Chapter 12: Magic Weapons

What I am having the most trouble with is actually creating the magic weapons I know we will need. I can enchant swords, blades, and other hand weapons quite easily. As such I have a wide and interesting collection for my own use and to hand out to subordinates when necessary. I have covered everything from fire to ice and lightning, I even have made shields with defense bonuses from earth magic. What I want most is a projectile weapon. Don’t get me wrong I have both bows and crossbows enchanted along with their arrows and bolts. However projectile weapons like guns are surprisingly hard to enchant.

The enchantments themselves are not hard, it’s just that there are a lot more fiddly bits and small things inside modern guns than most people expect. Smaller things are much harder to enchant than larger things. I not only have to enchant small fiddly bits I have to chain together enchantments if I want to make them strong enough to do any good. Modifying existing weapons seems to be almost impossible, at least with my level of understanding. I am sure that in the future if gunsmiths and other specialists survive and become enchanters they might be able to do better than me, however I do not have the luxury of waiting for what might happen.

It looks like I will have to create a simplified version of a projectile weapon without all of today’s technology for me to be able to get something to work. Along those lines I have two different concepts I am currently working on. The first is a rail gun concept that is powered by both lightning and earth magic and the second is a simple air rifle. They are both simplistic and large enough that I can engrave whatever enchantments on them that I like. In my limited tests the rail gun is more impressive but larger, heavier and harder to manufacture. It will most likely end up being used for fixed gun emplacements where I can scale up size and not worry about weight as much.

The air pressure gun works well and only has a few bugs left to work out. I have it done in pistol, rifle and shotgun configuration. The rifle is semi-automatic, gravity fed, and looks like a paintball gun but shoots solid ball bearings of a smaller size. This allows for a surprisingly high rate of fire. I also have a smaller machine pistol size air gun, and a larger bolt action sniper rifle version. The sniper rifle I had to make larger because I needed an ammunition size large enough that I could enchant individual bullets/ammunition. The ammunition is still ball bearings just of a much larger size.

I have gotten the air guns to shoot around 4,000 feet per second which is equivalent to a large hunting rifle shooting a regular bullet. I believe that I can get the fps even higher. The problem is accuracy and ammunition. Current ammunition is going to be worthless because of the non-functioning primer and gunpowder after the changeover. Converting existing ammunition would just be a waste of time and resources. Instead I am using ball bearings which are easy to stockpile, and even easier to create with simple molds and regular fire and metals. Using magic just makes everything easier.

I have decided to use ½ inch in diameter ball bearings for pistol rounds, 1 inch for rifle rounds and a massive 3 inches in diameter for sniper rounds. Fixed placement rounds will probably be in the 5-6 inch in diameter range. I discovered after much testing that three inches is about as small as I can enchant and have the spell do anything useful.

The smaller rounds are just air pressure spells and iron sight accuracy. About 25 -50 meters for pistols and 100-150 meters for the rifles. The larger 3 inch round can be imbued with accuracy enchantments or even elemental enchantments. I have successfully tested these out to around 500 meters. I think an expert and some design tweaks could push this distance to almost a kilometer. These distances are not as far as conventional modern weapons but are easier to learn to use and faster than bows and arrows.

My final gun development is the shotgun. It is both practical and let’s face it cool. Every end of the world story that has guns has shotguns in it somewhere. They just look great and are easy to maintain. A simple double barrel shotgun is the only modern firearm I can enchant easily. I can produce about 25 shotguns a day along with 100 modified rounds for each of them. It will be the go to weapon early in the changeover.

The resort I built is called Appalachia Kingdom. Come enjoy your stay and be treated like royalty. With this theme I have been able to construct moats, huge castle walls, towers and outposts that otherwise might have had people questioning my sanity. I have just about completed every prep step I can think of and just need to start stockpiling everything I can think of. I have about 1 month left until the solstice and the beginning of the Great Game for everyone else. I suddenly see an unexpected blue game screen in front of me:

“Phase 2 will begin in one lunar month. World map is now activated. Skill, attribute, and ability limiters removed. Beginner dungeons now activated. Limited Great Game store access is granted to all beta test users.”

Alright I was not expecting this. I thought I was almost prepared. Looking harder at the message I think that this is all positive for me. First off I did not know there were limits placed on everything. Once I got everything to a certain level I switched to working on something else. I am more a jack of all trades. I felt that this was the best way to protect everyone until we get specialist in different areas trained up.

I need to check with the help menu on some of these things but access to the store should let me stock up on “magic items” like HP and MP recovery potions and other assorted bits and bobs that I would have had to make myself before the changeover. This will free up a lot of my time. However, the piece of the message I am most interested in is the beginner dungeons. I need to see just what is in store for my family and friends after the change and a dungeon could provide essential information.

World Map:

“The following is a world map tutorial provided to all game users the first time world map is activated. World map will show any unknown or unexplored Great Game recognized village or higher population concentration within a 10 kilometer range. World map will display any unknown or unexplored Great Game stores and official local outlets within 5 kilometers. World map will show all dungeons of appropriate levels (player level + 10 levels or below) within 100 kilometers. There are secret dungeons that are not displayed and abilities that can hide things from world map users. World map can be expanded and refined with the explorer and cartographer skills. All locations that have been explored personally by the user are accessible at any time from the world map.”

There seems to be three blinking red dots on a transparent screen which I assume is the world map. It seems to be a very basic interface, but it is easy to understand. If I want more information or detail I am going to have to get the explorer and/or cartographer skills or titles. These dots must be dungeons. Without more information I am just going to have to drive until I get close and then search for an entrance.