"So what do you think?" Zach asked as he set his leather-bound notebook back down on the small table. Inside were pages of notes and several rough maps related to his gold mining plans, all drawn from memory. He'd just given the Princess a quick presentation of his next financial venture so he could get her impression of it. He didn't have anyone else to go to, since Evelyn was the only person who really understood where he was getting his otherworldly information.

Evelyn let out a slow breath. "Well, I think it's a solid idea, better than anything I've thought up since I came over. I don't have easy access to information from the other side like you do."

"But?" Zach asked. He could tell by her tone of voice and the way she started with 'well' that she was about to reveal a problem with his plan. He wasn't worried. He could adapt the plan to overcome a snag or two.

"But you missed an important detail: in New Albion, all raw gold is owned by the kingdom. It's to keep people from being able to counterfeit coins. If you go out and dig up that gold yourself, the Guard will seize it from you."

"Oh." That was no minor snag. He had never considered that the King could just claim ownership of an entire natural resource. It made some sense now that he thought about it, but hindsight couldn't return all his spent time and effort.

"Damn," he said, his face falling into a deep frown. It wasn't quite despair he was feeling, since he wasn't financially ruined or anything, but his dark mood was obvious nonetheless.

"Hold on," Evelyn said as she reached across the table and put her hand on Zach's. "Don't throw in the towel just yet. I had more to tell you."

"Huh? What is it?"

"If you go through the proper channels and coordinate with the kingdom, the government will buy your entire gold mine. New Albion needs the gold to mint more coins and they occasionally use it to barter with other kingdoms. A shipful of pure gold can buy much-needed allies in times of conflict."

Zach was visibly relieved. "Alright, I'm feeling a bit better now. But what are those 'proper channels'?"

"Well, they aren't something just anyone can interact with." Evelyn's lips formed a smug smile. "But I happen to know the kingdom's expedition leader, the guy that picks all the new mine locations. I can put in a good word for you, if you want."

"That's wonderful! Thank you, Evelyn!" Zach said, jumping to his feet. Then he froze, one leg still bent. "Wait. You want something out of me in exchange, don't you?"

"Yep!" She smiled wider. "You'll owe me a favor, to be cashed in on a future date."

Of course, Zach thought, Evelyn's been helping me a lot since I came here, but it's not just out of kindness. She helped me control my flipping so that she could learn more about her own condition, and she'll help me with my gold mining plan if I help her in return.

Zach sat back down and said, "Fine, you've got a deal. When do you think I can meet with that expedition leader?"

Evelyn hummed in thought for a moment, then said, "I should be able to talk to him this morning, if I'm quick. Then it's all dependent on his schedule. You might be able to meet with him as early as this afternoon, but tomorrow is more likely. Can you be here tomorrow?"

"As long as Riley can help me stay the night. I, uh, wrapped things up back home, so I can stay as often as needed."

Evelyn nodded. "Sounds good. Return to the castle at two and a maid will let you know your meeting time."

----------------------------------------

When Zach approached the castle's servant entrance just before two in the afternoon, he wasn't feeling great. He'd spent the last few hours rehearsing his pitch and testing his memory of all the important details, just in case the meeting was that day. The stress upset his stomach too much to eat, so he'd skipped lunch. He rounded the corner and saw a familiar face awaiting him with wide brown eyes and a wider smile.

"Hello, Zach!" Beebee cheered. "How have you been?"

Her smile was contagious and Zach felt some of his nervousness fade away. He was still worried about the upcoming meeting, but it was a little better now. "Good, thanks. How about you? Spent any of your earnings yet?"

"Nah, I'm saving that for the future." Then she lowered her voice and said, "I want to open a hair-styling business someday."

"Oh, very nice. Sorry to cut to the chase, but do you have any news for me about the expedition leader?"

"Ah, of course, sorry! He's ready to meet you now."

Zach blinked. "Like, right now?" He'd been expecting it to be later in the afternoon, or more likely the next day.

"Yep! Follow me."

Beebee led Zach to a meeting room near the municipal side of the castle complex. He assumed it was close from how far they'd walked and the sound of a fountain somewhere in the distance. The room was warm and intimate, lit by magical lamps high on the windowless walls. It held four plush chairs, a polished wood table with an inlaid granite surface, and a fully stocked liquor cabinet in the corner. It felt like the kind of room where serious matters were handled with casual ease by powerful people. Zach found it intimidating.

Already seated in one of the chairs with a glass of dark liquid in one hand was a tall, burly man. He had a huge brown beard and wild curly hair that clashed with his well-tailored slacks and dress jacket.

"Good luck!" Beebee said quietly. Then she closed the door behind herself, sealing Zach in with the imposing man.

Zach strode forward with as much confidence as he could muster and the man stood up. The man was even bigger than he'd first appeared with nearly a foot of height over Zach.

"You must be Zach Pike," the man said in a deep voice and light accent. It sounded vaguely Scandinavian, but not in any specific way Zach could pick out.

