1        Soul Bound

1.3      Making a Splash

1.3.2    An Allotropic Realignment

1.3.2.20 Press passed

Cardano gave Etaoin a look, of the sort that conveys a thousand words. Or perhaps just one word, a thousand times more loudly, Kafana thought, if that word was “Stop!”. Etaoin hastily closed his mouth, put back on the bland facial expression he used to mask his mischievous nature, and stood obediently among the other workers doing his best to appear just an unremarkable member of a team.

He did it so well and so swiftly, that the effect was nearly magical - as though he’d cast a stealth spell, of the sort a scout might use to creep unnoticed past a sentry. She used her Truesight skill briefly to check, but saw nothing unusual except a weak magical effect upon the ink troughs.

Each of the two presses had a single trough, kept half filled with ink from a barrel via a tap and ballcock apparatus. Every time the platen returned to the loader’s side, the forme would rise up and a roller would dip into the trough before swiping across it to replace the ink left upon the previous page. Hmm, come to think of it…

Kafana: {Should we give Cardano the idea of using three colours of ink, in order to create full colour woodcuts?}

Bulgaria: {We came up with a compromise suggestion, to balance our support of free information with the commitment not to harm the people living in this world. The principle for the Adventurers Guild to adhere to is that any idea or technology currently or previously known on this world, may be shared without consultation. Anything new that will spread beyond a limited location or number of people should be tested out on a simulator we’ll make available on The Burrow, which will recommend a classification.}

Wellington: {If players give the Burrow access to their live feed, I can automate the process for them. As a bonus, doing that would also generate the sort of upstream bandwidth we want to encourage, in order to have a place to hide other message streams. A bit like Cardarno’s problem of not letting the censors at the Burgundish border know an innocent looking letter even contains encrypted suspicious stuff they should tell Archduke-Cardinal Plessis about.}

Kafana: {So as a player who’d signed an in-game magically binding membership contract to obey the bylaws of the Adventurers Guild, if I wanted to give the technology of trichromatic printing to an NPC like Cardano, what would I have to do? In practice?}

Bungo: {You could step to the side where the NPC can’t hear you, like a pantomime actor talking to the audience, and say “Oh Great Spirit Of The Burrow Machine, read me thy omens: how shall fare the world, if the secrets of trichromatic printing I do reveal?”}

Wellington: {Or just say it as a private out-of-character chat. I think XperiSense will cooperate on this, and it fits with the API project.}

Apey Eye? Oh, yes, yet more computer jargon. The Wombles had suggested XperiSense make it possible for external expert systems belonging to players, to send certain limited categories of information directly to XperiSense’s game servers, which they could then make available ingame, to both players and NPCs, as XperiSense saw fit. Wellington had drafted the suggestion and included the precise specification of a standardised way to handle the communication, that he termed an Application Programming Interface or API. XperiSense were intrigued, but hadn’t yet committed to it. Instead they’d implemented the API but, at least for now, they’d limited it to be accessible only to messages that came with cryptographic proof they’d been authorised by the Wombles - who XperiSense had given beta-tester status to, and who’d be using a quest availability board in the new Adventurers Guild to demonstrate how the API would impact the game and player experience.

Kafana: {Then I suppose The Burrow will send a return message to the player, in private chat, with its decision. And possibly something more in-character, that Nevermere players will be happy with, if XperiSense agree. What are the classifications?}

Tomsk: {“GREEN - go ahead, at most it will have a trivial impact.”, “AMBER - proceed with caution. We recommend you devise a plan on how to minimise the resulting instability and post it for discussion on the forum of The Burrow’s SEI clan.”, “RED - Bel the Chaotic approves of the long term death and destruction your actions will cause throughout Covob, but being associated with you would harm the Adventurers Guild. We will kick you from the guild, if you proceed without first winning majority support for your proposed action on the SEI forum.”}

Bulgaria: {In the case of trichromatic printing, that wasn’t discovered in arlife until Le Blon in 1710, when he moved to Amsterdam which had the right combination of a new type of ink, and printing presses able to align the intaligo images with the precision needed to take advantage of the ink. It wouldn’t be a natural advance right now - the prerequisites are not in place.}

Bungo: {Who needs computer experts, when you have a human expert like Bulgaria? What was the impact? Would the classification be AMBER or RED?}

She left the others to carry on discussing unemployed painters, copyright and the psychological impact of photo-realistic art, while she went over to discuss the ward with Cardano.

