Eldovian Era 1713, 3rd day of the 6th month

"Kit?" asked Olly from the other work bench, "How big was that Rensmitt order again?"

Kit deactivated the Light Tool in his hand and flipped up his dark tinted goggles as he turned to look at Olly, "Ten each of the truth and protection charms, a lock set and a Clarity charm as well".

Olly ruffled his hair, it was getting too long. He'd need to cut it soon, if Kit could draw him out of the Charm Crafting Warehouse for long enough. Maybe he'd just have to bring the scissors in here. That'd probably work better.

"Still need two truth and a Clarity charm then," Olly said as he counted what was on the bench in front of him.

"I'm doing the Clarity now," Kit replied as he flipped his goggles back down and turned back to his work.

"I'll get the truth then," Olly spoke and Kit sensed it as he wondered off towards the crates of untouched Evanine to the side.

Kit activated the Light Tool again, moving the concentrated light in the elegant swirls of the clarity rune. He liked doing the clarity runes, they always made him feel refreshed and invigorated after he finished them. Sure enough, the familiar coolness cleared his over-worked mind as he put down the Light Tool, moving over to Olly's bench to put the Clarity Charm among the others in the order.

Over the past year and a half, Olly and Kit had been steadily getting busier and busier, to the point where they barely left the Warehouse, working nearly dawn to dusk every day to create the charms that had been ordered from the main shops on Rouke Island. Not only did they need to keep up with regular stock, an order of nearly six hundred charms per type, per week, but also any specialised orders that came in. Some were just of larger sized charms that contained more of the Mist, but others were charms that were inlaid into jewelry or other accessories. The Rensmitt order was one of these, the protection and truth charms having been styled to fit into specially fashioned belts to be worn under the clothing of regular shop attendants.

Luckily, Olly and Kit didn't have to also fashion the jewelry. Their only job was to carve the charms. Any stylized orders were dealt with in the warehouse next to theirs by the ten or so craftsman of varying professions. They'd been specially trained so that when they were inlaying the charms into the appropriate accessories, they didn't activate the Mist within then. Kit and Olly had tried to work in the opposing order for a few months, but it proved to be too difficult to carve the runes into the evanine without damaging the rest of the piece. Hence, they'd switched the order in which they did the work.

Kit moved to the side as Olly proceeded to carve the truth charms. Despite Kit technically being the teacher, Olly had picked up the art of carving the charms much faster than Kit. He was also twice as fast. Kit had been annoyed at first, having Olly surpass him in the job that Kit had been given originally was a bit of a blow to his confidence. But Kit had quickly gotten over it. Olly may have been excellent at carving the charms, but he had no desire to do much else regarding the business. Kit was the one that took in the orders and made sure they were on track. He was also the one that made sure Olly took breaks to sleep and eat. At first it had been a pain seeing how much bigger Olly was compared to him. After Kit had had quite the rapid growth spurt however, it had become somewhat easier. He was still shorter than Olly by about a head, coming up to his shoulders, but it was better than coming up to his chest.

Olly put down the completed truth charms and looked at Kit, "What's next?"

"Lunch," Kit said as he took the Light Tool out of Olly's hand and put it on the bench before steering him out of the warehouse, "Go and get something to eat, I'll join you after I drop off this order".

Olly clearly wanted to protest, but he'd learned not to over the past couple of years, that usually earned him a shove from the shadows rather than Kit's arms. The Shadows were less tolerant despite the fact they came from the same person.

Kit gathered the charms from the Rensmitt order and put them on a tray before he moved through a side door and down a hallway to the next warehouse.

"I've got the Rensmitt order," Kit called out as he kicked the door closed behind him. He put it on a bench as one of the craftsman, a middle aged man named Kei, moved towards him.

"Good, the leather from the belts are done, we just need to do the metal work".

"Sound good, it needs to go out in tomorrow morning's shipment," Kit replied.

"Not a problem," Kei replied, "We'll get it to the loaders this evening".

Kit acknowledged his words then headed for the door to meet Olly for lunch.

The business that they'd created was now running well. Falla had struggled at first to find a way to get the charms out of the mine and to Rouke Island without anyone noticing. It wasn't until Olly, and his great smuggling mind, came up with the idea of specially crafted crates that they had managed to find a way around it. The crates looked ordinary from the outside, but the inside was lined with Evanine that held both the protection rune and the locking rune. Not only did the crate lock up and become practically indestructible without a specific unlocking rune, they could also locked to each other and the carts that transported them. It was an ingenious system that Olly had created, and it meant that they no longer had to smuggle the Evanine in fabrics which was the system they'd used for the first few months.

Kit was not aware of the exact numbers in terms of their profits, but some of the names that came in on the orders let him know just how powerful some of their clients were. There was no way that Iah and Falla wouldn't be earning a fortune. A Fortune he'd been told that had been partially placed in accounts opened for both him and Olly. Kit had only requested an allowance for himself. He and Olly only took a 4 day break every month to the nearest town which was a day's ride away.

Olly waved at Kit from across the cafeteria. The Mine hadn't been all that well equipped when they'd initially arrived, but thanks to funds that Kit had requested, he'd built several warehouses for the different work stations as well as living quarters and a main dining hall for those that lived and worked there. The Miners and other workers had been quite astounded by his shadows at first, but once they saw how quickly everything came together (just two months to build several large buildings around the Mine), they'd been especially grateful to Kit for the new and improved facilities.

Kit sat down beside Olly who'd gotten a plate for him.

"They're serving pork stew," Olly grinned. Olly had a special love for pork. Clearly lunch was worth the separation from the runes this time around. Kit took up a spoon of his own. Just a quick lunch, then it'd be back to work.