Rescue

by R. A. Mejia

  Talking privately at home that night, Sonya was angry not that I’d hurt her. That was the point of the practice battle. She was angry that I thought she needed me to go easy on her and that I would be stupid enough to take any opponent so lightly. The next time we fight, coincidently the next day, I don’t hold anything back. I use every trick I know. Every spell. Every special move. She still kicks my butt, but at least she knows I respect her enough to fight her with everything I have. She shows me just how much she appreciates my respect several times that night. Wowie.

  One of the other most pivotal training matches involves Vrax and myself. Only, we aren’t opponents, since, as my slave, he can never fight me. We are partners in a team match. The two of us fight against two and sometimes three other gladiators in several practice matches. Vrax, having been trained as a Bestiarius, focuses on just two weapons: the spear and the knife. This lets him catch up to me in terms of skill with the spear, and he’s always been better with a knife than I am. Together, the two of us having fought for such a long time, we are a great team.

  Vrax has become the perfect mix of tank and DPS. He uses his spear to keep opponents at bay while I range attack them by throwing my pilum. Alternatively, I’ll play the tank using a setup similar to the Murmillo, only replacing the gladius with a spear. We both use the extra protection afforded me by the armor and shield to stay safe from the attacks of our opponents while using the reach of our spears to harass them. We even pull the old vanishing act: letting Vrax use his stealth abilities while hiding behind me out of sight then reappearing behind the enemy for a devastating [Backstab] with his knife.

  It becomes slightly more complicated when the Lanista adds in a third opponent to the opposing group, but even then, it is more a matter of managing to quickly take down at least one opponent before we are overwhelmed. The elemental grenades give me a great opportunity to damage multiple opponents when I used them against groups. Even better, the shared stun or push back effects disable more than one opponent at a time, making taking groups out even easier.

  My practice bouts against Agrippa are definitely the most challenging. The guy specialized as a Murmillo, or as I call them in my head, ‘a fish guy.’ However, there is nothing funny about the tank build. The Murmillones are an interesting mix of tank and damage dealer. They have just enough good armor covering them that, combined with their door-sized tower shield, they are very well protected from a frontal attack. Their only real weakness is the limited vision imposed by their particular style of helmet, and if you can get to them, their completely-unarmored torso, neck, and thighs.

  Boy, does Agrippa show me the strengths of the specialization. He batters me to all heck any time I let him get close enough to swing his wooden gladius.

  Now, as much fun as Agrippa has beating me up, I’ll admit that I learn from him. I figure out quickly to watch for his charge ability and to be somewhere besides the straight line it attacks in. I learned that the Murmillones also have several other shield-based abilities that they’re taught as a standard package, like [Shield Bash], [Taunt], and [Stun] moves. Agrippa, in particular, uses these moves to disable an opponent and follow up with sword abilities like [Triple Strike], [Slash], and [Pierce]. Once he even uses a whirlwind ability that sends him spinning like a top, but it isn’t particularly effective since all I have to do is fall back and stay out of its way until the ability ends. Then I come in with my own weapons while he is dizzy from using the ability. That teaches me to look out for the weaknesses in any ability an opponent uses, especially powerful ones.

  Eventually, I come up with my own counter-strategy to his fighting style: stay out of range of his weapon and move constantly. Make him work to even see me. I counter the effective use of his shield with the pilum, throwing the bendable spears until the sheer weight of them dragging on his shield forces him to drop the object, not that it makes him less dangerous, being without a shield. It just makes it easier to hit his vulnerable areas. From there, if I have any ranged attacks left, I can throw the spears until he runs out of health. Or, with a normal spear, I can attack at a distance and whittle away his health.

  However, what really drives the guy crazy is whenever I use one of my elemental grenades. I try to switch them up, making him a very convenient test subject. Quicksand is a favorite of mine since it is extra effective with his weighty armor. A push grenade, is useful when I needed to create some space or push him into a particular area. The other damage-type elemental grenades honestly aren’t that useful. His heavy armor and hit points make them less effective than simply attacking him directly with a weapon.

  I want to start creating magically-enhanced weapons, but the Lanista forbids it, saying that such weapons would cost points I just didn’t have yet, so it’s better to not train with them and become dependent on their abilities. Still, nothing stops me from making the weapons for others. As a member of the Familia Pontius, I am not supposed to make a profit selling to my fellow gladiators, but I at least recover the costs in time, labor, and materials making custom items.

  Everyone that wants one gets a spell-engraved weapon similar to Vrax’s Short Sword of Burning. They bring their chosen weapon, and I add some kind of elemental damage to it. The cost to get this done in the marketplace is almost a gold, so most of the folks that train here just wouldn’t have the money normally. But, since I’m only charging twenty silver for the service, many of the trainees take advantage of the offer. Even Agrippa gets his gladius spell-engraved with a fire effect. In all, I make seven weapons, which cost me 280 XP to make. But my skill in [Magical Engraving] goes up to Novice level 9, and I actually have to visit a magical engraver to get to Beginner rank in the skill. The only benefit at Beginner rank is that engraving begins to cost less mana and XP.

