The Necro-Industrial Revolution

Over the next few weeks, the outskirts of the village transformed into a hub of industry. Several of the beehive ovens had been completely finished, their dome-like clay structures sitting squat against the dirt, and they were already in full use.

Whenever the ovens were operated, a crowd inevitably formed. Children, teenagers, and young adults gathered at a safe distance, their eyes wide with awe. They weren’t just watching rocks bake; they were watching a mage perform real magic right in front of them. For commoners who had spent their entire lives treating magic as a distant, terrifying myth, what could be more fascinating?

Naturally, Jack maintained the grand illusion. He would walk down to the ovens with Elias, his heavily armored fire mage, trailing silently behind him.

Standing before a newly loaded oven, Jack would give a firm nod. On his command, Elias stepped forward and placed his heavy steel gauntlets flat against the thick clay walls. Jack focused his mind, sending a steady stream of mana through his mental threads into the undead flesh-bound mage.

Crimson light began to spill from the gaps in Elias’s armor. The fire magic seeped directly into the clay, heating the oven slowly and evenly. Jack maintained this connection for twenty to thirty minutes, gradually raising the temperature until the coal inside ignited internally. Once the coal began to bake in the oxygen-starved environment, it was self-sustaining; it didn’t require the extreme, continuous magical heat needed for melting iron.

Jack repeated this exhausting process every two days across all four beehive ovens, as it took nearly forty-eight hours for the raw coal to fully transform into coke.

Extracting the finished product was an entirely different, incredibly dangerous spectacle.

Once a batch was ready, a team of workers working under Barnaby would approach the oven’s lower door. Swinging heavy iron hammers, they smashed the baked clay seal to pieces. The moment the seal broke, a massive rush of fresh air was sucked into the super-heated chamber.

Instantly, the glowing, purified coke inside erupted into violent, roaring flames.

The workers didn’t panic. They had large wooden buckets of water pre-positioned beside them. Moving quickly, they hurled the water directly into the blazing oven. The collision of water and intense heat triggered a massive, explosive cloud of thick white steam and gray ash that shot outward.

The water rapidly cooled the coke just enough to kill the roaring flames, though the rocks still were extremely hot. As the steam subsided, the workers stepped in, their faces slick with sweat from the radiant heat. Wielding long-handled tools with flat iron plates on the ends, they carefully dragged the black chunks out of the oven. One wrong step or a slipped tool meant severe burns.

The hot coke was spread out on the dirt and left to cool for several hours. Because the raw coal swelled and fused together during the baking process, the final step required the workers to take small hammers and meticulously break the massive chunks down into pieces roughly the size of a man’s fist.

While the continuous cycle of making coke dominated the village outskirts, Corin was facing a nightmare up in the castle courtyard.

The construction of the blast furnace was stalling. The core problem was a severe lack of manpower. Initially, Corin had borrowed plenty of hands from the farm teams, but as the crops out in the fields finally ripened enough to be harvested, the Old Miller had ruthlessly recalled every single one of his men.

Food was paramount. In the eyes of the villagers, iron furnaces were trivial novelties compared to surviving the winter. Harvesting the grain took absolute priority, leaving Corin staring at his half-finished stonework in frustration.

He couldn’t exactly poach men from Giles or Barnaby, either. Giles’ crews were neck-deep in the palisade project, constantly cutting old timbers and hauling fresh logs from the woods. Barnaby and the weapon engineer were entirely consumed with forging scrap iron into heavy gears, springs, and deadly traps for the upcoming winter beast tide. As for the miners? They were working their best just to keep up with the demands of the coke ovens and the export quotas.

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Corin was forced to do the heavy lifting himself. His only saving grace was a boy named Alan.

Alan was barely fifteen or sixteen, a scrawny youth from one of the original valley families. Unlike the other few teenagers who stared blankly at the blueprints, Alan had shown a sharp, natural interest in Corin’s engineering. The boy would hover around the work site, fascinated by how Corin used string, plumb lines, and math to ensure the walls didn’t collapse.

Desperate for help, Corin had taken Alan on as an official apprentice. To his surprise, the boy learned incredibly fast, soaking up the mathematics and structural logic despite never having a day of formal schooling. Alan was now capable of overseeing the few remaining laborers and correcting their mistakes if a brick was laid crooked, but he was still just one boy.

