Thygdor was uneasy.

For years many of his connections had tried to have him support various "high risk, high reward" supply routes, of unclear legality. Sure, the trades were with officials. But the transactions were undocumented. And his discretion was the reason he was sought after. He left most deals for others to profit from, but still made out on like a king. Discretionary fees and referals were generous to say the least.

A few weeks prior he was informed that the northern holds had increased tariffs on coldsteel. Seeing as they had started investing heavily in the production of it, it heavily implied that they were stockpiling for weapon production. And if he could deduce this, so could the state. Following this a ban on exporting food northward was instituted. It was clear that tensions was brewing. There was even talk of independence in his current hold.

He had considered going topside first, the humans had generally favourable views towards duarfs. But the surfacetunnels were highly regulated, and the durr rumbled unfavourably for duarfs topside.

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All his contacts, everywhere, reported that the military had increased patrols. Some holds had instituted curfew, and there was talk of a draft.

War was great for profits, every merchant knew this, but he had a bad feeling about this. Perhaps he was just growing old, but he decided to sit this one out.

He reached out to some officials he had history with, and instigated a sale of land.

Thygdor Coppersting liquidated most of his assets, many gifts and some favours exchanged later he found himself as the owner of autonomous administrative rights to a massive natural tunnel and a taxfree decade of exploitation of it.

The statesponsored prospectors had deemed the tunnel without exploitable resources and too risky to dig from. But it wasn't entirely explored yet, and it was huge. The tunnel went far out under the ocean and was flooded towards the end, it had taken the prospectors almost a year to explore. They hadn't been approved further funding, and thus it was put up for sale. It wasn't cheap, even if it was wasn't exactly prime real estate.

But for Thygdors purposes, it was perfect.