04:00 a.m. - At Forge by the Rope-walk, Dawnspire.
The shop was quiet. The lamps burned low, their glass smoked a little from a night of constant oiling. Everyone had the day off for the holiday—the yard gates padlocked, the inns full of laughter and ale—but Ryan had stayed. He liked this hour best: the clink and patient geometry of brass and iron, the way the machines spoke in small, honest murmurs when no one else was listening.
The dynamo sat half covered under a stretched canvas, like a sleeping animal. He eased the canvas back, hands already stained with grease, and set a cloth-wrapped brush into the holder. He tightened the spring clamp with a firm finger, checked the coil windings for a stray wrap, and let the flywheel spin by hand. The token scrape of bearings, the slow sweet whirr as the rotor found balance—those notes told him more than any ledger. The pump took the first tentative turns and drew water a touch faster with each pass. The cams needed mass—fatter lobes to carry the stroke—and the ratchet would have to be detoothed and hardened; still, the basic motion was true and honest.
(Ryan thinking): (Early experiments show the idea. Papin's pot turned heat into pressure and a lift; it taught me that steam is force, not only spectacle. Newcomen's cold‑water trick made a vacuum and let the outside air do the work—the atmospheric engine taught restraint: let the world push when it wants to. Put the two lessons together, add cams timed to the line‑shaft, and one engine can lift, set, and stamp in a single revolution. Automate the rhythm and you cut hands from the line, cut mistakes from haste. Fewer bodies hauling, more time for inspection. It's not magic; it's choreography—one honest motion replacing a dozen sloppy ones.)
He heard boots on the threshold before the ledger under the arm came into sight. Aidan arrived at first light, ledger like a rulebook tucked under his elbow, sunlight catching the neat crease where columns met totals. He moved like someone who measured time by checklists; his presence tightened the air into work.
Aidan (enters, measured): "Show me."
Ryan wiped oil on his sleeve and closed a palm around his wrench, answering without ceremony.
Ryan (wiping hands, plain): "One more run. Then I will walk."
Aidan blinked once, quick and assessing.
Aidan (short): "Elric—did you sleep?"
Ryan let a small smile crease his face—habit, habit of old names and older comforts—and said plainly.
Ryan (small smile, plain): "Not much. The metal was warm."
Aidan crossed the floor with the economy of someone who knew every loose floorboard and where they tended to catch a coil. He read the rig the way a master looks at a child's homework—fast, precise. He read the chalked notes tacked to the bench: stroke measurements, cam profiles, a crude timing diagram. He opened Ryan's notebook, skimmed the list of adjustments, and the ledger's margin bore a neat scrawl—labor requisitions, costings, shift swaps—everything Aidan needed to know whether the idea fit the day's books.
He nodded once, the nod of a big brother who had caught a younger man learning to shoulder responsibility.
Aidan (decisive): "Good hands. We run this at first bell."
(Ryan thinking): (Safe from fatigue holds. I can push hours. That is dangerous and useful. With the Mandate, my body's limits blur—more minutes, more runs. That means faster iteration, which risks fast mistakes if I don't force checklists into the machine. Aidan sees I am serious. He trusts the math when the parts hold; he trusts the ledger when the numbers close. That trust is currency here.)
The dynamo whispered at the brushes, a clear, steady note. A stray compass needle on the bench leaned toward the ironwork as if paid rent in magnetism. Ryan spun the flywheel another turn; the cams caught with a softer thud now that he had ground the lobes a fraction fuller.
Water filled the barrel faster. He watched the pump's plunger descend and rise, watched the ratchet click its new tempo. Two cams changed and the pump's fill rate rose enough that, by his calculations, they could remove two men from the stamping line and redeploy them to quality checks and tagging. The idea pleased him in a slow, practical way: fewer cuts from rushed work, fewer spoiled labels, steadier pay for the hands left on the line because output would be predictable.
He let himself think in inventory: brass bushings to fit the new cam bearings, thicker ratchet teeth tempered to spring steel, a spare arm for the governor, a dozen stamped safety tags and two sets of clearance plates. Small things that made a machine reliable. He made a list—one hundred items of small fixes and parts to order—penciled in the margins the priorities, the suppliers, and the approximate lead times. He folded the notebook closed with a clean, methodical crease and slid it into his satchel with the order pad and that stamped list pad he never let out of reach.
