The Alchemist Chapter 11

Chapter 11

For the next couple of days, I worked on the golem, only taking half a day off to fulfill the order of plastic to the Royal Mint. By the time Marnday rolled around, we had a golem that was working on principles I had derived—with a lot of help from actual smart people—that related to ether and its use in motion. Instead of movable joints fastened together with fasteners, I instead suggested that each part be freely rotating to produce a wider range of motion. If a small amount of this “ether” was continuously generated to hold the joints together—even when not in use—we could achieve much more flexibility than the other team’s golem.

Along with several improvements like this, we had what was probably the most advanced magic golem ever made for the competition.

The question was: would it work? Would we be able to defeat the other teams and rise through the bracket and make it to the finals?

Our golem’s main attack force was a rotating drill that was powered with hydraulic magic, operated by Canary. Jones worked with the golem’s limbs, and Moray worked with the balance. I had no part in actually operating the golem. It wasn’t that I wasn’t trusted, it was just that my power broke the rule of modification, which basically stated that the golem could not be modified after the game started.

And that’s all my ability did—modify and change states. I could create a sword but I couldn’t swing it.

I would have loved to give the golem a gun but the prototypes we worked with weren’t reliable enough with only a week’s development time.

The first game started. The other side, led by the Fishermancy guild, featured a net throwing device that tossed a woven mesh in order to try and trap our golem.

The fishermancy team’s golem was built to look like a crawling lobster. It was clear that they had spent a lot of time on its appearance. On the other hand, our golem was crude and multicolored, looking like something that had just come out of a mechanic’s shop.

We dodged the first net and landed a hit with the drill. The lobster’s arm cracked, sending pieces of stone flying everywhere. The lobster fired a second net, tangling up our golem’s legs.

Canary overcharged the drill and the net wound around it, causing it to collect in one spot. Our drill was out of commission, but the enemy golem had no more nets.

Jones slammed our golem against the lobster golem. Both claws were crushed, one of them splintering into shards. The lobster golem skittered backwards until it hit the edge of the ring.

“Oh, and it looks like the fishermancy guild has been trumped!” said the announcer. “Ten seconds until knockout!”

The announcer began to count down.

Right before he hit one, the lobster golem creaked to life, making a wobbly journey towards our rock golem.

With a single uppercut our rock golem sent the lobster golem flying in a cloud of broken pieces.

“Score!” said the announcer. “The winner is the Royal Society!”

“Ah, no,” said Canary, looking at the tangled drill arm. “That’s going to take a long time to fix.”

“Our next match is in two days,” said Moray. “We can fix it by then.”

“I dunno,” said Canary. He picked at the net that coated the drill. “Several of the key components are cracked, and the gears are stripped …”

“We’ll do what we can,” said Moray. He looked at Jones. “Let’s get to work.”

We had two days to modify and fix our robot—the modification rule only applied during battle. It was common practice to refine golems between matches.

The original drill was a goner, all of its parts stripped because of the torque applied by the stuck net. We removed it completely and built another from scratch. By the time we were finished it was the night before the next match.

That evening, at around the eight bell chime, Rachel came to visit. She smiled upon seeing me.

“That plastic the mint ordered from you,” she said. “It’s been put into circulation as currency.” She handed me a plastic coin. “This is a Pecris, worth about two cris.”

The coin was the size of an American quarter. It was considerably lighter, though, feeling like almost nothing in my hand.

“People from all over the realm have been scrambling to acquire this new material,” she said. “We need you at the shop. You’re the only one who knows how to make it.”

I looked at Moray and the rest of the Royal Scientists. “I’ll be at the competition before our match starts,” I said. “I can pull an all nighter to fulfill the requests for plastic.”

“I know you said it wasn’t a suitable material,” said Moray, “But can we at least try using this new substance in our golem?”

I had said yesterday, when Moray asked, that plastic wasn’t suited to a combat situation. It was too pliable.

“Fine,” I said. “You can try. I’ll bring by about ten dunces of it sometime tomorrow morning. That’ll be enough time to work with it and add it to the golem.” I paused. “Trust me, though. Plastic has very weak mechanical properties.”

Moray shrugged. “Bring it over. We won’t complain if we really do lose.”

“I’ll be here tomorrow before the fifth bell chime,” I said. I turned around and followed Rachel out of the workshop.

We made our way back to the item shop. Upon entering, I was greeted by a dozen people going every which way, entering the back room and exiting.

“Did you hire these people?” I asked.

“I did,” said Rachel. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t, I don’t,” I said.

Rachel smiled. “If you manage to win the churning competition, it will be great advertisement for our shop.” She winked. “I have two hundred cris on riding on you. Do me good!”

