Ch 472: The Price of Simplicity

By the third week, Kalem's devices had begun to flood the streets.

Not by his hand—no, his work remained freely given, scattered to smiths and carpenters, traders and tinkers—but by the sheer momentum of their usefulness. Wagons built with ball-bearing wheels rolled smoother and needed no beasts. Grain-lifts powered by wind-turned cranks filled silos twice as fast. Iron seed-drills planted crops in neat rows with a single hand guiding them.

And none of them required a drop of magic.

The merchant lords had grown quiet. Too quiet.

"Do you feel that?" Garrick asked one morning as they passed through a crowded market.

"Feel what?" Kalem was watching a child turn the crank on a rudimentary washing drum, laughing as the water sloshed inside.

"The silence of the highborn," said Garrick. "Their words have stopped echoing. That means they are thinking, and when merchant lords start thinking in silence... it usually ends with someone missing teeth."

Kalem grunted. "Let them. They've had generations to sell false gold. I only need one good idea to topple them."

Garrick raised a brow. "You've had twenty-seven this week."

"A good week, then."

Indeed, it had been. Kalem had taken up a corner of the southern workshop district, laying out half-complete builds on tarps. Any who wished could ask how they worked. Some left with schematics. Others with new trade ideas. Most left stunned that something so useful could be free.

"What's the catch?" a smith had asked him just days ago.

"There isn't one," Kalem said. "Use it. Improve it if you can. Sell it if you must."

"But… no guild-mark? No tithe?"

"I don't need coin. I need change."

That sentiment had spread faster than his designs. Tinkers in back alleys began modifying his models. Peasants fashioned carts from broken doors and iron hoops. One even built a windmill from a discarded waterwheel and the axle from a ruined plow.

The merchant lords watched.

Their rune-powered cranes were too costly to operate. Their magically-cooled warehouses sat half-empty. Manual laborers quit en masse to join workshops building Kalem's designs for fairer coin. Traders who once paid to borrow a rune-script tool now owned simple iron devices that did the same task at a hundredth the price.

Kalem hadn't declared war.

But war had arrived all the same.

One afternoon, in the Hall of Fifteen Crowns, the merchant lords convened. Five guild-masters joined them, their robes marked with fading sigils, their pride somewhat dimmed.

"This must end," hissed Lord Baelric, his double chin quivering above his jeweled collar. "We are losing coin by the barrow."

"The workshops do not answer to guild law," spat Guild-Master Ronel. "We've sent inspectors, and they were laughed out the door."

"They don't even use mana!" a younger lord cried. "They spin gears and call it innovation."

Lady Virelle, who had kept her counsel longest, finally spoke.

"Have any of you considered why this is happening?"

Murmurs followed. Someone muttered, "Because he's mad."

"No," she said coolly. "Because what he offers is better. Cheaper. Accessible."

"So we ban his designs!" Baelric thundered.

"And what then?" Virelle turned to him. "The people rise against the ban? Burn our warehouses? Flock to his tent in the thousands?"

Baelric fumed. "You make him sound like a prophet."

Virelle's eyes narrowed. "No. Worse. He's a craftsman with vision. That makes him far more dangerous."

Back in his makeshift forge-house, Kalem stood hunched over a new model. Something simpler. He turned a small crank, and a latch spun into place. Beside him, Garrick finished carving his notes into the wooden totem he always carried.

"So," Garrick said, "they hate you."

Kalem glanced up. "They've always hated me."

"They fear you now."

"They should."

Kalem gestured to the small contraption before him. It was a hand-sized press, made of two iron slabs and a lever.

Garrick peered over it. "What is it?"

"A coin-maker," Kalem said, testing the handle. "With this, anyone with scrap metal can mint a seal. For trade. For honor. For barter."

"You'll collapse their currency system."

"Good. It's slow and full of lies."

Garrick stared at him. "You're... really going for it, aren't you?"

Kalem smiled faintly, eyes glowing with that eerie light again. "We always knew the world was broken, Garrick. I'm just putting tools in people's hands. Let them fix it."

"You realize they may try to kill you again."

"They tried last week. I'm still here."

Just then, a knock came at the door.

A young man entered—cloaked in travel-worn garb, hair half-tied, a notebook clutched in hand.

"Are you the one who built the thresher?"

Kalem nodded. "Yes."

"My village used it. We harvested in three days what once took two weeks." He looked down, voice tightening. "My father... he died last year pulling the old rake by hand. If he'd had this—"

Kalem set the tool aside and walked over. He clasped the boy's shoulder.

"I didn't build it for gold," Kalem said. "I built it for that."

The boy bowed. "Thank you."

He left.

Garrick said nothing for a long while.

Then: "What will you build tomorrow?"

Kalem smiled. "A drawbridge that doesn't need chains. Or maybe a plow that sharpens itself."

"And after that?"

Kalem's smile deepened, touched with something quietly fierce.

"Whatever they don't want me to."