Zach also noticed that the man knew Zach's last name, which he hadn't told to many. The people of New Albion didn't seem to include their last names in first introductions and Zach unconsciously followed suit. "I am. It's nice to meet you, um…"

"The name's Stal, and I'm the kingdom's expedition leader," the man said as he reached out and grabbed Zach's offered wrist. Stal's hand was just as big as the rest of him and it completely dwarfed Zach's. "Good to meet you. Now I understand you've got an idea to sell me, and it's even got the Princess's support."

Stal sat back down in his chair, which creaked under his weight, then said, "Sit down, pour yourself a drink if you fancy, and tell me this idea." He gestured at a bottle of dark coppery liquid in the center of the table.

Zach picked the chair directly across from Stal and sat. He eyed the bottle and wondered if he should indulge. It might calm his nerves and help him loosen up, but it could also make him sloppy or forgetful, and he had no idea how strong the liquor was.

I'll just try a little bit. Since it's in this fancy room in the royal castle, it must be good stuff, Zach told himself as he poured just a little of the drink into a glass. Stal watched Zach's actions closely, but his face was unreadable.

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Zach lifted the glass to his lips and took a cautious sip. It smelled like old oak and campfire smoke, but it tasted like rich caramel and burning fire. He fought back the urge to cough and said, "Whew, that's strong stuff."

Stal burst into laughter. "Hahaha, yeah it is! But it's my favorite. I respect any human that can drink it straight like that. Good on you, Zach."

Zach's face scrunched up in visible confusion. "Human?"

"Ah, I've got jotun blood in my veins, a few generations back. Gives me some advantages, particularly in the cold of the mountains, but it costs me a fortune every time I want to get drunk."

As Zach was about to ask what exactly a jotun was, Stal added, "Sorry about the distraction. Go ahead and tell me your idea. If it's as good as I hope, I want to get an expedition rolling sooner than later."

"Oh, of course. Well, I know of a place about 40 miles straight west of here where there should be a lot of gold. There are flakes of it in the rivers, but the real value is in massive veins of gold ore not far underground. I want to sell the information to the kingdom. That's how it works, right?"

Stal nodded slowly. His facial expression was neutral, but his blue eyes were sparkling. "Yeah, if I like your idea, we'll investigate it and pay you based on the findings. I've headed dozens of mining and exploration expeditions, but never in that particular area. Can you tell me anything else about how you know of this place?"

Now the hard part. Thankfully the Princess told me what to say, Zach thought, then he said, "I got the information with magic. I can't go into specifics, but Princess Evelyn can vouch for my methods."

"So you've never been there yourself?"

Zach shook his head. "No, I haven't."

"Have you seen any gold mined from there?"

"No."

Stal sighed. "I know the Princess endorsed you, but I have to weigh that against my budget and the safety of my men, you know. You really can't give me any more information?"

"I can draw a map for you, or point it out on one, and I can show you the best places to mine, down to the yard."

That got Stal's attention. He reached under the table and withdrew a long leather tube from a large leather bag. The tube looked a lot like Zach's map case except much higher quality. Compared to this one Zach's was obviously made by an amateur. Stal uncapped it and pulled out a map which he unfurled on the table.

"Can you point out your place for me?" he said.

Zach was slow to respond as he took in the unusual map. Unlike the maps Zach had bought for himself, the mountains on this one had a surprising amount of detail, as much as a digital topographical map from back home. He searched for New Albion to get his bearings, but that was complicated by the fact that all the text was in a strange language Zach didn't recognize.

"Sorry, it's taking me a bit to read this map. What language is this?"

"Kobold," Stal grunted. "Very few humans have learned it, but the kobolds who visit us manage to learn King's Speech well enough. And they like to pick out new names that are easy for us to say, nature words like Pine or Cliff."

"Ahh," Zach replied as he searched for recognizable landmarks. He wanted to know more about the kobolds, but he needed to focus on the map. "Aha, here we go," he said once he found Clear Creek, the river that connected the Idaho Springs area to Denver. In Zach's world it also provided the route for Interstate 70, all the way up to the Continental Divide.

From there, it was easy to find the valley site of his mining claim. The landscape was exactly as Zach expected and it perfectly matched the details he'd memorized. He pointed with one finger and said, "Right here. This is the main area, but there are more veins a bit further north in Cen— I mean in this other valley."

Stal said, "You should thank mana, Zach, because your mine site is within human territory. Much further west and it would be in kobold domain, which would be too inconvenient to justify the expedition. The kobolds don't care much about gold, but they require mines to have minimal impact on the surface wildlife and they demand any interesting ores found on their land, which drags the gold-mining process to a halt."

Stal leaned back in his chair, took another swig of his powerful liquor, and said, "As for why they want 'em, rumor has it their metalworking skill is so far beyond ours it makes our best smiths look like children banging rocks together."

Zach kept quiet about that. He was pretty sure his world was even further progressed. Modern metal refining would be unbelievable to the people of this world, superior even to their actual magic. He took another sip of his drink, then immediately regretted it. The alcohol content must have been well over 100 proof.