  Magical Engraving

  This skill allows the user to engrave magical spells onto an item at the cost of the user’s experience points. The more complex the spell or item, the higher the experience point cost.

  Beginner 1 - Magical engraving costs 10% less experience points. Mana cost to engrave is 1% less.

  All told, minus the cost to raise my rank in [Magical Engraving], I make a whole gold and twenty silver. But I now have to earn 605 XP to get to level 6. All the other training I’ve been doing benefits me too. I increase strength, constitution, and dexterity by one point. Additionally, I raise my skills with the spear and shield by one and gain the skill for throwing spears.

  In addition to elemental grenades, my own magic gets incorporated into my fighting style. Healing in the ring is forbidden, and if done, ends the match, but any other ability or spell is allowed at a certain match level, so I try to incorporate my spellwriting. I have to focus on burst attacks, where the spellwriting can be done quickly and a set amount of mana is used instead of a steady stream of it. Elemental attacks done in this way are effective, if still demanding a heavy mana cost. A flame burst, for example, costs 10 mana for 5-7 damage or 30 mana for 13-18 damage. At my current mana pool of sixty-nine, that means I can only cast an offensive burst spell a few times.

  With my new wealth in hand, I take the Lanista’s advice and visit the marketplace in town. There are a multitude of trainers there, much more than I ever found in Restrian. There are trainers in just about every kind of combat or magic style you could imagine. The only real problem for me is that using them costs more money than I feel comfortable spending without talking to the group. After all, we’re pooling our resources to make this mission a success, and we still have a lot of expenses.

  Chapter 28

  That night, I head home to speak to the group about what’s happening with our finances. I hand over the money I made from making magically-engraved weapons to our treasurer, Mary. She informs us that, after taking out this month’s expenses, our group has a total of ten silver left. I burst out laughing at how quickly the money I brought in vanished.

  “What in the world happened to all our money? I know you and Keans have been working this past month sel
ling off the healing charms I made.”

  Mary makes a face and looks over to Keans, only to find an empty spot where he was just sitting a moment ago. She yells, “Coward!” then turns back to me with a look of chagrin. “The healing charms you made didn’t really sell for as much as they did in Restrian. Turns out that it’s just more effective to visit one of the many healers in town. We ended up taking out a loan from the Adventurer’s Guild to cover the rest of the expenses for last month.”

  My eyes widen. “You took out a loan? Without telling us?”

  Mary winces at the accusation. “Well, yeah. But the good news is that, with this money, we can pay back the loan, and we have enough to cover this month.”

  I slap my forehead. “Yeah, but I can’t keep doing this kind of magical engraving. To earn this, it cost me 280XP. We need to figure out some better way to make money, or I’ll end up back at level four just keeping up with the bills.”

  Together, the four of us bounce business ideas off each other. Sonya suggests increasing my blacksmithing skill and making weapons, which isn’t a bad idea, except that it would take too much time to build up the skill to be able to compete against the many weapons vendors in the city. Vrax suggests opening a food stall. Everyone likes food, after all. The only problem there is that, again, there’s an abundance of competition. No, we need something no one else has. Something innovative. Something people haven’t seen before.

  That’s when it hits me. Of course, I have a whole world full ideas that I can pull from. Thinking of all the the amazing things from my world, I start to dismiss the most advanced ones. There’s no way I can invent the computer or the Internet. Instead, I focus on inventions from several hundred years ago, things that caught on in popularity once someone came up with them. Hmmm . . . I don’t think I can make trains, at least not without a lot of other tech first. Maybe an engine? I mean, I could create controlled magical explosions that move the pistons to power it. No, that’s still a long-term research project. There are too many variables that I’d have to test out. I need something relatively easy to make but still semi-revolutionary.

  A cold breeze passes over me, and I shiver. And just like that, it comes to me. Cold? Why, of course! I’ve already thought of the idea, but I’d just kind of forgotten about it. I previously experimented with a refrigerator, or more accurately, a magical cold box. On our way to Trinitarian, I used spellwriting to freeze water and thus prove it was possible to use magic to make ice. All I really have to do is apply that to some kind of insulated structure, and--bam!--you have a magical cold box.

  I get to work immediately. I have Keans, when he finally returns, purchase a wooden container. I magically engrave the arcane symbols for ‘remove’ and ‘fire’ onto it. It costs me 60 mana and 60 XP. The mana is easily recoverable with a small rest, but the XP is lost permanently. Which really sucks since it puts me even farther from level 6.

  The first attempt to put water into the wooden container is a complete failure. The wood is just not watertight. Keans and I coat the inside of the wooden box with pitch to make sure it can hold water. Applying the sticky black pitch is a smelly and dirty job, but it works. After the pitch dries, we successfully poor water into the container. Unfortunately, when I try to activate the magical engraving, the water doesn’t freeze. Instead, the pitch we applied over the engraving cracks as heat is drawn from it, and I realize that the engraving has to touch the water for it to work. After cutting away the pitch covering the magical engraving, I get the enchantment to function as desired. Slowly, heat is removed from the water. I pour more mana into the enchantment, and the water starts to form an ice layer. Unfortunately, all that heat being pulled from the water has to go somewhere, and it’s transferred through the wood. The wood starts to darken, and then it actually catches fire as all that thermal energy is transferred through it. That’s right: on one side of the crate, slowly freezing water; on the other, burning wood. I think there’s a metaphor there about balance in the universe, but I’m honestly too annoyed to appreciate it.

