The Royal Northern Rail Line became a conduit for progress, but also for people.
Settlers, job seekers, merchants, and opportunists—lured by the promise of high wages and stable currency—began to cluster around the Arren Fief and the construction camps.
This created uncontrolled sprawl: sanitation issues, unplanned housing, and the immediate threat of spies or rival craftsmen attempting to steal the Syndicate's proprietary designs (the moldboard plow, the rail gauge, the crossbow schematic).
"My Lord, the population near the forge has tripled," Hemlock reported, nervously holding a stack of new census figures. "They are building hovels right against the rail line! It is chaos! And we've had two instances of apprentices having their Arren Codebooks stolen."
"Chaos is the enemy of efficiency, Hemlock," Alex sighed. "We need to treat the town itself like a system that requires organization and protection. We need to implement urban planning and intellectual property law."
Alex couldn't let the settlement grow randomly; he needed order. He designated three distinct, legally separated zones within the Fief's jurisdiction:
* The Industrial Zone (Restricted Access): This was the area around the Blast Furnace and Refining Forge. It was fenced, guarded by the AGC, and access was restricted to certified employees only. All proprietary schematics and tools were kept within this zone. This was Alex's Trade Secret Protection.
* The Residential Zone (Planned Community): This area was specifically designated for worker housing. Alex laid out a simple grid of roads, mandated standardized sizes for plots, and, most critically, introduced basic sanitation—digging deep trenches for waste, requiring a minimum distance between wells and latrines. This wasn't altruism; it was risk mitigation against disease outbreaks that could halt production.
* The Market Zone (Open Access): Located near the junction of the rail line and the highway, this was the only place outsiders and merchants could freely operate. This kept commerce profitable but contained.
The new settlement, dubbed "New Arren," was instantly the cleanest, most orderly, and most prosperous town in the region. It demonstrated that order, not chance, led to civic wealth.
***
Protecting the physical plant was simple; protecting the ideas was harder. Alex needed a legal framework to protect the knowledge that gave the Syndicate its edge.
He drafted the "Arren Act of Novelty and Utility," essentially the kingdom's first Patent Act. The document declared that any person who conceived of a "novel and useful improvement" (like the moldboard plow or the semaphore code) could register the idea with the Syndicate's legal office.
* Protection: For 20 years, no one else in the kingdom could legally reproduce that design without paying the patent holder a royalty fee.
* The Public Record: Crucially, to receive protection, the inventor had to provide a detailed schematic of the design for the public record. Alex understood that publicly recording the design encouraged other inventors to seek new improvements, fostering innovation while securing the Syndicate's lead.
Alex himself immediately filed the first patents: for the Efficiency Cart Axle System, the Arren Codebook, and the Moldboard Plow Design.
Garth's Frustration (A Casual Event): Garth, forced to fill out the paperwork for his blast furnace design, threw his hands up in exasperation. "My Lord! It takes longer to draw this cursed schematic than it did to build the furnace! Why write it down if we can't hide it?"
"Because, Garth, the power is no longer in the forge; it's in the copyright," Alex explained.
"Anyone can build a furnace. But only we can legally charge them for the right to build one that uses our specific, efficient design. We are shifting from selling products to selling intellectual property licenses."
The Arren Syndicate was now generating a secondary, passive income stream from royalties paid by minor barons and guilds eager to use the proven Arren technology.
The town of New Arren, protected by the AGC and organized by Alex's strict zoning laws, stood as a beacon of logical modernity.
However, its efficiency was about to draw the attention of the ultimate chaos agent: the Hero of the original novel.
Next priority: The main plot of the Chronicles begins to intersect with Alex's economic empire. The Hero, Commander Elric's former protégé, arrives seeking resources for the war, and Alex must decide how to treat this massive, powerful, and utterly unpredictable external variable.