A Perverted Path to Victory

David Brown

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David’s daughter was a lovely young woman. She had a wonderful, brilliant mind, and while her conversational abilities were famed for a number of reasons, some of which were often seen in a poor light, he’d always thought she had a genuine knack for cutting to the core of an issue well before others had begun to peel off the first layer. He was a proud father, and not just because he was grateful for her dragging him into a world straight out of his childhood fantasies. She’d accomplished so much in so short a time, and aside from a few oversteps, she’d done it with a clean, clinical efficiency.

All that being said, she’d really been expecting him to pay back that gift.

Sara’s dream for Tulian, and for the world around it, was something that very few of its natives could understand. It was a dream born of a different, far more advanced world, one swamped in so much excess capital and labor (no matter how inefficiently collected or managed) that stories once dismissed as childish naiveté had, over time, morphed into something achievable. Not remotely achievable in the short term, of course, but technically possible, if the peoples of the world were to unite and cooperate in a dozen different impossible ways.

In short, his daughter had set him the completely reasonable goal of creating a post-scarcity society. A society without needs, only wants. A society which had forgotten hardship, replacing labor with art. She wanted him to bring that into existence.

From scratch.

As soon as possible.

The logic behind it was sound, he supposed. The two of them had a wealth of knowledge unlike anyone else in this world, and though they were surrounded on all sides by enemies, they had almost as many powerful allies at their side. Garen was one of the rare few Archmages who had actually maintained his connection to reality, rather than diving ever-deeper into magical esoterica, and Sara had married a one-woman Industrial Revolution in the form of Hurlish. That woman’s astounding skill had allowed them to skip a half-dozen steps in the long chain of tools to make tools to make tools, leapfrogging them straight past sawmills and into the world of motorized metal lathes. Then, with Evie and Vesta’s business acumen, they’d been slowly letting their innovations trickle out across the world, currently selling small batches as luxury items at absurd prices, carefully hoarding a backlog of the same products to someday flood out en-masse, once the ultra-wealthy in a given market had bought their fill.

But mechanical products weren’t what interested Sara. They were a necessity, yes, but only as a prerequisite. Sara’s specific interest was in combining the technology of their homeworld with the magic of this new land. The pieces for a post-scarcity society were all there. Mages could rejuvenate soil, artificers could create exotic materials impossible to replicate even on earth, and individual Classes lent even the common man a difficult-to-comprehend degree of strength and competency.

This world was, without exaggeration, better than Earth. It had every advantage Earth did, and many more beyond it. The only possibility that concerned David was its age, and therefore its potential lack of fossil fuels. Even his scant review of what little geological research existed seemed to readily support the theory of a created planet. How long ago it was created, however, and, if it was newer than a few hundred million years old, to what degree it was patterned on Earth? If it was created with simulated ancient biological masses? David didn’t know. What he did know was that there was some amount of coal and oil, but the volume of those resources were entirely unknown to him. They could be freak coincidences, or the result of some forgotten mad alchemist. Sara thankfully detested the idea of using them, so he didn’t need to be particularly concerned about it.

Instead Sara had argued, rather convincingly, that they should try to skip straight over the back half of the Industrial Revolution, aiming for the magical equivalent of solar panels and nuclear reactors, and use wherever they landed as a springboard to jump into that fabled post-scarcity society. Magical energy was rapidly renewable, could be easily translated into any kind of mechanical motion, and was versatile in a dozen different ways that traditional power sources weren’t. If you could mechanize food acquisition, mass-train Mages for the rejuvenation of soil, and all the while keep producing industrial quantities of high-quality fertilizers, then you were halfway there.

David’s first goal was to make food in such volume it was cheaper than free. If they had their way, just finding enough space to store the damn stuff would be a pain. In Sara’s plan, farmers wouldn’t make a living on the profit margins of their crop, but rather a government salary, just like any other kind of public servant. (David had some concerns about that, knowing what he did about the Soviet Union’s attempt to manage their nation’s farms, but it was a laudable goal to strive towards nonetheless.)

Then, if he managed that, the next major hurdle would be the automation of complex industries. That sounded utterly impossible to his modern mind, even if he’d had access to all of Earth’s technology, much less this proto-Industrial society. Mechanized as it was, industry was just too varied, too complex, for there to be a simple patch to slap on everything that made it ‘just work.’

In this world, however, there were possible angles to explore. Garen had told him that certain varieties of Mages and Archmages had been making humanoid “golems” since time immemorial. While lacking the Talmudic origins of their Earthly equivalent, the linguistic crossover was understandable. Essentially robots made of exotically manifested stone and clay, the magical golems were reportedly incredibly versatile, with the finest crafted examples being capable of imitating all ranges of human motion and dexterity. Unfortunately, the reagents necessary to create them were absurdly rare and expensive, equally difficult to acquire, with the methodology of their creation a closely guarded secret. Garen himself was at a loss for how to create even a single one. Mass production was laughable.

