World Sphere - 73 - The Shiny Platinum

Chapter 73: The Shiny Platinum

After Remy and Isla left, I worked through the fatigue and finished the artificing on my windows. The crystal I was using to keep them charged should last about thirty days between recharges, as none of the enchantments drew a lot of power. I could also upgrade the crystal later.

I went outside, and it looked at it from the plaza. The wall looked seamless, and you could not see the windows to my apartment. It was early morning, and Talia was leaving to return to the Mage Academy on the capital island.

“How was your room?”  I yelled to get her attention.

“Oh, Storme. I didn’t see you over there.” She walked to me so we wouldn’t have to yell. “It was great! I spent last night with Lana and Sammie. They are very nice! I think we are going to get along great. Gareth even joined us for a while.” 

I rolled my eyes at Gareth’s name. I hoped Gareth wouldn’t alienate all the women on the team. “Did Aelyn not join you?” I asked, realizing she hadn’t mentioned her.

“No, she was with Gimble in the training room on the third floor. I think she went to sleep right after that. I am glad my grandmother convinced me to join your team,” she said with a genuine smile, showing her perfect teeth.

We talked idly for a few minutes, then Talia rushed to make her transport. After Talia left, I went to the kitchen to eat, only to find Gareth with a bucket of chocolate ice cream and a spoon. “Stormy! How did it go? I saw Isla returning to her room—much later!” He winked at me.

Gareth’s reward for winning the Pre-academy Annuals tournament had been a dungeon essence. It was called hasten dream, which allowed him only to need two hours of sleep to get complete rest. This meant he was up most of the night reading his dungeon books or doing extra training. When we finally moved permanently to the city the next year, I could imagine him enjoying the nightlife here a little too much.

“It went fine, Gareth. We hammered out quite a few things. I am pretty sure it was an evening she will never forget,” I said obscurely and let him draw his own conclusions. 

“About time! Well, I met this woman last night too! She was one of the guards in the warehouse. I am meeting her for lunch today. Stormy, I really need to get that twelve gold.” Gareth pulled out the stamped dungeon token and passed it to me.

“Gareth, a token only costs ten gold,” I stated doubtfully.

“Yeah, I had to buy it from another team. All six slots were filled for the 6th and 7th days this week. I found the team captain in the Adventurer’s Hall, and he sold me this token for just two gold over the standard price,” Gareth patiently explained, like that was the most natural thing in the world to do. I was pretty sure that was frowned upon.

I shook my head in disbelief. “In the future, Gareth, only the team leader or I can purchase the token. It would be a shame to waste it, though.” I pulled out twelve golds and handed them over to a grinning Gareth. He quickly slid them into his money pouch and continued eating the ice cream.

“Gareth…this kitchen,” I indicated the massive space. “Is under the supervision of my two head cooks. You cannot go and grab things from the freezer. If you want something to eat, you need to ask the servers or cooks. Your apartment has a small kitchen, and I will artifice a cold chest in your apartment and a cooking top eventually.” 

Gareth smiled with chocolate on his face. “Tell Vidalia, she told me to help myself.”

“Who is Vidalia?” I hadn’t learned the names of everyone yet.

“The older woman server. She told me I could help myself,” he smiled innocently. I realized I had been lax and everyone was free to eat leftovers as the cooks practiced. I had schooled the cooks but not the servers yet. I needed a restaurant manager to take care of the staffing and educating new staff.

“Gareth, do you think your parents want to move to the city? Your mom could run the restaurant for me.” I said thoughtfully.

“No! Please, Stormy!” He started begging. “My parents just adopted Geoff. If my mother were here, she would always look over my shoulder and judge me! I like being free.” He tried to make puppy dog eyes, but on his massive body, he just looked ridiculous.

I sighed. His mom was a tiny woman but an educated scribe and not afraid to speak the truth to anyone. She would have been perfect for managing the restaurant. And I think Gareth needed someone looking over his shoulder. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to recruit her. “Fine. I will think of someone else.”

A relieved Gareth patted me on the back, a grin spreading on his face. “Thanks, Stormy. I am going to the Adventurers Hall with Sammie to practice against some other delvers.” Gareth handed me the empty bucket of ice cream and walked out.

I worked on the artificing in the kitchen while waiting for all the staff to arrive at the restaurant. I then spent a considerable amount of time educating the group about expectations, sanitary practices, dress code, treatment of customers, treatment of my delvers, attitude while working, and punctuality. I think it went well. Since I was paying a premium for their services and had already made a few examples of people, I believe they understood how serious I was. 

