"...say more about that?"

"Uh, the Spark sociologist Uider Seidlitz, I read some of his work, ran a bunch of mathematical models about how heavy machinery and access to fuels allows one person to produce far more than they did before. I don't have the book but it was a five hundred page brick about how if people were less selfish idiots constantly murdering each other the economy- Not the amount of money going around but the amount of stuff people have, like food or houses or books, could be... Exponential. Give one farmer a diesel tractor. He plants and plows five times as much land. He has a lot of money with his five times as much crops. He buys another tractor, which means he's paying the miners who mine the iron and the people who smelt it and the people who shape it into a tractor, and... The key idea is that a small start can grow very huge. I'd want to start with, probably, weaving? Then mining. Machines to mine a lot more material with less people involved. Cheaper iron, cheaper coal. Cheaper iron and coal means you can make more machines. Not just mining ones, but weaving, or vehicles, or farming machines. Sewing machines, so fewer people have to work to make clothes and more can mine, or farm, or do magic, or make machines. More machines means you can make cheaper iron and coal again. More food means more people can learn magic, or to make machines, or anything else. More machines and everything else means cheaper everything. More people who can make machines means more machines means more everything. Eventually."

"But you said this is for - if you don't have children who inherit your talent, Spark-ness - so you think you can train anybody to do this?"

"I think so, I really do. It wouldn't be easy, it's... I think education is the real key more than the machines... The engineering I'm teaching you off and on is the foundation for it... I am the only Spark in the entire history of City Frostbound. According to the records, in the last hundred years we've gone from a population of two thousand people just trying to hold on, through the power of steel smelting industry, to twenty thousand, all living in warm houses and riding a steam tram to work instead of walking and eating a fresh apple or orange at least once a week- Much better standards of living than, say, halflings around here."

"The halflings aren't the right comparison, they're all slaves."

"Maybe they wouldn't have to be slaves if everything was cheaper."

"...no, I think they still would be. I don't want to do this here. I want to do it upstairs."

"Are there slaves to be freed upstairs too?"

"Yes, but - I think not this many - I think there might be a place where it'd work like you said, somewhere, and I think it won't be a drow country."

"Doesn't seem like it, no. 'S just that the two places I've been are City Frostbound and Noctimar. I don't know what upstairs is like. Besides, uh, probably having sunlight and such."

"It does have that. Will the strawberry machine work for people besides you? If we wanted to sell it for travel funds?"

"-Uh, it'll break eventually without proper maintenance. Also, right now the strawberry machine is Shroomy the Mushroom Clank, who I'm a little attached to? They can be smart, I think shroomy is on the level of a particularly dumb lizard, but... I bet I can make a new strawberry machine that doesn't have these problems, or does as little as possible. Sell some spares for the things liable to burn out, too."

Nod nod.

"...Yeah, if it works- There are probably downsides to industry, weapons and the like, but there are so many upsides- More food, medicine..."

"Magic works very well at combat and not great at food or medicine, so."

"I'm getting a headache from all the heavy stuff. Wrapped wire and more iron and coal and another Chimney and a few days."

"Absolutely."

Well, she thinks the day out absolutely did help a lot. Back to work, this time with a mind towards travel gear and a replacement strawberry-zapper...