Death After Death-Chapter 331 - Seeing Things Differently

Simon spent the bulk of the winter working with engraving tools and grinding lenses. It was tedious work, and eventually, despite his best efforts, he was forced to use a word of metal shaping to do part of the work, which disappointed him because he’d been trying very hard to avoid it. Still, it couldn’t be avoided, and in the end, thanks to that little compromise, he was able to make the spectacles he’d been musing about for months.

They were simple things, made to look like reading glasses, which was exactly what he’d say they were to anyone who asked about them, but people never did. In a sense, he supposed that was true. They were reading glasses, but they read people and magic, not books. Their slender frames prevent him from powering them externally or making them multifunctional, so each lens looked at something different. When worn, the left lens would show a hazy outline of people’s aura. The effect wasn’t nearly as clear as his own sight had been until the owlbears, but it was something.

Better to walk with crutches than not at all, he told himself the first time he tried it out, and tried not to be too disappointed in the final product.

Simon tempered his expectations, reminding himself that because of the very slender runes he’d been forced to use only minor words.

The other lens was more promising, if only because it gave him an ability he’d never possessed in any life. He could see magic now, if only a little. When he looked at one of his devices operating, it wasn’t too dramatic of an effect. They weren’t glowing, but the lines that dictated their effects were. Likewise, when he cast a spell, there was no glow, but there was a sort of distortion that swirled, that reminded him a bit of how those fate lines twisted around him for a couple of years in Ordanvale.

Under most conditions, the effect was probably too weak to be useful, but it did let him spot one thing he hadn’t been able to before. He could see who the witches had marked, and though they were very much a minority of the people in the capital, they were certainly present.

Perhaps only one person in a hundred bore such marks, but that was enough to make him concerned, even if he did see any obvious witches or warlocks lurking about during his trips through the frigid, snow-filled streets. There were other patterns, too. Some clans bore more marks than others, and old people bore them more than the young. At least people who looked older, Simon reminded himself. If they were being drained of their vitality, then it was only natural they’d age faster than they should.

His experiments were brief by necessity, especially since he didn’t plan to go out and harvest life force from any monsters any time soon, and he hadn’t built his backup plan to account for the loss of his own life force yet. A few hours of wearing his glasses not only gave him a headache, but they also robbed him of a day of his own life, which wasn’t much, but it was a leak that would definitely add up over time if he wasn’t mindful of it; while looking a little older in the long run wasn’t a bad thing, if it happened too quickly people would talk.

People already talked about Simon, of course, for both his positive dealings with clans Aldor and Eddek, and his humiliation of clan Himar. More than that, though, they spoke of his adventures. He wasn’t just a champion or a sellsword now. He wasn’t even a monster slayer to most people, despite slaying an ogre recently. He was a businessman. It was a strange reputation for him to have, but when he knocked on doors now with a new business proposal, people listened.

Simon took advantage of that and began proposing other projects with clans who had the power to make things happen. In fact, as the winter progressed and his witch hunt stalled, that became his primary occupation. He proposed big ideas to the men he was helping to make rich, and sometimes, they even agreed with him.

Though his idea of making a large-scale smelter to deal with the influx of metals he expected the city to face in a few years was deemed too unprofitable, after a particularly long night of drinking, the Karl of clan Volten agreed to his idea about building a new mint, using Simon’s designs.

“The only thing more profitable than owning a gold mine isss making the coinsss that come out of it,” he boasted, slurring his words only slightly.

Of course, Simon knew what he meant. He was talking about adulterating the metal and turning ten ounces of gold into twelve by adding copper for hardness and silver for luster. Simon didn’t really care; that was an issue between Karl Volten and the High Karl. Simon just wanted to get better coinage into the system. The ones that the Charians used now had been clipped halfway to uselessness, and were weighed more often than they were counted.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

That, along with some sewers, and maybe some joint projects to bring clans closer together, would go a long way to fixing Charian society. As long as I keep purging the witches, that is, Simon reminded himself. That was still the main reason he was sticking around here, even if he spent some time with Eddek and Kayla, and more time than ever wheeling and dealing. It didn’t feel as rewarding as slaying monsters, but he knew it was every bit as important. A century from now, it wouldn’t matter who killed a specific troll, but if he could solve blood feuds and build roads that tied the nation together, then everyone would be better off for it.