But those were a distant goal. Years away in the best of cases, and David still wasn’t sure if those “golems” were the ideal option. After all, it’s not like anyone had tried to make a fully automated factory on this world. Before Sara, they hadn’t even developed the concept of assembly lines. David’s first and most important goal was to eliminate food scarcity, his second was to improve educational standards, and his third was to begin progressing towards some type of large-scale automation. It was the work of decades, not months or years.

Guess it’s a good thing I got started now, David thought, running a hand over his wispy, bald head. The work of “decades” likely meant the rest of his life. He was old and out of shape. He hadn’t always been old, but he had always been out of shape, even as a kid, and that didn’t lend him a good chance of living a long life. Maybe not long enough to see through everything Sara wanted done.

He was a staunch atheist back on Earth, and despite the popularity of it among other atheists, he’d never managed to adopt the calm stoicism towards his inevitable death that others had. The thought of dying, much less dying before Sara was ready to be without him, was utterly terrifying. Magical healing may have wiped away a dozen aches and pains he’d never known he had, fixing his back, knees, and eyes, but that was no guarantee for how long he’d live. Even the best healers couldn’t extend a human’s natural lifespan beyond a certain point. Archmages like Garen only lived as long as they did because of the complex alterations self-applied to their body and soul, something that couldn’t be done upon another person. He was sixty. How long did he have? Ten years? Twenty? Even if he had thirty, he didn’t think it was long enough.

No point thinking about that, though, he forcefully reminded himself, choosing his favorite form of coping mechanism: distraction.

He was in his massive, oversized office, reading through student assignments that had been turned in the day before. The work he was grading was fairly simple practice for the students, and followed an ancient and honored tradition of tenured professors:

Getting undergrads to do his work for him.

His students had been, on the slightly shaky excuse of improving their mathematics and statistics skills by applying them to real-world scenarios, tallying Tulian’s recent imports and exports. They’d spent the day poring over the steadily-growing mountain of paperwork Vesta kept, doing the same work that her accountants had, essentially checking their work by looking for inconsistencies. Which was what David was supposed to do, as part of his weird, barely-defined role as director of Tulian’s new industries.

It was particularly helpful to be reading through his student’s reports, imperfect though they were, because David couldn’t have ever kept track of the list of mechanical products that Tulian was now the sole source of in all the world. Leaf springs, gargantuan steel anvils, steel tools and weapons, copper sheeting services for ships, crystal-clear glass, the first magnifying glasses, a vomitous spew of copied books, fountain pens, steel-toed boots, standardized crates, pallets, Azarketi nylon, and even the muskets that they’d been allowing to trickle out to the Carrions as the Tulian Army replaced its oldest stock, not to mention a hundred other tiny bits and bobs. One group of smiths, a collection of recent immigrants, had started transitioning their efforts to building a screw factory. An entire factory for screws. No one had told them to do that, they’d just seen the opportunity. That was jumping well past assembly line work, ignoring Ford’s all-in-one factories, and going straight for Post-Fordist flexible supply chains. David wasn’t sure how much of a profit they’d be able to turn at this stage in the Industrial Revolution, but he hadn’t discouraged them.

As he kept reading through the reports, his eyes kept turning back towards those muskets they were selling the Carrion Navy. They’d provided the world’s largest known naval power only traditional smoothbore flintlocks thus far, being as careful as possible to keep the secrets of rifling and the Minié ball close to their chest, but even the guns that had been sold were a massive advantage that the Carrions didn’t need. Rifled barrels and the bullets to use them were going to get loose at some point, true, but it would be a much longer time before anyone except the highest-Level smiths could recreate the accuracy of Tulian’s machine-tooled firearms.

Unless magic can bridge the gap, David pointedly reminded himself. With how excited he was to see what all this world had to offer, he constantly found himself falling into the oddest trap: forgetting magic existed at all. His assumption that simple technological superiority was enough to maintain their safety couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, assuming that technology alone could overwhelm magic was a faulty conclusion. Thus far, at least as it had been described to him by Garen, their more magical opponents had been defeated more by their own incredulous reactions to Tulian technology than anything else.

“Hey, Garen,” David said, looking up from his work, “what do you think the Sporatons are going to come at us with next?”

The Archmage was, as had become their custom, sharing David’s office while they whiled away the hours evaluating student work. Garen’s half-shaved stubble made a pleasant little scritching noise as he rubbed his hand thoughtfully across his chin, smiling subtly at the chance for distraction.

“In an abstract sense, or are you looking for more specific information on their prospective countermeasures to our weaponry?”

“I mean, I’d love the second, but I doubt you have anything to offer.”

“Correct. But I do have theories.” Garen set aside several papers, interlacing his fingers to pop them over his head. He lowered his hands and made a few quick gestures, summoning a perfect hologram of a generic Sporaton Knight. “Most prominently, I imagine that the Knights which will assault us this time will not make the mistake of wearing armor designed to resist spells. Not only do we have a dearth of Mages as a whole, our Republic’s interim leader patently refuses to ‘waste’ them in battle. Armor of the sort designed to resist spells behaves much like those of your old world when they encounter a cannonball.”

