"Just the finishing touches on the light walker. And maybe a good night's rest. No magic in it, but I think I'll call it... Tall Boy."

"It'll do," she says, with the slight dissatisfaction of someone who's named enough things to have a taste that this doesn't match. "Well, let's get that boy finished!"

And with many hands helping, they certainly can get that.

A bit later...

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

...She feels unsteady, stomping around ten or more feet in the air late that evening. It doesn't quite feel real. But after a few first moments of wobbling, she begins stomping around Lethian's Crossing, growing used to walking, turning, and moving in Tallboy's upright state.

At length, she laughs in something like joy and something like terror as she gets used to moving around. The Spark helps - it helps with wielding as much if not more as it does with building - and she wasn't entirely quiescent during her work on either. She's manually piloted the four legged standard automata before where there are a dozen different controls to mind at all times, two legs is different, but there's an inherent balance in the tension of the wires, with the legs folding up to account for it- Though she'd still fall if pushed hard enough.

Once she has it moving right, there are cheers. From the garrison as well as the Forge-Bound, a good majority of everyone came over to watch this (and probably to see her off).

Telegenos asks if she wants some of the garrison with her on the way south. "Looks like you can outpace us - and anyone else - pretty easy, and Vendrien's Well is pretty safe, but your spearwork from up there will be all off, and you could still get ambushed."

"That would be appreciated, yes- I plan to make a ranged weapon eventually, but I can't make Kohl wait forever, now can I? Though I can also-" She triggers something and the legs fold, collapsing down in three segments, shifting her to just a couple of feet off the ground. "It's awkward to move like this and I wish I had more time to spar like so, but, see ranged weapon." A bit more quietly, in a conspiratorial tone of voice, she mentions, "It's partly to make a show more than a mighty weapon, anyway."

"You'll certainly do that! We'll get you a set of throwing knives, too, throwing them decently is easy to pick up."

Half the garrison comes with. They have to arrange some replacements, but there have been merchants bringing in things for Lantry's beloved new library, plenty of their caravan guards can be hired away for a span.

Then soon enough she and some of the garrison are stomping along towards Iron Hearth. She marches in the Tallboy, but at a sort of slow lope using mostly her own muscle that works out to about the same speed, and is still solid exercise, since she doesn't want to drain the batteries until there's an actual fight.

...She's looking forward to seeing more of the world up close, honestly. The views from atop Spires are different than actually being in a place.

This is true! How the world looks up close is: poor, mostly. Pretty much everything is farmland even in the rocky outer valley of Vendrien's Well. The villages are fairly small; the settlement around Ascension Hall is much bigger than anything they pass, let alone the respectable small town that is Lethian's Crossing.

Essa's homestead by River's Break was in better shape than most of these farms. Not enormously, but it was nicer. (It's not along the way, though they're probably not that far.)

There are a few places where the scars of past battles are still visible. Graves, torn-up land, one place where a bunch of boulders have been slammed into buildings, crushing them under the weight. (And then marked as gravestones after the fighting.) Not so much within the main river, but once they're in the outer valley, they pass some once or twice a day.

It's worse than she thought.

War probably really isn't helping, but these people need- A steel mill, a toolworks, sawmill, tractors, looms- This is just miserable and pathetic. Offensive, even.

But being crushed by Kyros would prevent her from doing any of that, so first thing's first.

(Honestly they could probably use windmills or watermills first, she may notice she hasn't seen any of those.)

The road from here follows the river, passing between a gap in the mountains and southward across open, flat land. There's some trading villages where the mountains part, with other roads heading off east and west; better-off than the farmers though still not as healthy-looking as Lethian's Crossing.

There are farms along the river from here, though they're sparser, with gaps of a half-hour where nothing looks cultivated, particularly on the far side of the river. From her elevated perch, Walta can see that the land further out is dry and deserted - this is a little mini-Nile through undesirable wasteland. When there's signs of battle here, they look more like land that was torn up by ranks of iron boots which no one has bothered to till or plant since.

