A/N: Chapters will be delayed a few days in the future for editing. Many thanks to two people who are helping me proofread.

The stormy footsteps marching up to his office mostly gave it away, but Cato had the dramatic sense to act surprised as his secretary slammed open the door and thrust a folded sheaf of papers onto Cato's university office desk.

Seeing quiet and meek Polankal get angry would be a matter for some comment but Cato merely tilted his head questioningly.

"They... they're printing such... licentious rumours!" the peasant turned secretary sputtered, hissing like an angry cat.

Cato put down the latest report on the woodworker adoption of standardized manufacturing to pick up the paper.

The dense words printed on cheap rolled paper resembled that of the early newspapers in Earth's history. In the entire paper, there was only one image, and that was merely a line drawing copied from Muller's still too crazy plans for the Tine river bridge. Pictures had to be laboriously hand carved onto printing plates and were a luxury only afforded by the Minmay newspaper. The nascent journalism section was still losing money compared to the weekly goods price listing but Cato had wanted it and people listened to him.

The woman stuck a finger at the offending article at the bottom of the page and Cato squinted to read the badly spaced text. The printing press had not moved beyond fixed width type yet and the text was compressed to save paper and ink.

"Head of university relationship confirmed, Iris alliance possible" said the article title.

Hm. "I don't see how the editors thought this was worthwhile piece of news," Cato sighed.

"I only knew of this article because I overheard the maids gossiping about you," Polankal snapped. She lifted the sheet to reveal an older clipping from the stack, "they've been running this for weeks now. "

"Um, to be honest, the situation with Landar... it's complicated, but I can always ask them to write a retraction," Cato shrugged. Who cared about what a newspaper said? Although if they were wasting space on such frivolous things, that meant that the region was getting more peaceful.

"They've been writing lies!" Polankal hissed again, "the article last month claims Landar only got where she is because she's sleeping with you. And two weeks ago, they even dared to claim that I too..."

Cato frowned. It was disturbing yes, but he was loathe to suppress the printing press on a matter of principle. The freedom of the press, wasn't it one of the important elements of a civilized country? Abusing his influence as the center of the university could do bad things further down the line.

"Let them," he said, "it's not doing any harm. "

Her furious face shifted to one of surprise. "Aren't you angry they're writing these lies?" she exclaimed, "some of the other presses are even copying them!"

The existence of those uncontrolled independent presses, run more for interest and fame than profit, had been a major sticking point between Cato and Minmay. Minmay wanted to control the spread of the printing press but Cato had argued for letting them be. Beyond just selling copies of books and encouraging literacy, the smaller village and towns ran their printing presses to promote interesting news, inter-town gossip and political awareness.

Only the fact that almost all of them viewed Minmay in a favourable light had convinced the Chancellor not to crack down on them with the Guards. He had settled for funding his own newspaper which had a permanent column following Aesin's charity work in Duport and the various improvements the university was making. Cato had discreetly slipped them an endowment, with the support of some of the minor guilds, and by now their sales were keeping them financially independent of the Chancellor. Minmay still had major influence though, ten rimes a week was serious money after all.

Finding out that the 'official' paper was printing tabloid articles about Cato was an unpleasant surprise but in the greater view, inconsequential. It could be interpreted as a good thing in fact. That enough common people had disposable income enough to want to buy newspapers, and read them, that popular opinion articles like this could attract sales.

After all, the rural nobility and Central Territory merchants who paid for the version with high quality paper couriered at great expense were unlikely to be interested in gossip.

Cato shrugged and gave the papers back to Polankal, "let them write. I'll tell the newspaper not to go overboard but I don't see anything to worry about. "

Polankal looked at Cato as if he was crazy, clicked her tongue and walked out.

Two weeks later, Minmay called Cato to his mansion for a discussion.

"Cato," the Chancellor said, "why haven't you suppressed these articles? It's gone beyond just the Minmay News now. I was waiting for you to take action. And don't give me that excuse about an independent press, if you wanted to, I know you could do it. "

Cato looked down at the familiar newspaper cuttings. "I didn't see a need to," Cato said, sipping the cold wine Arthur had placed in front of him.

Minmay seemed just as stunned as the secretary had been, then he frowned, "Cato, aren't you even a little angry about these rumours? What about your reputation?"