A cannonball shimmered into place a few feet away, shooting through the Knight’s armor with ease. David was grateful the recreation only faded out of existence, rather than splaying the table with illusory entrails.

“I anticipate that they will have spent considerable time and energy improving the enchantments involved with protecting them from physical impacts.”

Another Knight and associated cannonball appeared, repeating the process. The cannonball struck home, but instead of piercing the miniature enemy, it shattered to pieces, chips of light fading as they floated away. The fake Knight staggered backward, dropping to a knee to stabilize itself, but was otherwise unharmed.

Something caught David’s eye. He leaned in, squinting. “Hey, what’s up with that? It looks like you made the table crack.”

“Hm?” Garen glanced over, having only paid half attention to his own display. Adjusted to the scale of the Knight, illusory cracks rippled out ten feet or so behind the figure. “Well, yes, of course,” Garen said. “That’s how the best of physically protective enchantments work. The energy is distributed to the surrounding environment, rather than requiring the armor itself to bear the brunt of the blow. While much more complex an implementation of shock-absorption spells, once created, it’s both more effective and exceptionally efficient. Up until recently, however, those Knights facing opponents who necessitated such extreme measures were a vanishingly small minority. They were mostly those who hunted large, predatory beasts, such as those which exist in the southern jungles or northern wastelands. Under normal circumstances, any sensible Knight would prefer to strike a compromise over such over-specialization.”

“Fascinating.” David adjusted his glasses. An old, useless habit now that they were uncurved pieces of glass worn only for style. “So it requires a direct physical connection to a sturdy material, then? Or would it work if they were hit in midair, distributing the energy to the atmosphere? Is there a limit to the range it can use materials for force nullification?” David blinked, something else occurring to him. “Wait, hold on. The northern wastelands have giant animals? What kind? Because most tundra biomes should really struggle to support megafauna, unless you’re talking about large, migratory herbivores like mammoths- oh, mammoths are similar to elephants, but evolved to- you know what an elephant is, right, or are they not-?”

Before David could be sucked down another rabbit hole, the crystal in his pocket began to make muffled noise. Judging by the tone of it, and the fact that it was growing more impatient-sounding by the second, he already knew who it was. David pulled the crystal out of his pocket, setting it on the desk between him and Garen.

“-actually kind of important this time, Dad, so if you could just-”

“I’m here,” he said, talking over his daughter, as was so often necessary. “What did you need?”

“Dad? That you? Okay, good. How soon can you go talk to Garen?”

The two men shared a look.

“He’s right here.”

“Of course he is. Look, I need you two to-”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Not important. Look, I’ve got two letters here for you and Garen. I need him to take them. They’re in that box he gave Evie.”

That had David licking his lips. The crystal communication network, one of the greatest single feats of magical technology Tulian had thus far achieved, was distributed only between the highest levels of the Tulian hierarchy. Which should have meant it was only in the hands of people Sara trusted implicitly. If she wanted to send a message without people like Vesta, Tinvel, and the Generals of the army overhearing, it must be quite the damn message.

“I have them,” Garen announced, pulling them without flourish from his robe sleeve. “Do you wish us to stay in communication until after we read them?”

“No. They’re orders, not questions. I’ll talk to you later. Vesta, are you there? Evie needs to discuss some stuff with you. How are our lines of credit doing?”

There was a brief pause, then Vesta was on the line. Evie immediately launched into complex economic terminology, all of which flew well over David’s head. He returned the crystal to its leather satchel, adding a wad of cotton to help him ignore the buzzing hum.

The two papers Garen had produced were simple, unremarkable parchment paper, and weren’t enclosed in any sort of packaging. They were just folded in half, a bit of colorless wax dobbed on to keep them from unfolding. One was labeled “Garen,” the other “David.” He accepted his own with a murmured thanks, turning it over in his hands. There was really nothing else to it. Just a single sheet of paper.

“She was concerningly curt, was she not?” Garen asked as he used his finger to break the tiny seal. “I’ve learned that it never bodes well when the Champion of Amarat is too busy for a chat.”

“I’ll say,” David murmured, flipping open his own letter.

The first thing he noted was the fact that Sara hadn’t written it herself; it was actually legible. Evie’s neat handwriting was scratched with mechanical precision across the page, dotting off rapid, tight sentences. And judging by the militant tone it took, Evie had taken considerable liberties interpreting Sara’s dictation.

Anticipated enemy has grown considerably. Old threats remain, but additional concerns of unknown number, composition, origin, strength, capability, and motivation are to be expected within 3-4 months (±)30%.

Band authorization has expanded as result. Black Sabbath through Slayer.

Take appropriate measures to ensure volume has been raised before three months have passed. Do NOT overstep Slayer. Direct quote: “Tell Dad for the last fucking time, he can’t get Tinvel killed trying to make any stupid-ass rocket planes.”

