A/N: Well, how to say this. I kind of got too carried away and wrote far too much magic theory.

Dear Cato,

I did not encode this message because this warning has to be carried as far as possible. A copy has been sent to Amarante and every noble whose name I know of.

Followers of the ISL uncovered something that looks like a First military fort and we explored it. The only surviving scrap was a heavily damaged journal by one of the soldiers. While most of the content is mundane, the entries contain hints of past technology that is very worrying. I have enclosed a copy of the important parts in what I think is chronological order. I have enclosed a full copy of the original text annotated with page numbers and relative position, maybe you can make something out of them.

-The concept is simple. So simple and elegant. Yet I cannot help but feel that some element of understanding is missing.

-project is complete. This will end the Tsar once and for all. My tappy dislikes the project papers. She keeps trying to eat them. Perhaps she is-

-dribbons dumped a load of Dust on the enemy and collapsed the outer shield wall. The last enclave of the Tsar has fallen. They are scattered to the winds, the end of their horrendous experiments. The war is over! I wonder if Mirya will agree to see me now-

-power sources failing. Great drifts of Dust piled up outside our shields are straining even the massive taps that were considered inexhaustible. Soon there will not even be sufficient magic to read at night.

-our works undone. We will have to leave, this is the end. Everything that we can salvage will travel with us, the taps will collapse soon and the Dust will have the rest. This journal I will leave in my room. Maybe someday in the far future, someone will read it.

I don't know what the Dust is but it is incredibly dangerous if it is related to the destruction of the First. Unfortunately, the ISL doesn't have the time to research this. Not that I think it is possible without more information from the First.

Morey

Landar bent over the magic circle, very carefully correcting a single thread in the mess. Not because it was dangerous, magic circles disconnected from power supply were inert, but because the pattern below her was very complicated.

She wiped a bead of sweat rolling down her cheeks. In some ways, this was more complicated than even the casting rod, the name she had decided on for the magic tool that formed spells for her. The casting rod had more lines by raw count true, it had four spells, power trap and channelling mechanism. But this spell was their latest attempt for the anti-penetrating shield.

Cato had pointed out that by the time the power arrived in the hit section, the bolt had already torn through the shield. So the solution was obviously to make the power move faster, so Landar was building little acceleration tracks into the spell like the spell cannons had.

These had to go in all directions from all points on the shield surface, which posed a layering and routing problem all in one. The tracks could overlap so long as only one overlapping acceleration track was active at any point or the flow of power would split. Finding that out cost her quite a few attempts. And those faulty spells had exploded.

Getting a pure magic disruption spell to explode was quite a feat in itself. But the less said about those cases the better. Cato might never let her near a testing range again if he knew just how close she had come to killing herself.

Landar paused and sniffed to send the thought away. Cato wouldn't do that.

Maybe she ought to ban him from the test range.

She edged backwards and got up to examine the new network. The acceleration lines would now be laid in multiple layers, with each layer consisting of tracks going in a single direction. Of course, this made routing between lines more complex. Some points of the shield needed to be accelerated down more than one track to get to their destination, a consequence of the minimum size of an acceleration track she could make, slightly smaller than two centimeters, and could be bothered to make.

She took another step back to examine the full diagram again and walked right into Cato as he came in the door. He caught her on the shoulder to steady her.

"Oh, Cato," Landar said, feeling the towers of her understanding come crashing down in her mind. Suddenly the diagram on the floor just looked like a huge impenetrable tangle. The folding cards they used to organize the parts they didn't want to look at were scattered on the ground where she discarded them.

"Quite impressive," Cato walked along the edge of the warehouse. His footsteps echoed in the empty space. "Are you sure it works? You know how complex spells always have bugs. "

Landar frowned at the term. She didn't quite understand why Cato called them bugs but she knew it meant the spell not behaving as she intended it to. "I knew what I was doing until you walked in," she waved over the expanse of twisted lines laid over the sheets of paper. An area the size of Minmay's mansion. "I was sure it would work, but now I'm not so sure. "

Cato managed to look apologetic. "Well, if you thought it was ready to test, then let's do it," he pointed at the nondescript cube of wood sitting the center of the formation.

