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Alea Iacta Story Hour: A Mythic Rome Campaign (Baby Announcement: 8/17)
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<blockquote data-quote="Orichalcum" data-source="post: 2479483" data-attributes="member: 3722"><p><strong>Alea Iacta X: A Civil Campaign Chp. 2: A Mad Smith</strong></p><p></p><p>Heilyn hurries into the wrecked, roofless remains of the smithy, which is covered with strange-smelling ash and soot, and finds the grizzled, wide-shouldered Master of Naxos sitting on a stone ebcnh, head buried in his hands, a cheap wine amphora next to him. </p><p></p><p>"Master, what happened?"</p><p></p><p>"Heilyn? Is that you?" the Master slurs, a bit drunken, but mostly just lost in his own woes. "I thought you left with all the other apprentices."</p><p></p><p>"No, I've just had some business of my own. All the other workers here are gone? Where did they go? What caused this?"</p><p></p><p>"I was so sure, so sure I had it right this time," the Naxian mumbles.</p><p></p><p>"An experiment? Were ye trying to make the lightning bolt, like we had talked about before?"</p><p></p><p>"I was trying for the first step," the Naxian says, and a gleam briefly returns to his eyes. "I thought it was a time to be going back to the beginning, to when I apprenticed to the Cyclopes under Mount Etna. I thought, what is the difference between this smithy - and a volcano?"</p><p></p><p>Heilyn, a little afraid of this line of reasoning, looks up at the clear blue sky and ventures, "A roof?"</p><p></p><p>"No no...well, that's true. That's something to consider. Perhaps next time an open chimney...but there will be no next time," the Naxian briefly dissolves into sobs again, before Heilyn surreptitiously uses magic to soothe him.</p><p></p><p>"But no," the Master finally continues, "the important difference between my smithy and a volcano is the heat. In a volcano, they have liquid metal and rock, which heats up to fabulous temperatures, and I am thinking perhaps that this heat is needed to make a lightning bolt."</p><p></p><p>"So...you tried to heat up the forge really hot?"</p><p></p><p>"No no, silly British barbarian, you cannot heat a forge that hot with charcoal, and there are rules about how large a fire you can make within the city. I realized that what I needed was to get some liquid metal, and heat that, and use that to heat the material for the lightning bolt."</p><p></p><p>"But...you can't keep metal liquid for very long, Master."</p><p></p><p>"No, and I worried about this. But then I met this friendly merchant in a tavern, and we got to talking about my problem, and he suggested that I use quicksilver, because it is a metal that stays liquid all the time."</p><p></p><p>"But, where would you get that much quicksilver? Isn't it very rare?" Heilyn asks, even more worried about this answer.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, that was no problem. The nice merchant said he could find me four grain-sized large amphorae, for 300 sestertii each. That is only about two swords for me, so it was easy. He delivered the barrels the next day, and I arranged them around the forge, and opened their lids, and then carefully lit them. But then...there was a great noise and burst of flame, and then I woke up, here in my forge, without a roof, and with my anvil cracked clean in half," he starts crying again.</p><p></p><p>"And your apprentices deserted you while you were unconscious and injured? How cruel these Romans are!"</p><p></p><p>"Oh no," the Master of Naxos reassures Heilyn, "My apprentices had bandaged my wounds and taken good care of me. But the next day, a young advocate came and served me with a summons to court. He said that the blast from the quicksilver had destroyed half of four other smithies, the ones next door and on the next street, and that I had to pay damages. I tried to explain to the court that it had just been an experiment gone wrong, and that the fire should not have spread, but they ruled against me. The other smithies took all my slave apprentices, and the contracts of the journeymen, as collateral, along with all of my ready-made weapons and armor, and my sestertii in the bank. But do not worry - since you were my partner, not under contract, they cannot seize you."</p><p></p><p>Heilyn is aghast. He needs this smithy - not just because he has invested most of his own and much of Metellus' money in it, but because he promised the god Mercury a lightning bolt as atonement for breaking out of his Temple, and who knows how patient a god is. At the same time, a few things seem odd about this whole story. Heilyn doesn't know much about quicksilver, but he thinks it's fairly expensive, more so than 300 sestertii for a large amphora. And if there was so much damage, how come there were still intact weapons and armor left within the forge itself? And he hadn't noticed all that much damage to surrounding smithies on his walk down the Via Ferra.</p><p></p><p>For now, though, he comforts the Master of Naxos, and promises to see what he can do about getting new funds, and a new anvil. He finds out the names of the smiths who sued, as well as the name of their advocate, the familiar sounding Gnaeus Tertius Publicola. The "friendly merchant," unfortunately, identified himself only as Lucius from Neapolis, which doesn't narrow it down terribly much. The Master of Naxos, while brilliant, is perhaps a little naive and trusting.