Chapter 291: Advance Notice
Within the throne room of Graycastle’s Royal Palace, Timothy Wimbledon gripped his scepter with both hands and studied Chief Alchemist Rayleigh Kenneth with the particular attention he gave things he had not yet decided whether to trust.
“Were you able to learn anything about the formula the deserters took?”
“Indeed, Your Majesty.” Rayleigh bowed with the elaborate depth of a man who understood ceremony as currency. “This is the fast-igniting snow powder, the Alchemy Association’s latest achievement. With your permission, I would like to demonstrate.”
Two disciples came forward at his gesture, each carrying a cloth bag. They spread white paper on the floor, then poured two lines of powder — one ash-grey, one a shade darker, almost sooty black.
“The lighter is our standard celebration powder,” Rayleigh said, taking out a flint. “The darker is the new formula.”
He lit both. The grey powder caught slowly, producing thick rolling smoke that climbed toward the ceiling. The black line took the flame and consumed itself in a single breath, the fire racing the full length of the paper and jumping to the sheet beneath.
“What does that prove?” Timothy’s frown deepened. “My dear sister’s toy didn’t merely scorch paper.”
“Of course not, Your Majesty.” The old alchemist’s smile spread. “You may have noticed the quantity of smoke released. The faster a powder burns, the more gas it produces in a short span — and that gas is the source of its destructive force. Allow me to show you.”
This time the disciples produced two fist-sized parchment bags, each sealed tight. They threaded slow-burning fuses into the bags, set each beneath a copper bowl, and lit both. The fuses crept and sparked.
“This time, Your Majesty — cover your ears.”
The warning had barely ended before the first detonation cracked through the hall. One bowl flipped face-down on the granite. The second launched itself at the ceiling, struck, fell back, and bounced twice more across the slate, each impact ringing out with the clarity of a struck bell.
Damn it. Timothy had nearly released his scepter. The fool could have mentioned the noise first.
A disciple retrieved the second bowl and placed it before the throne. Timothy pressed down his fury and examined it. The rim was warped — punched inward, as though someone had driven a hammer through the copper from the inside.
“The powder’s power does not reside in its fire, but in this gas,” Rayleigh said, from his place in the center of the hall. His voice carried the confidence of someone who had rehearsed this many times and found each rehearsal satisfying. “Compress a sufficient quantity into a tight ball and it becomes capable of shattering armor and tearing bodies apart. I believe this new powder will eventually replace swords and arrows entirely. A civilian equipped with these bags would be capable of killing a trained knight.”
The declaration struck the gathered lords and knights like cold water. Faces darkened. Knight Steelheart Weimar shifted his weight — the particular shift of a man who wants to speak and is deciding whether to bother. Timothy struck his scepter against the floor.
“Quiet.”
They bowed.
“Is your formula the same as the one the deserters took?”
“No, Your Majesty.” Rayleigh permitted himself a thin note of disdain. “The formula they took was discovered by accident — our saltpeter stock at the time was insufficient for more than a few trials. My fast-igniting formula is the product of extensive testing. It is the optimal method, and significantly more potent than anything produced by chance.”
Timothy settled back, and something in him eased slightly. He had known for some time that Garcia had planted people throughout the court — but he hadn’t imagined she had reached the Alchemy Association. The man who’d defected had brought a dozen apprentices with him and slipped the city before Timothy’s agents could close the net. In most circumstances, losing an alchemist would be a minor inconvenience. King’s City had twenty. But this one had managed to discover a novel weapon the night before his departure, and had vanished before contributing a single page of notes.
Two months. He’d had his Prime Minister corner every grain of saltpeter in the city and set the Alchemy Workshop to reconstructing the formula from fragments. And now Rayleigh stood here before him, pleased with himself and justified in being so.
“You have done well.” Timothy’s voice warmed, deliberately. “Twenty-five gold royals, paid today. Furthermore, I will open a dedicated production workshop in the inner city for the mass manufacture of this powder. You will continue your research. If this technology can truly allow a civilian to defeat a knight, a title and territory are not out of the question.”
“Your Majesty honors me beyond measure.”
After the alchemist departed, Weimar could no longer contain himself. He rose from his seat.
