Two days passed since an unknown enemy built a siege camp in front of our base.
News about Mel and how he manages to repel another attempt to get through our defense keeps coming, but these are not without a cost.
Against an army almost twenty times larger than ours, our men are trying their best and sacrificing their lives if needed, but that wouldn't be enough to stop the enemy alone.
We need weapons strong enough to pierce through enemy lines and allow us to attack them with our small numbers.
That's where an advantage we have comes to the table. And it is gunpowder and steel, lots of gunpowder and steel, ready to be used against the enemy.
There is a deep connection between dwarven kin and the art of forging weapons and machines, and the city left from that has everything needed for building the iron beasts I need.
For this instance, I will be straightly jumping from medieval siege weapons to the Napoleonic era with Congreve rockets.
They are not hard to design or craft. With the proper equipment and a manufacturing line that adopted themselves into making their weapons, I will rain hell.
But for that, I must first achieve that said weapon.
Hopefully, all that ironsmiths I took from their jobs managed to create a prototype shell for the rockets. They are not rocket engineers nor people who worked on missiles before, but I only need something enough to be fired and nothing else.
And we begin our showcase, tens of ironsmiths showed their creation towards me.
Each is slightly different from than other but close to each other in many aspects.
Some have more decorations than others, and some have unnecessary parts. There are even ones who have both.
"Too much graving and decoration, eliminated."
I only began the inspection, and four of twenty prototypes got eliminated.
"That is too long, and that's too short. These both are also eliminated."
And the more I looked, the more designs got eliminated. If only I had proper ironsmithing training, then I could produce the damn thing myself, but unlucky me.
"Sadly, none of these designs fits for what we need. Sorry for taking your time. Everyone, please go back to your work."
And the sad group of dwarfs began moving away from the area where I inspected their designs.
"I see that you are not happy with their creations, then Lich King, tell me what you need, and I see if I could craft it for you." Silvertower approached me from behind. He is holding a hammer in one hand and an anvil in the other.
Silvertower, judging from the equipment he crafted hundreds of years ago, is a skilled ironsmith. I wonder, with his help, I could create a prototype.
"Then we shall begin."
I began redrawing the design I made before with details that show the curves and depth much better than the drawing before this one.
"As you could see, this type of weapon shouldn't be too hard for us to make. Mass production would still be impossible, but with ten or twenty men focusing on crafting these, I except half a dozen in three days."
"Let's make the prototype first, and you can think about production. Now what I must make, show me."
I lift my hands from the paper. "An iron tube with cone head filled with explosives, the design looks simple, right."
Dwarven king began touching the drawing with his fingers. "I see. I can craft one with your directions, but how we fire these, maybe from ballistas?"
"No, they will launch themselves forward." I placed my finger in the middle of the rocket. "We will fill it with gunpowder, and when gunpowder inside creates a recoil thanks to being constantly exploding, it will move forward."
Dwarven king began playing with his beard, like every dwarf thinking about something. "So, we have bolts that can fire themselves without ballistas."
"Well, similar enough, but its lethality doesn't come from it launching itself forward, but rather the cone at the top." I began tapping the cone. "These parts will have separated storage from the body, with its fuse and explosives."
Dwarven king stopped playing with his beard and grabbed the drawing from the table. "Well, I can handle it. Come."
And we began moving towards one of the many forges placed inside the dwarven city. Five dwarfs were waiting with tools in their hands.
When they saw us coming, they began running towards a machine and turning a crankshaft.
A hammer-like piece placed next to an anvil slowly got raised to the air, then dropped down, hit the anvil, and began repeating this process with increased speed a slow time after.
"I wanted to show you this piece, but we were in too much hurry back then."
Impressive, I must say that is something I wasn't expecting. I said dwarfs had a medieval industrial revolution, thanks to their factory-like buildings, but an actual machine, wow.
"That's great and quite impressive, Silvertower, but we need something to bend the iron, not to beat it."
"Well, we still first need to beat it though, I can bend the metal much as you want. Now, go help to turn that thing while I carry the metal."
I did as he said and began turning the crankshaft with other dwarfs while Silvertower carried a large piece of metal and placed it under the fastly hitting hammer.
"Keep turning. That will not take too long."
The sound of a hammer constantly hitting an iron piece is becoming more annoying every second.
And my arms are getting tired from constantly turning this thing. I wish they first discovered engines or something to power that thing before making it.