Operate under assumption of necessity to overcome enemies of here-to-fore unseen physical durability, speed, and vectors of engagement.

If more information on threat is uncovered, will be forwarded promptly. Do not anticipate more information.

David lifted his head from his paper, glasses dangling off the tip of his nose. Garen was staring at his own sheet with a similar expression of shock, if a bit more reserved. David wondered if that was because it had the same content, or if Garen had been blindsided by something else entirely.

“Well,” David said, clearing his throat. “I don’t know about you, but I think I just got a lot more work put on my plate.”

“As have I,” Garen muttered. “Though I’m not sure what, exactly, the Governess expects me to do about this.”

David held up a hand. “Hey, don’t tell me. She sent us two letters for a reason. Operational security and all that.”

Garen raised an eyebrow. “We both head the same university, David. What would we be capable of hiding from each other?”

“That depends. Did you know about this?” David got out of his chair and moved across the room, to the wall opposite the door. While most of the University still had the rotting wallpaper that had adorned it when they’d occupied its empty carcass, the classrooms and David’s office had received a fresh coat of paint.

That paint helped hide the secret compartment that he now found by tapping on the wall, waiting until he heard a more hollow thump than most. Sliding his hand down, he applied a touch of pressure to unlock the mechanism within, which allowed a tall, skinny door to reveal itself.

He’d imagined it seamlessly popping open, just like in the movies, but the reality was quite disappointing. The paint which hid the seams was very sticky, and his dramatic moment was ruined by the way he had to jerk the door forward and back, grunting with effort as the paint peeled away piece by piece, slowly letting the hidden compartment unveil itself.

“There!” He declared, panting slightly as he turned back to Garen, holding his hands out theatrically at the secret cubby. “Did you know this was here?”

“Yes.”

David blinked. “What?”

“I am an Archmage, David. You should know by now that I regularly inspect my place of work and home for hidden compartments.”

“Okay, fine.” David grabbed the long rifle that had been sitting in the wall for months, snagging a waxed bag of paper cartridges. “But do you know what actually makes it important?”

“No.” Garen leaned forward. He sounded mildly intrigued, which was the most he ever got for non-magical inventions. “I assumed it was a tool of last resort, in the event the University was under siege. Does it differ from other muskets in some way?”

“A big one, yeah. It’s called an ‘Allin modification.’ They made them after the US Civil War, to try and update all the old guns that weren’t as useful anymore. And since Sara patterned Tulian’s rifles on US Civil War weapons, I thought it’d be best if…” David trailed off. “You know what? I’ll just show you when I show the gunsmiths. Easier that way. I’ve got a lot of stuff to start working on, and most of it isn’t going to be something I could keep a secret from you, anyway. Want to come see the demonstration?”

“I suppose so,” Garen said, stretching as he stood. “After that letter, I have far too much to consider. Best to let it simmer. Should we cancel the afternoon lessons?”

David shouldered the rifle, pocketing a package of paper cartridges. “Probably for the best. I’ve got a lot to do. And I don’t think the kids will really mind.”

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As could only be expected, David and Garen took the strange-looking rifle straight to the best gunsmiths in the city: the shop of Hurlish of Tulian, where a humble forge had been steadily sprawling outward over the months until reaching its present extent, which took up all of what was once a communal smithing pavilion. Last month, it had finally been ensconced within walls of thick wooden beams and thin sheet metal. Fences from the city’s noble manors had been ripped up and brought over, creating a double-layered series of wrought iron obstacles around the building. Wide funnels sprouted from the roof in irregular patterns, belching smoke and steam, creating towers of black and white that were visible across half the city.

“I’m here to see Hurlish’s apprentices,” David said as he walked up to the guards at the outermost gate. He patted the rifle he held. “I’ve got a new toy for them to check out. We’ll probably be test-firing it later, by the way, so don’t be alarmed if you hear gunshots.”

The catfolk guard stared stonily at him. “Inspection,” he ordered.

“Ah, fine,” David said, leaning forward. “This always sucks, by the way.”

“We don’t like it either,” the other guard rumbled.

David stood in decided discomfort as the catfolk guard poked and prodded at his face, inspecting the way the flesh felt in comparison to how it appeared to be moving. It was a primitive and invasive way to detect people hiding their identity with illusions, but effective, so long as the spellcaster wasn’t uncommonly skilled.

Satisfied, the catfolk looked at Garen. “Inspection.”

The sole Archmage of Tulian had a stormy expression on his face as he leaned forward, but it didn’t last long. Not because he was any more agreeable to it than David, of course. It was just hard to maintain any particular expression while a catfolk man kneaded his face like dough.

“You’re good,” he said, waving them on.

Garen and David stepped past the guards together, then hooked a right, forced by the design of the fences to walk a ways further in order to get to the next gate. There they were treated to the same process, just as awkward as the first, and only then were finally allowed into the smithy proper.

