Swiss Arms

Chapter 33

Swiss Arms

Chapter 33

-VB-

While I went around collecting soil samples, I also visited the rest of the villages of the compact to gauge their reception to nail making. I got mixed responses.

For sure, Davos was up for it like Arnold and Alvia assured me. The same could not be said for the rest, especially villages furthest from us (i.e. Maienfeld). Davos only agreed because the villagers there knew that whatever I put my hands to, something glorious happened. The rest of the villages trusted me to lead them on the battlefield but not on the table to navigate the economics of the future.

As the chief of Maienfeld (father of Arnold's wife, Beatrice) told me bluntly to my face, "We are busy as it is feeding ourselves with what we have. We don't have the means nor the desire to explore something that may see children dead in the coming winter."

He was being blunt as fuck about it, but he said nothing incorrect. Survival came before experimentation.

Davos, still, was willing.

They were willing because they didn't have a blacksmith. This was part of the reason why Kraft had been supportive of Arnold learning smithing under me.

While the rest of the villages weren't as blunt or rude about it as Maienfeld, their objections and reasons remained the same.

Admittedly, my failure to win over anyone outside Davos hurt my ego a little more than I thought it would - hurt me more than I thought it would - because hadn't I been their leader? The commander who led them to victory? Davos would have been the last village in line to suffer from the pillaging and murder the counts -.

No.

I couldn't let myself dig that kind of rabbit hole and throw myself down it. Yes, I commanded them, but it didn't mean that they owed me. We fought together against a threat. Sure, I would have done fine on my own, but fighting together made things easier for everyone.

We signed a Compact, and I might have been the one overreaching by asking them to divert their finite resources. I can't forget that I am the only one with "extra" resources. I'm the only one among the Compact's people who go out to hunt animals in the middle of the Alps' winter to hunt bears. They can't do half of what I do; I can't expect them to do as much as I do.

So I gave up on it for now. I would come back to it later.

This meant that I had to now focus on pottery. Already, I saw that simple innovations that a potter could use on the spot worked in my favor. I just had to help spread that - and my influence - through the rest of the Compact.

And once I found whatever that lithomarge stuff, then I could see about exporting porcelain, too.

Speaking of which, I had zero luck in finding that shit. I have looked everywhere from Maienfeld to Zernez, and I couldn't find it there. This meant that if I wanted to continue looking, I would have to explore other territories.

Funny thing about exploring other territories: they don't want the military commander of their former enemy and potential future enemy to scout out their lands.

Ah, this was what suffering in success felt like.

I would have to rely on peddlers and merchants and ask them to find lithomarge for me.

In the meantime, I needed to experiment!

"So that's what happens if I use glaze with a lot of iron," I grimaced as I looked at the admittedly shiny but utterly black bowl. When I stood up, I noticed Arnold staring at me. "What?"

"What do you mean 'what,' Hans? Do you not see how smooth and shiny your earthenwares are?" he asked me incredulously.

One such earthenware was in Alvia's hands, and her eyes shined like they did when she first saw me cutting gemstones. She was pretty good at that, actually. At her request, I fashioned a few rose gold rings for her to set her cut gems into. She's sold quite a few to passing merchants and paid me my due (workshop and material fee minus discount).

"That's from the glaze," I replied. "You know, the thing I did before I fired it up?"

"And that furnace! You didn't use fire!"

"Yeah? That was the point," I replied. "Air does shit when it gets really hot, and smoke does it, too. Isn't this ho-"

"No."

"Oh," I muttered as I stared at the mostly misshapen bowls that now littered the floor in tall stacks.

[Pottery] LvL. 13

One of the most prehistoric inventions, you too can shape the earth to match your imagination. Provided you have a fire.

*-0.1% material cost per LvL

*+0.5% drying speed per LvL

*+1% increase in quality guarantee (+100% increase to Common upgrades quality to Moderate)

I may have gone a little crazy trying to increase the level as much as I could in an as short amount of time. The result was twelve levels increase to [Pottery] after I made some two hundred plus dishes.

Most of them were [Bad] in quality. Some were [Ubiquitous]. A rare few were [Common], all of which came after I got past [Pottery] LvL. 10.

I actually got the last level by applying glazes after the first firing.

