CHAPTER 69: The future Obon
I asked Tomu to broadcast that everyone could use this facility to freeze their slaughtered Bullfrog carcasses for as long as they needed. Tomu would control access and whatever he decided to charge, if anything, I left entirely up to him. I didn’t want to get entangled in minor semantics. All I wanted in return was a wooden door for the top of the cool room roof and a decent wooden palisade fence around the compound to protect it from wild animals and monsters. As far as I was concerned that facility was as much theirs as mine. We watched the town people work away with enthusiasm doing what they knew best.
When I asked Tomu who the people were helping us, he mentioned they were mostly poor folk who lived in obscure parts of town. A windfall of being able to procure food like that was something they rarely had before, if ever. Also, the money they made in my endeavour would last them for a long time. Salt supply would become a bit of a problem since the town didn’t have enough local stocks for such large orders of curing meat at one time. I needed to speak to Karato about a few things we urgently needed from Shimmerstal. In the meanwhile, the cold room would be able to store all the meat they processed, they could then thaw the meat as required.
I asked Tomu if he could arrange for someone to put up a wooden fence around the compound for a few silver coins, and he was very happy to oblige, for a few coppers of course. Also, I wanted the cured Bullfrog skins to cut into strips of thirty centimetres wide and rolled into similar diameter rolls. He could use whatever twine to keep the rolls of skins together. I gave Tomu an interest free micro loan of twenty silvers for people who needed the cash advance to buy materials for the preserving work or anything else. I was clear that he was never to ask them interest on this loan and I expected twenty silvers back from him when everyone had paid him back. He could give the loan to whomever he wished; I wouldn’t interfere with his choice. With my Bullfrog processing arrangements completed, Hana and I left with Karato to continue with our dungeon practice for the day.
On the way to the dungeon entrance, I made a request of Karato.
“Karato, I would like to ask you a favour. Would you be willing to go to Shimmerstal with me?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
I briefly explained to Karato the events that happened to us over the days since I returned to Obon.
“So, let me get this straight. You have all the town’s money you think the mayor has been stealing from the people, and you would like to start spending it on a pretty road?”
“That’s a blunt way of putting it, but I think that’s one aspect.”
“Other than bringing experienced labour back, you want to buy salt, purchase goods like material, sewing needles and spices.”
“Yep, and don’t forget my idea about improving the ability to transport large amount of goods.”
“Yes…that too.”
Karato looked a bit shell shocked. I thought perhaps I had gone too far with my ideas. I hoped I didn’t cause him undue concern.
“I’m sorry, I guess that all sounded a bit farfetched.”
“Oh heck no. I haven’t heard as much good sense in a long time. Aryonne’s economy is looking for every avenue of improvement and job creation, and wherever you go, opportunity it seems is not far behind. Don’t worry about it, I’ll go. If you can give me one of those storage items I can take a lot of goods with me while you’re at it.”
His idea was a good one, but I couldn’t help feeling he was hoping to get his hands on the transfer storage. At that stage I was still reluctant to just hand them out but Karato was someone I could trust so I decided to make the storage provisional.
“I can do that, but I may ask it back at some stage. After all, Olivia here would be disappointed if I took all the work away from our merchants.”
I think Karato got the gist of it. I would make a transfer storage arm bracelet and loan it to him, but not to keep or to flaunt.
“Very well. Don’t worry about it, I fully understand. I’ll go in a few days. We need to find a place where I can pick up the goods without being observed.”
Olivia, hearing of our need for some private storage space volunteered a place in the guild.
“Let everyone who wants to transfer things start placing them in the sparring area until Karato is ready.”
“Thanks Olivia, please thank the guild master for us.”
She smiled sheepishly at my gratitude. I wondered if she still needed to clear that up with him, but luckily that wasn’t my problem.
After lunch I asked the old man if Hana and I could have a good look at stuff in the enormous warehouse at the back.
“Sure, knock yourselves out, just be careful not to get lost.”
I didn’t laugh because I realised that he wasn’t joking.
We felt bewildered. Rack after endless rack lay before us. Shelves full plate orichalcum armour, I thought didn’t exist lay there untouched as it probably did for hundreds of years. There were boxes of iron swords, odd looking bows, knives, and boxes of things I couldn’t identify. Row after row of things like metal bars and forging equipment and endless boxes. When we had enough of searching and still hadn’t seen the end of the hanger, we went out to see the old man.
“Grenfell, just how big is that storeroom?”
