In the living room was a small scale calculation machine, owned by a mathematican who delighted in showing to guests, with the latest one being a novelist friend.
However, a naval officer knocked in the midst of his explanation to said guest.
"It's about the engine. I have unfortunate news," the officer said after the resident answered the door.
"Get on with it," the mathematican ordered.
"The Naval Research Board has decided to cancel further funding."
"Why are you canceling my project?!" the mathematican asked in disbelief. "I thought you had just approved more funding for my engine?"
"We need to make certain reconcilations," the navy officer said, his eyes avoiding the professor's face. "The whole economy crashing means that we need to make certain cost saving measure. Unfortunately, yours was judged as not deemed as the most essential. The board assures you that it was the most difficult decision to make."
The professor went red in the face, his hands curling into balls of righteous fist. Just recently, he fought so hard to get additional funding to continue his work, now they were telling him that it was a difficult decision to make when they were so relucant to have anything to do with it?
"Get out," he said coldly.
The officer scrambled out of the house as quickly as he could.
For the mathematican, the pub served more useful purposes than drinking alchool. It was a place to meet friends and exchange places, and a place to do serious mathematical works. Now it was a simply a place to drown his misery in the Great Crash.
And he wasn't the only person to lose his job in the midst of an economic implosion, his collegues joining him due to the closure of universities earlier in the day.
The scholar gulped more alchool into his system.
"The Dual Monarchy somehow managed to remain stable in all of this?" a collegue asked.
"A curious anomaly. Something about crown corporations?" The mathematican burped.
"Their King shut down their businessmen in their effort to sell crown corporations."
"Nokly the Great," he said, as if it explained everything.
"More importantly, they still have jobs."
"Jobs."
"Yes, jobs. I heard they have vacancies."
"I'll think about it." He drank more before heading home in a drunken stupor.
The next day, the mathematican thought about what his friend said, the more he came to an unmistakable conclusion.
It was time to go to the Dual Monarchy.
"Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" a boy shouted. "Irresponsible Sketch Sold to Traitous Nohon!"
The engineer so wanted badly to do something! Everything from running away to arguing and shouting at the boy, but he kept his emotion in check, gripping tightly the luggage bag that held his life's work.
Still, at last, he arrived in Redshore, and it was as beautiful as he thought it would be, even with all soots and smokes that's common to any industrial city. It was clearly a planned city and well organized, unlike his hometown of Lundun, and it was clearly red as its namestake suggested.
Moreover, public bathhouses and gyms were seemly everywhere, certainly more common than it was in Lundun. He heard disreputable things about some of the bathhouses, but he also cannot imagine himself without bathing.
Finally, he ended his wandering at one of the numerous flophouses.
He eyed suspicously the men coming in and going, anyone of them might have a grudge against foreigners, or worse, people like him. His countrymen were only doing what they can to survive!
Complicating things, the scholar never had to rent a bed before, his modest allowance from his father allowing to find dwelling for him and his departed wife before he could found work, but he has sunk so low to be nearly penniless.
"Is a bed available?" the scientist spoke in formal Ymaryn at the counter. The receptionist jerked to attention, appraising the figure in front of him.
"Ah, you must be a foreign scholar. You're in good company, but unfortunately...." he said, before pointing his finger at the sign that the polymath somehow missed. "We're full."
The Sketch gentleman can only sigh.
"EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it! The Sketch Pulled Investments!"
The unemployed polymath did his best to ignore the vitrol directed against his homeland. He was in survival mode, or otherwise he will be forced to work in a factory. Still, another failure today as he was outcompeted by yet another Tortun engineer.
Last on his list is a possible tutoring job for Count Lycylyce by way of a letter of recommendation from his academic contact in Redshore, but it will be quite of a walk to get there...
To his surprise, the polymath developed a blossoming friendship with Count Lycylyce, who was every an intellectual equal to him! Initially, it started out by teaching her daughter math and science, an unusual choice of curriculum he thought, but he didn't made mountain out of molehills on it. It turned out that the count was interested in math and science herself.
From his income, he was able to rent a modest apartment, but elected to be a miser everything else except for the project he hoped to fund.
Today, he was at a machinist's shop, watching the owner puzzled over the intricate plans that the mathematican drafted himself.
"Doable," the craftman said.
"Doable?" the scientist asked. "Almost no one in Sketch wanted to do it. I had to search far and wide for anyone to take on my project."
The machinist shrugged. "I am not sure what kind of equipment the Sketch got over here, but any of my collegues can do this project no problem."
"That's great!" the scientist exclaimed. "I don't have much bwylls though, but with my job as a tutor, I am saving almost everything I have to get this implemented. Hopefully, I will find a sponsor soon."
"What exactly is your budget, sir?"
The scientist explained how much he made and how much he planned to spend.
"It's too small of a budget for my taste," the machinist said. "But if you paid for the materials, then I won't charge you my labor as I am also interested in this project of yours, although it has to be done in my spare time. One or two hours every workday perhaps? This will stand until we get an actual sponsor."
"I am pleased to hear that!"
The polymath knew it will take a long time to complete his project, and he was already designing the next iteration of his calculation engine.
Perhaps he could ask his friend, Count Lycylyce, to financially sponsor the project. Or maybe he could get to Nokly himself, who have a reputation of sponsoring scientific research? But how? He concluded that was for another day, another time.