Greasy Spoon's Expansion
1383 Words
It was late evening after the nightly conference had ended and the citizens had already gone about their activities and were sipping ale and eating the Crispy flatbreads from Gracehaven's Greasy Spoon.
Works on the expansion had already gone underway and there was minimal impact made on the renovation of Gracehaven's Greasy Spoon for the production of more ales and cider along with the expansion for the grill and dryer.
In fact, the business was as usual over at Gracehaven's Greasy Spoon when Firestone came over to meet Heather and me along with Farah, which was clinging to his arm. From their smiles, it seems there was something jubilant to relate to us.
"Firestone and his daughter seek an audience with Your Majesty," Firestone announced the moment he was within earshot and rushed forward while Farah was holding on to a little linen bag with some jingles of coins that could be heard every now and then.
"Come along, both of you. It seems that ever since you got your new leg, even your own daughter couldn't keep you still for a moment... Hahaha. That's very good, Firestone...!"
"Oh, it's alright, Your Majesty. Child, come and show the product that you had made that could help Gracehaven's economy further." Firestone motioned to his daughter as she took out a small cage with an incandescent stone hung in the middle of it. The cage looked like the canary's cage where the miners had brought with them to the mines to ensure sufficient oxygen level et cetera.
"Your Majesty, I had gotten these wires from Old Jack and had fashioned them to be like a small cage-like so that could be hung at the waist or hooked up on the walls of the mines to illuminate the place."
"Farah had placed her special ability to a thumb-sized quartz crystal and is illuminated with a bright brilliance but had no heat radiating from it." as Firestone was speaking, he removed the small wire cage and placed it on the table where the brilliance was comparable to the lanterns that were hung in the domain and on the streets of Gracehaven.
Along with it, he poured silver coins on the table from the small linen bag that Farah was carrying and from its look, it would be about 2 to 3 gold coins worth...!
"I went to the mines at Durham and spoke to my old colleagues who now were bosses and they were surprised I was jumping about and walking without a walking stick. When they saw that I was carrying this cage here, the bosses l wanted to order them at a silver each."
"I know the amount was very small compared to other products that Your Majesty was bringing into the market. But here's 150 silvers for 150 such wire cage lamps for just Durham alone. This was a small amount purchased for some of the mines and they would be getting back at me for the actual amount needed."
I was holding to the item and it was a simple 6 wired cage and was portable enough to be carried at the waist and able to illuminate the mines as if there was no nighttime ever in Durham.
"1 Silver each, and you had already achieved a sale of 150 of these items just by showing it to them. It seems we have a representative for these wire caged lights. Wonderful... Another trade merchant is born here in Gracehaven!"
"Alright Firestone, this project would solely be your baby. You and Farah would be working together to create this wire caged lamps for the use in the mines. But wait... This could also be used to light up homes too, right? Hahaha...!"
"So how do you acquire these clear quartz then?"
"Your Majesty, I had asked Michael to helped me to conjure these quartz crystal one at a time from his pan. Thumb-sized quartz was nothing for Micheal to conjure since it had little to no value at all. Instead of a single piece of crystal, he managed to conjure up to 6 pieces each time."
"So how does Old Jack's handling the thin wires to make this little cage?"
"Oh... Its rather a small task for him, Your Majesty. He used the same method to make those copper wires but he used a slightly bigger hole to thread it through. Since copper is flexible and of abundance in the blacksmith, he decides to use the lighter and rustproof material instead."
Firestone explained and I nodded my head as it was a feasible and profitable side income for Gracehaven. Now the lights inside the homes were lit by using animal or another kind of combustible liquid. Firestone had told me that there are more than 9 colliers on Durham and each collier had 10 to 50 coal mines...!
Besides Durham, there are colliers in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear and the number of mines would be able to meet the demand for such wire caged lamps as long as the manpower were able to keep up.
"Why not take it up to the Economics of Mining and Metallurgy Department in Durham itself? At least you won't be going to the places all by yourselves to get the orders? Let the big guns handle them and all you could do was to sit back and send them a message to the Department that the goods would be ready for collection."
"Get the main decision-maker to come and meet us here in Gracehaven. Once done, I guess someone would be able to help you out to get the list of coal miners town and also to list out the number of mines each town has. This record should be kept by the Department. The price would be 2 silvers. The reason is that they will haggle and you may drop the drop accordingly until it hits 1 Silver and 10 coppers. Not lesser than that."
"How about the coins here that I had taken from my friends?"
"Let it be then. Its an introductory price. Go ahead with Eagle to send a message to the Economics of Mining and Metallurgy Department in Durham. We hoped to get their favourable response by a week or two."
With that, the father and daughter went along with Eagle to the windmill area to prepare a note not to be sent by a carrier pigeon but to a delivery man instead, that travels to Thornaby daily to send the orders of bread and to relay the message over to County Durham instead.
As this matter involves the safety of mines and the coal miners as well as finance, it would be some time before they could send a representative over to Gracehaven for further discussion.
Besides, it's a large department with a lot of red tape going about. So in Firestone's case, there weren't any corners for him to cut and he does his proposal with the consent of mine along with the stamped emblem on the letter.
So just hope that the good news could be heard soon.
Firestone could not help but thanked his lucky stars that he was able to contribute something to Gracehaven after he had reunited with his long lost daughter and then he went through a regeneration process where he 'grew' a leg replacing the one that had gotten amputated.
Right now, he was entirely curious why the price was raised to 1s 10c instead. Farah soon replied to her father after seeing him in deep thoughts and said, "The 10c is your commission for every sale that you had made, father. Is nothing if you look at it on a single piece but if you sold 10 of those, you already earned 1s. So if you sell a 100, you would be getting 10 silver as a commission. Just imagine if you were to sell 1000, won't you be earning 100 silvers or 2 gold coins as commission?"
Firestone nearly tripped on a trail made by a slithering snail across the courtyard when he heard the news of earning a commission from the sales. Despite getting 5 silver coins as a remuneration package, be would be earning a commission on his sales proceed as well?
How wonderful and comfortable could one life get?!
- Writer
