The abandoned barn on the edge of the Pendelton estate had been transformed.
Gone were the rusted plows and old hay bales. In their place stood sturdy workbenches, drying racks, and the smell of oil and pine. This was no longer a barn. It was Factory Zero.
In the center of the room sat the monster.
It was a hulking frame of cast iron and oak. It had a heavy screw mechanism and a flat bed where metal letters were arranged in reverse.
Hammerhead the Dwarf wiped his hands on a rag, looking at the machine with a mix of pride and confusion. "It's a giant stamp, Young Master. That's all it is. A stamp that weighs two tons."
"It is the Gutenberg Model 1," Arthur corrected, adjusting a tension spring. "Though, I have improved the torque ratio. Sarah, ink the plate."
Sarah, wearing a heavy apron, rolled a sticky, black substance over the metal letters.
"Paper!" Arthur commanded.
A worker placed a sheet of blank parchment into the frame.
"Press!"
Hammerhead pulled the lever. The heavy platen descended. Thump. He released it.
Arthur peeled the paper off.
Perfectly aligned, sharp black text read: [CHANCE: You have been elected Chairman of the Board. Pay each player 50 Gold.]
"Time?" Arthur asked.
"Six seconds," Sarah replied, checking a sand timer.
"Acceptable," Arthur nodded. "A skilled scribe takes three minutes to write that with comparable legibility. We are thirty times faster. Begin the run. I need 5,000 cards by sunset."
...
The vibration of industry, however, travels fast.
By noon, a small crowd had gathered outside the barn. They were not peasants looking for work. They were men in long, ink-stained robes, clutching feathered quills like daggers.
Leading them was Master Scrivener Quilliam. He was the head of the local Scribes' Chapter, a man who believed that if a document wasn't written in pain and candlelight, it wasn't binding.
"Open up!" Quilliam shouted, banging on the barn door. "We know you are in there! We smell the alchemy!"
Arthur signaled the guards to open the door. He stood on a crate so he could look Quilliam in the eye.
"Master Scrivener," Arthur said. "To what do I owe this interruption? We are in the middle of a production cycle."
"Sorcery!" Quilliam pointed a trembling finger at the printing press. "You are using a golem to write! It is an abomination! Writing is a sacred art, bestowed by the Goddess of Wisdom! You are mocking the soul of the word!"
Behind Quilliam, the other scribes muttered angrily. "They're taking our jobs!" one shouted. "How will I feed my cats?" cried another.
Arthur blinked. He looked at the angry mob.
[Threat Assessment: Low.] [Observation: Master Quilliam has severe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in his right wrist and significant eye strain.] [Economic Analysis: The Scribes are worried about obsolescence.]
"You are incorrect," Arthur said, his voice calm. "I am not mocking the art. I am liberating you from the drudgery."
Quilliam paused. "Liberating?"
"Look at your hand, Master Quilliam," Arthur pointed. "The inflammation of the median nerve. You wake up in pain, do you not? You spend twelve hours copying tax codes and grocery lists for the nobility. Is that 'Sacred Art'? Or is it manual labor?"
Quilliam rubbed his wrist self-consciously. "It is... the burden of knowledge."
"It is inefficiency," Arthur stated. "My machine does the boring work. It prints the game cards. It prints the tax forms. It prints the notices."
Arthur hopped down from the crate and walked up to the press. He picked up a fresh sheet—a page from a storybook he was testing.
"But the machine cannot create," Arthur said softly. "It cannot compose poetry. It cannot draft a legal argument. It cannot edit."
He turned to the mob.
"I do not want to fire you. I want to hire you."
The shouting stopped.
"I need Editors," Arthur announced. "I need Typesetters—men who know spelling and grammar to arrange the metal letters. I need authors to write the stories that the machine will print. I will pay you double your current guild rates. And..."
Arthur paused for effect.
"... I offer a comprehensive dental plan and ergonomic chairs."
Quilliam stared at the boy. He looked at the printing press, which was churning out pages faster than he could blink. Then he looked at his aching wrist.
"Ergonomic... chairs?" Quilliam whispered. "With... lumbar support?"
"And padded armrests," Arthur confirmed.
Quilliam dropped his quill. "Where do I sign?"
...
By the end of the week, the Pendelton Publishing House was fully operational.
Former angry scribes were now happily arranging type or proofreading the "Landlord" rulebooks. They found that without the physical pain of writing, they actually enjoyed their work.
Arthur, however, had already moved on.
He stood in the corner of the factory, where a new section was being partitioned off.
"Sarah," Arthur said, looking at a crate of hog bristles he had imported. "The populace has a problem."
"Another one, Young Master?" Sarah asked, stacking boxes of the board game.
"Their breath," Arthur said gravely. "It is atrocious. I spoke to the Stable Master today, and I nearly fainted. Plaque buildup is a silent killer."
He held up a prototype. It was a small wooden stick with hog bristles inserted into tiny holes.
"The 'Dental Scrubber'," Arthur introduced. "Or, as I shall call it, the Toothbrush."
"But," Arthur continued, "A brush is useless without a cleaning agent. The current method of rubbing crushed charcoal on teeth is abrasive and messy."
He walked over to a cauldron where he had been mixing chalk, peppermint oil (which he had distilled himself), and a foaming agent derived from soapwort.
"I have created a paste," Arthur said, stirring the minty white goo. "It cleans. It freshens. It prevents rot."
[System Notification: Hygiene Revolution Phase 2.] [Product Created: Minty Fresh Toothpaste.] [Side Effect: You are about to ruin the business of 'Tooth-Pullers' (Barbers).]
"We will package it in small ceramic jars," Arthur instructed. "And we will sell them as a bundle with the brush. The 'Morning Ritual Kit'."
Sarah sighed, smiling. "First toilets, then games, now teeth. You are determined to make us the cleanest, most entertained, and most comfortable people in the world, aren't you?"
"I am merely optimizing the human experience," Arthur said, dipping his finger in the paste and tasting it. "Needs more mint. It must burn slightly to make them think it's working."
Arthur looked at the bustling factory. The printing press clanked. The scribes laughed. The smell of peppermint and ink filled the air.
Production is stable, he thought. But to sell these kits, I need a distribution network larger than just the estate.
He looked at the map on the wall. The capital city of Valoria.
"Sarah," Arthur said, his eyes narrowing. "Prepare the carriage. Next week, we go to the Capital. It is time to open our first Flagship Store."
End of Chapter 7