"So, Cato," Minmay said, leaning over the desk, "maybe you would like to explain what exactly you are trying to do?"
"I'm trying to speed up the reform," Cato said, leaning back in the chair.
Polankal was trembling in her chair, one hand tied behind her. It was a token gesture, one that even her could wriggle out of given time, but it clearly put her in the category of prisoner.
"Now wasn't our agreement supposed to do that?" Minmay said, "we agreed that the profit from your projects will be split between me and you. Furthermore that I was to negotiate any deals that resulted from your knowledge. "
"Indeed, but these aren't deals with me," Cato said, "there was never any negotiation. I've just let Polankal take copies of the five books back to Duport. "
"Don't take me for a fool, Cato," Minmay scowled, "who raised the alarm in the first place? How could the guild leaders all be so conveniently assembled right at the time she was captured?"
"Well, even if that was true, there will be no evidence for it," Cato said, "so you would consider this to be in violation of our agreement?"
"Certainly in spirit, if not in the letter. Why would you give it all away?" Minmay spread his hands over the five copies made by Polankal arrayed on the table. Just as predicted, there was no way the council had disposed of all the copies after the ruling that they were trade secrets. No one among the guilds had any illusions that the contents of the books had remained secret, the original copies in Cato's cabinet were still unaccounted for after all. And if each guild thought the others had copies, they were forced to get their own and exploit the knowledge inside as quickly as possible to prevent the others from doing it first.
"Like I said, I wanted to speed up the reform. Giving it away, especially not to the guilds, was the fastest way. I wouldn't be surprised if half the population of Minmay could read and write by the end of the year, if slowly. "
Minmay shook his head, "there aren't enough books to teach that many people. Even your university relies on word of mouth-"
"Not anymore," Cato said, "one of the books contains a design for a moveable type printing press that the Ironworkers shouldn't have any trouble making. "
"And what does that do?"
"Instead of copying books by hand, a printing press is designed to easily use cut blocks to stamp out entire pages at once. And instead of cutting a printing block by hand, you can simply cast metal letters and arrange the type into rows corresponding to the page. A print block that you can easily turn into a new page whenever you want without dedicated craftsmen," Cato shrugged, "the more advanced designs put the pages on rollers, so you can print them continuously. Similar to how the paper factory works out. With sufficient paper and ink, a press the size of a hand loom could easily print a thousand copies of the same page every day. "
Minmay rubbed his temples. The printing press was one of the bigger inventions, but Cato hadn't wanted to give control over it to the guilds or nobles. The printing press would almost certainly first be used to make copies of his books, accelerating the design's spread.
"We'll be using that to introduce our magical practice exercises for the mana tax," Cato said, "once the first printing presses comes up, I intend to have the two assistant alchemist teachers write a book describing the training exercises we have been teaching. A book may be even slower than using teachers, but if you scatter thousands of books around, the Minmay region will be overflowing with magic inside the year. "
Frankly speaking, Cato hadn't expected their official lessons to do any good of course. It would take years to reach any sort of penetration and Cato didn't want to wait. But a book that could teach basic magic in a few months? That could be fast enough. And once the first book appeared, Cato fully expected other people to start writing their own guides.
"Do you have any idea how much money you are throwing away?" Minmay said finally.
"Oh, I'm only throwing away a small amount," Cato said.
"A small amount?!" Minmay threw his hands in the air, "a thousand Rimes a year, easily! That printing press alone is worth at least that much! You could secure royal contracts for posters, for... just about anything! Why, the Inath Academy will come begging you to copy their books! And you have no idea how much merchants will pay for anything like a newspaper!"
Cato shrugged, "see? Only a small amount. "
There was a choking sound from Minmay and Polankal. Her eyes were round just like Minmay's. In no one's terms but Cato's was a thousand Rimes a small amount. That was close to Minmay's yearly budget.
