章 25: 6
Chapter 6 Under the Sea
It still was going to take way too long so I went back to what I've taken to thinking of as my island. I occupied myself with expanding my farm, expanding outwards as well as building a second floor. Along the coast is where I made the greatest changes.
I cut deep into the cliffs and reshaped much of the shoreline near my base. Long shallow beaches with wave breaks and tidal pools now filled most of my view. I spent quite a bit of time replanting seaweed and clams everywhere. At low tide there were several acres of tidal farms. Raised walkways stretched out like a spider web and allowed me to survey everything. They also had a more sinister purpose.
I was taking no chances with my safety. The spiders actually melted when they encountered water. However they were also my best deterrent right now. The walkways allowed them to reach much further than they could previously. Any ship that pulled to shore would have hundreds of feet to flee to reach safety.
They proved their worth only a few days after I started building them. It was near midnight when I first heard screams. Screams I could hear through my ten foot walls. That has to be close and loud.
I noted them and waited. No way was I going out to investigate. I was nowhere near ready to face a horde of spiders. I'll deal with them in the morning.
Bright and early I broke out armed and armored, ready to face almost anything. I didn't find any enemies. Instead I found bodies. Piles and piles of bodies all torn apart. Looks like the spiders didn't leave much.
From the gear they all seem to be guards from Lorath. After combing the area I finally found a pair of survivors. They were practically insane with fear and stuck in a boat a mile out to sea without any oars. Best of all, they were also in the same armor.
It was easy enough to fetch them. They were pathetically grateful to be rescued. Even by me. They told me everything.
It seems the fact that I kept traveling to Lorassyon and back took much of the dread out of it. Coupled with how much money I was throwing around and it looked like a tempting target. Several of the merchants had pooled together some of their guards and sent them to kill me and loot the island.
They had arrived late and made camp. And then the spiders came. The guards pretty much were reduced to ranting and shivering at that point. Pathetic.
Since they had nothing left to tell me I killed them. Having the guards just disappear will be much scarier than any ravings from survivors. Besides it'll be hilarious to show up in a few days without and pretend I never met the guards. I can't wait until it's time for my next visit.
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Two days later I went back in Lorath. I strolled into town right on schedule and pretended I didn't see all of the terrified gazes. This really is hilarious.
First I visited Locke. He was being harassed by a few people asking for things. The worst part. He was helping them and not working on my project. Fuck that. I immediately stabbed the first person I reached. He's my blacksmith. Go find your own.
He was visibly relieved to see me. He was probably scared his employer had died. Hopefully he'll know better next time. I tell him to try not to let himself get distracted again. We didn't really exchange many words.
Locke wasn't the most sociable of people. He was much more concerned with his craft than socializing. Which makes for a great employee, but a terrible source of conversation. So it was with the Barnes family I looked for the latest gossip.
"Milord." Heh. I didn't ask her to call me that. Wow and does she look happy to see me.
"Matilda! So what have you heard?"
"They're calling you a demon now. A whole company of guardsman went out three days ago. I was worried I'd have to leave the shed. But none of them return. No one bothered us after that." Ha! Called it! Fear of the unknown for the win.
I grin. This is just perfect. "Do you know which merchants sent the guards?"
"They all left. Set sail yesterday or this morning when you were first spotted." She was practically cringing. Really? I don't shoot the messenger. I wonder if that's a thing here. Wouldn't surprise me.
Meh, I don't really care. I head into the shed to drop off the food and pause. Wow, the stench is really strong. Yeah, I can't leave it like that.
It only takes a few minutes to alter the shed. I move the entrance to the storage basement over one space and set the entrance with a separate door. There, no need to track the skin through their living area now.
Matilda is a bit worried when I start working and very grateful when I finish. Her children though are fascinated by me. A much better reaction than my siblings. Not being covered in blood probably helps.
Trent, her oldest child, was nine and thankfully wasn't like Viserys. He was very serious and already very much concerned with providing for the family. I was toying with the idea of apprenticing him to Locke in a year or so. It wouldn't be quick, but he seems like he'd be reliable.
He was bit scared of me, but I'd probably be more worried if he wasn't. I did have a fairly terrifying reputation right now. One that didn't matter to his little sister. Then again she was only four.
Moira was very sweet. I'm not sure how she was so cheerful, but it was a refreshing change. She took to me very quickly and asked me endless questions while I was altering the shed. She seemed fascinated by my powers.
