Ends of Magic

Nathan spent a moment looking around the room, locking eyes with Herdin, Beatred and Poppy in turn. His brows were furrowed in thought.

I can see where they’re coming from. It must be frustrating, to pour your work into something and worry it’ll all come to nothing for reasons outside of your control. But I didn’t ask for Beatred to take the class Development for this - that was her decision.

He frowned around the workshop, taking in all of the guns around him. It was clear that they were ready to adopt guns as a way to fight more broadly - and just needed his approval.

I wish I had some more time to think about this. But I leave tomorrow, for who knows how long. And I’m due to have dinner with the Guardians soon.

Beatred was gazing at him imploringly. Surrounded by the fruits of her labor, of her new class, Nathan could understand why.

She really wants this, but doesn’t know how to ask for something so significant. This is totally beyond Gemore’s culture of hoarding Insights. They don’t really have anything to offer me in return. Maybe I should do it for just that reason - I want to break Gemore out of that stupid tradition.

Poppy could barely meet Nathan’s eyes. The short Orc looked ashamed. He was shooting glances at Herdin, wincing at her tone.

He doesn’t want to be here. I think he feels the most indebted to me of all, especially if that supercritical carbon dioxide extraction Insight panned out. Though I would probably consider that debt repaid just to have somebody figure out how to use alchemy and chemistry together. Sounds awesome.

As the last of their little gunpowder cabal, Herdin stood as a pillar of authority right in front of Nathan. The enchanter had been the Guildmistress of the Crafter’s guild before her retirement, and she seemed to be uncomfortable at having to make such a request of Nathan.

Nathan couldn’t complain about that request being made so suddenly - he was being actively hunted by an Archmage of Giantsrest and maybe by a Questor. The plan was to leave Gemore with no solid date to return. If he didn’t come back, then under their Oath these guns couldn’t be given or sold to anybody.

And that would leave them out in the dark - they couldn’t give these guns to anybody, even the young Bhos who are going to become Adventurers in the next few years.

On the other hand, Nathan did not want to release information uncontrolled - or even to all of the Bhos. He was intentionally holding back Insights he thought were dangerous, like atomic theory and even covalent bonding.

Though the failure mode of guns is not as bad as it is for atomic theory - that could spell doom for the entire continent. Guns might help end the dominance of magic in combat. What I’m afraid of is Giantsrest or Agmon getting their hands on them - both would turn them into a tool of expansionism.

Telling Beatred and co. about guns had been a calculated risk, a way to help a struggling Gemore that was hemmed in by dangerous enemies on all sides. But Nathan had reassured himself that he had control of the process. Now they were asking him to give up most of his control.

Though if I deny them, then go off and die, all it does is slow people down. The secret is out, one way or another. They could probably figure out a loophole, maybe ‘accidentally’ leave a gun without a self-destruct around for some other craftsman to find or something. Or just break the oath - I still don’t know what the consequences for that are.

Beatred saw Nathan’s hesitation and spoke up, her voice deep and placating. “We’re not asking for this in return for just a weight of favors, though you will also receive that.” She gestured towards the four guns that each looked worthy of a craftsman’s masterpiece. “Take those. The rifle is for Sarah, the rest for Aarl. More accurate, faster action. Each should be nearly silent, and the barrels are almost completely frictionless. No overheating.”

Then she pointed at the shotgun. “Stanel asked about an appropriate weapon for Aarl. I think that’s suitable, but you would need to agree to give it to him.”

Nathan looked over the weapons, frowning. Then he addressed the gathered crafters with his greatest worry. “In my world, these kinds of weapons have replaced all others. They were expanded and developed into tools of death capable of massive slaughter. I don’t know if I want to unleash something like that on Davrar. I know the story of that transition, and want to avoid the worst horrors if I can.”

Artillery in particular is a weapon I’m not sure I want invented. The death tolls in battle before and after artillery were invented are starkly different. And the collateral damage too.

Herdin’s brows drew down as Nathan spoke, though she waited to snap back until he was done. “You act as the Master of the Mountain, dispensing wisdom to poor disciples. Nathan Lark, you are not the sole responsible person in Gemore! I have lived three times your years, and buried enough children and grandchildren to fill a heart overfull. We have dangers on Gemore that make these weapons small, such as monsters and mages! We would have every tool to fight such things.”

She broke off, visibly pulling herself back from the tirade, and her voice became pleading. “You give us weapons that would let us challenge the dangers of Davrar. Let a new adventurer slay a Stalker or a siegeboar to earn their level 27 Development without risk. I cannot help but be frustrated at the thought that these weapons will be limited because of the fear of what could be, when they could help us Bho challenge the problems that are.”

