The Butcher of Gadobhra

Chapter 385: Madmen in Mad, Mad World

During the drive to Rowan Keep, the wagonload of crazed professors and mad scientists kept up an enthusiastic discussion of how to redesign the suspension system of the wagon, each trying to outdo the other. Leather suspension straps, coiled springs, and levitation runes were all discussed. Since the wagon in question was normally used for hauling loads of rock, it had no suspension currently, and Ben pointed out that anything would be an improvement, but the rocks wouldn't care. He was ignored after that, and they got back to their argument. Under Ben's urging, the wagon traveled over sixty miles an hour, and any bump in the road threw people a foot in the air before gravity slammed them back down. Luckily, Georges built good roads; otherwise, there would have been at least one fatality or broken bone. After a quick drive, Ben delivered them to the Keep, shaken but not broken. Ozzy, Rolly, and Suzette were already there, working on various projects. The Baron and Baroness had taken one look at the wagon and called for their horses.

Rolly and Squirmie were out in the wilds surrounding the keep, hunting players and practicing their ambushing skills. Alchemarx was paying players to do anything they could to slow the work on the keep. While they had been successful initially, their efforts were hampered by the tall walls of the nearly completed keep. Billy was offering quests to kill players and the wyverns that the players had lured to the area. Their efforts were becoming increasingly desperate as they died and respawned at a small camp three miles away. After waiting hours, they had to deal with the debuff from dying as they walked back to the keep, armed with a set of poor-quality weapons and armor supplied by Alchemarx. Normally, Rolly and Squirmie would find and kill several players each night, dropping on them from above or springing from ambush out of the bushes. Tonight, they were only finding headstones.

Here lies WonderWarrior, eviscerated by Larry.

PhantasmaxTheGreat was torn limb from limb by Larry.

RascallyRon died from losing his head to Larry.

"Yep, but it's going to make it hard to finish our quests."

Rolly and Squirmie circled the keep another few times, seeing no threats, and called it a night.

Suzette was directing the work on the Shrine to Hermes. It was a small fane in a building between two of the gates and next to the walls, linked to them with a series of runes similar to those carved into the blocks of the wall. As far as she could tell, everything was working, and the shield simply needed more power. Several times, she had consulted with Hermes for hints on how to set things up correctly, only to become frustrated as he gave strange riddles and never a straight answer. She hoped that one of the professors could confirm her work. Hermes was eager to see how the experiment went.

"If it were easy to do, probably someone else would have already done it. But thanks for keeping me updated. I'm very excited to see how this all turns out, especially with all the expert help you have on the way."

All around the shrine were the merchant stalls, now permanently inside the keep's walls. She'd had to repeatedly explain the link between merchanting and protecting the walls to Centurion Markus and the merchants and insist on their placement. Hermes had several aspects, and one of them was the God of Merchants. And, of course, moving the market that used to be outside the keep's walls to the interior courtyard came with many problems. There was plenty of room, but she knew that was a temporary illusion. As soon as rumors got out about the new 'inside market,' stalls and tents began moving into the keep, and the arguing started. She knew it was only going to get worse. As more traders and dealers learned about a completely safe marketplace frequented by soldiers and travelers, the space would fill up. Already, there were arguments about which stall was nearest the shrine, in sight of the teleporter, or other choice spots. Additionally, some merchants wanted more space than others, claiming various reasons. Normally, most of them wouldn't have argued with her, but money and position were on the line here. Some were agreeable, some were not, and she hated to give in to the stubborn ones, setting a bad precedent. She was tempted to toss them all out, but they needed the mana from the sales they would generate. When her authority as Mayor of Sedgewick and a Priestess of Hermes didn't convince the holdouts, she declared that Ozzy was in charge of the situation.

