A great bubble of rippling blue energy expanded across a city of frost-covered brick. The blue light rapidly melted the snow, and ice, away as it did so. The crowd that was gathered in the heart of the city clapped in adoration, admiration, and joy as they felt the temperature of the air around them rise to the low 70 degrees, to a balmy high 80s before falling back to a range between the mid-70s.

Kalt-Zhan-Brennan was going through one of its extremely short “warm” periods. The farmers, and growers of livestock, within the Summer Republic that dominated the continent were out in full force, doing all they could to make the most of this extremely short growing season. While a great deal would still be grown throughout the year, using hydroponics, and various other forms of compartmentalized growing techniques, it still would not be an exaggeration to say these short few weeks were a life and death matter for the continent.

This was also the period of time that engineers, builders, and city planners for the various city-states that made up the Summer Republic made any overhauls, and modifications they needed to their cities’ winter defenses. The increased temperature kept the tooth-fairies relatively docile. Thus manpower could be pulled from the city-states’ defenses to aid with repairs and new installations.

The city-state of Regina, which was understood to sit in the northern part of the region, was smaller than its southern neighbors, but much more technologically advanced. While they still relied on subterranean construction, and heavy walls, to keep themselves safe from the cold environs, the tooth-fairies, and human marauders, they also had access to things like environmental domes, nano-fabricators, and automated-defense drones.

Right now Regina was experiencing an unprecedented expansion of its overall technical ability. The last few weeks had been a very big deal for the city-state. The city’s nano-fabricators had all been upgraded with an unheard-of atomic-reformatting module.

A ground-breaking piece of borderline-magical fringe-tech that could allow the nanofabricators to use virtually any material as printing material by allowing them to alter the atomic structure of any items placed in the printer’s feeder compartments. Breaking the material down to pure hydrogen and then using nuclear manipulation to recombine that hydrogen into more complex substances. In other words, turning all that snow that was heaped around them into building materials for virtually anything.

If that wasn’t enough, the first thing the newly-improved nano-fabricators were set to make was a piece of equipment called “Viroform-nanite Rebuilders”. Another piece of fantastical tech, that would infest a structure or piece of technology, and then rapidly rebuild it, according to base instructions. The nanites were only functional for as long as it took to upgrade a single structure or device, but that was more than enough for them to upgrade and update all of Regina’s nano-fabricators so they could handle more finicky jobs, such as printing out extremely complicated quantum-processors, or printing organic compounds used in the production of food or medicine.

The only drawback for this new generation of nano-fabricators that had gone from being technically impressive, but still relatively simple high-end 3d printers, to being borderline magical “print anything” machines, was an increased power draw. A problem that practically solved itself since Regina had been using a mixture of geothermal energy and nuclear reactors to satisfy their power needs for decades now. Thanks to the newly improved nano-fabricators it was almost child’s play for the city to expand its power grid.

Now, if that wasn’t enough, the city of Regina was making a third massive move. A move that would forever alter the fate of the entire Summer Republic, and shake the entire continent. They were using their greatly improved nano-fabricators and recent information that had been learned regarding the functionality of their environmental domes to improve and expand the domes. Using their increased knowledge, and greatly improved resources, to make domes not only serve as a more robust defense against invaders, but also expand the range of the domes to include the entire city and its associated farming and fishing villages.

An army marches on its stomach, and a nation flourishes best when even its least fortunate are well fed. With a flick of a switch, the city-state of Regina had just become the most powerful city-state in the region. They had no need to fear the predation and jealousy of their peers. They’d been fending off would-be conquerors and tech thieves for more than a few centuries now. Most people only knew the Reginans as a small and eccentric people to the north, who lived by trading their less valuable, less dangerous, tech in exchange for food. In reality, Regina was an old beast of Kalt-Zahn's old world. Now that they could farm year-round, and expand, a great many things could and would change.

Remarkably enough, all these changes, in such a short amount of time, came at the hands of a single person. A short, solidly-built, man with tan skin. A green-eyed man with a triangular face with a rounded jaw, a stubby nose, and narrow lips. A man with black hair and a neatly trimmed black beard, both shocked through with streaks of white and gray. A man with arms and hands that had been replaced with gleaming chrome. A man who currently wandered through the book aisle of a certain little shop looking for more knowledge that he could learn. The extreme convenience of being able to immediately digest and simply “know” all the contents of those books made it hard for the half-dwarf engineer to hold back his academic greed.

Remmington “Remmy” Kruger hummed a cheerful old-world folk song to himself as he made his way over to the shop’s counter.

“That'll be it for the day, I think...Ah, before I forget I don’t suppose you’ve got the second half for that exercise that I bought the other day?” said Remmy.

“Oh, yes, sir. Would you like to add it to today's purchases,” said Brandy. Smiling a light, professional, smile.

Remmy’s grin grew wider.

“Excellent. Please do,” said Remmy. Drumming his fingers across the counter.

“So where are handsome and blondie?” said Remmy. Looking around the shop, with just a faint touch of disappointment, since shooting the breeze with the two shopkeepers had become part of his routine.