David glanced up at the emblazoned logo above the big warehouse doors. The letters “H.O.T.” had been cut out of thin copper, the letters curved to fit into the cogwheel emblem that surrounded them.

“At least they have a good logo,” David said, “even if I really wish they’d gone with a more subtle name.”

“When have any of your daughters been interested in subtlety?” Garen chuckled.

David still wasn’t used to hearing ‘daughters,’ plural, but that was the culture here. As far as most people in Tulian were concerned, David was the father of Evie and Hurlish. Particularly since both of their birth fathers had been dead for years. He was just grateful the two women hadn’t started actually treating him like a father.

“Still,” he said, moving past the large garage-style doors in favor of a much smaller side entrance, “I don’t exactly like my daughter’s business being named after how attractive she thinks her wife is.”

“After spending so long among those trapped in political marriages, I cannot sympathize,” Garen laughed. “I think you should be incredibly happy that they are such enthusiastic partners. It’s rare for those in positions of power to be able to afford such a luxury.”

The comment involuntarily forced into David’s mind the image of Sara, still a Champion, but one forced to marry some Sporaton noble or Carrion politician for the good of Tulian. He shuddered.

“I guess you’re right about that.”

David stopped just before the door, pulling out a set of earmuffs. The sound of squealing machinery was already audible, and even if healing magic could have fixed any hearing damage, the shrill screech of metal still hurt. Garen didn’t seem bothered, however, presumably on account of yet another of his endless defensive Wards.

The shop was hidden behind so many layers of security for a reason. Despite being one of the largest new-construction buildings in Tulian by square footage, it felt remarkably cramped. Wherever David looked, Hurlish’s apprentices were leaning on, staring at, inspecting, or operating a vast array of machinery. The march of industry was laid out in radial fashion, expanding from the much smaller centerpiece that had been Hurlish’s original shop. Most of the benches at that original core featured iron anvils, basic clamps, and hand-cranked lathes, their soft-headed drills barely capable of chipping away at iron. Those had been the tools which had created the next layer: machines made of iron and partial steel, the first powered tools of Tulian’s industry. Long shafts ran to nearby steam engines, smaller variants which could power no more than one or two devices on their own. A collection of heat-enchanted crystals served in the place of coal in their boilers, and David could see a bored-looking apprentice sorting through cooled-off piles of the crystals, inspecting each one for cracks. The small crystals broke frequently, unable to handle the strain of such a high-temperature environment.

It was the last layer of progress that greeted David and Garen at the entrance, and it was these machines which had necessitated the security measures that had troubled them on the way in. Metal clanked and thumped at deafening volumes, a pair of thirty-foot steam engines on either side of the warehouse responsible for powering the industry framed by their bulk. The massive steel driveshafts which transmitted their power were set low to the ground, requiring walkways to be built overtop them. They powered two lathes of monstrous proportions, thee drill bits of several precision-geared milling machines, and even kept several sets of gargantuan iron-framed fans spinning, blowing any form of potentially toxic gas out of large vent holes cut from the building’s side. Other machines of varying purpose were slotted between the larger pieces, each attended by a handful of workers.

That was where his vocabulary for the devices began to fail. David saw pipes being run back and forth between a trio of steel wheels, each repetition bending them a little bit more than the last, eventually turning a straight pipe into one curved to whatever degree the workers desired. The pipes themselves were being created nearby as molten metal was poured into a tall, vertical mold, one which vibrated like a murderous washing machine as its interior was spun up to several hundred RPMs. That forced the metal to be slung against the walls of the container by centrifugal force, avoiding the waste of material and time that might have been needed if they had to machine away the imperfections of traditional smithing. Several more devices whirred and hummed alongside, sometimes even powered directly by magical crystals rather than the steam engines, and more still were under construction, workers paying close attention to the blueprints that had been drawn up by Hurlish copying Sara’s illusions.

The entire space would have looked like it was straight out of the 1800s, if not for the variety of safety measures Sara had written into law across Tulian. The driveshafts were covered by wood, to prevent the brutal dismemberment that would follow if the tiniest bit of clothing was snagged on them, and any area with rotating machinery had vibrant yellow paint outlining the areas that only those operating the equipment were allowed to occupy. Pipes criss-crossed overhead in the dozens, filled to bursting with high pressure water that could be activated from countless clearly-marked emergency valves. Sara even had Hurlish’s apprentices wearing chopped-up army gear, steel caps replacing the hardhats that would have been worn on Earth.

What had been created here was a proper factory. Not just by the standards of this world, but by any Earthly measure. That meant it was Tulian’s most closely-guarded secret. One of the lathes was coring out the center of yet another 12-pounder field cannon, the other doing the same to a 24-pounder naval gun. Both processes would take only hours to complete, not the days that would have been required by waterwheel-powered boring. On the milling machines, David could see workers cutting out a variety of rifle triggers, sights, barrels, and other, even more complex implements. The same blacksmiths that once took an entire day hammering out the parts required for a single musket were now slicing out a dozen each shift. Even if he’d never studied a page of military history in his life, David could have seen how valuable that was.

