Chapter 67: Venture Capitalism

“Here ya go,” Calvin said, handing over his second month’s pay to Borus Igglebaum in exchange for a small burlap sack full of raw materials.

A clear vial of oil with a thumb-sized chunk of the self-igniting metal that served as the trigger for his Fireball, a palm-sized sheet of flexible glass from Uleis, a scrap of dragon leather, A glass dropper filled with highly flammable oil, a concentrated acid, base, pure alcohol, spring steel, magnesium, an industrial diamond, featherwood, and a mirror.

You’re gonna need another belt, Batman.

“And these here,”  the Jibbleya said, putting two more objects on the treated wood from behind the counter.

One was a lacquered wand of featherwood with one of Calvin’s Jerrytanium marbles glued to the end of it, the other was a metal canister with the top off.

Calvin picked the wand up, balancing it on his finger. The wood barely weighed anything, allowing him to flick it back and forth easily with his wrist, fast enough to blur the marble at the end.

“Don’t break anything.” Borus grumbled as Calvin got caught up in the swishing back and forth.

“If the marble at the end came off, it would be your fault, wouldn’t it?” Calvin said, swishing the wand back and forth.

I wonder what the highest speed I can get with this thing is?

I lowball a hundred and fifty miles an hour. Maybe two-fifty?

“And this,” Borus said, pointing at the metal cage. “You be careful with this.”

“This is the stuff?”

“This is soap-sweat with guano-acid like you asked for.  Took about a dozen tries and I melted half of my face, but I came out the other side with an amber liquid that’ll blow up like no other. Then I added an untrafine sawdust and got this putty.”

Calvin looked up at Borus. One half of the Berry-man’s beard was shorter, but he looked fine, aside from that. “It doesn’t look like you melted half your face.”

“I know what I said.” he said, eyeing Calvin.

“Okay then.”

“Anyway, the explosion is a lot cooler than God’s fire, but the force of the shockwave is significantly stronger. Be careful with it.”

“Got it. You got any of the amber liquid left?”

“I call it’ Borus’s Boomjuice, and I thought you’d ask.” He said, pulling another clear vial with an opaque coating of amber crystals on the inside of the vial. “When it’s room temperature, it’ll go off at the drop of a hat, so I made a container lined with icefish bone on the bottom. As long as it’s frozen it’s less likely to blow up, BUT!” he raised a pudgy semi-translucent finger and pointed it at Calvin. “There’s no guarantee, so keep it in it’s own pouch somewhere safe, and preferably away from anything valuable or sensitive, I.E. your skin or other explosives. I don’t wanna go through the nightmare of replacing your custom vials again.”

It was about this time when Bee jiggled through the door, her stubby arms carrying a flat full of familiar steel vials.

“Dad! Lemman just got back to us with the new batch!” She said, huffing under the weight of the copies of Calvin’s spell components. She looked out from under the traw and spotted Calvin before smiling sweetly. “Oh, hi Calvin.”

“Excellent, take those in the back and mark them up to a quarter Glimmer apiece. We’re gonna hit those stuffy wizards right in their checkbooks!” The proprieter said with a grin and a clawed hand.

“Like I was saying,” Borus said, turning back to Calvin. “It was far too much effort, and I’m unwilling to undertake a task like that again anytime in the future.”

I like this guy.

“Also,”

Borus pulled a leather sack out and dropped it on the table.

“What’s this one?”

“The dust you asked for. Feathersteel and rust. Three parts rust, one part aluminum.” Borus opened the sack to reveal a fine ruddy powder. He pulled out a pinch of it and let it slip through his fingers. “Where’d you learn this recipe?”

“Oh, you know,” Calvin cleared his throat. “Places.”

No young man worth his salt hasn’t looked up the recipe for thermite. It’s so EASY!

“Well, the rust is basically free, but the feathersteel alone is worth five Stones.”

What!?

“What?” Calvin asked, echoing Elliot.

“Feathersteel doesn’t grow on trees, you know. I wasted most of my supply grinding it into this dust, then I got curious about what it was for, since you didn’t tell me.”

Ah crap.

“Most of your requests follow a pretty similar theme, so I tried applying some heat. That didn’t work. Then I tried applying a lot of heat, and now I have a hole in my furnace.”

