In a private chamber surrounded by memory-encoded constructs, Calder Vance reflected on his past under both the First and Third Masters. The First Master—Auremax Daelion—had been an uncompromising scholar of fundamentals, believing truth had a structure and that anything less than complete understanding was dangerous mimicry.
The Third Master—Yllira Thorne—believed ideas were meant to spread. She opened the archives to any mind with hunger and taught that simplicity was not weakness but elegance.
Calder had walked between them.
He remembered Auremax's voice: "Understanding precedes creation. Until then, you mimic magic. You do not command it."
And Yllira's: "A good invention spreads. A great one doesn't need you to explain it."
Now, as he observed Benedict from afar, he saw the dilemma made flesh: a scholar with the Third's openness and the First's sharpness.
"Change it from within, Benedict," he whispered to the scrying glass. "But don't forget who tried to do it first."
The containment lift clicked into final alignment, and with a hiss of air and mana-filter cycling, the doors opened to reveal Vehrmath Station.
A city of contrasts. Stone arches layered with spelllight. Arcane turbines humming beside rusted platforms. And above it all, the hazy sky veined with tethered leybeams that pulsed in sync with deep infrastructure—a half-living sprawl of magic and industry.
Benedict stepped off first, boots clicking softly on a polished tile designed to look far newer than it was. Arden followed with his sensor case, while Eline scanned the crowds.
Everywhere they looked, the pattern was the same: layered systems designed to exclude. Areas gated by professional sigils. Equipment operable only by bloodline glyphs or ranked credentials. This was a station built to filter, not serve.
Vehrmath wasn't just a place—it was a mechanism. Designed by powerful factions, it had evolved into a physical expression of bureaucratic control. Guilds ruled not just with law, but with access. Whole neighborhoods were divided by mana quotas and class permits. Streets that shimmered with clean mana overlays for professionals gave way to grime-drenched alleys where the ambient energy sputtered like a dying lantern.
The city's market was equally skewed. Primary trade platforms centered around elite-run shops and licensed brokers. Anything beyond was labeled "informal," its traders constantly harassed, its goods subject to arbitrary seizures. Even the local leyline access had tiered pricing based on license level.
And for the lower class to market any product—including communication devices—they needed pre-registered business permits, reputation clearance, and a rolling deposit of trade credits. No credits, no legitimacy. Without all three, even possessing a device intended for sale could trigger an enforcement response.
Benedict recognized it all too easily. The framework of a world optimized for control.
"Looks charming," Arden muttered. "Assuming you're a fourth-circle bonded guild member with lineage clearance."
"Perfect," Benedict said. "Let's break it."
They scouted half a dozen sites before choosing a forgotten lab built into a collapsed ley-spine. It had low mana interference, dust-covered rune filters, and just enough public reach to tap into multiple working-class districts.
It was also unmonitored. That mattered more.
Within an hour, Benedict had unpacked his relay node prototype and started anchoring the first stabilization arms to the floor. His method—layered conductive channels fed through mana-regulated capacitors—looked nothing like traditional array crafting.
Because it wasn't.
He wired mana like current. Shaped cores like processors. And instead of scripting command arrays, he coded physical feedback into crystalline manifolds that anyone could learn to calibrate.
"Reminds me of a battery," Eline said, watching him tune the stabilizer.
"It is a battery," Benedict replied. "And a modem. And a transceiver."
Outside, the class divide of Vehrmath became apparent. Arden and Eline scouted: talking to messenger crews, janitorial runners, and junior spellwrights. They learned quickly that the official guilds held surface power, but the under-market ran deeper—slavers, relic dealers, and contract-bound soul traffickers.
In such a system, tools didn't flow downward. They were hoarded upward.
So Benedict flipped the approach.
He gave a demo unit to a baker's daughter who worked night shifts as a courier. Another to an old tinkerer with a broken wand and no license.
They spread. Not because of guild approval.
Because they worked.
The backlash came quickly. Guild reps in polished robes showed interest. Then contempt. Then pressure.
Vendors were quietly warned. Market stall permits revoked. One merchant—who had made five sales with Benedict's devices—found his permit suspended for "artifact irregularities."
"They're scared," Benedict said. "Because we're not playing their game."
"We roll it out low," Benedict told Arden and Eline one night as they sat over cracked tea mugs. "We make the hardware interoperable. Upgradeable. Modular. No prestige lockouts."
"Start with message runners," Eline said.
"Cleaners. Local medica crews," Arden added. "People who get ignored until they're essential."
"Exactly." Benedict slid a blueprint across the table. "Cultural adoption before elite resistance. The longer they delay responding, the deeper our tech embeds."
Then Benedict leaned back and tapped the edge of his schematic.
"We don't need to profit immediately," he said. "We profit after they depend on it."
Eline arched a brow. "You mean after the under-market can't function without our comms?"
"Precisely. When slavers and smugglers and contract mercs start relying on them? We've got leverage. We'll control the relay pathways, monitor the flow, even optimize traffic. Then we license the secure channels to the guilds themselves—because they'll demand control."
"And we sell premium compatibility tools," Arden added, catching on. "Encrypted relays, signal amplifiers, tailored privacy modules."
"Subscription-based infrastructure," Benedict said. "And data. We don't sell the fish. We sell the water."
Then came the ping.
Benedict's spytech crystal pulsed. The slaver tracker had activated.
Location: Outer ward. Near the abandoned altar-forge district.
Arden looked ready to move. Eline had already reached for her staff.
"No," Benedict said. "Not yet."
"We're not here to raid. We're here to outgrow them."
That night, a message arrived.
No seal. No traceable magic. Just a strip of synth-parchment.
"Interesting tech for a throwaway caste. Let's see if you survive mass attention."
Benedict read it once. Folded it. Slid it beneath a stabilizer core.
Then he opened a new schematic. A relay node that could replicate itself through existing magitek conduits.
He didn't look worried.
He looked ready.