- Chapter 089 -

  Aetheric Calculator

  The workshop smelled of lemon oil and aggressive cleanliness.

  Carl had clearly exorcised the demons of his manic episode with a mop and bucket. The floorboards were scrubbed pale, the tools hung on their racks in strict size order, and the glass of the display cabinets was so clear it was almost invisible. Even the hated shrine to the Oracle of Luck had been dusted, the crude wooden idol staring out over the room with a polished, mocking sheen.

  Mark sat at a small side table near the window, a book on Advanced Runic Stability open before him. He held a pencil, occasionally making a show of underlining a passage or scribbling a note in the margin. To the casual observer, he was a scholar in study.

  To the professional observer, he was an auditor running a parallel meeting.

  In the center of the room, seated at the pristine main workbench, were Carl and a man who looked like he had been constructed entirely out of ledger paper and good tailoring.

  "The Bank of the Collective is not a Guild, Master Artisan," the banker said. His name was Matteo Conti, a representative sent directly from Titan. He spoke with a clipped, precise cadence, his accent carrying the rolling vowels. "We are the bedrock. Guilds rise and fall, markets fluctuate, but the Bank remains. We ensure the flow of capital is... orderly."

  Matteo wore a tunic of severe black velvet, unadorned save for a small silver pin in the shape of a balanced scale on his lapel. He didn't look like a man who worked for a living, he looked like a man who owned the people who worked and enjoyed the social aspect of the position.

  "Orderly is fine," Carl grunted, his hands resting on the iron-bound box of gold that sat between them. "Expensive is what I'm worried about."

  Mark turned a page of his book, his eyes not moving from the text, but his attention entirely focused on the conversation. He knew the type. Bankers back home were sharks in pinstripes, burying fees in fine print and selling debt as an asset. He waited for the pitch, the upsell, the predatory clause that would shackle Carl to a new master.

  "Your current liabilities," Matteo said, opening a slim leather folder. He ran a finger down a column of figures. "You have a primary loan against the property held by the Merchants' Guild local chapter. A secondary operational loan for the forge upgrades three years ago. And a... supplier credit line that is currently in arrears."

  "The supplier was late," Carl muttered defensively. "I withheld payment on principle."

  "The principle has accrued fourteen percent interest," Matteo noted dryly. "Principles are often expensive luxuries."

  Mark marked a passage in his book with a heavy line. Fourteen percent. Predatory, but even back home not unheard of for unsecured debt in a high-risk industry.

  "The total outstanding," Matteo continued, "including early repayment penalties, which I have taken the liberty of negotiating down to a nominal processing fee, given the volume of the deposit, comes to four hundred and twenty gold."

  Carl flinched. It was a significant sum, a weight that had likely been pressing on his chest for a decade given a final number.

  "Pay it," Carl said. He popped the latch on the chest. The gold gleamed in the workshop light, a ridiculous amount of wealth for a room.

  Matteo didn't blink at the sight of the gold. He simply reached into his folder and produced a stack of pre-prepared documents.

  "I have taken the liberty of drafting the discharge papers," the banker said. He slid them across the bench. "Once signed, everything is dissolved. The property title transfers to you solely. The supplier debt is cleared."

  He dipped a quill in a travel inkwell and offered it to Carl.

  "And the remainder," Matteo said, eyeing the box, "approximately one thousand, two hundred and eighty gold, assuming a standard split with your associate..." He glanced briefly at Mark, acknowledging the silent partner in the corner. "...will be deposited into a high-yield holding account in Titan. Accessible via draft at any local branch, including the Merchants' exchange here in Enceladus."

  Mark paused his pencil. He waited. This was the moment. The hidden fee. The 'management cost.' The mandatory investment in a failing mine.

  "The account carries no maintenance fees for balances over one thousand gold," Matteo added smoothly. "And guarantees an annual return of three percent, backed by the Council."

  Mark blinked. No fees. Guaranteed yield. Negotiated exit penalties.

  He looked up from his book, studying the banker. Matteo Conti wasn't a shark. He appeared to be closer to a custodian. Treating the money with the same respect Carl treated a gemstone, as a material to be managed correctly. It was a refreshing, if disorienting, change of pace from Earth finance.

  "Three percent," Carl repeated, looking at the papers. "For doing nothing?"

  "For providing liquidity to the Collective," Matteo corrected. "Capital must flow, Master Artisan. Stagnant gold is useless gold."

  Carl signed. The scratch of the quill was loud in the quiet shop. He signed page after page, dismantling years of financial stress with ink.

  When he finished, he sat back, dropping the quill. He looked lighter. Younger.

  "It's done?" Carl asked.

  "The aetheric ledger update is immediate," Matteo said, blotting the signatures. He closed the folder. "You are a debt free man, Carl. And a wealthy one. I wish you great fortune in your future."