“That’s a good question, I’ve never found out myself. Couldn’t be bothered really. I’ll bet if you delve really deep into that storeroom, you’ll probably find some interesting things.”
“What are you planning to do with all that stuff in there? Do you have an inventory?”
He thought a bit about that.
“I don’t intend using any of that stuff. For me it’s basically stored up junk and you’ve got to be kidding about the inventory. Do you have any idea how big that place is?”
“Would you mind if I recycled the stuff in there into metal?”
“Yeah, no problem. I think you would be doing me a favour. Although somehow I feel I’m doing you a major favour . How about you create all the sword orders from now on? I’ll do quality control when you make swords, keep an eye on the storefront and take any new orders.”
“You’re joking right? Hardly anyone ever comes here.”
“Well, you’re free to sit here and watch the store if you like?”
“No, no, no. Is that all you want?”
He nodded with a big smile on his face. The bloody blighter was taking early retirement, huh? I was basically running the store. If it wasn’t for the creation core I wouldn’t have accepted that arrangement. With Ara’s help I could spit out dozens of swords in an hour. I needed a way to search that storeroom to discover what was there, and I had a way to do that.
“Hey Hana, let’s give the workshop a sweep. I need time to think.”
“What, why me?”
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“Hana don’t make me order you. There’s no way I’m going to be the only one working in this place.”
Well, that went far easier than I thought. Grenfell left the shop earlier that day, spouting something about talking with the old elf, I decided it was a good time for me to test out my new golem I’d been designing with Ara for a while now. I placed the creation core on the floor near the door of the storeroom. Out of the core came a black golem looking like a six-legged spider. Including the legs, it was about a third of a meter in diameter. Its chassis was a mixture of greythril and orichalcum and the bearing jointed legs were the same. Its onboard artificial intelligence was its crown jewel. The elves originally created various advanced type AI from something as simple as insect type intelligence to near human thought complexity. It was a balance of size, intelligence, and functionality.
For the search or surveillance type golems we focused on requirements for stealth, sensory acuity, and speed. Ara modelled the golem with strengthened frames to use the minimal of materials while gaining maximum strength. The golem reminded me of the model construction kits I played with as a kid. A mixture of big and smaller eyes surrounded its body that allowed it to see its world.
Standing still for a moment the golem seemed to absorb information from its surroundings. We designed it to be fully aware by the time it arrived, programmed with the latest information gained from absorbing the information of the other golems. Then it extended a set of thin fibre-like antenna from inside it’s body. The sensitive antennae could reach out up to a meter away to help the golem to both activate attributes onto an object or better sense environments. The golems had onboard attributes I transferred to them like appraise which allowed them to record and learn from all the items they investigated.
Environmental conditions like temperature and air currents were also monitored, making it a very potent surveillance tool. There was a substantial memory onboard allowing it to efficiently monitor or investigate environments so that it could report back to the core. When the golem was completed with its task, the core would absorb the golem and extract the information, allowing it to upgrade and improve any future golems.
“What’s that Shane?”
“Sorry Hana, I never explained this to you. This is a scouting golem I created that can search the warehouse for us.”
“That’s a golem?”
Hana knew what golems were, she had never seen one before and was particularly interested in it.
“Yes, although this one is very specific to investigation.”
“Ah, I wondered what you were busy with all those nights. It looks like a spider.”
“I discovered that this design made it the best option for stability and speed. These only have six legs rather than eight, I found that it didn’t need the other two. I think you’ll appreciate that these can search all the boxes and items in the store and highlight the interesting ones for us.”
“How long can it operate for?”
“This one, about a moon cycle, if it’s constantly busy. It has a small rechargeable Mustite core, so it can recharge itself if it can find a source of EE. What do you think we should call them?”
“How about scolems?”
I got what she was doing with the name, a mixture between scouts and golems. I chuckled to myself, the name might be a bit lacklustre, but it still sounded better than calling it a gout.
Talking about energy I wouldn’t leave my creation core lying on the ground in the storeroom. I decided to leave a lump of Mustite there for them to charge up with. That way I didn’t need to be constantly monitoring them. After that we released a number of scouting golems and it took a bit of practice for the first group of golems to figure out how the world worked around them. They might be ready when they arrived from the core, but that didn’t count for experience. The core absorbed a few scolems and created more to replace them before they started to behave like intelligent golems. Their level of intelligence was slightly higher than earth’s most intelligent monkey, albeit with an extreme case of shyness. But that suited me fine. I didn’t want anyone to find the scolems if they were on a scouting mission for me. With that done, we left the scolems to get on with it. We would come back within a few days’ time and see what they managed to find.
