1????????Soul Bound
1.3??????Making a Splash
1.3.2????An Allotropic Realignment
1.3.2.9? Tolerance
Tomsk: “What now? I get the feeling that we’re going to remain unpeople around here.”
Bulgaria: “Almost persona non grata. Quite fun, isn’t it? I wonder if that shoe was dropped deliberately? Nobody seems particularly surprised by the gear wheel breaking. Is it a common occurrence?”
Tomsk: “It can’t be. If it was, they’d have changed the spacing of the gear wheels along the beam so a single shoe wasn’t big enough to cause a jam.”
Wellington: “If they moved the axels further apart, they’d have to increase the length of the teeth, which would mean fewer teeth would fit around the gear wheel.”
Tomsk: “Is that bad?”
Wellington: “Inefficient. When teeth bang or rub against each other, it creates vibration - heat or noise. You lose some of the power you’re trying to transmit. You’d have to ask Alderney why they aren’t using more belts or gear chains, but if you’re going to use a gear train to transmit power, you ideally want each tooth to roll against the one it is pushing against, and for the next pair of teeth to make contact the moment the previous pair separates.”
Antegnati the organist looked up from his console, attracted by the discussion, and walked over towards them.
Antegnati: “You’d be some of these adventurers we’ve been hearing about? What’re you doing here, hey? Chasing monsters?”
Bungo: “Do you have any for us to chase?”
Antegnati: “More than likely; probably eat us alive in our beds when we least expect it. But if you’re asking if I know of any here, I don’t. Which just means they’re creepy or smart, not that they ain’t out there.”
He seemed to thoroughly enjoy the prospect of the world being as terrible as possible, and Kafana wondered what sort of music he’d played before he lost his hand. She knew a lot of blues songs that might be just right for him.
Bulgaria: “Wellington, you said ideally you wouldn’t leave a clearance gap between the gears? What about in practice?”
Antegnati: “Didn’t know adventurers were engineers. Thought they spent their time hitting things with swords. So you want to know about the gear that broke, hey? I can tell you about that, right enough.”
What stories were spreading around? She knew the official line from the priest of Cov, that adventurers were sent by the deities to help, but what did the average person who’d never met an adventurer believe? Did adventurers come over as mindless bloodthirsty battle maniacs?
Kafana: “Not all of us like killing things.”
Antegnati: “Well lass, that’s good to hear. Makes you better than monsters. Or at least tamable ones, who might be on our side. Now those gear wheels are monstrous in their way too; quite dangerous, but as tame as we can make them. It’s all about tolerance.”
Tolerance? She thought about Harlequin and the way Torello had persecuted those who were not pure covadan, like Trolezzo the enchantress with her green hair, and Giare the armourer with his krevadan height. And she thought about the way the shattered halves had bounced around, almost as though they were hunting something.
Kafana: “Your metal is sentient? Shattered gear wheels chase after people they don’t like?”
Antegnati chuckled: “Eh, they’re not mithril, lass. And mithril only hurts crafters whose skill levels it considers too low to be worthy of it. The true test of an Arch Smith. Not seen it myself, but they say it’s the sweetest easiest metal to forge, springing into the shape you desire with scarcely a tap needed. The metal of dreams.”
More of the crew inside the runestone circle wandered over, left at a loose end while the workers on the walkways above set about replacing the missing gear wheel. Antegnati waited to be prompted, perhaps checking if his audience were truly appreciative. She obliged.
Kafana: “So… tolerance?”
Antegnati: “Yes, that’s right. No two organs in Torello have precisely the same number of pipes and aliquots. So I know right from the start that each console I make will be different, and that each part of the console will need to be adjusted by the installer to fit precisely the way it’s meant to. But Mazoni, she’s a visionary. She wanted something different. She said foundries are hard on machinery, and skilled workers are in limited supply. She said she didn’t want to spend her time hand-crafting replacement parts, and that I should design something where as much of it as possible could keep going using spares crafted by journeymen.”
