Tree of Aeons

Interlude - The Industries

There had never been a better, more exciting time to be one of the craftsmen. Work had never been easier to find, the amount of money, and resources poured into the crafts almost seemed unlimited. There were so many new and interesting materials to experiment with and so many interesting challenges to solve.

At the same time, there had never been a more stressful and more terrible time to be one of the crafts.

"Lord Alka, I am telling you, that the delivery of the next batch of containment fields will have to wait at least two months! Our location has not received the supposed crystal-reinforced glass from the Nura for the past month!" Craftmaster and [Magical Weaponcrafter] Allana said, her voice a little louder than usual. 

Alka, the dwarven domainholder, had come just that morning to check on the status of the containment fields. The experiments on the True Demons required a huge amount of new facilities to be constructed, many of these with new and unusual requirements. 

On the wall behind her office was a massive work schedule that indicated what and where everything was. It was a physical representation of the entire production floor's priorities, resources and manpower and was painstakingly updated by one of the Artificial Minds assigned to assist Allana in the extremely difficult task of production management.

The rest of the craftsmen hid. It was one of those days when one of the domain holders would come in to check on some urgent project, and their Chief Allana would have to shout back at them.

It wasn't a common thing, but it happened regularly enough. He merely frowned. "Let me speak to Central and have the order expedited."

"That's not how it works, Lord Alka. You expedite this order here, someone somewhere's order is going to be delayed! Then someone else and some other Craftmaster is going to be breathing down my neck on why their order was delayed!" 

Alka stared. Allana didn't budge. The two knew each other from way back. Back when Allana used to wander the worlds to build large weapon systems. It'd been a while since she did that before she was lured to manage some of the world's most advanced equipment factories. 

That was a pretty promise, but the stress levels were high. 

"Really?" 

"You know this." Allana repeated, and then she walked to the giant board that she called her work tracker. "Containment fields have a total of ninety seven components, and we make half of them in house, here in the North Tigashfall Production Site. But we have seven main components that we ship in from [Master Glassmakers] and [Enchanters]. The three crystal-reinforced glass, the monster control magical formations, the key mechanism from the [Crystalshapers], and then there's the two destruction countermeasures from Outer Freshka. Production is held up because the demand for crystal bombs is through the roof!"

Alka paused as he realized he had a big part in that. Now that he, Kafa, and Ezar were tasked with defending the peripheral worlds, they fought with bombs. 

"Right now, a [Master Glassmaker] spends two days making one of these reinforced glass panels, which will then be transferred to the enchanters to layer in the nine enchantments required. This takes a day each, and we need time to allow for the enchantments to settle!" Allana knew she was explaining something Alka already knew, but she needed to be sure he understood the context. "From there, transporting it here takes a day by secure transport beetles. Each glassmaker can work on about seven to eight of these glass panels concurrently. There are only thirty [Master Glassmakers] of level 90 and above, so every ten days, there are only 270 panels produced, at best, and only if all of them worked on this project!"

Alka nodded. The domain holder heard of briefings, but they were often fairly abridged. There was no need for the domain holders to focus too much on the logistics and administrative details, but details are crucial if they were to intervene. 

"But we know they don't! The glassmakers are also making panels for the Gantreethor and Dionaea upgrades! They are also supposed to make the storage containers for the ultra-dense magical explosives!"

Alka stopped. "Very well. I shall be patient and have the mages work with alternatives."

Allana paused. The two looked at each other. Allana then clarified. "Really? You'll wait?"

"Yes. I heard your point, and the supply chains are complicated enough." Alka looked at the massive wall behind her. That alone was intimidating enough that most junior craftsmen didn't dare walk on Allana's office floor. 

The two looked at each other, but then Allana noticed her assistant quietly hiding in the corner. Her assistant, Numi, was rather fresh, a still rather young treefolk. Talented fellow, as he was already Level 48 despite only being in his 30s. 

"Numi, is there anything?" Allana asked, and that caused Alka to turn. The treefolk wanted to wilt at the attention of a domainholder. 