"Stop!" Silvertower shouted, and I immediately released my hands from the crankshaft.
"That was quite fast." I began moving towards Silvetower, who's holding the iron plate we forged in the air.
"Well, the thing you showed me was already thinner than most things we craft with this machine, and I thought that using a softer metal would be better for the thing you showed me, so I used one."
You smart corpse. "That's great, really great, but what about the cone at the top. I personally never thought about how we could forge that."
"Don't worry about that. I know what to do. Just let me do the ironsmithing." Silvertower placed the iron plate on another machine.
I suppose this one is for bending the metal plates, and there are several different shaped iron objects near it.
Silvertower grabbed the cylinder-shaped one and placed it on the machine.
And as he pushed the lever, something pushed the metal onto an iron cylinder as well.
After the short process, he pulled out the iron plate that now took the shape of a cylinder, then without losing even a second, Silvertower moved towards a massive furnace where he took another iron piece, this time, a smaller one."
"Go back to turning that machine. We need to do the same process one more time."
And as our arms began working, the sounds of the hammer hitting the metal raised.
And we finished making all the parts, two round parts, one cylinder, and one cone.
"Now, for the last part. How we will combine these two things." I grabbed the main body and head of the shell we were designing.
"With this." Silvertower pulled out a rod with a shining red crystal at its top. "It's been a long time since I channeled my mana into something, so give me a second."
Silvertowers hand holding the rod began glowing, and seconds later, this glow slowly transferred itself to the red crystal.
"Now, bring me this round one and the main body."
I placed the main body on the ground and carefully placed the round plate.
Silvertower touched the part where the round plate and main body connect, and with a small flash, two parts got welded to each other.
I closed my eyes and avoided the sudden light, but for Silvertower. "Doesn't that hurt your eyes?"
Silvertower, like he wasn't listening to what I said, kept using the rod for welding the two parts. "It hurts if I do it for a long time. In old times we had medicine for it, but I doubt if any left."
I turned my back, as my eyelids were not enough to protect my eyes from the sudden flashes. "Well, we could try something." I grabbed an old helmet lying on the ground and covered Silvertower's eyes with it. "I will close your eyes with that when you use the rod, and other times I will open it. Simple as that."
I am not looking at the welding, so sudden flashes of lights are not a problem for me, but I don't want one of my allies, especially one with an irreplaceable strength, to lose or weaken his sight.
"Now that's sweet of you, Lich King."
Silvertower hastily finished welding all the parts and gave the roughly made rocket to me. "Do you need anything else?" He asked with a smile.
"Yes, tell these people to bring me a rope to make fuses, gunpowder and I will require you to make holes in it."
I looked around until I saw a wild plant and used its leaves to mark where I wanted holes to get drilled.
"Well, this tool can handle many things, but keep yourself away." Much stronger light began coming out from Silvertowers hand, and the crystal placed on the rod started to scream as Silvertower pushed it towards the metal and opened holes.
"Perfectly done job. Now we only need the gunpowder and other materials, and meanwhile, find something to be used as a stabilizer."
Silvertower, with a surprised voice, jumped up. "What stabilizer!"
"Oh, just a silly old long stick. We need to fire this thing." I quickly answered his question while searching the materials around us.
"Does that need to be iron?" He asked.
"No wood."
"Ugh." Silvetower grabbed the rocket from my hand and began moving away from the forge. "And I wondered why you draw those rings to the rocket's design."
A short time later, we finally found all the other materials needed, and I finally set the rocket ready to be fired.
"And now you will see all of the producers I told you before works."
I lit the fuse connected on the bottom part then lit the fuse connected on the top.
The bottom gives the propulsion, and the top is for the big boom.
Shortly after, the bottom fuse reached the gun powder inside, and with a powerful whistle, the rocket launched itself into the air.
"As you see, Silvertower, that's called innovation." I am giving all my attention to the rocket slowly climbing to the air.
"Great, now you have a bolt doesn't require a ballista for firing. But does that worth all the problems? Crafting a single bolt will be much easier and cheaper than this."
"No, Silvertower, no, you are missing the point. Just look at it."
As I finished my words, the rocket exploded with a powerful sound that echoed through the cave and light that outshined all the massive crystals illuminating inside placed at the ceiling.
"That's what it does." I turned towards Silvertower with a smile, and his answer was a smile big as mine. "Then let's begin building more."
