REO: first light of alchemy

## **Recruitment: the early Order of Merlin**

Richard himself had been the first recruitment and training of the F2 Angels. His brother Edward had been second, with the nanny, the tutors, and John Wycliffe shortly afterward. By now, Richard was developed and operating at what the *angels* classed as "a high level" (somewhat proving the F1 fears of human capacity when unleashed).

At this point, Richard needed help in his magic endeavors – and wanted to do the recruitment/reclamation process for more people, but there were complications. First, the secret of "magic" was out – enough to gain the attention of the other *Foreign* factions. The whole world believed in magic at this point, but this was magic that was turning the tide of wars, even when it was non-violent. That added extra credence to it.

This meant that there was increased scrutiny and influence now headed toward England, not to mention thoughts of high-level (beyond human) espionage. The F2 Angels had their work cut out for them. They were also reaching the point where they would have to back off because of the spotlight that was magic was bringing. Not that they didn't support it, but rather they needed tactical advantage of operating further away from the spotlight Richard was drawing. Because of that, he was going to have to start performing his own recruitment process, including the medical reclamation, indoctrination, training, education and so on.

### **The First Five OM**

Richard had tagged five sorry plague victims identified in Southern England to be reclaimed and repurposed as his lieutenants in the Order of Merlin. The F2 Angels were ready to help, but this became a learning and teaching process for Richard: after this, he was going to be responsible for the process himself.

Richard learned the process from the inside out, using SNS for every step of the process. This was an accelerated medical process, well beyond what he'd done for his brother, but still well within psionic-only methods. Likewise for indoctrination, training and education.

The Human Resource "product" was stable and high-performance.

The medical rehabilitation not only healed the people, it regressed aging back to roughly their early 20s. The indoctrination walked the line of assuring loyalty while maintaining free will. They were educated in human history *up to that point*, as well as science well beyond – though with enough modern, SNS-enhanced tradecraft skill to cover the true depth of their knowledge.

They were fully trained in SNS, and were sensitive to presence of psionics and the ability to detect and defend themselves from SNS encroachment, surveillance or attack.

They were now literate in English, French and Latin; with extraordinary logic and math skills, and lifestyle training that extended to basic hygiene, diet and exercise, competent mundane (un-enhanced) fighting skills and so on. All of this was done within the safe confines of a remote area west of London.

With a few weeks to get used to their training and education, Richard ran them through exercises that tested out their skills from how to be discreet to how to use their SNS abilities. He could probably take over the world with this group alone, but that wasn't the point of this cadre: this became the core of the Order of Merlin... the first outside himself and Edward to dabble in the arcane.

Their indoctrination into the arcane came, as rumored, on their trip from London to Bordeaux. This was very much intended: Richard was creating a trail to show the gradual increase in capacity, and do so in a way that kept analysis away from his own origins (covering the F2 involvement).

## **SECRET: Alchemical transmutations**

### **Prince Rick had already blazed a *nuclear* trail…**

Working remotely, he'd performed the basics of alchemy already – *and it was a high energy process*. From Lead (Pb/82) absolutely pure gold (Au/79) – impurities in the transmutation essentially explode – very hazardous, very toxic. The transformation itself was essentially magic-activated and controlled fission, so if he lost containment on even a microscopic fraction of the process, he’d level the countryside in an atomic instant.

Further, what he'd predicted, and was right about, was that the major byproduct was lithium, a soft, silvery-white alkali metal that was both highly reactive and flammable. The OM were going to help him to do this process safer – and *en masse*.

After teaching them all types of magic, via SNS-enhanced training and education during the England-Bordeaux trip, they came back and collected enough lead to make it worth it. The logistics were easy: by the 14th century, lead mining and smelting was an established industry in England. Even as far back as 1086, lead mines at Wirksworth and Bakewell were recorded in the Domesday Book.

