Better Than One - Chapter 15 A Midas Groping.

We slept soundly through the night after a heavy meal. In the morning, the place down the tunnel from our quarters was already bustling with activity. Them kobolds sure like to wake up early. Or maybe Estra’s [Aristocrat] upgrades were kicking in. I hadn’t been stabbed while sleeping, nor did Estra wake us up for a change, screaming and panting into a sweaty mess. It has been a week since the start of my new life as an ogre on Icredore, and it still felt surreal.

I had awoken with a dry mouth and spider meat stuck between my teeth. I needed to start brushing my teeth and flossing. It felt like an extended camping trip in the wilds. Another bath and a shave would be nice. Our balls were itching and Estra was glancing over in my direction with ‘are you going to get that or what?’ look on her face. She didn’t talk in my direction with her morning breath, and I took care of our balls. It was the small things we did for each other.

“You’re growing a-” Beard! I stopped short of telling her the bad news. It wasn’t a lumberjack beard like mine, instead, it was thin whiskers of an old Chinese kung fu master. Are we going through some kind of puberty? I knew so little about ogres and their culture.

“What?” Estra asked groggily, still half asleep.

“Oh, nothing. We need a piss.” I said and took us out.

While Globba had already gone out, Bansari was asleep wrapped up in her sleeping bag like a sushi roll. She ate with wild abandon last night, it was probably the first full meal she had in a long time. On a plus side, she was too thin to snore.

Just like the first clan’s area, this cave complex also included a stream, but bigger. Estra wasn’t minding our pissing and the pooping sessions any longer. Not to say that she looked pleased, but at least there wasn’t any crying involved. It was quite a relief, as it was getting rather hard for me.

Lan caught us on the way to the stream. He looked uneasy, like a teenager on a first date. Even his small talk was awkward. Something was afoot, I could smell it.

“What is it, Lan?” I asked him straight on. He squirmed and stumbled, but finally, it came out in a jumbled mess of an explanation.

“Oh … my … god.” I didn’t know what to think of it. “What the hell is wrong with this place?” I asked Estra, but she shrugged and only looked mildly disturbed as if she had heard worse. I was shaking my head with disbelief. Though after giving it a minute of thought, it kind of made sense. Out here, there was no police, no FBI, nor a United Nations Human Rights Council. Or would it be a Monster Rights Council? The mindset was completely of the ‘might is right’ sort.

“I thought like how does it? … Does it work? Interspecies? Is that the word?” I asked and Lan only shook his head, appearing distraught. Simply put, the previous orc chief, Bogakh, was keeping them from laying eggs. He was also raping the ladies. Lan wanted to know what the new breeding rules would be like. I was aghast.

“Well, for starters, Lan. We’re not going to be raping anyone.” I said, feeling indignant. “And you guys can just breed however and with whomever you like.”

“Eww,” was Estra’s sole contribution to the conversation, while Lan nodded enthusiastically, looking eager to be elsewhere. Turned out, I barely knew the guy.

“As long as it’s consensual,” I added. “Do they even know what that word means?” I asked. Estra shrugged, and Lan looked uncertain. I had to spell it out for Lan.

He explained how long it would take before the eggs were laid, hatched, and the critters have grown to adulthood. It would be years before the new brood could become useful. Lan assured me that by the time more food was needed to feed the young, it would be well into Spring. Food was going to be a priority and more dungeon runs, also ventilation and steel making. I needed to start a ‘TO DO:’ list on the board.

After that, word spread quickly, among other things. While they were at it like rabbits, I was having serious doubts about sustaining the future baby boom. A lifted mood spread through the clan, much like the skirts around the place. Baby boom aside, removal of restrictions did more for morale and work ethic than Estra’s [Aristocrat] bonuses.

Back for breakfast at our chief’s quarters, we found Bansari working at her new Alchemy table. She was pouring through the crate of vials we obtained from slimes, while ‘chatting’ with Estra. I was keeping an eye on the ‘conversation’ going on between the two while downing our breakfast of leftover spider meat. It had been turned into a rather spicy stew with a few unfamiliar bits floating around that I presumed were raw organs. I couldn’t afford to dwell on it for too long, it was food, and I was busy with an interesting discussion on the board.

Bansari was explaining another witch spell, [Infuse Substance]. It was a touch-based spell that could be used to infuse powders and liquids into solid objects. Casting it was a lot like the [Mist Cloud] spell, but instead of the target being a point in space, it was a solid object. I had no difficulty gaining this new spell, unlike Estra who couldn’t learn it.

It got me thinking about potential uses for this new spell. “Poison food?” I wrote on the board for Bansari to read, and imagined a red shiny apple. She shrugged, and I wasn’t sure if that meant ‘yes, and I had a few bodies to hide,’ or just ‘meh.’

“Die.” Her pet raven cawed and got me thinking that I best [Inspect+] the food from now on, just in case.