He stammered a little. "I just wanted to remind you that there's a meeting with the Steelforging Forgemaster in a moment."

"Ah." Allana rubbed her head, the visit of domainholder Alka took up her entire morning. Her site and the Steelforging site were located next to each other. The steelforgers focused on converting raw ore into the various major shapes. Her side would then add to that.  𝖗áɴ𝔬ᛒȧ

Her site was partly assemblers, though they do a great deal of work of ensuring all the different parts didn't conflict. Working with enchanted materials often required ensuring that their magical energies didn't conflict, but because each enchanter had slight variations in their work and magical energies, they, as the primary assemblers, also maintained a group of enchanters that set up calibration formations. These ensured output and behavior of the various parts were managed and calibrated to play well with each other.

"Domainholder Alka, I'm afraid I have to go for another meeting."

Alka shrugged. "I'll see myself out." 

"No. That's not allowed. Assistant Numi, can you show Lord Alka out, and please ensure he does not step into the production floor?" 

Numi gulped. "Uh, I will try." 

"Good. Lord Alka, please be nice." 

Alka laughed. "Fine, I won't poke around your facility."

***

Allana had a long day. The meeting with the Steelforgers happened every two weeks, though they'd mostly gotten a good hang of it. They had to sort out what each other were going to make, and there was a lot of haggling over which projects were priority.

The Order, as Central put it, was a thousand legged jellyfish that tugged in a thousand different directions, and it was Central's overarching duty to ensure that as a whole, this jellyfish swam in the right direction. 

She'd make compromises, and sometimes, the Steelforgers gave in to her. They'd trade wine, tea, and coffee as favors. 

North Tigashfall was a major production location for at least the past six to seven decades, and there was a strong workmen culture in the area. Some of the largest beetle depots were also located on Tigashfall, since so much of the industrial output of Tigashfall had to be shipped outward and so much of the resources from all over the continent and beyond needed to move here.

Unlike Freshka, which served as the hub of the nobility, the heart of the spiritual leadership, and also the de-facto primary magic school, Allana found Tigashfall to be a lot more to her tastes.

People here worked. They worked a lot. 

And after work, they'd unwind in one of the many eateries and taverns all over Tigashfall. Just like many others, Allana needed food, and she went for one of her usual hangouts. 

It served a hearty meat pie with a big mug of juice. Perfect for a day where she used her head a little too much.

"I figured I'd see you here." Alka said and sat down without being invited on the seat opposite hers. 

"I didn't say you could sit there."

"I know." Alka ignored it. "How've you been?"

"Can't you tell? I have you coming to my office demanding his orders be expedited. What do you mean how I've been?"

"Aside from me being a painful twat, yes, I do genuinely want to know how you've been."

"Good. I like this job." Allana said earnestly. The waiter placed a meat pie in front of her, and walked away. 

"That's good." Alka smiled, and got up. "Alright, I'm not going to interrupt you and your dinner any more."

"Oh, now you can sit." Allana said, and ate a bite. 

"Oh?" Alka looked back at her, and then sat back down. "Any plans to go back to service?"

"Nope. I like it here. I get to build some real cool stuff. I saw some of your guys, the ones from Darkgard."

"Ah. Yes. I like them too. They have this penchant for big things. Every time I give them a project or a goal, they'll try to make the biggest, most outlandish thing possible, and then place it on top of their war machines or one of the colossal walkers. They remind me of you and your team, actually." 

Allana almost choked on her meat pie. "Hells. Is that your impression of me? I'm not always building big things!"

"Speaking of those big things, have you seen the Sun-Rings?" Alka asked. 

"I am surprised you didn't pry into my travel logs. Yes, I have. Very, very impressive stuff. I've been thinking about them a lot. The Steelforgers are working on a similar alloy blend. A group of my craftsmen were testing out some prototype tools and structures with that kind of base."

"Really? I didn't hear of it."

"There's thousands of ongoing projects and prototypes from all the large magic schools and factories, and the list changes every month. It's normal you didn't hear most of it. Hell, I don't even know what anyone outside this city is doing with magic research! I have my hands full just catching up with the Steelforgers, the Runic Enchanters here, and the Golem Workshops."