"I didn't think forcing the newspaper to write what I want was worth the damage that action could do to the independence of the press," Cato leaned forwards, "I've read it, Chancellor. It is just a frivolous article full of nonsense made to sell more papers, I doubt anyone could believe whatever was written. And yes, I am trying to keep the newspapers independent of the university. "

"Cato," the Chancellor said seriously, "this is not just your reputation at stake. I know Landar could care less about what other people say, throw her into a room full of magical toys and she'll be happy enough. But you are the face of the university. "

"But-"

"The university can work without you, yes," Minmay held up a hand to forestall Cato, "but when people think of the university, they think of you. Like it or not, what you say carries weight with me, with the merchants, with the Ironworkers. You might have been a commoner in your world, but here you are an important person. If you do not counter these lies, people are going to get the wrong idea. They will think that you can be bribed with beautiful women and will try. "

"It won't work," Cato pointed out.

"But they don't know that, Cato," Minmay sighed, "and what would the Greater Council think if the university acquired a reputation for being easily influenced?"

He looked at Minmay for a long long while.

"If you don't write a letter to the newspaper and get them to retract it, I will march a squad of Guards down myself and make them," Minmay snapped as he ran out of patience, "understood?"

"Understood," Cato could only sigh as he got up to leave.

"Arthur?"

"Yes, Chancellor?"

"Find out the source of these articles, whatever Cato claims about gossip and sales, I cannot believe the peasants want to read this filth enough to pay for newspapers. "

Aren hurried down the street, his light flickering in the freezing rain. He was getting late but the rain was not letting up. The man hunched in his heavy oiled coat and struggled against the rain, shouldering his way into the wind. His boots were already soaked through and his feet were freezing and he was getting thoroughly miserable.

But he wouldn't miss this for anything.

He came upon a heavy wood door with a large brass knocker. Above it was a metal star burnt into the wood itself with fire magic, the sigil of the Academy.

The chief alchemist examined the enchantment on the door and nodded as he reached out with his magic to knock on it.

A metal plate opened at eye level and the gatekeeper looked out. "Who goes there?"

"It's me, Aren, just let me in already, this Little Night grows cold," he snapped with a bit more irritation than normal.

The gatekeeper eyed him for a while longer, lingering on his face, then the eyehole closed and there was a sound of the bolts being drawn back. More importantly, the enchantments on the door shifted into quiescence.

The Academy did not take kindly to those attempting to intrude on them and no thief dared to challenge the door or walls. The sort of thief who was willing to try had long since died off. Not even Aren would dare to try forcing his way in and he had a hand in making some of these enchantments.

This branch of the Academy was in the Magic Town Tirien. And now, the Academy was facing an new upstart. The University of Minmay had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and inventions were pouring forth. What's more, they were even starting to build their own branches in the Central Territory and in the Ektal capital! The King had the gall to demand Minmay share this newcomer, as if the Academy wasn't enough to make the magic he needed!

Worse, the inventions had started out small and comprehensible, like the bowguns and linked batteries of wands that the Academy was receiving huge orders for. Then they rapidly grew more and more complex, to the point now where even with the supposedly complete diagram in front of them, the best Tirien alchemists still couldn't figure out how the enchantment worked The Academy had only finally admitted two months ago that the magic circle was better than any alchemist.

They were starting to feel a bit redundant.

Today, the top alchemists were trying to duplicate Landar's spell forming wands. She called it a casting assistance device but the similarity to the traditional stored spell wands was obvious. Functionally, they were wands that used the caster's power to fire the spell instead of its own, so the knights had insisted on calling it that. The alchemists knew better, the spell forming wand was much much more complicated than a bolt spell bound to a stick and placed in abeyance. But of course the muscle brained idiots couldn't be expected to understand the subtleties of alchemical enchantments.

The alchemists still hadn't managed to replicate the wand yet. To say that they were having trouble was a criminal understatement.

Chief Alchemist Aren, now dried, warm and clothed in his livery, strode into the inner atelier to face the chaos.

The word 'circle' was getting rather stretched. Bits of the magic circle ran all over the floor, under and over tables, and even delicately hung on pins in the walls. They had tried to segregate the sections logically but the design was interconnected and lines ran across the floor in all directions.

The primary atelier of the Tirien Academy was too small. He remembered scoffing when the Minmay observer reported that the Mad Alchemist loaned an entire warehouse to build her circle. It didn't sound so ludicrous anymore.

Three of his colleagues were peering at a table on the far corner, arguing about something.

"I'm here now," Aren said, jerking them out of their thoughts.

"Did you get it?" asked Parer.

Aren nodded, holding out the oiled bag in his hands, "ten sets of threads, direct from Minmay by courier. "

"Give it here," the old scrawny alchemist snapped and snatched the bag out of the air when Aren tossed it to him. He bent back to the table, already fussying out a single line from the tangle inside the bag.

