Chapter 4
Dawn hadn't truly burned away the mist when I left my quarters, but the forge's glow already reached out in trembling fingers across the packed earth. For a moment I simply stood there, letting the air—sharp with coal, tinged with morning chill—sting the inside of my nose. The clangor in the distance, deeper and louder than any church bell, called up something old inside me: work waiting to be done.
Lady Eboshi met me just outside, her figure cutting an authoritative silhouette against the fiery haze that already crept from the forges. She was dressed as impeccably as ever, her deep red robes unbothered by ash or dust, which seemed almost a kind of challenge to the environment itself. She nodded, satisfaction flickering in her eyes as she regarded me, then motioned for me to follow.
"Today, you'll see every part of Irontown's heart," she said, her tone even but carrying over the drone of distant bellows. "Listen, observe, and ask what you will. Afterward, we'll speak of what you believe can be improved."
I nodded my agreement, tightening the strap on my coat, and let myself be drawn along by her purposeful stride. Around us, the compound was coming to life: rough-shod feet scuffed along planks; women's laughter drifted like embers between quick shouts; someone cursed as a piglet darted away with a scrap of something half-cooked. This place, I realized, woke not with the crowing of a cock, but the ignition of the first fire.
The closer we got to the main forges, the more oppressive the heat became, not the dry fire of a sauna but something thicker and unrelenting, weighted by industry. Hammers rang out, the beats staggering and then meshing together into a steady rhythm. Through chinks in the structure, I caught glimpses of orange-white metal pressed to anvils, showers of sparks lighting up sweaty, determined faces.
We rounded a corner and passed under a timber arch blackened by smoke. Instantly, a cluster of women working at the nearest bellows glanced up from their posts. The tallest, with bandaged hands and wild hair tied back in a kerchief, grinned wide and barked out in a voice husky with laughter, "Oi, Lady Eboshi, who's the stranger with the haunted eyes and pristine pale skin? He looks too clean for this place!"
Another called, "He's got arms enough—think he swings a hammer or just that strange gun on his back?"
A ripple of giggles followed, joined by a third, who cocked her hip and wagged a soot-blackened finger at me. "He's got the look of a man who keeps secrets. Show us your hands, hunter—if they're softer than a baby's arse, you're on bellows duty!"
I felt a flush rise in my cheeks but managed a lopsided smile. "I'll wager mine can handle more than their fair share of hard work. But it's letters, numbers, and some hunting besides that have kept them busy most my life."
The trio howled with delight. "He can talk back too! I like him already!" one declared, while another sent a mock warning toward Eboshi. "Don't let this one disappear. Too many pretty faces end up running scared or dying!"
Lady Eboshi's lips curved, her eyes never quite leaving me. "He's not here for looks. He's here to work," she replied crisply, but there was warmth in her voice, almost—though not quite—a smirk. "Give him space though and he might just come around."
"You're without a husband aintcha Reina?" One of the women said to another one next to her, nudging at her. "Fella looks like he could use a wife who won't let him slack off," she teased, earning a round of laughter that echoed off the beams overhead. The woman called Reina—compact, sharp-eyed, hair smudged with soot—shot her friend a glare, but her mouth twitched up at one corner.
With that we moved on, past benches crowded with shovels and rods, their wooden handles polished to a sheen from calloused hands. "Ore comes from the western hills," Eboshi explained, pausing by a pit filled with rough stones. "Here, it's sorted—impurities picked out by hand, then broken into manageable pieces. Every mistake shows up later, so our best eyes work at the start."
She gestured to a row of women who, despite soot and fraying sleeves, maintained a kind of careful intensity. One met my gaze with a nod, then returned to her stone, sending sharp slivers flying with each precise hammerfall.
"There's pride in the work," I observed, "and a focus. Like a fisherman checking his net for damage before laying it in the water, because a compromised one means his family does not eat."
"Exactly," Eboshi said, her glance holding mine a moment longer before she pointed to the next set of forges where flames leapt hungrily through slats in the ironwork. The noise here was deafening—a tide of bellows, shouts, and the sharp hiss of water striking searing metal. The air quivered, sweat rolling down my neck and soaking my collar before I'd gone twenty paces.