</p><p></p><p> Yet at least for now, Heilyn has found a more urgent problem to distract him from his despairing homesickness. And he knows just the people to help him discover the truth behind this mysterious explosion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Orichalcum, post: 2479483, member: 3722"] [b]Alea Iacta X: A Civil Campaign Chp. 2: A Mad Smith[/b] Heilyn hurries into the wrecked, roofless remains of the smithy, which is covered with strange-smelling ash and soot, and finds the grizzled, wide-shouldered Master of Naxos sitting on a stone ebcnh, head buried in his hands, a cheap wine amphora next to him. "Master, what happened?" "Heilyn? Is that you?" the Master slurs, a bit drunken, but mostly just lost in his own woes. "I thought you left with all the other apprentices." "No, I've just had some business of my own. All the other workers here are gone? Where did they go? What caused this?" "I was so sure, so sure I had it right this time," the Naxian mumbles. "An experiment? Were ye trying to make the lightning bolt, like we had talked about before?" "I was trying for the first step," the Naxian says, and a gleam briefly returns to his eyes. "I thought it was a time to be going back to the beginning, to when I apprenticed to the Cyclopes under Mount Etna. I thought, what is the difference between this smithy - and a volcano?" Heilyn, a little afraid of this line of reasoning, looks up at the clear blue sky and ventures, "A roof?" "No no...well, that's true. That's something to consider. Perhaps next time an open chimney...but there will be no next time," the Naxian briefly dissolves into sobs again, before Heilyn surreptitiously uses magic to soothe him. "But no," the Master finally continues, "the important difference between my smithy and a volcano is the heat. In a volcano, they have liquid metal and rock, which heats up to fabulous temperatures, and I am thinking perhaps that this heat is needed to make a lightning bolt." "So...you tried to heat up the forge really hot?" "No no, silly British barbarian, you cannot heat a forge that hot with charcoal, and there are rules about how large a fire you can make within the city. I realized that what I needed was to get some liquid metal, and heat that, and use that to heat the material for the lightning bolt." "But...you can't keep metal liquid for very long, Master." "No, and I worried about this. But then I met this friendly merchant in a tavern, and we got to talking about my problem, and he suggested that I use quicksilver, because it is a metal that stays liquid all the time." "But, where would you get that much quicksilver? Isn't it very rare?" Heilyn asks, even more worried about this answer. "Oh, that was no problem. The nice merchant said he could find me four grain-sized large amphorae, for 300 sestertii each. That is only about two swords for me, so it was easy. He delivered the barrels the next day, and I arranged them around the forge, and opened their lids, and then carefully lit them. But then...there was a great noise and burst of flame, and then I woke up, here in my forge, without a roof, and with my anvil cracked clean in half," he starts crying again. "And your apprentices deserted you while you were unconscious and injured? How cruel these Romans are!" "Oh no," the Master of Naxos reassures Heilyn, "My apprentices had bandaged my wounds and taken good care of me. But the next day, a young advocate came and served me with a summons to court. He said that the blast from the quicksilver had destroyed half of four other smithies, the ones next door and on the next street, and that I had to pay damages. I tried to explain to the court that it had just been an experiment gone wrong, and that the fire should not have spread, but they ruled against me. The other smithies took all my slave apprentices, and the contracts of the journeymen, as collateral, along with all of my ready-made weapons and armor, and my sestertii in the bank. But do not worry - since you were my partner, not under contract, they cannot seize you." Heilyn is aghast. He needs this smithy - not just because he has invested most of his own and much of Metellus' money in it, but because he promised the god Mercury a lightning bolt as atonement for breaking out of his Temple, and who knows how patient a god is. At the same time, a few things seem odd about this whole story. Heilyn doesn't know much about quicksilver, but he thinks it's fairly expensive, more so than 300 sestertii for a large amphora. And if there was so much damage, how come there were still intact weapons and armor left within the forge itself? And he hadn't noticed all that much damage to surrounding smithies on his walk down the Via Ferra. For now, though, he comforts the Master of Naxos, and promises to see what he can do about getting new funds, and a new anvil. He finds out the names of the smiths who sued, as well as the name of their advocate, the familiar sounding Gnaeus Tertius Publicola. The "friendly merchant," unfortunately, identified himself only as Lucius from Neapolis, which doesn't narrow it down terribly much. The Master of Naxos, while brilliant, is perhaps a little naive and trusting. Yet at least for now, Heilyn has found a more urgent problem to distract him from his despairing homesickness. And he knows just the people to help him discover the truth behind this mysterious explosion. [/QUOTE]
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