🏭Chapter 12: Overseer of Safe Habits & Artisans
🌍 July 6th, 89 BCE — Mid Summer ☀️
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The new industrial district sprawled like a wheel laid flat against the earth, wedge-shaped workshops radiating out from a single, towering chimney. The furnaces, kilns, and forges all fed into that one dark throat, belching smoke high above the city walls. One chimney to rule them all, Junjie thought with a crooked smile, though the grin faded as he watched the chaos within each wedge. Apprentices scrambled across slick stone floors, sparks leapt without shields, and the ringing clang of hammers fought against the roar of flames.
Nano's analysis spilled into his mind without ceremony, cold and clinical:
"Ocular injury probability: 38%. Cranial trauma: 22%. Severe foot injury: 46%. Hand and finger injury: 51%. Auditory degradation within one year: 72%. General retention loss from accidents: 31%. Efficiency reduction from injuries and replacements: 19%."
Junjie sucked in a breath. "That's horrible. You make it sound like the whole place is a trap."
"It is a trap. For human tissue." Nano's voice never wavered. "Countermeasures: shatter-resistant tempered lenses reduce ocular risk to 3%. Reinforced helmets reduce head trauma to 1.4%. Steel-toed boots cut foot injuries to 4%. Heavy leather gloves reduce hand and finger damage by 6%. Wax-and-cloth earplugs lower hearing loss to 5%. Add signage, personal gear cubbies, and accident-tracking boards to enforce compliance. Projected injury reduction: 87%. Efficiency gain: 14%."
The solution was blunt, practical, and utterly convincing. Within a week, the changes began. Boards were erected at the gate: SAFETY FIRST — The Overseer Is Watching. Beneath it, the rules:
⠀⠀⠀⠀• Wear your ear protection — or lose your ears.
⠀⠀⠀⠀• Face guards in the foundry, glasses in the shop.
⠀⠀⠀⠀• Steel toes — because yours aren't.
⠀⠀⠀⠀• Hard hats — the sky sometimes falls here.
⠀⠀⠀⠀• Gloves in the shop — ten fingers are worth keeping.
⠀⠀⠀⠀• Report unsafe habits — don't be "that guy."
Every shop received its own accident counter, a barrel of rolled earplugs, and rows of cubbies with locking doors for boots, hats, goggles, and gloves. Workers scoffed at first, but it became a competition almost overnight. The machine shop teased the forge for "resetting the clock" when a green apprentice scorched his sleeve, and the carpenters cheered when their accident-free tally beat the foundry's by a week.
Nano tallied the results with something close to satisfaction:
"Observation: serious accidents down 87%. Retention up 22%. Notable side effects: fewer wives complaining about deaf husbands, blind fathers, or maimed hands. Conclusion: safety culture established."
Junjie couldn't argue. "We keep our people alive, keep them working, and keep their families happy. I'll call that a win."
He didn't keep the role of safety overseer long. A tinsmith named Tovren emerged from the workshops, wiry and sharp-eyed, a man whose greatest joy was finding mistakes. He patrolled the shops like a hawk on a perch, pointing out unbuckled straps or forgotten plugs with a sharp click of his tongue. To him, the rules weren't a burden but a calling.
"Finally," Tovren declared, "something worthy of my talents."
And so the mantle passed. Workers quickly learned it wasn't fear of injury that kept them compliant, but fear of hearing Tovren mutter, "That's one way to reset the clock, genius."