Molten iron, luminous as sunrise, was being guided out of a crude furnace into sand-lined molds. Sparks shot up each time the ladle tipped, the white-hot river crackling and twisting like something alive. Women worked in teams: two handled the mold, another barked timing, a fourth watched the temperature with hawk-like vigilance. Everyone seemed at once hyperfocused and entirely aware of their place in the grand pattern.
Just as I was being pulled along by this hypnotic pageant, another group of women eyed me from the next platform, smudges of soot on their cheeks like battle-paint. One, bold-eyed and clearly a ringleader, called out, "Stranger, think you can pour a mold without scalding yourself? We're always in need of more hands—not just pretty faces."
Eboshi threw a sharp look back, but I heard her exhale in what was almost a laugh. "Forgive them, Mikko-san. They're fiercely loyal, but quick to tease outsiders. Their labor keeps us alive—so they've earned a bit of mischief."
I shrugged, offering a small smile. "If being teased is the price for good company, I've had worse first days."
She nodded in silent approval. "The melting's the trickiest part—smoke hides flaws and too much heat spoils the batch. Here, our smiths call the tempo. Watch—every step matters." I did, noting the rituals: shouted counts, brief prayers, and the habitual touching of a scorched wooden talisman above the main entrance before new iron was poured.
The longer I stood there, the more I understood how tightly woven this community was, all bluster and bravado covering a shared knowledge—a choreography as graceful as any ballet, masked by heat and noise.
A sudden commotion pulled my focus leftward, toward a wagon nearly upended by an argument. There, standing tall even in the middle of a crowd, was Okunami, grinning wider than ever. She had three large baskets stacked on one shoulder, her other hand braced against her hip. Around her, five or six townsfolk—half laughing, half in awe—watched as she swung her burden to the ground with a heavy thump.
"Is that all you've got?" Okunami boomed, voice carrying over the hammerbeats. "These baskets, they're too small! My granny used to carry double this—and that was after supper!"
A smaller woman, wiry with a face full of freckles, looked at her own basket, then at Okunami, then burst out laughing. "You'll break the straps! Maybe if we wrap the handles in iron next time, eh, oni-san?"
Another chimed in, "If you don't eat all our rice for lunch first!"
I couldn't help myself—I laughed, deep and honest. Okunami shot me a wink that, had I been on the receiving end of it back home, would have spelled trouble. She shrugged, making the loaded baskets seem like bundles of reeds. "Just give me better baskets and more to carry! I'll have the lot of you resting by midday!"
Laughter erupted around her, the kind that snapped the last remaining tension out of the morning. Even Lady Eboshi allowed herself a rare smile, not forced or diplomatic but unguarded. For a brief, glinting instant, I was simply part of it—a foreigner welcomed by a community made up of people who were just as unique and weird as me in their own ways.
However, our tour had to continue and Lady Eboshi pressed on, and I fell into step at her side, reluctantly leaving behind the ring of laughter and the scent of singed hemp.
The raw heat radiating off the forge caught me as if I'd stepped behind a running train—full force, with nowhere to go but forward. Light pooled out of the furnace's throat, red and white, illuminating every face in sharp relief as if we were cast in another element entirely. I hesitated, one hand shielding my eyes, not out of fear but to take in the strangeness of the moment: molten iron flowing like liquid sunrise, hands and voices working together in a dance as old as any ritual fire.
We paused here—Lady Eboshi a half step in front, the hem of her robe caught by a gust of scorched wind, hair haloed by the shimmer. The world shrank to the roar and glow of the furnace. I saw the main team move with practiced precision: two women—faces soot-black and glittering with sweat—rocked a heavy iron ladle between them. One shouted a count over the noise. On "three!" they tipped the glowing load into a sand-lined mold, white heat bursting up the seams in a spray that drove everyone else back half a step. Someone murmured a quick prayer to whatever gods watched over those who challenged fire for a living.
My eyes followed the process. Even through the near-opaque billow of smoke, I saw the problems: the sand used for the molds was uneven in grain, too damp in places, already beginning to crack at the edges. The women working the bellows had to force more air with each push than seemed necessary—one looked to be fighting the handles rather than controlling the burn. At the periphery, waste iron had already begun to pool where it shouldn't, hinting at some inefficiency or heat loss that no one seemed to acknowledge.
