I am, currently, being consoled by my lovely wives. And why do I need consoling? Well... I accidentally started a confectionery shop in the capital. It's NOT my fault. Dad keeps sending more moneys, dwarves are clamoring for more ideas, ordinary peeps are all inquiring what else could be made/grown/crafted/built to make things even more profitable and oh gods why. Just... why. I thought I've been setting a breakneck pace, hell naw, apparently the world wants even more even faster! Dwarves, as it turned out, are churning batch after batch experimenting on steels and pattern-welding had allowed them to make decent use of pretty much anything they output. Low-carb steel? No probs, we'll hammer it together with pig iron. High-carb steel? Cool beans. They even figured out several distinct patterns, rough chops to complex waves to a folding so fine it would take a magnifying lens to see the actual pattern without it merging into a weirdly shimmering gray surface.

So I had a big old sit down, jotted down like fifty different varieties of cookware - whisks, pots, pans, spatulas, spoons, tongs, nutcrackers, knives, forks, pastry cutters, graters etc etc etc, and they went RUNNING with it. Also, the road to Parsee is finished as of two days ago, and they're already showing off the three-day forging delivery. Goodness, people. According to the latest letter, there are seven waterwheel mills, two waterwheel rocksaws (they figured that one on their own, I didn't even have to hint) and apparently the windmill plans have had been "leaked" to pretty much every single lord who has a border with our county and a good deal more throughout. I have given some BASIC ideas of aeolipile to explain the concept of a steam engine, and the last letter from them was "but what if we release steam into a bigger wheel?". Not quite the right track, but quite the right sentiment. The idea of rails is something they already know to an extent, so it's only a matter of time before someone connects those two together and steam hits the pistons.

Aaanyway, dwarves are going nuts with the metallurgy and technological progress and were it not for my worry about their society running out of housing for all the new people coming (As of the last census, Gillespie county has a population of three thousand seven hundred fifty two dwarves, including women and children, a thousand six hundreds eighty four of them - ablebodied men quarrying stone and building up a veritable city around the clock.) and things there are going at full burn. The king had made an official announcement that Gillespies are promoted to ducal status, with official celebration and jubilee to be held during winter holidays.

And... well. I somehow missed one aspect of this society that I really should have had been aware of. Everyone's magic depending on flowers means the arts of GROWING plants and fertilizing them are absolutely mindbogglingly advanced in comparison to everything else. Yes, they had the first major harvest of sugar beets. Already. And father decided that half of it (which, just so we're clear, is SIX METRIC TONS of sugar) is my personal property to deal with as I see fit! The rest is going on sale, thankfully in small proportions, because dad doesn't want to break the sugar market in one go. Something to the tune of a stone of sugar per week. Which, again, is about as much as the whole kingdom bought in a month.

So... After having a bit of arglbargle in privacy (tentacle flailing may or may not have had been involved), I have had...

A) Bought out a spacious office/warehouse/shopside that used to belong to Sultanate merchants that pulled out of the kingdom. (No, it's just a coincidence, they pulled out in spring, it was not bees!)

B) Had it renovated. As in, cleaned from top to bottom, checked for any problems and had all holes patched and all windows glassed up.

C) Dropped "crazy gold", to quote the woodworkers, to have the furniture produced to specification post-haste.

D) Hired twenty four people to maintain my new shop. Twelve cooks, eight sales clerks and four bouncers. Because fuck Klaus or Salaadin getting cute and trying to get back at me by setting shop on fire or something.

I just came back from an exhaustive six-hour masterclass on how to make everything I want to be sold. There is a windmill being built into my shop to handle the flour needs, millstone currently cranked by a pair of donkeys. I'm now a registered member of the merchant guild, and apparently jumped straight to "shop-owning merchant" because that's what I started with. (Guild has six ranks - artisan, peddler, caravaneer, shop-owner, franchise-owner and trading house owner. Ranking, respectively, from selling what you make to petty reselling to running caravan to having a permanent shop to having multiple permanent shops to running private bank on top of that all. I'm simplifying, commerce is actually pretty advanced and pretty bureaucratic, even in this world.)

On the plus side. The shop is to open in the end of the week. The lineup currently includes meringues (new and cool thing, everyone who's someone wants to get some), shortcake with assorted fruits (available as a mix or with specific fruit on demand), green tea cakes (because tea is a thing here and I like them so there), marzipan (with strict control over almond condition because I could do without anyone going down to cyanide poisoning), mead (Because why wouldn't I sell alcohol?) and a bunch of other things including bread with chopped nuts baked in at commoner-affordable prices. The bigger shopfront is dipped in and cleared out to create a sort of half-outdoors cafe, while the smaller one is set up to be a more "common" bread and treats kind of store. Teaching prospective cooks to use the linear ovens was probably the most complicated part of it. They were... rather confused by a concept of an oven that permitted sequential batching. I had on more than one occasion remind them that YES, you put dough trays from ONE end, but retrieve baked dough from the OTHER.

Anyway, the mess had taken the better part of two weeks, and I'm right now eyeing the Caturday evening with weary eyes. And deep gratefulness about having wives to alleviate my bone-deep weariness. And I don't even HAVE bones. That's how hectic it was. Thankfully, this was the last thing I need to personally deal with. Until Ed gets well enough, which is tentatively slated for tomorrow. But FUUUCK that for now.

