Alexander's calloused fingers brushed the edge of the parchment, tracing the worn grain of the vellum where ink bled into delicate lines and tight angles. The blueprint sprawled across the heavy oak table, a cipher bathed in the golden flicker of the chandelier overhead, its iron arms swaying faintly, casting restless shadows over the sketch's unfamiliar symbols. The air in Emberhold's council chamber hung thick with the scent of beeswax candles and the faint, acrid tang of coal smoke drifting from the hearth, where embers glowed like dying stars against the blackened stone. Beyond the arched windows, the wind howled through the wilderness, rattling the leaded panes, a reminder of the unforgiving night encircling their stronghold.
He looked up, his steel-gray eyes meeting their gazes one by one—Elias's sharp scrutiny, Gareth's furrowed skepticism, Silas's quiet intensity, Owen's bewildered squint, and Lord Voss's measured curiosity.
"It's called a precision measuring caliper," he said, his voice calm but resonant, cutting through the chamber's stillness like a blade through silk. "A tool to measure internal and external distances with extreme accuracy—down to the hairline."
Elias leaned forward, his chair creaking under his wiry frame, a frown creasing his weathered brow. "You made a… ruler?"
"No," Alexander said, his tone steady as he tapped the blueprint with a scarred knuckle. "A ruler gives estimates. This gives exactness. A craftsman wielding this can shape one part, then reproduce a dozen more—same shape, size, tolerance, every curve flawless."
Silence settled, heavy as the stone walls around them, broken only by the soft pop of a log splitting in the fire.
Gareth tilted his head, his thick beard catching the light, eyes narrowing. "But what for? Why such precision? No one forges armor joints thinner than a thumb. A hammer either fits your grip or it doesn't."
Alexander gestured toward the sketch, his fingers tracing a curved line. "Because we're not making hammers forever. This tool births replication—interchangeable parts. No more filing or forcing pieces to fit by hand. Locks, hinges, bearings. In time, mechanisms—complex ones—crafted by different hands in distant forges, yet working as one."
Silas's eyes widened slightly, a spark of recognition flaring in their dark depths. "Standardization."
"Exactly."
Lord Voss, who had sat unusually still, his velvet cloak pooling around him like spilled ink, leaned in, his silver-ringed fingers hovering over the design. The chandelier's glow glinted off his hawkish features as he studied it. "Mass production. You're saying one tool could let us build a hundred items, all identical?"
Alexander nodded, his jaw tight. "And more. Once craftsmen grasp it, they'll refine it further. This is just the first stone in a long road."
Marcus scratched his head, his coarse hair rustling under blunt fingers, voice gruff. "Still seems small. Mines and forges burn through the night, and you bring us… this?"
"It's small now," Alexander said, his gaze unwavering, piercing the haze of doubt. "But it will change everything."
The others exchanged glances—Gareth's skepticism etched in his clenched jaw, Elias's thoughtfulness softening his sharp edges, Owen blinking at the blueprint as if it whispered in a tongue he couldn't fathom.
"Where did you learn this?" Elias asked, eyes narrowing, his voice low against the wind's mournful wail outside. "None of us have seen its like—not in the Kingdom, not from the guilds, not even in Silas's hoarded tomes."
Alexander paused, the firelight dancing across his angular face, casting shadows that deepened the lines etched by years of war.
Then he leaned back in his chair, its carved wood groaning faintly, his expression unreadable as stone. "My father was a mechanist," he said. "Before the war. Before everything. He worked with gears, locks, clockwork—anything that moved. I apprenticed under him before I ever gripped a sword."
Silas looked up sharply, his quill stilling on the parchment he'd been scribbling on. "You never told us that."
"No one ever asked," Alexander replied simply, his voice a quiet ripple in the room's stillness. "Most see me as a soldier with a lucky blade and a stubborn jaw."
"And you let them," Elias said, a faint edge of accusation in his tone.
"Because it worked," Alexander countered, his eyes steady. "But we're past survival now. If we're to rise beyond a stronghold in the wilderness, we must think differently."
Voss tapped a finger on the blueprint, the sound sharp against the table's polished grain. "How long until we can produce these?"
"A week for the first," Alexander said, his words precise as the tool he described. "Gareth will oversee the prototype. Then we distribute to our top craftsmen and engineers. Slowly. Quietly."
Silas furrowed his brow, his long fingers curling around his quill. "Do we share this with outsiders?"
"No," Alexander said without hesitation, his voice firm as iron. "Not yet. This tool is power. Quiet power. Let others see us grow, but not grasp how."
A weight settled in the air, thick and unspoken, pressing against the chamber's ancient walls. The fire crackled on, its warmth battling the chill seeping through the stone, while the wind's whistle grew sharper, threading through the cracks.
They weren't just discussing a tool. They were charting a new course for the Dominion.
Less blood, more thought.
Less conquest, more construction.
Gareth let out a breath through his nose, a huff that stirred the air. "Well. Guess we'll need finer chisels."
"Already working on them," Alexander said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips, barely visible in the firelight.
Owen reached for the blueprint again, his broad hands dwarfing it, squinting at the strange lines as if they might shift under his gaze. "Can we use it for building too? Walls? Keystones?"
"In time," Alexander said, his voice steady as the heartbeat of the stronghold. "Anything needing precision will sharpen under this. Our crafts—and our minds."
Silas nodded slowly, his quill resuming its soft scratch. "Then we begin the shift. Higher value production. Less waste. More intention."
"Exactly," Alexander said. "The Tenebrium will still flow—but now we forge more than weapons."
He met each man's gaze again, the chandelier's glow glinting off his eyes like sparks off steel.
"This is the first step."
And though the fire still snapped in the hearth, its embers painting the walls with fleeting red, and the wind still keened beyond the stone, a new sound had taken root in Emberhold's heart—a subtle, mechanical hum, faint as a whisper.
The sound of turning gears.