Bookworld Online: Marsh Man

Bokuboy

It took half an hour to brew the first batch of number ten potions, during which I had easily peeled all of the springy trees. Gary started cutting them up to the right length and using number ten potion to attach the cut pieces together. Once he laid them into the three molds, I poured in the number ten potion to make them into a flat surface on one side.

I cut a coin from the wildwood log and used number ten potion to fill the last mold. It was then that I saw the problem. We would quickly outpace the creation of ammunition and there wouldn't be enough wildwood ready to carve the enchantments into if I didn't make more molds. I made three more molds that were five feet by five feet and treated it with waterproofing potion to prepare it.

I cut three more coins off and filled them with potion to the same depth as the thickness of the piece of wildwood. I started brewing more potion in the two emptied pots, just so there would always be pots of potion to use. A construction crew came over with twelve prepared barrels for catapult ammunition and used up six of my pots of number ten potion, so I had to brew them up again.

The first kracken tubes dried and we popped them out. Another crew came over to us and dropped off a cart full of the right sized logs for kracken tube ammunition and I thanked them. We used them to roll the kracken tubes into the right shape and sealed them, then handed them off to the other construction crew that was building the miniature catapults.

We had it down to a very efficient system, just as Gary had suggested, and we worked diligently and consistently for the next eleven hours. We lost a combined hour for lunch and supper, which left us with ten solid hours of work. With twelve tubes completed every half an hour, that was 240 kracken tubes we had done by the end of the day.

I also filled a hundred barrels of number ten potion and completely restocked all of the catapults in both port towns and the forward defensive bases. The other construction crewmen left to go back to their living areas when the normal work day ended. I didn't stop working myself, because like Mage Henrietta said, I always worked sixteen hour days. I spent the next two hours cutting up the five foot by five foot wildwood squares into tiny four inch wide squares.

There were eighty of the things, which had amazed the other guys, and each of the large squares when cut up would give me 225 small squares. By the time I was done, I had 18,000 of the damn things. I had to use the spinning trick to carve them into circles with each of them, so I spent the next two hours doing just that. I only managed to carve about five thousand of them and then I was too tired to keep going.

I put my work aside into the neat stacks I had made for easy counting and then went to my bed. I felt the eyes that had been watching me fade away and I let a sigh out. I knew whoever it was would report to the Colonel that I was actually working hard and not slacking off like she thought I was doing. I had already asked for the weight mage to come and work the next day and he would start carving the weight enchantments on the small coins I had already made.

I would need to take the time to make the movement enchantments as well, that way there would be some ready ammunition for the kracken tubes to be distributed to the designated areas the Colonel wanted them. The tubes themselves were already in place and the crews tending to them were desperate to have ammunition as soon as possible.

I took my pack off and my wooden leg. I sat down on the bed and sighed again as I rubbed my red and inflamed stub just below the knee. I took a small sip of healing potion and rubbed a little onto the stub, then I dug into my pack and pulled out the potion book. I had a stack of paper and a pencil beside my bed and I quickly copied out the recipe from the book. I stashed the book away again and took out some of the smoked meat.

I chewed on the tough water beast meat that would have been better as jerky, and went out to the potion section of my work area. I still had all twelve pots filled with number ten potion and grabbed a few scrap pieces of wood. I went back to my sleeping area and quickly made a small bench with a hidden compartment inside. I took out the sealed half filled canvas bag of rare ingredients and spent an hour properly prepping them for brewing.

I wasn't going to risk making a batch in one of the large stewing pots out in the open, because that was just asking for trouble. I would need to make a small area here inside my small sleeping area, something easily hidden from prying eyes. I looked at the wooden floor and smiled, because it was built up above the ground to stop the boards from rotting quickly.

I easily used my knife to cut out an appropriate sized hole, used number ten potion to attach the boards together to make it like a hatch, then added small supports underneath to hold it in place when I covered it again. I popped one of the knots out of the wood and that created a convenient finger hold and my hidden cover was done.

I laid down on the floor and gathered some small stones together and used some number ten potion to attach them and made an impromptu mold, then filled it in to make a nice base for a little fire that also wouldn't catch the surrounding space on fire. I wasn't stupid enough to not be mindful of fire hazards.

I wanted to brew a small pot of potion and not get caught, so I made it as safe as a secret fire could be. I even added a kind of tunnel over to the spot where the actual smoke rose out of the potions area, which always had smoke coming out of it. No one should know what I was doing and it was sure going to be a surprise if it worked. Well, for those I told about it, anyway.

Once I had that all set up, I left my building and went to the blacksmith. The Colonel had hired one to repair all of the damaged equipment and the guy worked for a reasonable wage, which was surprising, because usually people would charge double or even triple the normal price for the army. He was a foreign citizen and his dark skin color from being out in the sun for years, made him stand out from everyone else.

Unfortunately, my own tan was starting to fade from staying inside for too long. I really needed to get away from having to work my ass off for no benefit, in an environment that wasn't helping me thrive. The guy didn't wake up as I entered his area and I grabbed a metal rack and a small pot. It was a good thickness, so I wouldn't have to use number ten potion to thicken it up.

