Chapter 138: Overseeing Production
By the time they had finished their checks, Tess’s mother had an excited look in her eyes. “I think I can expand this a lot.” She said. “I’ll brainstorm some ideas later, but we can definitely use this to our advantage in ways I wasn’t even thinking about while I was assuming we’d do it manually. We should probably still hire a couple of people just for the sake of handling any unusual requests that come our way, but we can mostly automate everything now.”
“Good to hear.” Tess said, giving her mother a relieved smile. “I wasn’t looking forward to doing the whole coin thing for another few hours.”
“Me neither.” Fortune replied. “I’m so glad I have you to help me think of stuff like this.”
“Thanks.” Tess said, blushing slightly. “So…what now? We’ve got a lot more time than we thought we would.”
“Hmm…I think it might help to make a public appearance at one of the factories producing the machines.” Fortune said. “It would really help remind people of our presence and reassure them that the machines we’re making are legit.”
Tess nodded, pulling out her phone. “Let me let Alice know.” She said, beginning to type out the message.
“Thanks.” Fortune said. “I’ll get started on finding a good place to do it.”
Tess finished the message and gave it a quick once-over before sending. Hey Alice, it read, I know we just talked, but Mom and I ended up finishing business a lot faster than we thought we would, and we decided it would be good to make an appearance at one of the factories making the machines. Just giving you a heads-up so it’s not too big a shock.
The reply came only a few moments later. Yeah, good call. Thanks for letting me know.
“Okay, I let her know.” Tess relayed. “How are we going to do this? Am I just going to show up in rabbitkin form and like…watch over an assembly line from above? Or do we want to make a bigger splash, be in full Descent and appear directly on the floor or something?”
“I was thinking of something along the lines of the more subdued option, yeah.” Fortune said. “I’ve found a catwalk in one of the factories that is reasonably out of the way but should also get you noticed relatively quickly. It’ll leave people thinking about our presence more than just making a big show of things, since they’ll be wondering if we’re hiding somewhere watching them.”
Tess nodded, shifted her armor to the form of a suit, turned on the effect that would make anyone seeing her recognize her as the Appointed of Fortune, then assumed the form of a rabbitkin. “Alright, ready.”
“Sending you now.” Fortune replied.
A moment later, Tess found herself standing on a metal walkway in a large room, overlooking a sequence of machines and belts, each producing bits and pieces of what would eventually become slot machines. It was an interesting process, divorced almost entirely from the process Tess had seen on TV shows from Mael, and Tess found herself getting absorbed by it.
The biggest difference was a matter of space; extensive use of magic bags allowed both for the machines to be fed from disparate positions that wouldn’t work conventionally, and for the belts to contain multiple different types of parts, which would then be sorted upon removal from the bag.
This allowed for a much more compact setup, especially when multiple inputs were involved. For instance, the frame assembly; it would take every part of the frame and the internal circuitry in from one belt, then use five different openings from the bag to neatly place each component in roughly their final positions.
Thanks to the transparent material the assembler was made out of, Tess was able to see as the components were levitated a short distance away from the bag exit points before being welded together seamlessly with magic, the finished slot machine sliding out onto a conveyor belt and further into the facility.
She leaned on the railing for a few minutes and waited, just watching the workers as they moved from machine to machine, checking displays and occasionally examining the parts that the machines had made. She didn’t have to wait for long, though, as her tremorsense informed her that a squad of people was stealthily approaching her location.
She straightened up and turned, hands clasped behind her back as she stared at where they would enter the catwalk, and a few moments later the first of them opened a door on the far side of the catwalk, a rifle of some sort held at the ready. The woman faltered the moment she saw Tess, eyes widening and her grip on her gun going slack.
“L-Lady Appointed of Fortune!” She stammered. “I-I thought that the workers were mistaken or it was an impostor, I d-didn’t realize it was actually you!”
Tess gave her a smile. “Excellent work, miss. It is important to be cautious when you receive reports like this. The work being done here is important, and you cannot afford to get complacent. Remember the feeling you get when you see me; that is one of the hallmarks of it being truly me. If you see someone who just looks like me but does not give you this feeling, then it truly is an impostor, and it would be wise to detain them. Inform your superiors and I will come and deal with them personally.”
The woman paused, then raised her rifle. “If that is the case, I know this might be impudent of me, but can I ask you to Descend to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that it is you?”
“Of course.” Tess said approvingly. She got the feeling that her mother wished to Descend and allowed her in, then let her speak.
“It is me.” Fortune said. “Your vigilance is to be commended. If you encounter my Appointed in the future, do not be hesitant to ask for Descent; it is the simplest way to verify her identity.”
“U-Understood, Your Worship.” The woman replied, falling to a knee. “Thank you for gracing me with your presence.”
Fortune nodded. “I will be taking my leave now. My Appointed is here to check and see that this facility is operating to our standards. I would appreciate it if she is not bothered further.”
“At once.” The woman said, standing and turning to face the rest of her squad that had been unable to enter the catwalk due to her blocking the door. “You heard her. Everyone out.”