The Butcher was less than thrilled to be brought into it, but he saw that Suzette was running herself ragged, trying to fill several roles while he had it easy packing five-ton rocks. As soon as Georges saw Ozzy was available, he was put to work lifting and hauling large blocks of stone to finish the last parts of the wall. He happily got to work since it meant he wouldn't be near any crazy people arguing over pseudo-science, magi-tech, and teleporter theory. Moving the large blocks was tricky. It wasn't just the weight; he could easily lift them. But you couldn't just grab one end and lift. Physics disagreed and made your life hell if you ignored it. But at tier four, his DEX and AGE gave him an edge. Georges wanted the walls finished tonight so he could work on any problems over the next few days and bring the huge project to completion by the deadline, which wouldn't matter, of course, if the gaggle of smart folk arguing about wagon springs couldn't come up with a solution to the transporter problem.

The Butcher decided not to argue at all. "OK, Suzette says you lot can't agree on anything and put me in charge. Clear everything out of here and set up outside again. Anything still here by the end of the day I'm tossing in my bag and dumping in a heap. We need merchants making sales, but I figure I can it myself with a dozen stalls selling beer, sausages, bacon and Mirna's foods."

This didn't seem to solve the problem and created a ruckus as everyone started arguing again. In the middle of it, the Kalvek clan was calm and reasonable. They were also staking out a good spot outside the gates in case Ozzy was serious. "Friends, I don't have to tell you how bad it would be to anger a Butcher. We all know the high cost of tomatoes, don't we?" That got their attention, and they all became silent little by little. Kalvek turned to Ozzy, "Perhaps we can compromise? What would you think is a reasonable arrangement?"

The Butcher made a show of considering being reasonable and then gave them his decision and pointed out various people. "You six were here first before I even got here. You get those six spots on the wall next to the shrine. I'll randomly assign them. The rest of you get the other side of the courtyard and half as much space. I'm taking the space along the third wall, and the Kalvek clan goes next to me. And before there are any complaints, let me remind you that sales mean mana for the shield is generated, and the Kalveks do a lot of business, so they get a prime spot. I get one because I'm in charge and I sell a lot of sausages. Anybody else wanting in here is going to pay a fee and go on a waiting list. At the end of each quarter, Suzette will inform me who contributed the most, and trust me, she'll know. Don't try to cheat a god like Hermes. The highest earners will get a chance to improve their position. Now, I'm a reasonable person, so we are going to either use my plan or toss your shit over the walls. Which is it?"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

There was minor grumbling and some hurried rearrangement, but no one argued much given that choice. Kalvek laughed later as they talked, "They accepted it because they all knew they had a great deal, just being inside this courtyard. They don't lose face because no one sane would want to make you angry. By tonight, they'll convince themselves they talked you into the deal. Me? I'm happy to have such a nice spot. Thank you for that."

It was Ozzy's turn to laugh, "And thank you for volunteering to have one of your younger kids man my sausage stand, with a cut of the proceeds, of course. And I'm going to make you my deputy so you can handle any future disputes."

Kalvek considered this, "Ah, yes, the cost of the best spot. I see now. But I'd be dealing with the yammer heads anyway, and now I'll have authority. And having one of mine get experience in running a concession stand for long hours is wonderful. Everyone should start somewhere."

That part done, Ozzy returned to work, just in time to avoid Ben's delivery service. Suzette was at the gates to handle the next set of problems. She'd already seen the wagon approaching at high speed. She hoped Ben could keep control of his Uncle. The faculty was generally manageable, but not when you mixed in other people with differing ideas and opinions. Suddenly, they could argue forever, often overwhelming their opponent with a set of contradictory statements that both proved and disproved their points. They seemed to hold both Vladimir and Damien in high esteem, so there was a chance they might agree on a course of action and get everything fixed and working, but she had her doubts. Her main concern being that Vladimir and Damien would agree with each other.

Johannes and Volminus were arguing about the equations needed to find the transporter code for Rowan Keep as they walked into the courtyard. They were continuing their arguments from days before when they had scribbled their plans across any available surface around the transporter stone. Both stopped, dumbfounded to find that someone had added their own notes to the project, crossed out much of theirs, and added his opinion of their math skills.

