33 cycles old.

My 20’s back on Earth weren’t as interesting, that’s for sure. My hair has grown a fair bit, and I normally use it to conceal my ears – whose earrings at the tip I’ve tied together behind my head to keep them from sticking out.

Inkunzi often left to continue mapping out the rest of the continent, but he regularly made visits back to Floranta. Every time he’d return, a few new innovations came to greet him. First it was the steam engines, then ball bearings, and now it’s latex – treated with heat, sulfur, and carbon.

“Welcome back, Kunz. And nan, do I have a gift for you.”

“What? Why the hell’r’ya askin me if you got a-”

I swiped the fabric off of a bronze bicycle. The dwarf dropped his jaw, and his tone. He stood in awe as I rolled it forward to him after kicking up the stand.

“It’s all yours, buddy.”

Ring ring, went the brass bell as I flicked it.

“You always complained about horses not being able to keep up with you, so here you go. Full bronze frame with machined parts for the chain and such. Vulcanized rubber tyres inflated with air – the pump comes free. I also left a tyre repair kit in the compartment under the seat. And speaking of the seat, it’s adjustable and you’ve got padded leather upholstery so it doesn’t get sore on long rides. Yours is also extra special, because I added an odometer so you know how many leagues you’ve travelled.”

I got on the bike and rode it around, circling him. I’d practiced doing wheelies and pedaling hands-free.

“Lass, for a moment I honestly thought you imported ‘er straight from Ischyros. But I’ve never seen anything of the sort back home. Since when’d you lot start making these?”

“About five months ago. Caravans have been buying up most of the horses due to goblin raids, raising the cost of a steed much higher than the average rider is willing to part with. And the trees I asked about? The sap went a long way in helping make these tyres work for the design I had in mind. We’ve only sold a few so far, since we’re ironing out the kinks.”

“Ironing.. out?” he asked.

“Oh uh, like that other product we have! It’s a bronze container with a flat side, and you put burning coals in to heat it up. You hold it by a handle and run the flat part over some clothes to get rid of the creases.”

“Well if it’s bronze, why say ‘ironing’ then?” he pestered.

“I, listen. Inkunzi. Seriously. You can use any-”

“Hah! I’m just kiddin, lass. I get it. Now, show me how to ride this damn thing!” Inkunzi said, with a bright smile.

…

35 cycles old.

And speaking of cycles, we’ve sold tons of bikes. I’ve streamlined the manufacturing process and Chryses’ Crucible now offers dozens of jobs, and standardized parts from our products are now largely interchangeable. You could even fix a bike with spare crossbow parts, and so on. Most workers are near the large workshop, but some work outside like the guys who gather, process, and transport the tree sap as latex.

We’ve also had to mine for our own sources of sulfur, and I made crude gas masks for the harvesters. Anthrax organized his adventuring parties to guard the extended workers from goblins.

And it took a lot longer than I’d have liked, but I was able to hire a glassblower from a neighboring village to help train a new generation of glassworkers. With their help, we’ve made lenses for the gas masks, spectacles, and even rudimentary microscopes.

It took a while but we were able to get the hang of adjusting the curvature of lenses. They helped a lot with my personal chemistry lab. I finally have glasses! It feels so good to see far away again. We now also offer eye tests and prescription lenses at affordable prices.

Most of Floranta’s guards now use our equipment, and we even made cheaper versions of the bikes using wooden frames that many townsfolk could easily hope to afford. Some even have tricycles with cargo beds. The rate of immigration rose as housing became more available since construction boomed when we started supplying bricks and a type of plaster to bind them.

Eventually, almost all of Floranta’s crafts workers were linked to us somehow. I made sure that we incentivized our local competitors to work with us, rather than against.

Money kept operations smooth.

Pollution was becoming a problem, and although I found a way to develop cheaper paper based on wood pulp, the process reeked and we were forced to move some facilities outside the town. Most of the townsfolk didn’t care about the contamination, as long as wealth kept coming in. Tobias still works his ass off supervising the metalworks, but I think he can run things whenever I’m away.

…

38 cycles.

A thieving little orphan tried to steal from Inkunzi a while back, but I caught her and decided to train her into being a halfway decent receptionist. Nora is smaller than other girls her age, but definitely quite talented for sure. I’ll never forget the smile she gave me when I offered her the first warm meal she’d had in ages.

Today, she rushed upstairs to my laboratory and interrupted my recent experiments on Sulfur and Magnesium. Yet another wealthy merchant came to visit, and is waiting downstairs.