After he could breathe again, Zach said, "So, are you interested? Like I said, I can give you specific locations of some gold veins, including depth from the surface."

"Hmm, it's certainly tempting. But if you're wrong, I'm down a lot of Harts. It isn't cheap, paying for guards to accompany the digging crew to protect us from monsters."

It looked like Zach wasn't going to convince Stal without risking something in return. He said, "I can fund the expedition, at least in part. I can put up to 700 Harts on the line."

Stal smiled. "Not bad at all. If we do strike gold the kingdom will buy the mine from you for a nice price, at least ten times that investment, if the mine's just a little one."

"What if it's bigger?" Zach asked. The original Idaho Springs discovery was no average gold mine; it was an entire region of densely packed gold veins. It had effectively started the entire Colorado gold rush, and the area continued to output gold ore for well over 100 years.

"If it's bigger, well, I can approve at most 20,000 Harts up front. And if the mine ends up producing a particularly high volume, we'll pay you residual payments based on what we actually mine from it. No sense paying a fortune for gold we never manage to dig up."

Zach's heart was pounding. The initial estimate of 7,000 Harts could fund Zach for a few years if he was thrifty, but 20,000 was almost too much to comprehend. At $5 per Hart, that was $100,000 US dollars. With that kind of money, he could start his own company, or buy a major stake in an existing one.

"Um, not to be untrusting, but do we sign a contract or something?"

Stal nodded firmly. "Of course. This map is a copy, so we can mark up your claim on the front and write up our terms on the back. I'm in this line of work for the adventure, not the money, so the terms will be fair."

Then Stal pulled a pen and ink from his bag under the table and offered them to Zach. "I assume you are able to mark out your claim right now?"

Zach nodded. He had his notes with him to reference, and he had written them when the details had been freshest in his memory. For the next 30 minutes, Zach carefully labeled several points on the front of the map, then added specific details like depth and distance from landmarks on the back. He also made sure to mark the outer boundary of his claim such that it included the entire Central City area, a place that had been nicknamed 'The Richest Square Mile on Earth'. The nickname was well deserved too; in its first 100 years of operation, the area had produced over 200 tons of refined gold.

When he was done Zach had detailed five specific mines all ordered in estimated value. He knew of many more mines within his claimed area, but he could refresh his information about them on a future day after this plan succeeded. If it succeeded. He still wasn't 100% sure that the ore deposits would match up. The two worlds were clearly parallel, but with key differences. If the presence of mana had somehow changed the way that volcanic forces had formed the Rocky Mountains without changing their outward appearance then Zach was about to waste most of his money.

Stal wrote up a contract with less legal jargon than Zach had expected, and they both signed it. For the price of 700 Harts it granted Zach payment rights to the gold mined within his claim, but it didn't give him actual ownership of the gold or any rights to the surface. The land was still considered un-homesteaded land within the kingdom of New Albion. Unexpected mining costs could be deducted from his earnings, but a nice perk of doing business directly with the government was that Zach wouldn't pay any taxes on the payment he received.

Zach and Stal raised a toast to the business deal, then Stal said, "I'll get this filed with the Land and Resource department. Your first payment will be after we confirm the presence of gold, in a month or two."

Zach's alcohol-assisted grin faded as Stal's words sunk in. "Really? That long?"

Stal nodded. "Yeah, winter is approaching, so we'll need extra time to prepare for the journey, in case we get caught in a storm. The good news is that labor is cheaper this time of year. Even the mages and purifiers we'll need are short on work."

"Ah, of course," Zach said. He had already paid Stal the promised sum, leaving Zach with less than 100 Harts to his name. At two Harts a night, his inn costs alone could burn through that before the first payment came in.

Zach's thoughts were elsewhere as he said goodbye to Stal and left the room. He got lost in the halls for a bit until he stumbled upon the big fountain with its four marble figures in the center. The last time he'd seen it, he'd had no idea who the dog-like people were, but now he would bet money they were kobolds. If he had any money to bet, that is. New Albion seemed to have a really good relationship with the kobolds, but he still hadn't seen one in person. Stal, with his jotun ancestry, was the closest thing to a non-human Zach had encountered.

For a fantasy world, there really isn't that much fantastic stuff happening. I've seen conjurers light lamps, and that magic display at the festival scared the crap out of me, but that's it.

That line of thought was soon overpowered by Zach's concern for his financial future. He needed to find another way to make money, and selling coffee again wasn't an option. He didn't have a festival to bring people to his stand or the money to fund it.

He passed the fountain and left through the public exit, but he didn't head for the Hard Fought Rest. He made his way around the outside of the castle back to the servant entrance. The path Beebee had taken him on would have been faster, but he didn't think he was allowed to travel those halls unattended, and he wasn't sure he remembered the way.

Zach had decided to return to the Princess while he figured out his next financial venture. He would tell her how the meeting went, and ask for advice on what to do next, even if it did mean owing her another favor.