The air past the entrance hall of the ruin, where the monster had slept, was musty and stale. But still breathable.
They made sure to check the walls for any signs of traps but to Morey, the ruin didn't look as if it was particularly defensive. The builders might have relied on that giant monster, the corridors on the inside looked less like a defensive maze and more like a very familiar layout.
It resembled an office block. Only built downwards. Corridors branched off into large and small rooms, defunct toilets and even the occasional work area where long lines of benches that contained only traces of ancient equipment. There was no power, or whatever was used to provide light. The party walked forwards under a miniature sun projected by Ereli's seemingly limitless magic. She had even called it training.
Well, it was supposed to be a research and development branch of the primary Tsarian competitor to the First company whose documents they uncovered. These two had focused on magical studies and the historians and accountants had almost gone crazy trying to decipher the terms. Oh, they could read the words just fine, the First script wrote words in literal pronunciation, but words without concepts meant very little.
Lacking the underlying knowledge base made a proper translation nigh impossible.
It had been quite the shock when some parts of the financial records indicated the company had an annual profit the size of the entire Inath treasury. The court accountant had to go have a lie down after trying to calculate the net worth of the company on Morey's suggestion to use the price of basic goods. In this case, they used the cost of food. Morey suspected that that calculation had actually underestimated the company's size as the catering budget in that calculation seemed to be less per person than the subsistence level in the Inath capitol.
"What is all this stuff?" Etani asked.
"Laboratory equipment," Morey said, looking at the large and oddly shaped box that Etani was prodding. The box sat at the end of a long workbench, the only thing remaining on the benches apart from scrape marks and mysterious looking stains.
"What does that mean?"
Morey tried to think of a way to simplify things. "In my world, and I suppose in your past, people perform experiments to learn. This place is called a laboratory, that means a place where people do experiments. "
"What things did they try to learn about here?"
Morey shrugged, "I wasn't a scientist so I couldn't say. Scientists are people who do these experiments. And your world has magic, who knows what sort of experiments they could have been trying to do? But the only thing I know is that it will not work after being left for so long. Nothing lasts that long. Except giant sleeping monsters apparently. "
"Even so, it is a Tsarian artifact, we would like to have it," Ereli said, stroking the rough casing. She tried to move the box but it didn't budge.
They soon found out why the box was left there, the whole thing appeared to be welded to the bench. Or built as part of it.
Morey examined the casing material but it yielded no clues either. The hard and rough material was quite mysterious, almost but not quite like plastic. Of course, none of the three girls knew what it was.
He suspected they would have been more impressed with another crysteel artifact, even if it was just a letter opened, than something unfathomable like this. Only Ereli wanted to keep it, more out of family pride than anything else.
But Morey knew better. This was a scientific artifact from Inath's distant past and perhaps something could be learnt from it.
"Let's move on," Etani said as they lost interest when the artifact didn't appear to do anything.
Morey nodded, perhaps the scholars who would follow in their footsteps once the place was secure would know how to investigate it better.
When they were back out in the corridor, Ereli made a rare suggestion. "I think we should split up," she said, "this place is too big to explore if we stay together. "
Etani and Nal gave her skeptical looks and something seemed to pass between them, then Etani shrugged, "we can do that, but what happens if you get caught in a trap or there's another monster?"
"We can split by magical power," Nal said, "I and Etani will go together and Ereli and Morey go another way. If you run into trouble, just use a pulse of magic and we'll come find you. I know how to brighten my spells, Ereli I suspect can just exert herself a little. "
It was true, but it still felt a little rude to point out that Ereli lacked the skill. Ereli reddened a little then looked down shyly. Oi, did she think Nal was praising her? Morey rolled his eyes.
Etani nodded, "Ereli and you aren't so good at close range, so this way, we'll maintain our front line. Good thinking. "
Nal nodded back. No blushing for her.
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"So what do you think of Etani?" Ereli chattered as they walked down the corridor. Morey opened another door, another room with empty shelves and stained benches.
"Etani?" Morey mused, "she's strong and fast. To be honest, I don't think I'd ever manage to win a bout against her. No matter how she trains me. "
"But isn't she dashing in her armour?"
Dashing? Her armour wasn't the sort that you'd expect from a woman, if you looked at Earth computer games. None of that breastplate nonsense, when she was fully bottled up in her plate and had her helm down, she looked just like any other knight. It didn't even have decorations. Only unlike Earth knights, she managed to tap dance around monsters and do all sorts of impossible acrobatics in it. Courtesy of her Em magic.
"Eh, I wouldn't say she's dashing," Morey sighed, "I mean, the armour wasn't made to look nice. Me as well, I would say. If it wasn't for our height difference, we could swap armour sets and you wouldn't be able to tell who was inside. "
"Oh, but when she brandishes that sword of hers, she could almost be like a fairy tale hero!"