From where they were, the cube was only the size of her thumb.

Landar nodded and bent down to the power storage cube sitting on the table near the door. She bridged the gap in the circuit and watched the stored power flash down the lines towards the center. A good tenth of the power ended up just running the circle instead of doing any enchantment.

After the bewildering flickers of magic died down, she walked down the thin line kept clear of threads to the steel test cube. With a poke, the shield wall manifested above her, right in the path of the spell cannon set up at the end of the warehouse.

The wall was much more complex than the simple ones she previously built. Structured magic crisscrossed underneath its surface, layered into a dizzying complexity that blurred the details into a solid mass of lines. In front, the thin filaments of detection lines snaked out from the dense wall towards the spell cannon.

"What in the world is that?" Cato whispered to her.

"Our new attempt at the anti-penetrating shield," Landar said.

"I went to a week of meetings, I didn't expect to see something like this," Cato said, still staring at the magic.

Landar grinned, "and unlike your demonstration cube, all of this actually does something. " She waved an arm grandly at the magical construct hanging in the air.

Cato nodded and walked over to the spell cannon, "then let's test it. "

The spell cannon built up the disruption bolt and hurled it at the shield.

"That... it actually works!" Landar jumped as the disruption bolt smashed into nothingness on the shield. She felt the grin on her face and saw it mirrored with a smile on Cato.

"That it has," Cato said, scooping up the magic detector and walking up to the shield, "how does it work?"

"I simply applied the same acceleration principle for our spell cannon to the shield to make it move the power faster," Landar said, "it took quite a while to make the shield work. "

Cato frowned and pushed the detection head to the shield, "and how much power does the shield normally have?"

"I put in about two hundred power units," Landar said.

"There's less than a hundred now," Cato esitmated, running the detector over the shield, "the spell cannon was configured to fire how much?"

Landar could feel her heart sink. "Thirty units," she said.

"I suspected as much, the acceleration tracks cost power to move magic," Cato said, walking back, still thinking, "with so many tracks and having to push the magic almost as fast as the incoming bolt, this makes the shield really inefficient. "

"It costs a lot because you have to run multiple tracks from all over the shield," Landar said.

"Do we have to pull power from all over the shield?"

"There's not enough power otherwise," Landar nodded, "I tried that first. "

"But once you concentrate the shield's power using the tracks, can't you just move that around then?" Cato mused, "why not create a shield that is already concentrated..."

Landar cut in as Cato trailed off, "you can't do that because the power concentration is temporary. It will drift back to the normal boundaries of the spell-"

She blinked as a thought occurred to her.

"Then move the boundaries together-" "We can move the entire shield-"

Cato and her spoke over each other. Staring into his eyes, she could see that he had made the same connection! This was it! The solution! In the familiar heady rush of a new brilliant idea, Landar whirled back to the threads scattered across the floor of the warehouse, the new circuit already appearing in her mind.

"In fact, we don't even need a shield," Landar said hurriedly, "if we concentrate all the power into a tiny square area inside an internal boundary and built the acceleration tracks in a circle and straight line. "

She was dimly aware that her mutterings didn't make much sense but it made sense in her head and that was what mattered.

Besides, Cato seemed to understand and that was enough.

"No, an independent mobile shield makes sense," Cato nodded, grabbing the pencil and pad of draft paper from the work table, almost knocking over the power source cube. Landar paid it no mind, the cube was empty now anyway. He sketched out the plan.

"You'll need to define an area that the shield will defend, probably defined by the detection filaments. So the filaments connect to the main power of the shield there and the shield moves to the closest filament that is activated," Cato said, drawing as he went.

"Since the shield will bring it's own acceleration track along with it, we'll have to make some way to control the movement. The shield will keep moving after the acceleration stops," Landar pointed out.

