B2 | Chapter 33 - Lose Ends

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B2 | Chapter 33 - Lose Ends

Theodore POV

With his mouth agape as if he had just witnessed a divine miracle rather than what Theodore thought was rather simple runework, Baron Ashton was unable to take his eyes off the container filled with slimes.

The man had been circling the damned thing for almost ten minutes, prodding it with one stubby finger as though he thought it would explode in his face or bite back.

Which, considering some of the devices that passed for innovation in this world, Theodore supposed wasn't totally irrational.

"Extraordinary," said Ashton, with that awe in his voice that Theodore had become used to hearing from those who had no idea what they were looking at.

Which wasn't quite wrong here, to be fair. Ashton didn't know the first thing about what he was looking it, because if he knew, he would either be screaming for a priest or begging for the blueprints, maybe both at once, and Theodore wasn't entirely sure which would be more entertaining.

Runes weren't supposed to work this way. That was the prevailing wisdom of this silly, stubborn little world, repeated with the same certainty people declared the sun would rise.

It wasn't just that they didn't understand it, it was that they COULDN'T. There were entire books in the Royal Library about how rune-inscription was a theoretical impossibility, full of smug diagrams and long-winded theses about metaphysical rejection and arcane limits.

But gods, it made hiding the truth so much easier.

If Ashton had any idea what he was really looking at, he'd be flipping tables. Or praying. Or possibly flipping tables WHILE praying.

Theodore watched him with the patience of a man who knew he was playing with fire and had long since decided to see how close he could get to the flame without catching. It was a fun little game—show off just enough to tantalize, never enough to damn.

Because gods help him, if the smarter nobles ever got wind of it—the REALLY smart ones—they wouldn't waste time being horrified. They'd see coin, power, control. And then they'd smile and he'd be dragged into a world he wanted no part of but knew he was slowly etching closer to.

After the tournament, he'd be officially in the game.

"How did you do it?" Ashton demanded, finally tearing his gaze away from the container to fix Theodore with an expression of desperate curiosity. "I mean, what's the secret? The mechanism? Surely there must be some kind of... some sort of..."

He gestured helplessly at the container, clearly lacking the vocabulary to even begin describing what he thought might be happening.

"It is simply extraordinary, Lord Theodore. The slimes... they're actually stable. Calm as lambs in there, when yesterday they were practically tearing each other apart."

The man wasn't wrong, of course. The slimes were indeed behaving themselves. But listening to Ashton gush about it like Theodore had just reinvented the wheel was beginning to grate on his nerves.

Baron Ashton wouldn't stop talking. He was one of those men who thought praise was currency and gushing enthusiasm a form of payment. Ashton clapped him on the shoulder for the third time in the span of a minute, laughing with that horsey bray that grated like a file against soft wood.

"It is just brilliant! Absolutely genius, Lord Theodore! This—it solves everything! You've addressed it all!"

Still, he supposed he should be grateful for the baron's enthusiasm. It made negotiations considerably easier when the other party was practically vibrating with excitement over your work.

"Again, how did you do it?" he asked, trying for casual but failing miserably. "I must know!"

Theodore felt his lips curve into a cold smile. He raised one finger to his lips in a gesture that was both intentionally theatrical and unmistakably threatening, watching with mild amusement as Ashton's face went through several interesting color changes.

There was silence, the Baron having shut his mouth to think.

Theodore had found that sometimes the most effective way to handle these situations was to say absolutely nothing at all and let the other person's imagination fill in the blanks.

People were remarkably good at scaring themselves when given the opportunity.

Ashton blinked, gulped audibly, and then—to his credit—had the good sense to laugh nervously and nod like a man who'd just asked something obscene at a dinner party.

"Trade secret it is!" he said with forced joviality, hands up in surrender, though Theodore could hear the nervous tremor underneath.

"Of course, of course. A man of your obvious talents must guard his methods carefully."

