Origin Witch - Sabotaging the Gunsmith
Brass dust tasted like sucked copper coins.
Corinne blew a gray cloud of metal filings off the edge of her oak workbench, coughing twice into the crook of her elbow as the fine dust settled in the back of her throat. Her right thumb was raw, the nail split near the quick where an iron file had skidded off a hot brass rod an hour ago. Beside her elbow, three crude, cylindrical brass shells lay on a grease-stained rag, their surfaces scratched and uneven, looking like hand-hammered pipe fittings rather than precision ammunition.
Steelwool let out a rasping click-click from its perch on the upper timber rack, its round amber eyes tracking the tiny brass shavings as they fluttered down through the yellow lantern light.
“Don’t eat it, bird,” Corinne grumbled, rubbing the bridge of her nose with a dirty knuckle. “Lead poisoning is permanent, even for steel owls.”
She picked up her black frames from the wooden stool, unfolded the thin arms, and slipped them onto her ears.
The main glass interface on her Magic Desk on the lower level was pulsing with a bright, persistent green light. She did not need to float down the curved heartwood stairs to know who was blowing up her private channel.
Jasper Finch’s name was flagged urgent on the linked interface, text projecting straight into her blue-tinted lenses.
[Jasper Finch]: Miss Mercer. We have an operational emergency that requires your specific metallurgical capabilities.
[Corinne]: I’m brewing health potions, Finch. My cauldrons are full.
[Jasper Finch]: Put the cauldrons on hold. My northern scouting team just brought in something that changes the power balance of Sector 666 entirely.
[Corinne]: A blueprint?
[Jasper Finch]: Better. An actual weapon. Elodie “The Cold-Eye” recovered a semi-automatic handgun from a high-tier supply drop near the quarry. It’s an Earth-made piece, a heavy steel 9mm pistol. The firing pin is intact, the slide works, and the barrel is clean.
[Jasper Finch]: The only problem is the magazine was empty. She has zero rounds.
Corinne’s left hand froze over her copper file.
The workshop around her, the ten iron cauldrons, the bubbling Anseic water tank, the stack of dry granite array bases, seemed to go dead quiet for three long seconds. Even the rain drumming against the balcony glass outside sounded muted, turned into a dull, distant hum.
A gun.
Not an iron pike. Not an oak crossbow built for a forty-five-yard effective range. A semi-automatic handgun.
Her eyes drifted down to her dead legs dangling limply beneath her dark tunic in their loose angle.
She floated. That was her entire defense. Her Zephyr Float talent allowed her to hang twenty yards above the mud, dropping slowness decoctions and explosive vials onto thugs carrying spears and clubs. Against a guy with a crossbow, she had enough airborne maneuverability to glide behind a thick oak trunk before the bolt cleared thirty yards.
Against a 9mm bullet traveling at twelve hundred feet per second?
She was a floating balloon. A white, hovering bullseye sitting in the middle of an open sky. If firearms became common in Sector 666, her airborne superiority vanished instantly. Anyone with twenty rounds of ammunition and a steady hand could pick her off her third-floor balcony before she even heard the gunshot.
[Jasper Finch]: Corinne? Are you reading this?
[Jasper Finch]: I know you have the Basic Mineralogy textbook and the Matter Extraction skill. I have three pounds of refined copper ore, two pounds of lead ingots, and a box of raw sulfur. I need you to manufacture fifty rounds of custom 9mm ammunition for Elodie.
[Jasper Finch]: Name your price. I’ll pay you in high-tier monster cores, or I’ll waive my twenty percent broker fee on your next three potion drops.
Corinne leaned back against her wooden stool, her fingers closing tight around the handle of her Moonstone Carver.
Her mind was running fifty miles an hour, calculating, weighing, measuring the threat.
If she refused the contract, Jasper would simply find another crafter. There were ten thousand outcasts in Sector 666. Some former machinist or lathe operator in the eastern woods would eventually figure out how to cast lead slugs and pack black powder into brass tubes. If she said no, she lost control of the narrative.
If she said yes, she held the powder horn.
“I’ll make the ammunition,” she whispered into the empty room, her voice raspy, cold, and entirely devoid of emotion. “I’ll make it personally.”
She tapped her Magic Desk interface, typing her reply with one finger.
[Corinne]: I can make the brass casings, cast the lead slugs, and mix the propellant. But Kaelum’s mineral properties aren’t identical to Earth chemistry. The sulfur and nitre out here are heavily infused with volatile raw ether.
[Corinne]: I need a sample casing and exact dimensional specifications. Send the copper, the lead, and the sulfur.
[Jasper Finch]: Excellent. I knew you’d see the commercial potential. Sending the raw materials and the spec sheet now.
Ding!
A system trade square opened over her desk screen.
A heavy, burlap sack containing raw copper chunks, lead bars, and three bright yellow lumps of sulfur materialized on her transfer panel, alongside a single empty 9mm brass casing that Elodie had cleared from the pistol’s chamber.
Corinne took the brass casing, holding it up to her black frames.