Realizing they were going to miss their deadlines at this crippled pace, Corin marched into the castle to find his Lord.

Inside the meeting room, Jack was sitting at the table, reviewing the weekly production reports submitted by Giles, Barnaby, and the Old Miller.

Knock! Knock!

Jack glanced up toward the closed door.

“My Lord, Corin is here to see you,” Karen’s polite voice filtered through the wood.

Jack sighed, setting his charcoal pencil down. He already knew what this was about. The blast furnace was right outside his castle; he had noticed the dwindling number of workers on the site for days.

Knock! Knock!

“It’s me, Corin, My Lord,” the engineer called out a moment later.

“Enter,” Jack commanded.

Corin pushed the door open, stepped inside, and offered a deep, respectful bow. Jack nodded politely, gesturing with his hand for the man to take the seat across the table.

Corin sat down, fidgeting slightly with his hands. “My Lord, you asked me to build the infrastructure for the steel production as soon as possible, but… I am facing a massive problem.”

“It’s about the lack of manpower under your command, right?” Jack interrupted him.

Corin let out a breath of relief, glad he didn’t have to explain the obvious. “Yes, My Lord. I wanted to ask… could you order some of the men working in the coal mines to halt their work for a bit and help me finish the furnace instead?”

“That won’t be possible,” Jack rejected the proposal instantly, his tone flat.

What Corin didn’t realize was that the mining force was already stretched to its absolute breaking point. A large portion of the original miners had recently transitioned into apprenticeships for carpentry, wood-cutting, or black smithing. The few men left in the deep shafts were currently mining just enough coal to feed the new beehive ovens, leaving only a meager surplus to store for the western merchant guild.

Halting the mines entirely would sever Jack’s only reliable stream of income. It was financial suicide.

Corin frowned, his anxiety spiking. “Then… how are we going to finish the furnace before the autumn caravan arrives with the raw iron?”

“Don’t worry about the labor shortage,” Jack assured him. “I am already working on a plan to bring more hands into the valley.”

Is he going to buy more slaves? Corin thought inwardly, a cold knot forming in his stomach. He kept his face neutral, however, not daring to question the Lord’s methods. “As you wish, My Lord. I will push the work as fast as I physically can. Any extra hands you can provide would be a great help.”

Corin stood up, bowed deeply once more, and was promptly dismissed.

As the door clicked shut, Jack leaned back in his chair.

Was he going to buy more slaves? Absolutely not. Doing so right now would be incredibly reckless.

First, Jack had already made a massive purchase of bonded labor this year. Silas, the Church inquisitor, and his student had witnessed the village. They had undoubtedly reported the sudden influx of manpower back to the Church. If Jack went back to that shadow merchant and bought dozens more, the Church would assume he was plotting something sinister. That would trigger a strict, holy inquisition into his territory. If the inquisitors started poking around the crypts, Jack would be burned at the stake for Necromancy.

The second major reason was the delicate social fabric of his own village. Despite Jack’s strict laws against discrimination, resentment was a stubborn weed. The original villagers already felt threatened. Why do these outsiders get to come here, live in our valley, and share our resources? We suffered here for decades! Buying another massive wave of slaves would push that quiet resentment past the tipping point.

The original villagers clashing with the new workers wouldn’t just be an argument; it would escalate into violent factional unrest. A class riot in the streets would draw the Church’s attention, which would, again, lead right back to Jack being investigated and executed.

No, Jack had a much safer, far more diplomatic plan.

He was going to visit Alaric Vance’s fief.

His strategy was simple: oversee the construction of the textile mill there, check on their general development, and then quietly recruit laborers from their massive population.

The brilliance of the plan lay in the treaty. Because Jack held the absolute legal right to make all administrative and economic decisions for the Vance fief for the next two years, he didn’t have to pay Alaric a single copper coin in Lord’s Tax for hiring his peasants.

Jack would save a fortune in taxes, the Vance villagers would receive full, un-deducted wages that would drastically improve their lives, and Jack would get the manpower he desperately needed to finish his steel production for this year.

They have over two hundred people in that village, Jack calculated. There have to be a few dozen strong backs willing to swing a hammer for a high wage.