Rothester

A bit over a week has passed since the banquet, which is a success for both Ken and Ardai. Since then, he has been busier than any other time in his life. Every hour of every day, he works with various craftsmen, blacksmiths, and miners to convince them to innovate their industry.

The problem that Ken identified in Scorcia is that it is not industrialized even though the technology exists in some form or another. Spending time in the marketplace at the plaza led Ken to see iron, steel, silver, and other metals being sold as silverware, tools, toys, and other items. Clearly, the technology to produce them in large quantities exists, but he hasn’t yet seen the infrastructure in Efielge to do so. The Stonegate District outside the city walls on the north side is the closest to an industrial district as Ken has seen, but the most advanced technology he has seen is a handful of primitive blast furnaces. He has also noticed that most independent blacksmiths produce their iron through their own homemade bloomeries. Steel production is essentially non-existent, and upon questioning merchants, Ken has learned that nearly all steel and most subsequent products are imported from the Venesian Empire. Even worse, when Ken visited some of the blast furnaces, the owners told him they were lent or bought from the Venesians.

To further give himself prestige, Ken has to produce something for sponsors and backers to continue supporting him. Otherwise, the banquet was a waste. Ardai’s first product will be a new luxury coach that he will sell to the wealthy upper class, and that is his focus for the first week. After being rejected by many blacksmiths and carpenters, Ken met a craftsman named Edgar, who reluctantly agreed to build Ken's prototype. The only reason Edgar agreed is that Ken offered to pay for the materials and pay Edgar a good chunk of money to make it.

Since then, the prototype is nearing completion, but today, Ken’s focus is on another subject. To put it simply, the prototype is expensive, and Ken projects that units to be sold would be too costly to produce in any significant number. The new Ardai A1 Coach heavily relies on steel parts. Thus, Ken is forced to buy overpriced imported Venesian steel.

When he first arrived, Ken was perplexed at how iron could even be produced without coke as temperatures achieved without it couldn’t be high enough to melt iron ore into molten iron. However, Ken learned that the blast furnaces used burns regular charcoal with magic crystals to boost the temperature, bypassing the need for coke. For Ken, this is too inefficient because it requires the stone to be actively used by a person to maintain the high temperature. Because of this, Ken’s first change in the iron industry is to introduce coke ovens to increase iron production.

Today, Ken is visiting the Stonegate District. He had commissioned the construction of these ovens and other furnaces on property owned by an acquaintance he met at the banquet. Unfortunately, the sky is cloudy and looks as if it would rain, and the temperature decreased a bit.

When he arrived, the man is already there. Knox Brookse is a businessman who dealt in producing iron, who graciously agreed to work with Ken to test new metallurgy techniques and technologies.

“Mister Brookse!” Ken shouts.

“Greetings, Mister Kai. Welcome back. Good timing as well,” Knox replies.

“How’s construction going?”

“The coke ovens have been producing the coke you mentioned, and I must say they burn magnificently. Better and cheaper than the magic crystals. I am impressed. Your redesigned blast furnace is also being constructed. However, I wanted to ask and question some aspects of its design…”

“Oh? What of it?” Ken asks.

“Well, if anything, it looks like it will be more efficient at melting the iron ore into molten iron, assuming it works because I’m not entirely sure how it will work. I’m aware that it will need air to burn hot, but isn’t the entrance too small? It will be difficult for anyone to blow enough air in there for extended periods of time. The crystal might be able to blow enough air through the small opening but only for short intervals.”

“Ah yes… Well, to tell you the truth, there is another component that is missing.” In his hands, Ken is holding a folder with a few drawings and opens it to one specific blueprint and shows it to Knox. “This is a steam engine. It will have a wide variety of variations and uses in the future, but for the blast furnace, its job will be to continuously spin a fan that will inject more air than any magic crystal. I’ve already commissioned the parts to be made by a few blacksmiths, but it will take some time to complete because of its complexity. One should be powerful enough to sustain multiple blast furnaces, so I wanted to ask if you’d be fine with a few more blast furnaces?”

“You know, I’m taking a great risk in investing in these things. So far, the coke is just as you have said. I’m hoping your blast furnaces also hold up to your promise,” Knox says as he looks at Ken with expectation.

