Chapter 1250: Anna’s Plan
Anna laughed when Roland finished describing the Society of Wondrous Crafts.
They were in bed, the lamp burning low, and she was listening the way she always did when something genuinely entertained her — head tilted, the faint crease at the corner of her eyes that meant she was calculating whether to say the obvious thing.
“If they knew you created most of what’s in that book,” Roland said, watching her, “they’d follow you like disciples. You could tell them anything.”
“We need new people in the Ministry of Industry,” Anna said, still smiling. “Whether they can actually help — that I don’t know yet.”
“They could read the book. That’s already more than most.” He settled back. “It’s the same test as the alchemist — I got him here with a few redox equations. These people brought their families. They’re not hedging. Given that kind of commitment and access to real materials, I think they’ll find their level.”
A pause while Anna considered this.
“Before they officially join you,” Roland continued, “they’ll need to start from the foundations. I’ll leave the onboarding to you. Think of it as building the relationship on solid ground from the beginning.”
“I don’t know if I can actually manage people well,” Anna said, turning toward him. Her head found the place on his chest it had found a thousand times. “I’m not sure I know how.”
“You asked me for the Ministry of Industry position,” Roland reminded her. “Are you withdrawing?”
A sliver of Blackfire appeared at her fingertip. She drew a slow circle in the air above them, unhurried, the light blue and precise.
“Do you want me to tie you up and use the Blackfire again?”
“I meant — ask Tilly,” Roland said, redirecting his attention to the ceiling. “Every trainee pilot in the school is terrified of her. She clearly knows something about managing people.”
Anna’s expression changed. The playfulness didn’t leave exactly, but something else arrived alongside it — warmer and more complicated. “Yes. Yes, I could ask her.” Then, more quietly: “But I haven’t spoken to her in a while. Since the expedition, she’s been…”
“She’s fine.” He said it with the certainty he had decided to project, not quite all of what he knew. “I believe she’s back to herself. She might be very glad to see you. You used to give exams together.”
He had not told anyone about the possibility of Ashes’s resurrection — not Anna, not Nightingale, not Tilly. To tell them was to make it a thing they would risk everything to guarantee, and some gambles got people killed faster than the odds warranted. He held it quietly and let the possibility remain only that.
“All right.” Anna nodded once, and her voice settled into decision. “I’ll do it.”
He watched the doubt leave her face. He had always liked that about her — the way she moved from uncertainty to commitment in a single moment, as though the deliberation happened below the surface and only the conclusion was visible.
“The Cube-powered wheel truck,” he said, giving her something concrete to hold. “How is it coming along?”
Her manner sharpened immediately, the way it always did when the subject became work. “A few more days before I finish the first sample. The structure is similar to the Cube-powered car but more stable and easier to operate, though it sacrifices some maneuverability. Loading and unloading cargo shouldn’t be a problem as long as the road construction holds.”
“And the tractor?”
“More time.” She shook her head. “The drawing you gave me has almost no detail in the critical areas. The frame and operating systems are completely different from the wheel truck — I’ll have to work through each component individually. I can’t give you a timeline yet.”
But time was not something he had in abundance.
The demon force was learning between engagements. The Monstrous Beasts were adapting. The army needed armored capacity — something that could hold a line and push forward despite whatever new variant the demons deployed next. He had found a few drawings in the Dream World of parts that might fit what Anna was trying to build, but might was not good enough, and the industrial base in Neverwinter was not yet sophisticated enough to manufacture components to modern tolerances even if the drawings had been complete.
The deeper problem was human capital. At a certain threshold of industrial complexity, every major project spawned dozens of subprojects, each requiring its own specialist. Anna could not build armored vehicles alone. Tilly had already identified weaknesses in the biplane design and had ideas for improvements, but there was nobody to implement them. You could not sustain an industrial revolution with a handful of people who understood the underlying principles. You needed depth — a generation of engineers, not a circle of geniuses.
Roland would need fifty years to grow that depth from scratch.
The demons would not allow fifty years.
“Let me think it over,” he said.
Anna was quiet for a moment. Then she tilted her face up toward his, lake-blue eyes holding the specific brightness she had when something had clicked into place. “You said the Dream World has been expanding. Diversifying.”
“Yes. Lan says it’s challenging God’s power. New material appearing in it that wasn’t there before.”
“Then why not draw on it directly?”
“You mean — ask more people to search for what we need?”
“No.” She smiled in the way she smiled before she showed him something. “Better.” She leaned closer and whispered it — the whole shape of it, beginning to end — and finished with: “I’m not certain it will work.”
Roland lay still for a moment after she finished. The idea assembled itself in his mind piece by piece, each connection clicking into place faster than the last, until the whole structure stood complete and he sat up.
“This might actually work.”
“Try it later.” Anna stretched her legs and tucked her feet under the blanket. “If it does, everything gets easier. But for now —” She reached for his arm. “Stay.”
When Roland woke in the Dream World, the plan was already fully formed.
Anna’s logic was clean. Neverwinter lacked trained technical specialists. The Dream World was vast, expanding, and populated by people who understood the lost technologies he needed. The solution was not to search for knowledge — it was to recruit the people who already had it.
He would found an organization. He would give it the surface appearance of a hobbyist collective — antique machinery enthusiasts, collectors, restoration specialists — something that would attract exactly the kind of person he needed without raising any questions. Within that frame, he could coordinate real research and development: problems solved in the Dream World, tested in the Dream World, solutions transferred back to Neverwinter with the next opportunity.
It would be more efficient than any amount of independent online research. The collaborative speed would be qualitatively different.
The constraint was capital. An organization needed infrastructure. The income from fighting Fallen Evils was nowhere near sufficient.
He needed an investor. Someone with the resources to underwrite a long-horizon project on the basis of a plausible story, someone who would not ask questions that couldn’t be answered. Someone who thought in scale.
One name.
Garcia’s father: Garde, board member of the Clover Group. A man of formidable shrewdness who would not part with money for sentiment. Roland had no illusions about walking to Garde with an incomplete pitch and coming away with a check. He would need preparation, and he would need an approach that spoke the language of return on investment rather than the language of necessity.
Garcia could not help here — this was a negotiation, not a conversation, and it required a particular kind of leverage.
Roland picked up the telephone.
He dialed the Defender of Prism City.