I also took some tending tools and then wrote down what I took, so the blacksmith wouldn't think he was robbed, and I wrapped the note around a gold coin. That was about three times what everything was worth and I hoped he understood what the extra money meant. He was to keep quiet about it. I carefully slipped it into his shirt pocket and left it sticking out, where it could clearly be seen when he woke up. I left there and went back to my sleeping area and I was glad that no one had seen me.

I had lots of wildwood pieces from making the squares into circles, so I took some into my room and started the fire. I placed the rack and small pot on the fire, added some water, and let it simmer up to the right temperature. At least, I hoped it was the right temperature. I wouldn't really know until I finished rewriting the recipe with the ingredients I had access to.

I sat down on my bed and used another piece of parchment to check the book for the ingredients in the original potion and reminded myself of what each one did. I quickly wrote out the common equivalent, some of which were duplicated because of similar properties. It also needed an equivalent healing potion, a weakened strength potion, some parts of the fortifying potion (which was a bit scary, considering how the last one went when I consumed it), and the ingredients for a general health potion.

It was one of the most complicated potions I had ever encountered and there were so many steps and procedures to go through, that the chance of failure was very high. I suspected that the substitutions I had to use and compensate for, would increase that chance to a phenomenal degree, so I needed to be extra careful. I did not want to screw this up too many times, not with the very limited resources and ingredients I currently had.

It took me a long time to work out the substitutions, the changes in the brewing times, and the order in which things had to be added. One step had to be removed completely, because of the redundancy of the second health potion that covered a different area than the first, both of which my single health potion could be used instead. It still required that simmering time to congeal the other ingredients together, however.

To use Gary's words, it was a pain in the ass figuring it all out. I looked at the third piece of parchment with the final form of the recipe on it and was satisfied with the result. It was still quite long and complicated, with the only difference that it contained all of the things that I had already gathered.

With that monumental task done, I realized it was very late into the night, or to be more accurate, very early into the morning. I sighed and quickly extinguished the fire and that stopped the simmering pot of water that I hadn't been able to use. I covered the secret hole and stashed everything else back into my pack.

The downside of what I was doing was that I was only going to be able to work on it at night and I needed to be careful about it. I did not want to be discovered brewing secret potions because I was in enough trouble already.

I laid down and closed my eyes and it was suddenly morning. I barely slept, guessed it was only about three hours, and I wasn't as eager in my walk as I normally was when I left my sleeping area.

“You look terrible.” Gary said and I pointed to the stacks of cut small coins. “Good lord.” He said and went over to them. “David, you... why would you...”

I leaned close to whisper. “Eyes everywhere.”

Gary looked surprised for a moment, then he sighed. “She must want to make sure that you're not stalling her on purpose.”

“If I was going to do that, I would have accepted her stockade punishment and all of the supplies we gathered would still be sitting there, unused.”

Gary gave me a knowing look. “The ingredients would be useless, just like that first batch she had gathered at the old garrison while you were training.”

I nodded. “If they aren't prepped for storage within a day of being picked, they wilt and lose potency for every day they sit.”

“No wonder you worked so hard yesterday.” Gary said. “I've never seen anyone infuse that many potions in a day. Ever.”

“I bet the Mages Guild has.” I said. “The number of potion batches I mean, not one person doing them. Even Mage Lukas could only do seven before being exhausted.”

Gary shook his head. “I can't even imagine the powerful spells you can cast.”

“I can only do starter spells according to Mage Henrietta. Lock, unlock, and start fire. I can also use Dispel and that confused her. She said that it was a level three mage spell and it's only taught in the defense course in the capital during the third year.”

Gary gave me a disbelieving look. “How can you only do basic magic?”

“I never learned how.” I said with a shrug and leaned in close to whisper again. “Mage Henrietta tried to get me to learn from the spell book she had and I couldn't understand it at all.”

“Wait, what? You're smart, David. How can you not understand it?”

“It's a completely different way of thinking from how I was taught.” I said. “I can't explain it and neither can she, and she's pretty smart, too.”

Gary shook his head again. “Come on. Let's go grab something to eat and get back to work.”

“We need about 9,000 logs of the right size for ammunition.” I said and he took in a sharp breath. “I know that sounds like a lot...”

“It's a MASSIVE amount!”

“With 240 kracken tubes, that's only 37 shots for each of them with some left over.” I said.

Gary looked stunned. “But... no, you're right. Added together it's a huge amount. Only doing up 37 for each of them and giving them those as the only ammunition they are going to get...” He sighed. “We are going to need to cut down more trees.”

“It's not that bad. They can be retrieved and reused if they are mostly intact.” I reassured him.

“It's a good thing we have a blacksmith close by. He can dip the sharpened tips into molten metal and that'll ensure a lot will survive the impact with the enemy.” Gary clapped my shoulder and let me use his arm as a brace. “They'll never know what hit them if they attack us again.”

“When.” I corrected and Gary fell silent. He knew it was coming, as did everyone that was stationed at all of the forward defense bases.