  As I fume over our destroyed prototype, I slap my head at my own stupidity. You’d really think all that wisdom and intelligence I have would help me not make mistakes like this. I just wasted 60 XP experimenting on a design for a new creation when I have a whole class devoted to reducing that kind of cost. In my excitement, I’d completely forgotten about the [Design Mode] of my artificer class. I’d only been using it to make elemental grenades, so I’d subconsciously pegged it as a tool for that job. Plus, who says I have to just stick to the stuff I have? [Design Mode], I can make anything using all my skills and abilities.

  I open the design mode interface and get to work. I’ve already realized that using a wooden box is not the best idea. The material just can’t handle the heat transference. Instead, I scan in the box but change the material to metal, iron specifically since it’s plentiful and relatively cheap. But, once I apply the magical engraving, I find the mana cost to freeze water poured into the container way too high. The metal doesn’t catch fire, but I wonder why it’s so expensive to freeze water. Then I remember that the heat is transferred through the material the engraving is made on. Perhaps a material better suited to heat transfer will be more efficient. I have to scan in several types of material found in the blacksmith’s shop to test which conducts heat best, and the winner turns out to be copper. Which makes sense. I remember copper bathtubs and pipes being very popular. I apply the material to the box design and am stunned by the difference. Not only does the water cost less mana to freeze, but it also freezes about ten times faster. There’s loads of information on the level of copper purity, material weight, mass and more, but I ignore all that since it’s only the mana costs I’m interested in at the moment.

  Water Freeze Box - Copper edition

  Dimensions: 1ft x 1ft x 1ft

  Mana cost to engrave: 60 mana

  XP cost to engrave: 60 XP

  Mana cost to activate: 30 + 5 mana per minute

  Time to freeze: 5 min.

  I mess around with the dimensions of the design and find that, the bigger the box, the longer it takes to freeze the water. As is, it’ll take most of my mana to freeze a cubic foot of water solid. Still, it’s pretty fast. If I drop this freezing box into a larger insulated cabinet, then I have an ice box. People can spend mana to refreeze the water daily and keep everything stored in the box cold. It’s an igneous idea that I totally stole from earth history.

  Making the box out of copper is actually the biggest challenge for me. My blacksmithing skills aren’t great, and I end up getting the smith’s help in making the first box. My blacksmithing skill goes up to Novice level 6, but the material cost for the copper comes out of our group funds. Still, 60 XP later, we have the next prototype. Testing it proves spending that time in [Design Mode] was time well spent. I apply mana to the spell engraving, and heat radiates off the copper box while the water inside cools. There are few leaks, but those are quickly patched up with a little spellwriting. Five minutes later, I have a block of ice.

  Block of Ice

  It’s a block of frozen water. What else do you need to know?

  Durability: 5/5

  Charles, the blacksmith, is quite amazed at the results of my experimentation. “Well, I’ll be a goblin’s uncle. That’s a right fancy device you have there, making ice like that.” I’m beaming with pride at the compliment. He leans down and touches the block of frozen water with a finger and continues, “I wonder if the Ice Hauler’s Guild will pay you for it?”

  “The Ice Hauler’s Guild?”

  “Yeah. You know, the fellows that bring ice down from the mountains in those big wagons? They sell it to the rich people in town.”

  My jubilation with my invention is quickly turning into disappointment. Why had I thought there wouldn’t be people doing that? “Uh . . . I don’t suppose these rich people have ice boxes do they?”

  “Huh? No.” I breathe a sigh of relief, at least until he continues: “They have
cold boxes. That’s what they use that ice for: put it in with their food to make it cold.”

  That’s it. There goes my whole plan to make a refrigerator unit.

  Charles, either unaware of my disappointment or not caring, continues to talk to himself. “Still, that ice stuff is expensive to haul all the way down here. Maybe you can sell them some of these boxes, and they can make ice here instead of shipping it in?”

  Then a new idea occurs to me, and I ask, “Charles, do only rich people have cold boxes? Are they that expensive to buy?”

  He purses his lips, thinking. “No, they can’t be that expensive to make. I’ve seen them before. A double-layered wooden cabinet with sawdust stuffed between layers. Not very special on its own, but because they’re being sold to people with money, they look quite pretty with all the woodwork on the outside. What makes it so expensive is the ice. Darn stuff costs three or four silver for something the size of what you made there.”

  That statement cinches it for me. We won’t go into the refrigerator business. We’ll go into the ice-making business!

  And so it goes. Our little group of entrepreneurs goes into business. We have to create an ice market that is not only for rich people, but also the general populace. We want every single household in the city to buy ice every week, but that’s a long-term plan. First we have to start selling it.