"The acceleration will have to run in reverse. Suppose a fixed expenditure of power for acceleration over time, the shield accelerates half of the way to the target point and decelerates for the second half," Cato sketched a short graph, "and for distances less than this formula depending on the power you spend on acceleration, using the innate movement of magic without acceleration will be faster. "

Landar peered at the design, "what about the angled shots that you said was a problem with the current design?"

"When the incoming bolt crosses the next filament, the shield will track it, as long as the bolt doesn't move sideways faster than the shield, it'll always intercept. And well, with that kind of steep angle, the shooter will have to be right in your face," Cato said, drawing the lines.

Landar grinned, "for all round protection, you could have multiple shields that move in a sphere centered around the origin point. Or multiple layers of shields so you can try to intercept multiple times. "

"At that point, you might as well detect and shoot down incoming bolts," Cato said.

Landar felt that lightning bolt of inspiration again. They looked at each other and she felt the grin get crazier. And all was right with the world.

Corbin woke up in the early pre-dawn when her window rattled. Something had hit it. On the second floor, this was likely just a bird, but she was finding it hard to sleep. Might as well go see what it was.

Ignoring that she was wearing only her thin shift, she strode over to the window and levered it open. There was a rope hanging outside her window.

Huh.

She got an even bigger surprise when a man seemed to fall out of the sky along the rope. Dressed in pure black, the man seemed to be swaddled in loose concealing robes.

"Who are you?" Corbin asked, scrambling backwards as her heart leapt into her throat. Had Minmay finally decided to get rid of her?

The man swung on the rope and landed lightly on the stone floor. "Sorry for the entrance, I had to dodge Minmay's guards," the man said cautiously.

Not from Minmay then? "Then who are you from?" Corbin asked.

"A friend, if you would have us," the man bowed, "you will find us of service. "

"The only way you can be of service to me is if you give me back my town," Corbin snapped. So what if she offended a potential ally? There was no one left who could help her, not when the opponent was Minmay and his Guards.

"That could be arranged," the man said smoothly, as if he was expecting it.

Corbin could only raise a skeptical eyebrow.

"Plans are afoot, there is dissatisfaction whispered among the people. If Minmay continues to let the University trample on the lives of common people, certain issues could arise," the man explained, "all we need is safe habour and your support, when our plans succeed. "

"I can't help while I'm in here, however," Corbin gestured towards the gate where the Guards kept her pinned in her own mansion.

"Your name and promises are enough," the man said.

She considered the proposal. If this movement, whatever it was succeeded, the leaders would reinstate her to gain some legitimate noble support. Corbin was still nominally the mayor after all. Only the Chancellor had posted an aide to filter all her notices and commands to his own liking.

Of course, the leaders of the movement would then have large leverage on her afterwards. But anything was better than being a puppet to that hated man.

"Fine, you have them," Corbin nodded, "go tell your leaders that they have the Mayor of Corbin. Then tell me what all this is about. "

"Your guys gave me a lot of trouble in this Cel Inci. "

"So did yours. You stole our checker pattern weave!"

"Shut it both of you. Or do you want to be fighting while Minmay takes away all of our territory?"

The two men and one woman were silent in the dimly lit room.

"We are all in agreement that Minmay has to be curbed?"

"Yes. "

"Obviously. "

"Then we need a ceasefire. No more invading each other's territory, no more stealing patterns or covert price wars. Not until we have crushed this new threat. "

"But that checker pattern is ours, we cannot let you have it when you clearly stole it from us-"

"You were the one who started the price war first. "

The third man, lone voice of reason or so he liked to think of himself, sighed as the other two weavers began to argue again.

"But we all agree to the necessity of a ceasefire?" he asked.

The other two paused and then nodded.

"Very well, you two discuss your terms first, I will review it and add my own input later," he got up.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm late to another meeting because of you two. Be glad, I have found us other allies. Now I have to go. "

"Ah Willio, come in," Minmay said brightly, gesturing for the man to sit in the chair opposite his own dining table.