This early Order of Merlin group assisted on the first *major* batch of transmutations, with their magical casting supporting the melting, separation, purification and preparation of tons of raw ore. The mining in Cornwall and Devon easily supported their efforts, and the purchases were hidden and transported undercover to ensure security and secrecy.

Likewise, they could transform Tin (Sn) to pure Silver (Ag) with [almost] the same process – and got the same lithium byproduct. In some cases, silver was a lower denomination when coined and technically easier to pass into the circulation, if only for the ability for the commons and most merchants to be able to make change. Similar to lead mining, there was an extensive tin mining industry in Britain. Tin was plentiful – already a major economic source for craftsmen – so it was readily available.

The lithium (Li/3) could be diluted to safe ratios and stored… but weren’t. Instead, the lithium was “reduced” in what was essentially the ultimate fusion reaction, turning it into pure Carbon (C/6). But they didn’t stop with carbon dust or any of a thousand possible combinations. No… they were able to crystalize it into pure diamond.

Further, they had the know-how to cut and polish to gemstone quality. The size was limited only by the amount of starting lithium, and they were able to create substantial stones. One carat is defined as 200 milligrams (about 0.007 ounce avoirdupois), so a transmutation that resulted in a pound of gold would result in about 3/100ths of a pound of lithium (not much). That was still enough to make small gemstones, however.

Likewise, under Richard, they could make rubies, the mineral corundum (aluminium oxide); Emeralds, which was the mineral beryl (Be3Al2(SiO3)6) colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium; as well as Sapphire (the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide (α-Al2O3)).

Significantly, it does *not* require a mythical “Philosopher's Stone”

### **Once the raw ore was created in what amount to ingots, it was magically minted**

Values in the treasure were calculated in pounds, shillings and pence (12 pence = a shilling; and 20 shillings = a pound), although there were no coins equal to pounds and shillings and would not be until Henry VII's reign.

For the purposes of accounting marks were used, worth 13 shillings and 4 pence (the noble, therefore, fitted both systems well, being worth a third of a pound and half a mark).

* Gold noble (6 shillings and 8 pence)
* Gold quarter-noble (1 shilling and 8 pence)
* Silver groat (4 pence)
* Silver penny

The noble was the highest value coin in England (and probably in Europe). At 6s. 8d. it was worth a third of a pound or half a mark.

The design of a king standing in a ship was introduced by Edward III in 1344, when the coin itself was first produced as part of England's first successful revival of gold coinage. The design may be a reference to the great naval victory at Sluys (1340), the first victory of the Hundred Years War, although it may be simply a reference to the image of the king as captain of the ship of state.

The design was also used for the half-noble (not illustrated), but was too elaborate for the small quarter-noble, which instead had the shield of England and France. The silver coinage carried the facing stylised bust of a king, a general design introduced by Edward I in 1279, which would survive until the Tudors.

The coin was introduced during the second coinage (1344–46) of King Edward III, when the coin weighed 138.5 grains (9.0 grams); during the king's third coinage (1346–51) the weight of the coin was reduced to 128.5 grains (8.3 grams), while in his fourth coinage (1351–77) it became even lighter, at 120 grains (7.8 grams). The diameter of the noble was 33–35 mm, half noble 25–26 mm and quarter noble 19–21 mm.

The silver coinage was that used in daily business, with the groat of fourpence supported by the half-groat, and the penny by the fractional denominations of the halfpenny and farthing. The daily wages of a master craftsman might be sixpence.

Roughly 125 tons of lead were used, of which 120 tons became gold (96%), while the rest became lithium. This resulted in £240,000 worth of gold. *That was close to five years worth of Royal Budget at the time…*

£20,000 was minted into the first pound coins – bearing King Edward III's visage – while the rest of £220K was minted into 660K gold noble coins.

Likewise, 500 tons of tin were transformed into roughly 470 tons of silver

907,185 grams per ton, 6.2 grams per coin, so ~146,320 groats per ton… leading to about 68.7M silver groats.