Ah, pressure, pressure …

Rachel led me into the back room. “In any case,” she said, “Our print run of the Epic of Randar is going smoothly. We have about two thirds of the pages done, and when it’s finished it’s going to look great.”

I examined the modifications that had been made to the press. “And you did this?” I said.

“With the help of several master craftsmen, of course,” said Rachel. “I don’t know enough about ink and metalworking to be of much help in those areas.”

At that moment several workers were pressing a number of pages. I took a look at one of the pages hanging from the drying rack.

“Then Randar came to the sea, and he saw, upon the waters, a manatee …”

Um, is this how poetry works in this world? I thought.

Never mind that. The contents of the book didn’t matter in this case. No Gutenberg bible for me. I didn’t know anything about the religion here and I didn’t want to know. I doubted that they would look upon my otherworldly convictions with pleasure.

In any case, I had seen what I needed to. “I’m going to take the cart to gather more oil,” I said.

“You don’t have to worry about the people who were living on the plot where you extracted this substance from,” said Rachel. “We’ve kicked them off the land.”

“Did you at least pay them reasonable compensation?” I said.

“Reasonable …” said Rachel. “I thought you knew that we don’t have to compensate peasants for the land they live on. It’s not theirs.”

“I at least want them to have something to live on!” I said.

Rachel looked a bit confused. “Why do you care about some lowly poor? What can they gain you?”

“Nothing!” I said. “Just, please tell me where they are now.”

“They left the city last night,” said Rachel. “I don’t think you’ll be able to find them.”

I took out my communication device. “Claude!” I said. “I’m calling in a favor. Can I borrow Hypo for an hour?”

“Sure thing,” said Claude. “What is this for?”

“I need to find someone and give them what they deserve,” I said.

“You know that it wasn’t their land, right?” said Rachel. “It belonged to Lord Devanor.”

“We still need to help them after uprooting them and sending them off without anything,” I said.

“There are hundreds of people in this same situation,” said Rachel, looking a bit confused. “What are you going to do about them?”

“These people are connected to me,” I said. “I have to at least cover my own conscience.”

Rachel sighed. “I won’t stop you, then. How much are you planning to give them?”

“At least fifty cris,” I said.

“The land was worth around seventy,” said Rachel.

“Seventy then,” I said.

At that moment the ground shook a bit. I left the shop to greet Hypo, who had landed in front of the door. A note was attached to his saddle.

“Hypo knows the way home,” the letter said. “Just dismount in the city and he’ll return.”

I climbed onto the griffon.

“Don’t be gone too long!” said Rachel, as I took off.

We flew over the city and to the Eastern road, the one that those peasants’ farm had been on. I assumed that this was the most reasonable trajectory they would take.

I was right. I spotted the couple and their two kids trudging along the road about five miles from the city. I landed in front of them, to their great surprise.

“Eh, it’s that fellow!” said the father.

I tossed them a bag of coins. “That’s for your land,” I said. “Try not to lose it to thieves.”

The mother knelt down and folded her hands. “Thank ye, saint,” she said.

I nodded. “Don’t forget to pay it onwards,” I said, as Hypo lifted off again.

The family watched me rise into the sky and return to the city. The whole process took less than half an hour. After I landed in front of the shop, I gave Rachel a thumbs-up.

“You realize your charity is probably going to go to waste, right?” said Rachel.

“I don’t care,” I said. “I just want to do what’s right.”

Rachel sighed. “I went through a lot of trouble to acquire that land,” she said. “And you just make more trouble all the time.”

I shrugged. “Well, if it all works out in the end, does it matter?”

Rachel crossed her arms. Then she motioned with her chin towards the other side of the street.

Four large horse carts, stacked with barrels, were lined up along the road.

“Are these what I’m going to fill?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Rachel. “Several people have already tried to dig in the ground where you pulled this oil from. Even though they haven’t found anything yet, I’ve taken the liberty to hire guards.’

“Thanks, Rachel,” I said. “You’re the best.”

“Just go and collect the oil,” said Rachel. “We have a lot of orders to fill.” She sighed. “And then you can play with golems.”

“Great,” I said, hopping onto the foremost barrel cart.

We left the city and came to the oil field. The house had been demolished, and all the trees were cut down, leaving a barren field stretching several acres in each direction.

I got off the cart and knelt on the ground. Plenty of oil left, I thought. I gathered enough to fill all the barrels of the four carts, and then we returned to the city to process it.

All I could think of the whole time was getting back to building golems.

Well, I wouldn’t have to wait long for that at all.