Qaton

“I agree it’s a good idea to help him, that much I can tell.” I said.

“Of course,” Darat replied.

“Just be careful out there. Ever since rumors of Halel’s murder got out, the Zi have been lying low for a few weeks now. This town sees them as suspicious outsiders after all. But don’t lower your guard, don’t get complacent.”

“Keep him out of danger.” I reminded him.

“I wouldn’t think of doing anything else,” said Darat with a confident grin.

“Be careful.” I reminded him sternly.

As he walked away he confidently uttered “I will."

Hamet

A day after the presentation…

After showing Darat and Qaton the fruits of my labor, they seemed more eager to support my venture.

I managed to blurt out the words “Help…start…business.” to Darat and he somehow got my meaning.

Once again, he brought me to Shur’s store and talked with him about something.

Shur led the two of us to a somewhat abandoned storefront, relatively close to the house that I recreated the matches in.

It was a somewhat small space, with an open counter in the front and empty crates in the back.

While I was inspecting the area, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Darat slip Shur two gold coins as payment for this space and was surprised by the amount that Darat gave him.

While this space wasn’t exactly the most prime real estate, I figured two gold coins was way too little to buy it outright as people usually worked years to buy something like this.

After Darat had given me the one golden coin, I learned that one gold coin was worth around a month of the average laborer’s wages.

While it wasn’t exactly a fortune, it was still a hefty amount.

Though two coins was probably just enough to rent this place for a few months.

After Shur left to go elsewhere, Darat beckoned me to pay attention to coins that he was placing on the counter.

He placed twenty silver coins on the counter and took away half. With the remaining half, he took three and said “Darat and Qaton” before he pushed the rest to my side.

What?

I guessed it meant something related to how the profits would be split up.

If all the coins were revenue, then the half that was taken away should be operational costs?

Oh, so the remaining half should be profits then.

By that logic, he is suggesting a seventy/thirty split.

Meaning that I get seventy percent of the profits while he and Qaton would get thirty.

That’s fair.

That’s actually more than fair.

While it seemed like an incredibly good deal for me, there must have been some reason for it.

Either he just was really generous, was really naive when it came to business or was just really wowed by the presentation.

He offered his and I shook it, not wanting the deal to worsen.

I would just have to hope that nothing bad would happen as a result.

After a while, he left and I began to organize the boxes so they could be used to hold the matches in the future.

As I was fixing them, I pondered on where I could manufacture the matches.

While I could use the property I had been previously using, it was a good distance away from the compound where I reside. Thus, it’s hard to keep it secure and honestly, I felt too lazy to want to walk there from then on.

“Maybe somewhere in the compound? “ I thought.

No.

It’s too cluttered.

Most of the places that I had access to like the warehouse, were already full of things. Meaning it would be difficult to make a dedicated setup without trying to clear out vast amounts of items.

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The other places in the compound that are outside the vicinity of the warehouse are frequented by way too many people. I’m sure that Qaton and Darat are the main people in charge of the warehouse, so it’s safe for me to do whatever there. However, outside the warehouse is under someone else’s jurisdiction.

Even if I somehow managed to get permission to place my setup, there are too many prying eyes. Eventually, the process would get into someone else’s hands and I shuddered to think what would happen if they somehow adjusted the formula to create gunpowder.

Hmm.

What about that basement?

That could work.

The only problem that I could possibly face using that room are the fumes, but that can be solved by testing the matches outside. It’s also pretty secure because I can keep watch on it at all times.

I still did need to ask Qaton about this.

The next day…

The next morning, I saw Qaton organizing some boxes in the warehouse and interrupted him to ask for his permission.

After pointing to the basement, I uttered “Make…matches?”

He seemed confused for a moment, but he got it soon enough and gave an affirmative gesture.

Now it's time to transfer everything. Great.

I made many trips with the wheelbarrow going back and forth from the house to the compound.

I brought the obvious things like the sulfur, charcoal, potassium nitrate, match paste and the utensils I used to create the matches.

But what took the most time was transferring various pieces of furniture from the house to the basement like the stools, tables and so on…

Now that I had a bona fide workshop in the basement, it was time to start making matches.

Several hours later…

The sun had begun to set and after much work, I had one hundred matches ready to be sold.

I decided to price each match at two bronze coins.

Two bronze coins per match is pretty reasonable given how much money and effort they cost to create. Apparently the average laborer’s meal would cost around one of those coins. So while it would be a bit pricey, overall it was probably way cheaper and easier than the alternative—flint and steel.

With the pricing taken care of, I had just one problem.

Who would sell it?

I couldn’t do it since I have a face that would raise questions and probably make people suspicious of what I’m selling. I didn’t think Qaton and Darat could do it either since they are too busy, but I needed to trust them. Maybe if I ask them to recommend someone within the group they could trust, I could get someone reliable.

And of course,

The Zi are still out there.

So just in case they realize that the business is affiliated with the smugglers, I wanted to hire someone else so I’m not implicated.

