Mills

In Aiaos, 'mill' is the term used for any mechanism which uses some form of rotary movement to perform a task. Most mills are purely mechanical, but reclaimed or reverse engineered arcane mills, based on Gontish or Titanic arcanotech, convert the kinetic energy into arcane flux.
Mills are at the heart of Industry, providing power to greatly increase productivity, and even to automate simple, repetitive, or dangerous tasks. One of the most common forms of mechanical mill is the windmill, especially in high, open areas. The Goblin Bluffs had a lot of windmills before the northern exodus; now, the windmills of the Auroral Highlands tower hundreds of feet high, grinding stone, generating flux and casting shifting shadows against the dawn. Advances in gearing, sail design, and the ability to turn into the wind have all ensured that the windmill remains relevant.
Similar to the windmill, watermills make use of natural forces, specifically the movement of flowing or falling water. Since water provides a more constant source of kinetic energy than wind, watermills are more reliable, although the constant exposure to water requires significantly more maintenance. It also requires a more specific location.
A few areas - mostly those with slave or thrall populations, still use muscle-powered mills, driven by capstan wheels or treadmills. Although they provide much less power than wind- or watermills, they are smaller, and much cheaper to create and maintain. Some travelling cultures also use mills connected to the axles of their transports, especially in Scutora holts.
Finally, a very small number of mills are driven by steam engines. This is a very new technology, however, and as yet has more drawbacks than advantages.
The main use for mills is the traditional one: grinding grain of various types into flour. Most such mills still serve a farming community, with the miller taking a share of all flour produced as their fee. Despite the labour involved in milling flour, millers tend to suffer from a poor reputation as greedy, grasping parasites. More recently, mills have been used to run factory machinery, providing motive force to cranes, drills, lathes and saws. All of these machines, used in industrialised factories, are in the early stages of development and require considerable ongoing maintenance.
Arcane mills use kinetic energy to apply stress to an arcane differential - either an arcanite source, or a pair of plates enchanted with opposing magical forces. This forces the release of arcane flux, which is either stored in specially enchanted vessels or allowed to collect in vapour chambers, where it condenses into arcanite. These mills are often highly dangerous, as containment is never foolproof and accumulated atmospheric flux can lead to a danger of uncontrolled magical surges. One final type of mill, mostly seen in arcanotech examples, is the transmutation mill. This couples an arcane mill to a fixed enchantment, which converts a base substance - usually water - into a desired output or outputs. The most famous examples are the three-sided mills of Kaleva, which create flour, gold and salt from river or sea water.