10:20 a.m. - At Technologia Company, Dawnspire.
The workshop smelled of hot iron and wet ash. Soot dulled the benches and chalk lines. Outside, the city coughed and kept moving, inside, the engine they had locked the day before ticked like a cooling heart. Ryan—Elric to those who would remember—stood with sleeves rolled, bright jacket greyed by work. The yard gate was open a hand's width. People drifted past—thin, hungry, stubborn.
(Ryan thinking): (I want to try to build a shelter before people all freeze to death. This city doesn't need to be the greatest—only better for the people who live in it.)
Aidan stepped onto a crate with the ease of a man who knew which floorboard bit. Ledger under his arm, hair neat, eyes exact.
Aidan (reports): "Crossbows hold at prototype five. Pens ship by noon. Burnt sleeves—two—replaced. The king's writ stands: two hundred crossbows a day once scale begins."
He weighed Ryan a moment—with pressure—then nodded at the slate.
Aidan (brief): "You proposed the build. You lead it. Tell me what you need and how long. I'll clear the road and guard your flanks."
Ryan turned the slate so all could see, voice steady.
Ryan: "We use lime mortar strengthened by powdered fired clay and crushed brick. Think of it as giving the lime 'teeth' so it hardens even if it gets wet."
Bromar Ironbeard came closer, beard rings clicking like small bells, eyes narrowing as if chalk might lie.
Bromar (skeptical, thawing): "You'd powder good tile? Waste it if the mix fails."
Ryan: "We don't trust a single block. We trust a pattern. We will make small blocks, keep them damp, and test them the same way each time—drop the same hammer from the same height and compare. Then crush under a screw press. If ten behave alike, we move."
Ressa, compact and precise, sleeves pinned, yard‑rule at her belt, lifted a hand—careful, skeptical.
Ressa: "Plain words. What is this powder to you? And why not wait for 'real' stone?"
Ryan: "Plain words: brick dust wakes the lime. It lets our mortar harden even near water. Stone is slow and dear, winter is faster. We build with what the city has."
She didn't write yet. "And if rain erodes?"
Ryan tapped a small sketch. "We test it in water on purpose. Seven days damp, better twenty‑eight. If it grows stronger, not softer, it stays. If it slumps, we change the recipe."
Aidan listened, then kept to his lane.
Aidan: "Budget and hands?"
Ryan: "Planning crews only—no production today. Twelve for mix and molds. Four for safety and gloves. Six on kiln sketching—paper only. Two on routes and weights. Borrow in slices: never more than three from crossbows at a time, rotating. No one from pens or final inspection this week."
Aidan: "You have them. Seven days to a first load‑holding wall sample and a working prototype that passes safety. Put the milestones on my desk by noon. I'll keep the guilds off you."
He stepped down and moved into the yard's edge, already waving a messenger over—present, but not at Ryan's elbow.
Tobyn, broad‑shouldered and patient, leaned on a bench.
Tobyn: "Water first, lad. Fire shouts, bad water buries quiet. What's the plan we can build without burying anyone?"
Ryan drew a street corner and a square in it. "Cisterns at corners—four cubits deep. Lined with our 'teeth‑lime.' Roof water comes in through leaf traps. Overflows go to a different drain. Clean run‑off one way, foul water another."
A labourer raised a hand, frowning. "We've always let rain find its own road."
Ryan: "Rain will find a road. We choose which road so it doesn't carry shit into your stew. Gravity from the eastern rise feeds a public tap near the market."
Ressa again, more pointed. "Who digs. Who measures the slope. And how do you keep wet clay from eating a man?"
Ryan gestured to Tobyn. "He builds the sighting frame and the line levels—today. You write the trench rule: anything one cubit deep or more gets shored. No heroics. We teach the frame once, then the frame teaches the crew."
Ressa considered that—work she could own that didn't ask her to lift a wall. She nodded, finally writing.
Ressa: "Stockyard and scales first, so no cart 'grows' an extra basket between gate and yard. Two days to mark and weigh. Then three days to agree on the mix and the molds—repeatable."
Ryan: "Good. Timelines clear: three days for mix and mold standardisation, nine days to raise and season a small updraft test kiln and fire first tiles if the weather holds, twelve days to pour and line the first cistern, thirty days to finish the first four‑corner network with outflows. Seventeen days from today to a load‑holding wall sample and a self‑exciting DC prototype that can charge a small bank safely."
A young worker squinted at the drawing. "And those little tunnels in the wall?"
Ryan: "Service runs. Honest name. Empty paths for pulling a twine later to fix a thing without breaking the wall. Brass plates over the ends. Neat. Labeled."
Bromar grunted, somewhere between scorn and respect.
Bromar: "If it saves a man cracking fresh stone because you forgot the gods know what… aye."
A porter lifted a hand. "Slip?"
Ressa, without looking up, handed him a form. "Two‑person sign on any mix leaving the table. Porter's mark. If a cart floats more than two days unpaid, I escalate."
Aidan, now by the gate with the messenger, called back without micromanaging: "Rule the board, Ressa. I'll back your ink."
Ryan wrote in big letters on the slate: No chains. Pay in coin. He underlined once.
(Ryan thinking): (We build the city we want to live in. If I bring wires before they eat, I become the Temple in another coat.)
A boy fumbled a mold lip. The clatter snapped something in Ryan.
