"Now that you know how to fix your bodies," Jake said, wiping charcoal from his hands as he looked at the Elven leaders, "I'm going to need something in return. I need Dwarven Coal, Pure Sulfur, and Niter. I'm done with swords. It's time for Firearms."
The elves, now indebted to him for the "Sacred" healing arts, had no choice but to provide. Jake moved back to his forge, his mind already calculating the rifling of a barrel. He wasn't just grinding for points anymore; he was preparing for the inevitable day he would encounter a Witcher or the Nilfgaardian Army.
Jake didn't just build a gun; he built a shift in the global hierarchy. Through the Aen Seidhe, he learned of the Nilfgaardian Empire—a relentless machine of conquest that ground "non-humans" under its heel. In his mind, the Arcanum System didn't just show a Flintlock schematic; it showed a solution.
The Dwarves watched with intense, professional silence as Jake worked. He wasn't using magic to shape the barrels; he was using a hand-cranked lathe he'd built from scrap iron. He spent weeks perfecting the Rifling, carving grooves inside the steel tubes to spin the bullets for accuracy.
When the first Flintlock was finished, it was a rugged, heavy thing. He made dozens more, his hands becoming a map of burns and callouses as he mastered the Gunsmithy discipline.
Once he felt his "muscle memory" was perfect, Jake didn't stop. He pushed the limits of the local metallurgy to forge a Fine Revolver—a six-shot masterpiece of clockwork precision and cold steel.
"Take them," Jake said, gesturing to the crates of discarded flintlocks. He was addressing a group of Dwarves and Halflings who had no magical talent. "These are yours. No magic, no Signs, no prayers. Just chemistry and lead."
One dwarf, a grizzled veteran of the Brennwen wars, picked up a pistol. He aimed at a thick oak stump fifty paces away.
CRACK.
The sound was a thunderclap that echoed through the valley. The stump didn't just get hit; it splintered as the lead ball punched through six inches of solid wood. The dwarves' eyes nearly popped out of their heads. They had seen Zerrikanian fire-powder, but they had never seen a weapon that turned a common laborer into something more lethal than a Sorceress.
"By the ancestors..." the dwarf whispered, smelling the acrid blue smoke. "A child could kill a knight in full plate with this. Without a single word of Elder Speech."
"That's the point," Jake said, holstering his Fine Revolver. "Physics doesn't care who you are. It only cares that you pull the trigger."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Technological Aptitude: 45% (Increasing)
Reputation (Dwarves/Halflings): Worshipful
Schematic Discovered: Looking Glass Rifle
Jake has armed the non-humans, but the smoke from his forge has been spotted. A Witcher from the School of the Wolf has been hired to investigate the "unnatural thunder" in the north.
Jake wiped a smudge of grease from his brow as he inspected his latest creation. While the Dwarves and Gnomes had embraced the roar of gunpowder, the Aen Seidhe archers were traditionalists at heart. They respected the power of the "Iron Thunder," but they loathed the noise and the smoke that clung to their cloaks.
"A weapon of the forest should be silent," the elven scouts had argued.
Jake had nodded and turned to the Mechanical Discipline. He didn't build them a better wooden bow; he built them a Compound Bow. It was a skeletal masterpiece of high-tension cables and eccentric pulleys made from the "Pure Ore" alloy. When the elves pulled the string, they were confused by the initial resistance—until the pulleys "let off," allowing them to hold a 100-pound draw with the effort of a child.
"It holds the tension for you," Jake explained, handing the first model to a stunned archer. "And it hits with enough force to pin a horse to a tree."
To secure the perimeter, Jake had littered the unclaimed woods with Spring Traps. These weren't the rusty bear traps of the Northern Realms; they were hair-trigger devices of cold logic, designed to snap shut on anyone approaching without a Trap Springer to safely bypass them. In his pocket, Jake carried the Auto Skeleton Key—a humming, mechanical lockpick that made the clumsy tools of human thieves look like twigs.
A few miles away, Geralt of Rivia moved through the brush like a ghost. He had been hired by a group of terrified herbalists who swore the "Thunder Gods" had claimed the northern woods.
Geralt stopped. His medallion didn't vibrate—there was no magic here—but his Witcher Senses were screaming.
He looked down at the forest floor. To an ordinary man, it looked like a pile of autumn leaves. But Geralt saw the slight, unnatural tension in the earth. He knelt, his golden eyes narrowing. It wasn't a primitive snare or a pitfall. It was a series of interlocking steel teeth, held by a spring so tightly wound it hummed with a frequency Geralt had never heard.
"What in the name of the Great Sun is this?" Geralt muttered. He tossed a heavy stone onto the patch of leaves.
SNAP.
The trap closed with such violent, mechanical speed that the stone was shattered into dust. Geralt recoiled, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. Had it been a Leshen or a mage's ward, he would have known how to counter it. But this was cold. It was alien. It was a machine that didn't care about his mutations or his Signs.
Geralt began to move again, but his hand stayed on the hilt of his sword. He wasn't hunting a monster anymore; he was navigating a minefield of advanced engineering.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Technological Aptitude: 50%
Reputation (Non-Humans): Master Artisan
Aptitude Field: Passive "Dead Zone" for magic is expanding.