In the Year 42 of the Great Nation of Dhuþchia...

View Part 1 here.

Decades after Shiokichi of Trölhoum began his great task of creating a Holy Tongue of Permanence, he had devised increasingly elaborate symbols to represent anything and everything in existence. He had devised a syntax, where different symbols in different orders, with different spacings between them, enabled complex thoughts to be committed to written form. Shiokichi taught his subordinate priests and disciples this tongue of symbols, so that they may understand his written instructions.

However, in order to use his written argumentations to convince heathens and heretics to follow the true path of the Lord of the Waves, people other than the Lord's priests would have to learn to read His holy text. And when Shiokichi asked around town for people to learn the holy script, he found that they were unwilling to put in the extreme amount of time and effort necessary to learn the obscene amount of complex characters and the syntax for using them. A bit impious, but not all that surprising. But Shiokichi had an unexpected breakthrough when he asked the local magistrate, one who surely needed the blessings of the Lord to govern the people of Trölhoum, to learn His great script.

The magistrate, a practical man named Zeikin, immediately saw the benefit of having people's words inscribed permanently. It would be much easier to allocate inheritance if the desires of the deceased were available to consult after their death. It would be much easier to arbitrate disputes if the terms of all agreements were written down beforehand. And, of course, it would be much easier to assess taxes, tariffs, and fees if everything was written down somewhere. So the magistrate, feigning extreme piety, issued a decree mandating that all the citizens of Trölhoum learn the sacred script from the Great Temple of the Lord of the Waves, or be summarily executed for heresy.

And thus the Dhuþchian taxman became ever-harder to fool.

Effect: Glorious Dhuþchia finishes researching the Major Technology of Writing. Glory be!