Fortune ended Descent as the squad left, and Tess returned to her position watching over the factory.
| Private Message (Tess, Fortune) Tess: Is there anything I should be looking for here? I don’t know the first thing about these sorts of machines. Fortune: Don’t worry about it, I’ve been doing all that monitoring myself. This is just a visit to remind people that they’re being watched. Tess: Alright, I’ll stay a bit longer, then. Are most factories like this outside of Mael? Fortune: Depends on what’s being made. This is cutting-edge stuff from a large company, so it’s on the fancier end of things. Many smaller companies are a lot less automated, and use mages in place of heavy machinery. After you get small enough, it’s a lot more economical to use a person’s Mana instead of machines, since people’s Mana naturally regens, or just needs some assistance from potions, and cores can cost a hefty sum if they’re not from commonly fought monsters. You take a slight productivity hit, but with proper spellwork all a mage needs to do is channel in Mana and the process will go automatically. Then you just rotate people out as needed. Tess: That sounds… like an incredibly boring job. And if you’re at that point, why not just use electricity? Fortune: It’s not so bad. You haven’t done much outside of the system’s prebuilt spells, but we’ve included a lot of small “building block” spells that can be chained together to make new ones, kind of like programming. These companies put effort into making really, really efficient spell arrays, and since all the mage needs to do is channel Mana and occasionally drink a potion, they can just zone out and watch TV or something. It’s actually considered a pretty cushy job by a lot of people. Tess: I didn’t think of it like that, I guess. Still, why not electricity? Fortune: It’s not generated on that sort of scale. Enough is generated for small stuff like computers and household appliances, but when you get into the scale of mass production, it’s a lot cheaper to hire a mage. And if you’re hiring a mage to make electricity…well, the conversion rate on that isn’t great. It’s more efficient to just use magic directly instead of transforming it into another source of power. Tess: So, at what point do cores become cheaper? Fortune: That really depends on how many steps are needed to make whatever you’re making and the quantities you’re making it in. You usually need a mage for each machine, so if the number of machines outstrips the number of jobless people with the requisite magic Skills to power them, you’re going to want to use cores. Which you use is going to depend on what’s available in the area, how good your spellcrafters are, what you need to use it for…it’s a complicated thing. Tess: How much does the type of core matter again? I know at home we just shove everything into that machine but… Fortune: It matters a decent amount. Any core can be stripped down to pure Mana, and that’s often how your machine does it, but cores from monsters more aligned with certain elements are more efficient at powering spells of those elements. You can kind of think of it like attuning the Mana to an element, but that’s not exactly what’s happening. I’m a little fuzzy on the specifics, but the broad idea is that using similar Mana pathways to what’s in a core will more effectively siphon the Mana from it. That’s all real technical stuff, though, and people get paid a lot of money to design spells like that. At your house, most cores are converted to Mana, but that machine will sort out cores that will power certain machines more effectively and use those. It’s honestly really impressive on a technical level. Tess: Makes sense. Fortune: Anyway, I think that’s about enough time. Shall I pick you up or do you want to watch more? Tess: I’m ready to leave, I think.
|
A moment later, Tess was returned to her mother’s side. “So, that took up…fifteen minutes.” Tess said. “Anything else we can take care of with this time?”
Fortune rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Well, the other major thing we need to do is audit my church. I don’t want to start on that until we’re ready to dedicate a certain number of hours to it each week, but we might as well start talking about the process.”
“I’m guessing I’m going to be doing stuff kind of like what we did with Olga, right?” Tess asked. “Just coming in and laying down the law?”
“I don’t think it’ll get quite as dramatic as that.” Fortune said. “But mostly what will happen is that we’ll come in, officially excommunicate anyone we deem to be unacceptable, and then hand out Curses as appropriate. Normally we’d have to do more of an investigation, but we should be able to use the same spreadsheet trick to narrow things down.”
“I’m sure a lot of people have gone to ground in the wake of my debut and Olga’s punishment, right?” Tess pointed out. “How are we handling them?”
“I took a copy of the church’s records before you debuted.” Fortune replied. “That’s what I’ll be using to make the spreadsheet. If they’re hiding, then we’ll visit them personally, no biggie. If they’re not on the books…well, I’ll make some alternate checks for the spreadsheets.”
Tess paused. “Are you sure you don’t want my help with the spreadsheets?” She offered. “It really seems like you’re doing almost all of the work. I was studying to be an accountant, I’m pretty decent with spreadsheets.”
“No, your time is more important than that right now.” Fortune said firmly. “You still need to level up and get your build finished off. And it’s not like this will be the state of things forever; once we have things settled with the more legitimate side of gambling, there are some organized crime rings running some truly heinous cons under the veneer of fairness that we’re going to go after.
“And we’ll probably end up dealing with people who take advantage of really desperate people. I mentioned that I ended up being the god people turn to when they’ve got nothing else, right? It wasn’t originally supposed to be part of my duties but we might as well take care of it. And I’ll be mentioning this spreadsheet trick to Subterfuge, I think we can probably help out with providing intel for other gods and Appointed, and you can help then. Also, you know, helping with Ellie and Maven’s duties and everything with Mael. There’ll be plenty for you to do, trust me.”
“Alright.” Tess said. “That sounds fine, but, remind me…what’s the line that separates a problem law enforcement deals with and a problem we deal with?”
“There isn’t one, not as such.” Fortune said. “Basically, we step in if we feel law enforcement is incapable of handling the issue, such as if they’re too corrupt, or the opponent is too well-hidden or too strong. Or we’ll step in if what’s being done isn’t technically illegal, but is highly immoral. In this case, that’d most often be loans that can never realistically be repaid, contracts that essentially force people into indentured servitude, people who hide extremely dangerous things like mandated dungeon dives in fine print…that sort of stuff.”
“I see.” Tess replied. “Well…uh…I guess this hasn’t really resolved the time issue. You sure you don’t want me to use the rest of the day to make some spreadsheets with you?”
“You know what, why don’t we have a mother-daughter date, just you and I?” Fortune suggested. “We can’t really go down to the mortal realm, but there’s still a ton to do up here that I haven’t shown you.”
Tess thought on that for a moment, then nodded. “Alright.” She said. “I’ll let everyone know in case there’s something they really need me for, though.”
Her mother gave her a big smile. “Thanks, sweetie. I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom.”