"Yes, Remian?"

"How much tunneling did you guys do on the East Side? The whole thing broke apart…"

"Quite a lot."

"One more thing."

"What?"

"We need to spy on Fal'Herim."

Remian rubbed his forehead back at the Adventurers Guild Hall, sitting with Tim, George and Mindy for breakfast. At the next table, six Lynxmice appeared to be listening to one hero Lynxmouse chitter over a stack of cheese, and at the table after that, five wolfcat cubs appeared to be minding their own business chowing down on their own food, but their ears kept twitching as the Lynxmouse told his stories.

Fal'Herim; that was what the Secret Waves chief said. His claims were backed by Fal'Herim.

Why of all places, did it have to be the nearest and only city for a thousand miles? Fal'Herim was practically Frontier Town's lifeline. One look at a map could tell anyone that the Desert King's citadel controlled Frontier Town; Remian just hadn't realized the extent of that control until now.

Market prices and the hiring costs were one thing. Summoning Beast Waves to keep the town oppressed… that was something else.

Was it possible that the Desert King only knew about the drugs, and not about the Beast Waves? That the Fisherman had somehow concocted the lure all by himself?

Not likely. Were that the case, he would have conquered all of the Frontier a long time ago. But something or someone had kept him in check, something or someone had been supplying him the crystals and receiving his information and giving him orders.

Someone was behind him, and it seemed to be the Desert King himself.

"Are you sure? I mean, it's a long way across the desert, and the sands aren't very conductive to tunnels…"

"I was thinking to send over a few squads of Lynxmice by airs.h.i.+p."

"Ah… right."

"We also need to scout the entirety of Shadowflash Fief." Remian remembered how Carrie refered to Shadowflash's territory. "To know every resource we can use, including the kind that grow."

"That's… a very tall order." Tim managed. "Miik's clan is going to be spread thin for a while. Even with their birth rates, covering the entire Fief and Fal'Herim…"

"They don't need to stay there, just mark the locations and move on."

"Ah… right."

"How are your funds holding up? With the East Side gone and all…"

"We should be fine for a couple of years. After that… it depends on just how much the Miik Clan grows." Tim trailed off. "Properly taken care of, their numbers can really explode. I'm talking millions of them running around after two years."

"That many?" Remian blinked.

"Every litter can have up to twenty. At the very minimum, there should be about eight." Tim pointed out. "They can give birth three times a year. Furthermore, they mature in six months. There's already about a hundred of them, twenty-plus of whom are females of age of bear cubs. Four months later, the next generation would mature and that number could easily double, plus those twenty could have maybe two or three hundred new cubs. Four months later, you get twice as many births, and the first generation from today would have matured, so maybe a hundred to two hundred mature birthing mothers. In one year, their numbers would be increasing by the thousands every trimester, and their growth numbers themselves would be climbing by the thousands. By the second year, we'll be counting in tens of thousands."

"Somebody was definitely paying attention in math cla.s.s." George muttered.

"Therefore, please understand when I say that I really can't be sure whether we can afford to feed them all with commercial-grade cheese by then." Tim explained.

"Why are we feeding them all? I only promised them 25 kg a day."

"That was just to start with. Once you asked them to learn human language, I had to offer them bits as treats for everything more I asked them to do. Just one cla.s.s of fifty Lynxmice could easily burn through two hundred treats in an hour. That's easily 1 kg right there. Sending them on new missions that you never specified earlier mean offering more, especially if it's to steal something. At this point, 5 kg a day on top of your 25 would be conservative."

"And how much does commercial-grade cheese cost?"

"The cheapest commercial grade cheese made and sold by Deutero itself costs 50 Lir a kilogram. And I do mean The Cheapest. The good stuff can go for up to 100 Lir a kilogram."

"Let's stick to the Deutero version. How much did you spent on cheese this month?"

"This month? I think I've already given them a metric ton of cheese, 1000kg. That's 50,000 Lir and there's still half a month to go." Tim shook his head. "But most of the cheese rewards were for stealing coin from the Secret Waves. That money pit had tens of millions of Lir."

"Tens of millions?! Goodness, Tim how much money did your Lynxmice steal from them?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but I think… at least thirty million."

Remian choked.

"Gimme!" Mindy jumped up at once, eyes wide.