I found it hard to be annoyed with her. She reminded me too much of Daenerys. It was also because of her that I started visiting more often. I'd bring a cake each time. It wasn't like I was using the sugar for anything else. It was nice being around someone who wanted me there.
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I'm not the patient sort. Taken together with the fact that I seem to have capped how much energy I can store, is it any surprise I started experimenting. Besides it seems I can only store 100 energy levels and I was full. Waiting any longer would be a waste of resources.
Using my new source of leather I start with helmets. There is a specific enchantment I was looking for. It only takes three tries to get it too. I keep going though. I recorded my findings on wax tablets since paper still is a problem for me. Wax though is easy enough with all of the bee hives I have.
Apiaries only really need flowers to flourish. Cutting sod without my powers is annoying but gives me grass. A bit of bone meal and instant flower garden.
Slowly but surely I'm managing to actually translate the odd language the enchantments are listed in. Hell at this rate I might even need a large stockpile of books. Probably still will though if only because of the energy level cap.
The enchantment I was trying for was Respiration. I'm not sure if it was game mechanics or not but I found I can hold my breath exactly one minute before taking damage. My health ticks down very quickly after that minute too. Two points every second. Thank god for the clock recipe.
Unlike in the game Respiration adds a full minute before I start losing health. It also slows my suffocation speed down to one point every three seconds. The best part is every level increases those times by another minute and three seconds respectively. At level three I have almost seven minutes before I drown.
Sadly I ran out of energy at that point. I had really wanted boots that improved my swimming speed. I still had plenty of leather. The beginning of my enchantment language translation should help there. I also brainstormed on how to gather more energy. There has to be a way to make use of all the spiders.
The next morning my planning pays off. It was much easier than I had thought it would be. I just waited until water started pouring into my moat before leaving my base. Between the sun and my armor I easily survived long enough to gather enough energy.
Sure I still a ton of damage but pain was a very small price to pay for more magic. I didn't even wait to finish healing before going back to enchanting.
One pair of Depth Striding boots and I could now swim as easily as I can walk. Interestingly it seems all of my enchantments go up to level five since both Respiration and Depth Striding kept increasing until then. Depth Striding at five actually makes me faster swimming than on land.
I was now ready to really expand my tidal farms. Instead of a hundred feet I plan for them to stretch a thousand. I also plan to extend how much of the shoreline they cover. If nothing else the farms will prevent ships from getting too close.
It was while I was doing so that I found another item from the game. A Sea Lantern. It sat there on top of a small tower made of Prismarine. There weren't any Guardians there, but the tower did have a storage room.
Oddly enough the tower seemed to relatively free of sea life. No sea weed or barnacles grew on it and other than a few puffer fish creatures seemed to avoid it.
The most interesting thing about the storage room was not what it stored, but how it stored it. Chests. Chests like mine. Someone else with minecraft powers made this room.
I of course looted everything. Most of chests were filled with Prismarine blocks. The chests themselves were also made from Prismarine. It was a nice recipe since my normal chests burst if submerged.
The chests all seemed to store the same thing. Spawn Eggs. They looked like they were made of coral too. When dropped they all spawned the same thing, large undead starfish. They behaved remarkably like the spiders save for a few key differences.
Unlike spiders, a starfish obviously can survive underwater. If fact they seem to slowly lose health outside of water even at night. Sunlight kills them very quickly. They also didn't seem to drop anything except bones. If I ever find a way to generate them I'll never run out of bone meal.
Sadly I also can't control them. As soon as they pop up they attack me. They also don't attack each other. The spiders though, will actually ignore me to attack the starfish, which is interesting.
Checking around the island shows me something interesting. Every entrance to the maze is directly facing one of the towers. Considering the towers seem like outposts it seems the Maze Makers really were at war with something underwater.
I thoroughly harvest all of the outposts. If whatever made them does return, there's no sense making it easy for them. I can even see more faint lights further into the ocean depths. I just can't do anything about it yet. I really need water breathing potions.
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It took a few months, but I finally had enough metal. I had been putting off my trip back to Braavos until I knew whether Locke would work out. If he wasn't good enough I was also going to have to find another blacksmith. Fortunately the waiting paid off.
The first two version of what I am already called the iron fount project were rejected. They were too large and complicated. I needed something fairly compact and simple. Something I can store in my inventory. Anything more that about six feet per side just wouldn't fit.
The third version was better than what I was aiming for. Based off my vague memories of the Bessemer steel making process it was very precise. A large metal barrel furnace six feet wide and tall. It had a valve for air intake which required it's own device. I'm thinking of using a watermill to run a turbine.
