After the meeting with the Governor I informed my manager about the deal to sell the governor healing and mana recovery potions. He decided to hire two new people to help deal with it. Unlike my other workshop, the large batches that were produced here meant that that we needed fewer employees outside the bottling portion. Still, we would be expanding greatly, so I met with my landlord to rent a second abandoned brewery next door and instructed the manager how to make large batches of healing and mana potions. It wasn’t as delicate as extracting essences, as the materials didn’t need to be refined as much, but making them in large batches did mean than one problem could ruin a hundred gold worth of product, so if he hired someone to make this they would need to be careful. He hired several new people that day and the next, setting up the new brewery as a healing/mana recovery workshop, and gave them two full time employees to bottle the product. All of these new expenses came out of the profits for the workshop, and I left the remaining eighty-seven gold in the coffers to cover expenses later. Such as paying for the level four healing potion ingredients that I had the Adventurer’s guild start gathering for me that afternoon.

While I was at the guild I worked on hiring ex bandits and mercenaries to work for me and train troops. I even met Jery and his group of bandit-mercs. Apparently, they had joined up with the guild after the peace treaty was signed, as had most bandits and ex mercenaries, as the governor had given them all pardons in exchange for fighting on the country’s behalf in the war. Once he heard that I was hiring he and his entire group asked if they could sign up. They seemed to be down one member but when I asked about Geral, the Boar man on his team, he told me that they had fought one skirmish against Ferin before the treaty was signed, and Geral was killed.

I had talked to the receptionist and arranged to rent the training fields in order to test people. First, the archers would compete in trying to hit the targets from long distance, then the Melee fighters and mages would fight a tournament, divided by weapon. First would come the mages, who would be restricted to level three spells to avoid serious injuries. Yes, a level three spell could kill, but it was unlikely if they were wearing leather armor, which most of them were. Next would come the spearmen and polearms, then the maces and blunt weapons, then the swords and axes. Everyone would be restricted to hardwood weapons so that they didn’t seriously injure each other. Several healers would also be attempting to join my company, but they would be waiting on the sidelines and competing by earning points by treating injuries.

I discussed it with the guild master, and we decided to change the venue. They had arranged for the guild to feed all of the contestants in exchange for holding the contest in the town’s coliseum and being able to keep the money from the sales. Public fights were once a major attraction in the city, but after the war started the fight stopped. The Guild was able to rent the arena as a secondary training facility, but even they rarely used it. For that reason, I would pay them to loan practice weapons and armor to the people participating in the tournament and would agree to hire the best performer in each category. I also offered a gold coin for the winner in each category. The tournament would be held the day after tomorrow, as they would need a day to get the field set up and publicize the event.

It was about four in the afternoon when I left the guild, coinpurse much lighter, but I set off for my landlord’s office anyway. There I told them what kind of building I was looking for. They didn’t specifically have any training fields, but they did have one place that might work. Just outside the inner part of the city was a large field that was once used to train monsters for sell to others, usually the rich or adventurers who were looking for battle pets. It had several large rooms inside for training animals, as well as a large, stone fenced area in the back for training mounts to be ridden. It was perfect for what I needed, so I paid the first month’s rent of ten gold, then spent the next several hours cleaning up what I could, mostly offices and a few of the training rooms. They were large enough that I could put down training mats and put a weapon’s rack along each wall. I could then assign one room to each weapon type.

The field in the back would have training dummies and targets, for the archers and mages to fire at and for the melee fighters to attack once they got good enough.

I had remembered to ask the Adventurer’s guild where they got their training equipment from, and they referred me to a carpenter in town, so that’s where I went the next morning. The place was quite large, and the dwarf in charge seemed to have over a dozen apprentices. He agreed to stock the place with training equipment and, after I paid twenty gold up front for the equipment he had in stock, I told him where the Company headquarters was. I returned and cleaned another room, this one with shelves for storing equipment, and when I was done I put all of my training manuals on the shelf, not including the Artificer and Enchanter manuals I brought with me, as those weren’t really meant for troops. One day I might open a workshop here to make magical equipment, at which point I could leave some here for those employees to use, but not now.

Once the carpenter and his apprentices arrived with all of the stored equipment they had in case the Adventurers guild or someone else ordered it, I showed them around. I assigned a room to swords, axes, maces/hammers, and polearms, and healers, and might assign a second if I got enough recruits in any category. The field in the back would require practice dummies. I would have to provide practice bows and arrows, as well as training armor, but mages could cast with their hands, so at least I didn’t need to buy staffs or wands for all of them.