I decided to use some space in the warehouse between the racks. The warehouse should rather be described as looking like a massive warehouse.
“I want to show you how I envision Obon will look like in the future.”
“You mean like a town design?”
I nodded and showed her what I meant. I started to transmutate some of the metal pieces around me into model pieces resembling small, raised houses. It reminded me of a mixture between a monopoly set and a model train set. Hana looked fascinated when she looked at the little houses. She suggested different configurations and things she would like to see. It turned out she liked a lot of things. I honestly can’t remember her talking that much before. Soon I couldn’t recognise the lilliputian town. What we ended up with was a large model on the ground that consisted of four triangles with their ninety-degree bases placed together forming an overall shape of a diamond. The original Obon was integrated into that, marking the main road coming into the town from the east. A beautiful fountain marked the central point between the four triangles. Flowing rivers travelled away from the central fountain in four directions, along the four shared sides of the triangle. Each slow running stream, flanked by roads and multiple stone bridges, was large enough to allow small boats to travel along them.
“I like the public bath idea. It would be good to have that.”
Hana discovered the biggest problem with my model.
“Um where is the fountain water going to come from?”
“Yeah, that’s admittedly a gaping flaw in my planning. I’m not sure, but I’ve got a couple of ideas of how to get water to Obon. However, it’s necessary for other things like plumbing.”
“Plumbing?”
I forgot that Hana didn’t grow up in a world where something like indoor plumbing would be readily available. Only royalty would enjoy something like that if it existed.
“It’s a system bringing water into a house and taking away wastewater.”
She nodded at my simplified explanation. But it was something else that needed resolving. My mind couldn’t get over the water sprites that made the marsh stones. I would have a word with Ara as to whether it was possible to model an enclosed ecosystem for processing sewerage.
There was another item we still needed to finish. Three hundred pairs of sandals were delivered to the Obon cobbler who seemed overwhelmed with emotion at the sight. He was able to fulfil his part of the order from Shimmerstal and we received the remainder of the three hundred gold still owing to us. Almost all the work had been completed by others and Ara, I simply acted as a middleman. It was the easiest money I ever made, and I nearly felt guilty for making such easy money, even Hana received half of the profits. It was with happy minds that we finished up for the day and headed back to the inn.
Lunch time the next day, back in town, Hana, myself and Karato finished our usual training session at the dungeon and were claiming our subjugation fee for the rabbits at the guild. We also had a run in with some goblins, so our reward was slightly higher than usual. As we left the guild, three carts turned up with some depressed looking men. They were woodcutters, returned from the forest. I thought to joke with them and quipped,
“I thought you guys were out in the woods, did the monsters scare you away?”
I immediately realised I’d walked into a minefield when the usual jovialness of the guys was instead a sullen atmosphere.
“Read the mood Shane.”
Hana retorted. I confess I was a little slow on the uptake with those sorts of things. Orilay jumped off the cart and warmly greeted me.
“Hi Shane. Good to see you again. It’s been a while. Sorry, we’re not in the best mood now. We learned a few days ago that the mayor isn’t going to be paying our wages anymore. What’s worse is the man has the gall to take all our wood and not give us a cent for it. He’s crossed the border now.”
I was too afraid to ask why realising it probably had something to do with my large withdraw from the Mr. Marset’s bank. He answered my thoughts as he continued.
“He’s refusing to pay, apparently he was robbed the other day and a large amount of the town’s tax money was taken. He’s blaming the townsfolk and says he won’t pay a cent until everything’s paid back.”
Tax money my arse. He’s now sitting in a pickle, I bet he must pay the region’s taxes and now he’s scrambling to meet it, taking everyone with him.
“Excuse me Shane, I must go now and greet Alma with this bad news.”
“If you don’t mind, could we come and see you a bit later, I’d like you to meet Hana.”
Orilay looked at Hana for the first time, realising his bad manners and a smile cracked on his face.
“Nice to meet you Hana, I’m sorry you had to meet me like this, I didn’t want to give you a bad impression of me.”
Hana smiled at Orilay.
“I’m looking forwards to meeting you later today. I think Alma and Tomu might have a bit of better news for you.”
When Orilay left, I think he definitely looked as surprised as me. There seemed to be a little more speed behind him as he left for home. Was Hana referring to the clothing I gave Alma?
If only I knew.