The Necro-Industrial Revolution

Jack was still in the meeting room, closing the last of the reports submitted by Giles, Barnaby, and the Old Miller. After reviewing the numbers, his path forward was obvious. He needed to leave for Alaric’s fief immediately.

He stood up, grabbing his cane, and walked out into the Great Hall. Karen was currently overseeing a small team of maids scrubbing the stone floors.

“Karen,” Jack called out. “Send a servant to the village and fetch the carriage driver. I need to head to Alaric’s fief right now. Also, take the parchments I left on the meeting room table and place them securely in my upstairs study.”

Karen stopped her pacing and bowed respectfully. “Right away, My Lord. But… could you perhaps wait just a little while? Lunch is nearly ready in the kitchens.”

“I need to see how the construction is progressing down there,” Jack replied, adjusting the cuffs of his coat. “If I wait to eat now, I’ll be caught on the road in the dark during the return trip. Don’t worry, I’ll eat when I get back.”

Karen frowned, genuine concern breaking through her demeanor. “You shouldn’t push yourself this hard, My Lord. You need to rest from time to time. We all remember how close to death you were just last winter, and—”

She abruptly cut herself off as she realized she had just casually commented on her Lord’s frailty. She bowed so deeply she nearly folded in half. “I am incredibly sorry! I spoke completely out of turn. Please forgive me, My Lord!”

Across the hall, the rhythmic scrubbing of the maids completely stopped. They kept their heads down, but their ears were practically swiveling toward the conversation, terrified of how Jack might punish his head servant.

Jack simply let out a warm, rolling laugh, shattering the tension in the room.

“You aren’t wrong, Karen,” Jack smiled, leaning slightly on his cane. “I was half-dead last winter, and I probably do need a long nap. But the survival of this valley won’t wait for me to catch up on my sleep. Your concern is appreciated, truly. But please, have the carriage brought around quickly.”

Karen let out a shaky breath of profound relief. “Right away, My Lord!” She immediately spun around and dispatched a young servant to run down to the village.

Leaving the maids to their work, Jack walked out the back doors of the keep and into the rear courtyard.

The blast furnace was slowly taking shape. The thick, circular brickwork was already about twenty percent finished, rising a few feet off the ground like the base of a stout tower. Corin was standing near the masonry, pointing out structural angles to his young apprentice, Alan, while a few exhausted laborers mixed mortar nearby.

When Corin spotted Jack approaching, he quickly patted Alan on the shoulder, instructed the boy to watch the mortar consistency, and jogged over to his Lord.

“My Lord, what can I help you with?” Corin asked, wiping brick dust from his trousers.

“Get ready. We are visiting Alaric’s fief,” Jack ordered.

Corin blinked. “May I ask for what purpose, My Lord?”

“To check on their development, and more importantly, to solve your crippling labor shortage,” Jack replied, gesturing to the mostly empty work site. “Now go wash the dirt off your face and hands. We are leaving immediately.”

“Yes, My Lord! I’ll be right back!” It didn’t take a genius to realize Jack intended to pull laborers from the neighboring village. Corin sprinted toward the washbasins with renewed energy.

Fifteen minutes later, the heavy wooden carriage rolled into the courtyard at the main gate. The driver pulled the horses to a halt and offered Jack a crisp salute.

Standing on the castle steps, Jack mentally reached into his core. He sent two sharp, invisible commands.

A few minutes later, the heavy doors of the castle opened, and two massive figures clad entirely in thick, imposing armor stepped out into the sunlight. It was Elias and Sylvia, Jack’s two undead flesh-bound mages.

Jack climbed into the carriage cabin, followed by an eager Corin. A moment later, the carriage groaned under the immense weight as the two armored mages climbed in and took their seats opposite them. The doors shut, the driver cracked his whip, and the carriage rolled out of the courtyard moving down, towards the village and then past the valley.

For Jack, the ride was peaceful. For Corin, it was psychological torture.

The carriage cabin was cramped. Corin sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Jack, forced to stare directly at the two armored knights sitting across from them. The mages didn’t shift their weight even once. They didn’t say a single word. They simply sat like lifeless statues, radiating a cold, heavy magical pressure that made the hairs on Corin’s arms stand straight up. The engineer spent the entire two-hour journey sweating profusely, desperately staring out the small wooden window.

Eventually, they crossed the border and rolled into Alaric’s village.

Jack stepped out of the carriage, taking in the sights. Unlike his own fief, where the walls and furnaces were still under heavy construction, the new textile mill here was already completely finished. The Vance villagers knew exactly what they needed and with enough work force it didn’t took very long.

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Jack and Corin walked into the large, sprawling wooden building. The air inside was thick with the earthy smell of river water and dried vegetation.

The mill was a marvel of simple, effective machinery. In the first section, workers fed rotted fiber stalks into a heavy, crank-operated crushing machine, shattering the tough outer shells. Next, the crushed stalks were moved to long, low wooden boards. Here, laborers rhythmically beat the fibers with flat wooden mallets, violently scraping and pulverizing the remaining woody bits out of the plant, leaving behind a rough, hairy bundle of raw threads.

Further down the line sat heavy wooden blocks studded with dense rows of sharp iron spikes. Workers dragged the raw bundles through these iron teeth in a violent combing motion. This process separated the short, tangled fibers—which were tossed aside to be twisted into coarse ropes and durable sacks—from the long, smooth fibers destined for clothing. The resulting material wasn’t as luxurious as silk, but it was sturdy, breathable, and perfectly suited for peasant garments.