I wanted the restaurant to run without me being here. I didn’t want to be involved other than supplying coin to keep the place running. I had my doubts the restaurant would turn a profit, but it should get close to breaking even. Even if it ran annually slightly in the red, I wouldn’t mind creating a platinum or to cover the losses.

I spent an hour showing the cooks how to batter and bread the chicken in flour, egg, and eleven herbs and spices for deep frying. Then I left them to practice. I had my two bartenders go out and order casks of ale. Since I wanted to sell the beverages cold, the casks were to be stored in the walk-in freezer off the kitchen. Enchanting every cask with cold runes was not a good use of time.

My next task was borrowing two cooks to heat the beeswax and pour it into the walls to insulate the walk-in freezer. When they tried melting it in the pot, the wax was not normal. It was white and had a much higher melting point than normal beeswax. Even with a funnel, the dumping of wax into wall was extremely messy. The worst part was that the cavities were about four inches wide, and all the wax that we had harvested barely made any progress. By my estimates, I was going to need about 220 more harvests the same size to completely insulate the walk-in freezer. I just shrugged my shoulders and figured it gave us somewhere to dispose of the wax.

The rest of my day was spent being a plumber. I made the copper pipe and connected it. The cold water lines were pretty much finished, with just the hot water for the apartments remaining. I tried the chicken sandwiches the cooks made at lunch and was pleased with their efforts.

I had the cooks continue practicing the 23 menu sandwiches. When someone ordered a burger, they chose one of the four types of fries, a dipping sauce, and one ale for a complete meal. Milkshakes would be available once I had a blender. For now, we would serve the ice cream in a bowl. I knew it was becoming popular in the capital with heavy cream prices skyrocketing.

After lunch, I was on the roof enchanting the hot water tank. I embedded the aether crystal for powering the runes into the metal and hoped it wouldn’t be noticeable. The crystal was another costly investment. The runes were placed at the bottom of the 250-gallon copper tank, heating it just below boiling. Satisfied, I activated the water condensing runes and the heating runes. The heating runes were slightly off, but on the cooler side. Good enough.

I installed the hot water piping in my room first. I made my own shower head and valves with my metal shaping skills. It took some experimentation, but by dinner, I had a working shower. The problem was the water pressure was too low. I would need to pressurize the tanks on the roof. It wouldn’t be difficult—just a small rune to boil water and create steam, with a pressure release valve to prevent explosions.

I tried the Ogre burger for dinner. A 1-pound patty on a pretzel bun with a pungent and sharp-tasting cheese, caramelized straw onions, and a spicy ketchup. The burger was fantastic! As I was eating, Remy brought the accounting books. I couldn’t believe he was done compiling everything already.

“Storme, I have finished with all the accounting for the warehouse construction,” he paused. “Isla documented everything fairly well, considering the substantial investment in this building. I did find one supplier double-charging her for their work. The stone delivery volume just seemed off, so I confirmed it with the stone mage.” He put a sheet in front of me, and I reviewed it after wiping my hands.

He was correct. The invoices were for two consecutive dates, and the stone mage signed off on only one delivery on the first date. This happened again in the following week. I asked, “Did you confirm that maybe the amount of stone delivered was twice as much on the first date?”

“The stone mage confirmed that it was not the case. He said a Bricio delve team runs this company, and they frequently pull scams like this. He said it is usually hard to prove since we didn’t challenge them immediately. He suggested just filing a grievance with the Miaden Traders Guild,” Remy said nervously. I looked at the amount we were cheated out of: 6 gold and 18 silver.

I thought for a long minute, then said, “No. Put it down as a loss. But find out all the connections this delve team has and do not deal with them in the future.” I didn’t know if Remy had the capacity for this task, but I had confidence in him. He nodded emphatically, obviously not wanting to confront the Bricios.

We reviewed the other books, and it was as bad as I thought when we got to projections. With my menu pricing of one silver per meal, I would have to serve around 2,500 meals a week to break even. This included the cost of an estimated 500 meals a week being supplied to staff and delvers.

Turning a profit was achievable if the menu was well-received. My idea of a fast-order-to-serve restaurant may be a hit…if not, I would ignore the losses.

The delve team is what concerned Remy the most. I had seven delvers I would be paying ten gold a week with Gareth, plus he estimated the value of meals and housing at another four gold per week. His concern was probably because he didn’t want to lose his job. “Well, Remy, you can move yourself from the delver payroll to the general payroll. That means the delve team needs to make over 23 gold per delve,” I stated with a smile.

