Last night turned into a bit of a haze in my mind. The absolute exhaustion and the subsequent healing heated my body to the point of a high fever, and at some point—after eating more than ten scavengers—the process finally stopped.
I remember wandering like a zombie to the bed. I was just about to plop down on it when Owl decided to give me the cold bucket treatment. Literally.
I was too sweaty and would dirty the bed, so he dumped a bucket of cold water on my head and called it good enough. I fell into bed and slept all night with no dreams. I hadn't had any more since that strangely prophetic one.
I woke up feeling invigorated, my whole body brimming with new strength.
I practically jumped out of bed and looked at myself in the mirror.
I was toned now, my muscles almost twice as strong as before. And… I had gotten taller. I had nothing to measure myself with, but I must have grown by a good inch or two.
The body-training ritual had been transformative; I looked almost like a new person after it. Though I should be more careful. Were it not for Owl taking a trip to the sewers to hunt scavengers, I would probably have died of hunger.
Yeah, there's that too. I never thought I would have a feast of sewer rats, but—choosing to believe Owl's words—they were "surprisingly clean" now, since there were no more residents making use of the sewer system.
There was only one more thing to take a look at now… my leg. I sat back on the bed. I couldn't ignore how little it hurt. The injury was still there—it revealed itself after I took off the bandages—but it had become much, much smaller. It had scabbed and was already halfway to becoming a scar. This was definitely better than expected.
'Maybe I won't even have to go through twenty rituals after all? The book mentioned that being the average number of rituals for Orvelis, but I'm not one.'
I was itching to test out my body. I wished I could just run a lap now, see how fast I'd gotten.
'I'm sure I can beat my best time by a landslide right now.'
I got out of the room into an empty workshop. Owl was out.
'I guess he went out hunting again. I'm not really hungry and I probably shouldn't leave…' I sighed. Having to contain my urge to run like this felt terrible.
'Wait! Maybe… maybe I can do that right now!'
I went back to my room and fished out "Basic Enchantments and Simple Rituals" from my backpack. I started blitzing through the pages, hunting for specific runes. I'd had the idea to make a grenade back when we were still on our way to the hideout. I could give that a try now.
I obviously wouldn't be able to make anything too elaborate, and I only had one core to work with. I didn't think Owl would give me any others, either. Their cost was incredibly high; every one of them had to be gathered from one of the skinless, and they posed a threat even to him.
So… I wanted to create something that could be used in an emergency and wouldn't go off by accident. It had to be stronger than the core exploding on its own, and it had to have a fuse so it wouldn't blow up in my hands after activation.
I picked up one of my notebooks and started scribbling runes on a page, thinking through a design. I couldn't attempt any complex shape for the grenade either; I still had to make it myself, and I was no blacksmith.
'Maybe that blacksmith assistant position wouldn't be too bad, for a time. I'm going to need to protect myself if I want to find my way back home.'
I went out into the workshop, looking over whatever Owl had for materials.
'Surely he wouldn't mind if I take a few things… right? Worst-case scenario I'll just scavenge the houses around here for what I need.'
I needed a casing and fragments. The casing had to be hollow so I could stuff it full of fragments. The fragments needed to be hard—hopefully even harder than iron—to cause as much damage as possible. The casing needed to be softer, so it would give in to the explosion easily.
Fragments were easy enough to find. Owl had tons of materials lying around; a box held something similar to steel, probably what he fashioned his arrowheads from. There were many pieces I imagined were too small to be of use. Maybe he would smelt them later into a bigger piece. But for now, he wouldn't really miss them.
I picked up twenty pieces and used a file to form them into rough spheres. That alone took a few hours. The workshop filled with the rasp of metal on metal, filings dusting my fingers. I cleaned up the mess, then decided to go to the house above to scavenge something I knew would work perfectly for a casing.
I made my way upstairs, carefully sneaking around. The house creaked in the quiet, the air faintly sour with old smoke and dust. Taking a quick look out onto the street, I saw bodies of husks strewn about—one, two… four of them—still as dropped marionettes. I turned and went toward the kitchen. This house was pretty much picked clean; even most pans and pots were missing. But I found what I was looking for: a copper saucepan.
Shoving it in my bag, I returned downstairs. There was no time to dally; I had to get this done before Owl came back. I had the distinct impression he didn't want me messing with his tools.
Cold-hammering the copper pan into a hollow shell was harder than I'd imagined. I had no experience with forging at all, and the material behaved in ways that didn't make much sense to me. It buckled and work-hardened, and I had to rework the same areas several times, using the lingering heat of the forge to soften the copper again. But I got it done. It was ugly and had some parts thicker than others; it wouldn't work exactly as I hoped, yet I had to call it good enough for now.
I made another piece out of the pan: a lid. The grenade was small enough that I hadn't used even the whole pan. The main body of the grenade was a hollow sphere with a quarter of it missing; through that opening I loaded the fragments. Opposite the hole, I fixed the point of a nail as a striker. I used a saw and a hole punch to make notches so the lid would sit in place. On the lid I made an indentation. The plan was to load the core into the indentation, then click the grenade closed—hopefully throwing it before it exploded in my hand.
Now for the final part: carving the runes.
I decided to carve part of the mechanism on the lid and the other part on the rest of the grenade. Only when I closed it would the circuit close. With a carving tool—and the patience of a saint I definitely wasn't—I traced the pathways to complete a few effects.
First: a timer rune that would start when the lid—with the core—locked into place.
Second: a noisemaker—it was described as deafeningly loud—set to let out a screech when powered. If the blast didn't end the problem, maybe the noise would create enough chaos for me to run away. I also half-hoped I could use the grenade to attract several skinless and kill them in one explosion; that would make the cost of one core worth it. Though I knew that was wishful thinking.
Finally: a repulsion mechanism. The most important part of the grenade, it was inscribed on the lid and acted as the final segment of the sequence. When the energy looped back toward the core and completed the circuit, it would propel the core forward into the nail spike on the opposite side of the lid, creating a crack on it and initiating the core explosion.
The only caveat to the whole thing was structural: so that the lid would withstand the pressure of the repulsion, I had to design the closure to crimp shut. It wouldn't reopen once it was closed. So once armed, the device was committed to explode. The whole thing could still fail, of course, but I considered it a superior option to just… biting down on the core.
After cleaning up the mess I made in the workshop and setting all tools back in place, I went back to my room and sat cross-legged on my bed.
Lying on the mattress in front of me was a round sphere; the working blows of the hammer could be clearly seen on its surface. It was amateurish and ugly; the sphere wasn't even perfect. The runes carved into it lacked the graceful artisanship of Owl's. But it still meant a lot. It meant not being defenseless, not breaking the promise I made to myself. I would not be helpless again. I felt the winds starting to blow in my favor.
With a grin I couldn't hide, I stuffed the grenade and lid into my backpack.
'Now... I can't depend on Owl for food forever; he's already helped me too much.'
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I would go out into the sewers myself and find my own food.
'Then, I'll get even stronger.'