I had her bring the businessman up to the newly constructed conference room, since my lab wasn’t conducive for visitors. I quickly changed from my stained hand-stitched coveralls, to a tailored coat.

With a wipe on my face to clear most of the soot, I entered the conference room and walked to my seat behind one of the desks.

“Welcome, welcome!” I greeted the young man and his companion, a lady with a courteous demeanor. The man then fervently shook my hand.

“Ah yes! You must be Isolus. I’m Mateo Taido. This is my beautiful wife, Rozabela.”

Oh, shit.

“We’re so happy to finally get here. We came all the way from Rokmuro!” he proudly announced. “We have brought a few gifts, and would like to negotiate a partnership, among other things.”

I looked at the mirror on my desk. My dark red hair’s grown so long since they last met me – and it’s covered in dark ashy soot. My ears are concealed as usual. I’m still wearing the tinted glasses I used in the lab to protect my eyes from chemical flashes. They really don’t seem to recognize me, so let’s keep it that way.

Rozabela spoke. “Is something wrong, ma’am?”

“Oh no, it’s fine. Glad you guys could make it.”

His retinue of maids came in from behind and one by one each left a dish on copperware atop my desk. I leaned down to gaze at the lovely platters. A familiar maid in glasses paused for a bit longer – I think she saw my eyes over the tinted lenses. She smiled, and went.

“Dig in, they’re fresh!” Mateo said.

“Of course. Did you have these baked in Floranta?”

“Ah, we were supposed to bake it on the way here. But we baked them here. We heard of goblin raiding parties and didn’t wish to lure them with the scent of food. Nor did we want to slow down.”

Mateo stood up to the window and ushered me to a view of his caravan. One of his carriages was laid open as a mobile kitchen of sorts. Guess they really did do the maid restaurant thing.

“Impressive. And oh my, the quality of your dishes look wonderful. The Crescents are baked through, despite being rushed. Your pancakes, pies, and others are lovely. My, even the Banush is just right. The mixed aroma is driving me mad. May I try some?”

They all glared at me, except the familiar maid who kept smiling in the back of the crowd.

“Wow. I was actually going to have my head maid introduce these to you one at a time but it seems like you already.. N-nevermind, go ahead! Dig in, miss Isolus.”

That head maid was Edithe. I smiled back at her.

“I’m well-traveled, Mateo. Admittedly, these are great.”

“Th-thank you!” his pride echoed with joy.

Good job to them for improvising and improving on the recipes I left behind. Food culture here has been lackluster at best. I’ve grown accustomed to the same bland beans Chryses loved.

“Excuse me, miss Isolus, but how are you familiar with Banush? We have spent a long while trying to work the recipe up, and have only just recently offered it in our menus.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Shit.

“I uh, met an adventurer many cycles back who cooked up a dish much like this one. It really was so long ago.”

“Truly? Where? Did she have pointed ears? We’ve seen signs of her, but no real news of her.”

“It was ages ago. Over a decade. She stopped by here one day and cooked something up herself at the inn. I fell in love with the scent and bought some. She called it Banush, and left the day after.”

“Did she have red hair? Vibrant, warm eyes?”

“She wore a hood – I can’t remember her eyes.”

“Damn,” he exclaimed, disheartened.

Rozabela pinched him out of irritation. Understandable.

“Anyhow, what business would you like to discuss?”

I gave Edith a smile again, and she smiled back.

Mateo discussed plans on retrofitting their horse-drawn carriages, as well as possible trade caravans that could bring more food here. The raids have caused shortages. Modifications included improved axles, and some quick refits on their mobile kitchen to lighten them. He bought a dozen bicycles – two bronze-framed ones and ten cheaper bikes. He also bought a few repeater crossbows.

It’s clear he wants to reproduce what he can back in Rokmuro. That’s fine. I want him ahead of everyone else there.

Eventually, I got a chance to say hello to Edith as she went to the market on her own. Yep, she knows it’s me. They’ve all aged a fair bit since we last met. We caught up over some tea. I asked about Pipra and apparently her tailoring business has been failing since she began having ‘the shakes’ a few cycles ago, and because her husband had recently gotten sick and passed while she was busy nursing her baby.

I gave Edith a small but hefty pouch of silvers and begged her to convince Pipra to come over to Floranta with her kid. The coins would cover their fare, and the rest for Edith’s kickback. Her eyesight also worsened, but her glasses never changed so we made her a new pair. Gist is that we’re going to produce a new machine soon, which can stitch fabrics at speed and at ease – we just need her to help handle it. There’s a lack of skilled seamstresses here, after all.

…

40 cycles old.