Just then, Ken flips pages to another design. A drawing of a strange egg-shaped metallic structure.

“By the way, I wanted to show you this. This is called a Bessemer converter. We’ve not yet begun building any. We’re still perfecting the design. Anyways, I’m sure you know how difficult it is to produce steel. This converter will be able to reduce the carbon percentage of cast iron to make wrought iron in larger quantities than fining. Pretty nice, huh? Coincidentally, it’s also an excellent method of producing steel in massive quantities for cheap. What do you think?” Ken says with a convincing smile.

Knox takes a long hard look at the drawing. He’s certainly never seen it before and isn’t sure how it works by looking at it—ignoring the feasibility of cheap steel, Knox’s mind drifts to Ken. So far, his ideas and designs have been unorthodox and unknown. The coke is new; no one ever really bothered to invent something that would do what could already be accomplished with magic. And even though he hasn’t seen any drawing of the steam engine or even knows what it is or does, he suspects that it would be some other magicless invention. To claim that Ardai has invented a new method of steel production is beginning to become intriguing and worrisome.

“Hey Knox, you still there?” Ken interrupts Knox’s thoughts.

“Yes, yeah, I’m fine. I just fell into thought.”

“I hope those thoughts are of how amazing these things would be, right?” Ken chuckles.

In a slightly more serious tone, Knox turns to Ken. “Just to make sure. You have not any connections to the Venetians, have you?”

“No, no, I don’t. Why? Is something wrong?” Ken asks.

“Perhaps there’s nothing wrong, just slightly concerning. The Venesians and other Great Powers are known to produce a lot of steel, but they’ve always been protective of their production methods.”

“Okay… and this is concerning?” Ken says, not yet understanding.

“I had heard rumors of some people trying to come up with new production methods, but they eventually gave up. Not because they couldn’t succeed, but because the Venesians supposedly interfered. I had heard of new forges and steel mills being built in the capital only to be bought out and destroyed. I worry that if this ‘Bessemer converter’ is as you say, it will attract the Venesians, specifically the STC. And I much rather not get on their bad side.”

Ken is now starting to get irritated after hearing of the Venesians and the STC. He knows that Scorcia is a vassal, but it seems that every conversation eventually includes the Venesians. It irritates him even more, remembering how condescending the two STC representatives he met are.

“All right, look.” Ken sighs. “I need the steel, and I want to avoid buying imported steel because it’s too expensive. I don’t care who makes it or who owns it. I just need the steel these converters produce. It doesn’t have to be you. I can just as easily go to someone else who will gladly have them. If it makes you feel any better, if the STC decides to come sniffing around, direct them to me, and I’ll deal with them. Deal?” Ken holds out his hand.

Knox thinks for a few seconds before shaking Ken’s hand. “Fine. I’ll look into this converter and get a few prototypes built for testing. I hope these are worth the trouble.”

“They will be, have faith.”

After their meeting, Ken walks away and leaves with a troubled mind. The Venesians are troublesome indeed. If they are industrialized, he will need to report his findings to the EIA. Not only that, but they seem to be very controlling over heavy industry. If they are industrialized, everyone else should be as well. The fact that Scorcia hasn’t yet industrialized indicates that the so-called ‘Great Powers’ are preventing the rest from advancing. Regardless, this doesn’t change his objective, as the results should be the same.

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Hours later, Ken makes his way through the city, reaching the southern gate. His next visit is the southern district outside the city walls, much like the Stonegate district. The difference is that most people seem to choose and pretend that it doesn’t exist. Arriving at the gate, two armed guards stand at both sides. Above the large archway is a sign that reads ‘Egwater District’.

Before Ken could enter, the guard stops Ken from entering. “Apologies, sir, but we can not allow you to enter Egwater.”

“Why not?”

“Egwater is dangerous, nowhere near as safe as within the city walls, and we can’t spare any guards to be there.”

Ken sighs. “I get it. It’s a ghetto. But I’ll be fine. Can you let me through?”

“No. We can not,” says the guard without emotion.

Not wanting to waste more time or argue, Ken simply takes out a few shillings and offers them to the guard. “How about now?”

The guard simply smirks and takes the coins. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I suggest you look over your shoulder every few seconds or so.”