Her expression had cracked from one of stern ferocity to that of a worried mother, fearing for her children. “This is your Insight, and you may choose with it freely. But we ask - let us use it to defend Gemore better. We will owe you for it - a favor to outweigh all others. You fear that the Insights of these weapons will escape? So do we. We fear all Insights we hoard may be used against us. What is special about this one is that it is not ours to lose, and that it could change the way we fight. So we ask you - may we use it to its full potential?”

Nathan was rocked back by Herdin’s speech. He took a second to think over what she’d said. Then he frowned, and asked a question that seemed relevant. “But how sure can you be that you can maintain secrecy? What happens if the Council asks you? Or Agmon or Giantsrest decide to try and steal the secret?”

Herdin shrugged. “It is an Insight. We are accustomed to the spycraft used to safeguard crafting Insights - we already guard our workshop with enchanted locks, but as the existence of the Insight becomes known, we may bring in Bho guards, or employ further magical protections. As for the council they can ask, but if you wish, we will refuse them. This Insight is yours. We merely wish to use it. If you will allow us to do so, on your terms.”

Nathan nodded, considering the old craftswoman’s argument.

You know, she’s got a point. I’m being a bit paternalistic here. I know how this knowledge changed Earth’s history. But things are different on Davrar - classes, skills and Talents completely change how both manufacturing and warfare work. And I shouldn’t be so worried about weapons development - mages are basically artillery on their own, and monsters require heavy weaponry.

The danger here isn’t guns making battle more dangerous - it’s already really dangerous with monsters like the Grave Tangle running around. Guns will let lower-level people kill higher-level people, and even the field a bit against mages. Gemore already has fewer mages, but makes up for it in experience, grit and sacrifice. And Herdin thinks the guns will reduce the amount of sacrifice necessary.

Herdin went to speak again, but Nathan held up a hand. “Sorry, I need to think for a second.”

Let’s drill down past the emotional argument, lay bare the pros and cons. The Bhos are better positioned to navigate some of these issues than I am - they have lifetimes of experience both in Adventuring and crafting, and greater knowledge of what Davrar can facilitate. And I do want Gemore to be more capable - they seem generally much more decent than both Giantsrest and Agmon.

But I really would rather not spread the knowledge recklessly - I don’t want to be responsible for armies of slave-soldiers with rifles. Or Agmon legionaries with cannons. But there has to be balance - I can’t help Gemore without the risk of the secret being stolen. All I can do is take the necessary precautions, and be ready to run damage control if necessary. But I’m not in a position to really oversee things if I’m adventuring in the boonies for the next year.

He leaned down over his chair, massaging his brows for a moment.

Ultimately, the cat’s out of the bag. The Oath isn’t perfect, and the information isn’t going to die, not with how many guns have been made. Not unless I demand they destroy them all right now. But this is a great way to give Gemore an edge, and I’d prefer to be on good terms with the people who are on the cutting edge of this revolution. In fact, if I hold the favor for the Insight, then I might be able to use it for real change in the future. Break the culture of Insight-hoarding. I think this is the way I do that.

Nathan sighed, and Herdin patiently waited for him to speak. He still had some reservations, and wanted to phrase this carefully. After a moment, he spoke. “I’m willing to relinquish my hold on this Insight, and allow you to teach more people about guns, and sell them as you want.”

At Herdin’s victorious expression, he held up a finger. “But. I have some conditions. While I’m going to let you teach new apprentices, and sell the guns, I want to retain some ownership. I know you already want to keep control of the Insight, but I’m going to require that you three retain direct control over every weapon sold, and everybody who is taught. Furthermore, I want favors from everybody. Part of the sale of these weapons should be favors - and I want to be able to call those in later. I also retain control of the Insight - if I come back and find you’re doing something I don’t like, then I’ll be able to tell you to stop.”

Is that enough? Those conditions seem kind of harsh to me - but they’re asking for a lot. Do I want to give my veto power to Stanel or Kia or somebody? Not really - that just seems like another backdoor. But I can leave them with a warning.

“All that said, there’s a quote from my world that I would like you to keep in mind. ‘You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.’ Please be careful. Don’t chase lethality to the exclusion of all else. I don’t want to see guns in the dueling arena, or see a scaled-up version hurling explosives into a city, and will put a stop to it if I see that. If you change how warfare works, then people will stop at nothing to emulate your methods. Beware that every weapon you invent may someday be used against you.”

You know, under that principle I maybe shouldn’t have started this whole project. It’s hard to think of a tool better suited to kill me than a gun.

