She passes the time quizzing her escorts further on the state of the art in farming and village life, so she can start planning out interventions.

Eventually they'll have to make camp, they're not getting all the way there in a single march. Waltana... Will assist the setup and then keep to herself, try to rest and center herself.

It's not a fancy camp, just a cookfire, some tents, and a tarpaulin to pull over Tall Boy. They break early, and that gives them time to send out hunters for an hour or two and get fresh meat for a stew-ish gruel instead of just flavoring it with dry vegetables.

And in the morning, they'll be at Iron Hearth before the sun starts to noticeably sink.

At least marching is noticeably easier now that she's been doing hard physical work and eating plenty for multiple weeks. Fists.

What's Iron Hearth like?

Rather than a sharp cliff with switchbacks, this fault line has long since been broken down in this spot, with a gradual slope through a few terraces of mostly-level stone with thin soil on it. The sides of that slope turn into terraces of stone, with low mountains on the east side making those terraces quite wide. On those wide terraces is Iron Hearth, its entrance and the internal connections made narrow by Earthshakers. Defensible without much need for walls.

It's a very orderly camp, clean white tents with the white-on-purple scratchout symbol on each. It's also busy - men and women in full-body iron armor with purple cloth and feathers move around purposefully.

The sentries at the entrance salute (right hand in a fist, thump on their chest hard). "You'd be the Lightning Smith? Your escort are getting ready, but the General would like to speak with you first."

Quite a defensible spot. And very disciplined. She smiles, it reminds her of home, a teensy bit. An army's pride and identity. The cliffs make her nervous to go even higher, but Tall Boy is honestly kind of slow and undignified when in 'low' mode, so she stays up high and minds the path carefully. And, right, of course, it's not just Kohl. He's not even an archon, technically, and the general is.

"Yes, I am. And very well." She turns to the ones who walked down here with her. "I don't know where you all are off to next, but thank you for the escort so far."

And back to the sentries (pushing away a jolt of fear), "By all means, whenever is convenient for the General. If there's an out of the way spot I can leave my walker for a bit I would appreciate it. It's a bit large for going around camp with." And a bit threatening or imposing, too, when she's not part of the local in-group, this is a concession. They can come gawk at it, but she won't go stomping straight through camp.

They'll be sticking around a bit to check if there's a bird with orders, but bid her farewell and good fortune.

There's a good spot on the second terrace to the right, next to the weapon racks and the camp jail. That's on the way to the General's quarters, too. (He gets a room carved out of the rock wall, rather than just a tent.)

She will spend a minute inspecting Tall Boy to see how it's standing the wear of a two day march, unless the sentries brush her towards the General immediately. The storm coming up is going to be more wearisome than a simple walk, though.

And then she keeps going, looking serious and dignified and still with spear and shield.

Then she won't even have to go to the General's quarters to meet him! A large man, bald with a thick but trim white beard, wearing armor much like the others present except that the shoulders and stomach have large circular pools of blue-white light glowing from no apparent source. As does his warhammer, which he is using as a staff, though it doesn't look like he at all needs it.

His voice is gruff but pleasant. "Engineer," he says, "A pleasure to meet you. I apologize for approaching unannounced, but I wanted to see this device up close. It's remarkable. And I hear you made it yourself, from ore to joints?"

"General. Likewise- I have to say I'm impressed by the order of the camp. And, well, not quite from ore to joints. Some of the forge-bound helped with the larger structural members-" She taps a long curved iron 'thigh bone'. "-And some of the more exotic materials came from something that whatever mystery brought me to the Tiers took with me, a survival tool common from home. But largely, yes."

"No less impressive. What are you calling it? And do you plan to make many?"

Once she's gotten it down and stable, he'll gesture for her to walk with him. She can probably see a table with food laid out on it, including some (scarce) fruit.