Pipra safely arrived with Phaedra, her daughter. Surprisingly Rovan also arrived with his baby son Raul, and his young daughter Edina – who’s long recovered from illness. Unfortunately, his wife died birthing Raul.

He gave up booze, but lost his job as a guardsman due to ‘circumstances’ I didn’t pry about. Still, he was hired to guard Floranta. Edithe was looking out for him; instead of keeping the extra silvers, she gave it to his family for safe passage off Rokmuro.

We finished prototyping the sewing machine a year ago. Normal sewing techniques don’t easily work with our machines, so I had to introduce chain-stitching as a concept. I had Mateo import two looms for us to develop our own textiles as well. Tobias designed ways to automate and power them with our more efficient steam engines – now with reduced heat loss and higher pressures.

Pipra has done well to train new workers to run the sewing machines. We’ve been churning out improved workwear coveralls based on my old hand-stitched one, but with “Raglan sleeves” for increased range of motion. Lots of ergonomic pockets were added along with discreet slots for optional tourniquets. Definitely not as sleek, but if they can save lives yet still be comfortable then it’s great.

We had “Chryses’ Crucible” heat-embossed on each product. Tobias trained more and more engineers based on the various technical skills I ‘encouraged him to learn’ over time.

Paper from our paper mills made teaching easier, and you bet we had our own rudimentary printing presses. I wrote up a few manuals for the operation of our machines, which the pressworkers would convert to printed manuals with charcoal-based ink.

But things weren’t perfect. Imports have gotten scarcer as more and more villages and caravans have been ransacked. It sickens me to think that some of the goblin raiders might be using our gear. Anthrax and his gang have been spread thin, as most mercenaries have opted to work elsewhere.

My laboratory started a small fire last month and I’ve decided to move somewhere quieter. We ran our own coal mine a little down south, resting atop a hill by the vast Hirene river. The hill bifurcated some forested areas along the riverside. Inkunzi found it as an abandoned mine, and we’ve since reclaimed it.

Lugosi, the Heartbreakers’ resident alchemist, rejoined them after his own trip along the coasts. I commissioned him to find certain kinds of resources. He heard about a green lake to the west that’s almost more algae than lake, along with a witch that lived there.

So I went there with a small, armed patrol.

We were ready for a fight, but all we got as we approached was music. Lots of cats. The music of a lute got louder and louder. And as soon as we wove past the thick roadside brush, we saw it.

A lake, verdurous with pond life, surrounded by layers upon layers of flowering trees. This lake was a bit larger than the one I grew up by in Rokmuro. With the wanton pollution and deforestation we’ve set upon Floranta, this sight seemed precious.

As the others stood mesmerized, I approached the source of the music, and found the witch. A small blonde lady sat up on a tree branch. The shade made her harder for the regular humans to see; my weak darkvision helped me. She’s playing something lovely and soft, perhaps something akin to a pavane for a long lost princess? The soundtrack she gave to the lush scenery felt almost untouched by time. Her eyes were shut.

I asked the others to stand by the caravan, and that I’d handle the witch on my own and gather the research materials myself.

“Hello? May I know your name?” I asked.

The music stopped. “Qistina.”

“Isolus, at your service. Your music is wonderful.”

“Haha, that’s a funny name! I like it.”

She gave me an incredibly warm smile.

“Honestly, it’d fit you too. Sitting out here, all alone.”

“I have been alone for a very long time, I think.”

Her soft voice almost feels like a whisper. Now with the music gone, the growing gusts of wind around us sounded louder. I moved closer. A sudden rush of wind raised our dresses a little, but more importantly it also raised her extremely long, silken hair.

She’s an elf – seemingly much younger and smaller than Arsalan. Her eyes remained shut as she started sniffing.

“Do you.. happen to have yummy food on you?”

“I, why yes I do. Please, have some.”

She grabs a nearby vine and twirls her way down. I offer her a leaf-wrapped bar of butter-bread made from imported Brila grains that I kept in my satchel.

She’s much shorter than me, almost adolescent. Arsalan’s way taller. Instead of following my voice, it seemed more like she followed the scent.

After taking a bite, her face lit up like the sun itself. She doesn’t gobble it down immediately, but instead she savors the puffy snack. She sounds happier than anyone else I’ve met here on Mondo.

Her instrument, a wooden lute varnished with a kind of oil. The strings seemed to be made from her own hair. I told her that I’m here for the algae on the lake. She doesn’t mind. Upon finishing the bread, she thanked me. I gave her the rest of my snacks because the sound of her joy and the look of her smile, is filling enough.

I offered to take her back with me, but she wants to stay here, understandably. I collected a few jars worth of algae and headed back.