'I fixed your errors. Frankly, I'm amazed at some of them. Check your math! The small errors in calculating field strength propagated into large errors in directional displacement and potentially deadly errors in the reintegration matrix. Or in simple words: Bad math turns people into oatmeal. And this is after finding out you wanted to fix the teleportation array! I thought at first you were creating a mana-fueled Armageddon device! Where are your mana-flow control runes?'

Voluminous shook with rage. "How dare someone alter my work, and what do they mean by the note on line five, 'Use the arithmetic mean?' You can't just ignore all of my fourth-dimensional geometry in favor of a simplistic solution like that!"

Vladimir was scanning the equations, "Actually, you can, and as you said, this person arrived at a solution for the initial power disbursement where you were still guessing at the variables."

"But...But...My Geometry!"

"What is he doing with the measurements? He's converted them all to boring things like feet and miles and measures time in seconds?! We use furlongs and stone weights for a reason, and you can't just replace whole heaps; it's the basic measurement of volume!"

Johannes pointed to another section that had been entirely erased. "Someone erased my difference equations! Another few iterations and I could have homed in the answer; I know it."

"That's called calculus. It takes your difference equations and makes them do tricks. All the cool kids use it now." Damien was gleefully running through the lines of mathematics and diagrams, laughing at both the original work and the solutions. "But, what I want to know is how he figured out the Master code. He uses it three times but never states how he arrived at it. And, in fact, I find it difficult to think anyone could do so without a great deal of work."

Vladimir paced back and forth for a minute, pondering that himself and knowing it was difficult, almost impossible, to work out the code from mathematics without the exhaustive measurements that had been done to set up the system. Then, looking at the equations again, he cheated and asked the guards on duty, "The person who worked here, scribbling on the walls? Do you know who it was?"

"Well, yes, it was Sir Larry's squire. He was genuinely upset at something written on the walls. He was hopping mad and ranting, and then he got really calm and got to work. There was nothing his knight could do to budge him. So, Sir Larry ran off to do his quests to aid the keep while his squire 'Fixed all the bad math.' We assumed the Baron sent him. But we did get a little nervous when he started tearing into the teleporter and grumbling about proper care and maintenance."

"You let him tear apart the teleporter?"

"Well, it was already broken, so we didn't see the harm. It stopped working when that big surge hit, and he had it up in the air and taken apart before we knew what he was doing. The decurion tried to talk to him, but he just glared and said, 'You can either start cleaning those dirty nodes or get out of my way. I'm working!' He's a very intense young man. He has a strong voice, too. I've never seen the decurion back down so quickly. He gathered up two new recruits, sat down with them, and got to work cleaning parts for the squire."

Vladimir asked, "Did he perchance wear a large and ornate wrench or spanner on his belt, and if so, what color was the wrench?"

"Yes, sir, he did. Sort of a dirty gold, I'd say. We kept our distance when he was excited; he held it and swung it around a lot."

Vladimir turned with a smirk to Damien, "An engineer. I thought those equations were nicely laid out. Though not as stiff as you'd normally see from a dwarf, with a touch of style and experimentation."

Damien scowled at him. "I'll have you know that engineering is just science without the insanity. And how do you know it was an engineer?"

Vladimir smiled widely, "Because he knew how to find the Master code for the stone. Engineers don't put up with all this 'secret numbers' crap. We document our work and label the parts. Let's take a look at what he did." Pullet out a wooden mallet, he thumped the side of the old teleport stone and set it levitating upward. "Ah, he's been cleaning the contacts and replacing overloaded parts. My, he's thorough; he even carved a new runic pathway. The old one is a bit scorched, now that I look at it."

Damien narrowed his eyes, searching through the hundreds of arcane components. "And just where do engineers write down secret Master Teleport Codes?"

"Damien, my old friend, I would never stoop to calling you an engineer. Trade secret, old boy. But I'm sure if you stare at the components long enough, you'll find it with that keen scientific eye of yours."