“Thanks,” Ken says as the guard lets him through.

Five steps in and Ken is slapped in the face with a wave of depression. As far as he had heard, Egwater is a slum. It is the slums, the shantytown as far as he is concerned, except the buildings are no shacks or huts. It is as if downtown Efielge was forgotten and left to rot for decades for the lowest of peasants to overrun. 

As he looks around, he is disgusted by what he sees. Ignoring the fact that the rundown wooden and brick structures lack color and look like they would collapse at any time, the denizens themselves are worryingly deprived of major characteristics that paint healthy individuals. Every person Ken could see is at the bottom of society. Some are starving, and some are dying. All are dirty, wearing ripped, torn, and worn tunics, shirts, or rags, and Ken could almost smell them from a distance. Most are barefoot; only occasionally did Ken see some wearing old moccasins. As Ken walks deeper into the district, the scene becomes grimmer. He starts noticing that there are people who walk around without aim. Countless vagabonds seem to be simply waiting for death to descend and take them to the afterlife. Even worse, he sees children among them. Some run around playing with each other trying to make light of their dire situations.

Despite showing no signs of fear or apprehension, Ken took the guard’s advice seriously and constantly moves his eyes around, scanning for threats. The reason why he had gone to Egwater is for the abundance of desperate people. Simply put, he wants to hire workers. Ken intends to industrialize Scorcia, and the work that needs to be done would be simple enough for unskilled workers to repeat over and over with ease and efficiency. Eventually, Ken wants to create production lines.

For the most part, the Casiem already had employees. Finding literate and capable people for management and finances is difficult by itself, but Ken was able to attract a few educated people by offering higher pay than anyone else.

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At this point, Ken has been walking around for a while already. Time goes fast as he walks through the district, going from door to door and pitching his job offers. Some think Ken’s job offers are too good to be true. Others believe it is blatantly a scam; others are desperate enough to take the job, much to his relief. As the day progresses, the barely visible sun is setting, and Ken is making his last visits to the remaining houses. It starts drizzling almost as if on queue, and Ken can feel the air becoming more humid.

Throughout the entire time, he feels like he is being watched. He even confirms it a few times when he spots shady individuals following or staring at him from afar, with some attempting to hide their presence. However, Ken ignores them as they don’t pose a threat, so long as they don’t try anything, neither would Ken.

Finishing his recruitment visits, Ken is heading towards the gate a few minutes away. Still, on guard, Ken is glad that he is done here and is happy to return to the comfort of his home. As he walks, he begins hearing an ever more noticeable commotion that few people seem not to notice or care about. It is coming from further down the street. Eventually, as he gets closer, he sees the commotion coming from an alley between two brick buildings. He hears a group of men talking rather disgusting things about some woman, but strangely he doesn’t hear any feminine voice. Perhaps they are just talking amongst themselves?

Reaching the alley, he takes a peek around the corner. He is wrong; there is definitely a woman whom they are talking to. She is confronted by three guys whom all look like random street thugs and have their backs facing Ken. The one in the middle holding a knife aims it at her.

The woman wears a coarse dress and skirt, which strangely complements her figure better than the other peasant women in the district. Covering it all is a cloak in which she has the hood over her head. To his confusion, though the woman seems to show concern, she doesn’t look terrified. Instead, she seems calm.

“Hey! Did you hear me?!” yells one of the thugs.

“I think she just wants us to drag her out,” laughs another.

“She must be too excited to move, eh? Maybe she wants to get down to business right here? What do you say?” says the man with the knife.

“How about you pull that hood down and show us your pretty face? Wouldn’t want it to go to waste now, would we?” says another with a creepy smile.

The woman then slowly pulls her hood down to reveal her brown hair and pretty face covered with dirt and smudges.

“Oh-ho! Looks like we bagged a good one, boys!”