Aren said nothing about his attitude that he might have previously. After two weeks of working together, they all knew each other's quirks. And Parer might be a surly old geezer but he did good work.

The chief alchemist didn't want to admit it, but he would accept just about anything at this point if it would make the circle work.

"You're late," complained Yimiss.

He shrugged at her statement, "it's raining cats and dogs outside. "

"What's that mean?" she asked, confused.

"It means it's raining heavily," Aren sighed. Easily sidetracked Yimiss. The daydreamer alchemist woman. Why were all the best alchemists the crazy ones? Except himself of course. "I heard that from a merchant, I don't know who he got that from," Aren anticipated her next question as she opened her mouth, "I just thought it sounded interesting. "

The woman nodded and brushed her light yellow hair back before returning to the table.

They reviewed the connections again and consulted the published diagram. Everything seemed to line up, all the colours in the correct position.

"All right," Aren nodded finally and released the stored magic.

They watched the magic zip down the lines and leap into the rod placed in the center of the circle.

The enchantment finished but none of them made a move forwards immediately. One too many burned hands and scorched lifeforce had taught them caution. He pulled another trigger when it was clear the rod wouldn't explode immediately. More stored magic raced down a set line and up into the rod.

Nothing happened.

"Darn it! What went wrong now?!" Aren gritted his teeth and glared around the room. The worst part of Landar's inventions was that even the slightest error could sometimes make a huge difference, or an entirely missing line might not do more than delay the workings slightly. It was nearly impossible to tell without first making the mistake. And when you made more than one, a mistake might cover the effects of another so you didn't find out until you fixed the first one.

That also meant that when the final product didn't work, it was hard to tell where the problem was in the magic circle.

He stalked over to the rod and glared at it, daring the magic to... oh, the power was clogged in one of the compressed circles, an error in the power line section of the internal circle template?

He whirled over to another table, this one in the middle of the room with lines hanging off every edge. An error in this tangle was about enough to make him want to tear his hair out. Surely the Iris alchemist did not face problems like these, were the Academy alchemists really that poor in their art? Was he really that untrained?

"What's a cat?" Yimiss asked, breaking his concentration.

The Chief Alchemist turned to her with an eye that promised bloody murder and shrugged, "who knows?"

Willio strode down the catwalk, earning nods and bows from the ironworkers hustling around the furnaces below. The leader of the Minmay branch of the Ironworker's guild had a stern controlled visage, his mere presence driving the smiths and apprentices of the Ironworkers guild to greater industriousness.

The ironworks area downstream of Minmay had changed massively. Where individual forges and workshops had dotted the hillside for a generation, there now stood a veritable army of giants. Steel wrapped around limestone bricks, the blast and Bessemer furnaces spewed a never-ending plume of choking black smoke into the sky. The ironworks never stopped now, it cost far too much in fuel to reheat a shut down furnace and they were only taken offline for maintenance. Even at night, the glow of raw molten iron and coal-gas lamps kept the site lit.

Individual blacksmiths had once pounded their hammers to drive out the slag, not anymore. Shaping by hammer was still done but now relegated to the upstream and upwind team workshops. Bulk hammering and tempering was done under the massive steam driven drop hammers, and recently, a rolling press. Hot metal flowed from the furnace taps into the casting beds and were fed into the massive pair of hardened steel rollers that steamed them flat, like Razzi's paper. Pressing steel like paper was a ludicrous idea that would have gotten the proposer laughed out of the Ironworkers but in half a year since Cato broached the subject, here it was.

Not all of Cato's strict process requirements were impossible to implement. While Willio's people were not able to achieve the frankly insane tolerances Cato wanted, the production capacity they were building here was incredible and his step by step manuals had at least made the batches between different furnace teams at least somewhat comparable.

Ahead, a blast of heat heralded a new pouring of a batch of steel, the glowing molten metal hissing and spitting into the casting pans. The deep groundshaking thumps of the drop hammers beat in time with the quieter roar of the steam engines. It was a sight that swelled his heart every time the branch leader overlooked his domain and Willio took the time to tour the place. An industrial army, his army, that poured out one and a half tons of first grade steel a day and ten times that of cast iron. There weren't any other grades of steel being produced any more, why settle for less when the furnaces could make first grade? And while an old Ironworker might have thought the ludicrous quantities of steel would not find buyers, as the price dropped, more and more people wanted to use steel.