"Ah, yes, the knight in shining armour. I guess you have that here too?" Morey raised an eyebrow. The next room was another office. How many offices did this place have anyway? "Thing is, the stories never quite tell you all the details of what the knight does. "
"What do they leave out?" Ereli asked.
"That most of adventuring is spent riding from place to place and not defeating enemies in glorious battle. Not that battle is very glorious either," Morey remarked dryly.
"Why do you say that? The knights defend us from the monsters!" Ereli spread her arms and smiled at him, as if seeing a very different Morey from the one he saw in a mirror. "Of course it's glorious! That battle with the Titan was nothing but an epic tale that I'm sure we'll all be remembered for!"
"And for every Titan we fight, how many times did we have to crap in the woods?" Morey didn't bother to mince his words. It would all bounce off her anyway. "No one ever tells tales about that. "
"And how many people have you saved from the monsters already?" Ereli shot back.
"Not all of them," Morey replied quietly.
Ereli finally pouted, "uu, why do you always have to paint it like that? What about all the others who you did save? That village the three of you defended by yourselves from a zombie attack?"
"I'm sure they're too busy rebuilding their homes to thank us. Besides, we never even stayed to receive it. I don't think we'll stay in Inverness for long either. It seriously takes far too long to travel anywhere. "
"They'll remember! Of course they will! You must be their hero!" She stamped her foot and glared at him. She actually stamped, like an angry child.
Morey sighed, perhaps he shouldn't try to poke holes in her cartoon coloured world too fast. He did understand why of course, she had virtually no education, and had been fed stories of the hero she could become if only she surpass Hikkiri, the most powerful Iris that had ever lived.
He wondered why she had been asked to join. Well, she was powerful, so perhaps the Queen thought they were lacking in power?
"Oh, then what about Nal? She doesn't wear armour. "
True indeed, although why that would be the case, Morey hadn't figured out. It wasn't like wearing armour hindered magic at all, Morey had went straight for the toughest armour after being told that.
"Nal is the most powerful member of our party. I know you exceed her power but she has the skill and experience to apply it properly. " Morey nodded to himself, even if Etani had seen more battles, she had spent all of that time face to face with the enemy. Nal on the other hand was usually the one being protected, and her deadly spell storms cast at range were judiciously allocated according to the toughness of the enemy, which front line member had to be supported and which enemies were most dangerous.
Her perspective on battles and knowledge of magic, even if not quite matching that of a true Academy scholar, made her indispensable.
"And her looks?" Ereli asked pointedly.
Morey lowered the staff tipped with liquid Light and looked at Ereli. Was this girl only thinking of how people looked? He shook his head wordlessly.
"Yeah, I know she looks young but Nal is not a child, you know?" Ereli sighed, clearly misunderstanding his meaning.
"I'm not about to comment on that," Morey turned back to the corridor, "everyone looks different and I won't belittle her just because of her appearance. "
"But is she attractive? I know it's not like the stories but she is a member of the knight order. "
"Appearance and attractiveness are two different things," Morey said. They stopped when he reached a dead end. And to one side was a rather tough looking door. Crysteel? He rapped on it smartly. Not this time. Just normal steel.
"She could keep her hair long. I can't imagine wearing armour like Etani's and having to cut my hair," Ereli sighed and stroked her twin braids, looking like a star struck teenager pining for her boyfriend.
Morey shook his head, to think some people would actually give up the protection of armour just so they could have longer hair! The monsters were no game, he couldn't see how people could give up armour for such a trivial reason. When said hair was also frustratingly hard to keep clean on a long journey. He took aim and blasted the door off its hinges with three forcestrikes. With a groan, the steel door toppled into the room with a loud ringing crash.
"More paper... or maybe not. " There were file boxes scattered over the floor, of a similar design to the tax records they had found those weeks ago. But when Morey opened them, all he saw was white powder that used to be the papers inside. The contents were clearly unrecoverable.
Darn, he had been hoping for another preserved document room. "Here, help me open these boxes," Morey said, indicating them to Ereli, "we're looking for any paper that is still intact. They'll be very fragile so be careful. "
That finally got her to stop talking, he told her to practice exerting force with magic by opening the boxes and she was too busy concentrating to do anything else. So for a few minutes, he got some peace and quiet.
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"OOOH!" This was it! This was the thing he was looking for! Morey reverently lifted up the ancient document from its file, somehow this box on the upper shelf had survived the passage of time.
The exclamation drew Ereli from behind her much larger pile of shredded boxes and powdered paper. "What is it?"