As disgusted as Ken is, he recognizes that this isn’t particularly his problem. He almost wants just to walk away and forget about it. After all, this is likely a common occurrence. Saving one isn’t going to save them all, and he has other things to do. But for some reason, he keeps watching. He isn’t sure why he keeps watching the encounter, but then he realizes the woman is hardly reacting at all. He has yet to hear her speak or move. She simply looks around the alley and at the three men. Almost as if looking for something or waiting for something. Then Ken has a realization, one he isn’t sure is true. The concern and small amount of fear that she expresses seem to be held back. Or rather, it may be forced. In a way, it doesn’t look genuine. In other words, she is acting. But Ken can’t be sure of that, nor can he be sure that she isn’t just acting brave to conceal herself.

“You should be flattered we came to you. I only have my eyes on the most beautiful wenches. If you don’t believe me, how about we take a closer look?”

The three thugs laugh and chuckle amongst themselves as one of the men moves forward to grab the woman’s arm. The woman tries to step back but is forcefully held in place.

At this moment, Ken can’t bring himself to leave. This isn’t right, and so he decides to intervene. He steps out into the open from around the corner and yells at the assailants.

“Oi! Yo!”

The three thugs then turn around towards the source of the sudden interruption.

“By any chance, have any of you seen someone walk by here with a busted face as if his cheeks were cracked by an iron rod?”

Confused at the question, the thugs are silent and look at each other as if urging each other to respond.

“You know what else can crack your cheeks?” Ken asks with a straight face.

Looking back to Ken, none of the thugs know or understand what Ken is talking about or referring to.

“What?” asks a thug in confusion, not sure what Ken even said to begin with.

“These nutsacks.”

Ken has his hand near his crotch and almost immediately wants to laugh but holds it in. It is a joke he isn’t even sure they would fall for but is amusing nonetheless. At the very least, his distraction saves the girl from being molested or raped.

The thugs, on the other hand, don’t understand the joke as they look at each other once more before looking back at Ken. The woman also doesn’t understand what is happening and looks at Ken, trying to figure out what he is doing.

One of the men slowly steps forward to confront Ken. He is an older man with a dirty black beard and a scar on his forehead above one of his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t bathed in weeks or even months.

“Kid. You don’t belong here. You best leave now before you regret it,” he threatens in a low and raspy voice.

As he gets closer, a pungent stench reaches Ken’s nose, and he gags slightly with a revolted facial expression.

“God, you’re fucking ugly. Do your parents happen to be siblings?”

Ken’s sudden insult causes the man to contort his face in irritation.

“What? Are you insulting me?” the thug says, closing his fist.

“No idiot, I’m describing you.”

The thug suddenly grabs Ken’s shirt and pulls him close to his face. The thug, now angry, nearly has a vein pop out. One of the other thugs also walks towards them while the one with a knife remaining with the woman.

“Who the hell do you think you are?! Are you trying to die?!”

Out of surprise, Ken put his hands on the thug’s arm that had grabbed his shirt. “Hey. Wanna see a magic trick? You know that guy with a busted face I talked about earlier? I can make him instantly appear before your very eyes.”

Having enough of Ken’s jokes, the man angrily throws Ken at the wall like a ragdoll. Ken’s back hits the wall and falls on the floor face down.

“Just kill the kid. Doesn’t matter who looks for him. No one will know what happened,” Ken hears one of the men say.

“Now you’ve gone and pissed me off, kid. You’re going to wish you are never born.”

Ken picks himself up, a little fazed from being thrown. Reaching behind his back under his coat, Ken takes out a knife. Skillfully spinning the knife in his hand, Ken taunts the man.

“Let’s play.”

Taking out a dagger of his own, the man lunges at Ken. Ken easily dodges the attack and swiftly punches the man in the face causing him the stagger back. Quickly, the man tries to slash Ken with the knife repeatedly, but Ken backs up enough for the blade to barely miss each time. After one missed slash, Ken attacks with an outside leg kick and kicks the man’s leg out from under him, causing him to fall on his back while growling.

“Come on! He’s just a kid! Quit fooling around and kill him already!” yells the other man.

“Shut up!”

Before the man can fully stand up, Ken slashes the man’s shoulder, leaving a wide-open wound and causing him to yell in pain. As the man swings his arm around, hoping to strike Ken, his arm is caught by Ken, who then repeatedly jabs his exposed ribs with his knife.

The man collapses and yells in pain as he puts his hands over his wounds which bleeds out profusely.

“You bastard! You’re dead!”

