Legend of Ransera

Dakkur was under no illusions he was one of the brightest minds. Not in Zaichaer. Not in Zeraphesh. Definitely nowhere else in Karnor. However he was creative and adaptable, two qualities which was desirable to a runesmith although back home the Doelish were quite narrow in their application of runesforging and practicing it in the open in Zaichaer too was a bad idea. However when it came to something involving runeforging Dakkur did have a license for the revolver he brought along from home which also meant indirectly, there was nothing to suspect him of if he worked with caster shells. It was not like they put tiny numbers into the caster shells he had and kept them on record so they could find out when he replaced them through less legal means or by fabricating his own. And so Dakkur decided to submit something which made use of caster shells. Who knows, he could try and get reimbursed- actually get more caster shells out of the government as they would be spent, according to his records of the experiments, on his innovation. That is of course assuming he succeeded.

The item he would submit therefore would be based on an old idea he once tried, failed, and had to adapt with something else as an alternative. While time was of the essence since the faire came with a deadline, Dakkur felt it more important to keep mum of his own capabilities in runeforging which meant he also wanted to keep hidden his resources as much as possible so information and numbers would not betray him to any of the more astute studies of his creation. So instead of getting right into final designs, Dakkur spent a day in contemplation of when he first got the spark of the inspiration for his idea and then, how he went on to plan the first designs like in the materials he could use, possible shapes for ease of use and being just plain damn cool , the arrangement of the components inside in line with his planned design and so on. Recalling all this information while trying to keep out his subsequent advances from further experimentation which came later, Dakkur did his best to fabricate his first notes as accurately as possible to the 'older' information which was only available to him during that period.

He already knew how it all went, after all, he already experienced it back then so Dakkur wasted no time in fabricating the second batch of notes based on what he 'learned' after the first trial. Materials were struck out, noted and highlighted based on how they should have acted against the abuse they would go through. From memory reactions of the caster shell and its attitude towards this specific method of activation was recorded. Dakkur did not believe the academics would doubt him on this point seeing as this activation in itself was a widely known 'accident' through the erroneous use of firearms; they would think of him insane maybe for even thinking it let along testing it, but not wrong in the process itself. The old arrangements from the then redundant first designs were drastically changed in order to allow for a smoother flow of all the components, working together to reach that one end function.

But going off his memory, that second attempt did not go too well either. He remembered how the devil he summoned exploded when he made the test on Dakkur's behalf although, that was the reason why the summoner specifically brought in one of those hardy suckers through the portal and gods be damned the devil was still whole and not harmed that much. Lucky for his precautions or Dakkur would be without a limb or something had he conducted the tests himself. So he made another set of notes and diagrams based on this new test which like the second set he fabricated contained a lot more markings, signs and technical terms as well as words he made up for himself, just because. Some secrets he had to keep for himself and a little confusion among the ranks of the academics in Institute might even help. Even if those evaluating his invention would not understand those bits it was only the last set which would be sent along with the final product that would be important.

However he realized he had already reached a snag. Just how was he going to document the second test made by the devil without having any signs it was tested by the devil or some other intermediary Dakkur might use? An inventor using some poor sod off the streets of fooling a child into doing his dangerous experiments for him even if not jailed, could be shunned by the entire community and put into some sort of a watchlist. He tried and tried to think it through but could not think of any other solution. Should he skip straight to the third attempt? The fourth? The fifth? But a lot of the subsequent tests made use of the devil as an intermediary too. Dakkur was stuck for nearly an hour and then went to take a snack. Thinking was hard work! When he returned he realized, why was there even a need to think about it too much? Part of what he learned to help him with this invention also taught him to make use of simple solutions. Strings and long sticks, mechanical claws and clamps, extra big buttons on prototypes. He could just fake all these in the documentation as needed.