I crouched near the edge, watching the shimmering run of iron with fascination. The beauty of it was obvious, but so was the wasted potential: air swirling in unpredictable drafts, smoke collecting along the rafters instead of drawing up the flue. Back home, I'd learned a hundred tricks for making a campfire burn more evenly, for coaxing wet wood to give up its heat. The principle was the same—even here, in this crucible that seemed halfway between myth and memory.
Should I say something? I'd been raised with a sort of humility about other people's crafts; my grandfather taught me to watch for a season before offering advice. "People are stubborn, Mikko," he'd said, voice rough from decades in the pines. "Especially when they think they already know how to survive." But I'd already thrown myself off that cliff when I'd agreed to work here, and Eboshi watched me with expectation. These weren't ordinary villagers—they thrived on the edge, part outcast, part pioneer.
I took a breath and called out, not shouting but letting my words ride the lull between clanging hammers. "If you set your sand out under canvas after the night's rain, it'll bind tighter and keep the molds from cracking like that," I said, gesturing at the mold that had just started hissing with trapped moisture. "The waste iron, there—" I pointed, careful not to sound accusatory, "—could be caught sooner if you used a shallower trough set just below the main spout. That way, less ends up solidifying out of reach and you'll save a bit of labor chiseling it free later."
The response was immediate—a silence that cut even through the background roar. One of the women working the bellows straightened, arms crossed over her chest, mouth twisted with skepticism. "Oh? And you've been pouring iron since when, traveler?" Her tone was not hostile but sharp with pride. Another, older woman gave a short, surprised bark of laughter. "We've done it this way for a while now. But if you know how to teach the sand to listen better, I'll eat my apron."
Lady Eboshi's voice broke in, calm but authoritative. "Let him speak." She nodded to me. "Go on, Mikko-san. Sometimes, it is the fresh eyes that see what the experienced have learned to ignore."
Grateful, I pressed on, focusing on specifics. "The bellows—you might get a steadier draft if you narrow the channel at the top, force more air down through the throat rather than letting it swirl out the sides. If you stagger the shifts, too, you won't tire so quickly and you can keep the heat higher and steadier. At home we set our firepits so the prevailing wind helps rather than fights the flame."
The skeptical bellows worker—broad and clearly a mainstay of the forge—shrugged, her tough exterior not quite masking a flicker of intrigue. "Maybe so, if the wind isn't trying to kill you, like it does here. But," she said, then trailed off, caught between annoyance and a kind of grudging respect.
A murmur went up, more curious now than scornful. A thin woman with hands wrapped in stained cloth leaned closer to Eboshi. "Can't hurt to try, I suppose. If it saves us an hour's muscle and doesn't get anyone burned."
"Have you seen these tricks work yourself?" piped up another—her tone skeptical, but not mocking.
I nodded. "Not in a place quite like this, but fire is fire and iron is iron wherever you go. Sometimes just a little change means a lot."
Eboshi watched the interplay, her expression somewhere between satisfaction and calculation. "We will test these methods," she pronounced, loud enough to carry. "Not all at once, but as the week unfolds. See what advantage they offer—if any. You have permission to oversee the experiment, Mikko-san."
The women exchanged looks, some dubious, others outright amused. But as Eboshi's word seemed to carry a certain weight here, none openly objected.
A woman with an unmistakably skeptical squint finally gave me a thin smile. "I'll watch, and if it works, maybe I'll let you have some of my sake at festival time. If not, you'll help clean slag for a week."
I returned her smile, a little tight, but grateful for even that tentative welcome. The hammerfall of labor began again, louder than before. Eboshi inclined her head, subtle but affirming, and then gestured for us to move on, back into the swirl of heat and clamor.
We slipped away in a cloud of smoke, sweat slicking the back of my neck, the rhythm of Irontown's labor pulsing in my veins. Somewhere in the forge, someone had dared a first step toward change. Whether they'd celebrate me for it, or mutter about foreign meddling over their evening rice, was a story yet to be written.
The path narrowed as we left the clamor of the main forge behind, winding between stands of bamboo that swayed like sentinels in the breeze. Lady Eboshi moved with practiced ease, her steps barely disturbing the fallen leaves, while my boots felt clumsy and intrusive on the soft earth. Something in the air changed—the metallic tang of iron giving way to an earthier scent.