"So what else are you doing in this location? Surely not just containment cells for the demons."

"Let's see, we have the alloy-upgrades for the two beetle carriers and their beetle dropships. We have the golem-jumpsuit upgrades. There's also the Superspear project."

"Superspear?" Alka's eyebrows raised at the name. The waiter served food. It was likely not proper to talk about projects in public settings, but the entirety of North Tigashfall was almost majority Order employees and contractors. 

"Yeah. An attempt to build a superpowerful weapon for Hytreerion. A mounted cannon, but as powerful as we can get without using [star mana]."

"Didn't we do that already?" Alka answered, and Allana could remember at least four different earlier versions of the Superspear project. They went by their own names, of course. It was just easier to call them different things and much easier to get Central approval. 

"Well, yes. But it's always an ongoing upgrade to keep up with whatever we see." Allana clarified. "This round we're testing out a prototype fusing Darkgardian Sunsteel weaponry with additional focusing crystals. It should give us much higher power output and density." 

Much of what they said would also be hard to actually do. Anyone could say they could craft a sword, but doing it was a whole another matter. "I met Mundor. Fascinating fellow. Clearly loves big war machines. Spoke about you quite a bit."

"The Block Master?"

"Yes."

"Ah. I have a habit of calling him Block master, back when I infiltrated the Delvegardian Yards. What'd he share?"

"Juicy details about how you cheated everyone and how you pretended to be a junior craftsman in the Yards?"

Alka coughed. "My bad. I had to do it."

"Eh, I'm not laughing at you. I actually enjoyed the stories shared by your Block Master. It sounds fun, honestly. I'd love to try that whole spy thing." 

Alka squinted and stared at the [Magical Weaponcrafter]. "You cannot be serious."

"I'm not. It is fun to imagine though."

The domain holder relaxed. "I honestly cannot imagine you spying. You lack any of the subtlety required."

"Are you insulting me?" Allana finished her meat pie and now attacked her mug of juice. 

"Only if you take it negatively." Alka said. "To be fair, I had training for my infiltration on Delvegard. And a lot of support from the spymaster. They were guiding me and giving me tips every step of the way." 

"Well, that's the kind of support structure you have as a domain holder." Allana said. She was not surprised that domain holders had actual babysitters to get them through unusual tasks. "Are you here to gloat and brag about them?"

"Not at all. Just wondering whether you've got any secret project going on." Alka pressed.

"Have you heard of the 'Wonder' Megaproject? It's something that Archmage Colette suggested."

"Wonder?"

"Yes. Apparently the heroes claimed that their world had this connotation of the Wonders. Seven Wonders and stuff like that. Things that cemented their builders, designers and creators as the greats of their age." 

"I heard of that, but not of the megaproject."

"Well, amongst us level 140 plus crafters and builders, there's talk of doing some of these megaprojects. Even if they didn't contribute to the war effort, we thought a Wonder that symbolized our industrial strength, or our magical development, or our technical achievement would be a great way to focus our intention."

"Why not build something like the Sun-Rings?"

"That's a god level project and far more than we can chew. But a Wonder, an object of great beauty and awe, sounds far, far more achievable for us."

"Have you started on anything?"

"Not yet. It's on the drawing board. Literally."

"Tell me if you need some support." Alka added. "Or funding."

"Oh yes. If there's funding, that would help. Because it's not a direct war contribution, funding from Central is fairly limited, and my coffers, while sizable, are not at the level where I can fund a Wonder by myself."

Alka thought for a moment and seemed to mull the question for a bit. "Is this serious?"

Allana nodded. "Yes. I lack subtlety, remember." 

The domainholder laughed. "Fair fair. I will see what I can pull in." 

"Great!"

Spaizzer

Anyway, my book launch for book 7 went terribly. I'm ranked in the 5 digits (20-30k), instead of the high triple digits like I used to. So, if anyone has a kindle subscription, or got some spare change, would really appreciate adding my book 7 to your library. 

You can find it here. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DH7ZYLRZ