Beatred gave Nathan a slow nod, and Poppy let out a tightly held breath. Herdin’s broad face morphed into a gentle smile, and her voice was quiet. “Your conditions are acceptable. We will be careful, and treat this Insight with the respect it is due. And we will continue to speak to you, and ask your advice whenever you're in town. You are due a large favor from us, and the Bho broadly. You will have the influence you seek.”

And so Nathan gave them permission to use the Insights he’d given them. They’d still have to get agreement from each other to teach people or sell guns - but that would be easier than waiting for Nathan to return.

The atmosphere lightened now that they’d dealt with the elephant in the room. Both Beatred and Poppy looked like a large worry had been lifted from their shoulders, while Herdin just looked satisfied. Poppy dragged Nathan into his lab to show him the progress he’d made with the carbon dioxide extraction.

He had an impressive setup for it, and the alchemist excitedly walked Nathan through the process. First he would pass air from Beatred’s forge through a series of tubes with enchanted cold-traps, then separate the water ice from the dry ice.

For the extractions he had an enormously strong crucible with a lid that looked like the hatch on a submarine. He showed Nathan the grid where he would pile raw materials so that they’d be submerged in the supercritical carbon dioxide, but then the extract would end up in a collection vessel underneath as the supercritical carbon dioxide vaporized.

To get there, he’d add dry ice and heat the crucible over a fire. Poppy complained that he’d had problems with burning the extract, since it was hard to control the temperature.

Nathan reminded Poppy that the temperature he needed wasn’t really that high. He suggested that Poppy try using a water bath with lukewarm water - it was easier to stabilize temperatures of a large pot of water than a chunk of metal over a fire, especially because you could add more water of different temperatures. If the alchemist could just keep the temperature around body temperature, that would be enough. That should prevent burning but allow the temperature inside to reach the necessary level to drive the carbon dioxide supercritical.

Honestly, it was nice to discuss basic experimental design like this. It felt so familiar to talk about a protocol and figure out how to deal with issues. This was something Nathan had spent literally years doing, even if it had been a little while since he’d done physical chemistry like this.

Poppy showed Nathan some of the resulting extracts, remarking over how concentrated they were. He held two green-glowing extracts aloft, admiring their shifting glow. Then the orcish alchemist told Nathan about how he was trying to figure out what extraction time gave the proper balance of different components.

Before Nathan knew it, he was explaining how he’d design the experiment, including a staggered timecourse and controls like not adding any materials to the crucible, to see what contaminants Poppy got from the process itself. He’d bet there were other organics in there from the forge-fire production of dry ice, but it would be hard to tell.

Mid-tier Lecturing 6 achieved!

Nathan asked Poppy if he’d made anything from the new extracts yet, and the mage shook his head sadly. “I tried to make a healing potion and the vessel exploded, as if I was using essence extracted from the verdant snowpetal instead of simple brightleaf. I’ll either need to dilute them down or get an entire new set of equipment to contain it.”

The alchemist rubbed his hands together excitedly, looking over the shelf of glowing extracts. “And dilution is for the cowardly. I will rise to this challenge, and follow Beatred’s development!” Then he turned to Nathan, a confident smile on his face. “Next time you return, I will give you the most powerful potions ever made in Gemore. Even you might not be able to handle them.”

Nathan coughed out a laugh at the unexpected remark before he and Poppy returned to Beatred’s workshop. Beatred was packing up the gift she’d made, and Nathan took another moment to admire the incredible workmanship and dense enchantments. The shotgun and rifles each went into their own case, while the pistols shared one. Herdin was checking over a set of descriptions and instructions she was including since she wouldn’t be able to explain the workings personally.

They packed everything up into a large burlap bag along with a bunch of ammunition, and handed it to Nathan before bidding him farewell. Poppy gave Nathan an elaborate bow. “May Davrar be kind and the Endings pass you by, friend of my house.” Then he blinked and reflected on the formulaic phrase. “Well, uh, sorry about…”

Beatred cut him off. “Nevermind him, the lessons of youth are vigorous.” She simply drew Nathan into a hug, pounding him on the back with great strength. “Come back to us. I want to pay back this favor and learn more of your home." She glanced at the bag of guns. "I can come by later to bind the self-destructs. Have Dalo send me a [Message]."

Herdin was last. She looked into Nathan’s eyes and grasped his forearm with a serious expression. “Nathan Lark is known to the Bhos as a friend, and we will always give you shelter and aid. Freedom and Brightness to you.” Her mouth quirked. “I am realizing I should do something nice for Vhala for bringing you to us.”

Nathan left Beatred’s workshop a few minutes later with mixed feelings, some weighty favors and a sturdy sack containing three weapon cases and several boxes of ammunition. It was heavy.

