I have to try hard not to smile as I nod in agreement before turning to the camp.
"It's decided, all the kids will be grounded for a week. I expect everyone to keep an eye on them and ensure they're following the rules of their punishment. And I'll have a reward for all the kids if you make it through the punishment together." I tell them.
"Now, let's eat and get to work!" I bark, shooing everyone to their assignments and leaving Aventus to his friends while keeping an eye on him from the schematics workbench while I work on my next couple of designs.
Pulling out some alchemical components, I begin a couple of experiments to see if what I have in mind might work...
---------------------------------
"Guys, you didn't have to do that for me! I'm the one who rushed ahead like an idiot." Aventus protests as he leans against his sisters, Lucia and Sophie.
"Hey, you saved us. The least we can do is stand by you when you need it. It's what family is for, after all!" Lucia proclaims, getting nods of agreement and cheers from the kids.
"But you better not get in trouble again! I need my honeynut treats!" Lucia says with a pout.
"And my sweet rolls!" Sophie chimes in.
"Don't forget taffy!" Britte adds that before the rest of the kids add their own favorite treats, which causes everyone to look at the ground dejectedly before Aventus' stomach grumbles.
"Man, I'm starving can we go eat?" Aventus asks before making his way to the dining area with the rest of the kids in tow.
They eat and talk together before being taken away by Constance and Kasia to start their first lessons of the day.
---------------------------------
I'm standing beside two small vials, one holds a pinch of frost salts, and the other holds a pinch of fire salts.
I pour the two out onto the workbench before carefully pushing them together with a long wooden spoon.
*POOFF*
A loud woosh followed by a flash of steam erupts from the table, hurting my ears and drawing attention from some of the company members, who I quickly wave off.
"Excellent, I hoped this would work!" I shout ecstatically as I try to find the best ratio of frost to fire salts and draw up what I remember about firearms and bullets from my old world.
It takes most of the day, but I'm able to make a rudimentary bullet and revolver rifle.
First, I worked on making the bullet. Since I didn't have any precision machines, I had to do everything by hand, and in order to keep the quality higher, I had to make things larger in order to catch defects. Making a size comparison, with how large a .50 caliber rifle round is to a 9mm pistol round, is roughly the size difference between my new round and a .50 caliber rifle round.
First, I made a mold of the bullet casings with clay before melting a steel ingot to form 10 bullet casings. Of these, only about eight casings came out without noticeable defects. Tapering the end for the primer. I loaded these casings with about an ounce or 30 grams of fire salts before casting the bullet tip.
To do this, I made a clay mold and melted down an ebony ingot; of the 20 tips I made, only 15 were usable, but I salvaged the scrap to use later. I carefully knocked the tip into the casing with a wooden mallet.
However, I still broke a casing leaving me with seven half-finished bullets that were warm to the touch. Last was the primer, I cast end caps that would fit the tapered end of the bullet and hold about 2-3 grams of frost salts.
I carefully snapped these two pieces together, but a defect caused one bullet to explode in my hands, doing about 15 damage, and probably would have filled my hands with shrapnel if my gamer's body hadn't converted the damage. And I broke another casing trying to snap them together, leaving me with only five bullets.
Next, I move on to the revolver rifle. I cannibalized the rotating mechanism from the dwemer autocannon schematics in my head and made a crude hammer and firing pin out of a piece of ebony ingot and a small spring. Last, I made the chamber that could hold 4 of these monster bullets, and the barrel I made was relatively long at about a foot and a half or 48 centimeters making this much closer to a rifle than a pistol.
I made the primary components out of cast dwemer ingots we had lying around camp, hoping the metal could handle the constant exposure to hot, cold, and steam.
It took about four tries to get everything right and filed down into place, but after oiling every part and scrubbing it down, I had what seemed to be a fully functional revolving rifle.
I take my new bastardized revolver rifle out to the edge of the camp, loading one bullet into the cylinder just in case it explodes, and it's then I make two discoveries.
"Shit... I forgot to add a stock and iron sights..." I say, but I decide to go ahead with the test anyway.
I do my best to steady the unwieldy thing aiming it at a tree about twenty feet away, and pulling down on the trigger.
*BOOOOMMM*
A deafening explosion echoes around me as a bright flash of steam explodes from the revolver chamber and barrel, shooting out the bullet and throwing the rifle from my hand as the force of the recoil would've shattered or at least sprained my wrist.
"Fuck! Should've got the stock!" I shout as I nurse my sore wrist before going to check on the damage to the tree.
"Ha... Haha... HAHAHA! Eureka!" I shout as I look at the massive chunk I'd blown out of the tree.
I walked around the tree trunk and noticed the bullet exited through the trunk and traveled about 15 more feet before getting embedded about three inches into the trunk of another tree. It took me about 5 minutes to dig it out and find out the bullet was still intact and could probably be reloaded.
(Author's Note: Sorry for being a little late, got busy doing yardwork.)