Jack glanced up momentarily as the group walked back into the workshop, and then quickly returned to the blueprint coming together before him.

“So the idea here is to create a press, something like this.” He began to sketch a plate isometrically, with two square supports on either side, then adding another plate above, connected to the other end of the supports.

“Here…” Jack pointed towards the top left corner of the device, “will be where we attach an arm and a rack, that we can fill with adjustable lettering blocks… something like this.”

Jack shifted the paper slightly and drew a simple beam coming from a rotation point outward, attaching to a crude rectangle, representing the rack, then adding a small pin to the side of the rack.

“And this pin will act as a guide, though we’ll need to make a track for it.” Jack paused for a moment and considered the plan. “The intent is to place an ink well of sorts here...“ Jack pointed back to the bottom of the box he originally drew, “and to clam-roll through, perhaps? Paper up here…” He shifted his finger towards the top of the diagram. “The rotating arm will move via a crank, attached by a series of gears, to move the type blocks in front of the ink pan up to the paper.”

Jack looked towards Hervey and Helmut. Both lost in thought, considering the proposal.

“Wouldn’t that fling ink everywhere?” Helmut questioned, glancing at the arm on the paper.

“Does it matter?” Jack responded, “so long as it functions and doesn’t spray it all over the paper. we can just toss a panel over the paper while the arm goes through its action and only uncover the paper just before the arm reaches the paper itself, can't we?”

Helmut nodded at the response and stroked his chin slowly for a moment before speaking again.

“I guess that would work…and you could probably set up something to roll paper through, and open and close the panel with the crank as well…”

“And at that point, the limiting factor becomes simply how fast you can spin the crank and the time it takes to switch out the type!” Jack shot back enthusiastically, then glanced back at Hervey, who was standing over the plans with his arms crossed.

“Well… I suppose I don’t see why it wouldn’t work....” Hervey spoke slowly, “Let's give it a go, then.”

Hervey turned away from the two engineers, walking towards the forge, and lit a small fire, slowly building the flames with a great bellow. Soon it would be hot enough to soften iron.

And soon the work would begin.

Jack followed Hervey after a few moments and began discussing further design details he had considered, leaving Helmut to mill about the smithy, glancing around at the tools on the wall, and back to the darkened anvil, and eventually making his way back to the front of the smithy, interested to hear what kind of insights might have been found on their short adventure.

‘Dark Ages’ could be considered a misnomer. On Earth, they were never a true period of stagnation. While they didn’t produce grand, impressive technological advancements, they were at least a time of significant leaps in political thinking, theology, and agriculture.

But this world was truly in the dark ages.

The heavy reliance on magic had left development of military, medical and energy fields almost completely stagnant. There was little need to develop weapons when their society relied on summoned heroes to deal with crises. Little need to research medicine when a wave of a Mage’s hand could cure all but the most grievous wounds. Yet for all Magic played a critical part of their lives, it too lacked formal development.

Spellbooks written by esoteric masters pushing the boundaries of their understanding had to be hand-copied by scribes. The few libraries of knowledge rested solely in private collections of churches and the most well-to-do Mages. Expensive to find and produce, to the layperson a spellbook containing anything but the most common knowledge was a rarity.

Mass-production had the chance to change that.

Of course, that wasn’t on the minds of any of the five engineers when they invented their printing press - they just wanted to capitalize on a small industry with overwhelmingly great demand and take on an engineering challenge at the same time. And with the printing press constructed, now all that was left was having something to print.

Nicholas considered their options. Literacy rates were undoubtedly low, and as a result of that, their products would only attract the upper class and the intellectual community. They could work with a local church to distribute religious texts, but what would happen when demand inevitably ran dry? Or perhaps…

“Hey, Hitomi,” Nicholas shouted from across the workshop. “Do you know any mages nearby?”

Hitomi’s ears immediately perked up as Nicholas stated his question and she excitedly returned with an answer.

“Nyaa?! Of course I do! This is the capital, after all, nyaa!” Hitomi exclaimed. “What kind did you want to learn from?? An ice mage? A fire mage? Oh nyaa!! Maybe you want to learn weapon reinforcement?!! Or what abou-”

“H- hold up, Hitomi. I just need a nearby mage, alright? We just have another idea to get started on.”.

