Topic: Of Ginger and Powder

Ileen McGowan

Date: 2014-03-28 20:14 EST
Much to her own personal challenges, Ileen did return to some semblance of her previous life. However, she was now being followed by this red headed creature.

Jaclyn had begun to walk early. She swaggered better than her poppy and wavered quite comically, but she was getting her land leg's pretty swiftly. She was always distracted by this or that, generally a bug that happened to cross her path, while they walked into town. But eventually, they would get to their destination. It was hard to fathom that in 3 short days, the child would be a year old.

Once the winter had begun to melt off, Ileen found herself roaming the warehouses that were deeded as her's, and catching up on the happening's within Rhydin as a whole.

Nothing much ever changed. Life pretty much remained the same, on that front. The alley's were the same. The Tavern's were the same. The people were the same. Just a bit older. Not a touch wiser.

The part of the crew that Jack had 'loaned' her, were kept busy between the two building's. Each having their own tasks, their own agenda. It was all about, Powder.

Black.

Velvet portrait....black.

There was a time when Ileen would be drooling over the possibility of blowing something....someone....into a million piece's. However, that was not the case now. The new addiction would prove to be....coin. Lot's of it.

Jack had his piracy. Ileen would have her barrel's. For the now.

Scooping up Jac and depositing her onto a hip, the warehouse district was in sight and she whispered at the shell of the child's ear. "Time to get back to it, my heart..."

Ileen McGowan

Date: 2014-05-20 14:34 EST
The redhead was not seen too often, wandering around the city proper, it was no place for the midget that was a constant tug at her coat-tails.

Not wasn't a complaint, it was simply....life.

What she would give to sit down at a table of drunks and rape them of their coin, with an Ace in the hole. Motherhood certainly changed thing's didn't it?

Much time was spent researching the trade route's specific to the beloved powder, at that Library up on the hill. Strangely enough, the one RhySaan, was never seen, nor was his mate, Basalt. But leave it to Ileen to remember the 'under passages' into the main structure. The walls, some 14 feet in height, were just as she remembered. For as far as the eye could reach....book after book awaited her.

What intrigued her mostly, was how gunpowder originally traveled west-ward to Europe. Maybe it would never be known, but it seemed likely that there was not just one route but several?via the ancient trading route known as the Silk Road; by travelers from the west; by the Mongols; or by peoples of the Russian lands.

When gunpowder's advantage as a weapon was made clear, the Chinese
began to apply gunpowder to warfare. They started experimenting with gunpowder-filled tubes.

By the thirteenth century, Chinese military forces adopted gunpowder-based weapons technologies such as rockets, guns, and cannons, and explosives such as grenades and different types of bombs for use against the Mongols when they attempted to invade and breach the Great Wall on the northern borders of China.

After the Mongols conquered China and founded the Yuan dynasty, they used the Chinese gunpowder-based weapons technology in their invasion of Japan and Korea, and other countries.

At the beginning, the formula for making gunpowder was not common information, and only a few special weapon makers knew how to make it. This hazardous and highly explosive weapon, however, spread to Europe through the Silk Road, the world's oldest and most mysterious trade route.

"Christ...where is Patrick when I be needing the crabby sot...Way too much information for my brain." Muttered beneath her breath, a stretch up from the large desk was made and the tomb was slammed closed.