Morey gently put down the document and withdrew the thin sheets of stiff and transparent oiled paper from his pack. They were obscenely expensive but the Academy historians had given them a few sheets to help preserve any further records they found.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"I can't read it though, this isn't First script," Morey said. That was disappointing. Not that First script would have helped, he could only read that one letter at a time. Even the short thirty or forty characters on the front page would take too long.
"It's ancestral Tsarian. " Ereli said as she examined the the first page after he laminated it, "we haven't changed our script as much as the Inaths, and we write the literal meaning in the words. I should be able to read a bit of it. " She frowned and hummed to herself, "Hm. Record... of... no, it's 'Observation of'. Making? ... 'Lifeforce' I recognize. The next word means something like 'people made it', maybe. Then the front must be record, it's past tense. Record on the creation of lifeforce, people made it?"
Morey blinked and paused in his lamination of the second sheet. What?!
"There's a mark after that, so it should be reverse order. More like, 'Record on the creation of people-made-it lifeforce'. " Ereli continued, oblivious to Morey's rising curiousity, "that last word makes no sense. "
"The word is artificial. If it means the same thing to me as to them," Morey had to remember to breathe. This was something of a dream back on Earth and the Tsarians actually managed it?! "Creation of artificial life," Morey whispered.
"No, that part makes no sense," Ereli said, "you can't make life. Lifeforce is lifeforce, you can't make it, no matter how much magical power you have. "
"Maybe the Tsar could. According to your legends, the First and the Tsar could do a lot of things that aren't possible today," Morey said. He looked down at the first page of content. Considering how dense the words were on that page, and how slow Ereli read the script, it was going to take forever. "Even if we want to know what's inside, I think we will have to wait. You check if there are any other documents surviving and I'll..."
He trailed off after lifting the third page. The bottom part of the stack was completely destroyed, the ink smearing across the page in a blurred mess. "Never mind then," Morey said.
They reluctantly left the three tantalizing pieces of history on the shelf and went back to opening boxes.
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The foreman hurried up to the trio entering the workshop. The lead person was the boss, a familiar sight, but the other two were new. They didn't look like new workers however.
"With a big enough cylinder, the paper should dry out well enough, but it would be much easier to get multiple smaller cylinders," the black haired man in front said, waving his arms at an imaginary thing in the air.
"An interesting proposal," the boss said, "ah, there you are. This is Weir, the foreman in charge of this workshop. He's the most reliable person of all the workshops I own. Can you tell me if what he says is possible?"
Weir nodded at the black haired man, who nodded back. "I'm Cato," the man introduced himself, "I'm working with Mr Razzi on improving the paper production and would like to make use of your expertise. "
Weir looked at the boss and got an imperceptible nod. That was surprising, for him to take a chance on someone completely unknown. "Why don't you come inside and show me what you're planning?" Weir waved them in, even if he didn't believe this person could do anything for the best paper workshop in Selabia, supplying direct to the court, Mr Razzi was the owner and paid his wages.
When they were in the side office, Cato spread out a stack of drawings more complicated than anything Weir had ever seen. He recognized each individual element, yes, the rollers, belts and felt presses were things they used right now. But the plans contained more rollers than all of Selabia's workshops had. Nay, more than even the capital's substantial paper industry.
But even if there were a few mistakes in the process, Weir could recognize a paper drying process from a mile away and the descriptions seemed to indicate it could produce paper in a continuous roll! At an unbelievable rate. He wasn't sure if this machine could meet the number Cato was saying but Weir knew that this machine would out produce his workshop even if he had a hundred workers.
He licked his lips. It was too bad the plans didn't include enough information for Weir to build his own.
"How are you going to move all of those rollers?" Weir pointed out the most major problem he could think of. A team of Pakas might be able to drive a wheel, like they used for mills, but to keep the machine going, one would need to keep pulling. The size of the herd needed to maintain a continuous pull didn't bear thinking about. There might not be enough Pakas in all of Inath.
"With this part here," Cato pointed to another drawing, "I chose this place because there's a large and fast flowing river running through the town. You use it for your paper making, building a waterwheel will drive this machine. "
Weir blinked at the stacked slats. It was not like any sort of waterwheel he knew of, the traditional sort with straight paddles. This one had slanted paddles and the drawing seemed to call for the wheel to be wider than it was tall. It was a more powerful and ambitious waterwheel than any he had seen used in a mill. In fact, no one had used waterwheels other than for milling or pumping water, to Weir's knowledge.
"To build this will require building a diversion around the river. The barges using the river won't appreciate it if our wheel blocks the traffic," Cato said. Weir nodded, good to see he thought of that also. "A suitable incline would be useful as well and this site upriver is where we're going to build it. "
Weir was directed to the map and nodded at the location. It was a good choice. The land was unused and the local lord could be convinced to give up a small plot.
