Finish the Steam engine!
You don your leather apron and take to your forge. Four days later you emerge, your steam engine complete. A quick test run reveals that it operates as planned; coal goes in, pipes hiss, metal thingies go up and down, and the big cart wheel spins. Huzzah!
Spend significant time dissecting that fertility spell. Catch a couple bugs. See if it can be cast over a much smaller area. Cast several fertility spells with slightly different components and actions in various spots of your garden.
Basically, this may be magic, but we are SCIENTISTS, and as such, we WILL discover the science that makes this spell work, and rip away all that superficial claptrap!
The proper science of Steamworks has taken your mind off the questionable rigour of your previous endeavours. Nevertheless, you feel compelled to investigate it more properly. You spend the rest of the day collecting the required weeds and several beetles. The next day you prepare several batches of the herbal mix, all but one missing one of the required ingredients. One spontaneously combusts, causing minor facial hair loss. You make a note of the mixtures composition for future reference.
Attempts to cast the spell in your garden using insects go badly. None of the attempts result in blinding light, and several of the mixtures cause the beetle to die before completion of the spell. After two days of casting you plant some seeds at the location of each experiment and retire to your lab, clothes filthy and eyebrows missing.
How does triggering magic work, how does shields work
You spend some time reading through your Tome of Guidelines, thinking about the operation of Etherical Phenomenon.
Your pain gun operates roughly as follows: Life force is extracted from the animal bone when it is pressed against the recipient gemstone. Runes carved into the gemstone then use this power to extract more power from the Ether, which is then run through several other runes, transforming it into a 'blast of pain', then pulled by runes carved into the barrel, propelling it out at speed. Some of the power is fed back into the bone, keeping the power therein from waning.
(The power feedback is one of your favourite 'Hacks', or Magical Rule Breakers. No spell you have ever found uses it. One spellbook did mention that you should never even consider doing it because of the terrible damage that will befall, but it has always worked fine for you. Apart from that one time... but there were... 'factors' at hand that, well, nullified the validity of any conclusions one might draw.)One factor which you have yet to understand is the necessity for human operation. The weapon utilizes simple Runic Enchantments, which do not require a human user, but a machine or animal could pull the trigger of this thing all day long and it would merely wear out the mechanisms.
Magical shields are terrible things. You have multiple spells that create them. They 'protect against harm'. What is harm? Who knows! They will stop a flying arrow from entering the body, but not a fork of food. How does the shield know the difference? Magic! Magic magic magic! Your attempts to understand them have never succeeded, mainly because you have given up in frustration in the past.
It is 19 days since you returned home. It is evening.
One (1) dusty old family home in the country
Crappy Forge
Estates surrounding your dusty old family home (forests and hills)
£300 in cashe
£0 in banke account
Etheric Steamworks Lab:
-Decent Etherical Equipment
-Poor Steamwork Equipment
-Shitty Alchemical Equipment
-Shitty Physical Equipment
Book on Alchemistry
Book on Physics
Tome of Spells
Tome of Etheric Guidelines
Licence to Science
A note on things: Unless otherwise noted, you have enough things to do all small-scale experiments and design prototypes.
Assorted Magical Crystals
Magical Reagents
Silver Wire
Samples of Rare Woods
Rusty Plumbing (Includes pipes, valves, boilers, ect)
Rusty Gears (mechanisms)
A further note on things: Many simple things can be found lying about the house. Your family did not throw things away.
Spells:
Local Fertility Boost: common herbs, uncommon herbs, animal sacrifice (>=chicken), 3 hours subtle preparation, 3 hours casting
Potions:
Spontaneously Combusting Goop: common herbs, uncommon herbs, 2 hours subtle preparation.
Beetle Killing Poison: common herbs, uncommon herbs, 3 hours subtle preparation.
Etherical Contraptions:
Unnamed magical 'gun': 1 uncommon gemstone, 1 piece of animal bone, 1 piece of plumbing, 1 gun stock/bits and pieces + 2 hours crafting, 3 hours crafting, 2 hours casting. Fires pain.
Steam Machines:
Medium Steam Engine: 10 pieces of plumbing, 1 boiler, some gears and pistons, 2 square meters of sheet metal, 1 big wheel, 4 days of crafting&forging. Consumes large amounts of coal, provides moderate power.
Small water pump: 25 pieces of plumbing, some gears and pistons, 1 water container, 2 days of crafting&forging. Consumes moderate power, provides moderate water.
Etheric Sciences (Lv3)
Steamworks (Lv2)
Spells cast:
Local Fertility Spell
Contraptions created:
The 'pain gun': Looks like a shoddily-constructed pistol. Fires magical bolts of pain on pulling the trigger.
Machines built:
Medium Steam Engine
Author
Topic: Gentlemanne of Natural Philosophie! (Read 47259 times)