Roger turned me around, so that I was between him and Valda.

  "Don't come any closer," he said.

  "Or you'll what?" I said. "Stab me in the kidney?"

  He tried to raise his hand to reach my throat, but he was too short. While he was trying to threaten my neck with his knife, I Manufactured steel cuffs around his wrists and then made them connect together.

  I ran away from him so he'd only be able to stab my back, and then turned around. He didn't stab me. He couldn't really, with his hands together. He started to run at me with his knife pointed at me, but I manufactured ankle cuffs, and he fell to the ground and dropped the knife. It skidded several feet away.

  The supplies I used to Manufacture the items were in a big pile blocking the mouth of the tunnel.

  "How did you do that?" he asked.

  He tried to stand up but he couldn't.

  "Easily," I said.

  "That's not what I meant," he said. "I meant, why were you able to do that?"

  "It's class ability of mine," I said. "Anymore information and you'll have to pay extra."

  I turned to Valda.

  "Let's get out of here," I said.

  "What about him?" she asked.

  "He's defenseless now," I said. "I can't kill him now. I'll wait until he gets out and comes after me or you again."

  "That's good enough for me," she said.

  We walked down the tunnel, away from the struggling Roger. Valda looked at me.

  "You don't seem shocked or even surprised," she said. "Did you know they were going to do that?"

  "I suspected it," I said.

  "Why didn't you say anything?" She hit me in the arm. It hurt.

  "Ow," I said. "I didn't want you to think I was a paranoid freak."

  "I wouldn't have," she said. "Wait, maybe I would have, but only because you are a paranoid freak and Patriculus seemed so genuine."

  "I am paranoid, but I was right," I said. "Why would he seem genuine to you? He was so obviously fake and evil. Hold on, were you attracted to him?"

  Valda looked up and away. "Maybe."

  "Ew, gross!" I said. "That's awful!"

  "You're jealous!" she said.

  "Am not!" I said.

  "Look, I'll prove it," she said. "If Patriculus and I ended up dating, how would you react?"

  "I'd probably die," I said.

  "See?" she said.

  "That's not jealousy," I said. "That's just anger and resentment and oh my gods, I'm jealous!"

  "Told you," she said.

  "What do I do?" I said. "What does that mean?"

  "It means you like me, you dummy," she said.

  "Huh," I said. "Well, what do I do? Are there are potions that can make it go away? Like an un-love potion or something?"

  "No," she said. "And why would you want to? Isn't this great news?"

  "In what way is this great news?" I asked.

  "Because I like you too, idiot," she said.

  "Oh," I said. "Right. That part. Honestly, I wasn't sure if you liked me or if you just enjoyed watching me feel uncomfortable."

  "Both? Can it be both?" she said.

  "I guess so," I said. "So, what do we do now? Do we date?"

  "Yes," she said. "That is what that means."

  "So, should I be holding your hand right now?" I asked.

  "Maybe not right now," she said. "You should get a weapon ready, because pretty soon we'll have to fight some spider people."

  "Oh, right," I said.

  I got my arbalest out. The hand crossbows probably wouldn't do much damage. I loaded it and kept my eyes out for anything that moved. We kept walking down the tunnel until we came to another wide open room, but this one was covered in webs and had dead people on the floor.

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  Spider people dropped from the ceiling, carrying weapons like glaives and spears. I tagged one and sent it flying into the wall, where it got stuck. One was too close, so I used mana to reload while I dodged a spear jab.

  Then I shot it too and sent it into the wall as well. Reloading, I looked around for more, but only found about twenty on the ground, around where Valda was standing. The show off. I mean, she did just save me several times over, so I couldn't complain too much.

  There was only one exit, so we moved on to the next room and the next, repeating the same routine. I would kill a few and she would kill most of them. After several rooms, we finally got to the room where the smell was coming from.

  I did my best to ignore the smell and inspected the sulfur deposit. It was huge! There was a massive vein of sulfur embedded in the wall. I started chipping away at it with a chisel until Valda just slammed her mace into the wall, breaking up the vein of crystals and spreading them all over the ground.

  "You want this stuff, right?" she asked. "It's important?"

  "Yes, I do," I said. "Thanks."

  That was unexpected, but surprisingly effective. I collected pounds and pounds of sulfur until I was tired. Then I drank a rare stamina potion, refilling my stamina, and continued. I knew we didn't have forever before the Culling Party cleared the blockage and caught up with us, but this was valuable stuff!

  With this much sulfur, I could make tons of gunpowder. Provided I found a decent amount of saltpeter in this cave as well. I already had enough saltpeter to make hundreds of shots worth of black powder. While I was collecting the sulfur, I did notice some saltpeter crystals stuck to the other wall.

  I collected several handfuls of it into more bags. Then I went back to the sulfur. After a while, I got tired again, and decided I had enough. We could always come back to this cave if we really needed to.

  Before going any farther, I needed to make charcoal and invent my gun.

  "I need to invent something that will help us beat the boss and the Culling Party afterwards," I said. "We need to dig a hole, light a fire, put some stakes in it, cover it with dirt, and then pull the stakes out. Then I can do some magic and make it happen instantaneously."

  "Ok," Valda said.