As a result just in that day alone he had prepared enough notes and diagrams for six iterations. Nice. That would just about be enough to get him enough extra shells to deplete his revolver once, if he could get enough of a reimbursement that is. The next few days went on with Dakkur having no association with the project and instead of getting on with his life. Working, eating and exploring: all the things a visitor to the city would want to do. The only difference in this routine was he also hit some of the stores to buy the components for each stage of the project. Logically he would only need one set, for the last set he would need to submit but his hostess said something which made sense. Being a lady more experienced in the sneaky business in the shadows it could only make Dakkur more convincing and people less likely to scrutinize if he could work as close to his ruse as possible with as much evidence to support him. So while he practically only needed to purchase enough components for one set, it was the witness to him going to the store each day to purchase these items as well as the receipts he wanted to get. Expensive but, now he had a lot of extra mechanical components for another project should he think of any which he can do secretly without anyone else's knowledge.

Assembly of his new device would have only needed one day which should mean him finishing by the eighth day but the whole pretense of going through everything he had learnt in the past in making this new device and the gap of a few days until he finally decided to build it, gave him a lot of time to think about it. The mistakes he made, the hows and whys those mistakes happened, what improvements he could have made to it now that seasons later he was a man with a lot more knowledge and experience, and a whole lot of other things which could only have helped in his efforts. With these he started to build this prototype with some slight adjustments and variations. Wait... what was he making again? Initially it had been a tool to launch projectiles far away and hard, making use of the propulsion caster shells were made for, one of the many reasons plenty of runesmiths starting out were completely unable to make shells on their own as much as they wanted to. Now after so many changes to the idea it was initially, it was more like a weapon although not the weapon he thought it would have turned out as either. Dakkur was not comfortable with the idea of making weapons, especially for an organization with close ties to the military. What if they liked him making weapons and decide to chain him to a table and force him to make more for the rest of his life? Rebranding was in fact in order.

Rebranding was something which was going to be important therefore on the top of the final plans he had made was written what he called the item. "Breaching charges for excavations and rescues" which was very close to the job he had a lot of people in Zaichaer believing he was doing, archaeology. This was followed by the very technical bits he had been working to refine on for all those days, the diagrams and schematics which were not as accurate as he could have done it in order to have some creative liberties- that way he can explain away some things or conveniently forget, and then the boring old description like it was made to stab into things while aligning charge towards the target and then explode, bla bla bla and, instructions because some people actually thought those were very important with anything new they bought for themselves.

He had made some extra so he could be sure his submission would work safely before he handed it in. First a trigger mechanism, well more a mechanism to allow for the device to be triggered since the plate was in the giant stick to prevent the caster shell from activating prematurely. "First I unhook...," unhook the three hooks; Dakkur wished he could design a more intuitive way to activate the device like the push of a button but with his experience he was still not quite there yet. Then the actual trigger, "I twist the stick and lock it in..." which were what the ridges and points were for, forcing the perfect balance of pressure and tension. This was when the item was volatile. There were some other things which worked within the stick but for the sort of layman who would be using them those were important so Dakkur got right in. He knew there would be an explosion so he had chosen to test this device in an isolated area and he stabbed it right into the wall the abandoned ruins had. "They got to keep an ear out for the..." wait for it, 'crack' which Dakkur knew came from the caster shell. Then the 'click... click... click...' of the caster shell being forced back into place by the lock it was pushing against to break out. "Time to go!"

This was why this device would not be suited as a weapon; not just the fact that it took some time to activate and had that unsettling clicking noise but because of the fact that despite the same type of specifications and the same type of caster shells were used for the same make of charges it was really inconsistent in when it chose to finally take effect. Dakkur could safely say from experience however it had to at least click six times, long enough to clear the area. And now for the magic. As he and a lot of other runesmiths and firearm users knew, the caster shells when cracked in just the right spot from being pierced at just the right angle would go... 'boom!' He did not even need to use caster shells to be honest but those were the items he most readily had and could easily explain why he had them instead of having to forge a new thing entirely clue people in to the fact he had access to a runesmith if he was not already the runesmith.

But it was great that it worked, even better than he thought it would after some of the changes and promptly packed it all up: notes and final prototype to be sent to the Board of Engineering at the Greater Institute of Zaichaer before the deadline.