A day out from the pass, the ground goes up to a village and then looks like it stops, the river heading straight through and over the cliff and the road passing close alongside. Approaching closer, the cliff is only about forty feet tall, but it's still enough that the road stops being wide enough for carts and narrows to switchbacks carved into the rock (they look melted-in, actually), wide enough for two people if you have to but safer to go single-file.

-Right, energy availability. She's going to have to design a method to make millstones. When ninety percent of everyone is a full-time farmer, there's hardly any hands available for the factories.

Regardless.

"I kind of want to mix up some nitroglycerin and blast this path wider," she comments down as she carefully tip-toes Tallboy down the slope. There's a little trouble at the sharp turns, but she gets it by moving carefully, until she gets fed up and jumps the last ten feet or so with a grunt and a louder thump.

"It would be good for trade if you could - assuming caravans don't pass through the path you're drilling by the new Spire instead. Couple other places don't even have this much, too."

They have no idea what 'nitroglycerin' is, but blasting rock away is intuitive enough.

"More trade and fewer people needing to farm, that's the real start..."

Back to marching, then.

This tier is flat and even, and the river spreads out into thinner channels. The lines of farms become wide enough that the edge isn't obvious. The ones nearest the river look pretty abundant, too, though their buildings are all wood, no clay or stone.

Continuing south (bending around some mountains which continue south of the fault line), the storm becomes visible ahead. The towering clouds move slowly, but there's never a break in them. Below that, there is a visible Oldwall, which dips lower directly ahead. The road leads toward the gap.

In the middle of the second day past the switchbacks, Disfavored patrols come into view.

Yeah, that storm does not seem like something she can block or really harness, without a whole city's worth of advanced industry, at least. But if they're encountering more patrols it seems like it's time for maximal Regal Bearing. It's pretty easy to seem aloof when you literally tower over everyone, thankfully.

"State your business," one patrol's leader says brusquely, before he catches sight of the small symbols of Tunon on some of the escort and the large symbol on Walta's shield. "Oh! You must be the Lightning Smith. My apologies. Barik and your escort are waiting at Iron Hearth."

"I am, and thank you!" She smiles and waves down. "How much further from here, you think?"

"We'll be back by nightfall, but we can quick-march much longer than ordinary men. You'll certainly be there by tomorrow evening."

"We'll not dally, Fatebinder Kohl is waiting! Safe travels!"

Once they're marching again, she wonders aloud...

"Say, making grain into flour would be done with hand mills, yes? I'm of a mind to make... Water-mills. And powered looms. Perhaps iron plows and iron machines to pull them, though it would seem likely those get turned to other ends. But the less people must farm, the more they can learn other crafts. What other things take a lot of time and labor on the farm? Tilling, harvesting, planting, milling. Weaving. Firewood? Watering?"

"Spinning thread," one of the women says instantly. "Until I decided to take up arms, I was spinning beside my mother most hours of the day, just to make the cloth we needed for our family's tunics and dresses."

There are several nods and utterances of agreement.

"Cook and spin, nurse a babe and spin, watch toddlers and spin... And of course you can still spin while heavy with child. The women of the house are always spinning."

"If you can dig good wells, that would be a blessing. Most crops the tilling is the hardest work, but the harvest is the most rushed - even the littles can help with the harvest, and we need that help, to bring it in before there's rain or storm - but for the tilling you need the strength of a soldier, or at least a grown man. I hear in the north they pull something behind an ox for it, but we just use ordinary hoes."

"Oh, I can do wells. That's just digging! Plus some materials for lining the walls. I can even do spigot pumps. Knowing exactly where to put the well and how deep is a bit trickier. Spinning thread... I never actually studied an industrial spinner, just the looms for turning thread to cloth. I'll have to think about it. But yeah, it all starts with farming, in the end, doesn't it? That's what I'll focus on now that I have myself sort of established, I think..."

"Yeah, getting food and clothes from the land take up most of most families's waking hours. If you can make that easier, you'll have a lot of people singing your praises."

"That's the whole point of industry, in the end! More goods, less work, for everyone. Steam and steel and lightning are glorious and all, but flour and cloth are the foundation."

"I'd drink to that! Industry for everyone!"

No one takes up the cheer, but they do smile and chuckle, and a couple mime raising a tankard in a toast.