Chapter Summaries

Rorschach accompanied Kano to the Mage Guild to receive the Moon-Crescent Ibis medal and learned how Kano’s student Pascal had profited from the Guild’s overloaded mail service. The chapter left Rorschach in the Guild’s mage-only hall, where its mages and owls silently watched him.

• Rorschach accepted the Moon-Crescent Ibis medal and went to the Mage Guild with Kano two days later.
• Kano explained that the Guild’s mail service had grown overwhelmed and revealed that Pascal had built a profitable middleman network under Kano’s unwitting protection.
• Kano and Rorschach discussed the Guild’s mail prices, the limits of private teleportation networks, and the importance of trained personnel.
• Morell, the Guild Director of Valois, welcomed Kano and Rorschach and ushered them into the Guild’s inner hall.
• Rorschach entered the mage-only hall and found its seated mages and numerous owls silently examining him.

Rorschach received the Order of the Moon-Crescent Ibis at an investiture ceremony and used his speech to credit the Mage Guild and Tower of Stars for funding his research. On the ride home, Kano explained how the medal could help Rorschach establish a Mage Tower, then told him Pascal had broken his leg.

• Kano formally invested Rorschach with the Order of the Moon-Crescent Ibis before the gathered mages and owl-linked guests.
• Rorschach thanked his supporters, acknowledged the funding behind his research, and left without waiting for applause after his speech.
• Rorschach complained to Kano about the ceremony and removed the heavy medal during their carriage ride.
• Kano explained that the medal could earn Rorschach an exceptional promotion when he established a Mage Tower and joined the Guild.
• Kano told Rorschach to attend advanced classes because Pascal could not substitute for them after breaking his leg.

Rorschach met an agency contact, then returned to High Master Valuana to review his students’ disastrous midterm results. He left them with a final lesson before departing for Bavaria, while Pascal was assigned to take over his classes.

• Kano confronted Pascal about breaking the rules to earn money, then assigned him to take over Rorschach’s classes at High Master Valuana.
• Rorschach met a visitor from Bavaria at a teahouse, exchanged travel plans with him, and left carrying a parcel.
• Rorschach collected the midterm papers and told his class Pascal would continue substituting for him after the review.
• Rorschach criticized the class’s average score of fifty-four, praised Andre’s score of eighty-three, and explained the exam questions.
• Rorschach told the students this would likely be his last class with them and urged them to study harder before leaving.

Rorschach and Mr. Pierre traveled by airship toward Bavaria, but the vessel suffered a deliberate disaster and began falling toward Munich. Rorschach helped extinguish an exploding gas bag and stabilize the airship, but the rudder was locked and the dwarf went to stop the Power Furnace.

• Rorschach met Mr. Pierre beneath the Sky Tree and boarded the airship with him for Bavaria.
• Mr. Pierre explained the negotiations with Mr. Hasse as the airship flew toward Bavaria.
• The airship jolted and plunged, and Rorschach joined the crew responding to the emergency.
• Rorschach used Ice Ray to extinguish an exploding hydrogen gas bag and replenished the emergency system's aether with his own aether and Blue Crystal.
• The attendant reported that the rudder was locked and the airship was on course to crash into Munich, while a dwarf hurried to stop the Power Furnace.

Rorschach used magic to slow the sabotaged airship and evacuate its passengers before it crashed into a hill outside Munich. He survived and reunited with Bart, while investigators questioned the accompanying mage about the sabotage.

• Rorschach reshaped the airship’s runes, using a Lagging Spell to slow its descent and a Blue Light Barrier to hold its structure together.
• Rorschach used the last hydrogen balloon to help stabilize the airship and sent passengers out so they could descend safely.
• Bart and the summoned mages received the airship’s emergency landing message and watched it crash into their hill after most passengers escaped.
• The mages extinguished the wreckage, and Rorschach crawled out and embraced Bart, who was relieved that he had survived.
• Investigators questioned the accompanying mage, who described the sabotage and said he planned to resign after leaving the interrogation room.

After the airship crash, Rorschach and Mr. Pierre were questioned by the Mage Guild and Airship Association before Bart secured their release. On the way into the city, Rorschach learned more about Bart’s marriage and Princess Sophie’s past.