Once they knew where to set everything up I went to the merchant’s guild. I would need a manager to oversee everything, as I wouldn’t be around. I should also hire a few receptionists. The manager I ended up hiring was a middle aged human that actually used to run a warehouse. He had a few employees that handled cargo, and was good at inventory management, but he wasn’t a perfect fit. The two receptionists were actually twin goblin women that had just turned fifteen. Goblins tended to have multiple births more often than any other race, other than Orcs, who often have several male children at a time. They were identical twins, though, and the orcs all tended to be fraternal twins. It seemed that they had went through the customer service training together and just wanted to work together. While I was sure it would be confusing for the people here, I decided to hire them anyway. They immediately got to work cleaning and the manager got to work inventorying everything we had in stock, namely the equipment the carpenter had sold us and the training manuals in the ‘library’, as well as a few pieces of furniture that were left by the last owner.

I gave him the last twenty-three gold coins I had to cover expenses until the first batch of trainees paid, keeping only the silver and copper in my purse, and told the manager at the brewery to loan the mercenary group money if they needed it and the brewery could afford it. I wasn’t sure if the mercenary company would earn enough to break even the first month. After all, even if you only paid the teachers a silver a day, that was still a gold per month, or twenty silver, thus requiring twenty trainees each just to pay them. And on top of that you had equipment, rent, and the pay for the receptionists and the manager. They would probably need thirty trainees per month to break even, if not more. I was willing to run at a bit of a loss, though, if it meant establishing the company.

The next day I got to the arena at eight in the morning. The tournament wouldn’t start until ten, but I wanted to make sure that everything was ready. I met with the organizer and saw that most of the contestants were already there. The healers were checking their medical supplies and other supplies. After all, you didn’t always need a spell, and even when you did, other things would be useful. Several of the contestants were stretching or testing their practice weapons. If this was a normal tournament we would be using real weapons and relying on the healers to keep the men alive. As this was a test for a job, however, they would be using training weapons.

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By ten o’clock the stands were mostly full and the trumpets sounded the start of the tournament. The manager of the stadium announced the names of the contestants along with their assigned number, so that everyone could identify them by the numbers pinned to their backs. This announcement was done through a magical device that simply amplified any sound that hit it, so everything he said was loud enough to be heard across the arena.

First was the archers. We had thirty nine contestants sign up, so they all took turns firing at the target. Any that missed the circle were disqualified and the scores of all of the people were recorded. This continued until there were eight archers left, with the four with the best score going into the finals. Once this was done, four of the targets started moving, having been animated by a low end golem spell. There the four of them all shot one arrow at their golem and the one that was the least accurate was kicked out. This continued for two more rounds until one woman, an Ogre, won by getting a bullseye against the other archer, who was just slightly off.

Then the mages stepped up. There were nineteen participating, so three of them needed to be eliminated to make it an even bracket. They were each taken to the golems from the archery contest and told to fire five spells at the targets. Each attack that hit was scored for accuracy and power, and the three with the lowest total scores were eliminated. After that it was a standard single elimination tournament, with each mage fighting another one picked at random. The winner was an elf that managed to knock his last opponent out by blocking his attack with a shield, then casting grease under his feet and pushing him out with telekinesis. He definitely had some skill, and knew how to look for weaknesses and improvise. He would make a great instructor assuming he knew how to teach.

The melee battles were all the same. After the extras were eliminated by having everyone launch five attacks against a golem dummy and scoring them on power and accuracy, they fought a standard single elimination bracket of either sixteen or thirty two people. The only one that really shined was a human swordsman, a duelist, who didn’t move from his place during any of his matches and was only hit once by an orc that was too strong for him to block.

All of the winners received one gold as a reward from the guild, which I paid them when renting the arena, and loaded a carriage for the Company headquarters, along with the healer that scored the most points. She was a hyperactive squirel woman that always ran out to meet the injured person if she could. She might have to learn to keep her head down, but she had the most skill out of everyone.

I beat them to the company building simply because they were delayed by having to change, and in some cases bathe, and when they arrived I greeted them and introduced them to the manager and receptionists. I showed them the library, as small as it was, and their respective training areas, then let them ask questions. The biggest one was when the rest of the equipment would get here. The manager assured them that the carpenter was working on it, and would be finished supplying them within the week. The manager had gotten large numbers of basic bows and leather armor from a warehouse that had a lot excess equipment salvaged from the last war, and the carpenter was making the other wooden weapons, including arrows. It might not be enough for everyone in the beginning, but they could share the weapons when not using them and wear the armor every other day until he could acquire more.