“Your Majesty — with respect, whatever that demonstration was, it cannot kill a trained knight. The powder requires ignition. Its effective radius at best is an arm’s reach. At that distance, I have a dozen ways to drop an untrained man before he can act. Even if he manages to produce the flame — I have time to strike and step away. Rayleigh has clearly never set foot on a battlefield.”
“We share that assessment,” said others, in the general tone of agreement that courts produce when the powerful want to feel confirmed.
“That is precisely why I have asked him to continue developing it,” Timothy said evenly. “Shorter ignition time. Throwable configurations. I do not doubt a knight’s superiority over a farmer — but weapons improve.”
He said this last with more certainty than he felt. Civilians were cowardly, ignorant, and poorly disciplined — he knew that. But civilians controlled by pills and armed with this powder were a different calculation. Sent against a shield wall or a gate, even a dozen of them, expendable and frantic, could open a gap that real soldiers could exploit. The pills made them tractable. The powder made them dangerous.
He was still turning this over when footsteps came fast from beyond the doors. A personal guard rushed in and dropped to one knee.
“Your Majesty — the militia sent to the Western Territory has returned in defeat. The survivors are at the city gates. They have brought letters. Many people have already heard.”
Timothy’s grip on the scepter tightened. “Keep their mouths shut. Bring every survivor to the castle.”
In the courtyard, they knelt in the dirt — two dozen ragged men, boots split, tunics stained, the particular hunched posture of men whose fear had given out and left only exhaustion behind.
“Your Majesty — please, the pills. We can’t bear it any longer.”
Wastes. They ate resources and produced nothing. He looked at them with the flat patience of a man deciding whether a tool was worth repairing.
“Tell me how you were defeated. Whoever gives me a clear account receives the antidote.”
They spoke over each other, each account stumbling into the next.
They’d been attacked on the water, the fleet broken apart before anyone could organize a response. The lead knight had ordered them ashore to regroup. On land, crossbow fire had come from everywhere at once — dense, unending, no gap to advance through. The knights had surrendered first. The militia had followed.
“And the knights? Their leader?”
No one had seen them after the escort back to camp.
“How did you return?”
“Prince Roland let us go.” The speaker’s voice was small but certain. “He also gave each of us a letter to deliver.”
“Each of you?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I also have one—”
“And I—”
They pulled the letters from their pockets in a mass, creased and slightly damp. Timothy gathered them, read the first, then read the second. The same. He read a third to be certain.
Your stupidity makes me pity you, Timothy Wimbledon. Your repeated invasions of the Western Territory were a grave error, and the price is now due. I will attack King’s City at the start of the second month of autumn. I will show you that your position is far less secure than you imagine. When that day arrives, all of King’s City will witness it.
— Roland Wimbledon
He had sent the same letter with every man.
The audacity of it — not a private warning but a public declaration, distributed to dozens of frightened survivors who would carry it into every corner of the city before nightfall. Every tavern. Every market stall. Every corner where people gathered and whispered.
The beginning of the second month of autumn.
Timothy folded the letter and set it flat against his knee. He sat for a moment in the afternoon quiet, looking at nothing, while the kneeling men shifted in the dirt around him.
Then he rose and went inside.
Chapter 291 Advance Notice
Within the Royal Palace of the Kingdom of Graycastle, Timothy was tightly grasping his scepter, while he looked at the Chief Alchemist Rayleigh Kenneth standing within the audience, showing such a pleased expression.
“Were you able to get a clue about the alchemy recipe taken by the deserters?”
“Sure! Your honored Majesty, this is the latest snow powder developed by the Alchemy Association. Please permit me to demonstrate it now.” Rayleigh said with a deep bow.
After receiving the new King’s approval, he waved in the direction of the crowd behind him, two disciples holding a bag in their hands immediately stepping forward. He spread two sheets of white paper over the ground, and poured out the snow powder within the bags on top, forming two separate lines. One of them was ash gray, while the other was much darker, being almost ashy black.