  The banker stood, smoothing his velvet tunic. He turned to Mark, offering a polite, professional bow.

  "Mr. Shilling. The Merchants' Guild speaks highly of your... audit capabilities. Should you ever tire of the consulting life, the Bank is always looking for minds that understand the difference between value and price."

  "I'll keep it in mind," Mark said, closing his book. "Efficiency is a universal currency."

  Matteo nodded, picked up the heavy box of gold with a surprising ease, likely a gravity-assist enchantment of some kind, and walked to the door.

  "Good day, gentlemen."

  The door closed.

  Carl sat at his bench, staring at the empty space where the gold had been, and the small stack of stamped papers that replaced it.

  "I own the roof," Carl whispered. "I own the walls."

  "And the floor," Mark added, standing up and stretching his back. "Even the bit we burned a hole in."

  He walked over to the bench.

  "He was honest," Mark observed. "I checked the math in my head as he spoke. He didn't skim anything."

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  "Of course he's honest," Carl said, looking confused. "He's from the Bank. If a Banker steals, the economy wobbles. The Oracle of Law tends to frown on that. Usually with lightning, rumours have it."

  "Right," Mark said. "Lightning based regulation. I should have guessed."

  He leaned against the bench.

  "You're solvent, Carl. You have operating capital. You have a workshop that is officially yours."

  Carl leaned back against his pristine workbench, crossing his arms over his chest. The tension that had defined his posture for weeks was gone, replaced by a strange, restless energy. He looked at Mark, his eyes narrowing slightly.

  "I have my plan," Carl said. "Clear debts, upgrade the forge, maybe hire that apprentice you keep nagging me about. But you? You have seventeen hundred gold sitting in a box. You mentioned investing, but buying Dawn a new knife and Tori a few books won't even scratch the paint on that pile."

  He gestured to the space where the gold had been.

  "What is the actual plan? Or are you just going to sit on it like a dragon until it hatches?"

  "Housing will be the first big hit," Mark answered immediately. He had already run the numbers. "I inquired about the purchase price of the unit on Silver-Vein. The Library's lease is generous, but having my own will be better."

  He grimaced.

  "I can't afford it. Not even close. At current valuation, assuming a stable market, I'm looking at another year of similar windfalls before I can even put a deposit down."

  Carl let out a low, impressed whistle. "I knew the Terrace was pricey, you pay for the view and the lack of neighbors, but that much? You could build a small castle in the valley for seventeen hundred."

  "Location, location, location," Mark recited. "I like the view."

  He walked over to the window, looking out at the snowy street. The town was moving, gears turning, people working. It was a system. A system waiting for him.

  "But you're right," Mark continued, turning back. "I can't just sit and do nothing. It's not in my nature."

  He picked up a small, uncut quartz from a tray, rolling it between his fingers.

  "I was never free of commitments back home, Carl. Deadlines, stakeholders, deliverables... it was a grind. But it was my grind. Idleness... it leaves too much room for the ghosts."

  He set the stone down.

  "I'm thinking of reviving some hobbies. Old interests from my previous life. Manufacturing. Automation. Precision engineering." He looked around the workshop. "But the supply chain here doesn't exist. You have gemsmiths and blacksmiths. I need chemists. I need material scientists. I need people who can build things that haven’t been spoken of in a thousand years."

  A slow smile spread across his face. It was the look of a man who had a plan that was outside the scope of local imagination.

  "So, I'm going to build the businesses that build the parts I need."

  Carl stared at him. "You want to start... new industries? Just to support a hobby?"

  "Innovation requires infrastructure," Mark stated. "I want to invest in the gaps between the Guilds. I want to find the people with ideas that don't fit the 'Articles of the Collective' and give them a budget."

  He leaned against the table, his eyes bright.

  "If the Guilds want to play nice, we work with them. If the Engineers want to license the next breakthrough, fine. But if they don't?"

  Mark shrugged.

  "Then I own the patent, the production line, and the distribution network. I want to invest in the future, Carl. And I won’t let others monopolize that future from the people that will be involved."

  Carl reached under the workbench and pulled out the notebook Mark had left with him, Volume 10 of the transcribed library. He slid it across the clean wood, the cover worn from being handled by oil-stained fingers.

  "I've updated the notes," Carl said, tapping the cover. "I went through the schematics you copied. It’s a mixed bag. A lot of it is theoretical nonsense or specialized components for rituals I don’t recognize. But there are a few diamonds."

  He flipped the book open, pointing to a page covered in Mark’s blocky handwriting and Carl’s scrawled annotations.

  "Most of this book is lower-tier architecture," Carl explained, tracing a diagram. "Quartz and Garnet level energy requirements. Accessible. I’ve identified three distinct levitation arrays that are far more stable than the standard lodestone setup we used for the laser. Smoother gradient control."