"Money is only useful for what you can buy," Cato said, "if you wanted a car here, right now, no amount of money can build you one. The first step is to expand what we can build, never mind who does it. You only become rich when everyone else is too. The nobles will only use it privately or for political gain, the guilds will squeeze every last drop of money they can from it. That's no way to achieve the economic conditions we need. "
Minmay shook his head and asked in a trembling voice. "You are planning to give it to the peasants?"
"Already did actually," Cato said, "the printing press can fit into a single room, and a simple hand levered wooden press printing a hundred pages a day can be built by any carpenter in any village. Anyone can print their own copies of the books I released. By the end of the year, my books should be all over Inath. "
"King Ektal is not going to look on this kindly. We were not supposed to create another Nurren Agreement situation! I'll have to ban the printing presses-"
"Which won't work," Cato smiled, "the peasants have more than enough free time to hide anything they want. Trust me, the rulers in my world tried that too. Unfortunately, our values here do not align. Empowering the peasants is the only way to make this work. The economy does not run only on the top one percent. "
"I can't let this happen," Minmay said, "you have to stop this or I will have to take drastic measures. "
Cato raised an eyebrow, "like?"
"Having you arrested?" Minmay frowned.
"By the knights?" Cato sighed, "I will, of course, ask for arbitration. "
"You won't win. Any council will find in my favour, you were the party breaking our agreement!"
"And in the process, I will cite the other books in this cabinet as evidence," Cato waved a hand at the wooden doors behind him, "one of them contains Landar's notes on learning magic. Combat magic. Oh, and proper alchemy, including how to make simple magical weapons. And right now, Chakim is on his way to Iris with a complete copy of everything in here. "
"Besides," Cato leaned forwards, "you mistake my capability when you think I can stop this. I can't and neither can you. Nor King Ektal even. "
"Are you trying to destroy the nobility? Or perhaps the country Ektal itself?!" Minmay shook his head, "And what about my daughter? You will take away her right, her inheritance?"
"It doesn't have to be that way, Chancellor," Cato said, "Your position as the current head of government is highly advantageous. You just have to turn your aristocratic advantage into an economic one while you still have it. "
"You are playing with fire, Cato," Minmay said, "If your work incites an uprising, he will want your head. And mine too. "
"Killing me won't help, you know?" Cato shrugged, "but if it comes to that, we'll have to make sure to be out of the country before then. "
Or make sure the winning side was the peasants, but that much didn't need to be stated out loud.
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Dear Cato,
The news of the theft of your work is rather worrying. I always thought that you were too careless about security, do you need help on that? The remaining contents of this letter not withstanding, I am willing to extend some hired help if you require.
I have to thank you for your introduction to the Mason Muller. Not only has he been building an excellent new brewery for me, he makes a good drinking partner. Indeed, I notice that the merchants who understand your ideas have something in common, something undefinable but that makes us good friends. Perhaps I should call it the mark of Cato? Ha.
In less happy news, it is late for me to do so but I shall have to reject your previous request to gather all the plants I can find. Not because the task is too difficult, but because I find that I do not require your help in their analysis. Of the numerous samples I have received, I tried every method of boiling, chopping, grinding and fermenting on them in an effort to find any useful trait.
I have found your rubber in a seed extract of a wild grass and am well on the way to perfecting a farming and processing method. It's a little less stiff and more elastic than you described but such can be optimized. A thin coating of the experimental rubber does indeed reduce the metallic taste of tin food to undetectable levels. I am testing the rubber for long term toxicity now.
Additionally, I have taken the liberty of expanding on your mentioned idea of paper chromatography. I have managed to use it to separate out the colours from certain plants using a combination of water and alcohol solvent, creating a broad range of non-permanent dyes and edible colourings that have my chefs in a fit of creativity. This chromatographic process is consuming huge quantities of paper as recovering the dye requires me to cut out the dye band and boil it, to the great profit of Razzi.
The Weavers guild are also in talks about the two dyes that can be made permanent on clothing by heat treatment. Such concentrated colour has never been achieved and I expect great profit from this. It is ironic that I am also in talks with the Weavers to experiment with cloth chromatography in hopes of finding a better separator.