The other thug comes to aid his friend and tries to attack Ken as well. Before he got close enough, Ken quickly throws the knife at the thug, which strikes him in his chest. Fazed, he jerks back a bit to grab hold of the blade with his hand while groaning. Taking the distraction as an opportunity, Ken swings his leg up and kicks the man in his face making him fall.

Seeing his companions being beaten, the last guy pushes the woman down to the floor and takes out a magic crystal from under his tunic, and clutches it tightly.

“You forced me to use this brat!”

The thug holds up his hand, and something strange begins to happen above his palm while the stone emits a glow in his other. The light drops of water that fall seem to hit an invisible barrier or sphere around his palm and begin to look distorted within it as if he is holding a glass ball with no outline.

Ken hasn’t directly seen people use magic himself, and so this is a first. It is almost hypnotic to look at a phenomenon that should not be possible, and he can only stare. Seeing no other reaction besides wide eyes and an open mouth from Ken, the thug smiles with bloodlust. The thug then cocks back his hand and throws the strange sphere of distorted air at Ken. With a quick reaction, Ken jumps and rolls away.

Upon leaving the palm, the ball of distorted air burst into bright yellow, orange flames and seems to ignite the air around the sphere. When the ball of fire smashes into the brick wall behind where Ken once stood milliseconds before, a giant fireball explodes, spreads, and lights up the alley with a momentary burst of blinding light. Their ears are pierced with a loud pop, and Ken feels as if the air he breathed was sucked out of his lungs. For a brief moment, Ken can’t breathe; the air he inhales does nothing as if oxygen doesn’t exist.

Ken quickly regains his senses and immediately recognizes the great danger the thug poses with a magic crystal. He reaches inside his trench coat to grab hold of his gun held in its shoulder holster. What he took out is a Glock 19 with a suppressor. It is already loaded for just this sort of situation. He aims and pulls the trigger without wasting a moment. All this within seconds of dodging the magic attack. Loud pops are heard throughout the alley once more, with a splatter of blood shooting behind the thug. He has shot twice in the chest.

The thug doesn’t know what happened; his eyes open wide as he takes a few steps back. He feels weak, and his legs are trembling, and he feels like he also can’t breathe. With shocked eyes, he stares at Ken and his strange weapon that produced the odd pops. As he begins to lose vision, the man collapses on his back. All he can think is what the hell just happened as his mind drifts off into the void.

With his heart racing and breathing heavily, Ken stands up from the ground and slowly walks over to the now dead man while continuing to aim his gun at the corpse. Realizing what just happened, Ken’s attention turns to the other thugs. The one he kicked in the face lays dead near where the explosion occurred. His clothes are severely burned, and his face is now disfigured. The wall where the attack impacted is scorched, and massive cracks have formed on the bricks that made up the wall. No way did he kill him; it was his friend who launched the magic attack. Turning his head at the other man he stabbed in the ribs, he lays on the ground, but he isn’t burnt. He is bleeding, but Ken doesn’t know if he is unconscious and alive or genuinely dead. Just to make sure, Ken walks over and fires his gun once more at the thug’s head.

The fight is over, but it escalated far beyond what Ken had expected. Then something strikes his mind; the woman is still there. He turns around to see the woman still on the floor staring at him with a shocked and fearful expression. Instinctively, Ken hides his hand with his gun behind his back as he walks to the woman. The woman panics and starts to crawl backward before Ken stops and extends his other hand at the woman.

“Are you all right?” Ken says in a low voice.

The woman doesn’t respond and simply looks between Ken’s eyes and his hand.

“I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you. Trust me.”

A few seconds of contemplation pass before the woman raises her hand at Ken with hesitation. Ken grabs hold of her hand and pulls her up to her feet. She is scared, and when she stands on her own feet, she takes a step back from Ken.

“Who are you…” she says.

Before Ken can answer, he hears footsteps behind him.

“You there! Step away from her!”

“Ross! Are you all right?!”

Ken turns around to notice two more men have come and blocked the exit to the valley. But that is the least of his worries. To his shock, the two men point two objects at him, which Ken recognized: flintlock pistols. Out of instinct, Ken raises his own gun and points it at them. In the blink of an eye, the situation escalates even further into a standoff.

“Shit…”