Chapter 18: Journey

Our staff were happy to see us home.

We had to attend meetings with the Magistrates and learned that Veldor had flipped out on them. The man had not liked admitting a few home truths as to how he obtained his wealth or his wife.

They ended up sending him to a special place where they put people, who had difficulties relating to the world and that had been convicted of serious crimes. All of his wealth was confiscated.

They determined that he has used Raelene’s wealth and title to accrue the wealth he had, so it belonged to Lindell. He had in fact been in debt when he forced her to marry him. Lindell surprised us both by handing the title to Kim, which she could do, as he was legally one of her husbands.

She said since I had one and she planned to pass it onto her second child if I didn’t mind, she’d like to have Kim father the child. I looked at Kim’s shocked face and agreed wholeheartedly.

If I got yanked out of there, Sky would get mine, so it was fitting as far as I was concerned. I might have trouble not touching Lindell when she came into heat, and I was still around, but we would worry about that at the time.

We didn’t need the other house, so we sold it to Shorn and Layton for peanuts after we stripped it and refurbished it. We split the main house into a duplex. It had been designed as two main wings with a central courtyard and a coach house joining the back, so it was perfect to split into two homes.

We upgraded the bathrooms, kitchens and sewerage system for them. The Ballroom was actually in front of the main house on a lower level, so we deemed it as communal to the two units, and this suited the couples. They were planning a double wedding in six weeks.

Interestingly, Mathew, James, and their girls had decided on a double as well, to be a week after ours. I decide we could stick around that long to get our finances sorted out.

Then we had a couple of other jobs to do.

I had located Kim’s box, sort of.

I wasn’t sure how hard it was going to be to retrieve it as it seemed to have protections around the building it was in that didn’t like me. I was hoping Kim might be able to breach the barrier, as it was his box.

I also believed it was the building from where the corrupt medallions and rings were coming from. These items didn’t have the same feel of my items, it was as if their actual abilities had been muted or even subverted in some way.

Veldor’s medallion was one of the most tortured devices I had ever felt when I took it from him. Even Ben’s hadn’t felt this bad. I had to work hard to remove the binding spells. I was then able to reinsert the original ones and added mine.

It finally felt more peaceful. Tyus’ face came to mind, and I happily presented it to him. The medallion shone with happiness when he touched it.

I smiled and said to him, “Be nice to him, this little guy had been through hell. I think your love for Mara and what you do will help it heal in a way I can’t help with.”

Tyus gently polished the medallion. He then gently put it on and patted it lovingly. “How about we go make some mulch? Would you like that?” he said to the medallion.

He looked up at me and smiled a beautiful, serene smile at me. He then went to make his mulch, stroking the medallion.

I had to wipe the tear from my eye.

The next wedding was not as fraught as ours was.

We enjoyed it, and the couples were surprised when I gave Bernice and Kally trainee boxes. I claimed Bernice’s ring and was happy it wasn’t corrupted.

I passed it on to Tycha, to her surprise. I also suggest she go visit her cousin Edith in Rothman and to take Vanity with her. When the twins grinned at them, they got the hint and decided a little holiday in the north was a lovely idea.

Kim and Lindell just shook their heads at me. I told the twins we would try to be back before their wedding, but we had to go sort some things out in Trenton.

They said they understood and said I had done more than enough for them already. I understood that when the boys showed them their new house, the girls had been as pleased as had their fathers, that they would get a good start.

I’d also asked the boys to look after things for me since Kim had to go with me. The boys were more than happy with this arrangement. They were both apparently studying under Jim, and they had James as a backup, so we were all happy.

My staff said they understood and would look after our house. Ian, Walter and Wally wanted to come, but I shook my head. I said we were going incognito and couldn’t have personal staff.

Plus they had plenty to do. Wally and Walter had lots of orders and plenty of work coming in to keep them busy, and Ian had to look after the needs of the house. I told them that they were family and had to take care of each other for me, while we were gone.

They all understood but were sad that we would be away.

We packed some trunks.

I transported my loved ones to a stable yard just outside Trenton. I’d organised with the owner to purchase me some livestock and a moderately decent waggon a merchant would own to be waiting for us, no questions asked.

