“Of course,” Alden agreed. “But that’s the price we have to pay to make sure the village stays safe in the winter. And it still might not be enough..." He added, "This is the highest priority project right now, so you should use all your apprentices for this. If you need more help, you have my permission to ask the other village blacksmith and the carpenters to lend you their apprentices until this is ready, even if it slows down their other tasks.”

  “We already heard about the announcement that you want us to take on more apprentices,” Garrik said, “because you promised regular orders throughout the winter at least, and I’ve already spread the word. Although it’ll take a while for us to train them properly... But if we can borrow apprentices from the other craftsmen, that’ll help a lot.”

  “Good,” Alden said. “So how long will it take you to make the first lathe?”

  Coltan glanced at the blueprint again. “It’s been a while since I worked with steel, but if I can borrow more apprentices, then I can make all the parts of a single lathe in… four or five days, I guess.”

  “I have to do the bulk of the work again,” Garrik said, giving Coltan a side-eye. “So even with more help, it’ll take me nearly a week to craft all the wooden parts, and then another day or two to assemble everything. So if everything goes well, I think we can get the first lathe ready for you in around a week or so.”

  “That’ll have to do, I guess,” Alden said. “Try to make it as soon as possible, but make sure the build quality doesn't go down.”

  “No need to worry about that,” Coltan said. “But I have to warn you, though—it’s going to be very expensive.”

  “Before we discuss the price,” Alden said, “tell me. Did you finalize a price for making a scorpion? Three gold and five silver coins for each crossbow is already going to add up to a lot, because we’ll need a lot of them, so I need you both to give me a very good price for this. The safety of the whole village and the lives of its people depend on improving our defenses, so I’m asking you not to make an excessive profit.”

  “Don’t worry, milord,” Garrik said. “Sarnok is our home too. I discussed it with my family, and I've decided not to send anyone to Garitus this winter. I could only afford to send my children anyway, but it’d be too risky for them there with no one to look after them in the city. That means I have as much reason as you to do my best to protect the village. But I still have to feed my family, and you know it’s a big one, so I can’t sell to you at a loss.”

  “I’m not asking that anyway,” Alden said. “Like I said last time, you can take a profit on any crafting order I give you, since you do need to buy necessities for your family, but it has to be a reasonable profit."

  “We don’t want to profit at the cost of villagers’ lives, milord,” Garrik said, shaking his head. Then he looked at the blacksmith, who nodded.

  “After adding up all the costs,” Coltan began, “a single scorpion is going to cost you a minimum of 32 gold.”

  “32 gold?” Vusato repeated with a wince. “That's—”

  “Hear me out first,” Coltan interrupted. “A scorpion isn’t going to be built with just iron. It’ll need steel—and that’s costly. We can source all the wood for it locally, and the logs you’re stacking up outside the village are only going to make it easier to find good quality wood for everything, but a scorpion will use a lot more iron compared to a crossbow, as well as some steel. So, by our estimate, just the cost of raw materials for a single scorpion is going to be around 17 gold, since we need to buy all metals from Garitus City. After including the wages for all our apprentices working on it for two weeks—which is our estimate of how long it’ll take to make it—it comes out to 26 gold. We both just added our own estimated wage above that and came at a price of 32 gold.”

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  “But still…” Vusato tried again.

  Coltan shook his head. “It really can’t go any lower. You know, I’m only taking the same wage as an apprentice—since I don’t have any family to take care of—while Garrik just added up the bare minimum cost of feeding his family for the duration. We won’t even be making any profit with it at that price. It simply can't go any lower.”

  Alden looked at the majordomo. “I know it’s costlier than we thought, but we can hardly ask them not to feed their families adequately, can we? But don’t worry, it’ll go lower in the future.” He looked back at the blacksmith. “What’s your estimate for making a lathe?”

  The blacksmith glanced at the carpenter. “Uh… I can’t say yet… it’ll take both of us a few hours to add up the cost of every single part and to estimate how many days of wages we need to pay to the apprentices.”

  “I know,” Alden said. “So just give me an estimate. You already did it for the scorpion, so just take a look at the blueprint and tell me an approximate cost.”

  Both the craftsmen studied the blueprint for a few minutes and muttered a few things between themselves before Coltan looked up. “A lathe needs more iron than the scorpion, and to make it faster within a week, we’ll be borrowing apprentices from other craftsmen, who’ll ask us to pay their wages for the favor. It’s only a guess, but I think a lathe should cost around 45 to 50 gold per machine. Mind you, it’s only a rough estimate.”

  Alden nodded. He had reckoned a similar value by himself. “Okay. So here’s the first offer. Vusato will pay you 50 gold before you leave today, and you’ll use it to pay the craftsmen and buy the raw materials—including steel from the manor—to make a lathe as quickly as possible, after putting everything else on hold. If the cost comes out lower, you can keep the remaining as an advance for other orders. Once the first machine is ready, you’ll use it to make another lathe, so both of you can have a lathe in your workshops—one for metalworking and one for woodworking. After that, you’ll focus on making scorpions and crossbows again, but you can use one or two of your apprentices to make parts for more lathes in the future, as long as it doesn’t affect the making of weapons.”

  “That works for us,” Coltan said. “Your claim that it’ll increase our productivity by ten times is not something I can comment on until I’ve seen it in work, but we’ll do our best to make this lathe as soon as possible. But what did you mean by this being the first offer?”

  Vusato was looking at Alden with worry, knowing they didn’t really have the gold to spend like this. Two lathes would cost nearly 100 gold, while it would need around 130 gold to get four scorpions to equip the current four watchtowers. After the new brick wall got completed—which would be much longer in total length, and would require many more watchtowers—they would need even more scorpions, which would add up to a lot of gold. But there was a mitigating factor.

  Alden grinned at both the craftsmen, even though Coltan was the one who took the lead in negotiations. “However, I have a different offer for you. As you already guessed, while we’ll be taking all the scorpions and crossbows from you to arm the guards and the watchtowers, the lathes will obviously have to be kept at your workshops. I know for a fact it’ll increase your productivity by at least that much, so just take my word for it, because I have no reason to lie to you. So here’s my second offer. Instead of me paying the whole amount of the lathes and becoming the owner of them—even if you both will be the ones working on them—I’ll give you an option to purchase those machines from us, since it’s going to help you both make a lot more stuff, and faster. That means you’ll be earning a lot more profit using it in the future. So if you consider buying a lathe as an investment in your future, it’ll pay off generously.”

  “I agree that this offer makes a lot of sense for us,” Garrik nodded after a moment of thought, glancing at Coltan, “but neither of us have the coin to buy a lathe from you…”

  “No,” Alden said, shaking his head. “You misunderstood me. I don’t want you to pay me in gold for that. But since the machine will be kept at your workshops, and you’ll be the ones benefiting from it, you just have to spend enough to pay your apprentices and buy the raw materials by yourself. Once the first lathe is ready in a week, you’ll be able to make the second one in, say, four or five days. So you just have to spend enough gold to pay your apprentices for that long.”

  Garrik shook his head. “Coltan may be able to pay his workers, but I simply can’t pay my workers for that long without getting any coin. I barely have any savings, or I would be taking my family to the fortress city and wouldn't be here in the first place.”

  “No, I can’t pay the apprentices either,” Coltan said, “not for that long.”

  It's 11 chapters ahead!