The Alchemist Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Claude came by later that day. “I heard you’re starting something called a “newspaper,”” she said. “And that you’re hiring for a job called “reporting.””

“Yes,” I said. “Do you know what this job entails?”

Claude shook her head. “No. Just that it would involve a lot of traveling.”

“Great,” I said. “If you like to travel on someone else’s dime, then being a reporter is great for you.” I paused. “I have a question. How far do magical communications devices go?”

“Very far,” said Claude. “Enough so that communication wouldn’t be an object. The thing I want to know is how you’re going to get people to the interesting places while the interesting things happen. Hypo is fast, and there’s only one of him. It takes a sky ship weeks to get from the Capital to Brownfield. And they’re relatively close.”

“We’ll solve that later,” I said. “When I’ll introduce you to trains. For now, we can subsist on local news that won’t require a serious amount of travel. If something huge happens, like a coup, then time sensitivity won’t be a problem.”

“Trains?” said Claude. “Explain.”

I shook my head. “Too complicated. You don’t even know what a steam engine is yet.”

“I’ll trust you, then,” said Claude. She turned away. “And I’m interested. I’d like to become a reporter.”

“You too?” I said. “I mean, I had guessed, but …”

Claude smiled. “Getting around and figuring out what’s happening is my specialty. Plus, I can read and write.”

I nodded. “Great,” I said. “Welcome aboard.”

Claude turned away. “I have a few things to take care of. Call me on my magical communicator when you need me.”

“One last question,” I said. “About magical communicators. Can everyone use them?”

“Mostly, yes,” said Claude. “But each one can only link to a couple of others. They’re built in sets.”

“So there’s no comprehensive way to communicate things long distance for normal people?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Claude. “Plus, one has to have manifested magic powers to use them.”

“So normal people can’t use magic to communicate?”

“For the most part,” said Claude.

“Great,” I said. “Since we don’t have electricity yet, I can’t create a telegraph. However, I have an idea for a business that will help our reporting and newspaper. Semaphore relays.”

“Isn’t that how ships communicate?” said Claude.

“Exactly,” I said. “If we can set up a relay system of semaphore flags, we can transmit information quickly across open ground.”

“Hm,” said Claude. “I’d talk this over with Moray and Rachel if I were you.”

I nodded. “Understood,” I said.

Claude smiled, bowed, and left the shop. I went into the back to see Rachel.

“Are we getting somewhere with the cat photos?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Rachel, showing me a print from the cat photo Woodburytype. “However, we have a problem. Who is going to want so many of these posters?”

“We can make different ones,” I said. “Or we can bundle them with calendars.”

“Okay?” said Rachel. “I think that may work. I wasn’t thinking past this first printing of posters.”

“One last thing,” I said. “There’s a game from my home sphere that is played with cards. Do you have decks of cards in this world?”

“Cards?” said Rachel. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I grinned. “You’re going to love what I’m going to show you.”

I spent the next couple of hours drafting out print blocks for a standard deck of playing cards. When I was finished, I washed my dirty hands and manually printed out a full deck of playing cards. I tried shuffling them to get a feel for their durability. They weren’t the prettiest, but they did work. I ushered Rachel to a table, and taught her the simplest game I could think of: Go Fish.

After the first game, Rachel was hooked. Every time we finished she demanded another game. We were playing for an hour before some of the shop workers came to investigate. I then gathered them all, told them that the day was off, and we played Texas Hold’em for the rest of the day.

“There’s a lot of money here,” said Rachel, when we were done. “This is better than gambling with dice. A lot more fun, too.”

“I know,” I said. “And there are hundreds more games you can play with these cards. Bridge, BS, regular poker, and Peanuts.”

“They’re very versatile,” said Rachel. “I think we can make a fortune off of these.” She stood up. “I’m heading to the guild to license this right now. We need full rights to be the only one who can produce these.”

“I’m not a big fan of monopolies,” I said, “But I suppose I can treat this like a patent for the moment. My end goal is not money, or a business monopoly. What I want is widespread adoption.”

“You’re a strange person,” said Rachel, about to leave the room. “But I like that about you. You’re the only person I know who isn’t a greed monster on the inside.”

“I suppose having access to any element I want is part of that,” I said.

“A normal person would use that power to create unimaginable wealth,” said Rachel. She sighed. “Anyways. I’ll be off. We’ll have a press tooled to print playing cards by tomorrow afternoon.”

I told the rest of the shop workers to go home and locked the shop door. It was time to do some experiments. Using my alchemy power, I created a simple device that generated a small amount of electricity. I then created a light bulb using the old method of vacuum and tungsten. An incandescent bulb. I couldn’t generate enough power to light it up more than a small glow with my device, but it was a start. I put the light bulb away and went into the print shop to see how the dragon hunting propaganda sheets were doing. The final product was a lot better than I thought it would be. Rachel really knew her stuff when it came to working with new technology.