"Few outsiders ever see this place," Lady Eboshi said, her voice softer than before, almost reverent. "What you are about to witness requires a certain degree of discretion and respect."
I nodded, curiosity mingling with apprehension as we rounded a final bend. The path opened into a clearing, nestled against the inner wall of Irontown's fortifications. Unlike the packed dirt and utilitarian spaces we'd traversed earlier, this area had been transformed into something altogether different—a garden of sorts, though not one meant for beauty alone.
Raised beds of medicinal plants grew in neat rows, their leaves silvery in the filtered sunlight. A small stream had been diverted to wind through the space, gurgling softly over smooth stones. The sound was a balm after the hammering cacophony of the forges. Stone lanterns stood at intervals along the paths, unlit now in the daylight but hinting at how the garden might transform after dusk.
"This is beautiful," I said, genuinely impressed by the contrast with the industrial spaces we'd just left.
"Beauty and utility need not be enemies," Eboshi replied, a hint of pride coloring her voice. "The herbs grown here treat many ailments. And the garden itself..." she paused, gesturing to a low building at the far end of the clearing, "...provides peace for those who need it most."
As we approached the structure, I realized it wasn't as simple as it had first appeared. What I'd taken for a single building was actually a complex of interconnected workshops. The roof—shingled in a local style I didn't recognize—extended far beyond the walls, creating deep shadows that made it difficult to see inside from where we stood.
"This is where our finest work happens," Eboshi said, leading me toward the entrance. "And where your knowledge, if you truly possess what you claim, will prove most valuable."
I felt my pulse quicken, not from fear but from the weight of expectation settling across my shoulders. The cool interior welcomed us, my eyes adjusting slowly to the dimness after the bright garden. The air inside was heavy with unfamiliar scents—oils and powders, charcoal and something medicinal that stung my nostrils.
Tables ran the length of the room, their surfaces scarred by years of use. Tools hung from pegs on the walls—hammers and files, tongs and punches, alongside specialized implements I didn't immediately recognize. Scattered across the workspace were components in various stages of completion: metal tubes, wooden stocks partially carved, firing mechanisms complete with springs and triggers.
Firearms. Primitive by my standards, but ingenious for this time and place.
"Our gunsmiths," Eboshi said simply, gesturing to figures hunched over the workbenches.
I hadn't noticed them at first, partly hidden by the shadows and partly because my eyes had been drawn to the weapons. Now I saw them—about a dozen people working in silence, their movements deliberate and precise. They wore loose clothing, white bandages wrapped across every bit of their bodies that would have otherwise been exposed.
One looked up at our approach, and I felt something twist inside me. His face under the wrappings was a patchwork of ravaged skin and intact features, one eye milky with blindness, the other sharp and assessing as it took my measure. His lips, or what remained of them, curved in what might have been a smile.
"Lady Eboshi brings a visitor," he said, his voice surprisingly melodious despite the difficulty he clearly had in forming certain sounds. "A rare honor."
"This is Mikko," she said. "He claims knowledge that might improve our firearms."
A murmur ran through the workshop, neither hostile nor welcoming—simply curious. Another figure turned toward us, this one with hands so damaged they appeared more like mittens with how swollen the fingers were in gripping a delicate carving tool.
"We welcome any who can ease our labor," this one said, voice higher, perhaps female. "Though many have promised much and delivered little."
My throat felt dry. I knew what I was seeing now—leprosy, or something very like it. These craftsmen worked despite bodies that betrayed them daily, creating weapons of surprising sophistication with hands that could barely feel what they touched.
"May I?" I asked, gesturing to the nearest workbench.
The man nodded, stepping aside to allow me closer. On the table lay a matchlock firearm—a local variant of the tanegashima, the Japanese arquebus, if my memory of history served correctly. The barrel was crude by modern standards but remarkably consistent in its bore. The firing mechanism was ingenious in its simplicity—a serpentine lever that would lower a smoldering match into a flash pan when triggered.
"How many can you produce in a month?" I asked, carefully picking up the weapon and examining its construction.
"Ten, perhaps fifteen if the weather holds and our hands are kind to us," replied the craftsman. "Though never enough to satisfy demand."
I nodded, turning the gun over carefully. The stock was beautifully carved despite the limitations the artisans worked under, with subtle details that spoke of pride in craftsmanship. The metal parts showed signs of hand-filing, each stroke patient and precise. I thought of modern assembly lines, of CNC machines and precision tooling, and felt a pang of admiration for what these people accomplished with so little.
