Kotta came to the shop in the first days of spring. He was an accomplished Bard with experience as a Fighter as well, and he'd been making preparations of his own. "Is it ready?" he asked.

Vonn had personally attended to the construction of a better model of bicycle. They'd gone with a trike design. Without true inflated tires it would still be bumpy, but Selen's rubber substitute and some good springs made it tolerable. Selen had found a way to make a solid tire with a foam texture, not inflated, so that it had nothing to puncture. Tazo had made the whole thing as sturdy as possible for its weight, with racks to hold a tent and other gear.

Vonn wasn't sure he'd ever see Kotta alive again. All he could do was give his friend tools and encouragement.

"Here's the bike. But Kotta, you could stay here and work. Spread stories in the taverns, help publish written tracts."

The Kobold grimaced, and his teeth stood out. "The short-sighted nobles see what I have to say as a threat. Even Ralator would rather have me elsewhere, bringing confusion to the Scaled Nation and not bothering the good people of the River Kingdom."

"I'm sorry the world isn't more open to ideas like this."

"Not the whole world, I think. And there's more than one, I know now." Kotta sighed. "You think I'm crazy, don't you? No, that's not fair to ask."

"I think there's some truth in what you're doing. You just don't need to be the one to do it, and not at your age."

"Then who, and when?"

Vonn had no good answer. Kotta slapped him on the back and forced out a laugh. "See? I can persuade people. Someday, the Scaled Nation will be a better place."

They went out together to a seedy dockside tavern, and Vonn listened to his stories this time. Tales of the Dragons of course, but of the kingdom itself and its myths and legends. Expressions and concepts he'd never understood clicked into place a bit more.

In the morning, Vonn was the first to see him off besides his own family, but the whole Company turned out to load him with food and gifts. A fine enchanted mace, humanstride boots like Vonn's, some wooden toys to sell. The group had made sure Baron Urika would host him on his way west. Beyond there, his fate was in the Dragons' hands.

Vonn wrote to Selen of the departure, trying not to blame her. "I don't know if what you started will be a good thing, in the long term. But then, we've lit the fuse of something related, haven't we?"

#

With Kotta gone, Vonn had other responsibilities. As Dad proudly pointed out, he should expect special orders and requests just from having the [Engineer 6] label. The newspaper kids came to interview him, making a big deal of the number, too. Vonn told them, "What's important is what you can really do. Anyone can learn at least a little."

He did shill his new textbook a bit, though. The printers were working on putting that into type. They still relied on the monks of the temple to do bookbinding, but that partnership was starting to become a permanent deal where both sides got experience at the complete publishing craft. Ashfall had done most of the work to sell the temple their own printing press. Selen had been working her own experiments to make a better alloy for the type; lead by itself wore out quickly.

The next projects were control systems, and improved engines. The techniques provided by Selen let him create hydrogen and pump it into his pressure cylinder instead of air. It struck him as still rickety, since his ability to make a vacuum was limited. Probably he still had a little air in the container. Disturbing given what'd happen with hydrogen, oxygen and intense heat, but he'd been doing all he could to minimize the explosion risk.

Necromancers approached him. One of them met him over lunch to say, "We've heard you talking about materials. Have you considered using shaped bone?"

Vonn blinked. "I really hadn't. Isn't bone good for resisting crushing loads but not a sideways force?"

They got into a mutually confusing talk about what exactly made a material strong. The Bonefire Guild didn't generally use their materials for mechanical parts, but they could make a rod that could probably substitute for iron or wood, for the vertical struts and landing gear of an airplane's wings. Not a huge weight reduction, but a few pounds here and there helped. The necromancer had proposed making a propeller out of the stuff, but Vonn described how the different forces on it would probably make it shatter.

"Would your sister be interested in building a system of enchanted rails at our facility?"

Vonn took a drink. "You'll have to ask her. But she wants to be a great Mage, and that involves learning everything she can about every type of magic, right?"

"What about you? You showed some interest in the art."

"I expect to hit at least fifth level Mage within a year, so at some point I'd like to know more. I just can't commit to being a Guild member. Too much to do."

The man laughed. "You talk so casually about being that accomplished in two fields! I can tell you, my Guild would like to become a supplier of materials, if you continue expanding."

When Vonn got back to the shop he was troubled. Closer contact with the professional corpse-handlers didn't seem innately wrong. He just needed to make sure he was giving people incentives to work toward good causes. Not impoverishing the south villagers by making them dependent, for instance, but helping them with the processing of that wood-pulp root. Besides, the Duke would force reforms in those villages after their poor showing in the recent battle. Vonn would provide jobs and technology, and things would work out.