2 Cylus 724
Unfortunately notes were more abstract in a lot of ways. He sensed precision in the explosive. Precision, ingenuity and danger. These were notes he hadn't fully saturated into his spark before but his work sifting through the explosive frequency ensured he'd recognize them quickly going forward. There were other notes that he found more familiar. Ambition, pride, and deception. Whoever had made this formula had put a great amount of all three into the work. It was a strange combination to any who hadn't built bombs before. Testing would be dangerous. Notes of deception and pride suggested that the formula as especially volatile and would be difficult to counteract. Worse- it might be easy to enhance.
The Albarech had suggested the perfect place for them to experiment on the explosive without drawing too much attention. Balthazar was astonished he hadn't considered it given his history with the location. The Watch had stood empty since the death the watchman, Philip Carey. Balthazar had investigated the murder. He'd gone to the Watch and spent significant time there. He'd gone back again after discovering evidence that the pirates had been there and indeed they had- but they didn't find what they were looking for. Even without his time spent there, he only needed a strong memory to make a portal somewhere he'd been and Vri ensured his marked had that. He could open a portal directly from Almund to the Watch and run his tests. Two trials of travel cut down to well... several breaks of intense meditation.
He had asked Robin to meet him at his home early in the morning but he began the preparation for the portal breaks earlier into the night so that it would be ready on time. He had enough experience with long distance portals now to know how long it would take to unlock the doorway. Robin arrived promptly on time and let himself in, as he'd been instructed, only to find Balthazar sitting cross legged on a blanket in the middle of his living room. The mage's eyes were closed and his mind was engaged pushing two different placed together; The Watch and his house. A front side and a back side of a door that his spark allowed him to open. Robin closed the door behind himself while Balthazar opened one before them both.
As the mage turned his hand in the air, a ring of blue flame coiled around itself in the air- splitting open a portal to the fortress beyond the mouth of the bay. Balthazar opened his eyes and let his body fall back onto the floor with a deeply relieved breath. He could maintain the doorway far more easily than he could open it. It was there that he caught an upside down view of Robin and quickly sat up. "It's always harder than it seems." Balthazar admit as he pushed himself up onto his feet.
Balthazar and Robin proceeded to move the chest with Balthazar's alchemy materials and a few other do-dads through the portal. Robin began setting up testing field in one of the rooms according to Balthazar's instructions while the mage took a look around the fortress to ensure that they were alone. He was also looking for any hidden compartments or passages that might indicate The Watch was being used to store weapons and bombs just like Almund. Part of it was to ensure that nothing interfered with their work and part of it was that Balthazar didn't want to set off any explosive near a stockpile of other explosives. Once he was sure that the ruined fortress on the ice was secure, Balthazar returned to Robin and the temporary lab outside his lingering portal.
It would have been nice if the journal had provided him with the formula to render the explosives inert but he had built explosives before. He was familiar with the components and he had magic to fill in what he didn't immediately know. He would either figure it out or figure out how to dispose of it. The Watch was the perfect place to work. It was a controlled environment with multiple rooms, furniture, and plenty of space to work. Best of all, it was private. No one would see or hear the explosions from the tests all the way out there.
Robin had repurposed the kitchen area for the makeshift laboratory because even in the abandoned pile, the kitchen was the most sanitary place- or most easy to sanitize. He put Balthazar's tools onto the tables and did not risk touching the second container where the explosive samples were being held. He'd helped set up the tools before but he knew little about bombs. It was just as magic to him as when Balthazar threw lightning so he left that for the mage to handle himself.
When Balthazar arrived at the end of Robin's time setting up, he quickly moved back through the portal into his house and retrieved the container with the explosive samples. He knew that it wasn't delicate enough to set off by moving it a little but he was ensuring not to drop it on the way back through the portal. He slowly and carefully set down the smaller box on a table far from tools. "Are you sure you don't want me to get Lyanna?" Robin asked with a gesture towards the portal. Balthazar's brow furrowed slightly.
"Why?" He asked. He felt like it would be a risk to have more people around. However once he closed the door it would take a long time to reopen.
"What if we blow up?"
"The odds of that are..." Balthazar paused, "Okay, get Lyanna."
