Book Five, Chapter 84: A touch of chemistry…

~Riley~

“Do you think it’ll help him?” Kimberly asked, chewing on her bottom lip. She still stared after him long after he ran into the forest.

We were Off-Screen, and the tears that had started On-Screen were still coming down her cheeks uninterrupted. Maybe that was why she was a good actress. Because the feelings—to her—were real.

Even as we and the mercenaries started preparing for what was certainly going to be a big action scene, she would occasionally glance in that direction or find an excuse to climb up onto the fort’s upper wall lookout paths, hoping she might be able to see into the forest.

It was too dark to see anything, even under the full moon.

I didn’t know how to answer her question.

“It can’t hurt,” I said. “The werewolf curse is strengthened by trauma. The man embraces the wolf to forget the pain. Maybe helping him forget his trauma will help him overcome the wolf. But like I told you, I don’t know what will happen, Kimberly.”

Antoine’s nightmare trope was powerful, but it was also a bit vague.

I wished I knew what to say to make her feel better. Heck, I wished I could understand exactly what was going through her mind. This was a storyline, and when it was over, Antoine would be fine—assuming we survived.

Was she worried that the damage would be more than just physical?

I didn’t have time to dwell on that. That wasn’t my job. I wasn’t there to help Kimberly just then. I wasn’t there to help the mercenaries get their guns oiled and laid out. I was a planner.

We had already come together and digested Antoine’s transformation On-Screen. There wasn’t much to it. We stood around, looking at his blood trail in the moonlight, and realized that we might share his fate within a few days.

Kimberly cried.

Andrew rationalized.

Hawk and Michael planned their hunt.

I did nothing but use the little camera from the back of my character’s car and film things. It was a great way to contribute without contributing much.

The funny thing was, my character would be feeling the same way I was, or close enough. What did I feel? What did I really feel?

Like I had just barely escaped death? Like I was a doomed man?

No.

I felt like we just had to get the scene over with and go back to planning.

Feeling things was the enemy.

If we worked and planned and manipulated the story just right, all of our feelings would disappear.

I hoped.

The truth was we were under-leveled in this sandbox of a storyline, and Second Blood was likely to shock and awe us into oblivion.

We could die here.

Antoine’s fate might not be temporary. My fate in this story—probably a tragic one—might not be temporary. As much as we were acting, we weren’t really.

This was real danger.

All I could do was treat it like a game and do whatever it took to win it.

If we failed, I wouldn’t have to think about it.

Andrew and I had plans to make.

Unlike previous nights, Kirst had not flown away in a helicopter just yet. Maybe he knew there wasn’t going to be another attack tonight, that Antoine’s transformation was the only excitement we would get on this full moon.

We still had quite a bit of work to do to make rolling silver usable as a weapon.

There was no doubt it was effective, but the problem was you had to hold it up against a blowtorch for a minute or two. Then, once the silver had already been cured of its impurities, the effect would fade away. Pure silver wasn’t notably more effective than, say, sterling silver. But while it was being purified, something was happening that shredded those wolves in an unseen way.

Suffice it to say, it was not battle-ready.

In truth, I thought we would be up all night trying to figure this out, but Carousel seemed to know otherwise. The moment we started speaking about it, huddled in the corner of the fort’s courtyard not long after Antoine left, we went On-Screen.

We were going to have a busy night.

“So, we figured out what rolling silver is,” Andrew said. “We could spend weeks trying to understand it, but we only have until the end of this phase of the lunar cycle to turn this into a viable weapon. Now, I’ve been thinking up some ideas about how we could create a sort of rig to melt the silver and sift it back and forth so that the impurities would be removed. If only we had a proper engineer around. I thought perhaps a cement mixer and a large blowtorch might do the job, but even then, I am out of the realm of my expertise.”

“Also, werewolves might notice the cement mixer,” I said. I wasn’t trying to be a smart aleck, but sometimes it just ended up that way.

We were in deep thinking, brainstorming mode, the mode that came right after research when we had to put all the facts together.

I was pacing back and forth. You had to pace back and forth for a brainstorming montage.

“We’re assuming that it’s that particular method that is causing the effect on werewolves,” I said.

“Isn’t that what we concluded?” Andrew replied. “We sought to discover what rolling silver was, and we found it out. Now we have to find a way to apply it to the problem.”

We discussed it for some time out there under the moonlight.

“We need something portable,” I said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they attacked us all at once, but we can’t rely on that—not in the time frame we have. We need something we can carry around with us. Something that doesn’t need our full attention.”

Andrew was exasperated. He wasn’t sure where to go with that.

“And what do you propose?” he said.

I scratched my head, hoping that this line of thought would bear fruit.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“What if it wasn’t the specific method,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about this. You’re not going to like it. This is a magical curse. We’re thinking too scientifically. Maybe it isn’t the heat or the silver particles or the gases being released that causes the damage. What if it’s the very act of purifying silver that causes the damage? Like it has some magical effect.”

We weren’t alone in our brainstorming montage. We had Hawk Kipling with us. Despite his gruff exterior and ample weaponry, he was technically an academic.

Unfortunately, he had nothing to contribute to the conversation. But I did think the way he looked at me was weird. Was that a good sign or a bad sign? I couldn’t tell. I assumed he wanted us to win, but I had no idea how much he was willing to do to help us.

“What is it you’re suggesting?” Andrew asked. “We don’t have enough data to speculate on the exact mechanism for this effect, and I would hardly expect it to be so… abstract.”

He was doing great. He was a man of science; I was a semi-psychic grandma’s boy. It was a nice back-and-forth.

“In modern times, how do we purify silver?” I asked.

“Chemicals,” Andrew answered confidently. “We use chemistry.”

“Let’s try that,” I said. “We know that rolling silver was the activity used for purifying silver. So what chemicals can we use in place of a giant blowtorch and a frying pan?”

I really wished we had had time to talk about this Off-Screen, but we had only shared snippets of ideas.

“It’s that simple, then. We’ll just use chemicals to activate the magical reaction,” Andrew said. But right after he had finished, I could see an idea appear in his eyes.

“Well, we could…” he said.

“We could what?” I asked.

He paused for a moment, thinking.

“We need to run an experiment,” Andrew said. “We don’t have much time, and I don’t know if we could get the equipment we need before sunrise. It will have to be quick and dirty. If we need something that can be portable and done quickly like you say… where is Kirst?”

“He’s back at the Manor,” I said.

“It’s time we put those unlimited resources to use,” Andrew said.