The next day trainees started signing up. I simply watched as they were either tested to see which weapon suited them best or sent directly to their weapon of choice. Twelve of those that signed up were blunt weapon fighters sent by the city guard captain, so we would be paid later for their education. As the trainees started coming in the teachers started handing out equipment for them to practice in or directly began a lecture, though that was mostly the Elf mage Triston who had them start meditating while holding two spells at once. Most of them couldn’t do it, as they only knew utility magic and maybe a few other practice spells, so he taught them shield and fire bolt and, once he was sure they had the ability to use the spells, he instructed them on how to balance the two spells. This was something I was struggling with as well, so I sat at the back and kept a fire bolt in each hand while channeling the mana from my necklace into a shield. Making two copies of the same spell wasn’t as hard as casting two different spells at once, but judging by the fact that Triston was holding fire bolt in one hand, lightning bolt in the other, while levitating and keeping a shield around himself, he was definitely better than me in this area, even if I was better than the trainees.

When the trainees started to run out of mana I realized that I should get them a box of cheap cores like I did at my other facilities. I volunteered to let all of them channel enough mana from my necklace to recharge, and this started a lecture on how to channel mana and how to do so safely from a source with a higher pressure. Triston hadn’t intended to teach that until they started to increase their pressure, but he did agree that it let them keep going a lot longer today, as beginner mages tended to have far more concentration than mana capacity.

I handed my necklace to Triston, so that he could use it to train them, as I wouldn’t need it anymore once I got back to Starshine and got my amulet, then asked about buying them all cheap mana cores. He agreed that it would let them practice their mana capacity and channeling, even when not here if he let them take them home, but capacity tended to grow faster when you used up all of your mana, essentially the same as how stamina increased faster when you worked until you were exhausted rather than if you drank stamina potions to never get very tired. Still, they could be useful tools, so he would ask the manager about getting some.

With nothing much to do until it was time to leave, as I had finished with all of the work I came here to do, I joined Triston’s classes until it was time to leave. By the time I left I could also manage four simple spells at once, though Triston informed me that in actual combat it would be harder to maintain concentration. For that reason, he doubted I could manage more than three in an actual battle. I had also managed to increase my mana capacity by ten percent or so from fully depleting it before using the necklace to recharge. That would be my new training strategy in the future.

It took us three days to get back to Starshine. By the time we arrived there were almost two hundred wagons parked in a field outside the city walls. Each wagon had a number painted on the side so we could keep track of it. Driving was a common enough skill that we could just assign a wagon and horse to each squad and let them handle the care of the wagon and horse. The horses were in a nearby pasture, two hundred and seventy horses and twenty seven oxen so far, though the rest would be ready by the end of the month.

I went straight to the clinic upon arriving. It was after closing time but this time Cena was alone. After checking the books I left for home. My parents were happy to see me, but after greeting them I was immediately drug away by Sam. Only my insistence that I needed to eat first got her to pause.

The next morning I went back to my own room for a bath and change of clothes, then went to the jewelers before heading into work. They had finished my amulet, but not quite the second one I was having them make for Sam, so I decided to come back in a few days. Maybe after Holy Day. I hadn’t actually been back to the slums since I had cleaned it up before winter, so maybe I would accompany Persy when she went there day after tomorrow morning.

I then checked out the other jeweler, the woman that I gave the mithril to. She was finished with her order. She handed me a box of twenty five mithril rings and a box of twelve star mithril rings. Each one had the Great Oak stamped on the top of it. I went to the clinic and locked them in my safe before returning to work.

I went with Persy to the slums and it seemed the people loved her. She had purchased an old shop there and it was being remodeled into a chapel, which is where she held a service. That day she healed several people, one of them an old woman with cancer, via a miracle. While she could have cured her with magic, it would have taken much longer and likely have used more mana than she had in reserves. A miracle was much more impressive.

My observations there gave me an idea. I had been making scrolls with magic ink that could store a mana based spell. Was it possible to do the same thing with miracles, occasionally called Divine Magic? As Persy had been dealing with some of the other priests at the temple, I decided to ask here. Once Persy was done talking to the people I asked her.

“That would be a sacred artifact.” she responded. “I heard that in the past some sacred scrolls containing divine power existed, but because they were single use they were used in emergencies. Now, none are known to still exist. All sacred artifacts that currently exist are either enchanted or artificed. There has been some study into the artificed ones, but while they can duplicate the design, it doesn’t seem to work. They are obviously missing something. Priests and saints can use the originals by just feeding them divine energy, though. But not the fakes.”

“In that case, can you get me the information on these attempts to make sacred artifacts?”

“Sure, I think they have a copy of the records of some of the attempts at the temple. Not everyone there likes me, but enough of them do that I can probably get you a copy.”