Hi, Skooch!
Aqua Fortis is all over the place, friend. Doubtless there will be several places in a town the size of Edmonchuk where you can get a small bit.
The word means 'strong water' and it is the late-Middle-Ages term for what we call 'nitric acid': HNO3. Should be available at most chemical supply houses in small containers. It is manufactured nowadays in Haber-Process plants in a very pure form and shipped by the tank-car load. If there is an ammonium-nitrate fertilizer plant handy, it's likely that they can supply you with 500 or 1000 gallons. Come to think of it, a pint likely would be easier to transport homeward. Careful with the stuff: it will eat your car and render your nice new jeans highly-explosive if spilled. Weak nitric acid on your skin colours you YELLOW; this yellow colour is called Xanthoproteic Acid (Yellow-protein acid) and just has to wear off. Too much can dissolve YOU, so you be very careful.
When you are working with the stuff, keep some Baking Soda handy, along with lots of water. This is for flushing off YOU before serious injury can occur. Do NOT get the Baking Soda directly into the acid: bad things WILL occur, but you just might need it for your skin.
Be careful not to get it mixed in with your 'muriatic acid', for this is an old-timey term for crude hydrochloric acid (HCl): the two work together and you get Aqua Regia (nitrochloric acid) (Royal Water) which is used for dissolving GOLD. Powerful stuff!
(Amazing, the stuff you have to learn to write a fantasy novel these days!)
Oh, you can 'kill' excess nitric acid off with a handful of old nails; when things have finished working, you flush the rust off with water and what remains of the acid (which now is water) goes down the drain. You kill your muriatic acid with limestone chips or broken oyster-shells or bits of chalk, a bit at a time, never too much at any one time: you want it dead, not fizzing all over your workbench.
Good luck with The Project. Let's see some really nice pics when she's done!