Ingto, the alchemist, spoke up in the smith’s defence: “It isn’t just her time she’s trying to save. She’s trying to standardise and automate as much as possible to not require anything above Master level. Every stage, from folding and shaping, to tempering and finishing. She’s trying to make items made from magic metals available to everyone, not just nobles who can afford to hire someone like her. It’s going to be revolutionary!”
His eyes burned with the conviction of a true believer. If the rest were like Antegnati and Ingto, it didn’t look like the smith need worry about her crew quitting as soon as they’d been trained. But if Mazoni’s vision came to pass, with standardised methods and machines between different foundries, workers in the future would find it much easier to shop around for new jobs. Would that be a good thing? She couldn’t quite decide.
Kafana: “Do you think she’ll succeed? And what’s it got to do with tolerance?”
Antegnati: “Suppose I want there to always be at least 3 mil between the end of a tooth, and the base circle on the opposing gear wheel.” He glanced at Ingto, who obligingly held up two hands with the fingers held out straight and interlocking, to mimic the teeth of a gear wheel, so Antegnati could point out each part or distance as he mentioned it. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Antegnati: “That’s enough allowance to cope with the metal expanding on hot days, or birds crapping on it. But when I drafted my plan for the gear train, I didn’t say ‘put these two bits 3 mil apart.’.”
Kafana: “You didn’t?”
Antegnati: “Nope. Because I know how bad journeymen are at casting gear wheels. If you ask for one that’s 2,000 mil across, you’re just as likely to get one back that’s 2,000.6 mil or 1,999.4 mil in size. Terrible!”
Antegnati: “Terrible, but I tolerate it. Plan for it. I write down that the bits should have a clearance of 5 mil, and say I’ll tolerate a whole 1 mil of error in size for each gear wheel. Clearance is allowance plus tolerance. It’s written down clearly, so everyone knows where they stand.”
“If they can read”, he added gloomily, “which around these parts is less common than not. Even among apprentices.”
Kafana’s first thought was “Don’t they have schools in Gobwell?”. Then she realised; they didn’t have schools anywhere in Torello. Apprenticing once someone reached fifteen, yes. Private tutors for the rich, or maybe the odd teacher hired by an organisation like the orphanage or a center run by a large guild. But mostly it was done by grandparents. And what happened when they also didn’t know how to read or didn’t live nearby? Once a skill became rare, the deficit could persist for generations.
Bulgaria: “So you didn’t plan your gear train to resist dropped shoes?”
Antegnati: “Of course not. Birds don’t wear shoes, and what sort of fool would risk dropping an object that size into delicate machinery? Now, if we’d won the Icarus contract...”
Bungo: “Grand Master Mage Yusupov’s flying boat? He let me onboard; that was so coooool!”
Antegnati: “He won’t have shown you below decks. Not that I’ve been below either, but I’ve seen the plans. A lattice framework holding hundreds of glass spheres packed as tightly as possible without touching anything. Each sphere covered with tektine leaf to insulate against their gravitas. We bid on the job, but he gave it to a bunch of scribes whose only experience with metal was illuminating manuscripts. You could hear Master Gimet and Tridella swearing at each other, the entire length of the Slag and out to Tickton.”
Bulgaria: “So tektine is expensive? Enough to justify extreme precautions?”
Wellington: “It’s listed on the Bancario metals exchange, at 242 platinum-alloy zecchi per unit.”
Antegnati: “And what does that tell you? Is a unit the size of thimble or the size of an ox? It varies from metal to metal. Tektine can be hammered so fine you can see through it, yet the twenty units Yusupov obtained from his contact in Lukomorya were scarcely enough. Yes, if we had something that valuable here, I’d plan for suicidal birds and probably trained moles too.”
Ingto: “If you want something really rare, how about mutatis?”
Trolezzo: “Don’t be daft, Ingto. Mutatis doesn’t exist. It’s just a legend alchemists tell their apprentices to scare them. A stone that changes all things around it, including the alchemist using it?”
