91. The Emerald Plain

“Workshop?” Lilith’s jaw fell like a dropped teacup. The Little White Dragon made a dazed, hollow hoot, a flute squeak that turned shock into comedy.

She let her image shatter like glass and didn’t chase the shards. The Little White Dragon even quit wondering why this world had a word like workshop that cracked her old picture of it.

All her attention got hooked by the giant, timeworn tree before them. A sea of emerald crowns rolled across the Selnos Plain, its shoreless edge lost past the horizon.

Her vision was hawk-sharp now, near a thousand-mile gaze. Even so, she only skimmed the tip of this factory’s iceberg woven into living wood.

“Was Lamter’s industrial district always this vast?” Lilith asked, awe heavy as rain.

“Industrial district? Of course not.” Nidhogg arched a brow, his voice a cool tide. “This is just one factory. I don’t know its rank, but there are dozens like it.”

“Dozens?” Lilith’s eyes widened like twin moons. The Little White Dragon counted on her fingers, beads on an abacus, and guessed these factories covered over forty percent of Lamter.

“That developed?” Her voice tripped, heart first, words later. She gave Nidhogg her math, and he shook his head, a slow pendulum.

“Not as much as you think. Even counting the parts out at sea, the whole industrial district is under thirty percent of Lamter.” Nidhogg’s numbers came steady as drumbeats. “But Lamter’s industry is truly advanced. Commerce drinks raw materials like a thirsty river. Mali shelters the city’s manufacturing like a canopy. We can’t read a god’s mind, but facts speak. Under Mali’s blessing, growth leapt like fire, and Lamter is now one of Kuri’s most industrial cities.”

“They sell it as a grand commercial city, yet the smokestacks sing too,” Lilith murmured, eyes bright with shock and curiosity, like lanterns in mist.

“Well, Mali’s a neat freak,” Nidhogg mused, a smile like a knife’s gleam. “They keep commerce pure. They may allow booming industry here, but commerce still comes first.”

Lilith felt the sense in that and nodded, a leaf agreeing with the wind.

“So what does this factory make?” The Little White Dragon blinked wide, then pointed at the blue blossom on her head. “Is it for flowers like this?”

The blossom on the Little White Dragon’s head shook with spirit, bobbing like a happy bird, as if eager to return to its birthplace.

“Not just that.” Nidhogg shook his head, hair like a dark banner. “Most Lamter factories aren’t hyper-specialized. They follow what they plant, like rivers following their beds. With this scale, it can’t be all little flowers. Or Lamter would crawl with dancing blooms. That’s a tiny corner. The main line is other yields from trees, sap-lines and all. For example, a new substance refined from resin. It lacks a name, but Lamter uses it widely in buildings. One coat on a wall, and you get decades of hard weatherproofing—perfect for a sea-washed city.”

“Beyond construction, Lamter folk turn it into medicines and dyes.” Nidhogg added more uses, the words clicking like beads. “It sounds wild, but the market loves it.”

“Oh.” The Little White Dragon nodded, calm as a cat in sun. To Nidhogg it felt ahead of its time. To Lilith it felt familiar—oil that grows on trees, Earth tech under another sky.

Curiosity rose first, like a tide tugging at her ankles. “Can we go in and look?” Lilith had never seen a Lamter factory run. But rules mattered; even in disguise, ordinary folk don’t just stroll into a stranger’s workshop.

“Of course. Tell the gate guards,” Nidhogg said, calm as stone. “Factory security is a loose net. They mainly check you’re not here to smash things.”

“Really?” Lilith’s eyes popped again, like spring buds. So much in Lamter cracked her old common sense, like ice under spring.

“Why ban entry?” Nidhogg spread his hands, a dark wing’s arc. “The Selnos Mountains brim with odd academies. Their students need real practice, like iron needs fire. Their results need coin, like roots need water. Factories love being that bridge. The closer they tie to the academies, the easier they grab markets, like vines to a wall. Students’ new toys always hook Lamter’s crowd, so visiting scholars are welcome.”

“But we’re not scholars.” Lilith glanced around, quick as a sparrow. They were a former Lamter police captain, the last lord’s slacker daughter, a Majestic Court bishop in plain clothes, and one passing Little White Dragon. None of that screamed academia, like chalk washed off by rain.

“Sure you are. Mr. Joseph filed you,” Nidhogg said, tapping Lilith’s chest with a finger, a soft drumbeat. “You’re on the books at the Astrology Academy—lecturer, Combat Division.”

“Uh…” Lilith froze, a bird hit by sunlight. She hadn’t expected him to remember the combat coaching she’d missed when she got sick.

“So, Lecturer, whether we get a field study is up to you.” Nidhogg clapped her back, a friendly thunderclap.

“Huh?” The Little White Dragon’s mouth hung open. “Aren’t I the one who studies the Star Canvas?” Who’s going to ask the gate to open? Me?