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Nick, in a full environment suit like any sensible person would wear in untamed wilderness, is overseeing a small swarm of robots harvesting various useful plantlife from the uninhabited parts of a sparsely settled planet, when something suddenly comes tearing through the undergrowth towards him and it's not showing up on scanners-
He raises his hand-phaser, notices it has a mirror for a face and hesitates a little too long. And then he is in a clearing, cut off from his ship and 'bots, with all available sources of data telling him he just went through a jump.
What.
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"...Do you think you have woke shadows?" asks the guard. "Or someone else?"
"Me. I can barely sleep. I keep thinking people are going to kill each other with my inventions. I feel like I'm going to catch some horrible disease and go blind and lose my hands and die. I tried to find them myself, but no, nothing, nothing. Your job is dealing with this. So, check somehow!"
The paladin's response to this is to tackle Nick and start tying him up.
They're trying to kill you! He struggles. Nick's strong, but not stronger than a paladin. He pulls his phaser- it's self-defense!- And throws it away as hard as he can force himself to do so.
Once the paladin has him securely tied up he starts systematically patting Nick down with Winter Light sigils, not the pendant version but long slightly flexible wooden ones, one in each hand.
And when he pokes one into Nick's left ear there is a hissing scream, intolerably loud -
- and silence.
And when he pokes one into Nick's left ear there is a hissing scream, intolerably loud -
- and silence.
He starts crying. "Oh, thank god, I'm not insane."
The paladin does not untie him right away; he checks the other ear. "There might be some in your home. I'll find a novice to sit with you while I go check."
He finds a novice, who is a twelve-year-old girl who pats Nick's shoulder comfortingly and also doesn't untie him.
He finds a novice, who is a twelve-year-old girl who pats Nick's shoulder comfortingly and also doesn't untie him.
He looks at his phaser. "Could you fetch that thing for me, put it back on my belt?"
"What is it?"
"It's a phaser. A weapon. If you don't want to give me my weapon back quite yet, at least make sure nobody else touches it?"
The novice picks up the phaser carefully and puts it in her skirt pocket. "Once he's sure all the shadows after you are gone and you're feeling calm and collected we can untie you," she tells him.
"They started the very same day that somebody ignored all my warnings and managed to electrocute themselves on their lights. I would almost think someone she knew sent them after me, but I'm no private investigator."
"The paladins will do their best to find who woke the shadows."
"Would you happen to know if my radios have been useful yet? Last time I asked they had only given false alarms."
"A radio called a band of paladins over to fight a lich, just yesterday. They aren't back yet."
Nick pulls up an engineering sim in his eyelid-screen and works on his plans for coal and iron mines, and a steel mill, until someone unties him.
Eventually - it takes a few hours - the paladin who killed the shadow in his ears comes back and says his residence and business are clear and his employees haven't been having bad dreams. The paladin and novice untie him, since he's been pretty placid.
He thanks them, receives his phaser, and goes on his way.
Three days later he drives a horseless carriage to the moneylender's place.
As soon as she's free, he reports, "I would like another loan, to produce those."
Three days later he drives a horseless carriage to the moneylender's place.
As soon as she's free, he reports, "I would like another loan, to produce those."
She looks at it.
"How fast can it go?" she wants to know.
"How fast can it go?" she wants to know.
"On good roads it can outpace a horse at full gallop for hours on end. On poor roads it will need to move more slowly. This is a prototype, I have discovered small flaws and opportunities for improvement, so the final version will be better."
"How does it do with snow?"
"About as well as horses: If you take it slowly and carefully, it'll do."
"Deep snow?" she asks, looking at it skeptically. "You haven't seen winter here yet."
"You're right, I haven't. If deep snow is such a concern I can build one with treads, perhaps. Such a thing would be more expensive, and slower, but capable of plowing through two or three feet of snow with ease, and deeper snow with slightly less ease."
She nods, quotes him a lower interest rate and a longer period for payback.