Chapter 300: Fix The Curtains
Once they were showered, Dominic kept to his determination and went to the library to look for an existing design that would pull the curtains shut on a timer.
There was an index to the Library somewhere, Dominic was certain. Or, there had been when he was young. Now, he couldn’t find it, and there was no guarantee that it wasn’t part of the collection of tomes that were burnt during the raid.
So, he spent most of the morning searching through the Library for the books that he needed, while constantly infusing the Sorcerer’s Spellbook with energy, increasing both the stored power and his affinity for the item.
It was perfect multitasking efficiency. Or it would be if he could ever find the book that he was looking for.
There were only two essential tasks for him right now, as the Duchy was finally starting to maintain itself. That was to prepare for the factory opening, and to improve his own skills so that he could properly defend against outside threats.
Finally, Dominic found something that could be counted as useful. It wasn’t a design to close the curtains, it was an automatic door opener.
However, he could activate it from the bed, and it would close the curtains for him.
It was perfect.
Even better, it was only one magitech circuit on a lever and a bracket. But for the curtain, Dominic thought that a pulley and belt would be better. That way, he could just run it long enough to get the curtain into the spot he wanted.
Dominic spent the rest of the day drawing up the design for the device with a single gear, a pulley, and a belt that could be latched to the two sides of the curtains, so it would pull them together when activated.
The majority of the parts, he ended up making with Clay to Copper. That just left the belt and a dilemma. Should it be leather? Did the material matter? The curtains were on a rod, and slid easily, so Dominic didn’t think that it did, and he had plenty of spare cloth, so that made the first belt.
He went up just before dinner and mounted the mechanism to the wall with improvised stone anchors. Then, he attached the curtains to the cloth belt and smiled as the device smoothly pulled the curtains open and shut.
Now, he could rest assured that when he inevitably forgot to close them later, he wouldn’t have to deal with light in his face at sunrise.
With that major problem solved, he could rest easily. In the most literal sense.
Dominic managed to get five whole mornings of peace, earned by closing the curtains the moment that he began to wake up, before one dreary morning brought a merchant caravan riding through the drizzling rain to their Duchy, and many more hopeful new residents.
Many more.
Dominic saw the size of the convoy coming from the Castle City side of the route, and went out to meet with them.
"Your Grace! It’s an honour to be greeted by you personally. I have brought many of the supplies that the Duchy had on its list. I also received your personnel request, and these debtors have been vetted by the Guild.
Now, there are an awful lot of them, but the Merchant’s Guild is willing to work with you on a payment plan." The Guild Representative announced.
"These are all people under a debt contract? Did the Guild suddenly become loan sharks?" Dominic retorted.
"It’s not that. Well, perhaps it is, but we’re not trying to be loan sharks. We’re not even charging interest or fees on the loans. It’s just that the allotment for refugee foodstuffs in Castle City only covers so much, and everyone is buying from us to supplement their diet.
We did choose the ones coming with us to be suitable for Wistover, though. All of them have an affinity for magic, tested and verified. All of the families have at least one trade skill, and every one of them volunteered to start over here after being told you were the Duke of Wistover, but not that you were married to Princess Alexis.
Some already knew, there’s no stopping the gossip. But we didn’t make a point of it." He explained.
"If that’s the case, then we’re happy to have them. We’ve got some new housing ready for them, and a few full houses left for the larger families. If they’re farmers, we’ve got plenty of good farmland left." Dominic explained.
"I see that they’ve been doing some renovations here since the last caravan. Those apartment blocks look new." The merchant agreed.
"Indeed. And that long building on the edge of town is the new magitech factory. By the end of the month, we will be turning out mass-produced lights and fireplace inserts. The Merchants’ Guild expressed some interest in working out a long-term purchase deal for them, but that can wait until we have actual samples finished."
"That sounds reasonable. Do you have a proof of concept so that I can relay the message to the others?"
Dominic nodded. "They’re at the Techno Wizards’ place, or in the new apartments. If you want to head over, you can see what they look like in use. The apartments are mostly empty, so we won’t be bothering anyone if we head into a vacant unit."
"That would be perfect. I wonder what sort of product you think can be mass-produced."
Dominic chuckled. "You would be surprised what we can manage. Was there the teacher that we requested in this batch?"
The Merchant nodded. "Yes, but it takes years to train a Techno Wizard."
Dominic patted him on the shoulder. "Fortunately, that’s not what I have planned. I just need to train apprentices to make one single item for their job. And it’s a simple item, the sort that I learned in the first few units when I started training.
Now, I will let Julio deal with the small details, and we can inspect the products."
Julio sighed in resignation. He already knew that was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier to sort out this mass of new arrivals.