• Rorschach answered investigators’ questions, examined the report, and found evidence of deliberate sabotage that did not appear aimed at him.
• Bart arrived at the Guild Outpost, discovered Rorschach had become an Intermediate Mage, and obtained a release order for him and Pierre.
• In the carriage, Rorschach told Bart about his recent achievements and shares, prompting Neusingen to marvel at his wealth.
• Bart showed Rorschach a portrait of his fiancée, Amalia, and joked that Princess Sophie might take a fancy to Rorschach at the banquet.
• Bart explained that Princess Sophie had endured two broken engagements and had supported his marriage to Milly.

Rorschach toured Munich with Bart, sampled the city’s market food, and explored its commercial prospects while hinting at plans to build a beverage factory in Bavaria. Their visit ended at Amalia’s mansion, where her delighted response to Rorschach’s compliment left him wondering whether she had used Charm Humans.

• Bart arranged rooms for Rorschach and Pierre, then explained that he would show Rorschach around Munich while Pierre waited for Hasse.
• After sleeping through the day’s meals, Rorschach joined Bart at the bustling City Hall square market and found stalls selling sausages and other local food.
• As Bart guided him around the city, Rorschach assessed its glassware, spending habits, and potential for producing and selling soda.
• Rorschach asked about Bavaria’s Magic Towers and told Bart that his first step toward his plans was to build a beverage factory.
• Bart brought Rorschach to Amalia’s mansion, where she showed off her new skirt and giggled at his compliment; Rorschach wondered whether she had used Charm Humans.

Rorschach met Princess Amalia and Prince Otto at a private dinner, where his stories and knowledge of music helped him win Otto’s favor. The next day, Rorschach secured royal decrees and trade privileges for the beverage factory, then prepared Pierre Neusingen for negotiations in Munich.

• Bart introduced Rorschach to Princess Amalia, who treated him with formal courtesy and invited him to wait for Prince Otto.
• Rorschach showed Bart and Amalia a pocket watch from King Charles XVI and explained how his advice had inspired the Valuana Higher Normal College.
• Prince Otto arrived, questioned Rorschach about his background, and warmed to him after learning they shared southern roots and an interest in music and opera.
• The following evening, Pierre Neusingen told Rorschach that factory sites in Munich were too small and additional land taxes exceeded the budget.
• Rorschach presented Pierre with royal land and tax decrees and proof of trade alliance membership, then arranged a banquet and inspections of local mills and glassworks.

Rorschach and Pierre failed to secure support from Bayern’s officials and merchants, then traveled with Bart to inspect the region’s industries. The chapter left them visiting a glass workshop, where Rorschach identified its secret ingredients and impressed the owner by revealing his Mage Emblem.

• At a banquet hosted by the Baldorom Merchant Guild, Rorschach used Damage Transfer while Pierre drank heavily, then Rorschach toasted Bayern and helped Pierre recover with Revival.
• Rorschach and Pierre agreed that the banquet had produced no firm promises, as Bayern’s officials and merchants showed little interest in their plans to build a local factory.
• The next day, Bart explained that trade in Bayern was controlled by guilds and warned Rorschach that dealing with them and the Mage Guild would be difficult before departing for Würzburg.
• Rorschach and Pierre traveled toward a glassmaking center and toured a workshop, where Rorschach identified the soda ash and lead powder used in glassmaking.
• When the workshop owner challenged Rorschach for revealing the ingredients, Rorschach showed his Mage Emblem, and the owner accepted his knowledge as natural for a mage.

Rorschach and Pierre failed to secure a glass-bottle supplier in Bayern and learned that the guilds’ interconnected control of local industries could block their beverage business. Rorschach decided to investigate the Tower of Arcane Arts while Pierre surveyed related industries, and he bought a glass pony before setting off.

• Rorschach and Pierre visited local glass workshops and the Glass Guild Master, but all refused to take their long-term bottle order.
• Rorschach explained that the guilds’ control of connected industries made it difficult to establish a factory or introduce beverages without local allies.
• Rorschach identified the Mage Guild and the Tower of Arcane Arts as a possible way to break through the guilds’ influence.
• Rorschach told Pierre to investigate related industries while they waited for Hasse and his wagonloads of drink supplies to arrive.
• Rorschach visited a glass shop, learned that only three large workshops made Forest Glass and Cobalt Blue Glass, and bought a glass pony.