In the next room, dozens of spinning wheels whirred simultaneously. Workers fed the combed fibers onto spinning spindles, rapidly pumping wooden foot pedals to keep the wheels turning. The dizzying motion twisted the loose fibers tightly together, creating thick, strong spools of yarn.

Finally, the yarn was taken to the weaving floor. Massive wooden looms dominated the space, holding hundreds of tight threads in perfect rows. The weavers operated foot pedals to lift alternating threads, then swiftly threw small, polished wooden shuttles carrying the cross-threads through the gaps. Back and forth, the shuttles flew, rapidly locking the yarn into tight, durable sheets of fabric.

It was an incredible assembly line. Naturally, a mill this large required highly precise metal gears, cranks, and iron combing spikes. To save a fortune on market prices, Jack had ordered his own blacksmiths, Barnaby and the men under him, to forge the parts. To ensure perfection, the Vance village elder, who was now the owner of this mill, had personally traveled to Jack’s fief, living there for three days to supervise the ironwork before hauling the parts back.

The collaboration was working beautifully. Just as promised, the elder had taken in nine workers from Jack’s fief, and they were currently scattered throughout the mill, eagerly working and learning the spinning and weaving trades alongside the locals.

However, this massive leap in technology had created a glaring new bottleneck.

Before Jack’s intervention, the villagers processed the fiber completely by hand. It was agonizingly slow. The villagers had begged Lord Alaric to build them a mill for years, but Alaric had always refused, claiming he would have to raise their already crippling taxes to fund it. Because the hand-processing was so slow, the small patch of fiber crops they grew by the river was always enough to keep them busy.

Now, with the mechanized mill operating at ten times the speed, they were burning through their raw materials faster than they could grow them. The village simply lacked the arable land to expand their fields.

Jack had read about this impending shortage in a report from Giles’ men a few days ago. His solution was simple: he had several acres of unused, fertile land in his own valley. He would simply start growing the fiber crops himself to supply the mill.

Leaving the noisy machinery behind, Jack and Corin walked outside. Across the village, the construction of the new winter cabins was well underway. Nearby, several large groups of women—a mix of Vance villagers and Jack’s own people—were molding wet clay in the open air, shaping pots and plates for the kilns.

Pottery isn’t a high-revenue export right now, Jack thought, watching their skilled hands smooth the clay. But coming from the modern world, I know a dozen ways to refine porcelain and mass-produce luxury ceramics. That will make a mountain of gold in a few years, once I have better connections with the major Merchant Guilds. Jack found the old man going back inside the weaving room, to inspecting a fresh bolt of fabric. The moment the old man saw Jack, he dropped the cloth and bowed deeply.

They discussed the mill’s output for a few minutes before Jack brought up the agricultural issue. “I plan to grow the fiber crop in my valley to supply your mill,” Jack explained. “I need to secure seeds.”

The elder sighed, shaking his head. “My Lord, harvesting the seeds is incredibly difficult. You can only extract the seeds when the plant is still small and immature. But if you take the seeds early, the plant’s growth is permanently stunted. It won’t yield the grain, and the stalks won’t grow long enough to produce good fiber. Because we have so little land, we can’t afford to sacrifice any of our crop for seeds.”

“So you buy them from the passing merchant caravans,” Jack deduced.

“Exactly, My Lord. Lord Alaric always placed the orders for us.”

Jack rubbed his temples. He had already sent a man to scour the regional market, and they had found absolutely nothing. This specific fiber crop wasn’t widely grown outside of a few isolated northern fiefs.

“Then I will have to negotiate with the caravan masters when they arrive,” Jack said. He knew it was a gamble. Merchants rarely carried bulk seeds for niche crops unless they were per-ordered, and if they did happen to have a custom order meant for someone else, they would charge Jack an extortionate price to buy it out from under them.

Not wanting to waste daylight worrying about the autumn caravan, Jack pivoted to his primary goal.

He walked out to the center of the village and ordered one of the local villagers to round up anyone who was currently sitting idle. Within ten minutes, a crowd of over thirty able-bodied men and women gathered in the dirt square, looking at Jack with a mix of curiosity and respect.

Jack didn’t mince words. “I am currently constructing a massive forging facility in my valley, and I need laborers. I am offering jobs to anyone willing to make the commute.”

The crowd murmured. Walking to the Frost Grip valley and back every day would take a massive bite out of their time.

Anticipating this, Jack threw down his lure. “The wages will be exactly the same high rate you earn here. However, to compensate for your travel time, your required working hours will be cut by half an hour every day. You work less, but you take home the exact same amount of silver.”

The murmurs instantly turned into excited chatter. Earning peak wages for shorter shifts was an incredible deal.

Jack stepped back and let Corin take the floor. The engineer stepped up, quickly and professionally explaining the masonry, bricklaying, and heavy lifting required for the blast furnace.

When Corin asked for volunteers, fourteen people immediately stepped forward, raising their hands. Corin beamed; fourteen fresh workers was more than enough to get the blast furnace back on schedule.

“Excellent,” Jack nodded. “Now, I also need hands for the coal mines. The work is dark, dirty, and exhausting. But the pay is guaranteed.”

The crowd hesitated. Only two men—broad-shouldered laborers looking to escape the textile dust—stepped forward.

Two is better than nothing, Jack thought pragmatically. He had solved the engineering crisis, secured a cross-fief alliance, and recruited the labor he needed without provoking the Church. Today was a resounding success.