SBMS044
The spring thaw was in full effect, and the camp was covered with a cold and damp mist. We were working on replenishing my medical supplies in the infirmary, and I had Rye Daughter working with the mortar and pestle, grinding willow bark into a fine paste. We would be running the paste through my alembic later in the day, but for now I was using the setup to try and make aqua regia. I'd always bought the stuff from apocatharies or direct from the source, working alchemists, but with access to all of these alchemical texts, I had to try my hoof at the classic "work". It was crazy dangerous, of course, which is why Rye Daughter was on the other side of the infirmary doing nice, safe grind-work out of the potential blast radius.
But aqua regia and jiwe busara in combination were supposed to be the foundation of all sorts of wild possibilities in potioning. I was sort of looking forward to expanding my repertoire.
And this might have explained my somewhat brusque response to Dancing Shadows, who was both distracting me from the chancy work I was in the process of trying to not let explode acidic steam all over my hearth and apparatus, and whining about how she had over-promised the Company leadership on her ability to make connections with the Imperial bureaucracy.
"When my parents got me this position on the legate's staff, I don't think we were quite aware of just how… unpopular the Marklaird had made itself with its peers and the Bride's direct bureaucracy. I was just a child! It had the name, it had the position, it was a grand wizard of the Imperium! This last year has been eye-opening. Did you know that the legate has not set hoof in the Riverlands in the last three campaign seasons? I was not aware of it at the time, but apparently our contract represents the Marklaird's attempt at satisfying its military duties to the Imperium, after years of neglect and refusal to contribute to the defense of the realm. Its credit with the bureaucracy is not just over-extended or in arrears, it basically has its portrait pinned up on every regional office wall, under the notice 'do not serve this donkey'."
"How was Dior Enfant able to get the Verdebaie militia to mobilize, if our sponsor is so hopelessly toxic?" I asked, as I bled some of the pressure from my jury-rigged alembic. It was really not the ideal equipment to be making something as unstable as aqua regia, but so far, I had avoided letting the oil of vitriol over-simmer while I distilled the aqua fortis. This was the final step, as I worked on mixing the two (unstable) substances into the more-stable form of aqua regia. If I did it right. Otherwise, it was just a massively acidic liquid that would burn right through my containers and, if overheated as it was in the alembic, explode all over everything in its vicinity.
"Well, it was all rather in their interest, wasn't it? The rebels had raided them on a number of occasions, and the Company had created an opening. Entirely a local decision, made without reference to the Imperium or its agents. Who are, by the way, quite incensed at having been cut out of the resulting victory. Sciens Minusculus wrote, 'fools never forgive those they have given offense', and the local representatives will never forgive the Company for being right when they were wrong."
"So we have no hopes in Verdebaie. Anything in the other provinces of the north? Or Rime?" The colors had balanced out, and condensation had fully covered the surface of the collecting flask. We might get the true liquid without an explosion after all.
"Our credit was fully extended on our legitimacy project in Hydromel. We have no further leverage there. The rest of the north has no more credit than we do, and the Marklaird has been making enemies left and right in Rime. Not to mention the incensed patronage network of the disappointed guardians of that would-be tinkers' heir. We will just be getting word back from Bibelot after the roads clear, and the spring campaign season is in full swing. We need to be doing something with our time by then."
"We do have reserves, don't we? All that cash we seized from the excise stations, and the granaries, and from the abandoned castra."
"You know as well as I do how expensive it is to keep a regiment in the field. It'll suffice for a season or two, if our suppliers don't cheat us too badly. But if our reputation is shot with the Imperium, we'll find ourselves at the end of that rope with no solid ground underhoof."
"And so you want us to…"
"Move into the Riverlands. Find another batch of White Rose, kick their plots, hook up with actual Imperial forces. Demonstrate our usefulness and willingness to be helpful."
"Insert ourselves into a wasteland full of bandits and starveling understrength armies, without warrant, without authority, without any decent proof that we're Imperials at all. How will that not result in a misunderstanding of monumental scale?" I vented the remnants of the distillation into the hood, and shifted the alembic apparatus to the cooling-bench.
"There are already misunderstandings of monumental scale. Word is that the generals in the Riverlands are greatly displeased to discover a new force of rebels pouring down the Bride's Road from Rennet."
"What kind of quivering cowards are these Imperial generals, to be frightened by a broken and fleeing crowd of shattered caribou? From our reports, they've barely managed to retain their battle-standards and armaments. And whatever supplies they've hauled south will be consumed by the very mouths bringing them south with them."
"The rebels may or may not have ways of using… marginal equine resources without worrying about logistics."
"What the hay does that mean?"
"Uh… necromancers? Or soul-users? I don't know, go ask your warlocks, I'm just a donkey."
"Ain't no such thing as just a donkey on this world. Most every spellcaster you ponies have are donkeys, those that aren't deathless lich-things. Donkey-wizards, with their knives and their freaky blood-magic, right?"
"And rune-casters."
"Ain't nopony counting rune-casters. Tartarus, I could rune-cast if I were willing to waste six months out of the year harvesting and carving bone-shards. Easier to find somepony with actual power. Gah! Don't derail me – what's this about necromancers in the Riverlands?"
"What, you think the Imperium wouldn't have rolled right over them if they were without resources? How do you not know this? It's been in all the briefings the Company has been supplied since you came through the portal."
"I've been concentrating on what the Company does, and keeping my ponies from dying of things that shouldn't kill them. I perhaps haven't been keeping up on all the details of things going on in places the Company is not."
"You're the Annalist, and we probably are going into the Riverland, invitation and Imperial warrant or not. Don't you think you ought to educate yourself?"
I looked over the flask of pure aqua regia in my hoof, and dropped a dollop of jiwe busara-infused honey into the flask. It flashed with a brief violet light, and then I corked the bottle, and put it away in my supplies cabinet, on the top shelf out of the reach of foalish hooves. I would begin cleaning the alembic as soon as it was cool to the hoof, and then Rye Daughter could walk through the process of distilling and stabilizing salicin.
"I suppose I ought."