As I consider these my own efforts and inventions, I will not be paying you for profit derived from them although this will not affect your current percentage for the tin food. If you consider this a violation of our agreement and do not wish to work further with me, I can only consider it fair. Regardless of your stance, I will not be sending the plant samples to you. I have the confidence that I can continue developing this line of investigation on my own and if you wish, then I shall be honoured to be regarded as your rival.
That unhappy thought aside, I can only hope that you are still willing to negotiate a much reduced percentage for miscellaneous advice and troubleshooting.
Muller here. I have attached my letter to Kalny's in order to save on postage fees. Despite the huge backlog of orders for my iron bricks, the cost of raw materials and the delay between procurement and sale means that I am currently in debt, temporarily of course.
The cement formula you refined last letter has been a success, the new concrete does indeed set underwater. Once it has been refined and enough can be produced, I shall be testing it by using it to bond bricks in a simple aqueduct to a certain baron's farmlands. It shouldn't take much more than a month to test.
Similar to Kalny, I have been conducting my own experiments on the cement formula and have discovered a stable mixture with stone chips and slaked lime to form the material you described as concrete. It does display the mechanical properties of being resistant to compression but not stretching, although the current mixture is still a bit lacking in strength.
Combining this with my own ideas of the cast iron rod reinforcement, I have created an iron concrete that has sufficient strength to be used in wall construction while being far simpler to pour an entire wall instead of laying it brick by brick. New shapes and designs are also possible with concrete that brick and stone cannot achieve. The strength of a iron concrete wall is in fact higher than the iron brick wall as alignment issues reduces the feasible length of the reinforcing rods in a brickwork.
Again similar to Kalny, I will also consider this my own invention, even if inspired by you, and will not be paying for it. Nevertheless, like him, I also hope to continue working with you for a reduced fee.
Kalny & Muller
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Dear Kalny and Muller,
Congratulations on your own inventions! I do not consider your actions to be a violation of our contract at all! In fact, I am very happy that both of you have begun to create your own and had anticipated such a situation, even if this is a little quicker than I expected. I will indeed be happy to continue working with you for a lower percentage, one hundredth part of the profit for any product with my involvement or a negotiable fee per week are both acceptable.
You do not need to consider me a rival, save your efforts for the other merchants who will almost certainly begin their own development work. I am sure that by the time you receive this letter, you have procured a copy of the books I deliberately leaked and have foreseen the effects they will have on your business. In fact, I will be grateful if you didn't consider this a violation of our agreement and cut off all payments to me!
I have set up what I call a university in Minmay. You may have heard of it. It has been remiss of me to forget to invite your participation, so allow me to formally extend an invitation to both of you. I have also invited Razzi. You do not need to attend in person but I strongly suggest that your representative here be a person who understands your operations and products. The chief leader of the person you have used in your investigations will be the best choice.
Let me restate my congratulations to your successes. Competition in this space can only be a good thing and it would defeat my very purpose if I was the only source of inventive ideas. Please, redouble your efforts and surprise me!
Cato
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Dear Kalny.
Thank you for your favourable response, a flat fee is perfectly fine for me. I agree to the price of twenty Rimes per week. I have already made arrangements with Muller separately.
Chromatography does not just have to be done lengthwise across the paper. You can perform the same by creating a large stack of paper and passing the extract through the middle, and collecting the liquid exiting the bottom of the stack into different containers based on the time since addition of the extract. In fact, I tried a small scale experiment in my university. I suggest that you layer discs of paper into a cylindrical column, held in place by a cylinder, preferably steel with a glass window, and with removable gratings above and below to hold the paper in place. Design documents attached. I have successfully recreated your red dye separation from the extract of nama leaves with this method. The dye can then be concentrated by simple evapouration.
You will want Razzi to control the raw material source of his wood pulp. I have a hunch that different wood sources will change the separation timing of the dyes. With a packed column, you also do not require true paper and can make do with waste pulp, although you will have to evaluate the separation efficiency. I suspect that with optimized treatment, dedicated packing pulp can achieve better results than paper discs.