To an outsider who didn’t know what was waiting in Tulian’s hidden factories, it was a miracle. The wider world was beginning to realize that the small Republic was capable of pouring out frightening volumes of industrial product compared to their population, but they hadn’t yet grasped how it was happening. That needed to remain the case for as long as possible.

“Hello!” David called out, trying to grab the attention of a man he knew somewhat well— Hurlish’s head apprentice, Gebun. “I know you’re busy, but I’ve got something from the Governess!”

Gebun, a human man in his late thirties, held up a hand. He kept a watchful eye on the 12-pounder cannon that was being bored out, the machine spitting chips of bronze across the factory floor. Following his gaze, David saw he was comparing the depth of the boring process to a mark that had been placed on the barrel and machine, waiting for them to line up.

“Halt!” He suddenly barked.

The apprentice cranking the feed rod’s control wheel froze, then gave it a few quick spins in the opposite direction, backing the barrel off the spindle. A few more bits of bronze were spat out before Gebun walked up to the machine, pulling the massive lever that disconnected it from the factory’s primary driveshaft. The entire warehouse grew a touch quieter as the machine whirred down.

“Professor Brown,” Gebun said as he turned around, wiping black grease on the rag tied to his waist. “And Archmage Garen. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“My daughter, I’m afraid,” David said, still having to raise his voice over the rest of the squealing factory work. He patted the rifle on his shoulder, then glanced at a door that led to the back. “I can show you outside, if you’d like?”

Gebun’s eyes sparkled with a keen interest, and he nodded. Turning around to the other workers, he shouted, “Sweep up all of that bronze for reforging! I don’t want to lose a single scrap, you hear me? That’s a month of your wages laying on the floor!”

The other lathe workers acknowledged this request robotically, as if it was so obvious a command that it didn’t need to be said. Even then, Gebun waited until each had said something in response before being satisfied.

“Interesting looking piece y’got there,” Gebun said, eying the rifle as they walked towards the factory’s rear. “Looks like you cut a chunk out of the breech? What’s it for?”

“Can’t a man be allowed any secrets?” David lamented. “I just want to show you the impressive part all at once, like they do in the movies. It makes it so much more fun.”

“We’re taking it to shoot, then?” Gebun asked.

“Yep. You still have that shooting range set up back there, right?”

The blacksmith chuckled. “If you can call an alleyway and a pile of sand a shooting range, yes. It hasn’t been used for anything serious in a good while. Some of the apprentices use it to fire off potshots during their lunch break, but that’s about it.”

“Well, it should work.”

Gebun opened the warehouse’s rear door for Garen and David, waving them on. David adjusted his earmuffs as they exited the deafening warehouse, but didn’t take them off.

“Okay,” he said, piecing together his explanation of the gun in his head, “this is called an Allin modification. It’s what my old country back on Earth did with all their excess 1860s-era muskets after the war, to make them more useful. After some…” David paused, remembering that he wasn’t supposed to give anything away to someone like Gebun, “...recent decisions, Sara’s decided that we need to start upgrading our rifles. This is how we do it. You see this here?”

David turned the rifle so both men could see the rear of the musket, pointing at the spot just before the crystal-tipped hammer. It was the rifle’s chamber, where the metal barrel had been thickened to resist the propulsive charge’s detonation. Unlike the Springfield 1861 that the Tulian army had trained on, which would have had a smooth, flat surface over the breech, the rifle in David’s hand featured a dipped curve, the right side of which ended in a bulging, angled cylinder.

“It’s not hard to spot,” Garen said. “But it represents what, exactly?”

“About triple or quadruple the fire rate,” David smugly replied. He put his thumb under the cylinder and, with barely a flick of his finger, opened up the chamber. He dropped a paper cartridge into place, jammed it forward with his finger so the Minié ball was firmly set in the firing position, then flicked the latch closed. “Poof,” he said, “the gun is loaded just like that.” It hadn’t taken more than a few seconds, compared to the twenty or so required to load a muzzle-loader.

He started to put the gun to his shoulder, squinting at the pile of sand at the other end of the blocked-off alleyway, but Gebun interrupted him with an astonished exclamation.

“What are you doing?” He demanded. “Do not fire that! The powder’s explosion will leak out and blind you, if it does not simply blow that fragile thing to pieces.”

David glanced at him without lowering the rifle. “Hurlish made this for me.”

Gebun blinked. “Ah.” He stepped back, waving David on.

David pulled the trigger, the crystal-tipped hammer driving sparks down into the paper-wrapped blackpowder. An almost imperceptible instant later, the gun bucked, driving hard into his shoulder.

Without sparing a second to inspect his target, David dropped the rifle out of a firing stance, holding it in one hand as he pulled another paper cartridge from his breast pocket. He used his thumb to flip open the breech chamber, ignoring the lingering smoke that rose up, and dropped the cartridge in. Five seconds after the first shot had cracked across the alley, David had the rifle on his shoulder. He pulled the trigger before the cloud of blackpowder smoke had a chance to dissipate.

