Florence wasn’t big. It was big for these times, sure, but after setting foot in some of the major cities in the information age, Vieri had returned home to find his own home city, a hub of wealth and art in the world, was really little more than a town.

Stuffing enough people in one town hall, however, was repainting that illusion. Even with the roof blown off, every important person and their mother was crammed into the town hall, and he needed to do something about every one of them. The scientists he’d brought in needed some leadership, the merchants and the bankers needed someone to keep them happy and rough them up when they were not, and that was just the big stuff. He could hand a lot of that off to the second-in-command of his family bank, and he was already in contact with many of the best scientific minds in a number of miles around here. A lot of them were the best scientific minds around here because they got a paycheck from the Isabello family.

The room was crowded, and Vieri was in the center of it all. Assigning roles, solving little problems people could solve if they just thought about it for more than three seconds, yelling at other people for trying to solve large problems and solving them badly… It’d been like this for the last two hours, and his head starting to buzz and the word ‘science’ was starting to sound fake. There were too many people, too much noise.

And then some guy started shouting. For him, and calling all the masses of yet-to-be-done work chaos. Turning from the upset banker he was explaining the profit cuts to, he squinted, trying to scan the crowd for the source of the voice and shouting back reflexively, “What?!”

The information age clothes gave the mage away, and Vieri’s expression relaxed down to ‘moderately grumpy’. “Oh, it’s you.” The mage probably couldn’t hear him, but he probably would see him spot the other. “Oi, Domenico-” The third in command of the mafia popped his head up at the sound of his name. “Take over for me. I’ll be back in a bit.”

The mafia man nodded and Vieri dropped the packet the banker was expected to sign - would sign, if he knew what was good for him - in his hands without so much as a glance back at him. If he had any bit of a brain, he could figure out the rest.

The crowd was thick, but a shouted “Move!” and the crackle of electricity around his right arm made a path in the people for him anyway. Civilians moved aside as he made his way towards the mage. He made a direct line, coming out of the crowd not long after New Guy had yelled.

Vieri was dressed for the times, in one of his own outfits he’d had made before the discovery of the information age and the infinitely cheaper materials. The wool tunic was long enough to reach his ankles, with long sleeves down to his wrists, and was dyed in a dark green. Compared to the bright reds and yellows and high abundance of tights, he stuck out relatively little.That was what the electricity was for.

“Ponytail.” He addressed him formally. “I’m guessing you’re here to talk terms for your help?” He nodded with his head towards the door, already moving past the mage and back that way. “Let’s go somewhere else. All this noise is giving me a headache.”

“I’ve met you once, Glasses, and we never exchanged names.” Supposed to know his allies’ names by now, he said. Was that in some mage pamphlet the academy was handing out? It was worth as much time as he was already giving it.

The break into the open street air was a relief. Even with the roof gone, the air in that room was stuffy with old moneybags and their political schemes. He could still hear the chatter and feel the buzz of all their angry, determined thoughts. The wall between them wasn’t helping much. Wally seemed content right outside, but Vieri waved for him to keep following.

For all the rubble still scattered about and in the process of being cleaned up, the city was still bright and colorful. It was as quiet as one of those information age parks and the air was almost painfully clean by comparison to their cities. Vieri was pacing slowly down one of the smaller side streets south of the town hall, where the main industry of the city was on full display in open weaving and wool processing shops lining both edges. The vibrant colors of the cloth were bright enough to match the planted flowers along the building sides.

“You really are from the information age, huh.” Vieri sighed, like he couldn’t quite land on if that was supposed to be an insult or not. For how smart and connected they all were supposed to be, they sure were blind sometimes. “Look, I understand you all have your fancy public education. It’s a smart idea, we should get off our sorry asses and do it too, but we haven’t yet. We’ve got your wealth disparity too, but there’s more to ours than just who has the nice flying machines; half these people can’t multiply six and eight, let alone read and write. To be able to do a lot of these jobs I need, the person needs to be educated; to be educated, you need money. Connect two and two. I’ve got no problem kicking the ones who actually know what they’re doing up the latter, and I will if I see them if that’s what you want, but if I try to put a wool weaver into the job of a scientist, we’re going to have chemicals exploding in our labs.

“If what you want is to make sure the lower class is better taken care of, there’s better ways to do that. I’ve got my thumb on the wealth here; bring me over one of those support programs you’ve got in the information age and I can try to put it in place. If we can bring in some scientists from your world, we could likely set up rudimentary training lessons like what they give back at the academy. You bring me people from your world that’re already qualified for other jobs, and I’ll give them those other jobs. I’m in the process of drafting up plans for bringing in larger electronics as well. The more wealthy the city as a whole is, the more wealthy each individual person will be; if we can turn Florence into a technological hub, well,” He scoffed, pulling a proud smile. “I’d love to see the rest of the world keep up with that.”

That smile didn’t last for long. Vieri let out a tired sigh and waved Wally to a bench set against a building site. They’d come to a wide plaza - far from free of people, even this soon after their attack, most of the citizens milling about were scattered and not interested in him. The man dressed in synthetic clothes, clearly not from around here, was drawing some stares, but no one was interested enough to dare approaching. Vieri dropped down on the bench, taking only as much care as it took to keep the long robe from bunching uncomfortably under his legs.

“I’m not lying to you, Ponytail. Why the hell would I lie?” He said flatly, crossing his arms. “I’m not being generous either, I’m filling my end of the bargain. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about the poor of Florence and I don’t care if they like me or think I’m kind or whatever shit. All I really want is that information. However,” he tilted his head to the side, looking rather annoyed, “you helped me out, so I owe you something. I’m trying to offer you an option that’s not going to end in dead farmers and no research.