The Weavers guild should know of a dye fixer. Certain substances can improve the retention of dyes, you may wish to investigate various woods to see if you can purify such a fixating agent from their extracts. I think there was one from wood. You may be able to discover more dyes in your investigation with this.
Separation and concentration of plant and animal extracts by chromatography will also give you purer substances to investigate. Please do continue developing the technique, I have a particular purpose in mind that will greatly benefit from a better understanding of purification techniques. In particular, preparation times are likely to be a barrier to large scale production, I am experimenting with pressured chromatography here in the university, will reply with small scale design documents once constructed and proven to work.
Have you considered trying to create artificial dyes? I know that my world had artificial dyes, some of which were based on modifying other dyes with chemical processes. You may wish to try your hand at true chemistry, especially since you have my leaked book on the periodic table and chemical analysis methods. You're already on the first step with the chromatographic process. Perhaps you can try to see if you can break down the starch in wind eye flour into sugar. That would be profitable if you can manage it in large scale.
I have noticed your representative looking for a good site for your dedicated research building. The proximity will certainly benefit you and the university. I look forward to working with you directly again!
Cato
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Petro had always been a fiddler of things. Other boys and girls fiddled with each other, but Petro was always trying to build one thing or another. It wasn't like he didn't have interest in girls but it was just that there was more on his mind than what to eat and talking about who slept with who yesterday.
The day when the merchant arrived in town, Petro had dutifully gone over to pick up the items he had been promised three weeks ago. And aside from the precious woodworking knife, Petro had spotted another item.
It was a book, or a bad copy of one. Paper was rare enough and books were even rarer, but that hadn't stopped Petro from trying to learn to read. The only two books in the village were expensive and precious but they had contained stories that Petro had gobbled up when he was younger.
"That book," he pointed at it.
The peddler raised an eyebrow and lifted the slim volume, just a handful of sheets really, and handed it to Petro. Amazingly, there was another book below that. "Copies," the peddler winked at his questioning look, "someone's been making them and these books are really popular. I don't understand it myself though. "
Stolen story; please report.
Petro opened it and in a heartbeat, made up his mind, "I want this book. "
"Two skins," the peddler said.
But he didn't have that much to trade. A pair of piyo skins was ridiculously cheap for a book, but it was still far beyond an immature boy's earnings.
The peddler must have seen the look on his face, "tell you what. I've had my eye on you the last three years I've been here. They say you're good at making things. "
Petro shook his head. Not as good as the blacksmith.
"You see that device in the center? The big folded sheet?" The peddler pointed out the diagram stamped slanted on the page, "you agree to build me one of those by the time I come around again and I'll let you have this book. If you haven't, I'll have you copy out four copies by hand. "
Just from that glance, Petro knew it was a bad trade. The device claimed to be able to print books, it was certainly much more expensive than this poorly bound booklet. But he needed the booklet for the design of the device and the recipe for common ink in the first place, so there was no real option.
Petro gripped the new knife he just bought and nodded.
"If you manage this, I've another offer," the peddler leaned forwards conspiratorially, "I've heard these books came in a set of five. This one is number one and the thinnest. If you agree to print six copies each for me, I'll give you a copy of the others as I find them. And after that, I'll drop by with books for you to copy. Deal?"
Petro could only nod harder.
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The stranger riding into their village was too richly dressed to be anything other than a well-heeled merchant. She didn't display any colours to demarcate her allegiance however so the villagers ruled out the possibility she was a noble. Besides, not even the lowest noble, their local baron for example, would travel without at least a few guards, magic or no magic. And she had come to stay, with nary a piece of luggage other than the small pack on her back and a walking stick.
Over the next few days, she had acquainted herself with the village's layout and lands, simply uncaring about the suspicious eyes directly her way from every passing villager. They would tolerate no merchant muscling their way into the village, although what sort of profit a merchant could see in their humble land other than their wind eyes and piyos was beyond the villagers. And the food was already spoken for by the baron.