"Chancellor," the Ironworker Minmay regional leader nodded a greeting.

"Don't stand on ceremony," Minmay said, "the previous person didn't finish the wine so we get to enjoy some. "

"Who were they?" Willio asked curiously, "rumour has it that you are meeting guild leaders and persons of importance from all over Minmay. For what purpose, no one knows. All the people you supposedly met either haven't seen you or are strangely silent. "

"Not an hour ago, I met with the leader of Yunis Wood," Minmay said lightly, "a beautiful woman. If one looks only at the surface. "

"That leader of woodworkers has nothing below her appearance," Willio agreed with a smile, "but I will admit she is a sight indeed. What could you possibly want with such a woman? Anything Aesin ought to be concerned about?"

Minmay snorted as Arthur served the wine. A flick of his fingers and the liquid chilled down to a pleasant temperature. "Of course not. And it was nothing important. Just getting to know the ground. "

"Right, so did you call me here in utter secrecy to discuss nothing important?" Willio said lightly.

Minmay ignored the barb and just smiled, "for you, I have something of greater weight. " He took a long drink. "I have reason to suspect that the lower ranks of the Ironworkers may foment resistance. Especially once you begin to shift to Cato's industrial style of production. "

Willio paused for a short but significant moment, "noted. Any course of action you might recommend?"

"Just keep an eye on them for now, you are in a better position than I to track potential troublemakers," Minmay said, "there is no evidence of their existence yet, but please keep an eye on sources of dissatisfaction. What Cato does not see yet is that creating the world he envisions will require a large social shift. "

Willio thought for a long while and made his conclusion. With an ever so slight trembling in his fingers, he sipped the wine lightly. "So he is not going to include my master smiths then? I have been keeping an eye on his new wood factory and thought he was going to move to master Ironworkers soon. Are you telling me he will now try to bypass the Ironworkers guild entirely?"

"Not if you cooperate with him," Minmay said.

Both men paused at the implicit threat.

"There is no pride in his works, no names or reputations to protect," Minmay noted, "there is only the steel. "

"But it will be profitable," Willio said.

"That it will be," Minmay nodded.

Another pause.

"Minmay will need steel. And steel it will get," Willio sighed, "I must go, there are arrangements to make. "

"Arthur please show him out," Minmay said, "and send a message to the Recordkeepers to send their representatives now. "

Danine looked up from her worktable as the mercenary guy walked up to her. Um, what was his name again?

"Ah! Klaas?" she said hesitantly.

"Oi, did you forget me already?" the man shook his head in mock sadness, "ha... I guess you're just a kid after all, to forget me so quickly. "

"What did you want?" Danine asked.

Klaas jerked a thumb towards the overseer's office, "you and me, the leader wants to see us. "

Danine frowned. Was it just her or was she remembering him wrongly? Somehow she had the feeling that Klaas was supposed to behave very differently. Oh well, she hardly remembered his face anyway, maybe it was just her.

She looked back down at the scattered pieces of sponge iron on her table. "Give me time to remove these," she said and Klaas nodded.

The experimental work pieces undergoing examination were formed via a direct reduction process that Cato had described but was assigned to the Corbin branch for experimentation. The Minmay Ironworkers were rather... hostile to either demihuman race and it turned out that their ability to literally see magic was rather useful to the new processes.

Danine packed away the sample pieces she was assigned to check, more as practice than actual work, and deliberately walked past the process tanks. The watertight wooden barrels contained elemental Water saturated with iron. Bubbling through it was fuel gas from the coking furnaces. The slag was less soluble in elemental water than pure iron and so as the iron ore feedstock was gradually consumed, the byproducts settled to the bottom. What was the word Cato had used? Ah yes, precipitation.