Aidan watched him fold, then gave that small approving grunt people reserve for work that will outlive the maker.
Aidan (to workers—half joke, half sermon): "Shift two, eyes on the press. If a jar chips, stop the line. We fix it then we move."
Ryan heard the practical commands before the words left Aidan's mouth and felt the architecture of the solution settle between them: engine, cams, line‑shaft, people moved from brute force to inspection. He thought of the men who would keep their hands steady and the women who would check tags by candlelight, and of paydays that didn't wobble on rumor. The holiday outside the gate would be fine; inside the shop, work would be honest.
He rolled his shoulders, smelling warm oil and the faint citrus of the lamp fuel. The dynamo's whisper was steady enough that he could almost hum along. He set the wrench down, pocketed his pencil, and looked to Aidan. The ledger man's eyes were already counting rotations, balances, labor shifts.
Aidan (calming): "We run checks and we do them again. Breathe. We fix, then we ship."
Ryan nodded once, eyes on the flywheel, mind already running the sequences for the next prototype. The shop would wake with the first bell, the men would take their posts, and one honest, well‑timed motion would keep more of them in work and out of worry. He liked that. He trusted the math. He trusted Aidan's ledger. He trusted the metal when it was warm.
09:00 a.m. - At Market Square, Dawnspire.
The sky was a clear blue when Ryan left the forge—thin cold light, the city's chimneys breathing steam into morning air. He had planned to walk the lanes, think over cams and ratchets, and let the holiday slow his mind. The market was full of small noises: a cart wheel loose, haggling voices, the clink of coins. He opened his notebook on a bench and read the lists again. One hundred things to do in another world.
(Ryan thinking): (Safe from fatigue holds. I can push hours. But the head needs a break. Lists keep me honest. Build steady. Free two hands from the press.)
He closed the book and watched people move. A little sister with ink on her sleeve ran past, followed by a little brother with a red scarf. A man carried bread in both hands, a woman steadied a child. The city was ordinary and solid, full of small lives that did not know about dynamos or cams. That made his chest ache.
(Ryan thinking): (I left Frosthaven and the dungeon. Gin, Barden, Lyss—gone. I have not seen Sera. Safe from spotlight makes a name fade. If I say Ryan, the city will forget tomorrow. I can only be Elric for now. I can only keep work honest.)
He folded the notebook, felt the weight of his mother's words like a stone in his chest.
(Ryan thinking): (My mother wants a grandchild. I might fail her in both worlds. I push forward anyway. Build the line. Make life safer. That is the answer, maybe.)
The market's laughter wrapped around him.
(He sighed.) "I want a waifu…"
Several heads turned. A fruit seller blinked.
Ryan froze, realizing he'd said it out loud.
He cleared his throat. "—uh, I mean… a wife. Definitely wife."
He rose and started to walk toward the east lane, thinking of Papin's pot and Newcomen's cylinder as if they were old friends. The market's laughter wrapped around him. He walked without hurry. Then, near the fountain, a bell far off in the Temple Quarter struck three soft peals. The sound was a clear cut over the city.
Somewhere near the cathedral, a new motion began: a string of priests moved quickly, carrying dark red banners. A runner pushed through the square, breathless and pale. People paused. The air felt thinner for a moment.
(Ryan thinking): (Something is wrong. Bells shouldn't move like that for a market day. Keep small. Watch.)
A woman at the spice stall looked up and spat on the ground. Her hands trembled. A guard in white stepped forward and looked toward the high street. Voices rose. From the cathedral balcony, a figure moved—tall, draped in dark crimson under robes. He raised his hands, and the crowd quieted a fraction.
Pope Thaddeus stood at the center of the temple steps, a slow smile on his face. He had planned the morning with precise hands. The plan had many parts: rumors of poison, a staged accusation, and now—when the light bent to his favor—an act that would crack how the city trusted itself. He liked the look of power when the public needed an answer.
Pope Thaddeus (steps forward, measured, loud): "People of Dawnspire—hear me. A danger moves at our gates. The gods demand we stand together."