He could have kept going, but the point had been made. He set the rifle butt against the ground, grinning widely. Garen had little more than mild interest on his face, which was to be expected, but Gebun’s reaction was far more gratifying. His eyes first went wide in shock, then narrowed, calculations playing out behind his dark pupils.

“It’s even faster-firing than the original version my home world had,” David said. “Those used single-use percussion caps instead of enchanted crystals, which meant you had to replace the cap over the hammer each time you fired. I’m sure with some solid practice, proper soldiers could fire this a lot quicker than I just did.”

“May I see it?” Gebun asked.

David handed the rifle over easily, still enjoying the high of a demonstration gone well. Privately, he’d been worried the crystal sparks wouldn’t ignite the blackpowder charge on the first trigger pull. It was a problem he and Hurlish had encountered in testing the weapon. The muzzle-loading rifles required their users to rip open the package, dumping loose powder down the barrel, with the paper container used as wadding for the projectile. Paper was flammable, yes, but not enough so that a few scant sparks would burn through in an instant. Hurlish had gotten around the issue by using a much larger, more robust spark-crystal on the Allin-conversion’s hammer, but that wasn’t ideal for mass-manufacture. They’d be taking old muskets and cutting out the breeches for alteration, and that meant the less new material that was required, the better.

“Garen,” David said, turning toward the Archmage. “There’s something in Hurlish’s office that I need to get into. Evie’s the only one with the key, but I was hoping you could open it for me?”

“Of course,” he said. “Though I hope you understand that I’ll only be capable of breaking it open, not undoing the lock.”

“That’s fine. Probably. Anyway, I’ll be right back,” David told Gebun. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of paper cartridges, handing them over. “Give it a few tries yourself. I think you’ll like it.”

David led Garen back to Hurlish’s office in the warehouse, which had collected a slight layer of dust in her absence. He pointed out the section of cobblestones which were placed over the hidden chest, which Garen floated out of the way, then the Archmage levitated a hidden eight-foot-long steel chest out of the ground. With a quick wave, he cut through the lock, flipping open the lid.

David began rummaging through its contents while Garen kept an eye on the door, making sure no curious worker wandered in. There was a lot more in that chest than just what they needed right now. Prototype guns Hurlish had created that Sara had decided to keep hidden for now, as well as designs for other, larger weapons, and even a few enchanted bits and bobs that had been collected from the ruins of Old Tulian, the precious few items that looters hadn’t found over the years.

Compared to what he could have retrieved, David was fairly restrained. Three additional rifles, their associated design documents, and a few extra sheets of paper with blueprints for other things that he thought were worth breaking out. He had a slight crisis of conscience as he evaluated some of the more advanced things in Hurlish’s treasure trove, debating on whether or not the letter he’d received justified their use, but ultimately decided to play it safe. He would write a letter back to Sara later on for clarification on what she wanted to reveal to the wider world.

“Alright,” David said, wrapping an awkward bundle of papers and guns in his arms. “That should be good. Can you hide it again?”

The massive chest made a screeching noise as it was shoved across the stones, then carefully lowered into the hole. The stones were returned to their places, grout appearing from nothing to seal them together. In seconds, it was impossible to tell the area had ever been disturbed at all.

“Man, I wish I could learn how to do that,” David muttered.

“You will, in time,” Garen assured him.

“Here’s hoping.” David huffed slightly as he turned to fit through the doorway, accidentally knocking one of the rifle’s butts against the wooden frame. “But for now, I guess I can settle with having you around.”

“Ah, yes,” Garen said sarcastically, “having to ‘settle’ for your nation’s lone Archmage personally attending your work as a manual laborer. Such a cruel fate you have, David.”

“Hey, can you blame me?” He kicked open the door to the alleyway. “If I could have you around and cast spells myself, that’d be even better.”

David flinched slightly as a gunshot sounded in the narrow alleyway. Gebun dropped the rifle into a loading position before the crack finished echoing, throwing another paper cartridge into the gun and lifting it in the same motion he slammed the trapdoor mechanism shut. A bullet pierced the cloud of blackpowder smoke a breath later.

“You liking it?”

“How long have you had this?” Gebun demanded, turning on him. “What was the point of spending months and months building 1861 rifles when this existed?”

David pulled back slightly, taken by surprise at the smith’s frustration.

“Uh. Sara told me to?”

Gebun shook the rifle furiously. “Why? Why would she want that? This gun is the superior of anything I have ever made, and we have had the necessary equipment to produce its kind for months! How much of our time and energy has been wasted on needlessly inferior work?”

Oh boy, David thought, just you wait. I can’t imagine how mad you’re gonna be once Sara really takes the training wheels off.

