*** Chapter 27 Day 53 Santos and Company ***

“Help me remove the armor,” Santos said. He dropped his shield and thrusted the spear lance into the ground.

“The tent is quite small,” Solfrid stated.

After the talks with the elders concluded they were guided to a tent that was moderately larger than most. Inside the tent was a sort of furred nest and no other coverings provided.

“How are we going to not freeze to death?” Maira asked as she started to fiddle with the straps on his chest plate. Solfrid started to help with the leg pieces undoing the straps.

Santos help onto the chest plate as it came loose, with the sides undone he removed it like a shirt and placed it down as the two girls removed the rest of the leg pieces. He unstrapped the boot pieces himself as the girls removed their lighter gear, the helped each other unstrap the chest plate pieces.

“Well I don’t know about the two of you,” Santos said. He wasn’t a man to shy away from a chance as he laid down nonchalantly in the fur nest like bedding provided by their hosts. “But, this spot looks well enough to sleep on.”

The two girls looked at each other, Solfrid was the first to move and laid down next to Santos, Maira on the other hand hesitated for a second. She wasn’t sure she should do the same, but then figured that they had already done worse and it was ridiculous to hesitate now.

“What did the salamander guy say?” Maira asked as she laid down next to Santos.

“That depending on where the monsters come from,” he said, “we are either gonna have a solution to the problem or things are going to be very complicated.”

“Are you talking about what the elder said?” Solfrid asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “We have to find where the monsters are coming from, once we do we are going to get a lot of answers, some of which we might not like to know.”

*** day 53 and some time onward ***

With the knowledge imparted by the elders of the salamander people Santos took action and rallied warriors from the villages informing them of a threat looming close to home. Those that would join would be imparted armor and weapons in order to fight the threat. This bumped up the production of the forge forcing Santos to once again exert himself as he attempted to arm those that volunteered promising allegiance to the Fortino family as a prerequisite of acquiring the tools with which to defend their homes.

In this time, the workshop of the forge was expanded, several of those who now rallied under the family banner aided in its expansion and in the production of the weapons and armor. This multiplied productivity greatly and within weeks Santos was producing enough armor and weapons to fully suit four people per day and productivity simply increased by day.

Due to the increase in workload matters within the family were kept underwraps and Maira managed to keep herself around Santos up until the workshop’s expansion got to the point that it included a two story cabin beside it as living space. There the girls had a room to themselves, as did Roald, while Maira and Solfrid stayed with Santos. This arrangement was hardly accepted by the family, but the influence and power Santos was beginning to accumulate kept them at bay.

The first expedition into the salamander gate, as it was being called by Santos which eventually caught on, was a force of fifteen. This was a mixture of members of the family and a few allied villagers. As always the two girls were at his side.

The villagers were far more timid than those of the family, some even ran away during the first fight when they encountered one of the big pale monsters, only to later rejoin the fight finding courage in themselves as they witnessed Santos fighting the beast on par. The expedition lasted one more fight, stopping only after discovering the nest of the monsters. There were five of the big ones and at least eighty of the smaller ones.

Santos called a retreat and then returned only after telling the elders that they would be back once they could muster a larger force to wipe out the nest in one go.

Day eighty one, nearly thirty days since the discovery of the salamander gate, the second expedition set off. This time the force numbered over forty warriors. Many tales were told of how Santos could fight and kill pale beasts so large that it would take a stack of three of the smaller ones to measure its height. The forest people had never seen the larger kind and were horrified by the stories, but encouraged by the fact that they could be defeated.

With the salamander population drastically reduced, they could only send five firemanders, their only true fighting force as support in the battle. This initially brought confusion to the warriors of the forest, but once it was explained that they too were victims of the monsters and that enemies of the enemies should be our friends things ran somewhat smoother. There was distrust and general fear between the two groups due to the lack of communication and vast difference in biology.

The battle was hard fought and a number of the warriors were wounded, but none were killed and even then a strange phenomenon took place. Every critical wound would be immediately engulfed in green flames recovering the injury to the point that it was no longer threatening. The phenomenon could not be explained and its origin could not be discovered.

Santos took advantage of the fact that the salamanders could climb trees and had initially drawn the creatures out of their nest and into the forest where the firemanders were waiting. There the manders spit out small napalm fireballs that would critically wound or kill the smaller of the monsters and would severely injure the larger ones keeping them from utilizing their full might. The battle was a slaughter, it was almost laughable how easily their enemies were defeated.

