"You can. It's more expensive and takes some more of the computer's resources to run them, though. Extra speakers are one of the accessories I sell."

"If you do that, can they play chords?"

"It's somewhat easier - the reason I can't do chords easily is the computer's limitations, not the speaker's. I haven't gone for it because I'm still improving my manufacturing abilities and sooner or later current models of speaker and computer will no longer be the best I can do. Might be worth the effort, though, if it'll be a dramatic improvement."

"Hm. If you think this time next year you'll have a better solution there's probably not much point in me coming up with anything, but... can you set the speakers up so the same signal from the computer makes them play different notes?"

"...Hmm. I could probably make it a - fixed ratio, a perfect fifth off of one signal or something - if making the setup for that doesn't take more effort than just improving the driver controller in the first place... I'll have to poke at it."

"If it has to be a fixed ratio that's probably not worth the trouble."

"Oh well. There are so many many things I could be building, even after hiring some help I have to prioritize."

Lanisal asks a lot of questions.

Nik has many answers, having nearabout invented the thing! If they're too technical the answer might be 'trade secret'.

Whenever he gets cagey about something technical, Seli's face gets very blank like he's trying too hard to avoid looking like he's taken it as a challenge.

"Oh, by the way, if think you've figured out an important secret I'll pay a fair bit to know exactly how you figured it out and promise not to disclose it for a few years. In the long run I won't be able to hold on to my monopoly but I'm going to bleed it while I can. Now, who's up for an introductory programming lesson?"

"Ooh, that sounds good. Both of those things sound good."

And he gives a programming lesson! The new programming language he's invented does its best to obscure the actual workings somewhat, but it's a complete and useful, if slightly feature-light, programming language.

He makes an incredibly simple video game over the course of about 15 minutes of explanation. A square appears somewhere random. You click it and it disappears and a new one appears and a counter goes up by one.

"More elaborate games are merely a matter of planning and effort and hard work."

"I think these two will have something for you in a while. I understand your stores sell third-party programs; how do you want to arrange that?"

"I have to have access to the source code, and poke around with the program, to ensure it's of reasonable quality and not hiding some smaller malicious program. There are potentially less invasive verification methods, things that don't have me looking at the actual source code, but I'm still working on those. Something for later if enough people decline to participate because I could theoretically copy something and get away with it. Oh, and I'll have a contract not to copy it without authorization, with a couple caveats to cover, oh, a particularly clever bit that I also happened to come up with as well being pointed out to a judge, for example. You cover the cost of making the chips, you decide the price - I get fifteen percent if it's sold in my store. I won't necessarily make any special effort to advertise them. If it's not selling I'll stop displaying it. If it's not something I want associated with me or for any reason don't want, or I don't like the price or something, I can also stop displaying it. You get all copies back if I decide that."

"If Seli comes up with enough of these I'll want to do some kind of free sample. How much would you charge to display those? Not, I assume, fifteen percent of zero rings."

"Depending on how good the sample is, possibly a few rings per, possibly a daily fee, possibly nothing - exposure to more programs is good for my business as well. We can work out the details later. You still have to pay for the cards, mind."

They work everything out and come to a deal.

Nik goes back home, satisfied at the deal, to start working up the first part of his next big plan...

But in the meanwhile, the Order of Mercy informs the Hari Medical Association that they have developed a vaccine candidate for distemper and intend to organize a trial of it. They plan to provide it free to a whole lot of volunteers and collect statistics on how many of them get distemper, even for a little while. If it works, would they be able to possibly receive a grant to mass-produce the stuff?

They could receive a grant from the imperial government for it. The imperial government would generally follow expert advice in deciding whether a new treatment like this is safe, cost-effective and useful. On medical matters they frequently consult the Hari Medical Association for expert advice.

The Hari Medical Association is not the literal only game in town but they're certainly not going to give the Order of Mercy any advice on dealing with their rivals.

They'll have to be exquisitely thorough with the statistics and documenting side effects and so on. That means paying the volunteers. From multiple species and multiple regions of the globe. With a large enough sample size, that's... Expensive. They send detailed info on the whole thing with well-written summaries to the imperial government.

New Dover is getting fairly rich now, but not all of that money belongs to the doctors. The Order of Mercy sells a few more medicine formulae - one for a total anesthetic, one for treating an obscure joint disease - takes a big joint loan from Lady Katherine and a few other backers to fund their vaccine study. They are careful and thorough with their documentation, and everything is done outside of illusions where possible. But it's going to take months, still.

Meanwhile, they start teaching the next round of apprentices, three of them, including a certain young structure mage. Starting off with general principles of medicine, some basic biology, what the goal of medicine is (broadly, creating health), and why we have this thing called 'medical ethics'.

It's a niche market but there's no one else who can do anything for the obscure joint disease. Their treatment sells pretty well.

The structure mage apprentice shows up promptly and is slightly more attentive and hardworking than the average eleven-year-old but not by a lot.

Before the day's teaching starts, one of the nurses asks her, "Can you tell me why you're here? Do you want to learn from us?"

"Dad said I have to learn to do something that pays. He said I could pick what. I don't really know if I like medicine more than everything else, I didn't try everything else first."