Dronin’s Travels, Chapter 2—Battle Preparations

Written by Dronin Gammerson

Bang! Bang! Bang! I bolted upright in bed with my dagger backhanded pointing outward. The door opened to one of the King's guards.
“The King has called a meeting with all of the commanders” the guard said.
“I'll be right there”
Quickly I got dressed and left to the command room. This time, since I was not in as much of a hurry, I took the time to look at the new buildings that have been built since I was gone. They, like the others, were made of stone with wood roofs and a few had petrified wood door frames. It was an old tradition of ours to bury wood in lots of stone so that our eventual ancestors could dig it up and build door frames with them. I also saw that a few of the older houses that had been there before I left had Thengal trees which are trees that absorb whatever material it is planted in and become that material. If you were rich you could afford to buy one of these trees and plant them in gold, but that was very expensive.
“Your name” said a guard once I got to the gate.
“Dronin Gammerson Battle commander number nine senior surface strategist” I said then the guard opened the gate. As I strode over to the command room I looked up and smiled It's good to be home I thought. Something that very few underground places have is the huge vein of blue Lumistone running along the ceiling of the cavern keeping the entire place lit at all times.
“Dronin” the King nodded as I walked in, “Now we are only Missing Malkalad and Gomas”
It hadn't been long before they showed up.
“Now” the King began “Our sources have confirmed Dronin's claim that the Magistrate has indeed destroyed half a kingdom, and not only that they have recently destroyed the Varidian weyr including four dragons loyal to the Order of the Martyrs.”
“This could all be just a ploy of the Order of the Martyrs to make the Magistrate look bad” said Vordic.
“True but then how do you explain the fact that the weapon is in the Magistrate's hands?” the King calmly replied.
“Well...” Vordic said grumbling to himself.
“If that is all concluded” The King looked straight at Vordic who was still grumbling, “than Dronin I would like you to brief our men about the surface and get them prepared Malkalad I would like you to check the new weapons and their stability in battle then have Kilimor train the men to use them if they are stable.” He paused, “You are all dismissed.”
We all nodded and walked out. Having nothing else to do, I went straight to the barracks to brief the men. On my way to the barracks I passed the statue of King Draldon made of pure Iron. We had so many resources those days.
“Hey Dronin” Many warriors greeted me as I walked in, “It's good to see you back.”
“It's good to be back” I said smiling at them “Now I was told to brief you about the surface since we are going to battle up there soon. So for starters you need to know about the time zone. You will not be able to sleep whenever you want. You will have to align your sleeping schedule to the time they have up there. Instead of twenty two hour days they have twenty four hour days which are each split into two times: night and day. Day represents the time where there is light out and night represents when it is dark out. Now I know many of you already know this, as you have already been up there before but many have never been to the surface before so bare with me.” I paused, “Another thing you need to know about is temperature. While down here we have a solid fifty five degrees, on the surface it varies from fourty to eighty degrees so you must be prepared to compensate....” I continued to brief them about the things that were different about the surface for another two hours.
Once I finished that I decided to check out the new weapon Malkalad was working on and left for that. It was only a few blocks away and as I got closer I noticed that many of the buildings were laboratories, stonemasons, and things of the sort.
The building I was looking for was the biggest laboratory in Draldon and once I came to it I noticed that there had been additions to it since I had last been there. Just as it had been before I left, there were three stories that you could see and more than that below city level. They recently added a new room in the bottom story and the bottom story was dedicated to Black Argite and things like that. The second story was dedicated to weapons of all types. The third story was dedicated to alchemy. The bottom levels... only the King and a few scientists knew what was down there.
“I wonder if they finally found out how to make gold” I muttered just as I walked up the steps. It had been a goal for a long time to find out how to make gold out of things like flint and lead. So far no one has been successful.
I knocked softly on the door. The door opened slightly to a six foot two man who was slightly overweight.
“I'm sorry none but the King and the commanders are permitted to enter this laboratory” he said slightly apologetic.
“I am Dronin Gammerson battle commander number nine senior surface strategist” I replied
“I am so sorry Dronin, I did not recognize you” he said stepping aside to let me in
“Don't worry about it, you were just doing your duty” I replied and walked in, “Where can I find Malkalad?”
“Second story in the back” He said pointing to the stairs.
“Thank you” I said walking towards the stairs.
My head popped up into the second story to see people scurrying here and there testing this and that. The second floor obviously had more people working than the first. The reason for that is the war coming the King needed more and better weapons.
I walked to the end of the room and went into a smaller but still good sized room filled with various weapon parts.
“Dronin!” said a voice to my right near the end of the room.
“Malkalad!” I said smiling and turning to the voice.
“I take it you are here to see the new weapon we are working on?”
“Yes” I replied.
“Well than here it is” he said and gestured at the table he was at, “It is a weapon based on Black Argite that has a handle and a piece of metal of your choice.” He paused, “You see this piece of metal will stay approximately four feet from the handle with nothing in between.” He licked his lips, “This piece will stay there because of the Black Argite. The problem is, we can't get it to stay there. We get it to stay four feet away with two contradicting poles of Argite but as soon as we let go it just comes to the side of the Argite it is attracted to and connects itself to it.”
“Hmm that is a problem,” I said not understanding much of what he said but knowing the weapon was not done.
“Now another weapon that we have found to work is the hand cannon. This weapon has a piece of Black Argite in the back of the gun and when you pull the trigger it pushes a piece of Argitized metal towards it of the same charge therefore launching the metal towards the enemy.” As he said that last part he swung his hand violently outward as if it were the metal.
“I understand” I said even though I didn't fully, but what I did get was a weapon that could launch metal at the enemy.
“I will send this to Kilimor so that the army can start training with them,” he said and went back to his work.
“Then I will leave you to it” I said and walked out. I decided that it had been a long day and that I should get myself a rock worm and mushroom skewer. So I went by Halmac's shop and bought myself one. On my way home, I started to feel ill and it only got worse as I got farther. By the time I got home it was almost unbearable, and that is when I realized that I had been poisoned.