Rorschach visited the Tower of Arcane Arts as a representative of the Tower of Stars and met Mage Elizabeth Eugenie, who revealed the tower’s strange history and guardian. After seeing an apprentice’s failed attempt to jump from a high floor, Elizabeth asked Rorschach what had brought him there.

• Rorschach traveled from Munich to the Tower of Arcane Arts with a guild staff member, who revealed that he had grown up in the village below the tower.
• Rorschach crossed Immanuel’s Bridge and met Elizabeth Eugenie, who said she had once taught the staff member accompanying him.
• Elizabeth explained that the tower’s Red Dragon guardian had become its spirit and that its body powered the tower through the ley lines.
• The Red Dragon demanded personal answers from Rorschach, but Elizabeth dismissed its questions and led him inside.
• Rorschach saw an apprentice jump from a high floor and get caught by gargoyles before Elizabeth asked why he had come.

Rorschach visited the Tower of Arcane Arts to arrange construction of a personal Mage Tower, but learned the Tower controlled much of the region’s banking, legal, and construction industries. He gave a well-attended lecture on evocation magic, then broke the audience’s silence with a joke that an apprentice later retold incorrectly.

• Rorschach asked Mage Eugenie about building a Mage Tower, and Elizabeth offered construction and financing services while explaining that the Tower would not support his plans to recruit apprentices independently.
• Elizabeth described the powerful guilds controlled by the Tower of Arcane Arts and explained the Stonemason Brotherhood’s separate inner and outer circles.
• Rorschach toured the Tower, dined with Eugenie and other instructors, and delivered a lecture on the relationship between evocation spells and thermal motion.
• When the audience fell silent after his lecture, Rorschach asked a round-faced apprentice a bread-eating riddle and amused the crowd with its trick answer.
• The apprentice retold Rorschach’s joke the next day, but a classmate gave the punchline instead of the original answer.

Rorschach experimented with refining local ores and making colored glass in the Tower of Arcane Arts’ alchemy workshop, then presented his glasswork to the Glass Guild’s Guild Master. He offered to negotiate over mass production, leaving the Guild Master confronted with Rorschach’s demands.

• Rorschach showed the Mages Dulling Transmutation Dust and examined a fragile Magic Sealing Disc that contained a Fireball.
• After the Tower of Arcane Arts denied him access to its library, Rorschach borrowed its alchemy workshop and collected raw ore samples.
• Rorschach refined the ores, experimented with glass colorants, and shaped a rose-colored glass foal for Eugenie.
• Rorschach visited the Glass Guild’s Guild Master and presented him with vivid green, blue, and rose-colored glass pieces alongside liquor.
• Rorschach told the Guild Master that his glass could be mass-produced and declared that he had come to make demands.

Rorschach gathered the Bayern Glass Guild to launch mass production of bottles for Hercules soda, offering workshops a stake in a new company. The guild members weighed the proposal, and the Guild Master backed it as Rorschach called for a vote.

• Rorschach waited for the workshop owners to arrive and made glass crafts while preparing materials and testing ore-refining processes.
• Rorschach presented the workshop owners with glass gifts and a bottle design, then demanded exclusive production and an initial output of fifteen thousand bottles per month.
• After the owners objected that they could not meet the target, Rorschach handed the floor to Pierre to explain the production plan.
• Pierre proposed a company funded by Hercules and Baldorom, with shares offered to guild workshops and employees.
• The Guild Master offered to buy any shares the workshops declined, and Rorschach asked the assembled owners to vote on the proposal.

Rorschach established factories in Bavaria and recruited local workers with high wages and free iced soda, drawing apprentices away from traditional glass workshops. The factories were still being set up, but their hiring had begun to challenge the Glass Guild’s apprenticeship system.

• Rorschach chose Lanscht for the bottle and beverage factories, arranged construction with the Stonemason Brotherhood, and summoned engineers from the main factory.
• The beverage factory set up recruitment tents at Lanscht’s spring carnival and attracted residents with free iced soda and a wage of two silver coins a month.
• In Glass Town, Jennifer helped recruit apprentices for the new company, while a workshop owner threatened workers who considered leaving.
• Rorschach and Mr. Pierre visited workshops with iced soda, persuading apprentices and even a craftsman to sign contracts with the factory.
• Rorschach dismissed concerns about the Glass Guild and told Mr. Pierre to donate streetlights to Lanscht and Glass Town once the beverage factory became profitable.