Ryan (too sharp): "Careful—the edge—"
He caught himself. The boy froze.
Ryan (low): "My fault. We teach first, then do. You didn't deserve the bite."
(Ryan thinking): (Body fresh as if newly rested—mind heavy, pulled in two directions. Safe from fatigue keeps the ache away and leaves the temper close. Not who I want to be.)
He split the yard by purpose. Bromar took kiln sketch. Tobyn took mold craft. Carter handled routes and grades. Ressa pinned safety and weights to the board like stitching a wound. The little girl at the gate watched a cistern appear on slate and ate bread with both hands. The lane's noise softened into work.
Ryan lifted his head.
Ryan (quiet, certain): "This city doesn't need to be the greatest—only better for the people who live in it. Every impossible problem is just a puzzle waiting for the right rule."
Some smiled at the odd phrasing. Odd made the fear smaller.
11:40 p.m. - At Silverwyn Riverbank, Dawnspire.
Night lay heavy over the yard. The stew pot went quiet. The engine held a tired warmth. Bells counted hours without Temple theatre. Ryan sat alone in the back, lamps low, door bolted. Safe from fatigue made hours kind to his bones and cruel to his mind—no ache, but his temper flared when a wire snagged.
(Ryan thinking): (I don't need sleep, but the mind frays. I heard my voice rise twice today. That echo isn't me.)
He pulled the canvas from a hidden bench: a crude rotor, wooden cheeks, a shaft trued by a tired lathe. Copper wire wrapped the armature, each layer tucked in oiled linen and beeswax. A segmented copper ring—his commutator—waited. Brush holders cut from wood, springs from tempered strip steel. A little gauge he'd trapped together—a compass needle in a frame with fifty turns of wire—sat ready to nod.
(Ryan thinking): (No permanent magnet. No reliable diode. AC is easy, the laptop wants DC. One problem at a time. Seventeen days to a small DC machine that can charge a bank without cooking it.)
He turned the crank. The armature sang. Brushes hissed where the copper wasn't perfect. The needle twitched and fell back. He turned faster. The field died each time.
(Ryan thinking): (A dynamo wants a seed of magnet to wake it. I can build a coil and kick it with a battery, but I have no battery—yet.)
He crossed to a row of clay cups, copper sheets, and dull grey metal. Powder that turned wine blue—zinc—waited in a sack.
(Ryan thinking): (Daniell cells. Copper and zinc. Two metals, two waters. A little river that can push a small wheel.)
He built one: copper in a weak blue solution, an unglazed cup of brine inside it, hammered zinc in the brine. He clipped wires to his little gauge. The needle moved a finger's breadth. He breathed out, almost laughing.
He built another. Then a third. Vinegar and metal scented the air.
He wound a coil around a soft iron rod, rubbed beeswax into the wraps, and touched a nail to the iron. It didn't cling. He touched again. This time, it held—weak, but it held.
(Ryan thinking): (Good. A whisper of magnet to seed the field. But zinc is short. I need a stone that remembers storms.)
He locked the door behind him, crossed the postern yard, and knocked at the forge. Bromar opened—hair wild, eyes unsurprised.
Bromar: "You work when sane men sleep. What do you want?"
Ryan: "A lodestone. Small. For alignment and compass work. Quietly. For work that makes life better, not theatre."
Bromar glanced past him to the chalked rules and the bread bowl lighter for small hands.
Bromar (measured): "I'm partner to Aidan in Dawnspire. If you bring Temple theatre to our gate, my name burns with yours. Why trust you with a stone that remembers lightning?"
Ryan: "Because I'm building for people first—clean water, walls that don't burn, coin for work. This city doesn't need to be the greatest—only better. I won't risk a worker or a child."
Bromar brought out a cloth bag of dark, heavy stones. "Picked off a black‑sand shore where the ground sings in storms. You want one—you give two things. Your oath as said. And you owe me one day—my forge, my list—when I call it."
Ryan: "I give it. The oath stands. I'll work your day."
Bromar studied, then nodded like stamping a seal. "Take the small one. If it makes a wall that holds or a compass better than a drunk guard's nose, you show me. Not the Temple. Me."
Ryan almost smiled. "I'll show you what holds."
"Don't tell Aidan I gave you a rock for free," Bromar muttered. "He'll invoice me for the privilege."
Back at the bench, Ryan stroked the iron core with the lodestone, patient, one direction. He pulsed his little battery through the field coil—just a kick—then turned the crank. The needle leaned, farther than before. He removed the battery, turned again, and the needle still moved—weak, but alive.
Ryan (soft): "Not nothing."
(Ryan thinking): (Seed set. Next: smooth the copper, seat the brushes, hold the speed. For a rectifier—maybe copper oxide, a one‑way gate. Ugly, but enough to prove a small charge. No sparks near brine and wood.)
He heated a strip of copper until its skin blushed, cooled it, pressed it against an iron pin under a spring with paper as spacer. Wired it in series with one cell and the gauge. One way, the needle leaned. The other way, it barely twitched.
(Ryan thinking): (A bad door that opens one way. Good enough for a first step.)
He sat back, body fresh, mind humming too fast, city quiet beyond the door.
(Ryan thinking): (Conduits in walls. Water where it's safe. Work paid in coin. Seventeen days to prove a wall, a spark made honest. This doesn't need to be the greatest. It only needs to hold—and make a life a little better.)