“[Infuse] poison into person?” I wrote. She looked surprised, writing that it may work, but she hadn’t considered it or had an opportunity to try. However, details emerged that it took a significant amount of time to channel the spell – minutes. It could be a useful short-range attack spell, but with that restriction, it wasn’t viable. Might as well just stab them in the eye.

“[Infuse] medicine into person?” I added. Heroin users would love it. Though, I can only imagine how it could quickly go bad if the infusion isn’t specifically targeted straight into the veins. What if it infused into the membranes of the red blood cells? Let’s scratch that idea for now. She hadn’t considered doing that either, and why when you can just drink a potion, or swallow a pill.

She appeared hesitant at first, but then she shared a use for the spell.

“IRONWOOD.” She wrote excitedly on the board. I didn’t know what that meant, or why she was so excited. Turned out she had been using it to upgrade simple wooden clubs with iron ore. It reinforced the wood making the clubs stronger and harder. In effect, it turned regular wood into Ironwood, without the difficulty of finding genuine article in the wild. It took a great deal of iron ore, time and mana, but it was well worth the effort. Nobody asked, but I wondered why she didn’t mention this spell to us earlier. A full stomach makes a person more trusting. I bet she had other spells and skills she was still holding on to; a spell that does the opposite of infusion? I’ll need to test it and see if I can learn it myself.

Then it hit me. Steel!

“We need to go see Kuuz! I have a perfect use for this spell,” I said and went straight to the smithy.

On the way to see Kuuz, I felt like I took a wrong turn and ended up in a porn studio during a shoot. I wasn’t sure if kobolds knew about decency and privacy, or simply didn’t care about getting caught in the act. Estra was wide-eyed and flustered, yet curious. I caught her sneaking in more than an eye-full of voyeuristic action of yet another exhibitionist pair. What had I loosened?

At least Kuuz wasn’t preoccupied in a similar manner. I looked around the smithy, using [Inspect+] on every metallic thing I could find. It was all made from wrought iron, with exception of the steel bars they were working with. I was looking for a piece with the least amount of impurities and found it in a pair of large tongs. I brought up an [Inspect+] screen and concentrated on the tongs, mentally targeting the impurities inside. The same impurities as on the [Inspect+] screen.

Spell Gained: [Extract Substance]

“I’m trying to make steel,” I told Kuuz, which got his attention.

He watched skeptically as I continued to extract tiny amounts of impurities from both parts making up the iron tongs. It took about a minute and 300 mana, but now only Iron and a minuscule amount of Carbon remained. Next, I needed charcoal powder. I grabbed a charcoal lump, crushed it in my hand, and pulverized it on the table until I had a small amount of fine powder. I checked every few seconds for carbon content, aiming for 1%. Another minute, 300 mana, and a minuscule amount of charcoal later, it read:

[High-Quality Steel]

“YES!” I cheered, and handed Kuuz the pair of upgraded tongs, “What do you think?” I said with a grin. His eyes nearly popped out of his head soon as he saw his [Inspect] screen. He was speechless. The whole smithing crew gathered, passing around the pair of tongs like they were a sacred relic.

“What’s the big deal?” Estra asked, appearing curious about the strong reactions she saw.

“This is a game-changer. We can turn any of these iron tools into steel tools. Upgrade iron weapons into high-quality steel weapons. It’s gonna be awesome!” I said.

We spent the rest of the time until lunch at the smithy. I taught all the blacksmiths how to cast the two spells, including which common impurities they needed to be mindful of. After which, they ran around the smithy like they were Midas, turning simple wrought iron items into high-quality steel. It took about 600 mana to turn 1kg of iron into steel, both for removing the impurities and adding carbon. Though the spell had an upgrade to reduce mana usage, up to 40% less for 1,500 Essence for all four tiers, only a few had the Essence to even pay for the first tier. Given their mana regeneration and the amount of iron they had, it would take them many days to turn everything into steel in the smithy.

I looked around to see what else can be improved at the smithy. Their furnaces were a mess of hardened clay and stone. Kuuz was happy to explain to me how they worked to produce wrought iron. They had two of them going at the same time. The billowing was done by hand using leather bellows, two per furnace. The hot air and fumes were funneled out via a large chimney to an opening, using convection. They would pour charcoal in layers with powdered iron ore at the top, which eventually produced what he called a ‘bloomery’ at the bottom. A flower of iron, which they would pound until it gained a semblance of an iron bar.

Constant stream of hammering at multiple anvils made me wish for ear protection. A brief viewing of one smith at work made me realize just how slow the forging progress really was. What they needed was some serious hydraulics to speed this along. The constant billowing by four kobolds was also taking up a lot of manpower that could be used elsewhere. I needed to mechanize both things, and the local stream would be key in the process.

I turned in the shield for more modifications. I realized after playing around with it in the arena, that the vials and potions were bouncing around a bit much. Afraid that they may shatter, I asked him to add padding. I also removed my chainmail armor to upgrade it to steel from iron.

Quite satisfied with this morning’s work, it was time for lunch, and it seemed Globba came back with the same idea. She was dragging an unconscious human with one hand, and a dead one in another.