“Ummm…”

“So all told, this,” Borus said, pointing at Calvin’s monthly salary, “isn’t going to cover everything.”

For a sickly moment, Calvin’s stomach sank, wondering which of the items he should remove from the list. He didn’t even know what was worth what.

“Dad!” Bee shouted, ducking her head out of the back of the shop. “Stop giving him a hard time! We’re set for life because of the rich wizards buying components from us. Not to mention the Boomjuice, Bangputty, and heat-powder recipes.”

“Godsdamnit!” Borus shouted, turning around and waving his pudgy fist at his daughter. “A man has to know how to haggle. Stop doing it for him!”

I really like this guy, Elliot said with a chuckle.

Borus sighed and slid Calvin’s order across the counter, along with his money.

“It’s true, I can’t charge you for any of this. Because of you, Six months from now I’m gonna be doing nothing but eating crab at parties and saying ‘tut, tut’ all the time. At least that’s what I think nobles do. I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out.”

Borus put a finger under Calvin’s nose.

“But next time you ask me for a list of dangerous explosives, I’m charging you full price!”

“Got it.” Calvin said, nodding, collecting the sack of miscellaneous non-perishables and tying them to his belt before carefully putting the explosives in their own separate pouches.

Calvin collected his money and with a grateful nod to Bee, headed out the door.

I didn’t realize I was so poor.

The fifteen gold Stones in his belt pouch had seemed like a lot of money to him when he was a shepherd. After all it could buy an entire hovel with a herd of sheep and money to spare, but in the grand scheme of things…it wasn’t a lot.

The money in his pocket that he’d once thought enough to build an entire life off of, wasn’t even enough to equip an entire squad with armor and weapons.

It took a staggering amount of money to  outfit soldiers for battle. and it wasn’t just a one-time thing either. Their gear degraded over time and needed to be replaced at a steady pace.

Between food and equipment, keeping an army of tens of thousands going cost…A fuckton.

The amount of money flowing through the Gadveran military floored him.

How on Marconen can they afford that?

Calvin’s recently improved Intuition filled in the blanks for him. The whole thing was circular; Systematic.

The royalty paid their soldiers, the soldiers spent their money on food, sundries and women. Royalty then taxed a share of money out the hands of those vendors, and put it back in the hands of their soldiers, who put it back in the system.

If he was going to afford his own army, he’d need a big system to maintain them, and a lot of money.

I need more money.

A thought occurred to Calvin, and he turned on his heel, heading back toward  Borus’s shop.

“Back already?” the irritable Igglebaum asked, eyes narrowed.

“Can I buy some information?”

“Like what?”

“I’m going to Uleis next week. Can you tell me what kind of things they buy from Gadvera?”

Borus’s eyebrows rose.

“They ship spices and silk up through Uleis, from Bole, so It’s a fair bet that shipping them back that way wouldn’t net you a whole lot. And Uleis is the glass capital of the world. Don’t try to sell any for a profit there, they’ll laugh you off.”

“Anything else?”

“Think for yourself, boy. What do we have a lot of, that they don’t? That’s the most basic question a merchant can ask.

“Ocean, and wood?” Calvin asked. “They’re a desert, after all.”

“Close enough.” Borus said with a sigh. “Gadvera primarily exports Nem, but it also is pretty well known for pearl, mother-of pearl inlays, and scrimshaw. You could probably net a profit if you bought a few of those and carted ‘em with ya. I hear games are fairly valuable, as well. The sand-cracks spent a couple hours around noon not moving ‘cuz of the sun. And of course Icefin bones are probably worth their weight in gold up there.”

Borus was talking about buying a bit of extra luggage and making pocket change on arrival, but Calvin had the seed of an idea.

“Thanks,” Calvin said, slamming a gold coin on the counter.

“Don’t mention it,” Borus said, sliding the stone into his palm.

Calvin marched back out the door.

“Bye!” Bee shouted after him.

***

Calvin intended to go bargain hunting in the market, looking for specific luxury goods his Knick-knacks could duplicate and then resell hundreds of miles away, but somehow it turned into a date when Kala and Ella, arm-in arm like a princess and her knight, ambushed him halfway to Mujenan’s open market.

The market itself wasn’t quite as lively as it usually was, considering the Ilethan fleet surrounding them, but it wasn’t quite as bad as it was when Mujenan was under direct siege. People could get used to anything, including a looming fleet waiting for a chance to invade.