Kafana: “What sort of buff will be most useful? The effect can’t be complex, and won’t be stronger than something an apprentice mage could cast. Also, it won’t physically move or change the nature of objects.”

Cardano: “So it can’t create ink, slide the platen under the forme, or squeeze them together?”

Kafana: “I might be able to boost the inker’s strength as he pushes against the lever bar. How tightly do you need them squeezed?”

She had a vision of a press gleaming with mana, and an enterprising apprentice chucking in pieces of coal in order to produce diamonds. Not that diamonds were worth anything in arlife, now artificial ones were indistinguishable from the natural ones that had taken a billion years to crystalise. But Soul Bound was a different reality. She’d seen the prices in Harlequin’s jewelry store; a mage able to produce high quality gems could live like a lord on the proceeds of a single afternoon’s work.

Cardano: “I don’t need the pressure increased. I was thinking the images would come out more evenly, if we could improve our control over the accuracy and timing. Distractions are the bane of printing - slam the press down at the wrong moment, and you risk the loader losing his fingers.”

She thought of the contrast between the individualists competing in Gobwell and the collectivist cooperating in Tickton. Both approaches worked for their area, and had their own advantages and disadvantages. But which would be the best fit for this environment?

Kafana: “Would a buff that helped the workers harmonise their movements, and perhaps their ability to concentrate, be useful? Or would it be more helpful to enhance their scope for acting independently to spot opportunities and innovate?”

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Cardano pointed at a wall near the arches, where large A2 sheets of paper had been pinned up where everyone passing out of the room could glance at them.

Cardano: “As soon as a forme is assembled, we hand print one copy of it and stick it up for review, so everybody’s eyeballs have a chance to stop errors I’ve missed. If an apprentice or journeyman spots five or more errors in a week, I buy them a drink. Ten errors gets them a meal, and twenty errors a pay rise. Other than the occasion when Etaoin found fifty errors in two days, competition worked pretty well. But near the press itself? Let’s go with teamwork.”

After that, things went surprisingly smoothly. While Wellington inscribed a design upon the floor, Kafana explained exactly what they’d be doing and Bulgaria directed the workers through a rehearsal. Either Bulgaria’s ability to inspire was working well, or the workers liked the incentive of avoiding maimed fingers, because they threw themselves behind the idea, stamping feet and chanting responses in unison, doing their best to see the space with new eyes, as a temple to the machine - the focus she’d chosen to center the ward upon - the printing press, the fountain of liberty.

She’d cast temporary buffs on everyone, fed them magic food and called upon the deities. If you had an advantage, why not use it? But it had scarcely been needed. She and Wellington entered a casting gestalt together so effortlessly it didn’t even feel like a decision - just a glance at each other which confirmed mutual recognition of it being the correct time to merge. Was this trust, practice, or just a measure of how closely aligned their aims and expectations were?

She didn’t need concentration or even conscious awareness as she carried out the ritual, but from curiosity she kept her Truesight enabled, watching the mana flows, and aware of other aspects via the group’s Combined senses skill. From Bungo’s ability as a Seer the symbolism showed as a ghostly echo drawn to words and actions; from Bulgaria’s levels in Gossip came an understanding of the patterns formed by information streams; from Wellington’s mathematical mind came a deeper understanding of the space and structure that Reality Mages manipulated. She could sense the aspects were connected in some way, but in her current passive headspace, at one with the magic and the audience, she could neither put it into words nor did she feel a need to.

Notifications from System brought her out of it, heralding the magic’s completion. She felt good but somewhat drained, as though she’d been running without rest. She turned off her Truesight and checked her mana. Good, still in the safe range - she’d used a lot, but the burden had been shared with others and her mana storage ring now only had 10,000 mana points left, out of its 50,000 maximum.

*ding* [Your party’s reputation with the Aldine press has increased by 400. You are now acquaintances.]

*ding* [Your party earns 40 favour points with the “Information Freedom” faction.]

System: [Skill “Reinforcement” can not raise above level 24 until your profession tier reaches: Master.]

System: [Skill “Group Performance” can not raise above level 24 until your profession tier reaches: Master.]