  He turned the page.

  "And this," Carl said, pointing to a tight, spiraling cluster of runes. "This is interesting. It’s a privacy ward, but inverted. Instead of sealing a room, it creates a mobile field around a specific anchor point. About a three-foot radius."

  He looked at Mark, gauging his interest.

  "You could mount it on a staff. Walk into a crowded room, activate it, and no one outside arm's reach would hear a word you said. Portable security."

  "Or a cane," Mark corrected, glancing down at the silver-headed stick leaning against the bench. "A staff is a statement. A cane is an accessory."

  He made a mental note. It was a perfect tool for on-site negotiations or sensitive discussions in public spaces. He would add it to the fabrication queue.

  "A cane could work," Carl conceded. "We'd need to hollow out the shaft to run a quartz core, but it's doable."

  He flipped further into the book, past pages of indecipherable geometric scribbles, and stopped at the middle. He smoothed the page flat.

  "But this..." Carl muttered, his brow furrowing deep enough to plant crops in. "This is the one that’s been keeping me up."

  Mark leaned in. The diagram was a nightmare of density. It wasn't the sweeping, elegant curves of a high-power ritual. It was a grid. Hundreds of tiny, interlocking circles, connected by hair-thin lines of mana flow. It looked less like a spell and more like the work from a child's spirograph.

  "For a low-tier setup, this is horribly complex, your ghostwriting notes say it's old, first exodus old." Carl said, tracing the intricate lattice. "The power requirement is negligible. You could run this off a chipped piece of quartz for a week. But the instruction set?"

  He shook his head.

  "I can only make out half of it. It takes an input, a binary pulse, and routes it through a thousand different decision arrays. It doesn't do anything physical. It doesn't heat, or lift, or light up. It just... sorts?"

  Carl looked up, frustration evident in his eyes.

  "It’s like building a cathedral just to sort grain inside. It’s over-engineered to the point of insanity. I’ve no idea what it could be for?"

  Mark studied the grid. Low power. High complexity. Logic sorting.

  Mark stared at the diagram. His vision blurred at the edges, he no longer saw the runes. He was seeing arrays designed to function as logic gates. NAND. NOR. XOR. It was a processing unit rendered in ink and powered with mana. It was the step beyond the abacus, the path towards a primitive microchip.

  It was also a trap.

  He felt the pressure spike behind his eyes, a sudden hammer of pain. Without realizing it, he had started to identify the schematic, and in doing so, the library had answered. Providing him with enough to ask for more, and in doing so, allowing it the opportunity to hammer down the gates.

  "Carl," Mark said, not looking up from the page. "You need to call Tori. And probably quickly."

  Carl frowned, looking from the book to Mark. "Tori? Is this relevant to healing? Or did you give yourself a papercut?"

  "It's a calculator," Mark murmured, his vision tunneling to a pinprick of black. "I'm going to need help."

  He didn't have time to explain. The floor rushed up to meet him, or rather, the workbench did. His arms failed him, allowing his forehead connected with the polished wood with a solid, unignorable thud.

  The peace of the workshop vanished.

  Mark stood on the hillside. The air itself was screaming.

  The granite gates, the massive, thirty-foot slabs of stone he had erected to quarantine the rot, were blasted outward. They hung in the air for a moment, suspended by sheer force, before crashing down onto the gravel path with a sound like tectonic plates grinding together.

  From the ruins of the Library, the green fog erupted like a pressurized gas leak. It wasn't just a poison mist, it contained rage. If a building could feel insulted, this one was apoplectic.

  Mark had taken a masterpiece of arcane architecture, a divine engine of thought, and labeled it a 'calculator.' He had reduced a stolen masterpiece of a Jade Memory Mage to a piece of office stationery.

  “Aetheric Calculator!”

  The voice wasn't human. It was a wail of wind through broken stone, a shriek of offended ego echoing from the depths of the archive. It sounded like a frantic correction, a desperate attempt to reassert the complexity of the stolen knowledge against Mark's brutal simplification.

  The green sludge surged forward, trying to flood the mental landscape.

  ROAR.

  Tony was there. The electric-blue tiger leaped onto the rubble of the fallen gates. He was a storm of static and muscle, his claws digging into the ground. He roared, a wall of sound that met the onrushing fog and held it back. Lightning arced from his stripes, vaporizing the leading edge of the toxic cloud.

  Mark watched from his vantage point on the path, his phantom form flickering. The containment was breached. The guard holding its ground.

  He felt the headache building from the real world, a tsunami of pain rushing toward a shore that wasn't ready.

  "Right," Mark thought, watching his tiger bat away a tendril of green smog. "This is going to be a very bad day."