“What do you think?” Kala said, modelling a pair of mother-of-pearl earrings.

“They look good.” Calvin said.

“That’s what you say about everything.” Kala said.

“Cuz’ they all look good.”

“The mother of pearl is colder and more reserved, gives you a business, ambassador look, while the gold goes lends a more…slutty harbor whore feel.” Ella said.

Calvin blinked up at Ella, who shrugged. “She wanted to know how it looked.”

“It really looks like that??” Calvin demanded.

“No, I see it now,” Kala said, peering into the shopkeeper’s mirror, turning her head from gold the gold side to the mother-of-pearl side. “Yeah, you’re right, the gold ones a lot sluttier. Not really appropriate for a diplomat.”

She took the earrings away from her ears and held the two of them in her palms, seemingly struggling to make a decision.

“You can have different earrings for different things,” Ella said quietly, and the princess’s internal struggle intensified, sweat beading on her forehead as she stared at the jewelry in her palms.

“How much for both of them?” Calvin asked, trying not to roll his eyes.

“Two stones,” the merchant said.

A man needs to know how to haggle.

“There’s more gold in one stone than both of those earrings combined.” Calvin said, trying not to freeze up. I can’t believe there’s people that can do this for a living.

“Ah, but the craftsmanship is what you’re paying for. It takes long hours of work to make the perfect piece, each one destined to set a dear one’s heart afire.” The man said with what he probably assumed was a charming grin.

“Aww,” Kala said, holding the earrings over her heart and cocking her head to the side.

Godsdamnit.

“Shelve your poetry. I can tell you’re using a stamp to make these things. These are all identical, and the seam is totally obvious right here.”

Calvin pointed to a fine lip of gold on the edge of one of the trinkets.

The merchant clicked his tongue.

“Fine. Stone and a half.”

“Deal.” Calvin said, paying him. the man was probably still making a healthy profit, and Calvin didn’t see the need to push particularly hard. After all, the mother of pearl earrings were just the kind of thing he’d been looking for.

“I forgot to ask,” Kala asked as they walked away from the stand, Calvin scanning the market “What are you looking for out here?”

“Luxury goods that are incredibly time-intensive to produce,” Calvin said, narrowing in on a wooden gaming set with beautiful inlays and delicate carvings.

Don’t forget the stain.

Ah, yes, I’d have to provide the stain for the wood. damn.

Hours of possible drying and heat treating too.

Calvin was looking for something whose only requirement was skill and time, but the more he looked, the more he found that everything required a series of steps, involving some kind of treatment to make everything look pretty.

Still, it wouldn’t take much to buy enough stain to make a couple hundred inlaid gaming sets, everything else he could make on his own.

“Like lace?” Kala asked.

“Huh?”

“Silk lace? Costs ten stone a yard?”

Calvin blinked. “Is there a lot in Uleis?”

“I imagine it would be a bit cheaper there, but it’s not really cheap anywhere, since it can take months of exacting work to make a single yard, depending on the pattern. Is that the kind of luxury good you were talking about?”

“That sounds exactly like what I was talking about. Can you show me?”

Kala guided him to a little shop off the beaten path that was musty with the scent of herbs, where a little old woman sat behind the counter, her trembling fingers somehow operating at a speed that left Calvin staring as she wove silk strands through a tight mat of golden silk, bringing a vibrant pattern to life, inch by painful inch.

She looked over as Kala entered, setting her business away when she recognized the princess.

“Princess, welcome. Your dress is coming along well, it’ll be done before you leave next week. That being said, would it be too much of a hassle for you come by for final adjustments the day after tomorrow, make sure it all fits right?”

“Of course not, Maggie, but I’m actually here to show my friend your lace. He’s taken an interest in luxury goods and he wanted to know how much they sell for.”

The old woman raised an eyebrow.

“He the one you’re telling me about? Kinda pale and scrawny, don’t you think?”

“Maggie.” Kala said through a tight smile.

“’Course, course,” She said with grunt, pushing herself away from the counter and standing up, fetching a bolt of black cloth from the shelf above her.

It looked like a small roll of solid black silk, but Calvin felt his eyes widen when Maggie unrolled a section of it with reverence to reveal an intricate pattern woven into the silk.

