The Ironspur manor was gripped by a unique brand of panic: The Panic of Perfect Miscommunication. Elias was convinced his accidental encryption failure—the confusingly pronounced 'Ynguts'—had led Duke Vesper's network to believe the Barony was shipping highly valuable oil. This was a critical security failure, as oil (for lamps and lubrication) was far more vital and less protected than steel.
"Vesper will be sending a small, elite force to seize the 'oil' shipment before the day is out!" Elias shrieked, frantically ripping down his vowel substitution chart. "We have to recall the carts, intercept Kaelen, and neutralize the mistaken intelligence immediately!"
Sir Kaelen, still nursing the fatigue from his cryptographer assignment, was dispatched instantly to catch the slow-moving carts before they left the barony's paved section of road.
Elias, meanwhile, had to prove to the entire region that he was not shipping oil. He had to replace the false narrative with one that was so simple and mundane it would bore any potential spy.
He turned to Gark, the lead miner, who was now preparing a new load of ore.
"Gark, gather every scrap of steel, every shiny ingot, and every single piece of heavy metal we possess! Pile it all in the courtyard!" Elias commanded. "We are going to conduct a Public Weight Demonstration!"
Gark looked confused. "A weight demonstration, Baron? Why?"
"Because oil is light, Gark! Steel is heavy! We will use the power of irrefutable density to prove our shipment is worthless to an oil thief!" Elias explained, practically shaking him.
Elias instructed the workers to bring out the largest scale the barony owned. He then ordered the construction of a small, open-air wooden sign listing the Standard Density of Steel in big, neat numbers (a figure he simply invented and certified with the MAOI).
MAOI Optimization: [Objective: Information Control/Narrative Shift] Required Action: Visible Demonstration of Product Density.
Within the hour, the Barony of Ironspur's courtyard looked less like a noble estate and more like a poorly attended village fair. Elias was standing next to a massive pile of shimmering steel ingots, his face radiating bureaucratic calm.
The local farmers and workers, who had heard the rumors of the "Oil Baron," gathered to stare.
Just as the crowd was reaching critical mass, a group of three suspicious, heavily armed men—clearly Duke Vesper's scouts—rode up, pretending to be lost travelers. They subtly studied the courtyard, their eyes darting toward the route the shipment had taken.
Elias spotted them instantly. He turned to Kaelen, who had returned, triumphant but dusty, having safely corralled the confused carts.
"Kaelen! The intelligence gathering unit has arrived! Proceed with the Density Protocol!"
Kaelen—relieved not to be doing encryption—marched to the scale. He lifted a single, standard ingot of Elias's new steel and placed it on the scale. The needle swung dramatically.
Elias stepped forward, his voice projected loud enough to reach the hidden scouts.
"Observe, good people! This single ingot weighs 45.3 Baronial Pounds! Now, imagine we were transporting oil! A barrel of oil of this volume would weigh only 7.8 Baronial Pounds!"
He then produced a small, sealed vial of actual, greasy mining oil. He placed it on the scale. It barely moved the needle.
"If the Baron Thorne were foolish enough to ship oil in this volume, the total shipment weight would be a mere two hundred pounds! Yet, our official logs—which I will happily show to any honest tax collector—state that the true weight of the final shipment is 4,200 Baronial Pounds!" Elias gestured dramatically at the large pile of metal.
The message was clear: This shipment is too heavy to be oil.
The local crowd immediately began gossiping about the Baron's cleverness. The three scouts, defeated not by force but by irrefutable physics, exchanged frustrated glances. They couldn't report "Baron Thorne is shipping three ingots of steel," when they were clearly sent to verify "three barrels of oil." The intelligence was flawed, and any attack based on a false weight would be an administrative disaster for Vesper.
The scouts departed, and Elias released a pent-up breath. He had defeated the massive military apparatus of Duke Vesper with a simple public physics lesson.
Kaelen looked at Elias, his expression a mix of resignation and respect. "You used truth, My Lord. I am… surprised. It was an honorable action."
Elias snorted, his scumbag grin returning instantly. "No, Kaelen! It was an administratively optimal action! I used a controlled data set—the Density of Steel—to overwrite Vesper's compromised intelligence! It's the highest form of counter-espionage! And I used a simple, low-cost public demonstration instead of an expensive, risky military engagement!"
Elias then looked at the remaining scrap of the encryption chart that hadn't been burned.
"However," he mused, tearing the chart into tiny pieces. "This whole incident was caused by the inherent unreliability of human-to-human communication and linguistic variability. The next step is clear. We cannot rely on drivers, knights, or scribes to safely transmit data."
Elias picked up a small, crude metal whistle from a nearby table.
"We need a communication system that is binary, instantly transmissible, and independent of language, dialect, and human interpretation."
He turned to Kaelen, his eyes alight with a terrifying, new engineering obsession. "Kaelen! Get me every bell, every whistle, and every rope in the barony! We are going to invent the world's first long-distance, coded mechanical communication system! We're building a telegraph!"