Smart man, though not smart enough to realize that the real secret wasn't the method but the fact that Theodore could inscribe runes at all. If Ashton knew that particular detail, this entire arrangement would become considerably more complicated. The baron would either try to exploit him directly or, more likely, sell information about Theodore's capabilities to someone with deeper pockets.

All's fair in love and war—and money.

Not that Theodore was particularly worried about either scenario. He'd dealt with ambitious provincial nobles before, and they all tended to make the same fundamental mistake of assuming that raw ambition could substitute for actual competence.

Still, it was better to avoid unnecessary complications when possible.

"Now then," Theodore said, "shall we finalize our agreement?"

What followed was the usual dance of negotiation, though Theodore had to admit that Ashton was more agreeable than most. The baron nodded enthusiastically at every proposal, signed every document with barely a glance at the terms—though it was another matter entirely they'd went through this multiple times by now—and generally conducted himself like a man who'd just been handed the keys to his own personal goldmine. Which, Theodore supposed, wasn't entirely inaccurate.

The specifics of their arrangement were straightforward enough. The profit split was generous enough to keep the baron happy while still ensuring that Theodore would see a substantial return on his investment.

"And the fervidite shipments?" Theodore asked.

"Set and ready to go, Lord Theodore!" Ashton beamed. "Just say the word and we can have the first batch on its way to you within the week. Premium quality, I assure you. The miners have been working double shifts to meet your specifications. Of course, they chose willingly and have been paid accordingly."

The fervidite would be useful for his various projects back in Holden.

Theodore nodded, the matter settled. "I'll handle the containers," he said, already done with this interaction. "And I'll create a… device for the new slimes you bring in. Something to keep them from dying off."

Ashton looked momentarily alarmed. "They'd die?"

"I solved the issue for the slimes currently on the farm, not every slime in the world. But, no, they will not die with my device," Theodore replied.

"Excellent," Ashton said. "I'll manage everything else according to the terms we've outlined. This partnership will be the making of both our fortunes, I'm certain of it."

Theodore made appropriate noises of agreement while his thoughts turned to more practical matters.

The current slime solution was effective but hardly scalable—he couldn't be expected to manually inscribe runes into every single slime for the rest of his life, could he?

The work was tedious enough when dealing with a handful of specimens; trying to do it for an entire commercial operation would drive him to madness.

No, of course he wasn't going to hand-inscribe runes into every single goddamn slime they sent his way. That was insanity. He had other things to do, entire projects back home in Holden that needed reworking now that rune inscriptions were in play.

What he needed was some kind of device that could handle the inscriptions automatically. His first instinct was to create something like a gun that could fire runic inscriptions directly onto targets, but that idea had obvious flaws. Any fool with access to such a device could potentially inscribe runes, which defeated the entire purpose of keeping his capabilities secret. Worse, it could lead to all sorts of unpleasant complications if the technology fell into the wrong hands.

Though, he supposed, once SoapNet was operational across the kingdom, he could install a kill-switch of sorts. Remote shut-off. Control the guns through the network. But not yet. He'd need to wait until the SoapNet was fully operational before attempting anything that sophisticated.

Once he had remote monitoring and control capabilities in place, he could theoretically create a lot of different things utilizing the SoapNet.

For now, better to create something else, something which was less volatile. A rope, maybe. Something portable, easy to deploy, lightweight but good enough. It could be placed around a specific area to create a containment field with the necessary runic inscriptions already built in. It would create a dome, really. Lay the rope in a ring, and within that ring—an atmosphere stable enough for the slimes to live.

Actually, that could work quite well. A rope that could create a dome-shaped field when properly arranged, with built-in mana regulation that would keep the slimes stable without requiring individual attention. The only real challenge would be transportation—how do you move slimes from the containment area to their final destination without losing the stabilizing effect?

Large containers for each trip? No, that wasn't scalable. Not for him alone. But what if he just created more rope, enough to circle the entire carriage? Enclose the whole transport in a dome of controlled mana? Yes. That sounded better.

