Chapter 275: Stable Income
With the new arrivals headed to town, Dominic returned to the Manor to speak with the Princess about his plans.
She was likely going to have a better plan than the rough outline that he had come up with. She was much more details oriented than he was, and he wanted to have something worked out before the next caravan got here so that they could get word right to the top levels of the Merchant’s Guild.
Getting teachers for a magitech factory would be the hardest part.
But the Guild would also know what sold the fastest, what had the largest margin between materials and selling price, and other important details.
Julio would know some of it as an accountant, but most of what he would know was the margins that the Guild itself had on items that they bought and sold, not so much on items that didn’t often get sold on the open market.
Magitech most commonly sold directly from the creator to the Noble who ordered it.
Fortunately for Dominic, lights were simple if you didn’t mind a bit of discolouration.
The ones in the Manor simply used a piece of quartz crystal, set into the top of a magitech orb sitting on a holder. The flow of mana lit up the crystal, and the glass of the lampshade diffused the light.
Easy, but fragile.
As expected, Alexis was in the library, which she used more like an office, as she preferred to be surrounded by books at all times instead of sitting in the actual office.
She closed one book and prepared to change notebooks, moving on to a new topic.
"Perfect timing. Before you get started on the next thing, I have a proposal I want to run by you." Dominic began.
Alexis nodded, and gestured for him to sit across from her.
"Alright, what is your brilliant idea of the day?"
Dominic smiled as he realized the book she had been about to open was the Duchy’s financial report book.
"Work projects for the people. We’re attracting magic users in droves, and we are likely to get more, so it occurred to me that we could use a magitech factory owned directly by the Duchy.
The simple things that every house should have, but that most can’t currently afford.
If we mass-produced magitech lights, toilets and pumps with water creation gems in them, we could bring the standard of not only the Duchy, but all of Cygnia ahead by decades.
Now, now just cheap stuff. Good stuff for the Nobles, upgrades that they would be proud to have. But also budget versions that any reasonably successful working family could afford if they wanted.
Lamps change everyday life, especially for the ones who work the longest hours.
But I’m also not a fan of the ’just dump it in the river’ solution to sewage that most cities have. So, I want incinerating toilets, and then we can let the plumbing dispose of shower and dish water." Dominic explained.
"You know, most of the houses in town simply throw their dish water into the garden." Alexis reminded him.
"Oh, good point. I wonder if there is an effective way to filter shower water? We could just let it fill barrels on the property, and then they can water gardens with it. Everyone has one for the rain gutters already." Dominic realized.
"That might be a bit expensive for the common person. How is the current plumbing system built?" Alexis asked.
Dominic shrugged. "It runs from the house to the edge of the road, so when they shower, it just runs into the storm drains. I will have all the new streets built the same way, and the storm drains lead to the river."
Alexis smiled. "And that’s why you don’t want hundreds more flush toilets? Because it all flows into the river, and your nose is sensitive."
"Plus, city water is disgusting enough without being down river of that." Dominic agreed.
That was hard to argue with. It was also a far superior solution to the other options that many cities still relied upon.
"Alright. We already have an architect and his team on the way from the Merchant’s Guild, and they can do the design for the factory as well. Once you decide what they’re making, anyhow.
You can enlist the Techno Wizards if you want, and look through the village for others with some skill as artificers. But we might need to make a very specific request if we’re going to start that sort of factory.
Magitech items aren’t something that just anyone can make from a blueprint." Alexis reminded him.
Right, magic didn’t work the same way for most people as it did for those with dragon blood. He had forgotten all about that for a moment, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find workers with some skills in the area.
After all, they had been basically run out of Dagos unless they fit the perfect image of what Dagos thought that a Magic User should be.
Plus, if they had skills, but didn’t want to open a shop on their own, or didn’t have the finances to try to compete with the shops that were already open, these would be incredibly high-paying jobs compared to nearly anything else that they could do.
It might be factory work, but it was magitech factory work, and that came with a level of respect.
There wasn’t much more that they could do today, and Julio was already off to make notes of what houses everyone had moved into, and what skills they had. The man went well above and beyond his technical duties, a habit from his time with the Merchant’s Guild, where information was everything.
That was a lesson that Dominic realized he should probably take to heart, and get to know more of the people on a personal basis.
But, that could wait for a few days, while he worked on his spell book, and got some sketches done for the basic magitech items that he wanted to become the core of their manufacturing facility.