I read through the simple, easy to understand type line and admired the clean printing of the dragon’s death. It was, of course, in black and white, but it was still striking. No one would want to kill dragons after seeing this.

I also looked at the advertisement for Kerosene. It was branded as a new way to light the home. This would be another source of income, but it would probably require sourcing some wizards from the town to crack the oil. We had already done that on a temporary basis and all we needed to do was call some people up.

I looked through the shop’s inventory and eventually cleaned up and went to bed.

I woke up with a start. Someone was climbing through my bedroom window. I jumped up out of my bed and grabbed the nearest object, a lantern.

The shadow in my room rushed me. I smacked his head with the lantern, but I staggered back when I felt a sharp object pierce my arm. I grabbed the assailant’s arm and performed a floor sweep. The man hit the ground with a thump. I put my knee on his neck and, with one hand, lit the lantern with my alchemy power.

The person was a rather handsome young man, dressed in all black. He had stopped struggling as soon as I put my knee on his neck.

The Oracle, sitting on the bed stand behind me, fired up. “Ah,” said the AI device. “An assassin. How quaint.”

“You and your forbidden magics are not going to taint this world,” said the assassin. “You will pay for what you’ve done.”

“I haven’t done anything,” I said. “Who is mad at me?”

“Many people,” said the assassin.

The door to my room burst open and Rachel rushed inside. “What happened?” she said.

I turned to her. “Why are you here so late?” I asked.

“I came to do a little extra work because I couldn’t sleep,” said Rachel. “Then I heard a noise.”

The assassin scoffed. “You and your cronies will not succeed with your mission of darkness.”

“I don’t know who told you my mission was one of darkness,” I said, “But you’re wrong. I’m all about enlightenment, education, and betterment of the sentient races.”

The assassin spit. “Do with me what you will.”

I kept my knee pressed against his neck. “I’ll turn you in to the authorities,” I said. “That’s what I’ll do.”

“They won’t take me,” said the assassin. “They agree with me.”

“Who’s they?” I said.

The assassin turned his head away from me, as much as he could under the circumstances. “I will not speak.”

I sighed. “Rachel?” I said. “Bring me the closest object that has iron in it.”

Rachel handed me a piece of railing. I morphed it into handcuffs and bindings and attached it to the assassin. When it was done, I propped him up against the wall.

“What are we going to do with this man?” I said, to Rachel.

Rachel shrugged. “Kill him. That’s what he was trying to do to you, right?”

I shook my head. “Killing is not something I want to do,” I said. “I just want to make sure that this guy doesn’t try and attack me again.”

“We can put him in a stasis pod,” said Rachel. “It’s what the royals use for powerful criminals.”

“And where are we going to get one of those?” I said.

Rachel shrugged. “Look, I’m not the one who wants to spare his life.”

I looked at the assassin. He said nothing.

“I know,” I said. “I’ll ask the Guardians to help me.” I took out my magical communicator and dialed up Claude.

“Hello?” I said.

“You woke me,” said Claude. “What do you need?”

“An assassin tried to kill me,” I said. “I have him in custody. What should I do?”

“I’ll be there shortly,” said Claude. She hung up.

I sighed, and looked at the assassin again. “Can you tell me anything?” I asked him.

He looked away.

“I guess not,” I said. I turned to Rachel. “Any idea where this guy comes from?”

“There is an assassin’s guild,” said Rachel, “But it’s impossible to tell if he’s a member.”

I grimaced. “Ah, great. Then the whole guild might be after me.”

Rachel frowned. “We’re going to need to solve this problem at the root. As long as someone wants to kill you, they’ll keep sending people until one of them succeeds.”

“Do you think this has to do with me trying to stop the practice of dragon hunting?” I said.

“Maybe,” said Rachel. “Though I can think of other things people want to kill you for.”

“Like what?” I said.

“Like the undercutting of the scribing and parchment businesses,” said Rachel. “It’s not the first time that business rivalries have precipitated an attack like this.”

I rubbed my hands together. “Then we’re going to figure out where this man got his orders.” I knelt in front of the assassin. “Tell me. Who put you up to this?”

The assassin turned away.

“Torture him until he talks,” said Rachel.

I shook my head. “I’m against that kind of thing. There has to be a better way to get him to talk.” I paused. “I think I know just the thing. We have some leftover chemicals from our experiments, right?”

“Right,” said Rachel.

I turned on my smartphone and looked up how to synthesize truth serum. I wrote down what needed on a piece of paper and handed it to Rachel.

“You know what to do, right?” I said.

“Of course,” said Rachel, taking the paper. “What are you making?”

“A potion that will make him talk,” I said. “A truth serum.”

Rachel chuckled. “Leave it to you to figure out something like this.” She turned away. “I’ll be right back with the ingredients.”