Simon proposed many bridges that winter, most were metaphorical, but a couple were very literal. There were a few places in Charia where a good bridge, even one made of wood and rope, would make all the difference in the world, saving traders days of time. Sadly, there were no takers.

“But if we let them cross through our land more quickly, we won’t get our cut of the profits,” Aldor Jaken complained.

It didn’t matter how many times Simon told men like him that they could simply charge a fee to cross that would make up any difference; the man insisted it was too little. Simon was so annoyed by that that he chose not to remove the cursed mark that someone had put on the man’s lower back. It wouldn’t have taken more than a brush of his hand and a minor word of flesh shaping, but Simon didn’t feel like spending a week of his life on someone who wouldn’t see reason.

Instead, he went to clan Eddek’s tiny hall, drank more, and complained, “Short-sightedness! It will be the end of Charia, mark my words. You’ll need to stand as one, or you’ll fall one by one.”

Eddek responded merely by shaking his head. “I know you mean well, Simon,” he answered ruefully, setting down the scroll he’d been reading. “And maybe these things are more common where you come from, but… Well, these traditions and alliances are very old. You can’t just expect everything to change in a year or two, even if it's the right thing to do.”

Simon nodded at that. For a young man, they were wise words. The boy went on at length about how much the academy he was attending was helping to mend such relationships, at the highest levels of the clans, and that much of the rivalry he saw today was just for show, but Simon dismissed that.

“If I offer you a deal that is in your interest, and you reject it because it's in your rival’s interest as well, that’s not just for show,” he said after he downed the last of his beer.

“That’s a fair point,” Eddek agreed, “But even so, by learning to emulate the great heroes of the past, I believe the scions of all the clans grow closer together.”

Well, maybe I just need to get everyone to read more, he thought as an idea started to percolate in his inebriated skull as he listened to Eddek talk about the virtues of learning at the academy, and how much it had helped him.

“It’s not possible for everyone to have that sort of wisdom,” Eddek complained, “But if they did—”

“Why is it impossible?” Simon asked. “I taught Kayla to read. It’s not as if servants can’t do such things.”

“True,” the young man agrees. “But even if we had a thousand monks copying all the scrolls in the city, it’s not as if they have the time. Noble birth grants one the luxury of leisure. Misused that becomes sloth and decadence as the scrolls say, but if everyone simply… left the kitchens, the laundries, and the fields to read, we would all soon starve to death.”

While Simon admitted the boy had a point, he ignored it. Instead, he decided on a course of action. He’d finally figured out what he was going to spend some of his growing wealth on: he was going to build a printing press with movable type.

Well, not build it; he’d pay other people to do that. He was going to design one, though, even if he didn’t quite know how just yet. He was fairly certain the Magi had some books written that way, too, so it wasn’t like he’d be inventing the thing. Still, he was going to design one, and he was going to pay artisans to construct it, and then he would print books for the masses.

Such seeds of knowledge would find little purchase in the minds of most, but he was certain the effect would be far grander, and reach much further afield than even his most ambitious bridge project.

What he would print with the thing, he wasn’t sure. He’d figure that out later, but he’d print something that would help bring the people of this region together, or go broke trying. It wasn’t even a question.

Who says I have to limit myself to Charia? he asked himself as he spent the rest of the night obsessing over the idea. I could send books south and west, too. I could alter events in Brin. Maybe it’s too late to stop the war of accession over there, but it's not too late to stop the next one. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

His conversation with Eddek unresolved, Simon fell asleep that night thinking about what he could print to move society forward a notch. On Earth, they’d printed a bible first; he was almost as sure of that as the fact that he'd never actually read a bible. Unfortunately, though, there was no such unifying scripture here. He was excited by the idea, though some small part of his mind whispered a single persistent doubt.

What if you make this thing, and someone uses it to mass produce copies of dangerous, forbidden knowledge? He wouldn’t let that happen, of course, but someday he would die, and when he did… Well, if something bad happened in the future, he could always spend another life fixing it.