10:42 p.m. - At Forge by the Rope-walk, Dawnspire
Snow lay in thin stripes on the sill. The forge was quiet. Only the lamp burned. Only Ryan sat at the bench with iron, leather, copper wire, and a chalk board that leaned against a barrel.
Snowball waited outside the door, a pale shadow with slow breath. His antlers held a faint shine like frost caught a star.
(Hands are safe. But I did not cross a world to be only hands. Make the engine pull the work, not the people.)
Ryan drew three shapes with chalk: a pot, a cylinder, and a beam.
Ryan (murmurs, pointing with chalk): "Denis Papin. Early tricks. A strong pot, a weight lid. Steam makes pressure. He lifts a piston. Then he lets it cool, and the piston falls as a vacuum pulls."
He marked a wavy line for steam and a down arrow for the fall.
Ryan (plain, to himself): "It works, but leaks and fear and bad seals made it weak."
He drew the next.
Ryan (steady): "Thomas Newcomen. The atmospheric engine. Big iron cylinder. Hot steam fills it. Then cold water spray. Steam shrinks fast. A vacuum forms. The air above the piston pushes down like a giant hand."
He tapped the beam sketch.
Ryan (Encouraging/Optimistic): "We'll figure this out. One step. No magic fix. Just good parts."
He set the chalk down and set his hands to work. He had a small iron cylinder the smith had bored for him—rough, but straight. He had a piston plate with a leather cup seal, soaked in tallow. He had a wooden beam made from tough ash, iron‑pinned at a post, with a chain to the piston on one end and a pump rod on the other. A little copper boiler sat on the bricks, ringed by a simple fire. A Papin valve weight bobbed on top.
He bled steam into the cylinder. He listened. Hiss. Hiss. He shut the cock and pulled a string on a tiny pipe that dripped cold water into the cylinder.
The change was fast. The hiss stopped. The piston thumped. The beam dipped. The pump rod rose on the other side.
Ryan (eyes bright): "Yes."
He did it again. Steam. Shut. Drip. Thump. Beam. He had to tighten a strap and rub more tallow on the leather. He packed a little flax around the piston rod gland. He fixed a leak with a hammer tap and a prayer he would not say aloud.
(Atmospheric. Let the world push the piston. No need to trap the fire in a box that wants to burst.)
He walked around the rig, light on his feet, mind counting. Stroke. Reset. Stroke. Reset. The pump on the far end—only a small one—lifted brackish water from a tub and sent it over a lip into a barrel. Drop by drop, the barrel filled.
Ryan (Philosophical/Thoughtful): "Revolution is a circle. Up, down, up, down, until you find a way to turn it."
He set a ratchet wheel on a simple axle and linked it to the beam with a pawl. On each downstroke, the pawl bit and turned the wheel a little. A crude flywheel of stone and wood kept the spin from dying at the top.
It was not pretty. It was not fast. But the wheel turned.
Ryan's lips twitched. He set a frame beside the wheel: a U‑shaped iron magnet he had beaten and stroked with lodestone, and between the poles, a small armature wound with copper wire he had stripped out of old coils and wound by hand. Two rough brushes touched a pair of slip rings.
Ryan (to the quiet room): "Dynamo. Not for lamps yet. For tests. For a spark. For speed."
The wheel turned. The armature spun. At the brushes, a whisper of blue showed and was gone. A compass needle on the bench shivered and leaned.
Ryan (Curious/Inquisitive): "Okay, but if this is magic, what's the rule set? There has to be a system under the hood."
He wrote in the Silent Witness notebook. The wooden cover was warm from his hands.
— Papin: pressure pot. Piston lifts, vacuum drop. Weak seals. — Newcomen: cylinder. Steam fill. Cold water in cylinder. Vacuum fast. Air push. Big down force. Easy to make now. — Beam + pump: water out of mine. Or line‑shaft with ratchet + flywheel to drive simple cams. — Goal: reduce hands at press line. Use line‑shaft. Use cams to lift, set, stamp. Keep safety. Move workers to checks, not push.
(You do not fire people. You free them to do smarter work. We do math, not rumor. Aidan will like that.)
He turned the valve again. Stroke. Reset. He set his ear by the iron. He was not tired. He did not feel the pull of sleep. He did not feel the ache in the back that old smiths got after the third hour.
(Safe from fatigue. Use it. Do not brag. This is a tool, not a crown.)
The lamp oil sank lower. The snow outside whispered. Somewhere, a cracked city bell made a poor sound and kept time badly. The forge held its peace. Ryan's hands moved.
He made a small chalk mark for a pressure gauge idea and then crossed it out. No glass tonight. He drew a safety habit instead.
— Rule: Two valves. One to let steam in. One to quench. Never both at once. — Rule: Weight on safety pops at set hiss. Never fix a stuck valve with a hammer while fire lives. — Rule: If a jar chips, stop the line. If a seal leaks hot, step back. Use a stick.
Ryan (Joking/Lighthearted): "Note to self: do not blow up the rope‑walk. Risk of unexpected unemployment is apparently… non‑zero."
He tried a longer run. Hiss. Drip. Thump. The ratchet clicked. The flywheel turned smoother. The armature spun faster. The brush gave a stronger whisper of blue. He touched two charcoal points together. They kissed with a tiny spark.
Ryan (Encouraging/Optimistic): "Debugging life, one bug at a time—that's basically what heroes do, right?"
