With the smithy quiet and the furnaces burning efficiently, the Barony of Ironspur finally had its first shipment of high-grade structural steel ready for the capital. It was a beautiful sight to Elias: neat, standardized ingots stacked on the optimized, ball-bearing carts.
But a successful sale wasn't just about production; it was about risk mitigation during transport—a problem far more complex than a mere noisy smithy. The seventy-mile journey was fraught with bandits, bad roads (where Elias hadn't paved yet), and corrupt officials.
"Kaelen, this shipment is carrying the equivalent of three years' profit for us. We cannot trust this to fate," Elias declared, pacing around the carts. "We need Standard Operating Procedures for everything. Every variable must be documented and controlled."
Sir Kaelen stood ready, his sword gleaming. (Internal Monologue: "I was hoping for a highwayman ambush. A chance to use my training. But no. He speaks of 'Standard Operating Procedures.' The shame continues.")
Elias pulled out the chalk and began marking the carts, not with names, but with alphanumeric identifiers—a concept completely foreign to the medieval mind.
"Cart A-1, Cart A-2, Cart B-1," Elias rattled off. "Every cart must be weighed to ensure optimal load-bearing capacity—no more, no less! The axles must be greased using the standardized amount—no more, no less! We are eliminating the human factor!"
He unveiled his first two logistical inventions:
The Road-Map Scroll: Elias had sketched a detailed, geographically accurate map of the route to the capital, complete with elevations, distance markers (in standardized 'Baronial Leagues'), and even notes on the firmness of the soil. This level of cartography was unheard of; maps were usually vague artistic representations. He called it the "Optimal Route Navigator."
The Manifest Tablet: For each cart, Elias created a small, clay tablet that listed the cart's ID, its exact weight, the driver's name, and a pre-approved route itinerary. This was the world's first Bill of Lading and Supply Chain Tracker.
He handed the tablet to the lead driver, a bewildered miner named Bor. "Bor, this tablet must be signed and time-stamped by every toll booth operator. If there is any delay beyond the Optimized Travel Time Estimate—which I have calculated to be 38 hours—you call for help immediately. This tablet is the key to our financial security."
Bor stared at the clay tablet, then at the confusing map. "Baron, what if the local mayor can't read this strange writing?"
"Then Kaelen will read it to him!" Elias grinned, tossing a copy of the Optimal Route Navigator to the knight.
Kaelen caught the scroll, his handsome face betraying his utter mortification. (Internal Monologue: "I am a sworn knight, trained in tracking and combat. My Lord now requires me to be a highly paid cartographer and a bureaucratic notary. I should prefer the highwaymen.")
Elias then assigned Kaelen his most humiliating and logistically vital task: inventory control.
"Kaelen, bandits don't steal everything. They steal what's easy," Elias explained, tapping his head. "We need to make our carts difficult to steal and difficult to manage. You will ride at the rear, and before you sleep each night, you will perform a Serialized Inventory Count."
Elias handed Kaelen a list. Each ingot had been marked with a tiny, nearly invisible identifying scratch mark. Kaelen's job was to check that the steel ingots matched the markings on the Manifest Tablet, every evening, under poor light.
"Why, My Lord, why not simply guard the carts?" Kaelen asked, trying to sound dignified.
"Because a thief can defeat a guard! But a thief cannot defeat administrative compliance!" Elias crowed. "If a thief steals anything, they will steal non-standardized goods. When we report the theft, the authorities will know immediately which specific ingot is missing, and the thief will be forced to discard the useless, traceable asset! Your job is to make our inventory so annoying and specific that no one will want to steal it!"
Kaelen imagined himself squatting by a campfire, meticulously checking tiny scratch marks on cold steel in the dark, comparing them against Elias's maddeningly neat list. He had protected kingdoms, but he had never felt so utterly undignified.
Finally, the shipment was ready. Bor and the two other drivers nervously set off, waving the heavy map and clutching their clay tablets.
Elias watched them go, adjusting his MAOI display to monitor his Cash Flow Projection.
MAOI Alert: [Cash Flow Projection: Stable. Delivery Success Rate: 85% (Accounting for 15% Standard Loss Buffer)]
"The variables are controlled, Kaelen. Now, we wait for the inevitable, politically motivated counter-move from Duke Vesper," Elias muttered.
But Kaelen's attention was elsewhere. He pulled Elias into the shadow of the gate.
"My Lord, before the carts left, one of the drivers mentioned a strange merchant they saw outside the barony line—a man dressed in velvet and gold, asking too many questions about our new road and new wheels."
Elias frowned. The description didn't fit Duke Vesper's usual armed thugs.
"And what else?"
"He was apparently paying top silver for even the smallest scrap of Baronial Cement Mix he could find, claiming it was for 'analysis,'" Kaelen whispered.
Elias's eyes narrowed, shifting from mere greed to something cold and calculating. Vesper wasn't trying to stop the shipment; he was trying to steal the technology.
"He's not trying to seize the forest, Kaelen. He's trying to reverse-engineer my intellectual property," Elias snarled. "I need you to find every piece of waste material—every cement bag, every broken cog, every scrap of blueprint—and bury it. We have a new crisis: Industrial Espionage."