Aslog Velconikivic of the Zolwie was a merchant captain from Borogskov who managed to come out of the war with Infrastructure without being sent off to toil in the coalmines. There were several reasons for this, but several of them go back to his family's success. Over three generations and with the help of prize money his family moved up the social ladder of Borogskov society, acquiring several progressively larger ships and a few ventures. The first thing was that they never got involved in the slave trade, which was quite saturated. The second being the fact that they knew not to take risks.He did his part to defend his city and paid for the rifles and powder as well as some bargain bin second hand armor and helmets for four young peasant boys who were eager to go out to war and a sailor who had to work off a debt and saw army service as the best way of doing that. Of those, one of the peasant boys returned minus a foot. When word came of the defeat, he ferried a few people away and made a note to free the two slaves who were part of his crew. He dumped them in a port well away from the Coldlands leaving them with a bag with a few biscuits, dried vegetables and their old chains because he was not totally unkind. He also left a note to his wife to set free the kitchen girl, which she obeyed as a good wife should. When he returned home, he found a number of soldiers patrolling the streets, a few buildings were in ruins and many more were damaged or looted. Fortunately his house was in fairly good condition with only a few broken windows on the lower story and damage to the brickwork.Finding business afterwards was not difficult. The slave trade had been trampled out of existence underneath Infrastructural Army boots but the fur trade, which had become somewhat erratic had resumed. He was also given several contracts by the Infrastructurals as well, part of the payment was a Cylinder containing a Payment License. What they asked him to procure, however, puzzled him as did much of what they did. Still coin was coin.That was a year ago, now he had gotten use to this. After putting into port he went out into a well secured room a warehouse with a couple of men and a Soldier, there were usually a couple of them. A couple of guards were about. A simple desk was set up in the corner as well as a few bookshelves with ledgers. Behind it sat an Infrastructural Bureaucrat. They ran the city on behalf of the Committee and they were, in his mind another example of the oddity. First of all unlike any other group of prominent people he could think of they dressed in a neat but remarkably plain way. But in his opinion the bizarre thing was most of them were Female. He never could fully comprehend why they did such an odd thing. He had it explained to him, there were competitions in which candidates would be locked in cells, were given paper and pens and told to write essays on certain subjects, the best of the lot got a position. He just did not understand why you would let women take these exams. Still, it never got you anywhere to insult those who were handing over money."A sample of my cargo," he said in the polite tones that he reserved for people who were about to give him a large sum of money "Learned Bureaucrat."She looked over a sample of it. "Bituminous, respectable quality." She put it back and cleaned her hands on a hankerchief and put the sample back "May i have the Receipt.""Of course." He proffered the paper."Two hundred and thirty tons. Does this check out Corporal?""Yes Ma'am. Hold is full of the stuff.""Sorry if I insult your honor" the short woman said "It is just protocol.""It is no issue. But what of the payment of what I and my crew have procured to help fuel your efforts?" He said gesturing to the bag."Very well," she did some quick on a notebook calculation. "That's will be either 345 Allergonian Marks, 138 Dwarven Thanes, or Thirty Three Kilocredits and a Hundred and Twenty Credits if you have changed your mind."A few of his men sneered "Which I have not." Aslog said, gesturing to the cylinder containing his License. It specially allowed him the legal right to decline payment in Credits for services performed. She still offered it as an alternative every time he was here, a minor annoyance which ever so slightly soured the experience of receiving payment for an honest day's trading. He knew no-one in Borogskov who was happy about being forced to accept payment in scraps of paper and steel coins like they were real money, even if you saw more people buying stuff with it in the markets. Leaving aside that no one outside of Infrastructure would be dumb enough to see them as being good for anything besides starting fires, lavatorial purposes or in the case of the coins ballast it felt wrong. Had not the gods had veined the earth with silver and gold so that men, dwarves and elves could make trade? He figured that the reason the committee had invented such a daft idea of paper money and stores that accepted like it was truly worth something was simple cheapness. "Marks will do.""Very well. Pay the man." One of the guards then opened a chained up box and counted out the coins. He accepted the money graciously and then left to the Zolwie to oversee the unloading. As he saw the crates and bags be taken out, he wondered about what it was going to. He knew that they had been working on the shipyards and he had been wondering about the work they were doing there. He saw the Vanguard on patrol and knew that they had resumed working on wooden craft. There was rumour about putting into one of the wooden craft one of those Iron Furnace Hearts in fireproofed iron rooms. He knew the Vanguard was manned by a poor collection of peasants and river boatmen that barely had their sealegs. He had managed to accumulate a fair bit of wealth and thought about the commercial opportunities that would be available for a ship that could sail against the wind manned by seasoned and experienced seamen. They needed to get gold and silver somewhere to buy coal, iron ore and copper for their projects, maybe some sound investment could be persued.Previous- [link] Next- [link]