I don't think I could have carried this at all, before. But I've been doing hours of physical training every day. On Earth that wouldn't be sustainable, but here I've got [Regeneration] to help out. Wait, [Perfected Body], now. With all the complications and paranoia with Taeol and Harthi I’ve really let it drop to the perimeter of my attention. Well, time to check it out and see if I really got what I wanted!

After all, he'd built [Perfected Body] as more than a simple upgrade to [Regeneration]. It was supposed to give him a functional level of control over his own biochemistry. Not only would that allow him to deal with poison and aging, but it would hopefully allow him to improve the efficiency of almost every other part of his body.

Nathan turned downhill as he thought, looping around to take an indirect path through the steep streets of Gemore. He strongly doubted that Taeol had anybody capable of direct action with this little warning. A spy was not a hit squad. But it was worth a fifteen minute detour to render himself unpredictable on the one occasion he was unaccompanied. He kept one eye on his surroundings, relying on [Notice] to pick up anything suspicious while the rest of his attention was focused on the wording of [Perfected Body].

Permanent Talent: Perfected Body

You have achieved precise control of your body at a miniscule level. This Talent will automatically spend stamina to efficiently and immediately heal wounds. You can spend Stamina to make innate changes which include banishing poison, countering aging and restructuring your body on a miniscule level. Larger wounds, and greater changes will cost more stamina. Perfected Body will not prevent you from dying of grievous wounds.

Yeah. Definitely a significant upgrade over [Regeneration]. ‘Very rapidly heal wounds’ had become ‘efficiently and immediately heal wounds’. And Nathan had the sense that there was a lot of meaning contained in that one line about ‘restructuring’. Nathan flexed his left arm, the one that Aarl had sliced off at his request during the fight with Taeol. The arm whose regrowth he had guided with all of the Insight into human biochemistry he could muster and store in [Enhanced Memory].

That regrowth had earned him [Perfected Body], but it had done more as well. Nathan hoisted the heavy bag of weapons with his right arm, straining to curl his arm. Then he repeated the motion with his left arm, easily curling his arm up to his chin.

Huh. They don't look different. But the regrown one is a lot stronger. I think shaping the regrowth of high-density actinomycin is responsible for that. I wonder…

Nathan focused on the muscles in his right arm, trying to guide his stamina into the tissues to replicate what he'd done on the left arm. He focused on the muscle fibers, aiming to tightly and efficiently pack in the fibers of actin and myosin filaments, such that every myosin head had an efficient and proper binding interaction with a neighboring actin filament.

Too much detail, and it felt like Nathan was only succeeding at improving a single cell. Too little, and nothing was happening. It was only by leveraging his [Battle Meditation] and [Enhanced Memory] that Nathan was able to properly hold the right image of a specific improvement happening in all of the muscles of his arm. At that point, Nathan's stamina started plummeting. His right arm grew warm and uncomfortable, bones creaking slightly.

Neat. I won't have to cut off all my limbs to get the benefit. There's gotta be an upper limit on how much I can improve things, but if I systematically reinforce bones and tendons I bet it's pretty high. Need to think about ways to do that.

Nathan didn't let his stamina drop below half before he halted the exercise, feeling that his arms were close to matched in strength.

Definitely going to do more of that, when I can get more Stamina from Stella.

Nathan spent the rest of the walk brainstorming other applications of his new Talent. He could think of dozens of other ways to improve his body, from improving the air permeability of his lungs to improving myelination patterns on his peripheral nervous system. He was almost to the mansion where the Heirs and Guardians awaited when a final thought came to him.

Oh. Time to clean out any remaining toxins from Earth. No more microplastics or polyfluoroalkyl shenanigans in this Nathan, no siree.

Then he had a second thought. What if one of those toxins was the source of his antimagic? Would cleaning out toxins cripple his most potent weapon against Giantsrest?

No. It's acknowledged by Davrar now. Whatever chemical gave me the Antimagic isn't needed anymore. The Talent is the source of that power now

And with that thought, Nathan swept himself clean of one of his last connections to Earth, before he went to meet his friends.

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Magic Absorption 8

Permanent Talent 2: Perfected Body 1

Talent 3: High-tier Slow Fall 5

Class: Spellbreaker Juggernaut level 72

Stamina: 401/820

Juggernaut's Wrath

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Juggernaut's Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Utility skills:

Battle Meditation 1

High-tier Earnestness 6

Mid-tier Sprinting 7

High-tier Spellsense 5

Mid-tier Notice 10

Mid-tier Identify 8

Mid-tier Dodging Footwork 6

High-tier Enhanced Memory 5

Mid-tier Lecturing 6

Mid-tier Tumbling 3