The cart was waiting, and I dropped the trunks in it. We climbed aboard and drove the cart into Trenton. Kim was going to pose as Lindell’s older brother and Lindell as my wife. I had rented a moderately large shop with a two bedroom living unit above it in a prominent street.

I was going to revolutionise the printed page.

We’d found a very basic printing press that was not that far ahead of technology at this time in the caverns. I showed Kim and Lindell how it worked. Walter and Wally made me two more, and we made several sets of letter types for each.

With our magic, we found dropping the letters into the settings we wanted was very easy. I also taught them how to make paper from any leaf or wood sources. As much as I didn’t wish to cut down my trees, we’d picked individual trees to thin out where a new one was trying to replace a downed one and collected those on the ground.

I had learned from Mara when I enlisted her help that because they didn’t have many insects here, the trees didn’t decompose as fast as they did on Earth. So a fallen tree being collected actually helped these forests.

The family had spent a day collecting me a couple of tonnes of wood. The boys and I converted it all to paper and cards and packed it into the crates. I transported it to the shop. They would make me more to pick up later.

Tyus came up with excellent recipes for the inks I wanted, and we made a lot of it to get me started. He said he’d keep a supply handy and he would check if I’d emptied any shelves in the room in the cellar that we converted for storage of the paper and ink.

Tyus and Mara with the help of Wally were excellent at making the different coloured and types of paper for me. I also had the boys build a couple of presses for Iron Hills before we left.

James, with Shorn and Layton’s help, were also going to run them for me in between looking after my other businesses. I was amused the twins also got in on the act and were happy to help.

They manned the shopfront and took the orders to start with. They were also very good at spelling and soon claimed the jobs of editors, as they got more staff to replace them on the shop floor.

I explained they could print things like business cards, wedding invitations, thank you and birthday cards, news sheets and books. They could make ruled paged notebooks and accounts books, calendars, anything really that could be printed.

I even made a special paper and made old-fashioned bankbooks for Jim’s customers. The hardest part was putting the individual numbers on each book. He loved them, as it made it easier for his staff and the customers to keep tabs on their accounts. The customers loved them, too.

James had reported before we left that the girls were having a lovely time as his editors, and so was he. He and the boys really enjoyed running the presses, and they were now making a news-sheet ever second day that was becoming very popular.

His father and many of the other business people loved the accounts and notebooks I had suggested. I even made some basic templates for these books. The cards were very popular. They even had several orders for books to print.

James said that he hoped that I didn’t mind, but he had also hired people to collect stories. I was amused that by the end of the week we took to get set up to move, they were in serious business.

I had a feeling if we followed their example we would have no problem with our business in Trenton taking off too. Iron Hills supported a population of twenty-five thousand people including the surrounding area. Trenton supported ten times that number.

I liked his idea of an editor, and I decided I’d find a couple of reporters as well. I had a feeling that information like when ships were coming in or leaving, and printing tide charts and such would be popular. Lindell was excellent at predicting the weather, and I knew this would be a popular part of a news sheet.

We got our shop set up and put out our shingle. The shop had a large back room for the presses and paper storage. I made sure I put fire suppression spells in the rooms. We had set up the shop front where we displayed our wares like the calendars, charts, cards and other books that were easy to print with the templates.

I hired the extra staff and soon got them up to speed as to what their jobs were. I also got Lindell to act as a sales assistant and manager. I found a group of street kids and hired them as news-sheet sellers for me.

By the end of the week, we had our first news-sheet printed, and we gave the first edition away free. After that, it was a tri (2 cents) a news-sheet, and we printed every second day. The back page of the first copy listed our services.

It listed the things we printed for a fee of a que (1 cent) in the news-sheet such as job vacancies, sales, births, deaths, weddings, etc. We also included the prices for any of our other products.

Even I was surprised by how fast we became popular. The Doctor who runs their hospital agreed to tell us of births, the Undertaker of deaths and when I mentioned funeral dates to invite relatives, he liked this idea and said he would suggest it to his customers.