"The powder?" I asked.
One of them approached from a corner workstation. "We grind it ourselves. Charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter. The ratio is... difficult. Sometimes a batch is too weak, sometimes too strong."
I lifted the barrel to my eye, peering down its length. The rifling was nonexistent, of course—smooth-bore, like all firearms of this era. Accuracy would be limited at best, devastating at close range but little more than a noisemaker beyond fifty yards.
"The barrels are cast, then bored," explained another craftsman, anticipating my question. "We lose one in five to flaws we cannot see until it's too late to do anything."
As I examined each component, I felt a growing sense of both limitation and possibility. There was so much they didn't know, couldn't know—yet they'd achieved remarkable results through trial and error, through persistence in the face of incredible hardship.
"What do you see?" Eboshi asked, her eyes sharp on my face.
I measured my words carefully. "I see ingenuity working against constraints. There are improvements possible—in the powder mixture, in the casting process, in the boring of the barrels. The firing mechanism could be more reliable with minor adjustments."
"Show us," said the first craftsman, his good eye bright with interest.
"Not yet," Eboshi interjected. "First, he must understand everything about how we work now. Each step, each material, each tool." She turned to me. "You will spend three days here, observing. You will touch nothing, change nothing. Only watch, learn, and make observations."
I started to protest but stopped myself. She was right, of course. To suggest changes without fully understanding their current methods would be arrogant and potentially disastrous.
"After those three days," she continued, "you will present to me a detailed accounting of what you've observed and what improvements you propose. I will present these proposed improvements to the workers and then decide which, if any, to implement."
The craftsmen had returned to their work, fingers moving with practiced precision despite their infirmities. One struck a small hammer against metal with excruciating care, compensating for the lack of sensation in his fingertips with visual focus so intense it seemed to physically bend him toward his work.
"These people," Eboshi said quietly, "were cast out by their villages, by their families. Feared and reviled as cursed. I gave them purpose, dignity. Their bodies may fail them, but their minds remain sharp."
I felt a sudden weight in my chest, an uncomfortable heat that I recognized as a mixture of admiration and sorrow. "I understand."
"Do you?" Her gaze was penetrating. "They create the weapons that keep Irontown safe. That keep these women you met earlier free from the brothels and rice paddies. Their work shapes our future. If you can truly improve it, you will have earned your place here."
I nodded, unable to find adequate words. The responsibility settled over me like a physical thing, heavy but not unwelcome.
"I'll leave you to begin," Eboshi said. "Ota will guide you through their process." She indicated the first craftsman who had spoken to us. "Listen more than you speak, Mikko-san. The answers you seek may already exist in forms you don't recognize."
With that, she turned and left, her footsteps fading into the garden's quiet embrace. The workshop settled into its rhythm around me—the scratch of files against metal, the soft tap of mallets on wood, the occasional hiss as something was quenched in water. Ota looked up at me, his ravaged face impossible to read.
"Where would you like to begin?" he asked, gesturing to the space around us with bandaged hands.
I took a deep breath and stepped further into the shadowland between medieval craft and modern knowledge, acutely aware that what I did here might alter the course of many lives—including my own.
I'd risen before the first work shifts on the second day, wanting time alone with the forges and workshops while they stood quiet and cool. The previous day's tour with Lady Eboshi had been instructive but hurried—this morning I needed to see everything with fresh eyes, to trace each step in the production chain without the distraction of having to keep pace with my guide.
I'd borrowed writing materials from the storehouse: rice paper that felt too delicate under my calloused fingers, a brush that required a touch I didn't yet possess, and a stick of pressed charcoal that felt far more familiar. With these simple tools tucked into my coat, I moved through the awakening settlement like a ghost, watching, measuring, and remembering.
My first stop was the ore sorting area. In the pale morning light, the heaps of raw stone looked less imposing than they had yesterday, reduced to mounds of potential rather than mountains of labor. I crouched beside one pile, running my fingers over the rough surfaces. The iron content was high—I could see the reddish streaks and feel the distinctive weight—but the separation methods were crude by necessity. Women would spend hours picking through by hand, discarding pieces with too many impurities, keeping those rich enough in metal to justify the fuel needed to smelt them.
