The next morning I wake to find Alistair still not there. I begin to panic a little before I descend the loft, and find him passed out at the bottom of the ladder.

I laugh, and give his sleeping face a good kick. “Get up ya bum.” He stirs slightly.

“Ah, fuck, my head. I haven't been that drunk in a long time.” He scratches his disheveled hair. “Those southerners really know how to party.” he scratches his head some more. “I mean, I dont think ive had a blowjob that good i-”

“Stop! Stop! Stop! I don't want to hear about the blowjob you got!”

Alistair cackles, and rubs his hands together. “You’re just jealous.”

I glare at him. “No, I actually got work done.” I point to my flesh belt which is sitting on the table, the head peering at us, with creepily limp eyes.

Alistair smiles. “Wow.” He climbs to his feet, his hands holding onto the ladder.

“Yup, made it all by myself.” I puff out my chest, and cross my arms, while beaming.

Alistair chuckles. “A Little shoddy, but for an amateur who's never done this by themselves, I mean, really good!”

I smile

“What time is it?” Alistair asks, concerned

I shrug. “Like, 11 O'clock, I think.”

He jumps, “Oh, we need to be at the industrial docks by 12, we’ll take both carts just so nothing gets stolen. You go get the other cart.”

I rush over, and hook up the beasts to the cart, before we begin rolling out. We skirt the edges of town for a while until we find the east side docks. These docks are set in a delta on the eastern edge of the city.

The city is broken into two parts, the slums, and the rest of it. The whole thing is built on a giant peninsula, the slum are closest to the mainland, but the rest of it is sort of like an island, because they are cut off from the slums by a river that cuts straight through the peninsula.

There are sort of four different docks, unless you count the nobility's private cliffside docks.

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There are four big docks, two are built on the wealthy side of the deltas, and the other two are on the slums side.

Most large scale trading is done on the eastern docks, the slums side has even been made out of steel, because they are often transporting large quantities of items that are very heavy.

We eventually have to travel through a portion of the slums, as they are ever expanding, and manage to grow around the industrial docks.

When we finally arrive Alistair points to a group of men wearing turbans standing besides some sort of ship. Unlike the other boats in the wharf, it is a metal square barge, and appears to be a paddle boat of some sort. Though, what powers it, I do not know.

One of the men waves his hand, “Hello!”

We approach, and he pulls us close. “Show us the coal, and then if it is an accurate quantity as you told me last night, then we will give you the pre-portioned out money.”

Alistair guides them to the cart, where they crack open the cloth, showing it full of coal.

“I was told we were hauling 2 tonnes. We should have regular shipments coming through every month after this, of the same size or bigger.”

The man whistles, and says. “Eh, we will buy every month at the same price, if we want a different price we will make sure to send a message with the most recent seller.”

Alistair nods. “Perfect.”

He waves his hand to his men. “Load it onto the ship boys.”

He turns to us, and reaches into his pockets to remove a small pouch. “forty silver. A copper per pound. This isn't a lot, but if you keep sending more, and keep expanding, it will be worth it. I’ll tell you something. If you are unfamiliar with coal mining, a group of 20 motivated men, in a mine with plenty of coal, will easily produce 250 tonnes of coal in a month.”

Alistair grins from ear to ear. “Sweet.”

Milo

Oh my god. I had to pay another group of workers to produce a literal silo, for me to store all the coal in. By now, I should have at least 200 tonnes. When is Alistair, gonna get back, I've lost almost thirty silver, and I'm sinking another 300 gold into hiring fleets of carts, as well as guards.

I rush back, and forth, in an absolute tizzy.

Also, the entire town is being flooded with tourists. All these tourists wear really weird clothing, and seem to have their own lingo, and set of shit.

They are soft, and really fucking annoying.

I quickly walk free from my house, and walk up, and into the gradually forming town. A man wearing a rough pair of bluish pants, and a t-shirt with a mouth with red lips sticking out their tongue.

He glares at me, and I glare back. The whole town is infested with these brats. And they are making me a lot of money. They do use a different kind of money than we do though. They use a weird sort of paper money, but we have mostly just been refusing to use it, and making them use other things.

But the things they have been bringing with them are very helpful, food, wine, people, coffee, and a variety of other resources like copper, or steel.