Chapter CXXVII – Behold, how great a difference a little dwarf maketh!

1st of Winter 5859
Copperworks, Libertycave

Winter, the first. Gemeinplatz had seen the return of General Winter at last. From the ever-snowy peaks of Mount Curry to the whitening plains down below, all had become white. To many it was a curse of sorts, where they couldn’t conduct their trade or plant their crops. To those in Libertycave it was a blessing; no sane person would conduct a military campaign in winter. It was time to rest, build up, and then reap what they sowed when spring came.

“Here it is: the place where steel is sown.” Whitebeard pushed open the door of the former copperworks, to show it off to her guests. A terrible heat, so hot that it made one forget that it was winter outside, blasted out the door as soon as it opened.

“That’s quite hot. Have you stolen a piece of the sun and put it here?” commented Ayomide while immediately removing her bear pelt coat.

Brown too joined in the decoating. “Young lady, I don’t think we have the technology to do that. If we did, I’d be sending a piece of the sun towards the Empire posthaste.”

“Creating a second sun is… a bit outside of our capabilities unfortunately. Come, see what we can do now instead of daydreaming.” Whitebeard led them inside and closed the door behind them.

Inside, the copperworks had changed a lot. The small, mud-and-brick furnaces had been recycled into grandiose blast furnaces which had a dozen men, dwarf and human, working on them each. A bunch of otherwise unnoticeable rocks, coke, iron, and limestone, were dropped from the top of these furnaces only to come out the bottom as molten hot metal that shined so bright that one couldn’t look at it directly without hurting one’s eyes. Then to the crucibles they went, to be mixed with wrought iron to make steel.

From there, a small trickle of steel flowed down to a mold, where Whitebeard proudly declared to her guests “Behold, a spear!” There was a few more spear molds, which the steelworkers swapped to make sure they were all filled. Two dozen spears more came out of that one crucible, which Whitebeard watched with great pride and Ayomide watched with amazement.

Brown wasn’t too amazed, he was a man of the Industrial Revolution after all, but he was still in awe that these dwarves had figured out metallurgy that was way more advanced than the rest of Gemeinplatz. “Will these spears be ready for use once they’re cooled down?”

“Not immediately no. They’ll still need sharpen them. Plus, we still need to craft wooden shafts for all of them, not to mention that we’re quickly burning the iron and coal we received from Miss Tubman… Other than that, yes, things are progressing without problem.” Whitebeard showed them a crate that had been left in a corner, in which a pile of spearheads had already been stacked. “Lovely, aren’t they?”

Brown picked up one of the heads. He played around with it, twirling it in his hand, until he was satisfied. “I wouldn’t call any tool of war ‘lovely’, but I appreciate the craftsmanship.”

“I will call it lovely. This is quite the lovely thing” replied Ayomide, inspecting the spearhead.

“I wouldn’t call it lovely either. There’s a reason why us dwarves haven’t sold our methods to the outside world. We planned on assisting the Republic, to the best of our capability, and then retreating back to our mountain once a state of relative peace was back in Gemeinplatz…” Whitebeard let out a sour chuckle “What can I say, the Imperials weren’t thinking straight when they antagonized us.”

Brown tossed the spearhead back into the crate. It landed among its many peers, making a metallic clinking sound as it settled. “I’m glad that the dwarves saw reason and decided to venture out of the mountain Miss Whitebeard. I don’t think it’d have been polite if they stayed over there while we were massacred.”

“It has been dwarven tradition to stay out of human business since time immemorial. I don’t think you’d have dwarves to help you if my ancestors had been killed off after a rash decision. Right now, we’re in an emergency. After that, we hope to return to our mountain and be in peace.”

“I hope not. Mingling with the dwarves have been quite enrichening for both sides, I feel. I hope that you will return safely to your home, and keep connected with the outside world.” Brown would’ve monologued a bit more on how pacifism was basically an endorsement of the status quo, slavery, but he could already feel that he was losing the attention of the dwarf in front of him. “But, that is beyond our concern right now. We must be on our way to other business.”

2nd of Winter 5859
New Inkwell Printworks, Libertycave

Life has a way of surprising one with its many strange twists and turns. For many in Gemeinplatz such a twist had come with the slave rebellion and the coup of Chancellor Spear.

One such straggler who had found herself picked up and carried away in the storm of Gemeinplatz was Shakira, former adventurer, who now found her skill in handling massive objects be useful in another way. “Phew… These presses are quite stubborn.”

“They have to be, otherwise the print won’t look good if we don’t press on the paper hard enough.” Azra, and her re-established printing company, had employed a few people from Libertycave to make up for those loyal to her father who had stayed in Casamonu. After almost a season of training, these employees were finally picking up the slack. “Just don’t break them. We can’t replace any of these presses yet.”

The printworks itself was a modest building, a brick house that had been filled with the printing presses hauled over from Casamonu. Most of the equipment from the old printworks was still left outside, and even then, the inside of the building was still left cramped. One day the printworks would be as big as the copperworks… for now Azra had to carefully scoot around the printing presses and the people around them.

CRACK! “…boss, I think I just broke something.” It was Shakira, who had pressed the press a bit too hard and depressed the flat plate that held the paper, which had also broken a few nails and split a gear in half.

“How did you manage to do that?!” Azra had to carefully scoot back around to where Shakira was working. “That’s steel. Manufactured in the Imperial capital. The finest there is, this gear was forged by the most skilled of Gemeinplatz and… you broke it…”

“Sorry boss.” Shakira cheekily flexed her arms “These are used to bashing monsters as hardly as they can, not fine control.”

“You… I’d fire you if not for…” Azra calmed down with a long, deep sigh. “Well, that’s one press gone. Where do we get another one-”

Just then, Azra heard a voice that she had come to know very well. “Hello! It is I, Watanabe Haru-”

“Yes, we get it.” Rabanowicz entered the printworks, Watanabe right behind her. “Apologies for the delay, we needed to wait for the dwarves to… Did we arrive at the wrong time?”

“No, the right time actually! Maybe too right.” Azra scooted around, again, to the door. “So, the new press? It’s ready?”

“It was ready yesterday, but it took us a day to drag it to your front door. Here,” Rabanowicz led Azra outside, to where the wood and steel behemoth stood. It was basically a copy of the Gemeinplatzian design, enhanced with dwarven steel which might withstand even Shakira.

“Goodness… That’s quite the machine!” Azra began dancing around the machine, leaning down occasionally to inspect it. “Impressive, to have dissected our presses so quickly.”

“It’s a pretty regular printing press design. I’m surprised nobody in your realm ever managed to make a copy of these presses instead of relying on the capital… along with all the things in this realm that nobody seems to have bothered to fix.”

“We’re here to fix things, aren’t we?” replied Azra “The pen is mightier than the sword, and the press is mightier than both.”

“Right on.” The two pre-modern nerds, Azra and Rabanowicz, gave each other an approving nod. “I’ve already written up this week’s ‘new’s paper’ as Watanabe calls it. You should receive the manuscript tomorrow after I’ve done some spellchecking.”

“We should have them posted all around Libertycave by the next day then, if you deliver it early enough.”

Perhaps, with steel and the press, the Republic was going towards modernity faster than thought…