“Your Majesty, please take a look. The lighter one is the snow powder originally used during celebrations, while the darker one is the latest development, the fast igniting snow powder.” Rayleigh took out a flint, ignited the powder on top of the papers. The light snow powder merely began to burn slowly and emitted thick billowing smoke, while the dark colored one burned all the powder in one breath and also spread over to the white paper below.
“What does that mean?” Timothy asked with a deep frown, “The toy that my dear sister got, didn’t only burn a piece of paper!”
“Of course not, Your honored Majesty,” Rayleigh said, as a big smile began to spread over his whole face, “I do not know if you had noticed the amount of smoke it released when I ignited it. The faster the snow powder burns, the
more smoke is released in a short period of time, and this is the cause of its extreme power. I will prove this with another experiment.”
This time it were two fist-sized parchment bags, which were wrapped up tightly. Each of the disciples ignited a thin rope which was put into the paper bag then covered each with a copper bowl. The sparks moved along the rope, gradually crawling into the copper bowls.
“Attention, Your Majesty, this time the sound will be louder, so please cover your ears.”
The chief alchemist’s voice had just faded as a loud bang ringed out. One copper bowl flipped upside down, while the other actually flew straight towards the ceiling, after falling back to the floor it still bounced several times on the granite slate, issuing a crisp sound every time.
Damn it! Timothy unconsciously swallowed, he had nearly let go of his scepter. Why didn’t this old fool mention it earlier!
One of the disciples gathered the second bowl and placed it back in front of the new King, whereas he suppressed his fury to the bottom of his heart and focused his attention on those bowls. This man was still the Chief Alchemist of King’s City Alchemy Workshop, if he wanted to study the new alchemic weapon, he couldn’t do so without his help.
At this moment, it became apparent that it had changed its form, it just looked as if someone had resolutely hit it on the inside of the bowl with a hammer, deforming the rim of the bowl.
“I have repeatedly verified that the power of the snow powder doesn’t lie in its burning, but in this gas. This is also the truth hidden in the receipt the deserters had stolen.” Rayleigh stood in the middle of the hall and spoke frankly with assurance, “If you increase the amount of snow powder, and tightly compress it into a ball, it will become powerful enough to break armor and tear bodies apart. I believe that sooner or later, this new type of snow powder will inevitably replace swords and arrows. Even if they are well-trained knights, they won’t be a match for a civilian equipped with these bags of snow powder.”
This sentence caused a great outburst from within the crowd. Many of Timothy’s Knights faces gathered within the hall showed gloomy expressions. Even Knight Steelheart Weimar looked as if wanted to step forward and argue with the alchemist, so Timothy quickly knocked with his scepter against the floor and shouted, “Quiet!”
After the crowd bowed in unison, Timothy turned his gaze back to Rayleigh. “Is your formula exactly the same as the recipe the deserters took away?”
“No, Your Majesty,” Rayleigh shook his head, and then put a lot of disdain in his words, “Although saltpeter is one of the Alchemic Workshops stock items, however, the stock won’t be too big usually. At the time of mixing the snow powder, he just happened to find this formula. Even if he wanted to run more test, the amount of saltpeter wasn’t enough to use it several times. However, the formula for my fast igniting snow powder was developed after going through a large number of test. It is the optimal method and its power is much greater than a product produced by chance.”
“That’s good to know,” Timothy said in a relaxed voice. Although he had known that Garcia had arranged many of her people within all ranks, but he had never thought that she even had some henchmen within the Alchemy Association. The scheme of the deserters was well planned, and at the time he fled he had taken a dozen apprentices along. Usually something like this wouldn’t be a big deal, after all, even though alchemists were relatively rare in other cities, King’s City had more than twenty of them. So, if one had left its impact would normally be something insignificant, but this time the man had discovered a new highly lethal kind of snow powder before leaving. And instead of contributing it towards the Alchemic Workshop, he had left without a trace the very next day.
In the end, Timothy’s spies were only able to capture some of the remaining confidants but failed to intercept the entire group of deserters. The moment he learned about the news, Timothy immediately ordered his Imperial Prime Minister to purchase all of the saltpeter capacities within the city and requested the Alchemic Workshop to reproduce the deserts’ snow powder formula as soon as possible. And today, after waiting for two months, they finally showed some results, which made him feel quite satisfied. Even if this
man’s respect for him was a bit lacking, he was still pleasing to his eye at this moment.
