For it's two centuries House Drinjol had mainly focused on making clocks. It was born from a family of Valcas Wards that had found most of their success in the making of clocks and had scrimped and saved until they had enough (with a loan with their patrons) to buy their status as a Minor House Valcas Vassal and that was the main skill that they cultivated among their generations. They had a modest home with attached workshops, a few slaves, a greater degree of freedom and opportunities than wards and connections which helped keep their position even if many looked down on them for still having to work with their hands more often than not. Drinjol Clocks and Pocket Watches were well regarded both in Valnothron and beyond (if often unnoticed), but the sons and daughters of their home always aspired for their house to rise in status, wealth and power. In general they had modest successes and modest failures which on the whole evened out, until one fateful day in the Summer of 37 IA.





Phyrith ti'Drinjol was one of the family's junior members who was remarked as having an unusual keenness for clockwork and mechanisms and was prone to tinker in his spare time. His parents had mixed feelings about this, on the one hand he did have a good eye for working out how clockwork and the products he made did bring in a reasonable amount of cash. On the other hand he had little interest in poetry, dance, fashion, games of wit or strategy, martial arts, pit fights or other such signs of civil culture and instead enjoyed getting his hands greasy and talking about his manual labor. In a society in which craftsmanship was generally considered the domain of lesser beings this was a major crimp in his social life and marriage prospects. Even so, on top of the income nobody doubted that he was loyal to the House and he had completed his military duties with sufficient competence not to shame his family and so he was indulged and admittedly he was right on buying those new metal lathes, grinding machines and so forth based on Infrastructural designs.







One of his projects which had a more practical bent had been on a machine for making paper cartridges for the army. He'd seen the virtue of the idea ever since they were introduced a couple decades ago and had wondered if he could mechanize their production especially after hearing stories of the Coldlanders. He had begun work on the project with the backing of the Lady Valcas herself. He' spent more than two years going through prototypes and making subtle adjustments and simply needed a little more funding to finalize matters which he might have gotten if it was not for someone else working out a few simpler mechanisms and adjustments to procedure shortly afterwards which had already bolstered production considerably. At the same time, interest in paper cartridges was on the wain with brass cartridge production hitting their stride and there was doubts as to how much longer paper cartridges would remain in use. He'd been unusually dejected afterwards, then he remembered something from his stint in the Valcas Companies thirty years before. He asked his younger sister, an offer in the Janissary Corps about it and apparently it was still the case. That gave him an idea.





He and his slaves took apart his mechanism and put it back together. He'd worked out a system of adjustable frameworks for this purpose. A few new parts were made while others were adjusted. He ordered new varieties of paper and did and did some experimentation with them, from the use of glues to a few hand made examples to a few more personal tests performed by his workers who were quite eager. He spent six scimitars for a pair old hand grinders and he refined his process. The basic shape of things was similar though more simple and it had the advantage of not having to deal with the risks inherent to explosives. Within two months the system worked and after two more it worked reliably.





On a rainy morning Phyrith operated the machine after some final adjustments made the last day. Large dried leaves were fed into the top, were torn to shreds in the grinder and came out the other end rapped in a neat cylinder of paper three inches where they accumulated in a small basket. The system went smoothly without grinding or the ping of breakages as more than five hundred of these items was made. All of them were neat and regular. Most of them were put into a box for storage, which would be put into the house for storage.







Looking over his work, Phyrith felt magnanimous. "Dohlm." He said to one of his slaves.



"Yes Master?"







"Please take a couple as a final test."



"Yes sir. I am not wor..."



"Here and now you are." While he saw the value in the rituals of respect in general often they were simple tedium. He handed Dohlm a pair of matches and the underling picked two of them from the basket. The man put one of the stuffed tubes into his mouth, carefully lit it and began inhaling. The end of cylinder began to glow and smoke began to waft up. Phyrith collected a few and made his rounds around the office, giving the other four members of his team a tube from the box from elderly Tavlir to nine year old Nilhron which they accepted graciously. Then he did so to the kitchen staff and a couple of maids going about their jobs.







When he returned Dohlm had finished his first and had moved onto his second, having bummed the remnants in an old earthenware saucer. "Is it acceptable?"





He extracted the tube "Oh more than that, master. Just like the last batch was." He took another drag. "If I may speak..." Phyrith gave a nod "...you got the recipe down long ago. It's the mechanism that rolled 'em all up that had been giving trouble your eminence."



"True enough, but thoroughness is a virtue." Phyrith said as he basked in his success here. "When you're done we'll make some more for good measure."





"It's a joy to serve." Dohlm said, making a slight bow with the cylinder in his teeth.





Latter that day, he'd arranged a meeting with House Valcas. A week latter he'd met with Daijyth ti'Valcas (Great Granddaughter of Lady Talnara) and showed her both the product and the mechanism which made it, explaining to her the opportunities that it could offer if refined. He also offered her some 5,000 of these cylinders to be given out as incentives for slaves as a trial run. A few days latter she came back with an order for more signed by several senior slave overseers and higher ups in the family as well as a contract for further development of this mechanism which included use of a room on the Valcas Complex and eight hundred scimitars for assembling new machines and procuring raw materials exchange for a 35% cut of all sales to other customers beyond House Valcas.







While it had little for elves there was something in tobacco leaves that got into their smoke when burned and soon engendered an immensely strong craving for it in Dwarves and Humans. It had been falling in and out of fashion since the last days of The Third Empire among the realms of the Primary Continent being more popular in warmer territories. Around a thousand years ago the Dark Elves found that it could be a useful incentive for their chattel. This was especially true in the last two centuries as new colonies arose and new plantations grew. Pipe weed, chewing tobacco, snuff and for the the highest of the consecrated cigars were given out to those who met their expectations or exceeded them. Despite his upbringing Phyrith ti'Drinjol had no love for cruelty and had contrived a way for the slaves of the Drow to more effectively receive one of the few pleasures of their lives while bettering the standing of his family.





Over the next century tens of millions would die as a result of his work and those which followed his lead.

























Next: Infrastructure: Part Two Hundred and Ninety Four