I sketched a quick diagram of a sluice system I'd once seen used for panning gold. The principle could work here—the difference in density between iron ore and worthless stone could be exploited with water and gravity. Not a perfect solution, but one that might reduce the manual labor by half.
"Up with the birds, are you?"
I turned to find one of yesterday's ore sorters watching me with amused suspicion. She carried a wooden bucket in hands that bore the calluses of someone who'd spent years at her task.
"Just trying to understand how everything fits together," I replied, showing her my rough sketch.
She squinted at it, her weathered face skeptical then shrugged noncommittally, clearly unconvinced but not hostile. "If Lady Eboshi thinks you've got something worth listening to, I won't argue. But we've been working iron here since the town was founded, hence the name."
"And doing it well," I added quickly. "I'm not here to replace what works, just to see if some parts could work... easier."
This earned me a grunt that might have been approval before she moved on to begin her day's labor. I continued my examination, making note of how the best pieces were selected based on color, weight, and the sound they made when struck with a small hammer. There was wisdom in their methods—empirical knowledge passed down through generations of trial and error.
I moved on to the main forge area, now stirring to life as the first shift arrived. The massive bellows dominated the space—leather contraptions that required constant attention to maintain the crucial temperatures. The design was functional but inefficient, requiring ten women working in shifts to keep air flowing steadily. I studied the pivot points, the leather joining, the way the air was channeled into the furnace.
In my notebook, I sketched an alternative: a water-powered trip hammer system that could automate the bellows action using the streams coming down the mountains surrounding Irontown. I'd seen something similar in the past—not cutting-edge technology even by medieval standards, but a significant improvement over pure manual labor.
As I drew, I became aware of eyes on me. A cluster of forge workers had gathered at a respectful distance, watching my activities with expressions ranging from curiosity to outright doubt.
"He thinks he can improve on what we've already got," one murmured to another, loud enough for me to hear.
"Let him try," replied another. "My arms could use the rest if he's right."
I acknowledged them with a nod but continued my work, moving now to the casting area. Here, the molten iron was poured into sand molds to create everything from cooking pots to blade blanks to gun barrels. The sand itself was a mixture of finer and coarser grains, bound together with clay and water. When I crumbled a bit between my fingers, I noted inconsistencies that would lead to uneven cooling and potential weak spots.
"The sand needs to be more uniform," I said, half to myself, half to a young woman who had approached to watch me more closely. "And dried completely before use. Moisture creates steam pockets that weaken the final casting."
"We dry it by the forge," she responded defensively. "It takes too long to dry it all in the sun."
"What about a drying chamber?" I suggested. "A small room near the forge, where hot air is channeled but not direct flame. The sand could dry more quickly and evenly there."
She tilted her head, considering. Our fingers brushed as I handed her a small sample of the sand mixture, and we both felt a spark—static from the dry air, but it jolted us nonetheless.
"I'll mention it to the forgemaster," she said finally, pocketing the sand as if it were something precious rather than something she handled every day.
The morning progressed in this manner—me examining, measuring, sketching, and occasionally explaining my thoughts to whoever showed interest. Some dismissed me outright; others listened with varying degrees of skepticism. By midday, I had filled several sheets with observations and possible improvements, from simple adjustments to more ambitious redesigns.
After a brief meal of rice and vegetables, I made my way back to the secluded workshop where the lepers crafted firearms. The garden was quiet at this hour, the medicinal herbs releasing their scent in the midday warmth. Inside the workshop, the craftsmen worked with the same patient precision I'd observed yesterday, though several looked up as I entered.
"Returned to watch us fumble with our craft?" one asked jokingly, his voice carrying no malice despite the challenging words.
"To learn," I corrected gently. "There's as much I don't know as there is I might contribute."
This seemed to satisfy him, and I was permitted to observe more closely than before. I watched as black powder was mixed in careful proportions, noting how they tested small amounts for burn rate before committing to larger batches. The formula wasn't far off from what I knew to be optimal, but their measuring methods introduced inconsistencies.
"May I?" I asked, indicating a small scale used to weigh components.
The powder master nodded, and I examined the simple balance. The problem was immediately apparent—the pivot point had worn unevenly, causing a slight bias to one side. A minute adjustment would improve accuracy significantly. I made a note but said nothing yet as Eboshi had asked me to do, but also because of my own need to understand the entire process before suggesting changes.