The stranger had also spent an inordinate amount of time staring at the mayor's house or the paths in and around the village, muttering to herself. The shivering and trembling mayor had also come up to her to ask what she was doing but had fled after she gave him a conspiratorial grin.
The villagers also noticed that wherever she went, she left something in the ground. It wasn't any physically visible thing, but anyone who walked past the areas could feel it, as if some sort of invisible light had been buried beneath their feet. One of the more adventurous farmers had tried to dig it up but they found nothing but dirt down there. The villagers cursed her as a demon or a monster, but not too loudly or anywhere near her. The things were obviously magic and the only user of magic currently in their village could do whatever she liked.
They only started to warm up to her after her sixth day in the village, when she helped the innkeeper dig a new privy hole with magic. No one knew quite what to make of that. Then she repaired the broken winch over the well and shored up the miserable fence around the village with new logs, also cut and chopped with magic. She had obviously started to grow bored with the village and was obviously waiting for something but just what that was, was a mystery and the source of no small amount of rumours. The rumour mill picked up speed when a gossiping aunty spotted her sharing a meal with the mayor one evening.
Not many people believed her story that the mayor was entertaining a wealthy mistress from out of town though.
Ten days after she had arrived, they got their answer. Right as a trio of the baron's mercenaries marched into the village, proclaiming something incomprehensible about the mayor's crime against the baron, the visitor made her move. One of the mercenaries saw her sneaking the mayor and his family out of the village and they gave chase.
The road with the invisible things practically erupted under their feet. By the time the mercenaries picked themselves up and rode after them, the mayor was long gone into the forest.
The clueless villagers never saw the mercenaries, the mayor or the woman again.
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"These guys sure are persistent, aren't they?" Landar complained as she urged the two Rekis driving the mayor's cart harder.
The three guards gave chase behind them on their Rekis. Luckily, the guards had been delayed just as much as them by the undergrowth of the light forest. Their lack of magical capacity to clear the brush was offset by the cart's slowness, laden by the family as it was.
"Are you sure the baron is really out to kill us?" the mayor asked, "just because of little Polankal?"
There was a buildup of magic behind them and a firebolt screamed overhead to land in a ditch beside the path. The explosion of steam showered them all with mud. The Rekis straining at the cart pushed a little harder.
"I think that's a yes," Landar shot back, deploying a small barrier of disruption magic. It ate the next firebolt before dissolving together with another.
The little barrier wouldn't follow the cart, there was no point charging it further. That was always the problem of trying to fight on the move, your spells didn't follow you unless you dragged them along, and that load on your concentration prevented you from casting too many.
"So where are we going?" the mayor asked, still trying to put on a brave look in front of his wife and children. Some of the children were adults in their own right, jogging beside the cart and helping the Rekis along.
Landar raised her eyebrows and then nodded at him, "alright, you take the reins! Follow the path! I'll buy you some time!"
She jumped off the cart, smoothly drawing a long thin staff lying on the bottom.
"I know the crossing there looks short but the stream is not that thin!" The mayor shouted over the noise of another firebolt exploding a tree, "the path leads to a dead end!"
"Not anymore!" Landar shouted back at the retreating cart. It tried to slide into another treacherous ditch but the mud inside the rut was abruptly as hard as steel and the wheel bounced right over it.
"All right then, time to see if my magic is good enough," Landar rolled up her sleeves with a grin on her face.
The three riders picked their way up the trail, their firebolts were still evapourating not three feet in front of her. Her shield spread upwards and outwards like a wall, impossible for them not to feel its power by now but they didn't stop flinging the futile bolts. Probably one of them had an iron staff too.
Well, they thought they had the excess power to batter her down? Bring it on! Landar would show them what excess power was, the Iris way.
The salvo of firebolts began to grow, all of them were directed at her. The three spellstorms had given up trying to shoot them over her shield by now and were getting serious about grinding her shield down. Then there were rustling sounds to either side of her as the mercenaries tried to go around her. Oh no, she couldn't stay here to fight the one man in front of her holding the iron staff while leaving the mayor up against the other two.
