Enlightened Empire

Chapter 359: Treasure Hunt

The heavy knocks on the door of Saniya’s royal chemistry lab made Drachimine’s knuckles hurt in the cold, but he didn’t care. This was a famous place, even in this city full of famous places. Here, the rumors said, was where Saniya’s greatest alchemists produced the city’s purple dye, as well as the vanillin powder, which was the newest delicacy popular in the noble circles.

Although he had failed to gain anything from previous workshops, they had been no more than tests for today. This time, he would do his absolute best. This time, he was determined to get results.

When his master Lord Rafun had sent him to Saniya with his orders, Drachimine had been astonished. Would he really gain access to Saniya’s secret workshops and all of their secret technologies this easily? Never had he expected the madman King Corcopaca to just give in like that.

It seemed like most of the lords agreed with his assessment and didn’t quite believe in the king’s quick capitulation. Since they were expecting some kind of trick, they were careful and didn’t return back to the city themselves. Instead, they had sent servants like Drachimine to do the plundering for them.

At the same time however, they had been eager to make use of their advantages so long as the weakness of King Corcopaca lasted. At first, Drachimine had thought that this would be the ideal chance to show himself in front of his master by offering him the great secrets of the city.

Not to mention, it would also be a chance to get rich himself. During their looting of Saniya’s workshops, there were bound to be many treasures they could take with them with various justifications. Not to mention, they could extort serious bribes from the poor commoner craftsmen in these workshops for overlooking their ‘transgressions’. Their roles as official ‘supervisors’ would make this easy work, or so he had thought.

However, reality had proven much different, and much crueler, compared to his imagination. It had been a full trium since he had started his work, but he hadn’t found any luck at any of the royal manufactories so far. All of them had denied him access for one reason or another. When he had forced his way inside once, the building had actually caught fire and he had only barely escaped with his life.

Since he had hit a solid wall at the royal manufactories so far, he could only expand his search and include the private workshops of the commoner craftsmen and merchants as well. Only in this way could he show his master some results. At least he had been far more lucky there and earned some good coin through looting and blackmail.

However, the pitiful wealth of those commoner craftsmen was surely nothing compared to the riches awaiting him in the purple-robed king’s workshops. Not to mention, Drachimine himself could get rich from raiding the commoners, but his master would punish him if he couldn’t return with some of Saniya’s secret technologies on top of that.

With dim thoughts on his future, Drachimine thought and thought, until finally, the door in front of him opened. What greeted him wasn’t the same picture he had seen in countless workshops before. Instead of the usual, stone-faced government official to present him with more problems, he saw a rare smiling face from one of the king’s people this time. At least he assumed that the foreigner was hiding a smile somewhere underneath his long beard.

“Welcome, visitor!” the bearded stranger in the long, white robe said in an enthusiastic tone. “What can this ordinary craftsman do to serve you?”

“Is this the royal chemistry laboratory? This official’s name is Drachimine di Rafun. He has been tasked by the southern kingdom’s League of Lords to oversee the goings-on in your workshop, an action which has been sanctioned by King Corcopaca Titu Pluritac. Here is the accreditation.”

Once his introduction was finished, Drachimine produced the signed and stamped piece of paper from within his robes. Usually, the people in these royal manufactories would read them in great detail, to search for the slightest faults and waste his time.

Often, even a smudge of ink or a creased corner were an excuse to question the authenticity of the certificate. One of them had even ‘accidentally’ burned his paper over an oil lamp. Drachimine had to wait three days until he received a replacement from his master, and in that time, he could only go after more commoner workshops. This time however, the bearded foreigner didn’t even take the accreditation.

“That will not be necessary,” the smiling foreigner said, much to Drachimine’s surprise. “I trust your great integrity, sire. My name is Hieronymus Bombasticus, royal chief chemist by trade. I assume sire wishes to begin his inspection right away?”

Confused by the man’s unexpected answer and strange energy, Drachimine returned a dull nod.

“In that case, please come inside, and follow me!” Hieronymus said and waved the supervisor into the workshop. “This is an exciting place, I’m sure sire will greatly enjoy his stay!”

“At least one worker knows his place,” Drachimine said with great satisfaction. “You will not try to cheat us like the others, will you, alchemist? Because it will not end well for you.”

Although physical threats hadn’t been too successful against the people in the royal workshops, Drachimine still used the chance to vent his frustrations. However, to his repeated surprise, the local alchemist looked rattled.

“Good gracious, no sir. I would never dare,” he said.

After a cold, but satisfied snort, Drachimine entered the room. Behind him, several other warriors of the various lords’ houses followed as well. There really wasn’t a practical need to come here with half a dozen people, but the league of lords, as their masters had chosen to call themselves, was only a loose alliance based entirely on benefits.

Of course, none of the lords would trust the others alone with the sensitive secrets of Saniya. As a result, anyone with authority of ‘supervision’ like Drachimine had a tail of other warriors behind him to make sure he did his work like he was supposed to.

In any other workshop he had visited, the workers and officials would challenge the need for so many supervisors, but this time, the alchemist did not say a word when half a dozen people followed him inside. Maybe the foreigner was already intimidated by their presence, which would bode well for their mission this time.

