"Dominic, good work finding the other spy. Shame that they couldn’t be interrogated. But I have another task for you today." Princess Alexis announced the moment that she came out the front gates of the Keep.
"At your service, Princess."
Alexis winked at Dominic and motioned toward Dax, who had returned with her.
"I want you to work with the Natural Sons’ Regiment today. They have been training with your rifles for some time, but nobody knows the design and its quirks better than you do.
Work with them to optimize their firing rates, and anything else that they might need assistance to perfect. The Regiment is quite recently formed, as the Marquis was quick to point out, and some time with a Royal Advisor would benefit them immensely." She instructed.
"Of Course, Your Highness. Lord Dax, please lead the way to the training grounds and we can begin. I do know a few things about your equipment that might not have been made public." Dominic agreed.
Dax led him off to the far side of the Keep, then over the wall, to where a large training ground had been constructed on the roof of a warehouse.
This city was nothing if not space efficient.
The Natural Sons’ Regiment was already gathered when they arrived, and they greeted Dominic with a smart salute as he walked onto the training grounds.
"Master Gunsmith, welcome." They chanted in unison.
"Greetings, Regiment. It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I have heard great things about your capabilities. However, the Royal Family believes that there are still a few tips and tricks that I can share.
Should we get started?" Dominic replied.
"Of course, Master Gunsmith. What did you want to start with?"
"I need a volunteer to see how you’re doing things. First, empty your rifle, then show me your reloading process." Dominic instructed.
The soldiers shrugged. This was a simple thing they had been over a thousand times during basic training.
Dax gestured to one of the soldiers, and the man dumped out the rounds from his rifle into a pouch.
Then he moved the rifle to a ready position as if he had just finished firing. He dropped the butt of the rifle on his boot, holding the forward guard, and popped the cap off the lower tube, then grabbed a handful of slugs and poured them into the feeder tube.
He placed the spring-loaded cap back on the tube and worked the side lever to prime the air canister, and then the trigger guard lever to chamber a round.
Then he placed it back to his shoulder, and Dax nodded in acknowledgement.
"Excellent, there isn’t much that will shave time off that except preparing loads in advance." Dominic agreed.
"In advance?" Dax asked.
Dominic nodded. "The shot is round before it’s pressed in the action. So, you can roll them in a paper tube and just rip the end off to pour them in. That’s why the cap section is flared.
But if you’re feeling spicy, you can hang the munitions bag from your wrist as a counterbalance, and load them in the action one at a time. It saves time if you need one more shot and don’t have time for a full reload."
Dominic took a spare rifle from his storage cube and a bag of ammunition. Then he lifted the rifle and worked the lever with his right hand while tossing the ball in the open action with his left.
The soldiers stared at him in confusion.
"Ours don’t work like that. It’s blocked, see?"
Dominic frowned, then reached over and pulled the pin holding the dust cover, allowing it to swing open.
"I know that Technomagic is best not tampered with, but it looks like someone forgot to mention the little details, like what was just to keep the rifles clean during transport, and what was a functional bit."
Actually, Dominic had forgotten to tell anyone, so they all just assumed that it was supposed to be that way and didn’t mess with it because the rifle worked and that was the important part.
The soldiers nodded in understanding. The dust covers could mostly stay in place, as they would keep the rifle from getting gummed up in battle. But if you were expecting a hard-pressed battle, it would save you in an emergency if you had it off.
"I left explicit details on cleaning, so I’m sure you all got those notes. Other than that, I’m not sure what else we can go over, other than ammunition. Do any of you have the [Create Munitions] Magitech Orb?" Dominic asked.
Most of the soldiers nodded.
"If you socket it in the rifle, just work the action, and it should activate with the shaping press as the target by default. No need to manually reload, I included the charging circuit, as it’s the same as the one to enchant the munitions with a spell effect." Dominic explained.
They all began to swap enchantments around. If they didn’t ever run out of ammunition, they would gladly take the loss of additional damage during most fights. They were expecting soldiers, not powerful magical beasts, and that meant magitech armour. But with repeated hits, that would inevitably fail.
So, it was better to get more shots going out and save yourself the time of creating the rounds in your munitions pouch and then loading the rifle.
"One more thing that I discovered after the rifles were shipped out.
You can mark ranges on the rear slide sight once you have tested the individual rifles. They’ll all be slightly different, just because the workmanship isn’t precise enough to calibrate them in advance.
But that will save you precious seconds when picking targets."
Dax laughed, and showed Dominic the rear sight of his rifle that already had a set of marks scratched into it.
"Well, I guess that one was more obvious than expected. You are the professionals."
After that, all the soldiers began coming up with questions about maintenance, what to do if the compressed air began to leak, issues that could come from damage to the various parts of the rifle, and other questions that nobody but the original Gunsmith could answer.