From The Shieldpoint Current, a true account of exciting events among the riverfolk:

The Rising World Company continues to produce wonders. We humble press-men have lately seen a wheeled cart roll to and fro across flat ground by the power of Engineer cunning. While less exciting than the flying wagon seen earlier this year, its inventors say the work will help them build "more machines for more people". The inventors point to the generosity of our Baron and Duke in inspiring and funding their efforts. They have let it be known that they want to train new Engineers in the coming months.

The Crashing Rock Tavern, along the Little Star, is back in business. It has been fortified as a waypoint for those exploring Kolm's Fell. From there one can see the lookout balloon, one of our Company's flying machines, with scouts perched up in the air like Aves on a high tree. The friendly keeper, Iveline, also serves miners and travelers of all kinds.

Are you 'in the market' for fine barrels? Search no further than the cooper of Shieldpoint! He relates to us a silly incident from the past week, showing just how durable his wares are...

#

Vonn came in from the cold, fluffed up and wearing his striped scarf. It was after work hours and he was alone in his little bedroom in the workshop. Though his friends were free to putter around in the shop if they didn't make much noise, they were asleep now or elsewhere.

The latest set of incoming letters had distracted him all day. The miniature engine he'd gotten was a treat, though it took the team an hour to get it working. Another invention showing off what was possible, how far they could go. Even the resulting argument about whether to use this new internal-combustion design or to keep refining the frostfire engine had been productive, getting everyone thinking about the merits and needs of machines for specific applications. He was trying to avoid Edison's 'Not Invented Here Syndrome' of insisting on one technology just because it was his.

The fact that Firefern was so willing to trade designs would've struck Vonn as dangerously naive, in another world. But Vonn intended to give at least as much as he got from the relationship. That engine was meant for Vonn's team to give feedback on, and to spread the fame of what the Centaur was now calling the Steamflower Works, after his son or something. They'd apparently picked up the concept of branding.

The one behind that seemed to be Riz, the Merchant and Artist. Her letter began businesslike, mentioning the cloth samples as useful for belt-driven machinery and possibly meeting his needs for balloons. "You must have all sorts of chances to ask for odd things! Firefern's son seems to enjoy surprising people with little demonstrations and requests. His mother worries so about him and her husband. What do your own family members make of you working with experimental 'gadgets', to use Firefern's term? Your sister sounds very accomplished, but goodness, seven levels at your age? You must have found some new offering to the gods every season or nearly so! I've found nothing yet to take me past seven levels myself. I'm at least keeping up on the skills and abilities. Don't be disappointed when you start having to skip a season."

But then she talked about growing up in the lakelands, learning to sail young. She'd been born on the Starry River, literally, and her oldest memory was of moving to the lake and realizing that the world wasn't just one wandering line, a single dimension. Becoming a traveler and then a trader had seemed natural. She wrote, "And then to hear about featherless folk being able to travel straight up, is literally a new direction. I'm not certain I believe this idea of other worlds, but maybe you can tell me of them. In trade, let me tell you about Liiros, my own little corner of the kingdom."

The lake was a waypoint on the river's way to the sea, so naturally it handled commerce over a wide area including east and west. Liiros was considered the poor cousin to another city on the lake's south exit, but it sounded pleasant. Riz described it in terms of her own wandering along the shore, up Lookout Hill and a battlefield, through a bazaar carrying treasure from foreign lands, to a favorite bakery, with a jaunt into a dungeon she wasn't qualified to enter as more than a luggage carrier. "Still I gave a decent hit with a mace, the one time my group dared me to come along past the first floor. You would laugh to see me swinging that around."

Vonn smiled, knowing he'd been smart to keep out of melee combat himself. It would be nice to visit a new town like that, and be shown around.

#

"Vonn, are you trying to catch your tail on fire again?"

He flicked his tail in alarm, away from the forge where Ashfall was working. "That only happened once. Oh, it's the Fire Festival next week!"

"We said that twice, yeah. Did you want to make another sound recorder to show off, or did you have some completely different wonder in mind?"

Vonn paced, admiring the well furnished machine shop he'd accumulated. Gradually they'd built up the number and quality of their tools, giving them a proper drill and other cutting and grinding equipment. Those stood in a motley row along one wall. "Making another recorder is actually a good idea. I have plenty of others --"

"Of course," said Tazo. Like everyone here she'd taken to wearing simple goggles.

"But it'd be good to revisit an older project with the new tools. What's our status with the Baron's orders?"

He went over to the blackboards to answer that for himself. Bogstep was riding herd on his team, dictating the construction of engine-driven pumps, plus bicycles and after some persuasion by Vonn, machine tools. The Baron didn't care much about Vonn's stated desire to get more people using technology, but his son was acting as a go-between and he knew more about Vonn's real value.

Birb flapped and squawked. "No, Vonn. We keep putting off the flying machines!"