Before the spark steam solenoid was mounted atop the Citadel Bell Tower, the working day in Grey Crag was an asynchronous disaster.
Dwarven foundrymen began their shifts. Just then, the morning mountain shadow cleared the melted rock waste heap.
Peasant farmers began weeding when the sun climbed above the hemlock ridge. The sawmill crews started work whenever Master Caleb finished his third pipe of black tobacco.
To Giles Croft, this was an unbearable waste of settlement tick cycles.
“An asynchronous labor schedule reduces total heavy-duty throughput by thirty-two percent,” Giles explained to Lady Millicent Croft in the Citadel dispatch office.
“If the blast fire pours molten metal at noon. But the rolling mill crew doesn’t report until one o’clock, the metal bars cool below plastic forging heat. That needs seventy pounds of backup reheat fuel per ton of steel.”
Millicent dipped her quill into dark walnut ink, nodding sharply.
“Reheat fuel is pure waste. Borin burned six extra carts of hard coal on Tuesday simply because the rail-car shunter was eating boiled turnip pudding.”