Ingto: “My master swore it is real.”
Trolezzo: “Then more fool him. If it were real, there would be evidence. Take tumbago - we may have lost the secret of how to work it, back when Delphae fell to the beladan, but there are still vials of it in the Mage’s Tower, and epic level items with rune patterns inlaid in tumbago upon them.”
Bulgaria: “How did a secret like that get lost?”
Trolezzo: “Gradually. Some of the refugees who escaped and founded Nuovilion knew the secret. But instead of spreading the knowledge to every guild remaining in the second empire, they hoarded it, passed it down only from Master to Journeyman. Too valuable a secret to share with cities who might be competitors. The last person who knew the technique died before he could train a journeyman; trampled by a pregnant boar.” She snorted in amusement. “Later generations built a statue commemorating the event.”
Affi spoke up from the back in a hoarse voice, blushing every time he looked in the direction of Trolezzo fanning herself.
Affi: “My first master, over at Lantric’s? He swore Venium was the rarest metal. He never did manage to get his hands on any.”
Trolezzo swore, and spat on the floor. “Venium? He tried to bring Venium into Torello? The bastard! You’re well off out of there, Affi; you don’t want to have anything to do with someone like that.”
Kafana: “What’s the trickiest metal that you are set up to handle here?”
Master Giare spoke up dreamily, in the voice of a fisherman reminiscing about his greatest catch.
Giare: “Five years back, the owner of the Fiorio commissioned a luck stone. We didn’t enchant it, but High Mistress Mazoni crafted the base item, and she wrought it from pure panchellium. Normal fire isn’t hot enough - we had to use kindling made from acid-washed dolomite. Normal hammers couldn’t dent the nodules - we had to craft a special hepatizon drop hammer with an astarium head. The whole process took months. We learned a lot but she hated the uncertainty, the setbacks. One wrong step, and you just end up with a handful of tungsten. It was after that, that she turned her attention to making jobs easier to repeat.”
Tomsk: “Could a panchellium nodule be used as a weapon, like the head of a mace?”
Giare: “Nodules are rare. Sailors occasionally find them near the Magusan Trench, amidst the corpses of ancient Kraken. Bulbous fist-sized orbs, the most intense blue you ever saw.”
She remembered the size of the Kraken she’d ridden upon, five times as large as a galleon. How much larger did they get after another twp or three hundred years? Did the nodules grow inside them like pearls, used like organs for navigating or tracking prey? The image awed her.
Kafana: “That’s their graveyard; where Kraken go when they are old and feel their time to die is approaching?”
Antegnati: “Bless your heart. No, that’s where the tides sweep the half-eaten remains, after Kraken have been snacked upon by the really big sea creatures.”
She looked at Antegnati skeptically. He was messing with her. Right?
Before she could call him on it, Master Maci came over with a twinkle in his eye and news that replacing the gear wheel was nearly complete. He gently chivvied the others back to work, leaving the Wombles alone.
Tomsk: {What should we do now?}
Bungo: {I spoke with Alderney. She thinks she’ll be hours here, and that Mazoni won’t allow us to provide any help with buffs or other magic. I’m interested in the metallurgy, but she’s sending her live feed to Futura who’ll summarise for me, so I’m not missing much. Let’s explore the Ghetto.}
Futura was Bungo’s main expert system, in the same way that Minion was hers, Wellington had Robin, Alderney had Tink and Bulgaria had Aeschylus. Kafana didn’t know the name of Tomsk’s. Did he even use expert systems? Maybe he considered them cheating.
Bulgaria: “Tickton is safe, and Hawks is practically upper-class, at least by local standards. But we should avoid Rooks and Scarrow if we can.”
Kafana: “Tickton is where Harlequin served as an apprentice Jeweler, isn’t it? I’d like to see that.”
Bungo nodded to Bulgaria and waved towards the doors they’d entered by: “Lead on!”