Now it seemed that whenever anyone ran into a problem of strength, where wood and stone failed or a design was too heavy, they turned to steel and iron. Willio thought that the wagon makers and builders were even getting lazy! Some of Muller's revolutionary designs for bridges, sewers and water towers simply assumed steel reinforced concrete as a base material, instead of a substitute at key loading points. It was a train of thought that any good businessman took care to cultivate in his customers. Have a problem, just use steel!

But today, the Ironworkers guild branch leader was here for another demonstration. One smaller but just as or even more groundbreaking.

The workshop off to the side was in the walled off experimental area. Colloquially called the Blast Zone by the main plant workers, the name was quite justified by the number of accidents, explosions and even magical spills that occurred here. But the expense was all worth it.

Today, Cato and Bashal were about to demonstrate controlled steel composition.

In front of the workshop crucible, the brilliant Ironworker alchemist and Cato watched as an apprentice ironworker lowered a length of steel wire into the tiny pool of elemental Water. It dissolved the steel wire quickly.

The saturated pool was then quickly transferred into the pressure chamber. The chamber was sealed and pressurized by adding raised counterweights outside, an expensive but smaller scale substitute for a steam driven pump. As the gas pressure rose inside to each preset level, the ironworker watching the dials opened the valves that drained the Water into the steel holding chamber while opening the pressurized test chamber.

The silvery silicon powder was removed and the Water pumped back into the test chamber again, pressurized to a yet higher level and the process repeated more times, each time yielding a different elemental powder. By Cato's equilibrium theory, this process could separate the components of the solution with nearly one part in two hundred purity. While not quite good enough yet for creating pure iron without multiple rounds of purification, one part in two hundred or even up to one in one thousand for certain well separated elements was quite good enough to determine the content of the element in the source iron.

It was a significant step that this entire contraption had been designed by Bashal's team, with Cato's only contribution being the calculations for the gas pressures required.

Displacement of the dissolved elements by pressurized gas, also neatly separating the component impurities the steel and allowing the Ironworkers to know exactly how much of each was in their steel. Using the process at production scale instead of for analysis was the responsibility of the Corbin branch, once they got the direct reduction process working first. Let that man Elma deal with the dangerously large quantities of elemental Water where they wouldn't risk destroying the steelworks here.

Each of the ten crucibles here contained iron sourced from different mines across all of Ektal. Each mine had its own subtleties and sets of impurities, the Ironworkers had collated extensive knowledge on which sources were good for which applications, and how much of what to add to make each grade of steel from them. But here, not just each source, but each batch of iron could be examined for carbon content and other impurities, letting the Ironworkers calculate the exact amount to add to make the desired steel mixture.

The dream of all smiths. Each batch of steel thus made would have the same contents, the same properties and the same reliability. They would know what their steel was made of and capable of. Gone would be the cracked sheets, over stressed beams and the dreaded failed batch. If it took a special set of quality control workshops equipped with this new magical device, then Willio would pay for and build it.

As the finished steel bar quenched in a fiery gout of steam, Willio smiled. The bar was retrieved, a high carbon steel ingot with hardness surpassing that of even first grade steel.

Complain about losing the old ways? Nonsense, every smith would see this and bow down in respect. The days of hammering to remove impurities were gone, the ancient laborious practice of folding and layering was gone, the uncontrollable art of steel forging was gone. Here came the new steel, built for its purpose and function. The age of designer steel.

Without a word, Willio strode from the workshop, obvious pride in his every step. In his eyes, he was already seeing the new addition to the steelworks of Minmay.

A twitchy pair of ears popped up over the rooftop, their owner crept silently along the tiles. The flap in her cloak was closed to hide her tail, which tended to stick up at odd moments, though right now no one was likely to see her.

Below in the evening sun, three women walked through the empty street, unaware of their shadow. After some gesturing, one of the three split off down a side alley.

Danine raised a hand signal and saw a tail wave on the opposite side of the street in acknowledgement. Ikine would follow their straggler. The fuka girl continued her stalking across the rooftops, leaping over the roof wall of the next house with an improbably high jump, Em powered of course. She made sure to keep out of magic sensing range of the two women.

Recently, a number of residents had lined their roofs with walls raised along the edges in an attempt to keep out the rumoured roof-running Fuka thieves. It didn't help but she was extra careful not to show any sign that she used those houses. The current Danine could make the leap between the noble houses inside the Corbin wall. Let them have their false security, she wasn't interested in pilfering anything anyway.