Instead of one block it could melt down two at the same time. It would then tip over to pour out the steel into a mold. The mold was a another device, but thankfully one I could get a recipe for. Even better it was made from adobe so was incredibly easy to make. There was some material waste, fifty ingots was more than enough for me. I would have been happy with half that.
The best part of the newly dubbed Metal Fount was that it converted the iron into high quality steel. The best steel currently used is Castle-forged steel. It's also very expensive. Although that probably has to do with the process.
Castle-forged steel was a very long complicated process to make. Iron is melted down in large pots, formed into ingots then slowly heated with charcoal. Finally it is broken into pieces and melted down again in much smaller pots. Each step is slow and uses loads of fuel.
I'm not sure if a normal Bessemer furnace would be this much cheaper, but the converted version my powers create doesn't use that much more fuel than a normal furnace. This is so much better I'm seriously tempted to kill Locke to keep the secret to myself.
Of course I'd have to kill all of the workers and apprentices too. And anyone else who might have seen and understood what he was working on. And people he might have mentioned it to. Or wrote to. Yeah, it's probably too late already to stop it from spreading.
I also have no doubt there are any number of spies in town, all interested in what I am doing. On that note I start mentally dividing my projects. There are several I definitely want to make sure only I have possession of for at least a few more years.
I pay him well, more than enough to start up back in Braavos. Thankfully he doesn't seem inclined to leave just yet. I leave him with designs for a seed drill and plow. Given how my powers I should be able to push the result by hand. Automation here I come!
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I had put it off, but it was now time to head back to Braavos. This time I cheated. I took my own ship. I didn't have to worry about crew or supplies and since I don't need to sleep I can sail all night. Combined with the fast that my boat was actually faster I made very good time.
A journey of over 300 miles, which took the rented ship four days, only took me less than one. Roughly twenty hours after I left I pulled into the port in Braavos. That wasn't too bad. Or at least not nearly as bad as I had been afraid of.
Once I pulled it I headed strait for the market. I had an idea while sailing and didn't want to forget about it. I bought a very large selection of musical instruments and other tools. I was just glad I had emptied most of my Inventory for this trip.
While I only really cared about the brass instruments the rest might be useful later. Better to have than not. I also ended up buying a Myrish crossbow because of another idea I had. So many projects and so little time.
To the guards at the Iron Bank I probably presented a comical image. A small boy carrying a crossbow the same size as himself. They were professional though. Once I proved I had money they let me right in.
The contract I set up was very straight forward. I was willing to pay off half a million gold stags in return for the skull of Balerion the Dread. My name would be kept completely out of the deal. It was going to be presented as the Iron Bank willing to forgive part of the debt in return for fancy decorations. An additional offer for any other dragon skulls might be made after a listing made of their size.
I ended up paying most of the money upfront in return for the contract. Since they are so heavily based on their reputation I wasn't really worried about it. The rest of the day was spent filling out paperwork. I'm definitely going to need a secretary.
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Once I return I'm glad to find Locke finished with already. I actually thought the seed drill would take longer. Still, I'm very happy. I immediately give him another project. I call it the Windlance.
Unlike the scorpions currently used, the Windlance is going to be the pinnacle of siege engine technology. Instead of basically oversized crossbows, mine will be based off the roman ballista.
I'm not going to use ropes and wood though. Cost had been a limiting factor in their model. Mine won't have that limitation. Wound steel cables along with coiled springs would provide the power. More steel to strengthen it.
I intended to improve the Windlance with more than just materials. A compound draw, based off the bow, was used to increase power. A reverse draw set up would also allow the design to fit within my space limitations without sacrificing power.
The reloading feature of a Polybolos was incorporated and allowed it to be crewed by a single person. I even partially managed to add some of the design features from the Myrish crossbow. Mine was limited to only firing two bolts at a time, but that was due to lack of room to fit more than two ammo hoppers.
When finished the Windlance should be the envy of engineers the world over. Firing the specially designed iron bolts it would vastly outclass scorpions in both range and power. My only regret is this will pretty much be the pinnacle of what I can make. I am never going to be able to craft anything larger such as trebuchets.
I also planned some kind of casing to disguise as much of the working as possible. If anyone wanted to copy my weapons they would have to work for it. Even then I was betting it would cost as much as a hundred normal scorpions to make even one Windlance.
I aimed to completely dominate the technological arms race on this world. Already more plans were forming in my mind.
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