Warrior of the Void Book 1, Chapter 33

Flipping through the recipe, the first thing Muur learned was that the substance owned its name not just to the fact that it was a sand-like substance that burned. Small notes in the margins even said that natural deposits existed– if only because it compared them to the recipe written here –but also due to how its main ingredient were fire crystals ground to a sand-like consistency.

The second thing she learned was that the process to manufacture it was a fairly simple one. Unfortunately, it was also a tedious one. It didn’t take long before she was grinding dozens of tiny red crystals into a fine powder, then mixing it with another powder, then another, before grinding yet another batch of crystal so she could mix it with the rest of the powders and–

Simply put, the process was mind numbing… Thankfully, she could occupy her mind while her body worked on auto-pilot. The notes that had allowed her to learn the tidbit about natural deposits were many. Some were an in depth observation regarding Firesand, something that explained X or Y and how it related to allowing the sand to either explode most spectacularly, or turn into a sooty mess. Some were addendums regarding the recipe: changing of ratios, grittiness of a component, or, in one case, a ‘shortcut’ that would always result in a loss of eyebrows at best…

Figuring their meaning wasn’t exactly easy though. As any true margin writing, they’d been crammed where they could fit. Sometimes between two paragraphs, sometimes in the actual margin, sometimes spilling over a small illustration that was meant to show the traditional method. Not to mention how they’d been penned by a feverish hand, with no care of who would read the tiny, cursive chicken scratches that now decorated the four page long recipe.

That being said… the base of Firesand was, of course, not the fire crystals she was mindlessly grinding. Instead it was a substance called ‘Bomb Ash’ which came from the very same Final Fantasy monster that loved to violently blow itself up to many-a-player’s dismay. Incidentally, it was also a Voidsent. The ash itself was incredibly volatile, lighting it on fire caused the same sort of explosions that the creatures were known for.

At the same time though, it was shockingly inert. While it had the potential for a big boom, without sufficient raw fire aether, far in excess to that of any source of heat (including spells) it was completely useless in that regard. Weirdly enough, it was also loaded with carbon since half a dozen notes from Lalaladee mentioned ‘Bomb soot’, some sort of coal-based replacement. Each one tried to modulate and change the ratio of ash-to-soot for the best result– before eventually giving up and striking the entire idea from the page since the loss of quality just wasn’t worth it.

Point was, by itself it was useless. So to remedy that, in went fire crystal powder to serve as a catalyst. Except, that just meant you dumped exactly what the ash needed to blow up in your hands right in there. One errant bonk, one sneeze, or even just the ambient aether rising above a certain threshold, any sort of agitation to the crystal dust, and it’d dump all of the aether it held into its surrounding… Which turned the ash into a very hot mess, very quickly, and whoever was around into a physic’s problem just as quickly.

So to make it stable again– but not too much, water crystals were ground and added in. Just enough to keep the fire crystals in check. But that led to another problem, because now the mixture would burn slowly and quite dirtily too, thanks to the water powder preventing the fire one from releasing its full aether content fast enough.

The solution? Eh, just toss a bunch of thunder crystal dust in there too. When it got activated, it would dump all its energy into the water dust, which would then go ballistic for a split second, just long enough to set off the fire dust, and thus the firesand.

Her mentor’s personal ratio was a 78-21-0.5-0.5 of ash, fire dust, water dust and lightning dust respectively…

At least she didn’t have to use her own stuff to grind and mix everything. The tiny enclosure had a large, near industrial grinder and mixing bowl for her to use, a relief considering that kegs… kegs weren’t small and you had to put a lot of powder in one to fill it up.

Thankfully, after spending almost all afternoon mixing powders, she was finally done with it and the six kegs that had been behind the partition were all topped up. Now, all she had to do was talk to her nominal mentor to see what came next.

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“Good, drop them in that corner with the rest and leave me to my work.” That was apparently it. Though, Muur did get a tidy two hundred gil, and some direction on where to buy her own recipe book for her troubles.

This did mean that she was left with nothing to do for now though. Leaving her to ponder what she could do with her newfound freedom.

“There you are!” A freedom that evaporated the moment a furry eggplant laid eyes on her. Standing next to a confused looking clerk was her catty friend, finger raised and pointing at her, “I’ve been trying to find you for two days!” Before the lizard had much time to process what was going on, an arm was wrapped around hers and she was being pulled out of the guild, “Come on, we gotta go!”

