Pieter whistled when he saw the explosion. He'd used grenadoes before, and he'd known that it was possible to make a cannonball explode the same way. But since you couldn't know when the damn thing was set to go off, there hadn't been much interest in them. Hana had figured out how to make one work safely. [i]It sure is something,[/i] he thought, glancing at Berlin to watch his reaction. The big man had a relaxed air. But if he was here without Wheel, something must have come up. 

Rohaan was delighted with the explosion. When he wasn't spooked, he loved anything that could cause mass destruction. Stepping away from the cannon, he listened to Hana say to Rohaan, "Well, the first set of runes on the ball were the same as the medallion, and attracted the lightning. There were runes on the inside of the ball, which would bring the lightning inside to where the powder is. It turns out that if you just run lightning through a trail of powder, it doesn't ignite. It needs to be kept in the powder for a longer moment (Long being a relative term, for us, it's near instantaneous, but of course, from the perspective of the lightning it's a decently long moment), and at that point, the powder ignites, causing the explosion." She tapped a fingernail against her teeth, already working on the next problem in her mind. "I mean, I've heard of some armies launching grenadoes out of cannons, but it's not exactly safe. Since Uban is the one who sends out the lightning, it's less dangerous for us."

Glancing at the excited boy, she continued, "Well, define what you mean by 'explosion'. If something's sealed, all it takes to make it explode is to dramatically raise the pressure. This cannonball thing is a bit of a cheat, since I'm using the blackpowder and Uban's lightning to do all the heavy lifting. In school, we had to make wine bottles shatter by increasing it's internal pressure. It's a pain in the neck, though, and I wouldn't recommend it for fun." 

Hana was surprised when the captain clasped her arm, smiling when he complimented her, "Well, it's not exactly a new idea, so I can't take credit, but yes, I thought of using Uban's lightning this way." Her hands twinged, and she grimaced in pain. 


"I'm afraid that we're out of examples. It takes a while to carve everything."