He nodded, unsure of my assessment. I told him he was doing a fine job, and he could give me weekly summaries.

I let the restaurant staff go home early and told the bakers and pastry chef to be in early tomorrow. I needed to set up the breakfast bakery offerings, and then I would be done with training and could open the restaurant. I made my way up to my room and found my door locks had been installed. I still planned to use my arcane lock spell on the door.

I took out Gareth’s sword and worked into the night to finish the blade. The enchantments matched mine, so I had some practice connecting them. The aether crystal in the hilt would need to be recharged between delves, but other than that, the blade would serve him well. I wrapped it in a blanket and put it on the desk.

I finally felt I had some time to myself. I sank into my leather couch and pulled out my book for the thermostatic aura spell. I fell asleep studying it.

When I woke, I was energized for the day. Everything was breaking smoothly. For the next few days, I worked on the plumbing and trained my kitchen staff and servers so we could open on the 7th day. The delve team practiced under Gimble’s supervision in the sizable three-floor training room. I was too busy to join them.

Before the delve, I completed all the artificing for the restaurant and bakery was completed, and the plumbing for the apartments was done as well. The only annoying thing was that I had to improve the faucet and shower valves with my metal-shaping ability in all the rooms.

The bakery was ready to open on the 4th day. We sold loaves of bread and a small assortment of breakfast sandwiches. We had a beverage similar to coffee but closer to coffee-flavored milk. We put up advertisements for the restaurant opening on 7th day, and the stone mage finished the exterior façade of the warehouse, smoothing the stone and coating it in a nice white finish to serve as a canvas. It made our building stand out among the dreary gray buildings in the warehouse district.

The bakery started extremely slow. Almost no customers on the first day. We were expensive—a large copper for a sandwich and beverage. We had to give out two hundred samples on the second day we were open, before the foot traffic started coming. The biggest seller was the honey cinnamon buns. We baked them in batches of four and sold them the same way. Each bun was massive, the size of an adult fist. Even at four copper coins for four, they were sold as quickly as we could bake them. Apparently, Aegis City had an untapped sweet tooth.

Mera and Fera also arrived on 4th day. I had sent them the request as I wanted Mera to spend a few days with a master brewer. Isla had found one that was amenable to teaching her for a few silver. Mera would spend the rest of our off week from the academy with him to learn the basics. I told her not to reveal her fermentation ability to him.

Tatum felt the pressure to finish the panels for the walls before the 7th day, despite me urging him to take his time to maintain the quality. I spent half a day with him working on what color light globes I should make to illuminate each of his paintings. The directional globes I made were usually a softer white light with a single added color.

We had the stone mage embed them in the ceiling. It meant the servers would need ladders to turn them on and off and charge them, but that was fine. He managed to finish 20 panels and was working on the last three when opening day came. Rather than wait, I handed Tatem three shiny platinum for his bonus. It was worth it as the images were spectacular and I thought they might draw people more than the food.

Later in the week, Mia found someone to manage the Shiny Platinum staff. His name was Marcellus Hernan. He was one of the new guards for the warehouse. He was an older man who had taught at the Guard Academy for many years. His pension was small, and he needed work as his daughter and six grandchildren had moved in with him. His son-in-law had been killed in the Sadian attack.

Marcellus had actually been helping Mia find guards. Since she was so young, she wasn’t given the respect by the veteran guards. Marcellus not only knew good veterans, but after he made introductions, potential guards were much more receptive to Mia’s job offer. All nine veteran guards were lined up to start next week on 1st day, but Marcellus was stolen to manage the Shiny Platinum.

Before the grand opening, we had our second delve attempt. Lana was still working on the dimensional closet spell, so I volunteered to take her place again. The six delvers were Gimble, Gareth, Sammie, Aelyn, Fera, and me.

Talia had classes on the 6th day, and we forgot to inform her she needed to be back for delve. Fera had been working with the arborist, and Gareth asked her if she wanted to come. He promised to protect her, and she agreed to tag along for the experience. Gareth took her on a big shopping spree for leather armor and a heavy cloak. I guessed his date with the older Miaden guard woman had not gone well because he never mentioned it.

Fera and Gareth were talking excitedly while we waited for the hourglass to expire so we could enter. When the older guard nodded to Gimble, he led us into the stone arch for our second delve.

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