Another flurry of bolts from the mercenary pulled her attention back to the shield, it was getting dangerously thin. Landar pulled back the sides to thicken shield and left it blocking the path before running backwards as fast as the iron staff in her hands would let her.
Behind her, the blocked mercenary began to work on taking over her abandoned shield.
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The mayor rattled his cart out onto the bend in the stream, a small patch of forest thinning out into a clearing due to the higher bedrock, that also diverted the stream around it. The stream was fast and deep here, but narrow, cutting deeply into the soft soil around the thrust up rock. And where he expected to have to make an impossible jump, across the thinnest point, was a stone bridge. It was crude but that made its existence no less impossible.
Their mysterious benefactor had not lied, the stone block had to have been a boulder torn out of the earth and cut to fit. Even with ten days to prepare and even with such a makeshift bridge, he shuddered to think how convenient life must be to have magic if this was what was possible with it.
His sons and older daughter helped him push the cart across, the rock wasn't quite big enough for it to cross safely. His wife and their youngest daughter, still a small kid, were already herding the pair of Rekis into the forest on the other side.
The cart slipped and almost lost a wheel over the side when it suddenly righted itself again and rolled forwards. The mayor knew enough about carts to know that they didn't behave that way. So did the rest of his children.
He looked up to see the stranger running out into the open area, her iron cored staff held high. "Heave!" Mentally thanking her again, he shoved one last time together with his sons and the cart cleared the stream's far bank.
"Go!" he shouted and his three grown children bounded across after the cart. So did he after making sure there was no one left behind.
An almighty thrashing came from behind them as two Rekis and their riders burst out of the under the forest cover, firebolts screaming out from them again. The woman didn't have time to throw up a barrier around more than herself and one bolt sailed high over her then swerved unnaturally as if controlled.
It dove straight at their cart.
Ignoring the exhaustion in his legs, the mayor made the biggest leap of his life, scrambling into the cart to pick up the small sticks the woman had left them. By some unnatural and probably magical means, the entire family had always been able to feel exactly where they had put the sticks. He had strictly forbidden any of his family from touching them.
Red and yellow. Red and yellow. He mumbled the woman's instructions as he struck the yellow stick on the base of the red, coloured accordingly on their tip, and an unnatural feeling waved through him. An expanding bubble sprang up around the cart, scattering the lone firebolt.
The woman cheered and ran forwards again, dashing for the bridge. Then the third rider appeared, with his magically glowing staff. "Ignore the woman, our target is the mayor!" he shouted at the other two and a jaw dropping swarm of fire appeared around all three of them. There was simply no way they could survive that!
They somehow did, the woman threw up a wall that shuddered and broke apart under the onslaught but somehow the huge swarm of bolts weren't controlled well enough to hit either of them. The few that did were eaten by the shield around his cart.
The bolts did land in the soil and river all around however, throwing up blasts of steam and fused sand. Then the rock bridge groaned and collapsed into the river, with the woman still on the other side.
She didn't stop running. But there was no way anyone could make that jump! It was almost as long as five carts! The mayor screamed in his mind as the fighting resumed with another salvo of bolts.
"Red and red! Cover me!" she yelled, pointing back at the trio of mercenaries who were also rushing forwards.
The mayor tried to pick out a second red stick and fumbled it, scattering the sticks onto the ground. His eldest daughter ignored his injunction and rushed forwards, gathering up the red sticks and thrusting them into his panicky hands. He tried to get one of them pointed red end towards the riders and fumbled again.
The woman had reached the end of the bend now and pointed urgently at the riders following behind her, "now! Now!"
Oh screw this! He thrust the bundle of sticks towards the rough direction of the riders and rubbed the one red stick in his left hand against the base of the sticks, hoping that one of them would somehow work.
It worked beyond his wildest imagination. The sticks spat fire and screaming death towards the riders, unaimed bolts scattering wildly into the ground and over their heads. But it stopped the riders' headlong rush forwards as they hurriedly deployed shields and tried to survive the storm.