System: [Skill “Command Performance” can not raise above level 24 until your profession tier reaches: Master.]

Was Sys hinting she should get a move on with finishing her Journeymanship under Captain Nafaro? She’d ask her mentor if he thought she was ready - she’d need to do something pretty impressive if she wanted to be fast tracked for consideration as a High Master Mage, and mages were hard to impress - she’d seen what Flavio’s group down at the Triple considered casual everyday magic.

System: [Group Skill “Combined senses” has reached level 4.]

System: [Skill “Holy Prayer” has reached level 17.]

System: [Skill “Reality Magic” has reached level 21.]

Nice increases, but not unexpected given that the creation of a ward was (for them) something new and challenging, and that she’d been using her buff that boosted the ability to learn. What she was really interested in, though, was the result. Had it succeeded? She examined the press.

Spirit of the Machine (WARD)(PASSIVE)

TYPE: Reinforcement

FOCUS: Printing Press at Aldine Press, Tickton, Basso District, Torello

COV SOURCE: Runic circle. Breaking the circle will deactivate the ward until repaired.

MOR SOURCE: Running water. Stopping the flow will deactivate the ward until restarted.

BOUNDARY: Visual demarcation, reinforced by belief and behaviour of workers present.

DOMAIN: The press and workers inside the boundary who share a belief in the greater importance of printing

EFFECT:

Workers may choose to enter a gestalt with each other and the machine, that grants flawless awareness of the location and intended movements of others in the gestalt.

DURATION: Ongoing. Strength of effect will depend upon current strength of sources and how strongly the ward is supported by the beliefs of the workers present. The ward will not be destroyed by temporarily breaking or removing the physical machine, as long as the belief endures until a replacement machine is installed.

Did that mean the machine itself now had a spirit, like a river having an undine? One that could possess a machine, but would live beyond it, and even cope with the Aldine expanding the number of presses they had? Cool! Definitely a success. She felt pride and excitement welling up inside her - a desire to tell everyone and see their delight. Alderney would bounce off the ceiling when she… Oh, she wasn’t here. Drat.

Wellington had also been examining the ward, and informed Cardano before she could, using precise emotionless sentences better suited to a dry and poorly translated technical user manual. Cardano listened with a serious face.

Etaoin had also been listening, however, and caught on faster than the other workers. He gave a great whoop of appreciated joy that was everything Kafana could have hoped for from an audience.

Etaoin: “Outstanding, and my heart and fingers forever thank thee. This demands a proper celebration. To the Do Mori, lads! We must buy this lassie any drink she desires, or forever be accounted scoundrels and ingrates worse than the snobbiest of Libri students.”

Tomsk: {Not over-subtle at finding reasons to take long work breaks, is he?}

Bulgaria: {Hmm, I rather think that “lazy layabout” is just another mask he wears. Let’s see what happens, shall we? Alderney won’t be finished for at least another hour.}

Bungo: {You think Etaoin’s a Key NPC, involved in multiple quests and always hovering where players can encounter him?}

Bulgaria: {Do you remember what happened at the end of the pub crawl, when Vessel-Kafana spoke to the assembled adventurers, including a load of drunken students who’d joined us as we passed through Libri?}

Bungo: {Yeah, that was funny. When the adventurers logged out, leaving the corporeal spirits back in charge of the bodies so she could speak to them directly, half the students tried to copy them and spent a few minutes stumbling into each other as they tried squinting at the ceiling or hopping through invisible portals.}

Bulgaria: {What you didn’t spot was a local I now recognise to have been Etaoin, who triggered the whole thing by spreading a rumour that he’d acquired the “Logout” skill the previous day by carefully copying an adventurer then practicing it, and that he’d even visited the Spirit World, where clothes didn’t exist, ambrosia kept everyone in the perfect beauty of eternal youth, and mithril fountains rained rare vintages of wine for any to take without charge or measure. I only pieced it together later, by having Aeschylus analyse every recording uploaded by the adventurers present.}

There was a slightly wistful tone in Bungo’s voice as he replied.

Bungo: {I wonder what his profession is? I’d like to shape reality like that.}

Wellington: {He doesn’t shape reality. Just what people believe about it.}

Bungo: {Sometimes that’s enough.}