The workshop of Logos Laos was, to put it mildly, chaos contained inside four walls.
Crystal shards glimmered in the dim light like spilled jewels, though most were fractured and useless. Broken tools lay abandoned wherever Logos had dropped them. Tables sagged under the weight of half-assembled gearboxes, open furnaces, and scraps of brass that may—or may not—belong to something. The air was thick with oil and the faint metallic tang of mana discharge. Pipes lined the walls, hissing faintly as though the place itself was breathing.
Schematics covered every surface, scribbled in tiny, precise handwriting. Some were rolled up, others nailed directly into the wood of the benches. The rest simply littered the floor, trampled underfoot where Logos had discarded them the instant a new idea struck.
To most men, it looked like a junkyard.
To Logos, it was order incarnate.
"What in the Maker's name is that?" Kleber asked suddenly, pointing to a squat metal box racing in circles across the floor. The little contraption zipped around on four wheels, bouncing lightly every time it hit an uneven stone in the workshop floor.
Logos, hunched over a desk while adjusting the lens of a crystal, did not even glance up. "A basic prototype version of a synergistically orchestrated transportation network wherein reciprocally constrained infrastructure facilitate the guided propagation of mass-optimized convoys along preplanned trajectories, governed by synchronization algorithms and signals to facilitate the transportation of man and cargo over a large scale."
The knights all stared at him.
"…What language was that?" Desax muttered.
"Should we call a priest?" Masen deadpanned.
Lucy sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Isn't this based on the writings of George Liverpool?"
"Yes," Logos answered simply.
Bal raised an eyebrow, arms crossed. "Can someone explain that in normal?"
Lucy gestured toward the box as it completed another frantic lap. "Apparently, a man called George thought that if you laid down fixed lines—rails of iron, essentially—and guided these boxes along them, you could move people and goods across great distances more efficiently than wagons or caravans."
Kleber blinked. "…So. A moving cart."
"Not just a cart." Logos finally looked up, irritation flickering across his pale face. "A system. Imagine hundreds of such convoys, guided by signals and coordinated to avoid collision. A network that could cross an entire kingdom. Speed, efficiency, scale. What wagons take weeks to carry, synchronized convoys could transport in days."
Masen folded his arms, unimpressed. "And you're going to build… this?"
"In time." Logos adjusted a knob on the little box, and it veered toward the table legs before sharply correcting itself. "This is a crude proof of concept. The final design would be larger, powered by stabilized crystal furnaces, running along iron rails laid across the land."
"Rails?" Desax repeated, frowning as though the word itself was suspicious.
"Fixed paths," Lucy clarified before Logos could launch into another tirade. "They'd need to be forged and maintained. Straight lines mostly. Liverpool's writings suggested it was possible if the state invested heavily. It would succeed where the expensive airships failed."
Masen grunted. "So it'll bleed coin like a wounded ox. That's what I hear."
"All true innovation requires initial expense," Logos snapped, sharper than a blade. "But the return—cheaper food, faster supply lines, rapid movement of soldiers—would repay the cost a hundredfold."
That last word caught Bal's ear. His head tilted slightly. "Soldiers?"
"Yes." Logos spoke matter-of-factly, as though it was obvious. "Consider: an enemy rises in the north. Normally, reinforcements from the south would take weeks to arrive. With this, they could be there in days. Armies moving as fast as thought. A kingdom stitched together not by rivers or roads, but by rails of iron."
The room fell silent. Even the little box seemed to pause, bumping quietly against a wall as though waiting for judgment.
Kleber finally let out a low whistle. "Gods. You make it sound like sorcery."
"It is not sorcery." Logos's voice sharpened, though his eyes gleamed with pride. "It is order. Machinery in harmony. A kingdom that breathes as one body, its limbs moving in concert rather than in chaos."
Bal studied the boy for a long, unreadable moment. Then he exhaled slowly. "And what good does this do us right now, boy? We don't have rails. We don't have furnaces. We barely have enough men to keep the keep from falling apart."
"Short-sighted." Logos's reply was instant, almost cutting. "Yes, we lack the means now. But if I prove the concept, even with crude prototypes, then even after failing to pay our debts, we will have leverage."
Masen tilted his head. "So a contingency plan?"
"Yes." Logos's pale fingers tapped against the cockpit of his prototype suit, idly, as if his mind were already three steps ahead.
Desax raised an eyebrow. "Wait. If this thing is so good that it can actually achieve what you say, why isn't anyone building it?"
"Because no one believes in it," Lucy answered before Logos could, her voice calm but carrying a faint edge. "Liverpool's writings were ridiculed in half the academies. Too expensive, too risky, too idealistic. Governments don't gamble fortunes on ideas they can't touch. And when airships were proposed, they stole all the coin and attention. They promised the skies. But instead they proved too costly, and now only the nobility and military can afford them."
Masen spat to the side. "Typical."
Before anyone could reply, a massive screeching noise tore through the room. Everyone turned sharply just in time to see Kleber stumbling back, nearly tripping over a pile of gears. A hulking contraption had lurched into motion by itself. Its arms—thick drills tipped with jagged teeth—were spinning wildly, biting straight into the stone wall. Chunks of rock flew across the workshop as the machine growled like a wounded beast.
"Maker preserve us!" Kleber yelped, shielding his face. "It's trying to eat the wall!"
"Childish," Logos muttered, already drawing an inscriber from his belt. He etched a sharp line of runes into the air and fired a bolt of mana directly into the machine's core. The contraption jolted, whined, and collapsed in a heap of sparks and smoke.
The knights exhaled in relief.
"You are a child too, you know!" Kleber snapped, pointing an accusing finger at the smoldering wreck. "And more importantly—WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL GODS IS THAT?"
"A machine for mining," Logos replied calmly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
The silence that followed was deafening.
"…Mining," Desax repeated slowly. "As in digging holes."
"Not holes," Logos corrected. "Tunnels. Veins. Access to ore. A construct designed to multiply the productivity of miners tenfold, reducing the time and danger of the task."
Masen rubbed his temples. "Boy, we can't even feed the miners we already have. What are we supposed to do with an overeager wall-chewer that tries to tear down the keep from the inside?"
"It was not calibrated correctly," Logos admitted without shame. "Its guidance array was unfinished."
Lucy pinched her nose again. "One day, Logos, one of your unfinished machines is going to kill someone."
"Unlikely," Logos said flatly. "I am here to turn them off."
Bal finally laughed, low and humorless, shaking his head. "Maker help us all."