Amidst the red flower of destruction spouting from his hands, the woman took a running jump from the rocky tip of the bend and seemed to bounce in midair, tumbling to a messy halt on the safe end of the bank. Without stopping to get up, she was already beginning another spell. A big one.
The storm of magic from his hands died down. She immediately deployed her spell, a massive barrier following the stream, pouring all her energy into it. The magical light from her staff flickered and died out. But the mercenaries stopped, testing the barrier a little with bolts and thrown rocks, all were slapped down contemptuously, before glaring at them, seemingly given up the chase.
"Now that was a little too exciting for me," she said, picking herself up and dusting herself off as if they hadn't just been through the scariest experience of their lives. "Best we get moving before the mercenaries find away to get past the stream anyway. "
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"So since your daughter did so well, Duport is one actually after your life," the Tsarian woman said over the crackling fire, brushing her long black hair back into something resembling a ponytail, "so that's why we were going south, to make them think you're just running from the baron and don't know of the bigger threat. We'll turn north tomorrow morning upstream and wade through the shallows to lose our trail before cutting cross country north east until we hit the road to the Greenspring towns. "
"A good thing you spent so much effort to save the cart then," the mayor nodded, "there's no way we could carry enough food for that trip otherwise. "
"I know how important carts are. I was an adventurer in my day, you know?" the woman winked and cleared her throat awkwardly as the younger son was suddenly very interested.
"An adventurer?! Like, one of the knights!" His enthusiasm was unmistakable.
The mayor almost pulled back his son but the woman smiled indulgently, "yes, I was. Still am, for a matter of fact, but I didn't get out much in the last few months. "
If that battle didn't count as 'getting out', he didn't know what counted. Besides, the woman was younger than himself! "Were those mercenaries the baron used knights too?" the mayor asked.
His son's face fell as the woman nodded.
"Doesn't that mean the knights are out to kill us?" the mayor asked again. The silence around the campfire was grim.
"The ones here who listen to Duport and your baron, certainly," the woman said, "but there are knights everywhere. Not all of them are out for your bounty, or even know who you are at all. "
"Say say," his son's dampened enthusiasm was evidently temporary, "if I become a knight, can I do that.. that thing, just like you?"
The woman smiled sadly, "sorry, you'll be more like the three mercenaries. If you work really hard. I'm... slightly special. "
"So who actually are you?" the mayor asked, "you can't expect me to believe Landar is your only name. Not with that display just now. You are some kind of noble right? Someone who Polankal managed to convince to save us?"
"I am Landar. Landar Iris," the woman said, "but you are right about the second part. I'm friends with your daughter after all. "
The stunned silence around them spoke volumes. But the mayor was afraid meeting one of the summoner clans, one who carried the main surname no less, was not going to reduce his younger son's burgeoning hero worship. Especially not when it seemed like the middle sister was already acquainted.
"It's not such a great thing, being an Iris," Landar said, an undefinable sadness in her eyes. But she rubbed them away and patted his son on the head, "sure, if you want to learn, I'll teach you magic too. Real magic. "
And with that, she had one ardent follower in the bag. Not that the mayor would forget the raw power blasting out of those wands. The remaining three had been kept far far away from each other, now that he knew what they were capable of.
But that power stored in his hands, that he, certainly not a defender of Inath out of legend, could use with no more difficulty than rubbing two sticks together. That he wouldn't forget for the rest of his life.
If they got to Minmay as Landar promised, the ex-mayor resolved to learn at least enough magic to make another stick just like it.
Something as powerful as that, usable by anyone, that spoke of things that had been denied his entire life. Things like hope and independence.
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Leaked books:
Printing press design, Alphabet and Phonetics
Mana Tax Exercises
Mechanisms and Machines (plus concept of standardized measures)
Periodic Table and Stoichiometry
Farming Tools and Methods
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This marks the end of Arc 6's main storyline. Up next is a bunch of side stories (The Expedition, Danine, Morey) then Cato's Notes.