C9 THUNDERBOLT

After we relieved the town’s siege from the scorpions, Cartelle revealed to me that he was in the desert on a mission to recover certain magical or religious relics from a tomb, but his team was mostly killed by wild creatures in the desert.

After witnessing my abilities in combat, he hoped to invite me to join his team and offered me a large reward when we returned to Magisandria after completion of the quest.

Having nothing more urgent in the calendar, I agreed to the quest but only if he would help me make a few magic items first.

When I had time to shop around, I found a wide variety of goods and products on sale in the markets of Abiru brought here by traveling caravans and merchants.

So, I went around to spend the golds I just made.

Although at first, I thought this was a medieval world, to my surprise I found many interesting products or parts that were almost pre-modern such as springs, screws, metallic tubes, magnets, and various other mechanical parts and I wondered what these Ouamuans needed these industrial parts for.

Perhaps there were scientists and engineers in this world after all which I was yet to meet.

While we were looking for useful things to purchase, I walked into a dirty camel stable, and Sara found quite a bit of crusty white crystals on the ground.

I quickly scooped them up for Sara to analyze and “Salt-peter” was what she said to me.

The cattle manure was mixed with urines from the camels which in time chemically reacted to form natural potassium nitrate. To find the crystals here in the unkempt stable was fortunate and there were many of the crystals around.

After I filtered the white crystals and combined them with other chemicals, I bought from the traveling merchants such as sulfur and charcoal I mixed a batch of chemical propellants.

The discovery of the chemical led me to build a new weapon as I asked Cartelle to cast his magic flame and wind helix again, to create molten steel which were fashioned by the ironsmiths into many rounded pipes.

I was amazed at the level of proficiency of these ironsmiths in fashioning the required parts so I must have underestimated their skills before.

Although the pipes were slightly larger and heavier than ideal, they were crafted uniformly and without flaws, and they would eventually be turned into barrels and together with custom wood-crafted gunstocks and other parts such as springs and screws from the merchants, I built the first firearm in Ouamua.

The weapon was unusually bulky for a firearm, but it was fit for its purpose.

The ironsmiths also fabricated tiny steel darts and cast bronze casings which I assembled into flechette cartridges that were ideal to pierce into tough creature’s armors.

After I filled the cartridges with the chemical propellants I mixed earlier, I tested my new weapon by shooting a bullet through a stack of iron breastplates.

As I pulled the trigger on my firearm, a loud bang as loud as thunder emitted from it and the bullets hit and penetrated several thick plates.

Sara estimated the penetration could pierce through a Dragon’s armor and would reach deep into its heart if the angle was right and possibly kill it. With my rifle, I would not be troubled by the wild animals in this world anymore or anybody else for that matter.

Cartelle was curious about my latest forge, so he inspected some of the breastplates which were pierced by my bullets and were shocked to notice the many holes on the armor which few weapons available could penetrate.

Even his spells might not pierce through so many breastplates and Cartelle wondered what powerful magical item I just made, and he couldn’t believe our Barbarian tribe were so capable.

“What is this magical weapon you just crafted?” Cartelle asked me. “Thunderbolt,” I told him as I came up with the name for the rifle and continued, “It creates the bolts of Thunder that pierces through anything”, as I proudly boasted to the Magus.

I fashioned two functional Thunderbolts and many boxes of ammunition.

After training Kay to use them, I gave him one and we finally set out with Cartelle’s team on his quest to find his magical relic.