  "Let's do it in the tunnel," I said. "The smoke will confuse the Culling Party and slow them down. They might think it's a trap."

  "Oh, smart!" Valda said. "You're always so smart when you're not being dumb."

  "I know, right?" I said. "We'll need to work quickly, because the tunnel will fill with smoke and hurt our lungs and eyes. I'll Synthesize the charcoal thoroughly so when we pull it out it will be cool to the touch, but we don't want to breathe in too much smoke."

  "Okie dokie," she said.

  We dug the hole, put some dry hardwood into the pit, and put some kindling in. I lit it on fire with an enchantment, then we put some metal stakes in, covered it with four to six inches of dirt to smother the flames, and pulled the stakes out. Pulling the stakes out creates ventilation holes to provide a small amount of oxygen to aid the carbonization process.

  Then I put my hand over the pit and thought Synthesize. I made sure to visualize it Synthesizing to the point of the charcoal fully cooling down and being removable. The tunnel immediately flooded with smoke.

  Valda and I plunged our hands into the pit and pulled out the charcoal. I put it in a bag and we ran out of there as fast as we could, to prevent smoke inhalation. Because it was a cave, there wasn't much ventilation, which meant the smoke would take hours to clear out.

  The tunnel was filled with thick smoke a hundred feet in both directions. The Culling Party was going to have a hard time with this one. That, thankfully, bought us a little more time.

  Once we were back in the room with the sulfur, which the smoke hadn't reached, I began my gunpowder creation process. I put out a blanket and dropped sulfur, saltpeter, and a piece of charcoal on it. I got out a mortar and pestle to make the process faster.

  I learned that while Manufacturing could work without the necessary tools present, it was far quicker and more mana efficient to have the tools handy. I thought Manufacture and the mortar and pestle crushed the sulfur and ground it into a fine powder, and then dumped it back onto the cloth.

  Then it did the same with the charcoal and saltpeter. I ran advanced testing on the ingredients to check purity. When it was revealed the saltpeter wasn't pure, I used Manufacture again to separate out the impurities.

  With everything in its pure form, I mixed the ingredients in the correct ratios and rolled them together with the cloth. This was safer than grinding the ingredients together since, once mixed, it became a dangerous explosive. Then I poured some water on the mixture, mixed it more, and then made pucks out of it.

  Using Synthesize, I dried the pucks instantly. Then I got out a fine sieve and put the pucks in the sieve one by one and shook them until the mixture filtered through the sieve, leaving behind any large chunks. I probably could've Manufactured that step, but I wanted to make sure it was done with a discerning eye.

  With some wood and metal, I Manufactured a few powder flasks to store the gunpowder in and Manufactured the powder into the flasks. Now I just needed to make my gun.

  Using my new Brilliant Inventor perk, I was able to fully visualize a working flintlock pistol and change the weird orange rock into a gun. I had a significant amount of rock left over, so I made another gun that would go in my left hand. That used up the remainder of the rock.

  Then I got out a piece of flint and Manufactured it into the cock of the gun, shaping it down to fit. I had flint on hand because I had been planning to make a flintlock for ages and I never knew when I would have the ability. So I wanted to be prepared. Getting steel out, I manufactured it into balls to form the bullets.

  To test the gun to make sure it worked, I loaded it for the first time. I half-cocked the hammer, opened the frizzen, poured a small amount of gunpowder into the flash pan, closed the frizzen, and poured powder down the barrel.

  I tamped it down with a piece of cloth, loaded the bullet, tamped that down with more cloth, rammed it all down, put the ramrod back, and fully cocked the hammer. I will never again go over this process, because even to me it sounds boring. I'll just say I reloaded or loaded the gun.

  "Cover your ears," I said. "This is going to be loud."

  "Ok," she said. "What's going to happen? What is that thing?"

  "It's called a gun," I said. "I just invented it. It's a ranged weapon that propels a ball of metal at incredible speeds at a target. Many times faster than a bow and arrow."

  "Oh, that sounds cool!" She said. "Why do I have to cover my ears, though?"

  "Imagine the noise of a fireball spell, but three times louder," I said.

  "Oh," she said. "Yeah, ok, I'll cover my ears." She covered her ears with her hands.

  I aimed the gun at the wall and fired. A huge puff of smoke came out and damn was it loud. The enclosed nature of the cave made it that much louder. I might have to invent earplugs to prevent myself from going deaf. Or did health potions heal eardrum damage?

  I'd have to test that. Either way, it didn't feel good on the ears. I checked the wall, and the bullet had lodged itself multiple inches into the stone. Good. That's what I wanted. Armor piercing ability.

  "Holy crap!" Valda said. "That was loud!" She walked over to look at the wall with me. "That's going to be devastating when you hit Patriculus with one of those."

  "That's the plan," I said.

  I manufactured some normal, non infinity bags to hold my bullets. I hung a powder flask around my neck and shoulder. And I made a bag full of tamping cloths.

  I Manufactured the guns to load themselves to make sure it would work. It did. I Manufactured a couple leather holsters that fit onto my belt and placed my new guns in them. I was ready to roll.

  "Alright, let's get out of here and try to find the boss," I said.

  "Ok."

  We moved on into the tunnel beyond.