Rorschach oversaw Fonda's preparations and traveled to Würzburg to visit Bart before Bart's wedding to Milly. After showing Rorschach Würzburg Palace, Bart asked for help preparing for an upcoming Parliamentary Faction inspection with only eight days left before the wedding.

• Fonda Beverage Factory began trial operations, and Rorschach held 73% of its shares after investing most of his funds in its construction.
• The Glass Guild fractured as apprentices and craftsmen left its workshops, while Rorschach and Mr. Pierre gained leverage in negotiations with the Mining and Metallurgy Association.
• Rorschach traveled to Würzburg and found Bart reading gossip about the unidentified commoner marrying the princess.
• Rorschach learned that the Baldorom Merchant Guild was promoting the wedding to support the release of one hundred thousand bottles of Fonda soda on the wedding day.
• Bart showed Rorschach Würzburg Palace from his tower and revealed that a Parliamentary Faction inspector would soon evaluate him.
• With eight days until his wedding, Bart asked Rorschach to help him prepare for the inspection.

Rorschach investigated a grapevine disease at the Civic Welfare Home Winery and prepared Bordeaux Mixture to stop it. He and Bart disguised the treatment as an exorcism, ending with Bart setting the infected vines ablaze.

• Bart told Rorschach that Würzburg's grape growers blamed diseased vines on demons and were pressuring him to act.
• Rorschach examined the damaged leaves, recognized signs of plant disease, and went with Bart to the Civic Welfare Home Winery.
• Abbess Abigail showed them the infected vines and an old record describing a similar outbreak called Devil's Kiss.
• Rorschach obtained slaked lime and Copper Sulfate and made Bordeaux Mixture to treat the vines.
• Rorschach directed Bart and Abbess Abigail through a staged exorcism as he sprayed the mixture, then Bart used Raging Flames on the infected vines.

Rorschach and Bart saved the Civic Welfare Winery’s grapevines, and Rorschach gave Bart the Bordeaux Mixture recipe to help protect vineyards across Würzburg. After Bart proposed a magical performance for the wedding, Rorschach decided to train him in new spells, leaving Bart bewildered and reluctant.

• Rorschach used Revival to regrow the burned grapevines while the abbess watched, then warned her to apply Bordeaux Mixture carefully.
• Rorschach gave Bart the potion recipe and explained that the disease could spread across Würzburg, suggesting the effort could help Bart’s bid for the trade representative position.
• Over wine and food, Bart asked how Rorschach learned Nature School magic, and Rorschach described his journey into the Black Forest and reassured Bart about his feelings for Amalia.
• Bart proposed that he and Rorschach perform a magical double act at the wedding, prompting Rorschach to scold him for acting like a puppet and neglecting magic.
• Rorschach declared that he would train Bart in new spells starting the next day, then demonstrated several tricks as Bart questioned his skills and the time commitment.

Rorschach began teaching Bart the Revival Spell, using custom Learning Scrolls and close observation to guide his practice. After Bart struggled to imitate the spell, Rorschach demonstrated how to stimulate a seed and left Bart watching its first sprout emerge.

• Rorschach prepared Revival Spell scrolls and had Bart join him for a lesson instead of meeting Milly for dinner.
• Bart examined Rorschach’s intricate scrolls, and Rorschach explained that three versions made mana flow at different speeds.
• Bart activated the first two scrolls and tried to imitate them, while Rorschach identified where his mana control and rhythm failed.
• Rorschach explained how to use the Revival Spell to stimulate a seed, then awakened a bean seed until its root and shoot emerged.

Rorschach taught Bart the Revival Spell through a long night of practice, then discovered he could use it to regrow a bean plant through its entire life cycle. The next night, he began teaching Bart Blue Light Barrier, but Bart complained that the material was too complicated and said he wanted to drop out.

• Rorschach coached Bart through using the Revival Spell, and Bart eventually grew bean sprouts and seedlings from a bowl of seeds.
• Bart roasted beans with a spell, and Rorschach made a sweet puffed-bean snack that Bart wanted to teach Milly to make.
• After Bart went to sleep on duty, Rorschach revived a charred bean and used magic to grow it through flowering and producing new beans.
• The following night, Rorschach brought Bart public materials on Blue Light Barrier and began explaining how to stimulate blue light.
• Bart struggled with the complicated material and told Rorschach he wanted to drop out.