Once the last had fallen it was time to rebuild.

The small force was disbanded and all weapons and armor were reclaimed.

This is where the social structure, culture, and economy began to evolve. Once Santos had paid the people of the plains for the horses in swords, they continued to desire to trade for more. Their battle with the pale monsters continued and they were in constant need to be resupplied. With the few horses Santos had acquired he managed the trade between the villages, the family even had a two horse wagon that was built within the growing carpenter workshop. This wagon had been dubbed “the train” as it passed through a specific route through the majority of the forest before returning to the family home to unload gathered trade and reload outgoing trade.

To continue trade a deal had to be struck. It was struck in the only way Santos could fathom conceivably viable, in rare metals. A value was accorded to each metal, one sword crafted by their craftsmen would equate to one pound of pure undiluted silver, and one pure pound of undiluted gold would be worth a hundred pounds of silver. Cents and dimes were devised so that the two rare metals could be further divided into smaller divisions. 1 gold cent was worth one silver pound and one once hundred silver cents were worth one silver pound. Thankfully there had been a working scale within the house and it had been used to measure the units. This trade deal took place only a week after the discovery of the salamander gate and did not conclude until days just before the final expedition would enter the gate.

In the first proper transaction the people of the plains arrived with three pounds of gold and a hundred in silver. Due to the recent expeditions Santos had crafted well over fifty light plate armor sets and twice that many swords, countless spear heads and arrow heads.

It had become well known that Santosian Steel, as it was being called by all who know the name of the blacksmith, was far sharper and more durable than any metal sword or piece of armor crafted by the people of the plains. A proper price was eventually accorded that placed a Santosian sword at one silver pound, seven silver dimes and five silver cents. The light plate armor set was harder to price as some of the leather was damaged and a few plates had scratches, but an average price was accorded at seven pounds and five dimes per set.

Half of the agreed upon payment was left as an advancement as it was agreed that the people of the plains would be in charge of transporting the goods back, this had been one of the largest contesting points that lowered the price of what was being bought.

After the expedition was concluded a deal was struck with the elders of the salamanders, a small fortress would be built around their gate that would impede entry to anyone except for those to whom the gates would open for. In return for this Santos asked to be allowed to use a section of the interior to set up a forward base so that the people of the plains could come and collect the goods there.

When the first caravan arrived to collect and deposit the remaining rare metals something unexpected happened, the caravan left behind refugees. The villages of the forest would not be able to sustain more people, something needed to be done so that they would not starve and die escaping the warzone that was the plains. Since the transaction of the last half of the payment had to take place then, Santos had been with the group that went to collect. He spoke with the refugees and came to an agreement with them, he would allow them to stay, but they would have to help with the development of the outer fortress as well as the inner base.

The people of the plains had asked for more weapons and armor, even asked for full plate sets which were far more expensive than the light plate. He would need work horses and that meant developing horse stables inside the salamander gate as well as gathering hay as well as nuts from the forest.

An elder refugee proposed to gather and trade the needed food supply for the horses, in exchange for food. Since not everyone could gather it meant that the distribution of food would be unequal. This was resolved when the sun crystals were discovered.

The salamander gate was among the smaller class of chaos gates, barely any bigger than twenty miles across, some chaos gates could reach up to a hundred miles across, though the average ranged around eighty. The refugees had discovered that the site of the pale monsters’ nest had been made at the entrance of a cave system that led deep and far. The monsters could have easily hidden inside if not for the sun stones, crystals that shone brightly when in the dark.

The salamanders had explained that the crystals were common in chaos gates, especially those that were more maze and cave like. Santos offered to pay them to mine the crystals, the strategic value of the crystals was invaluable, considering their enemy. This unintentionally exploded into the establishment of a growing economy based on rare metals.

What sparked this economic evolution was when Santos created a deal with the people of the plains to buy just enough food to maintain the refugees while he developed a more permanent solution. When wind reached the villagers of the forest that trades were being done in silver there was a commotion of people asking for direct prices for products made by Santos. He had stopped producing most things the villagers asked for except for weapons and armor, arrows and other such things. This had created a massive pool of demand with no supply in sight.

An epoch akin to that of a golden age occurred, as people could now sell to Santos and buy from him, as well the people were no longer bound to the need to produce out of self preservation, but out of desire for personal gains and growth. This inspired several ventures.

Some of the developments would take time to show their profits, but the wonder and marvel of being able to directly acquire what was desired as long as someone was there to take the silver motivated the people.