He could even pre-inscribe them. Inscribe the runes onto the rope back at his workshop, and then the handlers could use them without needing to know what they were doing.

The more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. It would require some careful calibration to ensure the fields remained stable during movement, but the basic principle was sound. And it would certainly be more practical than trying to inscribe individual containers for every shipment.

Once he returned to Holden, he'd need to revisit several of his ongoing projects with fresh eyes. So many of his earlier designs had been constrained by his inability to inscribe runes directly—now that particular limitation no longer applied, there were a number of improvements and modifications that suddenly became possible.

It was going to mean a lot of additional work, but Theodore found himself looking forward to the challenge. There was something deeply satisfying about taking a flawed system and rebuilding it properly. It was like finally being able to scratch an itch that had been bothering you for months.

"Lord Theodore?" Ashton's voice cut through Theodore's planning session, bringing him back to the present moment. "Is there anything else you need to finalize before we conclude our business?"

Theodore blinked, realizing he'd been silent for several moments while his thoughts ran wild with possibilities. From Ashton's expression, the baron was clearly wondering if something was wrong, though he was too polite—or too intimidated—to ask directly.

"No," Theodore said, standing up. "I believe we've covered everything necessary for now. I will be creating something for containment and then I will be leaving for Holden."

***

[Rune Inscription] has leveled up! – Lvl 3 > Lvl 4!

[Meditation] has leveled up! – Lvl 22 > Lvl 23!

[Mana Control] has leveled up! – Lvl 6 > Lvl 7!

[Basic Rune Creation] has leveled up! – Lvl 19 > Lvl 20!

[Basic Magic Script] has leveled up! – Lvl 10 > Lvl 11!

The rope worked.

Theodore stood at the edge of the slime containment area, watching with satisfaction as his creation did exactly what it was supposed to do. The specially inscribed cord formed a perfect circle around the breeding pens, creating an invisible dome of regulated mana that kept the slimes healthy. The slimes, for once, weren't decomposing or writhing in distress. They were just… there. Sloshing around in that nauseatingly enthusiastic way they did.

It was, Theodore had to admit, rather elegant in its simplicity.

He had backup rope too. Redundancy mattered. The system was primitive but functional. Embedded in the runes was a ping directive that interfaced with SoapNet—well, the parts of SoapNet he'd been able to seed across the kingdom so far. They would ping the central nexus in Holden if the containment broke.

Now that this was done, the rest followed logically. 

Once the full SoapNet was operational, he'd be able to monitor and control runic devices across vast distances with unprecedented precision. Which meant that his earlier idea about creating runic inscription guns was now entirely feasible—he'd just need to build proper identification systems and remote shutdown capabilities into each device. With ping mechanisms and identifiers embedded in each unit, he could ensure they weren't abused. Every rune-gun would broadcast its ID, location, and inscription log. The SoapNet would know. And through the SoapNet, he would know.

Not that he was planning to mass-produce such things anytime soon. The political ramifications of widespread runic inscription technology would be... complicated. So he needed solid backing before that.

Which meant that the coming tournament became far more important in his mind.

I think it's time to let Jack in on the secret.

Because Jack would be the one building that stuff mainly. He had made the ping system, but it was very rudimentary and he wasn't confident in it at all. Moreso, it had taken him over a day!

But that was for later. Too much work for now. Something he could delegate or schedule when he was back in Holden, when he had his equipment and notes and the quiet of his workshop instead of Ashton's incessant yapping. For now, though, he had more immediate concerns to address.

The dome rope was stable. Everything was holding. The fervidite shipments were secured, and Baron Ashton was so grateful that he'd probably agree to Theodore's terms even if they were written in crayon on the back of a tavern napkin.

Which meant it was time to return home and begin the real work.

The journey back to Holden would give him plenty of time to plan out the modifications and improvements that were now possible thanks to his expanded capabilities. So many projects to redesign, so many systems to enhance, so many possibilities to explore.

It was going to be an interesting few months.

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