"Razzi sir, I believe this thing has a chance of working, all the required steps are present. But who will fund all of this?" Weir asked, looking at his boss. Razzi was rich, that much Weir knew, but those cylinders were supposedly to be made of iron and heated with coal fired steam. To say the machine was expensive was beyond understatement.
"That's why we proposed a partnership," Cato said, turning to Razzi, "you may not wish to risk so much money on such a venture without a guarantee it will work. So we can supply a fifth of the funding. I'm sorry that we can't provide more but this is already too much of our capital. "
Razzi snorted, "And how will we divide the profit? If there's any? And what are our roles in this partnership?"
"We provide the technology, we help with the initial building to make the machine work. We need you to provide the workers, the rest of the funding and direct the sales of paper once it is complete," Razzi nodded at Cato. That much was fair, so far. "Once this is complete, we will receive a twentieth of the profit from this invention for the next ten years. "
Razzi raised an eyebrow, "a fifth of the funding, as well as such an earthshaking idea, for a twentieth of the profit? That quite reasonable. "
Cato grinned, "that's all right. We're a company of just three people, and once you are comfortable and making profit, I want to come back with another deal for something I call a printing press. That's just the way we work. "
"And how did you come up with so much money to fund a fifth of this thing when you're only three people?" Razzi asked curiously.
"You're not the only one who we have a partnership with," Cato explained, "you may have heard of the bottled juices and milk that will keep for weeks?"
Razzi's eyebrows could not climb higher. To tell the truth, Weir wasn't quite sure he believed that paka milk could keep for weeks, even if unopened, but the one in his kitchen had been standing for six days already.
"The merchant Kalny will soon be able to achieve the same with meats and preserved fruit, in much cheaper tins this time," Cato said, "And then there's the iron reinforced bricks and cement that Mason Muller is building a new bridge with. I also had something to do with the new cast iron product from the Ironworkers. we'll have enough money from that. "
Razzi laughed and slapped the man on the back. Well, that's the deal then, Weir thought. "I had wondered how such merchants suddenly gained so much power recently but it was you?!" Razzi shook his head ruefully, "seeing these drawings convinces me of it, they have that same mark . Who are you people?"
Cato shared his laughed, "us? Our company is the CaLa Consultancy. I'm Cato, and she's Landar. My magical advisor. "
Landar nodded her head and Weir blinked in shock. Wasn't she supposed to be in Wendy's Fort? Apparently not.
"The Mad Alchemist herself too! Perhaps you are thinking of using magic in this process?" Razzi rubbed his hands, "I shudder to think of the obscene profits we could make. Well, since the dice of fortune are with me, you simply must join me over dinner and tell me about these future plans of yours. "
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(My) Record on Artificial Life Shaping Project
... six clutches failed to spawn anything. The extensive modifications do not appear to have carried on to the next generation. Apart from Taka, the display piece in the front lobby, the attempt to work from crustaceans appears to have failed as well.
Despite this, we have learnt that changes to form by lifeshaping are not inherited between generations. The display piece is 6.13 lengths wide and 20.7 weights. Its children fit in the palm of the hand without lifeshaping interventions. Neither do the longevity and self-sufficiency treatments carry over, the children still need to be fed even if their parent does not and by now most of them have died of old age.
We are confident such a problem can be solved eventually, with sufficient research. However, the lifeshaping experiments here indicate the possibility that such living weapons can be created to counter the steel legions of the First. I, Kumoto Reta, will submit my personal recommendation to the Central Authority.
Obviously, for moral reasons, usage of humans as base stock should cease now that we have developed the ability to shape life on other than ourselves.
*unreadable torn section, next section appears to be dated some years later*
Despite the concerns of imminent evacuation orders, our team has managed improved the efficiency of the lifeshaping process substantially. Based on the work of Toko, we have created a fusion of spell and lifeforce that is finally stable. The demonstration example is a modified rocko to which we have grafted the ability to launch a standard air bomb manashape.
We are working on increasing the intelligence and trainability of the modified line. Even if unoptimized, the modified rocko can be used as a forward scout and the ability to train it without the use of ethically and practically inconvenient mindshaping. Once the ability set is fixed and stable, we will create a life template as per directive sixty one on germ line preservation of experimental specimens.
The war potential of such an invention cannot be understated. The versatility of the technique will allow us to finally match the firepower of the First, firepower that self-replicates without need for environment destroying mattershapes.
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Thus ends arc 4. Next week is only Cato's Notes.
I need to do some worldbuilding for Arc 5. On the other hand, I may have another project to showcase. It's much rougher and less planned than this but let's take RRL as a testbed to see if the idea can work.
Don't worry, I write Hero's War mainly and side projects basically fill time I wouldn't spend writing Hero's War anyway.