“This is Maggie’s mother’s bolt of – “

“I’ll tell the story, princess,” Maggie interrupted, before glancing at Calvin. “My ma finally finished lacing this before she died twenty years ago, and I’ve been selling it off in bits and pieces to Kala’s parents and their kin ever since. The last couple yards of this silk would set me up in the country someplace nice, but no one has a need for that much lace, and so I dole it out bit by bit while I work on the one I’m going to leave to my children between jobs.”

She nodded to the golden weave against the wall.

“Almost done with it too.”

Oh, man, now I’m gonna feel really bad for making her life’s work meaningless.

…

…..

Oh well.

“Do you treat it with anything, or is it all just silk in there?” Calvin asked.

“Only ingredients in here are silk and my childhood. Stuff nearer the back shows my mother’s growth as a seamstress, as it has more mistakes in it, but a layman couldn’t tell.”

Yikes.

“I’d like to try my hand at it. Can I buy some raw silk from you?”

Maggie scoffed glaring at him, clutching the bolt of silk like a baby.

“Try your hand at it, he says, as if it was something you could pick up in a day.”

“Is that a no?”

“’course it’s a no!”

“How ‘bout now?” Calvin asked, placing five gold Stones on the countertop.

She glanced at him, then kala, then the money, then back to him, before grunting. “far be it from me to stop a noble from wasting their money.”

She went to the back with the bolt of lace, and Calvin heard the clattering of chains and the lock before she came back with a much bigger bolt of green-blue fabric.

“For five Stones, this is what I’ve got.”

“You ripping me off?” Calvin asked.

“You care, moneybags?” the old woman asked, looking up into Calvin’s eyes.

“Not really.” Calvin exchanged the silk for the gold, which he threw over his shoulder.

“And don’t let it get wet!” Maggie called after him as they left.

“Okay, looks like I’m almost set for the trip to Uleis,” Calvin said, jingling the remaining three gold stones in his pocket. He needed to buy a few of the special ingredients, like woodstain.

“What exactly are you planning with all that?” Kala asked.

“Wanna see?” Calvin asked, looking over at the two young women. Kala in her usual yellow sundress, and Ella in loose pants and a tight shirt.

Kala and Ella glanced at each other and shrugged.

“We’ve got nowhere else to be.” Kala said, wrapping an arm around Ella’s before grabbing Calvin and putting her other arm through the nook of his elbow.

***

Kala’s jaw dropped as she watched the Knick-Knacks filing across the beach and marching straight into the ocean, returning with armload after armload of oytsters of every shape and size.

“Come to think of it, I could make some chowder.” Calvin said as he watched the production take place, creating a large byproduct of freshly shucked oysters.

Should make some chowder, more-like.

Calvin directed a few of them to go into the forest and start picking mushrooms.

I’ll have to buy a lot of milk, too.

The Knick-knacks gathering coral, shells and pearls were only one facet of Calvin’s operation on the isolated beach south of Mujenan. the other facets included a pair of extra heavy knick-knacks who cut lumber and delivered it to smaller ones. The smaller ones were building wagons from scratch, along with mother-of-pearl inlaid jewelry, jewelry boxes, game boards, dice, and anything else Calvin could think of. All of it was inhumanly fine in detail and craftsmanship.

Now let’s try the silk

Calvinian summoning.

3/15 Bent remaining.

Calvin pushed for the knick-knacks to come out smaller than his thumb.

They poured out of his palm in droves, and suddenly the sand was awash in tiny little metal creatures, the spell spawning tens of thousands of them.

Dissassemble the silk back into threads, don’t let it touch the sand. He gave them their instructions and tossed the bolt of blue-green silk into the ocean of tiny creatures.

They fell on the silk like tiny scavengers on a corpse and the silk began to unweave in front of their eyes.

“Anyone have an idea for the pattern?” Calvin asked a moment later.

“How about your House symbol?” Kala asked, finally able to speak.

“That’s be great, but I don’t know what it looks like,” Calvin said.

“Looks like this,” Ella said, pulling her pants down.

It was Calvin’s turn to be speechless.

Macronomicon

30/30 *sad trumpet noises

I was able to get enough done that Patreon is at Chapter 88! One more than my guess two weeks ago.

Enjoy! I'll be resuming a normal schedule, so expect one more chapter Thursday and Friday too.