The new window in the warehouse allowed much more light to pour inside the newly established alchemical laboratory belonging to Bruno. Several tables were adorned by equipment made out of copper or glass and occasional pottery. In the corner was a hastily constructed stove, but the chimney still required some work. Nevertheless, the young alchemist started a fire within it to heat a mix of ingredients that was part of the new concoction he was working on. This caused some smoke to fill the air, irritating the nostrils.

In the meantime, as the brew needed to heat up, he continued to work on his sculpting endeavor, staying away from the marginally toxic fumes. Figurines of several types were standing on the cleared part of the table, with a small pile of wood shavings – a byproduct of him working on one of the last pieces.

He stopped briefly as the door to his workshop opened, and Javohir came inside, but quickly his focus returned to the piece of wood.

"You are still working on that game?" the Exalonian asked as he noticed what Bruno was doing.

"The game has thirty-two pieces. Making them requires a bit of time. I might not strive to create pieces pleasant for the eye, but I want them to at least somewhat resemble what they are supposed to represent," he informed.

Javohir came closer, having a good look at the rows of figurines. He noticed that there were six distinctive types. Most of them resembled a man, although barely. There were a few resembling horses. Two resembled a crown, and another two resembled a sword. A few had a symbol resembling a bow and arrow carved on a flat surface, exactly one had a strange shape that didn’t bring anything to the mind of the Exalonian, and exactly four mimicked a horse. He grabbed one of the last ones.

Noticing this, Bruno stopped his work. "This is a cavalry piece," he explained before reaching under the table to grab the board, which was leaning against the leg of the piece of furniture. He put it on the tabletop and placed one of the horses on it. "It moves in a straight line, like this," he showed by moving the piece. "Then you have the archers. They move diagonally, like this," he grabbed the next figurine and demonstrated. "It’s supposed to resemble their ability to shoot an arrow. This is a spy," he grabbed the single strange figurine. "This one moves two squares in a straight line, and then has to move a single square to the side."

"A spy?" Javohir asked, raising a single eyebrow.

"Yes… I wanted to make a hooded man, but it came out… as something," Bruno shrugged. "Continuing… This is the knight. Each player has only one of them. They move both in a straight line or diagonally. It’s the most mobile piece. This is the king," he grabbed the one resembling a crown. "If you lose this one, you lost the game. It can move only one square but in any direction. And the last piece is a footman. They can move up to two squares forward from their starting position, but after that only one square forward. They can attack only diagonally. If they reach the end of the board on the enemy side, you can exchange them for any figure. For example, you can have the second first knight. The only one figure you can get is the king. You start with two pieces of cavalry, two spies, two archers, eight footmen, one king, and one first knight. You place them in a starting position on the opposite sides of the board, like this," he demonstrated, although he lacked some of the pieces.

"Like two armies standing against one another," Javohir noticed.

"In a way, yes," the young alchemist agreed. "The war is more complicated than this game, but this game can teach you about planning your moves and anticipating the plans of your enemy. For example, you can sacrifice one footman to make your opponent make a move that will lose him more than one piece or end up with him sacrificing a more important figure than a simple footman. You could also force him into a position where the king is not protected, so you can strike him."

"I see," the Exalonian smiled. "Now I understand why you wanted me to learn this game."

"It will give you an idea of how to move on a battlefield. Maybe not exactly, but anything is better than nothing. Let’s play when I finish it," the young alchemist concluded, putting away the board before grabbing the knife and the piece he was working on. Then he picked up the work where he left off. "So… Now we can move to the reason why you paid me this visit," he pointed out.

"Yes," Javohir smiled. "You declared you would keep an eye on Viki, but the only time I’ve seen you outside was when you were going from the inn to here," he pointed out.

"You might be right," Bruno shamelessly agreed. "How is she doing?"

The Exalonian first looked around, checking the walls of the warehouse, then lowered his voice to a whisper. "She found a possible man. Now she is looking closer into him."

"Good. I expected her to do well. She has keen eyes, although her focus was elsewhere in the past, so she needs a bit of time to readjust," the young alchemist replied equally quietly.

"I didn’t expect her to be this fast," Javohir agreed.

"I told you she had keen eyes. We need to establish communication with them, so this is only the first step, so don’t get too excited. Instead, you could get more competitive. She is already partially done with her task, and yet you haven’t visited the mines even a single time," Bruno briefly stopped working to glance at his friend. A cheeky smile adorning his lips was supposed to work as a taunt.

"You don’t have to worry about my part," the Exalonian assured. "The first time I have the opportunity to go, I will."

"Waiting for an opportunity is a waste of time. If you don’t have one, you should make it," the young alchemist pointed out as he resumed sculpting, only to quickly put the work away and head to check on the brew heating up on the stove.

"Fine. I’ll check if I can get somebody to take me there tomorrow," Javohir said, watching Bruno leave his side, gradually raising his voice. "What about you? What are you busy with?" He asked now at a regular volume of his voice.

"Preparations," Bruno gave him an enigmatic response.

"Care to tell me more?"

A chuckle left the young alchemist’s mouth. "Not really, but I’ll ease your curiosity anyway. The goal is to increase the production of food. I’m going to achieve it by creating fertile soil. I already know how to do that, but I want more. Now I’m preparing several mixtures which, in theory, will have the same effect. When the samples of the local crops arrive, I’ll test those mixtures on the soil found in the surrounding lands to find which of my growth elixirs work the best and which is the most affordable. Those are recipes that interest me as we will be gradually moving from the cheapest solution to the most efficient one, which might be something in between the two. After all, we are going to produce this concoction at scale. After the phase of testing, I will show local proof to Bahir, and then we can hopefully begin working on implementation in the whole kingdom. It might take some time, but hopefully, we should achieve great results this season, so Zoulan will have enough crops for the people to fill their bellies to the brim during the winter. The next years should only be better."

"That seems like a lot of work," Javohir nodded.

"Yes. I will be quite busy," he said turning to face the Exalonian. "Which makes you quite the audacious one, as you stand here doing nothing while your friends are so busy," he said with a taunting smirk on his lips.

Javohir smiled back at him. A chuckle left his mouth before he nodded only to head outside.