And… well…

The currently finished dishes were less than half of what I initially started with. Yes, more than half of the dishes I made with clay broke during the firing.

I really hoped that wouldn't always be the case.

"Hans, Gunther the Potter makes fifteen finished pots a day. You just made two hundred in a week."

I blinked.

Oh.

Um.

I looked down at the dishes. The black dishes, shining like they were smooth river stones, glistened in the noon sun.

"I guess I should get Gunther involved in this and not leave him jobless?" I asked the two siblings.

"He would be happy to keep food on his table, yes…" Alvia muttered as she turned her dish around. The dish she held was the only [Moderate] quality dish I made out of this week's batch. "I'm keeping this."

I snorted in amusement. "Go ahead."

She ran off.

I had to remind myself that even though all of us were adults, both Alvia and Arnold were in their teens. They remained youthfully excitable.

"You look disappointed with this."

I blinked and turned around. "Oh, Beatrice. I didn't know you were interested in this."

"I was curious," the normally shy woman bowed slightly, showing deference to me. "But I had assumed that you would keep women out of your way…"

"Nah, I don't do things traditionally," I replied.

"That and you did keep my husband occupied for half a day each day for the past week."

Arnold looked sheepish. "Well, I was just doing my job."

"Yes, and you left me alone. Not too keen on doing the husband part of your job, huh?"

As the two descended into what looked like was their first couple spat, I felt a little guilty.

Which was why I left as quickly as I could.

-VB-

In the coming summer months and into fall, I worked and made more pottery. I reached LvL. 45 in [Pottery] as fall came in and even gained [Bartering] as a skill (it increased the opposite party's willingness to settle for higher in my favor).

In total, I sold roughly ten thousand dishes at a few coppers per dish.

I actually now had a merchants specifically visiting me from St. Gallens (north of Werdenberg) to keep buying my earthenware and I bought salted fish from them.

I supposed that this was a start of an industry and a trade route (even if I wasn't the one in charge of that trade route).

Oh, as for Gunther, he brought his entire family to my fort and settled in as one of the permanent residents, bringing the total number of residents from thirty to thirty-five.

As I waved goodbye to the now familiar Merchant of St. Gallens, Alexander the Gallens Merchant, I got an alert.

Ping!

[Requirement met for Quest: Industrialization! Turn the quest in? Y/N]

I thought about it. Porcelain was its own separate quest, so I didn't need to think about that. The base reward for the quest was 10 points, which meant a lot to me. However, establishing one more industry would make the Compact that much stronger and myself 5 points richer. The quest didn't end until I chose to end it, so …

I pressed no.

I could wait until I fulfilled all of the bonus requirements.

"Hans!"

I looked back to the rudimentary road connecting Davos to my Fluela Fort and saw a man running up.

It was Bruno, a man from Klosters (village just north of Davos and a member of the Compact) who had fast become a messenger in these months (because I paid him to deliver letters). He was sweaty; he normally wasn't because he walked to his destination, but this time, it looked like he ran.

"What is it, Bruno?" I asked him.

"Messenger from Schiers… It's urgent. I'm sorry I read it, but I think you'll appreciate that I ran.

Frowning at the lack of confidentiality (though the letter's envelope didn't ask for it), I pulled the letter out of the envelope and read it.

Dear Hans of Fluela,

This is Gerald of Schiers.

We have met four times so far: once during the foundation of the Compact, once during your patrol-visits, once during the fight against the counts to the west and north, and once when you came to see if our blacksmith was willing to change how he smithed.

I met a man eager to see change for the good, but when told to stop, who agreed with the people who had to live with the consequences.

I thought wrong.

In the past four months, you have bypassed Maienfeld, Schiers, and Castels. You hired none of us in your new pottery workshop that has ruined the potters in our villages. You buy clay from St. Peters and Langweis and hired men from Klosters and Davos. Yet you did not even send us three notices of your new business.

I believe that you are showing favoritism.

While the Compact formed to protect ourselves from outsiders, I believe that it should involve helping each other in other areas as well.

As such, I ask that you provide your expertise in growing our three villages.

Signed,

Gerald

Representative of Schiers to the Compact of the Seven

"Well," I smiled. "I guess I have some traveling to do."

It was all coming together.