Silence fell in the meeting room of the Darsha estate, punctuated by the scratch of quills and the unheard sigh of dismay. Scrolls and ledgers had stacked so densely that the wooden table it sat upon had nearly vanished. Among this paper fortress Sharath Virayan Darsha, boy Count, dungeon conqueror, noble breaker—defeated senseless by ink.
This," he grumbled, thrusting his quill into parchment as if it were the enemy's heart, "is my most formidable foe to date."
Not assassins. Not wolves. Not political marriages. Paperwork. 🐧NeuroBoop's voice dripped slowly within his head. Ah, indeed the epic of Sharath Virayan Darsha will resound through all eternity as… "The Boy Who Drowned in Ledgers.
Sharath pushed another stack of petitions out of the way. "Laugh if you wish. This is worse than assassins. Assassins, at least, kill you quickly."
And paperwork kills you slowly and requests three copies of your death certificate, stamped in triplicate.
The young count winced and massaged his temples. Just last week alone, he had signed land deeds, adjusted trade tariffs, reissued identification documents, and written a minimum of seventy-seven condolence letters. And that was only Tuesday.
He slapped both palms on the table and stood up. "Enough. I am not going to waste my life stuck to a quill like some overworked clerk. There must be a better way."
Ah, 🐧NeuroBoop exclaimed happily. I know that sinister glint in your eye. You're going to shatter the world again, aren't you?
"Yes," Sharath breathed. "Yes, I am."
That evening, Sharath pulled a new stack of parchment into his lab. His quill scribbled wildly, not with edicts, but with diagrams—boxes, levers, rods, letters.
A machine," he grumbled. "A machine to write for me. Lines of metal keys, each connected to a hammer that strikes down letters onto paper with inked cloth. A typewriter." His eyes sparkled. "And if I can build one that writes, I can build one that prints. A press that spits out hundreds of copies without the touch of human hands. I'll bury bureaucracy under its own weapons.
He finished the first draft of the design, sat back, and admired it. It was elegant. Efficient. A revolution in writing.
And completely impossible.
His smile faltered. The gears. The springs. The precision components were beyond the skills of any blacksmith in the territory. Even the dwarves, with their finest forges, would struggle to cut such small, exact pieces.
He dropped his quill and cursed. "Damn it. I'm stuck."
Oh dear, whatever are we to do? 🐧NeuroBoop read in mock horror. Is the master inventor foiled by… screws? How pitiful. True your kingdom falls here, vanquished by an absence of precision machining.
"Shut up." Sharath reclined, gazing at the ceiling. "If I can't construct the components…"
Then it occurred to him. The thought struck with the force of lightning, so plain he nearly struck himself.
"…This is a magical world."
He erupted into laughter, the sound half-mad and half-victorious.
Oh gods, 🐧NeuroBoop sighed. Here we go. He's lost it again.
"🐧NeuroBoop," Sharath exclaimed, grinning like a madman, "I don't require springs and screws. I'll employ rune circuits. An enchanted typewriter. Spell-bound keys to inscribe letters directly onto paper. An enchanted printer. Runes to copy text. It won't be mechanical—it'll be alive with sorcery."
Oh yes, why not? Next you'll invent a magical stapler that shoots binding spells instead of pins. Or a magical shredder that eats secrets and burps out confetti.
"Draft it," Sharath commanded, slamming a hand on his desk. "Draft the schematics. Magical typewriter and magical printer. Now."
Excuse me?
"You heard me. You're the sarcastic brain parasite. You've seen how I've designed everything else. Help me lay out the rune arrays."
Ah, now you're my secretary. I need a raise. Or, at least, a respite from viewing you wash up.
Sharath frowned. "Boop."
Okay, okay. Let's see.
Hours bled into dawn as Sharath and 🐧NeuroBoop drew, argued, erased, and redrew.
The typewriter first. Rather than keys attached to metal arms, each key had a rune assigned to a particular letter. Pressed, the rune burst and cast the letter onto the page in ink-like magic. No smudges, no shattered quills, no sore fingers.
Then the printer. That was more difficult.
"Replication runes," Sharath muttered, drawing circles and lines with furious speed. "One rune records the original script. A secondary rune burns it onto blank sheets. Feed in stacks of parchment, power it with mana stones, and—bam—hundreds of identical copies."
Congratulations, 🐧NeuroBoop said, you've invented the world's first magical bureaucracy weapon. Soon, clerks everywhere will curse your name as they drown in paperwork printed a thousand times faster than before.
Sharath dismissed him. His hands trembled with excitement. He could see it now—meetings without endless copying, decrees sent out across provinces in hours, treaties copied without mistake.
"This," he breathed, holding out the final drawing, "will revolutionize everything."
The prototype followed.
Sharath pillaged his rune cache, scratching circles onto metal plates, committing them to wood frames. The first try went off with a burst of sparks when the A-key overheated. The second try seared a hole through the middle of the table when the print rune backfired. The third ejected the word buttocks onto every sheet regardless of which button was pushed—🐧NeuroBoop's giggling did not improve matters.
But the fourth. the fourth succeeded.
He pushed the rune-stamped key for "S." The paper whispered. A clear, flawless "S" materialized.
Sharath's heart pounded. He pushed again. Then again. Word by word, sentence by sentence, the page filled.
When he drew it out, he held the world's first printed document.
"It works." His voice shook. "It actually works."
Well, well, congratulations, Gutenberg 2.0, said 🐧NeuroBoop. You've condemned us all. Nobles will use it to pen longer decrees. Bureaucrats will create more forms. You haven't ended paperwork—you've multiplied it.
Sharath merely smiled wider.
"Perhaps," he breathed, "but this time, I'll be the one doing the multiplying."
For the first time in weeks, he was hopeful. No more being buried alive under scrolls and quills. No more rewriting ledgers indefinitely. With the magical printer and typewriter, bureaucracy itself would be his plaything.
The quill had died. The machine was born.
And the Empire would never be the same.