The barrel boring particularly fascinated me. A craftsman with severely damaged hands operated a simple hand drill with remarkable precision, gradually hollowing out cast iron tubes to create gun barrels. The work was painstaking and prone to failure if the bore wasn't perfectly centered.
"How many attempts before you get a successful barrel?" I asked.
"Three, sometimes four tries for each good one," he replied, not looking up from his work. "The iron fights us. Some days it wins."
I sketched a jig system that would hold both the drill and barrel in better alignment, reducing the skill required and potentially improving the success rate. Next to it, I drew a simple gauge for measuring bore diameter consistently—just a tapered rod with marked gradations that could be inserted to check for uniformity.
"These tools," I explained when he glanced at my drawing, "could help maintain consistency even on days when your hands give you trouble."
He studied the sketch for a long moment before nodding once, a gesture so slight I almost missed it. "Simple. Might work." Coming from him, I suspected this constituted high praise.
As afternoon stretched toward evening, I completed my circuit of Irontown's production facilities. My final stop was back at the main forge, now operating at full capacity. The heat was oppressive, the noise overwhelming, but I forced myself to stand close enough to feel the full impact of the operation. This was the beating heart of Irontown, the source of its wealth and power. Any changes I suggested would have consequences that rippled through the entire community.
I found a relatively quiet corner and spread my notes on a wooden table, organizing them into categories: immediate improvements requiring minimal change, moderate adjustments with medium effort and impact, and major redesigns that would take significant resources but potentially transform their capabilities.
A shadow fell across my papers, and I looked up to find the woman who'd introduced herself as Toki yesterday—one of the forge supervisors, with a quick tongue and quicker eyes.
"So, foreigner," she said, planting her hands on the table and leaning forward to examine my work. "Found all our flaws, have you?"
"Not flaws," I corrected. "Opportunities for improvement."
She snorted but continued scanning my notes and drawings with obvious interest. "And you think Lady Eboshi will approve all these... opportunities?"
"I hope she'll consider them," I replied. "Some are simple enough to try without risk. Others would require more investment in time and resources."
Toki straightened up, giving me an appraising look. "You know, most men who come here with grand ideas are either trying to impress us women or looking to take over. Which are you?"
I laughed, surprising myself with the sound. "Neither. I'm just trying to find my place here, same as anyone."
"Hmm." She didn't seem entirely convinced. "Well, I'll say this—at least you bothered to learn what we actually do before telling us how to do it better. That's more than most. You're fine in my book."
She moved away, calling instructions to a group working the bellows, but her words stayed with me. I wasn't naive enough to think that all my suggestions would be welcomed or implemented, but perhaps I'd earned a small measure of respect by observing first instead of immediately asserting my "superior" knowledge.
As the day's shift began to wind down, I gathered my notes into a neat stack, securing them with a piece of twine. The meeting with Lady Eboshi after the three days of observation were up would determine which, if any, of my suggestions would be put into practice, and I wanted to be prepared.
My current list of suggestions ranged from the mundane, such as adjusting the angle of the bellows to reduce operator fatigue—to stuff that required a bit more work, like the various methods for reducing the amount of slag and other pollutants that got released into the environment—to the downright ambitious—a complete redesign of the production pipeline by introducing some basic mechanization elements that would help reduce the amount of necessary labor time per worker and thus improve overall productivity.
I paused at the doorway of the forge, looking back at the space now quieting as workers departed for their evening meal. In just two days of having been here, this place had already begun to feel less alien, its rhythms becoming familiar even as its differences from my old reality remained stark. The women who operated the bellows called tired farewells to each other, their faces streaked with soot but often split by wide grins.
This was a community built on shared labor and shared struggles. Whatever changes I might suggest would have to serve that community, not just technical efficiency. The weight of that responsibility settled on my shoulders as I made my final notes.
In the gathering dusk, lamps were being lit throughout Irontown, casting pools of warm light against the deepening blue shadows. The day's labor was ending, but something else was beginning—a transformation that started with scribbles on rice paper and might end with a community forever changed.
I tucked my notes inside my coat and headed toward my current place of residence, the distant clanging of the day's final hammerfalls echoing behind me like a fading heartbeat.