“She wished to avoid the enemy copying such weaponry too soon,” Garen said sharply, speaking before David could come up with a proper response. “Now that the enemy has begun tooling their industries for the hand-production of simpler muskets, it will be even more difficult for them to yet again pivot towards the mimicry of these ‘Allin-conversions’. The expense of creating an entirely novel industry for the manufacture of firearms likely drained their coffers, and they will be ill-prepared to yet again dismantle everything in favor of pursuing our newer rifles. Thus our advantage is maintained, Smith Gebun. Do you understand?”

Gebun shrank under the Archmage’s lecturing tone. David couldn’t have said it better himself, but if he’d tried, it probably would have used less of a ‘are you stupid?’ tone of voice.

“Uh. Yeah, basically that,” David hesitantly agreed. “But you’re not quite right that there was no reason we weren’t making these. See that bit there?” David tried to point at the gun, then realized it was impossible with his arms full. He set them down, taking the Allin-conversion from Gebun. “This part right here, on the inside” he said, pointing properly. “It’s meant to eject a metal casing from the gun when you flip the trapdoor up. These guns back home were meant to be used with their blackpowder being held in thin brass containers. But since we haven’t had nearly enough raw material to produce brass in large quantities, especially with almost all of it going towards artillery, Sara’s been waiting for our material supply to firm up. But since that hasn’t happened, and it’s been long enough without any improvements, I guess she decided to give it the go-ahead anyway.”

It wasn’t quite the truth, but it wasn’t quite a lie, either. Sara probably would have happily stuck with muzzle-loading rifles for as long as they were directly superior to their opponent’s weapons, even if that meant using them for years. Whatever this vague threat was, it had spurred her to become a bit more proactive.

Gebun rubbed his hand across his mouth, inspecting the Allin-conversion thoughtfully. “You’re right that we’re struggling to get the material even for the cannons, of course. Brass or bronze containers for every shot from every gun sounds impossible. And a little bit pointless. They’d certainly be more robust than paper, but how would you ignite them?”

“Something like those percussion caps I mentioned, but built into the casing itself,” David said. He bent over and shuffled through the papers, finding the schematic for a standard .30-06 round. “Like this. But that would require something called mercury fulminate, an impact explosive. That means it goes off when it’s hit by the trigger mechanism, lighting the blackpowder. Our alchemists haven’t managed to make that stuff yet. It’s not super difficult to make, but they haven’t been trying all that hard, since we’ve been using crystals in place of percussion caps.”

“Hm.” Gebun inspected the modern bullet’s schematic, then nodded at the other rifles David had piled at his feet. “And these?”

“Other Allin conversions,” David explained. “There were a lot of different versions back on Earth, and I couldn’t remember which worked the best. And since they all used metal cartridges, not paper, I’m not sure if the ‘best’ of them would actually be the best for our use case. I want you to test them. I’m pretty worried about barrel fouling, since it’ll be burning so much paper in a gun not designed for it. I’m also worried about the bullet getting set properly when people are shooting. It might be better to switch back to balls, so that it’s harder for a shooter to misalign the round in the chamber. If they put a Minié ball in just a little bit off-center, it may end up scraping the barrel to hell and back. We need lots of testing done.”

“I see.” Gebun took a deep breath, shaking his head slightly. “Well. At least our time hasn’t been a complete waste. When do you want these tests completed? We’ve already got a lot of work waiting for available machines, as you well know.”

“About that,” David said, forcing an uncomfortable, apologetic smile across his face. “Sara wanted all of the Tulian Army’s guns converted within three months. Sooner, if possible.”

Gebun stared at him.

“Not my decision,” David said weakly.

“Three months.”

“Two, ideally.”

“You’re joking.”

“Um. No.”

Gebun chewed his cheek. Looked down at the rifles and papers, then back up to the warehouse.

“Hurlish isn’t even here to help.” He blew out a loud sigh. “Well then. Judging by the way the rest of those papers aren’t just drawings of these Allin-conversions, I’m guessing that’s not all you have for me?”

“Afraid not.” David picked up a paper, turning it over to show Gebun. “I know the HOT factory doesn’t usually do ammunition manufacturing, but for these, I think you’ll have to. No one else is good enough.”

Gebun made a noise not unlike a growl. David tried to ignore it.

“So. Uh. When you break it down, this isn’t too complicated. This here is called APCBC, short for Armor Piercing Capped Ballistic-Capped.”

“...What?”

“Don’t worry. It makes more sense than you’d think. A round like this is created by putting an aerodynamic cap on top of an armor-piercing cap, which is on top of the main body, which protects the explosive charge at the base, which has a fuze behind it, which is set by the cannon as it’s fired by engaging this mechanism here.” He took a breath and cleared his throat, avoiding Gebun’s glare. “Now, the aerodynamic cap is best made of a lightweight, easily crumpled metal, but the armor-piercing cap is best made out of some particularly strong steel alloys, so that it’s less likely to shatter on impact…”

Gebun’s eyes began to glaze over. As David continued his explanation of what Tulian’s industry would be expected to produce over the coming weeks, David got the distinct impression that he was not winning any friends among his own daughter-in-law’s employees.

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