I decide to ask Qaton regarding this matter, and he refers me to Piyan.

Who is this Piyan character you may ask?

That was what I was about to find out.

I asked Qaton to come with me to meet him, and he obliged.

The more prudent thing to do would probably be to meet with him alone to prevent him from being intimidated, but I needed Qaton there as he was currently the only one who could understand my pathetic attempt at language and communicate with me in a way that I would understand.

Once we got to the meeting point where Qaton said Piyan would be, I saw a familiar looking face. He had a pale complexion with dark eyes, the same face that escorted me out when I was in the room with the corpse. His eyes gave me the imperssion that he was a quite shifty person, but he was probably reliable enough if Qaton had recommended him.

Qaton and Piyan exchanged pleasantries before Piyan asked a question which seemed directed at me.

“*** **** ** payment?”

He spoke too quickly for me to be able to comprehend all of what he said, but the word payment made me assume that he was asking for how much I was to pay him.

I whispered to Qaton an initial offer of eight coppers per day, which seemed like a reasonable amount. But when Qaton communicated this offer, his face scrunched up in a somewhat dismayed frown.

He’s not satisfied then.

He briefly talked with Qaton, probably making a counteroffer, after which Qaton whispered that he wanted three silvers a day in exchange for his services.

“That’s quite a lot.” I thought.

I didn’t even have initial funds yet.

After thinking for a while, I uttered my final offer to Qaton.

One silver and five coppers per day.

If he didn’t accept this offer, I would need to find someone else. Qaton relayed this to Piyan and after much consideration on his part, he fortunately accepted.

It was official, then. He would be the face of the match selling operation.

I went back to the store front with Piyan to prepare the product and show him its capabilities. He was briefly confounded by what I had shown him but soon after realized that it was what he was selling.

We prepared the product in the evening and moved it into the crates in order to be ready for the next day, the day of my product’s launch.

The day of the launch…

It was an overcast morning when Piyan started advertising the product in front of the stall, that was when he used some of the test matches that I had given him to show off.

Due to that, a decent-sized crowd had begun to gather around him consisting of roughly twenty people.

Qaton and I were watching his performance from a nearby alleyway.

Piyan was doing the best he could, but there was only one problem—

No one is buying.

The nearby onlookers seemed to have been intrigued by this display, but not confident enough to buy. It was a bit pricey after all, costing two bronzes, “why risk your hard-earned money on what could be a trick when there were more established alternatives?” people probably thought.

This was bad.

As I was pondering our current predicament, I saw what looked like four traveling merchants with wagons passing by.

I couldn’t let this opportunity pass by.

In a desperate attempt to attract some attention to the matches that were being sold I tapped on their carts and gestured towards the matches that Piyan were selling.

Intrigued, they dismounted their carts and began to approach Piyan.

They questioned him for a moment before until they were satisfied and took out some coins they had and purchased some.

They each purchased around five each, adding up to a total of twenty matches sold which resulted in four silvers’ worth of revenue.

This stroke of fortune had somehow emboldened the onlookers to buy some, and more and more began to purchase at least one in order to try it out.

I noticed some young men bought more matches seemingly to impress the people that they knew.

I honestly didn’t really care as long as they paid their share.

Though, one person in particular caught my eye. He was a quite tall, thin looking man, not unlike Qaton’s build, dressed in well-made garbs that had a hood woven into it. I didn’t think he was some sort of common laborer, but someone who either was someone important or worked for someone like that.

He disappeared just as quickly as I noticed him, so I made a mental note to remember his face in the future.

After a few hours, Piyan had begun closing up the shop and began dissuading people from lingering any longer.

That was odd.

When Qaton and I approached him, he showed us that all of the matches that I had made had been replaced with stacks of silver and copper coins.

If my math was right, it should have added up to around two gold coins.

After Piyan showed me the coins, I gave him his silver coin and his five bronze ones. He unexpectedly bowed his head in a sign of respect before walking off, likely to spend his hard earned cash.

It worked.

Although I had my doubts that it would sell at all, the events of today had proven otherwise. Even Qaton seemed rather impressed at how much I earned from selling the matches that I had created.

Although it was diminished slightly by Piyan’s wage, I still had quite a decent amount of wealth.

I needed to get back to the compound immediately, for there were always ne’er do wells that would find it easier to rob someone of their hard earned money than work for it themselves.

When I went back to the warehouse with Qaton, I sought out Darat and paid him one gold coin as a start for his monetary contributions. He seemed surprised by the speed in which I had earned back the money he had given me, but I could see that he was somewhat relieved that his funds didn’t go to waste.

Even though this whole venture was undoubtedly an unmitigated success, I had now just come to realize the extent of the danger that this business entailed.

I didn’t realize just how much attention it would attract until I actually saw the crowd of people that were buying the matches.

This was certainly a good thing, but the attention that it brought could also spell danger.

That hooded man, I do hope that he won’t bring trouble.