"Mindy, I can't just give you all that money! We need to keep paying the Lynxmice! It already costs 100,000 Lir a month and I expect that number would increase exponentially if you want to teach all of them to learn human language, and scout all the Wildlands…"

"I'll sell you shares in our airs.h.i.+p fleet!" Mindy said, following the example Charlie and Remian had set with Kaleo. "You give me the money now, I'll use it to buy the airs.h.i.+p parts, and you'll get a share of the profits!"

"Forty percent." Tim offered. "And the rest on loan. You'll have to pay me back in two years."

Goodness, children really did learn from examples quickly.

"Five years!" Mindy tried. "Say, Remian, how much money do I get for s.h.i.+pping ores to town from the mines? Seeing as it's my airs.h.i.+p…"

"Wait, I thought Remian owned the airs.h.i.+ps." George cut in, looking a bit sour.

"The parts came from the Adventurer's Guild. The Guild owns the airs.h.i.+p." Remian pointed out.

"But I made it! Don't I get at least a share?"

Remian glanced at the others. It was fair. George had owners.h.i.+p of the farm. Tim could actually claim owners.h.i.+p of all the money the Lynxmice collected. Shouldn't Mindy have owners.h.i.+p of her work too?

"You can choose." Remian decided. "Either you own half and the Guild owns half due to the parts used, or you own the whole airs.h.i.+p and would need to pay for the parts with points."

"I'll pay the points! The airs.h.i.+p is mine!!" Mindy pounced.

"Then what do you need money for?" Tim asked.

"For the third airs.h.i.+p! The Tug!" Mindy said. "We're going to need powerful magic-drive engines and crystal power plants, mana modulator systems and… and…"

"She's right. She's going to have to buy expensive parts. It will cost millions." Remian summarized. "And without the Tug, the Sky Barge won't really be able to move. It would just be a floating platform inching around."

"I could use some money too." George cut in, then. He turned to Tim. "Given enough equipment, we can actually rear cows and start a dairy farm. That means we can make our own cheese. How would you like to own half?"

"Now, THAT sounds like something I need!" Tim jumped for it.

Remian wondered if now was the time he should voice his reservations about human methods of dairy farming in front of the Wilds…

But when he voiced them, Tim shook his head. "I don't think they're going to get violent over that. I mean, I don't see you declaring war on Fal'Herim or other human countries for condoning slavery. The Desert King doesn't treat his slaves much better than the cattle at a dairy farm sometimes, and those slaves really are our own kind. To the likes of Wolfcats and Lynxmice, cows are basically prey; animals that they eat. We're the same in that sense."

"I thought as much, at one time. Still… just treat the cows better." Remian nudged George. He turned back to Tim. "Speaking of Fal'Herim, keep in mind that they might turn hostile on us sooner or later."

Tim glanced out the window toward the western settlement, and all those who 'belonged' to the Desert King living there freely. "Noted."

"Now, let's talk about our airs.h.i.+p fleet."

The conversation carried on well into lunch time.

Deutero charged the Iron Legion 5 Lir per kilogram per day for s.h.i.+pping rates. But seeing as the Sky Barge wasn't going anywhere, they could reduce that to 2 Lir a kg a day. The Sky Barge was expected to be able to carry up to 40 tons of cargo and still remain in the air (no pa.s.sengers). At 2000 Lir a ton, it could make 80,000 Lir a day just carrying cargo without moving.

Moving it would be the Tug's job, and that one had its own price tags.

As for shares; Mindy and Remian traded 10% of the mines out of his share for 10% of her fleet. This included not just KarGoth, but all the future mines of the Wildlands. Naturally, this also came with the expectation that Mindy's fleet would one day cover all of the Wildlands to match. The tentative deal was, Mindy's fleet grow to at least 5 Gunboats, and 10 Skybarges by the time Remian claimed all the mines in Shadowflash Fief (based on Charlie's outdated maps). If Tim found new and unexpected resources while scouting out the Fief, they could adjust the terms accordingly.

Of course this required a lot of trust on both sides, along with matching ideas of fairness and honor. Remian wouldn't be so quick to deal in such a way with just anyone, but this was Mindy. She was his sister-in-law. She was family.

Mindy herself held the largest share, at 50% of the fleets; Tim owned 40%. Even this might not be enough to fund the espionage department for long, but Remian a.s.sured him it wouldn't be that hard; they didn't have to 'hire' ALL the Lynxmice, just as many as they needed, and as such, cap a limit on their spending. Plus, having a share in the cheese production of George's farm should help a lot.

Was it strange that his local business partners were less than twelve years old? Remian didn't think so. This all seemed like part of his care for them, like part of their lessons, their training.