“I live in the Ossuary, it isn’t so hard to get ahold of me.” Muur grumbled as she let herself be dragged out. She knew better than to try and struggle against the cat’s strength

“And when I went there to try and find you, The clerks at the entrance told me to leave a message!” The cat grumbled as she pulled her friend onwards, “But you never picked it up, so here I am!”

“Because nobody notified me!” Muur grumbled right back, tail letting out an annoyed whipcrack behind her.

“Huh. Wait, really? The guy at the front desk told me they pass it on next time you went to pick up work from them,” Shaking her head, she didn't give Muur a chance to get a word edgewise, “Well anyhow, we’ve got something more important to do right now,” Putting her hand on the Aetheryte shard she’d brought Muur at, she turned to the Au’ra, “See you as the Adventurer’s Guild!”

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“Right, so this is about the wasp extermination, yeah?” The lizard wizard asked as her friend dragged her through the doors of the Quicksand.

“It is yeah,” The miqo’te explained with a nod as she led Muur around a group of very rowdy, very drunk, patrons, “Why’d you not come back to register? Momodi was almost ready to give the job to someone else.” 

“There have been no less than three disasters the last few days that nearly made my tail fall off. It just slipped my mind.” Muur groaned, shoulders slumping.

“Oh,” The feline woman paused in her stride, before awkwardly reaching out to Muur’s shoulder, “I know the feeling?”

“Let’s get this thing done and I’ll bitch about it over some beers.” The lizard said with a sigh as she forced her spine and shoulders up. “Then you can tell me what flavors of nonsense the city hucked at you.”

“Sounds good to me,” Guiding Muur forwards with a nod, Kofle quickly flagged a clerk as they approached the counter, “Hey Fimb’, could you pull up the request for the wasp’s hive?”

“Hm? Oh! That the friend you’ve been pinnin’ for?” A larger than usual, blue skinned Roegadyn jovially asked her, leaving Kofle sputtering, “Sure I’ll go an’ ask Madam Momodi to come an’ register her!”

“Should I have called it a date?” Muur drawled with a lazy smile, all too happy to rile up the cat.

“I–! Buh–! That’s not it–!” The cat verbally flailed around.

“Are you so certain dear?” Appearing out of the void like a silent executioner, Momodi hopped on her footstool, her bright and cheerful smile wielded as expertly as a headsman’ axe as she delivered the final blow, “I seem to recall you asking if she’d dropped by every time you came to the counter!”

“I will have to ask around for some good date spots.” Muur mused to herself with a sage nod.

“Nuuuuuuuuuh!” Assaulted on both sides, Kofle pleaded for mercy, “It wasn’t for a daaaaaaate!”

“Right, right,” With a sage nod of her own, Momodi spared the cat from more embarrassment by offering a flier to Muur, “Here is the job offer for the wasp extermination.”

[Quote]
The Wasping Plague:

Rewards: 5843 Gil (???)

It appears that one of the watering holes near the slums has been overtaken by a number of wasps! Enough that one might even call it a plague called down upon the faithless by the very gods!

We, of the Thaumaturgy Guild, believe their presence to be far more mundane in nature. Regardless, they cannot be suffered to live! Go forth adventurers, and rid the lands of these vile buzzing creatures! And if you will not do it out of the goodness of your heart, then our order will be more than glad to reward you for your work!

Objectives:

• Exterminate the source of the wasps.

• and/or

• Find information on why the wasps are present in this location.

Guildmaster Cocobuki

[/quote]

“Huh, that’s some good money. Is this per adventurer or per party?” Muur asked as she finished reading through the job posting.

“As a party I’m afraid,” Momodi quickly provided the explanation, “We’ve had issues in the past. Certain individuals of lackluster character attempted to deny hard working men their due by arguin’ that they dealt with an issue by their lonesome– issues that asked for a full adventurin’ party, ask yer Guildmasters about it if you find the fancy. But, I’m sure you’ve noticed the question marks next to the payment, aye?”

“Aye, was wondering about them, too.” The lizard woman replied with a bob of her head.

“That’s the employer saying that there's to be further payment,” This time it was Kofle that spoke up, “It’s vanishingly rare to see it on a request.”

“That’d be because it must come from a trusted source that the Adventurer’s Guild knows will not attempt to worm their ways out of it. There’s more to it, but that’d be the most important part.” Momodi explained with a sharp nod.

“Right, let’s get this all signed and stamped so I can go sweep Kofle off her feet.” Muur said with a grin.

“That’s not what it sounded like! I sweeeeeeeeear!”