After settling his thoughts, Timothy cleared his throat and said, “You did well. For your contribution, I will grant you twenty-five gold royals as reward. Additionally, I will also open a snow powder workshop in King’s City’s inner city, which will be responsible for the mass production of the fast igniting snow powder. However, you cannot become lax and have to further study its usage. If it actually turns out like you said, that civilians would become able to defeat knights, rewarding you with a title and territory won’t be a problem.”
“Thank you very much, Your Majesty!”
After the chief alchemist had left the hall, Sir Weimar, no longer able to hold himself back, stood up and said, “Your Majesty, even though this stuff looked a bit scary, but wanting to use it to defeat a knight, is absolutely not possible. As you can see, it needs to be ignited to trigger, its killing range is also only half a step or so. At that distance, against a civilian, I have dozens of ways to instantly send them to the ground. Even granted that they are able to use it at a close distance, I can still take advantage of the ignition time to strike and kill my opponent, before calmly leaving. According to Rayleigh’s way of speaking, it is clear that he had never been to the battlefield.”
“We also think the same, Your Majesty,” other knights followed up.
“That’s why I let him continue to search for a better way,” Timothy said, “For example, by shortening the ignition time or making it throwable, and so forth. Of course, no matter what kind of weapon they use, I’m also convinced that a Knight will be better than a farmer.”
Although he spoke like this, within his heart, he also had some traces of disagreement. Civilians indeed completely lacked any usage, they were cowardly and ignorant, and also afraid of dying. But if controlled by pills and equipped with snow powder, they could become a powerful weapon. At least that was if they had needed to storm a city gate or a shield wall, they would only have to send out a few militia holding snow powder, and it would be enough to tear a hole in a solid line of defense.
At this moment, some footsteps could suddenly be heard coming from beyond doors, soon followed by an anxious personal guard who came running into the hall, and fell onto his knees and announced. “Your Majesty, it seems that the militia team you had sent to the Western Territory got attacked, and now the defeated soldiers have come back to King’s City. I even heard that they brought back a letter of reprimand, by now many people have heard about it.”
“What?” Timothy’s eyes became wide, “Make sure that they keep their mouth shut and bring all who are still alive to me here in the castle!”
…
In the castle courtyard, a ragged militia group could be seen kneeling on the ground and pleading, “Your Majesty be merciful, please give us some pills, we cannot stand it any longer.”
You group of wastes, in addition to consuming the enemy, there is basically nothing else you can be used for. Since you are alive, you’re already wasting food, and now you even dare to ask me for pills?
Timothy looked with cold eyes at the group of people and said in a low voice: “In the end, how was it possible for the enemy to defeat you? Who can tell me something about the course of the battle? Whoever can give me a clear answer, will receive the antidote.”
All the people suddenly began to speak at the same time, “We were attacked while we were still on board, which turned the fleet into chaos. The Lead Knight gave the command to go ashore and get in order. However, the moment we landed we were attacked by unending crossbow bolts, so dense that we didn’t even get the chance to fight back. It was the Knights who took the lead and surrendered, we merely followed them and… kneeled.”
“What about the group of Knights and the Lead Knight?”
“No… I don’t know. They escorted us back to the camp, but we didn’t see any Knight.”
Timothy frowned and his voice became even colder, “How were you able to come back?”
“It was Prince Roland who let us go,” one of them said hurriedly. “Also, he gave us a letter that we are supposed to pass on to you.”
“To all of you?”
“That’s right, I also have one!”
“Your majesty, I also have a letter!”
The group of people shouted at once and stood up, pulling Roland’s “letter” out of their pockets.
To hell with it! He actually gave it to everyone? Timothy gathered the letters only to discover that they all contained the same message.
“Your stupid act makes me feel sorry for you, Timothy Wimbledon. The repeated invasion of the Western Territory was a grave mistake for which you will have to pay the price. I will attack King’s City at the beginning of the second month of autumn, I will make you learn that your place is far from being as secure as you imagine. When the day comes, all of King’s City’s people will see, your kingship is already on the verge of collapse.
“- Roland Wimbledon.”