“Nyaa…” Hitomi sagged in her seat. “Fine. I guess there's one nearby who might be willing to help you with another dumb idea…”

“Thank you, Hitomi, we appreciate it,” Nicholas replied hesitantly, doing his best to step softly around Hitomi’s already shaken faith, following as she slinked off down the street towards their next ambition.

***

A soft blue and gold carpet covered the floor of the building, bookshelves filled the back wall with two more were at either side of the room, and a desk sat at the center of the semicircle of bookshelves. There a young man, who looked to be around the age of a university student, was busy writing something on a piece of paper using a quill pen. He wore a black overcoat that was reminiscent of Georgian era formal clothing. As he heard the door opening, the man put down his quill and raised his head to see who was entering.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, standing up from his desk and approaching the group. “Hitomi! What a surprise! Nice to see you again! It’s been so long since I last saw you! When was it… three years ago?” The man paused and noticed the five other oddly dressed people behind the overly bubbly catgirl. “Ah, I take it that you are the heroes? Welcome to my office. My name is Nigel Hyde. Please, come in, and help yourself to some tea.” Nigel pointed out the bowl of loose tea leaves and a stovetop kettle that was filled with piping hot water at the right of the room, directly underneath a glass window. While three members of the group went to grab a cup of tea, Nigel walked to the very back of the room and brought out several books bound by heavy undyed leather that were only distinguishable from each other by very intricate carvings and designs on the front cover. Curiously, Nigel didn’t use a single bit of magic to aid with anything in his office.

To say that Nicholas was surprised would be an understatement; you didn’t usually think of a young man in his late twenties to early thirties when the word “mage” got thrown about, but at the same time, he understood why. After all, if you were a graying man with the ability to control nature as you saw fit, why wouldn’t you retire to some village or town far off in the countryside, instead of working for the rest of your life? However, what was with his warm greeting to Hitomi? Had those two met before? His train of thought was interrupted when Nigel put down his piles of books on a nearby desk with a loud thump.

“Well then,” Nigel began as he started to flip open the first book in the stack, “let’s get into the basics of magic...”

“I’m sorry, but… can you stop for a second? We hoped to have something discussed first.” Angelina interrupted from a couch facing Nigel, ignoring the stern looks from Hitomi beside her.

“Certainly!” Nigel replied, “What did you want to discuss?” He was not unprepared for heroes to have special requests. In fact, there had been many cases of previous groups of heroes doing just that. What he did not expect, however, was the request itself.

“We’ve spent the past few days developing a machine,” Angelina said, “and we hope you’d be able to work with us for the final stretch of development.”

Nigel’s interests immediately perked. Summoned heroes tended to, as one book written by a very respected scholar stated, ‘possess, in any combination, incredible abilities in terms of intellect, mana, or of brute strength.’ To be able to offer aid with something that Heros invented was a privilege very few would ever have. “I’m listening,” he replied

Deals were made and hands were shaken. Nigel would get 60% of the profits from all books he wrote and published through the newly formed Woodland Printing Company, and the printers got 40%. It would have been an unimaginably great deal by Earth standards, but when you are kick-starting an entire industry, you have to work with what you can get.

“So this is an elaborate way to get money. Nyaa,” Hitomi said in a stern voice after the two walked out of the office.

“Yes, that was the idea. The bookstore would be able to pay for any experiments we may have in the future. Now we just need a place to sell these books. Good thing we are in the capital, right?” Nicholas replied.

“But you could have just done some quests, nyaa!” Hitomi complained, frowning. “The guild pays fairly and you could improve your combat-”

“Oh no, we aren’t having this debate again. We have no interest in fighting random monsters or protecting VIPs from bandits, end of story,” Angelina interjected before Hitomi could finish her sentence. “Nigel did give us some idea on where we should put the store. Maybe we could go with one of those?”

Although the city’s rich and poor weren't divided by a physical wall, if one were to mark every house by their wealth, one could see that the closer you got to the center, the richer the general population was. This fact was convenient for the five engineers-turned-entrepreneurs, as the products they sold were targeted towards literate people with enough money to justify purchasing something as expensive as books.

With that information in mind, they struck a deal with an old shopkeeper who was seeking to retire to the countryside, and with that, the Woodland Printing Company was officially in business.