understand. From now on you want to explain something use cooking. So hand it over. Lets see what your meatball tastes like." Harry said.
"We have to do this scientifically we need to do a baseline reading for you to see where you're at and then we need to feed you an exact amount and see how much your numbers go up. We have to start slow. This is going to take a minute." Hermione said pulling out a clipboard and pen. She cast a few spells and took some notes.
"What am I at?" Harry asked.
"62 out of a possible 340, you are drained. That last spell really did you in I bet." She said as Abby measured out blue potion in a glass tube with numbers.
"I have 10 mils of blue potion ready Mia." Abby said eyeballing the side of the glass tube to make sure she had it right.
"Good, Harry drink this." Hermione said handing him the glass tube.
"Down the hatch." Harry said shooting the blue potion. It was such a small amount that he didn't even taste it.
"How do you feel?" Hermione asked running scans.
"No change." Harry said with a shrug.
"Well your numbers just jumped up 10 points." Hermione said.
"You're kidding? I don't feel a thing." Harry said.
"Abby measure out 50 mils." Hermione said making notes on her chart.
"Got it." Abby said again taking her time to look at the side to make sure it was right.
"Here drink this." Hermione said handing it to him. Harry shot it back and this time he tasted a salty taste before he felt a small jitter in his belly.
"I felt that one. A small jitter in my stomach like a shot of espresso." Harry said.
"Good, your numbers just jumped up by 50 points. How are you feeling? Any pain? Nasua?" Hermione asked.
"No, just a small flutter in my belly for a second and then it was gone. Let's take this to the edge." Harry said.
"You sure?" Hermione asked.
"I'm good, I've got 218 points to go before I'm topped off. Give me 200 mils and let's see what happens." Harry said.
"Abby give him 150 mils and we will see if this potion stays on a linear curve." Hermione said.
"Chicken." Harry said.
"150 mils." Abby said handing over the potion and looking worried.
"You sure?" Hermione asked holding out the potion.
"Yeah. let see what this ride feels like." Harry said taking the big tube full of 5 ounces of glowing blue potion and chugging it. The rush hit him hard and fast. It felt like a shot of adrenaline to the heart. He never did cocaine but he bet this was what the rush felt like. He felt like he never needed to sleep again. He felt like he chugged a 12 pack of Red Bull. His teeth felt itchy. The hair all over his body was standing on edge.
"Harry?" Hermione asked touching him.
"I'm Fine! Ami talking loud!? It feels like I'm talking loud!? How was that? What's my numbers looking like?! Was that good?! My tongue feels dry!" Harry said.
"Harry, I think we have our limit. Your numbers shot up 160 points and they keep climbing you're hovering at 282, 285, 291, 299. There your numbers leveled off. That was a jump of 177 points. Go take a lap and make some 100 ml flasks with screw caps to burn off that energy. Neville it's your turn. Your at 81 out of a possible 280." Hermione said making a new chart.
It took running through everyone to narrow down a dosage. 100 milliliters or about 3.4 ounces of what Harry was calling Mana potion would give you 100 points back to you core. Harry made small round bottomed glass flasks with aluminum screw caps and they spent the rest of the evening filling little potions flasks. They ended up with 1,600 of them thanks to Hermione huge cauldron. They each took ten and put the rest in boxes.