“Come see me again soon, lonely snack lady!”

“Sure thing, sweetie. I’ll bring more soon.”

…

41 cycles in.

I’ve begun developing real ways to turn algae into fuel. It’s not much but I don’t have access to oil wells or anything of the sort. There’s more research to be done. My lab equipment is probably one of the best chemistry sets available outside Ischyros.

Doing this is hard enough with a modern chemistry lab, and with modern availability of substances. Imports are getting even harder to come by, and Taido’s not faring so well either.

…

Over half a year later. 42 cycles old.

Strelya barged into my lab at night with a large grazing wound on her waist. A goblin javelin had cut through. I treated her as fast as I could while she explained how Floranta’s under attack, and that she biked her way here. Most of the townsfolk are dispersing into the forests and being hunted down, or slaughtered in their burning homes. Fucking goblins, I swear.

A few are joining the Crucible workers’ retreat southwards to this point. They’re bringing lots of wounded, and lots of refugees. Some are bringing equipment here on the carriages meant for coal and other resources. Anthrax’s remaining mercenaries are holding off the raiders and keeping the corridor safe, but they’re spread thin. And holy shit, I’m no doctor.

We don’t have much time left.

Rovan organized a dozen guards and their families to retreat here. The wounded are gathered near the entrance of the mine, only Lugosi and a few other adventurers know how to treat the wounded with the cache of imported slow-healing potions. Pots boil incessantly to sterilize anything that needs to be.

Non-combatants are to immediately assist with the rapid construction of defenses. There’s no shortage of shovels, and so we dug ditches around as fast as we could. It doesn’t take long for most of the immediate land around the mine to be entrenched. The others prepared stakes. The situation is fucked, but I won’t abandon them.

A few hours later and the last carriage arrives, filled with even more wounded. Anthrax being one of them. We were supposed to build a few new sheds for storing material and equipment and to house new miners, but it looks like those resources are going straight to the makeshift palisade walls. There isn’t enough to go around, so we parked the wagons into smaller ditches within the perimeter.

We have a few crossbows, and even fewer guys who really know how to use them. Strelya quickly trains some more, and Rovan has the rest learn to use wooden spears or make simple bolts. I’m busy rigging up some spare weapons from the empty potion bottles.

Anthrax tugged my sleeve, unable to get up. Battered, badly.

“Goblins, they’ll form up before striking.. Please, be careful.”

Eventually we moved all the wounded into the mineshafts along with the noncombatants – mostly kids. The women held the most spears and spread around the outpost. Most of the men were already injured from earlier. Pipra shook as she held hers, but fear wasn’t the reason why. We mounted a few lanterns near the three choke point entrances of our crude wagon fort.

Cold, quiet wind. All we could hear was weeping from within the mine. Suddenly, glass shattered. A lantern was hit by a stone, slung by a goblin slinger. Wood walls clattered with impacts of stone.

More and more popped out of the woodwork – whole groups, many mounted on wolfback, armed with slings, bows, crossbows, and even spear-throwing levers. They peppered us from two fronts away from the river. All of us hid behind cover, save for the skirmishers. Our magazine-fed rapid-firing crossbows fired back with ease, dropping goblin after goblin. The darkness made it harder, but the guards’ halberds and others’ makeshift spears kept them at bay. This helped the others land their marks.

Maybe we can win this.

The opportunity arrived, and I threw my firebombs out into the clusters of goblins. I’d distilled algae biofuels and got something flammable enough to bottle up as incendiary devices. It just so happens that these potion flasks are perfect for throwing with a burning cloth on one end. I haven’t thrown a molotov petrol bomb since the war that ended my last life. It's funny to think that these bottles once served to heal, and now they serve to protect, by killing.

Dozens of them got roasted alive, and many began to flee. One larger imposing goblin – a shaman, moved forth and sounded a horn. Other little freaks rallied to him. An awful stream of these troglodytes sprung out of the forest, like mice from an infested storehouse.

Strelya, running on nothing but adrenaline, fired a flurry of bolts straight into the shaman’s chest. She collapsed from the strain of her wound, and was dragged to the mine. Several of our defenders have sustained injuries, and I can count at least eight who aren’t moving anymore. The goblins are grouped up by the dying shaman, and I throw as many firebombs as I can.

The first throws them to chaos, the second gets a direct hit in the group, the third–

...

I, what? What happened? My head, it feels light. Throbbing.

It's just the dark sky now. Stars, the moon, and Mondo's halo. Mondo? Oh, right. Yelling. Screaming. I'm tired. So, very exhausted.

…