Once the pure iron had built up to saturation, the elemental water would be drained into the blowing tank, separating it from the slag precipitate and pure air would be blown through the elemental water to displace the pure iron out. That part required a high pressure steel-reinforced wooden tank to... Danine frowned as she recalled Cato's words... to 'shift the solution equilibrium towards the air gases'. The pure iron was thus retrieved as a spongy light mass and the highly expensive elemental water could be recycled for another round of purification.

The whole process was still more expensive than the blast furnaces but Cato and the Ironworkers had high hopes that it could be made cheaper as it required much less heat and fuel. And could tolerate even heavily contaminated ore, which would open up the range of useful mines. Phosphorous and sulphur contamination still needed work however, as they were more soluble in the elemental water than iron and so remained in the final product. Cato had plans to get rid of that with a post processing stage too.

After the major disaster in Minmay, the Ironworkers were treating the barrels of elemental water with serious respect now. Sponge iron production had its own building and the barrels were checked hourly by Fukas. Kalny's expertise and the substitution of steel with wood also helped curb erosion. The direct reduction reactors had to be managed just as carefully as the blast furnaces they were intended to replace.

She inspected the barrels again, the blue glow of the elemental water in her magic sense could be seen clear through the barrels. Good, the bubbles were going fine and erosion on the walls was still in control. It was with their unique magic sense that the Ironworkers had found a use for the Fukas. They could see magic with the same precision as if they were looking at it with their eyes, while humans were stuck with blind sensing of 'structure'.

In exchange, the Ironworkers in Corbin agreed to protect the Fukas and teach them how to grade and work iron. To be honest, Danine still felt as if they were treated less well than the apprentices but it was a step up from trying to make do in a slum.

"The tanks will be fine," Danine nodded and let Klaas lead her away.

Klaas brought her to the office, which contained Elma, the leader of the entire Corbin branch, not the overseer Danine had been expecting.

"We are here, sir," Klaas swept a formal bow as they entered. Danine blinked but decided not to comment on his sudden change of image.

"Good of both of you to meet me under such conditions," Elma said, gesturing at the two chairs set out in front of the overseer's desk while seating himself behind it.

Danine eyed the much more comfortable seat the branch leader settled into. Klaas asked, "what would you have us do?"

"I received a secret message from the Minmay branch," Elma said, "the Chancellor is suspecting that certain elements are unhappy with our progress. And the Minmay branch of the Ironworkers concur with him. "

"And which elements are these, may I ask?"

Elma deliberately did not glance at Danine, "our own. Ironworkers. It is said that the licensed blacksmiths in Corbin and Minmay are plotting something. "

"Indeed? That is surprising news. You wish us to find out more?"

"Very good Klaas, I knew I could count on you," Elma nodded, "and Danine too. The Ironworkers will not easily forget your proficiency at sneaking. "

"Do you have any leads for us? Suspects?" Klaas asked.

"None, otherwise I would not have need of your expertise," Elma said, looking and sounding apologetic. Danine did not so easily believe it however. "My position as branch leader restricts what I am informed of and from the difficulty Minmay has tracking them in his own city, they have been very careful. Willio hopes we can find some loose ends here to unravel their net. "

"Understood," Klaas bowed a little.

"Any question, Danine?" Elma looked at her.

"Will we have to fight?" she asked.

"Not unless absolutely necessary. Find the agitators and the Guards will handle the rest. Best if they never knew you were there at all," Elma said.

"I don't want money," Danine said.

Elma shrugged as if he expected that alreay, "two more apprentices, and we'll teach your man, uh..."

"It's Toal, sir," Klaas reminded him.

"Yes, Toal. I'll teach him how to make steel," Elma offered, "and any of you who work for us will be offered positions as apprentices, if they want it. "

Danine considered it. Well, he did say that he didn't want her to get in trouble, and she thought she could be pretty sneaky. And he was proposing lifting the Fukas in his employ, all twenty of them, up to full apprentice status. Although that was a reduction in pay, they would learn how to forge.

"Fine, I'll do it. "