“My lord, here are the records for requested goods.” The man drops a heavy ledger on top of the other one already sat on Reud’s desk. Bowing, he retreats to the corner of the room, waiting in silence. The man, Rowan, was one of the people recruited by Rachel to act as Srinaber’s governing body, and so far he’d proven his worth many times over.

Reud studies the books with resignation. He’d much prefer to be going over the notes recovered from the Seeker compound instead of looking into requisition limits for the city. Sadly, however, it needed to be done. Someone had to sign off on all these requests, and currently that duty fell to him.

Opening the ledger, he begins leafing through. Neat rows of spiralling script line the pages, listing names and what they requested, when they requested it, the reason for doing so, and if it was granted. Hundreds of these records fill the book.

“How do you work out who deserves what with this?” Reud asks, looking up at Rowan. “There’s just so many requests!”

“I’m afraid so, my lord.” Rowan says with a bow. “The city has grown rapidly, and as per your requests, we have been supplying what people need. It is difficult, however, to make sure that we being fair and equal in our treatment of all citizens.”

“I can see why…” Reud says, looking through a page of the ledger. Apparently, one person had requested a number of wooden planks, a selection of berries, and a number of nails. Another had asked for a variety of fabrics. How do you even balance the worth of one against another? “Do we have any records of who has the claimed what they are due, against those who are still deserving of more?”

“Beyond that ledger, no.” Rowan says, gesturing at the book on Reud’s desk. “As a result, to fulfil a request requires going through the ledger to determine if the recipient has already received their dues. It takes time to do so, and with the city population increasing it becomes more and more difficult to do so.” A look of concern flashes over Rowan’s face. “Not that the administration you hired isn’t up to the challenge, we will just have to work harder to keep things running smoothly. I just thought the issue was something that should be brought to your attention.”

Reud sits back in his chair, thinking. The man was right, going through all these records for each request may have worked when the population was small, but it would quickly become unmanageable.

“I do, however, have some possible ideas for a solution,” Rowan says. “We had some discussions, the other administrators and I. It’s not a full plan, but I thought I would bring it to you anyway.”

Reud waves at the man to continue.

“Well we were thinking, if we had some sort of token we could distribute that people could redeem for the goods, we wouldn’t have to track so many individual requests. We could also then set a number of tokens that particular goods require, and let people pick and choose what they use their token allowance for.” Rowan explains. “We already tried handing out coins directly, but people just took it and left the city. We need something that isn’t directly money to use.”

Reud nods. “That sounds logical. What parts of the plan are missing?”

“Firstly, how to produce these tokens. They need to be difficult to replicate or people will just forge their own. We also want them to be durable, as we don’t want accidental damage to restrict people from being able to redeem what they desire.”

Reud strokes his chin. “So some sort of metal, stamped with a difficult to replicate pattern?”

“Just so, my lord,” Rowan says. “However, what metal to use? It needs to be easy enough for the city to acquire, so we can produce the tokens, but it also needs to be rare enough that people can’t get access to it easily, or we will have counterfeiters within the month. Finally, it needs to not have much intrinsic value or people will sell the tokens for their material worth outside the city.”

“I see, quite a specific requirement then.” Reud says.

Rowan nods. “We haven’t yet come up with anything suitable, which is why the solution isn’t yet complete.”

Reud sits back, thinking. Rudase was rich in deposits of iron, but beyond that not many other metals. Iron would not be suitable, for obvious reasons. Gold and silver we also mined from a few locations to the south, but that would not be suitable either. That just left the warped metals produced by Rudase’s dungeons.

Wait. If his memory served, wasn’t there a dungeon perfect for this nearby?

“Well, I may have an idea for a metal that will suffice,” Reud says, finally. “Though it will take a little effort to acquire. How long do we have before the current system becomes unviable?”

Rowan thinks for a moment. “We can continue for around another month before we need a new approach.”

“Right, that’s not a lot of time. Leave it with me.” Reud says.

Rowan bows. “Thank you, my lord. If you don’t mind me asking, where were you thinking of sourcing these metals?”

Reud smiles. “In the North Rudean Dungeon.”

***

With the clatter of bone on bone, another group of skeletons judder into motion, striding out of the city depths towards the surface. Reud watches them go with a sense of pride, marvelling at how quickly they acclimate to moving. Expertly animated, if he could be so bold. A far cry from the clumsy undead he’d shown Lilia all those months ago.

Since the city had been resettled, he’d reanimated a couple of hundred skeletons, sending them out to help in all manner of tasks around the city. So many, in fact, that he was starting to run low on viable bodies to use. The vast majority of the remains that once filled the catacombs had been lost in the… mistake. He had a number of bodies from magical beasts that Bo and his hunters had slain over the past month, mainly the giant wolves that infest the forest, but they weren’t really that useful to reanimate. An animal skeleton will never have the utility of a human one, no matter how advanced of a learning structure Reud builds into it.

With the skeletons on their way, Reud turns back to the notes recovered from the Seeker compound. They are currently spread out across a couple of tables, organized into rough piles based on topic. He hadn’t had much time to go through them yet, but the little he had been able to read was fascinating.

It seems the Seekers had been investigating the nature of affinities. The older notes referenced experiments done to try to transfer affinities between people, with no success, ending in the deaths of both parties. More recently, they had been attempting to induce the formation of an affinity in children already susceptible to doing so. Marla, Vorlo, and Hamo were all products of this research. However, it seemed that there were side effects experienced by most of the recipients of these treatments. Fatal side effects.

Apparently, a lot of funds had been poured into this project over the years, along with others dotted around Rudase and the other conquered territories. Maybe fifty for more installations across the continent. Evidently, this research was extremely important to Lightire. Why? Reud has no idea. What were they doing with so many mages?

Well, at least five mages are no longer in the clutches of Lightire. Now that they are here, Srinaber will protect them. The first step would be teaching them to use their affinities, only then could they start to support the city with their magics. Bringing back an adventurer class of the population would be essential to getting Rudase back on track. He’d have to talk to Lilia about founding the Royal Academy of Magic once again.

For now, however, he had a more interesting task to focus on. Delving a dungeon. He hadn’t been inside one for centuries, as none of the resources found within was useful to him as a necromancer. Dungeons were parts of the world, often underground, that had particularly high concentrations of ambient mana. As a result, they were packed full of magically mutated creatures and plants. Even the very rocks themselves warped from the influence of the magic. They were dangerous, but contained all sorts of materials that were valuable for crafting enchanted items.

A few leagues to the south-east of Srinaber stood the North Rudean Dungeon, also known as the Metalflow Caverns. A sprawling complex of caverns filled with magically infused ore. When the mana in the air surges, the ore melts, flowing out to coat the creatures that inhabit that strange place, forming into layers of armour as hard as steel, giving the place its name.

It had been a long time since Reud had been into the dungeon, but from what he remembers the ore had a distinctive greenish hue and a magical resonance that was almost impossible to replicate. A perfect ore for the token project.

Now they only had to clear out the monsters guarding it.