He shut the fire and bled off the steam. He wiped the cylinder with a rag and checked the straps. He set the dynamo under the bench and covered it with canvas.
His mind reached for the Space House out of habit. He felt the way the internet there was frozen, dead as a fossil. No new diagrams. No old lectures. No forum to ask.
(You do it by hand. You run tests like stone age science. Slow is fine. Honest is fine.)
Footsteps came soft in the alley. A door hinge breathed. Sariel's shadow crossed the frame. She did not come in. She had a cloak over her ledger like it was a child.
Sariel (flat, at the door): "You are still here."
Ryan (wiping hands): "Yes."
Sariel (eyes narrow): "You do not sleep?"
Ryan (shrug, plain): "I have good tricks for long hours."
Sariel (ticks the air with a finger): "Do not break the forge."
She closed the door. The hinge sighed again. Snowball shook and sent a small frost of light from his antlers. Ryan touched the beast's muzzle. Warm breath washed his palm.
Ryan (to Snowball, fond): "Careful with that smile—you're about to overload my processors."
He set back to the bench. He shaped a better pawl with a file so the wheel would not slip. He cut a strip of leather to make a safer cup. He wrote a clean note for Aidan in case the floor boss came before first light.
To: Master Aidan Thorne — Newcomen model, small: works. Can pump. Can turn ratchet wheel for a line‑shaft. — Three fixes done: 1) Press face polished true. 2) Safety weight on boiler, set to a safe hiss. 3) Ratchet + flywheel to turn shaft. — Ask: a day to build a larger cylinder and beam with the smith, and one man to help. I can make the press line lift and set without four extra hands. — Promise: No show. No noise. I will explain in daylight.
He set the note under a wrench where it could not blow away. He washed his hands in a bucket. He did not feel slow. He did not sway. His eyes stayed clear.
(Do not look like a monster. Move like a man. Let the work talk.)
Before first light, the door moved again. Aidan came in with frost on his jaw and the look of a man who had not slept much either, but for normal reasons. He stopped three steps inside. He took in the beam, the rig, the wet cylinder, the canvas‑covered frame under the bench, and the neat bench. He did not waste words.
Aidan (quiet): "Show me."
Ryan opened the steam cock. Hiss. He shut it. He pulled the quench cord. Thump. The beam moved. The pump lifted. The ratchet clicked. The flywheel turned. The armature under canvas hummed like a small bee.
Aidan stepped close. He put two fingers on the beam, felt the pull, the weight, the honest work the wood was doing.
Aidan (measured): "Explain it in short."
Ryan (plain): "Papin made pressure and a fall. Newcomen uses steam to make a vacuum, and the air pushes hard. We push a pump. Or, with this ratchet and a flywheel, we turn a shaft. That shaft can lift, set, and stamp with cams. Fewer hands at the press. Same pay moved to checks and fixes. Faster, safer line."
Aidan looked at the safety weight, the quench cock, the extra leather, the clean bench.
Aidan (short): "Three fixes?"
Ryan slid the note across. Aidan read without moving his lips.
Aidan (nods once): "Good hands. Serious work."
He paused. He looked at Ryan's face. He looked for sag under the eyes, for stumble. He did not find it.
Aidan (mild suspicion): "Elric Did you sleep?"
Ryan (with a small smile): "I do not waste time when the metal is warm."
Aidan's mouth twitched. He did not push.
Aidan (decisive): "At first bell, you take the smith and make a bigger cylinder. Use city iron. No show. I will say it is a pump for the rope‑walk well. Later, we say what it really is."
Ryan (nods): "Understood."
Aidan (to the door): "If anyone asks, you stayed to clean."
He took a breath as if tasting the air of numbers in his head.
Aidan (low, to himself): "We do the math, not the rumor."
He turned to go, then stopped and looked back.
Aidan (to Ryan): "Do not burn the floor down."
Ryan (Frustrated/Annoyed, dry): "I will try."
Aidan snorted once, which was, for him, a laugh.
When he left, Ryan stood by the beam and looked at his own hands. They were steady. They smelled of tallow and iron.
!(Let the engine eat the hours, not the children!)
He covered the rig. He checked the quench. He set the safety weight free so it would pop if some fool lit the boiler wrong. He took the Silent Witness notebook and drew one more line.
— Press plan:
Main line‑shaft over the stations.
Cam for lift. Cam for set. Cam for stamp.
Clutch with a leather strap to stop fast.
Guard plates.
Bell rope for halt.
He underlined the last line twice.
— Training: move a little brother or a little sister apprentice up to checks. Keep small hands away from pinch points. Teach.
He set his coat on his shoulders. He scratched Snowball's jaw.
Ryan (to Snowball): "We'll figure this out. Every impossible problem is just a puzzle waiting for the right algorithm."
The city woke slow. The Temple bell gave a pure note far off. The cracked city bell tried and failed to match. Market folk began to call. A broadsheet voice would soon shout bad news and good lies, but not yet.
Ryan walked toward the smith's lane with the notebook in his bag and the plan in his head. He was not tired. He did not need sleep. No one needed to know why.
(You keep it small. You keep it honest. You make a revolution that turns on wood and iron, not on blood.)
He kept his hands busy. He kept his face plain. He kept his rules.
We keep what we can.
Ryan picked up his personal notebook and wrote.
Ryan (writing): "29) Build a simple dynamo when the time is right. — check"