Then he lifted his voice like a loom, and something in his tone made the air feel tighter.
!(Pope Thaddeus): "Trust the Temple. Give us your names, your gates, your fear—let the Church hold you safe!"
Some in the crowd cheered on instinct, others frowned and edged away. Thaddeus kept speaking, syrup-thick and careful. His words were bait: offer fear, then the Temple would hand out protection and control. He did not yet know if every part would do what he intended. He had set the stage—ritual men under cover of night in a side chapel, a phrase in an old script he barely believed in—but the world had a strange appetite for the old gods' answers.
At the fringe of the crowd, a child clutched his mother's skirt and stared at Thaddeus. The bell in the cathedral throat thudded again—longer, as if someone had struck a drum with a flat palm. The light above the market shifted. At first Ryan thought it was cloud, then he saw the color change. Blue slid to a deep, bruised red.
(Ryan thinking): (The sky—red? That is not right. Safe from the red moon… I chose that. Keep calm. Watch the city.)
The red spread like spilled wine across the sky. It was not a warm sunset—no gold, no soft edges. It was raw and angry, the whole dome of air turning a deeper blood tone in seconds. The market's color bled as well, even the white of flags went pink, then crimson.
People murmured and then panicked. A dog started to howl, high and thin. Someone shouted a prayer, another voice swore. In a stall nearby, a man coughing thickened as his face went grey. The man's pupils shrank and then widened with a bright red flash. His jaw moved in a clumsy, sudden way.
He was the first to change.
The man's skin pulled tight. Veins blackened like root lines. His mouth opened, and teeth sharpened into points. His eyes shone with a hungry red light. The sound he made was not quite a voice—more a wet rasp. He lurched forward and his hand grabbed the vendor beside him.
The vendor did not turn to flee. His eyes glowed, the color of life bled from him and left a hollow, twitching shell. A thin red mist hung where the two had touched.
Around the square, other people fell in the same slow horror. A hawker's face went slack and then angry. A pair of city boys laughing near the fountain suddenly snarled and lunged at each other. The transformation spread like a stain.
(Ryan thinking): (Vampires? The Red Moon—this is the Red Moon. I have Safe from the Red Moon. That should protect me. But what are they—zombies, vampires, both? Keep distance. Do not touch. Elric—do not be a show.)
The changed men moved with a terrible hunger. They did not think like men anymore. Their jaws worked, their fingers found flesh. Panic broke out in the square: people shoved past stalls, carts overturned, fruit rolled like heads. The sound was a chaotic drum of coughing, screaming, and the scrape of boots on stone.
One of the newly changed stumbled into Ryan. For half a breath, Ryan thought the creature would pass by—then its hand closed on his sleeve. The touch was hot and sticky, like someone dipping fingers in boiling jam. It gripped his forearm with a pressure that was more animal than human.
For a single, stunned second Ryan felt nothing—no cold, no paralyzing pain. The man's hand tightened, and then his body reacted. It convulsed upward along the arm as if struck by lightning. Flesh smoked where skin pushed against skin. The man's face twisted with a sound like a broken bell.
His chest ruptured with a wet, terrible sound. Black blood and hot ash sprayed out and the man's body burst in a spray of dark gore and torn cloth. The force knocked Ryan back a pace. The creature's head and shoulders were lifted by the blast and then fell apart, a ragged heap. A smell like burnt meat and damp iron flooded the square.
People screamed not just at the sight but because their hands—if a changed one touched them—might do the same. The woman beside Ryan stumbled and looked like she might faint. Ryan could feel blood on his sleeve and the shock of the exploded flesh. He wiped his hand on his leg like a simple motion, absurd in its normalcy.
(Ryan thinking): (They explode on touch. My Safe from the Red Moon does not just stop them—it makes them burn. If one of them touches me, they blow. Holy—this is worse than a plague or a riot. This is an apocalypse in a market square.)
A ripple of behavior rose from the crowd. The new vampires did not all die on contact. Some had not reached Ryan. They tore into others, and where they touched, the victims began to change, then convulse and blow in turn. The blast was not clean. It sent chunks of flesh and splinters of wood and a rain of black ash across booths and faces. The smell was sharp and constant. People staggered and vomited. Children screamed.