Morning. Arthur walked through the artisan district.
The city was thriving. Workshops hummed with activity. Apprentices learned. Masters taught. Goods flowed from benches to stalls to wagons. The system was working.
But one sound dominated everything.
Hammering. Sawing. Grinding. Pounding. The endless percussion of human labor, repeated thousands of times each day.
Arthur stopped at a carpenter's workshop. A man spent an hour smoothing beams by hand—back and forth, back and forth, the same motion repeated until his arms ached. The work was skilled. The work was necessary. But the work was exhausting.
Across the street, a blacksmith's apprentice pumped the forge bellows without stopping. His arms burned. His breathing was heavy. The bellows were simple—leather and wood—but they required constant human effort to keep the fire hot.