The control unit on her 'back' is hot to the touch. It's a process of a good twenty, thirty seconds to set her spear and shield in little mounts added just for this, then undo all the various straps and cables. She steps forward out of a sort of upright throne-harness afterwards, taking up spear and shield again and following.

"I call it the Tallboy. I don't think I'll make any more quite like this- There's a deep difference between things to be made once and things to be made a thousand times and more. Much as my skills lean towards the former, the latter is my true dream. The idea came to me in the Spire. I'm sure you've heard people call me 'wild smith'..." She shakes her head slightly.

"I heard a little. An interesting gift you have, and a more productive one than the most similar story I've heard."

"It's a lot easier to destroy than build. That's why I don't want to make more weapons than I must."

"What do you plan to do, then?"

"I want to make the whole world as rich as my home was. I've been called noble-soft, I spent my days indoors studying as often as not. I never once cut firewood or spun thread or milled flour till I came to the Tiers.

I was an orphan. We were rich. And the key to that richness is millions of tools. I want it back, for me, for everyone."

"Remarkable that it's possible. And noble that you want to bring it to us. Where is your old home? Should I be expecting Kyros to order it conquered once this conquest has finished?"

"It's called England, and quite mysteriously... I don't think you can get there by walking or sailing at all. The moon is different. The very size of this world is different. I don't know what to make of it... Except to keep moving forward."

"Hmmm. Not all to the bad; pressing someone into service against their home is a terrible thing, but Kyros would not hesitate to do so."

He gestures to the table. "Take a seat, please. Help yourself to some lunch. Fruit's sadly lacking on campaign, but we have some to spare for a significant ally."

She wouldn't. The thought comes instantly. She would definitely betray Kyros for England. Unless it was direly important somehow. Unless England was unrecognizable or Kyros is actually kind in the end or...

If 'England' even still exists. She has no idea what the evacuation looks like...

Deep breaths.

She nods and sits. "Oh, that reminds me about scurvy. I'm going to have to see what I can remember about vitamins..."

"Many peasants eat poorly; Kyros's Peace promises freedom from hunger, but some scarcity is inevitable. Whatever you can devise there would be eagerly adopted across the Empire."

"...I have an important strategically-relevant question. I understand you can make iron, not quite to Forge-Bound standards but far better than cheap-pot cast iron, very quickly. How much do you foresee that production increasing, in the next few years? You said you prefer to make few weapons, but I am, after all, Archon of War, and an abundance of iron will have a great effect on how that is waged."

"It really does."

She frowns and considers him. She picks some cheese and an apple and some dark bread.

"Industrial steel production requires building a forge hall, breath-enriched furnaces, tower furnaces, at least as high as the gates here, higher, in fact, and something like a hundred workers- Since I can't count on them having the education British workers would, and I'm having to remember a lot of the intermediate steps. It also requires a large vein of ore, likely coal as well, and mining equipment, to produce the vast sum such a thing would consume. The number I've been throwing around as an estimate after considering all the things that can and do go wrong, is one hundred rings per hour. It might be possible in one year. Shorter term, I'm going to be melting down the Blade Grave, but that's inherently limited.

So, one hundred rings of iron an hour on average, in a year- At a guess. Getting enough people who can do the work may even require wide improvements to farming- Something that will be key to my dream of wealth, in England something like one in four people were farmers, leaving three in four to learn crafts, become sages, soldiers, engineers, miners, much much more of everything else..."

"Hmm," he says, nodding. "I believe we currently stand at four out of five. More, in the Tiers; magic is more abundant in Kyros's Empire. Is there anything you wish to ask me?"

"I don't have a firm grasp of how people relate to each other at the upper levels. I did not used to be important, you see, and until this span I'd never led anything greater than a shopping trip. But I won't shirk it or use wishful thinking to shy away into comfortable blind spots if I can help it. So I suppose any advice you see fit to give for someone who wants to be effective and get things done would be welcome? Oh, and I always like collecting peoples' problems and complaints just in case I know how to fix them easily."