Change of Plans IV

After gathering my bullet, I check on the revolver rifle that was knocked out of my hand.

Despite some dirt, the rifle seems perfectly fine, with no warping, knicks, or loose pieces.

I open the revolver chamber and see the casing is mostly intact with the primer punched through by the hammer and firing pin. And best of all, the pin is intact, and the steam explosion leaves no significant residue behind.

"Hmmm... Not bad..." I take out the spent casing and take the rifle back to throw together a cheap firewood stock and some iron sights. And with how loud the gunshot was, I cut some notches at the end of the barrel to act as a makeshift muzzle break—hoping to quiet the rifle if only a little.

With the upgrades to my franken-rifle, I return to the edge of the camp, loading all four bullets this time, I draw a bead on a tree about 60 feet away.

I brace the rifle against my shoulder this time, I stare down the sights before pulling the trigger, pulling back the hammer, and repeating till I run out of rounds.

*Boom, Boom, Boom, Pssshhh...*

"Huh..." My ears are still ringing, but it's not as bad as before...

I open up the chamber and find out that the firing pin didn't make it all the way through the primer cap of the last round. It made the frost salts evaporate from the steam still in the chamber. Luckily the round is intact, and I should be able to pop a new primer on it and reuse it.

But the rifle is already significantly hotter, and I will need to make heat-resistant gloves if it's going to see repeated use. There's also the issue of the steam escaping out the back and sides of the chamber... I'm going to have to find a way to vent it, or normal people will be getting steam burns every time they fire the damned thing.

And the kickback's a bitch, but a lot more manageable with the stock and a firm grip, might even need to make a front grip for it...

After taking stock of how the rifle handles and fires, I move on to accuracy.

"Huh... That's not good..." I mumble as I look at the three distinct and clearly separate chunks missing from the tree.

Instead of boring a massive hole through the center, I had been aiming for, it seemed the bullet trajectories were all off—causing two bullets to clip either side of the tree and one to go about 6 inches up from where I was aiming.

I double-check to make sure the rifle isn't loaded and look down the barrel to realize something else I'd forgotten.

"Rifling!" I exclaim before smacking my forehead.

"But how am I going to add that?" I ask myself as I decide to return to camp with all I learned after digging out the bullets from the various trees because ebony is expensive.

At camp, I see the kids beginning to fall asleep in their evening classes as work for the day winds down, and I see the markings for a wall and towers that stretch from the mountain behind the main house all the way to the start of the lake shore.

I nod in approval before shelving the franken-rifle for now, and I turn my attention to the idea for siege equipment I had.

I couldn't do cannons since I don't know how to make gunpowder, and using frost salts and fire salts would be too expensive, so my next idea was to create a large ballista and attach explosive rounds on top of it or to add a repeating function to allow for faster firing and reloading. Especially since boulders launched from catapults would be easy for a dragon to dodge.

I return to my schematic bench, beginning with a simple crossbow. I then modified the reloading leaver to fit around a simple gravity-fed ballista bolt magazine, which should drop a bolt into the primed ballista after being pulled back.

I then designed the mount for the ballista, resting it on a bar so it had a full range of motion on its y-axis and then resting the bar on two poles that are set in a small wheel mount that could rotate a full 360° on its x-axis, the downside is it's going to have to be mounted on a dedicated carriage, and everything is going to have to be angled, reloaded, and fired manually.

After drawing up the plans, I realize I spent the entire day by myself...

"Am I becoming an introvert again? But... It was nice getting to experiment with alchemy and gunsmithing stuff..." I mumble to myself.

I decide to turn in for the night only to find the girls asleep in the upstairs bed, leaving no room for me.

"Oh shit... I forgot to make that bigger bed I wanted. I guess I'll do that tomorrow." I grumble as I go to my tent that no one has claimed, luckily.

I have another dreamless sleep which I use to check my Smithing Skill which shows I have enough to get the remote firing perk for the dwemer autocannon. I select it and check my status effects.

"Huh... Gamer's Mind went from Desynching to completely Inactive now... What's that about? Whatever, what's more important is I only have a couple more days before this status effect ends and I can go back to beating the shit out of people... I should probably head out to Riften or Largashbur tomorrow... I've taken a long enough break." I think to myself before I wake up.

I wake up to the feeling of new schematics being seared into my brain, specifically how to build a control enchantment to link your magika to the aiming mechanism of the autocannon so that even when you're far away from it, it can still correct its aim to what you wish to target.