《Gratuitous Item Crafting and Descriptions (and shoddy economics)》Silver Steel Ingot
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In the late-morning after the wild house-party celebrating the big sale, Jimmy wandered through the metal markets and noticed that Silver-Steel was several times more expensive than silver, and silver was several times more expensive than steel, despite the fact that silver-steel was 4 parts steel and 1 part silver (roughly, anyway, there was always variation based on what was needed and the part of the piece). All that was needed was the knowledge of how to make the alloy, the tools, and fuel and time.
An idea hatched in Jimmy's mind: why not buy up enough silver and steel to make a bunch of silver-steel ingots at significant profit - and the beauty of ingots were that they were more fungible so you didn't need to hunt for buyers as much - and then use that profit to stockpile ingots for his own personal use once he noticed the prices fall a bit?
Grinning ear-to-ear, he spent a bunch of coin for the silver and steel - but then he remembered that steel was pretty easy to make as it was just iron and some coal and what-not and he could make it pretty fast - and bought a bunch of the reagents to make steel at an even cheaper price.
Grinning ear-tip to ear-tip - wider than before - he bought a swathe of the stock on offer and got a couple of labourers to help him out carrying the cartloads of reagents to his smithy. The ingots and coal and fuel piled high.
Time to get cracking! Bellows pumping, all tools ready and Jimmy went into his calm mass-production mode that he hadn't had the opportunity or need for before this. He started on making the steel from the iron and carbon chunks.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Whoosh of the furnace and clanking of the hammer. Crude iron and coal was steadily processed into valuable steel ingots, and stacked in a half-burnt corner where he'd forgotten to prepare it properly but fortunately the place didn't burn down. His fingers did get a little singed but his ring fortunately quickly sussed that out.
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Copper coins worth of crude iron became silver coins worth of processed iron into big silver coins worth of steel ingots. Hours of effort to multiply petty change into a decent living. Into what armoursmiths would be very happy to have to get through several orders. Jimmy's money making powers were quite extraordinary.
But this was just the beginning.
Once he had processed all the iron into excellent steel - obviously sorting it buy the type of steel as there were some variations as you needed different tolerances and tortion rates and slightly different density to get the perfect results - half relying upon smell and his demi-god craftsman other senses, he started on adjusting the temperature and moving things about to get his alloying of the silver with the steel.
Silver was very expensive. Even with the massive windfall it wasn't enough for as much as he could possibly need or want, but it was still a very large amount relatively. Being a little careful to avoid messing up - not that that happened to him as such - he reviewed the proportions and got to work. Expensive silver and costly steel were combined and forged into ridiculously expensive Silver Steel.
A reason why Silver Steel was so expensive was that it was good against a variety of dark magic creatures, it didn't rust, it was stronger and lighter, it looked better, and it could also hold enchantments better and magnified them somewhat. It was also rare enough that it was hard to get much of it, but not rare enough that only the richest could afford it. Since it only required significant levels of wealth as opposed to ridiculous levels to make an item or two, skills to craft it were present enough that supply of Silver Steel craftmanship was vaguely obtainable and thus could be witnessed and experienced and bring demand.
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It was a little how exceptionally expensive foods, if as common as bread and butter, would be less valued. Because some things were not actually that amazing, whereas Bread and Butter are staples not just because they are easily obtainable, but because they are amazing. If given a choice between the most expensive Dragon meat and a good sandwich, at least some portion of the population would refuse the Dragon meat and go after what they know is bloody good no matter how much you have of it.
In this way, Silver Steel was known to be bloody good that pretty much any decent mercenary outfit or military would have a few weapons of it or the most important officer would have an unenchanted breastplate or neck armour to help stop assassination attempts. This meant that if you increased supply of Silver Steel, it would have demand and be able to be used immediately. It was arguably impossible to satiate as anything you wanted steel for, you'd be happy to use Silver Steel for as it's a direct upgrade.
So, Jimmy didn't need to worry about permanently screwing up the market for Silver Steel. People would hurriedly buy it and the ingots would be made into gear within the year or two. Heck, it might actually increase demand for his specialist wares as enchanted goods were very hard to make if you weren't partially divine. The mana costs and methodology were very weird and hadn't been studied enough.
All of which was on his sub-conscious as he half-mindlessly processed many ingots of Silver Steel, and once he was done it was late at night and he realized he probably needed to bring the precious ingots inside for safe keeping.
With the majority of the raw reagents processed into the goods that met his standard and would make ridiculous sums without negative consequences, he had a big meal and went to bed very happy and ready for another busy day. He'd sell a bunch of ingots and then craft something very nice for himself and something for profit.
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