“Ah, Mister and Missus Holst are currently away on business...Apparently, some forbidden entity has appeared in one of the other...regions...we do business in and my employers needed to put their full attention in eliminating the threat and converting it into resources…” said Brandy.

“Hm...If I can shoot square with ya, I understood only a third of that, but that’s fine, I’ll catch up with them later,” said Remmy. Inwardly wondering if the resources harvested from whatever that “forbidden entity” was, could be used in his many ongoing projects in revolutionizing and greatly improving the city-state of Regina.

“I’m sure Mister and Missus Holst will be glad to hear that, sir...Er, that will be 24 years and 7 months, or….”

“Nope, no need to give me the cash equivalent...The Reginan Engineers Guild might be paying me pretty handsomely these days, but I’m pretty sure the cash cost for just one of these instant-learning tomes could push me and my great-grandchildren into the poor house...Not that I’m complaining, of course. That still beats the cost for learning the contents the old-fashioned way by a mile and a half…” said Remmy. Thinking of the decades, and sometimes centuries, worth of knowledge stored within each book.

“Ah, yes...Our shop prides itself on our prices and quality service,” said Brandy. Blushing faintly. Her smile grew a little warmer and a little less strained.

“Heh, as you should. Thanks to this shop, I’ve not only got my hands back, but I’ve got so much more...I’m Remmy the way...Remmington Kruger is at your service...Not ‘Sir’, no need to be so stiff,” said Remmy.

“Er, yes, si-... I mean, yes,” said Brandy. Getting tense again.

“Ha, well, I think you’ll get used to this old dog in time. In the meantime, if you don’t mind me asking a favor of you. If my daughter happens to pass through here, maybe pretend you didn’t see me? I’m trying to set up a little surprise for her,” said Remmy. Punctuating his words with a quick, playful, wink.

“Not a problem, sir,” said Brandy. Finalizing the transaction, and proffering a bag that Remmy waved away because he’d long ago gotten a personal storage device with a convenient game-like inventory system. Yet another purchase from the store.

Remmy stepped out of the shop’s door into a world of pleasant but unfamiliar warmth. Whistling a cheerful tune as he did so. The same folk song that he’d been humming before. A little under a year had passed since Remmy’s release from prison, and his subsequent decision to defect from both Oren and Mesmer once he saw how they’d treated his family while he was inside.

Wise men say that the best revenge was a life well-lived, but if you could live well while turning the screws on the other guy, wasn’t that even better? Remmy’s intentions were to do just that. Regina was a city-state, whose relationship with Oren and Mesmer were uncomfortable at the best of times. Though they still traded with Oren and Mesmer, there was an ongoing cold-war between Regina and the other two city-states, as frigid as their world’s former arctic state.

Regina and Oren were forever destined to butt heads for dominance over the region. Thus all Remmy needed to do was make sure Regina prospered to get his revenge. Which wasn’t a hard thing to do, soldiers and politicians who defected to a foreign-state might have a hard time climbing to prominence again, but an academic and engineer like Remmy would be welcomed wherever he went, in this still thawing world of theirs. In time, the Reginan’s rise would result in a clash with Oren. So long as Remmy did his part, Oren and its “heroes” would eventually be reduced to naught more than a footnote in history.

The connections Remmy was currently building with the various powers in Regina, and with its nearest allies, would make sure that characters like Tyrell Booker wouldn’t be able to find new legs after all the smoke had cleared, even if they somehow survived the conflict. Remmy had learned the virtues of influence and power from his old foe, and he’d learned how very meaningless a lifetime of blind duty could be to the heartless state. Thus Remmy sought to never again be in the terrible position in which he’d found himself.

*************************************************************************************************************

Back in the shop, just as Remmy was exiting the shop, a new figure was entering it. The figure belonged to a woman. A woman who was somewhat shorter than average, with an athletic build, and tan skin.

The woman had a long face with a round chin, a turned-up nose, thin lips, and her dark brown eyes were narrow. Her black hair was shoulder-length, fine, and slick. She wore a headscarf, and the rest of Her clothes were plain, rugged, and worn yet well-maintained. Her clothing was mostly neutral-colored and form-fitting, save for the silver and blue coat that marked her as a member of Regina’s Engineering guild.

This woman was Millicent “Millie” Franklin, Remmy’s daughter, as well as one of his subordinates. At twenty-two years of age, Millie was a full-fledged engineer, and not a secretary, yet the rest of the guild and Regina’s city council seemed to treat her as such. Using her as a means to get in touch with her ever squirrelly, annoyingly mysterious, ever wandering, father.

“Tch, not here either, huh….” muttered Millie. Looking around the shop.

“Er, sorry miss...I don’t suppose you could tell me, if you’ve happened to see my father passing by today,” said Millie. After picking up a couple of the shop’s tasty canned drinks, and deli snacks, and heading to the counter.

“...I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be able to tell you if I had….Though the shop generally looks empty for the sake of an intimate customer experience, we actually get a lot of business,” said Brandy. Thinking quickly and pairing two innocuous, unconnected but true statements, to avoid actually answering the other woman’s question.

“Huh...Fair enough,” said Millie. Sighing. Deciding to simply head back to the guild and return to her actual work, rather than continue her fruitless search.