Below the two women wearing prominent yellow arm bands continued their unhurried stroll. The colour gangs of Corbin were one of the troubles that constantly plagued the Fuka community. Even after the Ironworkers kept to their word and hired knights that exterminated the already decimated Redwater gang, another 'red' gang had filled the power vacuum within three weeks.

Stalking potential troublemakers was part of what kept the Fukas safe and Ryulo was rather insistent on Danine keeping up with her training despite being an Ironworker apprentice.

If that also overlapped with what the Corbin branch leader of the Ironworkers wanted, then so much the better.

The yellow women met with a lone blue ribbon man. Without attempting to scratch his eyes out. That was worrying.

Together, the three now proceeded to the backdoor one of the many shop and house combinations in Corbin. They paused outside for a moment after knocking, then another person let them in.

Danine frowned, who could these people be meeting? The Yellows and Blues were not outright enemies but they weren't friends either. She flexed her gloves and slipped down the wall of the nearby house to the narrow alleyway.

Pressing herself against the wall of the shop, the Fuka girl's sensitive ears picked up voices from the room inside. The shop wasn't very large and the quiet evening worked against them.

"I don't care what sort of deal he's selling, I can't trust this Blueleaf guy. "

"Oi, don't kick me, I'm not even going to try anything. " That lower voice was probably the blue man.

"You're thinking about it. "

"Stop fighting now, both of you. "

There was a clap and a new fourth voice, a deep rumbling tone, said, "good to see you all here. "

"It's not good to see him-"

"Hush now. Let's just listen first. Hey mister, I don't know who you think you are, but if you mess with either of us, the yellows will have your balls. On a stick. "

"No need for unpleasantries, we are all reasonable people here, are we not? Let me start. We have a common enemy. I'm sure you all have experienced in some way, the problems that have swept this land ever since the University spewed forth its poisoned gifts. "

"Cut out the flowers, man, I can't understand you. "

There was a short silence, then the deep voice spoke again. "The university is the source of your troubles. The things it has created have driven you from your lands and work that has been traditionally yours. Surely you agree at least that Cato is our common enemy?"

The tail struggled to get free under her cloak, fluffing up in anger. This was bad. That discontentment Elma had told her to watch for was actually real!

"I think it's the Fukas, they have been stealing our work ever since they joined up into that slum of theirs," the blue man said.

"They are Cato's allies, we know this. So what we would like is for both of you to start giving them trouble. "

"This talk about allies and enemies is fascinating, but if you want us to smash something, then you've got to pay. A woman's got to eat. "

"Of course, we are prepared to recompense your people handsomely. "

"We may have different ideas about what that means. "

"Let us settle the details later. There is another thing we want you to do. For the duration of our work, we want you to not attack those colours who are also working towards the same goal. Can you do that? This is important, if you cannot work with us, then you are against us. "

Another silent pause.

"We're not scared of these blues. You try siccing them on us, we'll cut them to pieces. "

"Just give us the word, and money, and the yellow flowers can be out of your hair. "

"No! We don't want you to kill each other and will not pay for it. Never mind, if you cannot work together, then can you at least refrain from killing each other?"

"That depends on whether the new reds keep to their turf. "

"They're already one of ours. I'll have the GreenNine by next week. "

"Ah. Hm. The blues will agree then. But my boys will have to talk it over. And if you have any hits on the Fukas, we want those first. "

"Understood. We will consider those conditions. And you?"

"We're expensive. "

"But the yellow flowers are known for their vicious and honourable fighters. We have harder targets in mind for you. Things that only the yellows can achieve. A band of sisters who are just enough for some knight parties to tolerate will carry a lot of weight. "

"So who are you then, and how do we know that you have enough money?"

"We come from the Ironworkers. And we have ears in very high places. A certain caged bird even. "

Danine nodded, just as she guessed. She had her target now. But who was the caged bird? The gangmembers didn't seem to need clarification.

"Interesting. We want more than money. We want weapons, and magic. "

"And you shall have them. "

"We want it too. "

"You all will get weapons, on top of your money. It is our intent that you become more than just gangs. "

The more reasonable yellow woman added, "party registration?"

"If possible. "

Danine adjusted her threat assessment of that Ironworker upwards rapidly. They were sounding more dangerous every second, how did he intend to manipulate the Order of Knights? And just the fact that they were willing to spend the money to acquire magical weapons was very worrying. Arming the gangs like that could spell doom for the Fuka community here.

She fingered the bowgun under her grey cement coloured cloak, the reassuring solid wood wasn't so reassuring anymore.