Within such a compliant workshop, maybe Drachimine would be able to finally make an achievement that his master would be satisfied with. At least that was what he had thought.

However, he was soon disappointed. One look inside the laboratory and he realized that getting anything useful from this place wouldn’t be as easy as he had imagined. For one, he didn’t understand anything he was seeing.

Strange smells filled the air. Expensive glass containers were filled with unknown liquids. Tubes ran from one contained to another, for unknown purposes. In the corner, there was a large oven, comparable to the forges sometimes found in larger villages, and even in smaller smithies in estate capitals. Whatever these alchemists were doing here, Drachimine couldn’t make heads or tails of it on his own.

“Describe your work,” he ordered his guide while holding his nose to blot out the stenches.

“Magic, sire,” the alchemist replied with pride in his voice. Of course, this sort of answer was of no use to Drachimine.

“What is that supposed to mean?” the supervisor barked at the bearded alchemist. “Speak clearly.”

“Well, our mission is quite simple, really. It is nothing more than to discover and manipulate the basic building blocks of all matter. Though it is also nothing less,” the alchemist explained. While Drachimine didn’t understand a word, he kept quiet and hoped the foreigner would be easier to understand if he explained in more detail. That would turn out to be a false assumption.

“Thus, we identify and analyze various substances based on their properties, all through use of the scientific method,” the alchemist continued to explain as if it was obvious. “Some of our results are viable for practical applications, though many remain strictly theoretical. However, our main aim, as stated before, is to create a theoretical framework for future advancements in the field of chemistry, so economic viability is the least of our concerns. As a supervisor fit to oversee our work, Official Drachimine surely understands, correct?”

Of course he didn’t understand a thing. Still, he couldn’t just admit that. Not in front of the foreigner, and certainly not in front of his fellow warriors. Thus, he replied with a nod and a vague “Uhuh” to save face.

“As expected of a supervisor,” the alchemist continued with enthusiasm. “In that case, this servant’s explanation should be enough for a man of sire’s qualifications to understand, should it not?”

“Of course.”

Though he said so, he tried to hint at the foreigner with a look. However, in usual fashion for these outsiders, the man lacked all subtlety of the Yaku people and failed to notice the hint.

“Very good,” he rambled on instead. “Let us continue then. As sire can see here, this is the culmination of our work:”

The alchemist called Hieronymus pointed at a black slate of stone mounted on a wall. Drachimine had seen these used to cover roofs before, but he had never seen one continuous piece of this size. White paint covered the entire wall in strange markings.

Although Drachimine couldn’t read the weird new characters – called ‘new Yakua’ by the locals – that were so typical of Saniya, he could still tell that these weren’t full words. Instead, they seemed to be nothing but a cryptic arrangement of random letters and numbers.

“Here, we’re filling out our periodic table of elements,” the foreigner said, as if that explained anything. “Quite the monumental undertaking, as sire can surely imagine.”

Drachimine looked back at the other warriors, who seemed like they were holding in their laughter at his plight. Thus, he had no choice but to continue pretending.

“Yes, quite monumental.”

“Very good. This servant can tell that sire is an expert as well, as expected of a supervisor! It seems sire is also a man of science. In that case, sire will not need any further introductions. This servant would not want to appear rude by presuming that sire would be intellectually challenged by any of this servant’s work.”

“It is no presumption. Please continue.” Now almost desperate, Drachimine tried to retain his calm, while somehow trying to find out out what these people were really doing in here. However, the bearded alchemist wouldn’t do him the favor.

“Oh no, this servant would not wish to waste any more of sire’s valuable time.” Now, the foreigner had a frightened look on his face. “How could this servant carry such a burden? No, sire can sit back and simply oversee our work, as he has been tasked by the league of lords. Please make sure that everything is up to safety standards. We all put our greatest trust in Sire.”

With that, the friendly alchemist turned around and walked back towards his coworkers, who were waiting close by. What else could Drachimine say at this point? He didn’t want to look ignorant, and he expected that any more questions would be answered by another string of strange words he had never heard of before.

Rather than waste his time on futile questions, Drachimine was hoping that, maybe, he would understand a bit more if he watched the alchemists do their actual work. However, he only got more confused the longer he watched them.

“I think we should continue our experiments on the celluloacetate today,” the alchemist said to his fellow workers.

After that, they did actions that may as well have been magic from Drachimine’s perspective. At least that was how much of it he understood.

From time to time, they would look at strange instruments, mumble something, and then note down unreadable characters on pieces of paper, in the same new Yakua script that he couldn’t read. Sometimes, they would stare at strange pieces of glass. However, unlike the clear glass that Saniya had become famous for, these ones didn’t look impressive at all. Compared to clear glass, this material looked a bit grainy, and slightly opaque. In fact, the entire piece of glass warped everything behind it.

Whatever the alchemists meant to create with their experiments, it certainly wasn’t anything his master would be interested in. Even their own masters at home could make better glass than this.

Thus, Drachimine gave up on observing the alchemists and simply looked around the rest of the laboratory instead. After all, he had come here with a specific purpose. He wouldn’t need the locals to show him around. He could find some purple dye or vanillin powder by himself.