Moon Unit shakes the vial over her hand, getting a bit of oil out and slowly smears it over my back, showing Bridgit the right way to rub it in. This wasn't my idea, but goodness gracious, this is relaxing. I'm completely naked right now, for obvious reasons, and so are they. The bed under me is covered with a bit of "water repelling" tarp that I have made in my spare time out of a regular canvas and my leftover gum from an investigation onto sources of natural latex I'm still carrying out. It's not considered particularly valuable or important (shortsighted morons), but I have had managed to entice some of the merchants going to Sultanate and Pharos to bring back the saplings and cuttings from trees with "sticky saps". Some specimen show promise, but they aren't suited for the northern climate, so I had them planted in the backyard of our capital residence for now.

Aaanyway, I'm getting oil massage from my lovely wives... and I'm still thinking about all sorts of products and trade agreements, gods damn it all. I need to amp down, or I'll be taken over by shoggoth instincts. And that would suck in all the bad ways. I can sort of hear them whispering and giggling over my back while I'm yet again distracted by my musings, and what are you planning over there, ladies, ahhh? Oh... Oh, huh. That... is surprisingly pleasant. Four nipples against my skin are very effective at distracting me from the thoughts. And then each of them straddles one of my legs and ... nnngh... It's just a backrub... It's just a full-body rub. With their bodies. Naked. With oil... I... yeah, fuck it, this is sex, and I'm really being on the bottom today. I wonder what other plans do they have. Should be... relaaaaaaaaxing...

___

Kissing those two, I smile at them. "What would I ever do without you, hmm?" - I muse, as I hold them close. Bridgit, while she is trying not to show it, is pretty tired herself, having had accompanied me in my mad dash across the capital's commerce. Moon Unit is much more energetic, and right now it is very amply obvious, because Bridgit is snoozing against my shoulder softly, while Moon Unit is quite alert and talkative.

"Are we having a sweets-only breakfast tomorrow?" - she quips, as she lazily toys with my hand - "You do remember that the first products are always to be offered to the owner, right? Every single kind?"

I blink at her. "So... I'm going to have every single thing on the menu being delivered here in the morning, is that what you're telling me?" - I'm feeling mentally sluggish right now, bite me.

"A dozen of each, give or take, actually. Treats are usually offered by a dozen and all that." - she quips.

"...Fair enough. Most of that stuff can keep for a week or two anyway, so we'll just have nice desserts all the time and have more amorous fun to burn off the calories." - I decide.

"What's calories?" - she asks curiously. Oh. Um. Er.

"Well... simply speaking, it is the measure of the energy a kind of food can give to you. For example, meat or sweets are high calories. Greens are low calories. Leafy greens like celery - very low calories. Water - no calories." - I try to explain - "It's connected to a higher understanding of energy and could be used to draw a parallel between burning something, eating something and pushing something, but I'm honestly not sure where to even begin explaining without lots of paper and at least a couple of different books from the library to point out the references."

She hums. "So... Some food has high energy and some food has low energy, right?" - she muses - "Would I be right in assuming that eating high-energy foods and not doing anything tiring will cause people to grow fat?"

I kiss her nose with a smile - "Acute as always, love."

She blushes and shakes her head - "Compared to you, I'm like a candle to a sun."

"Not a fair comparison. I have a much deeper well of knowledge to draw upon." - I rebuke her - "Besides, you are learning things at a great rate. I daresay you're the best scholar in this Academy, ability-wise."

"What about sir Lamarchand?" - she ripostes - "He is pretty capable on those grounds."

"Maybe, but I'm not sleeping with sir Lamarchand, am I?" - I tease her - "Jokes aside, dear, you have an advantage over him - you are not prone to losing yourself to your research. Lemand would pursue things well beyond the limits of rational. Or even beyond the limits of healthy curiosity. Which, besides the obvious dangers, can also hamper you by leading you on a scholar's equivalent of a wild goose chase. In a dark room full of black cats. None of which is a goose."

"That sounds... complicated, yes." - she admits - "At least he had calmed down after he was able to ask all those questions."

I cringe. The day after the dream TV, Lemand approached me in the library and posed so many questions I thought I'd have to answer them till midnight. It thankfully wrapped up earlier than that, but he had, presumably, internalized that he is not doomed to open a portal to hell, that this is merely one of possible futures that just became that much less possible simply because he became aware of it and would do his level best to avoid going anywhere close to the ruin, as he termed it. I hope the lesson took well, because otherwise I might start doing something mentally invasive to Lemand to discourage him, and that is liable to cause complications. I really want to keep him active as a magic researcher, if it's at all possible without risking opening up a door for things I really don't want anywhere near my loved ones.

"Here's hoping he got the lesson downpat, yes." - I quip - "I'd hate to eat his head if he wasn't."

Moon Unit lets out a somewhat nervous giggle. "You wouldn't..." - she begins, trails off and leans to look me in the eye - "...You totally would. Wouldn't you?"

I nod absentmindedly, and stroke Moon Unit's head - "Not something I'd do casually, but yes. If it is absolutely necessary, I won't hesitate to eliminate anyone who might threaten... this." She responds to kiss easily and gently, her worries about me eating heads apparently assuaged. Or at least, set aside for later.