“Look, sticking people in jobs they don’t know how to do isn’t going to help, exactly because it’s hard to figure out. That ain’t how it works in your world either, is it? If what you want is to give these people skills, we can set up some apprenticeships or information age style classes and teach ‘em. They won’t get jobs right away, but I’m going to need all the scientists I can get if I want to grow this. They’ll have jobs when they’re ready.”

At least the guy had energy, enough to work himself up and claim what he saw as rightfully his. Half these mages felt like lazy asses who didn’t want to do anything their power didn’t let them do with the snap of their finger. It meant he wasn’t going to get some half-thought through plan because the guy couldn’t be bothered to put the work where his mouth was. Vieri could work with that.

Vieri blinked at the mage before what had happened hit him and he rubbed his brow. He’d responded to something he’d thought but not technically said, hadn’t he? He could’ve sworn he said something about lying. It must’ve just been something similar enough, in close enough proximity to the thought that he got them mixed up. Then the kid knew right away what was up.

“That rumor’s really starting to get out of hand… it’s probably about time I knock some heads and get some loud mouths to stop. Don’t go telling people I can read minds or you’ll be one of the heads knocked, got it? I can tell that shit so don’t try to pull one over on me.”

Something about the way this guy was talking to him pissed him off. It was like he thought he was just another one of those greedy money bags who wanted more gold to sit on. The guys he’d just spent an afternoon beating up, and several more shouting into shape. If Ponytail thought he could go and lump him in with those asshats, the guy needed to go back to his public school and study nomenclature.

His jaw tightened, and while he wasn’t quite yelling, the force of his voice did increase. “‘We should be able to fix every problem’? Dumbass, I make electricity with the snap of my finger, not food to end poverty. You want to do something? Great, I’ll give you a continuous cut of the profits and you can throw money at people and people at jobs or whatever the hell you plan to do. Keep out of my way and I’ll keep out of yours. It’d save me time.”

Vieri didn’t look at him as he stood, but his gaze locked back on the mage with a cold intensity as he walked towards him, not stopping until he was a matter of inches away and well within his personal space. He wasn’t actually that much bigger than the other mage, but squaring his shoulders back, he tried to make himself so. His voice was low and deadly serious.

“But if you lead a revolution here, I swear to you I will crush it. And I’ll know it’s coming and who to target before the wannabe leaders even realize it’s possible.”

He hesitated, casting a glance to the side. A young woman brought a basket of bread out from one of the plaza’s bakeries to an older man on his way home from work. He knew both; the woman was the daughter of a skilled textiler who’d not picked up the trait and was apprenticing elsewhere. She had a hard left hook when pressed. He knew exactly what wool weaving company the man worked for, and how many mouths he was feeding back home. It was hard not to know everyone in a city this size.

He turned back to Ponytail, the outsider coming in and thinking he could just fix everything and make everyone happy.

“Don’t get common people caught in our crossfire.”

Vieri couldn’t help but roll his eyes when the guy tried to keep himself from thinking things. If he had a florin for every time someone did that when he said he could read minds… At least that wasn’t the worst attempt he’d seen, and the guy wasn’t just repeating the same word over and over loudly in their head.

“Good.” Was all Vieri had to say aloud on the matter. Ponytail didn’t talk, there wasn’t going to be a problem. He seemed to understand the consequences of doing so.

The guy’s reaction to the woman and man warranted another roll of his eyes. “That’s going to be your downfall, Ponytail. Look, you’ve got your head in… I guess some people would call it the right place…” He grimaced a little like he didn’t like that phrasing. “You’ve got yourself a strong motivation.” He settled on. “Your issue is you’re too high up there,” he pointed upwards, ”with your ideologies and perfect world, and not enough down here.” His finger dropped down to his feet before his hand returned back with his other to his pocket. “You ain’t got the actual logistics down - ideologies by themselves are all well and good until nothing happens because your ‘solution’ doesn’t do jack shit, or the riots start because you put the money in the wrong spot and made things worse, or wool crafters blow up a chemistry lab. Go read some books or legislation or accost some of your leaders or something to figure out what to do. Don’t just jump in to try to fix stuff without knowing exactly what you’re doing, or you’re going to be doing a whole lot of tearing down and not a lot of building back up. We rich folks got cushions, you know that, right? If shit breaks, it’s the poor that’s going to be feeling it.”

He eyed Wally from the corner of his vision. “Your rebuilding plan was going to just be more tearing down, that’s why I’m saying this. If you want to help the common folk, you damn well better know what you’re doing, and you damn well had better care about them.” He nodded his head towards the two. The old man was giving his thanks to the woman, and with a wave carried on his way down the street.

“Also, it ain’t you starting a revolution I’m talking about, idiot. I’ll know the people are thinking it.” His tone was much more neutral, but the threat was still there.

He hesitated, leaning back a little and looking up as he ran over some numbers in his head. Turning back to Wally, he had about as good a deal as he could offer if he wanted actual research funding.

“I’ll send you ten percent of the profits. You do what you want with it, as long as my labs don’t go up in flames I don’t give a damn. I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but we’re Florence. Trust me, that’s a lot. A flat ten percent is a lot when you’re trying to get something up and off the ground, so it’s as much as I can offer you without my efforts crashing and burning into the ground. Deal?” Vieri extended out a hand.