The blue text box hovered over the dark metal: [Item Appraised: 9x19mm Luger Casing (Brass)] [Dimensions: Rim Diameter 9.96mm, Case Length 19.15mm] [Status: Empty / Primer Pocket intact]
She picked up the yellow sulfur lump, inspecting the volatile mineral through her lenses.
Basic Mineralogy had taught her that Kaelum’s elemental sulfur was not just flammable. It was an unstable mana conductor. When exposed to sudden friction or high heat in a confined space, its ether charge expanded exponentially faster than standard Earth black powder.
If you packed a brass casing with standard Earth ratios of Kaelum sulfur, the pressure curve would not just push the lead slug down the barrel.
It would transform the steel chamber of the gun into a hand grenade.
Corinne’s cracked lips curved into a cold, merciless smile.
“You want bullets, Finch?” she murmured, her thumb rubbing the yellow sulfur dust into a fine powder against her palm. “I’ll make you the best bullets in Sector 666.”
She floated over to her granite array base.
Using her Moonstone Carver, she carved a specialized, high-heat refinement glyph into a fresh stone slab. She set a small copper crucible over the legs, dropped three chunks of lead inside, and activated the golden array.
The lead melted into a shiny, silvery liquid within four minutes.
Corinne did not miscalibrate the lead slugs. The bullet heads needed to look perfect, smooth, and professionally cast, or Elodie’s sharp eyes would spot the defect instantly. She used her Matter Extraction skill to shape the molten lead into ten pristine, 115-grain round-nose projectiles, cooling them in a bucket of cold Anseic spring water.
Next came the brass casings. She refined the copper ore, mixed it with zinc scrap she had bought from Jasper, and pressed ten hollow brass shells using her stone array. Every dimension was exact, 9.96mm rim, 19.15mm length.
Then came the propellant.
This was where the alchemy happened.
Instead of using stable, slow-burning charcoal and nitre, Corinne intentionally mixed a double-density charge of raw Kaelum sulfur dust, volatile ground Glow-Cap Mushroom spores, and two drops of concentrated Volcanic Worm Fluid she had traded from Garrett Thorne.
The resulting powder looked like ordinary gray gunpowder. It smelled like charcoal and sulfur.
But its internal detonation pressure was four hundred percent higher than any standard steel firearm could tolerate.
She packed the gray powder into the ten brass casings, seated the lead slugs flush against the rims, and sealed the primer pockets with a microscopic drop of explosive alchemical resin.
She numbered the base of each cartridge with a tiny scratch using her knife: 1 through 10.
Rounds 1 through 7 contained reduced, semi-stable charges. They would fire with a loud bang, kick hard, and drive a lead slug through an oak board easily, proving the ammunition worked.
Round 8 was the maximum tolerance limit, a heavy, bone-rattling magnum charge that would produce a massive muzzle flash and a terrifying bang.
Round 9 was the hammer.
It contained a triple-pack of volatile volcanic resin directly behind the primer. The second the firing pin struck Round 9, the chamber pressure would spike past sixty thousand pounds per square inch, shattering the steel slide, ripping the gun frame apart, and destroying the weapon permanently.
Corinne picked up the ten finished cartridges, holding them in her palm. They felt cool, heavy, and slick with oil.
To anyone looking at them, even through a Magic Desk’s basic appraisal screen, they were ten rounds of high-grade, custom-crafted 9mm ammunition.
[Item Appraised: Custom 9mm Alchemical Ammunition * 10] [Effect: Inflicts 45 Physical Damage. Variable internal pressure profile.] [Note: Ammunition crafted using unrefined Kaelum ether-minerals. High kinetic output. Proceed with caution.]
“Variable pressure profile,” Corinne read aloud, a dry, breathy chuckle escaping her throat. “The system is so polite.”
She floated down to her Magic Desk, opened her private trade window with Jasper Finch, and dropped the ten cartridges into the transfer grid.
[Corinne]: The test batch is finished. 10 rounds of custom 9mm ammunition.
[Corinne]: I numbered the bases 1 through 10. Rounds 1 through 7 are standard load. Rounds 8 and 9 are heavy magnum loads for high-armored targets. Tell Elodie to test them in sequence.
[Jasper Finch]: Magnificent! You are an absolute lifesaver, Corinne. How much for the batch?
[Corinne]: Free. Consider it a demonstration of goodwill. Just let me know how the field test goes.
[Jasper Finch]: Goodwill? From you? Now I know I’m dreaming. I’ll send Elodie to the northern quarry right now to test them against a rock wall. I’ll give you a full report within the hour.
Corinne closed the messaging window.
She reached across the desk, killed the green projection with a single tap, and turned her attention to the brass shells still cooling on the rag. She swept them into her Pouch of Preservation, ran her thumb once along the edge of her Moonstone Carver, and turned toward the granite array. The night’s work was not done. The sulfur dust still needed grinding, and the slowness decoction would not brew itself.
“Just waiting for a bang, bird,” she muttered toward the empty perch. “Just waiting for a bang.”
— Origin Witch —