Derek expected more of a reaction from this crowd than he was currently receiving. They seemed to be much less enthused than he had imagined. He turned to his grandfather who sighed, “Don’t be daft boy. Arrogant claims don’t convince anyone. You need to explain your plan and possibly even prove its viability first.”

The other smiths were nodding. One man among them spoke up, “He’s right boy. We know you are a Disciple and that you have great skill in crafting, but most of us have apprentices older than you. Many of us are in a tight spot right now and we would need a compelling argument to take a risk on your proposal. Bold words are never enough.”

This made a lot of sense to Derek as their very futures were at stake right now. He cleared his voice, “Quite right. I got a little ahead of myself. Let’s talk first of the problem that faces the Rune Smiths of Windreach city.

“A large number of smiths have taken bad contracts out with House Fontana. Any smith who breaches the contract will be penalized with servitude to the House. For all of us here, this is alarming enough, but the true crux of the problem lies in the House’s control over the supply of the materials we need to produce our goods.

“By possessing this monopoly on quality steel, House Fontana is in a position to eventually force the smiths of this city into harsher and harsher contracts until they are all forced into serving the House. That is the most important point and that is why I have brought you here, to discuss what we can do to break the House’s monopoly.

“To that end, we have invited two guests to officiate this meeting. The first is Priest Cnut of the Great Forge; I am certain you have all at least seen him there. The second is Arbitrator Nolan of the House of Weath. As a servant of the God of Merchants he is oath bound to arbitrate fairly for all sides in a contract. Priest Cnut, Arbitrator Nolan, if you will.”

Priest Cnut stepped forward, “It is a pleasure to see you all. I will represent the interests of the Church of the Forge God in this, as he is interested in seeing these underhanded dealings be stopped.”

The Arbitrator was next, a man in gold and red stepped forward from where he had been seated, “The Church of the God of Wealth has guaranteed the contracts that you have all signed so we will be forced to enforce them no matter how they go, but our doctrine is to favor successful completion of a contract and to encourage the growth of industry, not allow it to become stifled due to an individual or small group’s self interest. I have been requested by the High Priest to participate in this meeting and any further dealings as an advisor and notary.”

Derek nodded to the two men. “Thank you both for coming.”

Turning to the others, he continued, “The problem may seem dire, but if we look candidly at the situation as it is, we find that it is not as dire as we first make it out to be. Windreach imports over two hundred tonnes of iron ore a month from the mines in Westmont. The harbor imports an additional five hundred tonnes of iron ore, iron or steel ingots. Ignoring the city’s strategic reserves, at any given time there is usually two to three thousand tonnes of iron available at the market, whether it be ore, iron, or steel.

“Of these two to three thousand tonnes, only about two hundred tonnes of it is the quality steel needed to produce armor and weapons and only about fifty tonnes of it is produced or imported every month. House Fontana has spent quite heavily in buying up the smelters of the high quality steel and all of the imported stock every month.

“This cannot be cheap and in the long term will eventually fail as more and more cheaper high quality steel gets brought to the city by other merchants. Eventually they will not be able to continue to purchase all of the steel on the market and their local monopoly will collapse. They are not stupid enough to strangle their own trade with high prices, so clearly their goal is the people who would buy it. Their target is you, the Rune Smiths of the city and these contracts of yours are merely one part of it.”

Derek looked around the room to see if the others were following his line of reasoning. A few of the smiths, Priest Cnut, and Arbitrator Nolan were nodding in agreement with what he had said so far. A few of the others had stony looks on their faces, as if they hadn’t followed or were annoyed by his speech. While the rest could not be read, giving away no indication of their thoughts on this topic. His grandfather simply smiled at him, encouraging him to continue.

One of the more temperamental smiths in the room finally spoke up, “Well, out with it boy. If all you brought us here to do was to waste our time telling us the problem we are in, then I would rather spend my day trying to come up with a solution. I don’t have time to listen to inane prattle.”

Derek smiled at the man, “I apologize if that was a bit long winded, but I believe I have accurately stated the problem now and knowing the problem I can now propose my solution. It is simple and will solve both the short term problem of needing high quality steel to complete your contracts and the long term problem of House Fontana’s attempt to manipulate this market and coerce you all.”

With that, Derek pulled twenty bars of the lower quality steel from his pouch and placed them on the work bench in front of him for all of them to see. He then continued, “This is the lower grade steel that can be purchased throughout the city. House Fontana has deemed it beneath their notice. Unlike the two hundred tonnes of high grade steel House Fontana has bought up, there is easily seven to eight hundred tonnes of this in the city right now, all of it available at decent prices and with that much material for our process available, we can break the back of House Fontana’s plans altogether.”

He smiled, stepping forward and calling out his sprites and the sprites of his grandfather’s shop. The old man had nurtured quite a few over the years. As they came forward from the various places and tools within the shop, Derek began guiding them with his rune casting. He guided them into the first bar, which he tasked Sylph with holding in place in the air in front of him and Aurora with illuminating so that the others could see the changes being made to the bar.

He instructed the fire, light, dark and air sprites to control the temperature of the bar, while the earth, chaos, and order sprites manipulated the material directly and the water sprites quenched it in oil. After a short few minutes, the ten kilo ingot had now been refined. Derek smiled as he looked at the others. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the refining process by which we can solve this current problem.

“By my calculations, with the sprites on hand and sufficient mana resources, we can keep five Rune Smiths working on this full time, and one Rune Smith can complete one hundred to one hundred and fifty kilos of refining per hour. That would come out to six to nine tonnes of refined steel per day. In just the first day of work, we will have created enough to fulfill the material requirements for all of your contracts. Please inspect it, I assure you that this refined steel is at least as good as what house Fontana is buying up.”

The others came forward to inspect the refined steel. The quality was indeed at the level they needed. As they began speaking excitedly amongst each other, Derek spoke again, “I took the liberty of buying fifty tonnes of low grade steel for this process. I am willing to sell the refined steel at the original market price for this quality of steel, but I have another suggestion.

“To really break House Fontana’s monopoly, we will need much more steel and we will need to make a concerted effort to push into the steel market. Just one or two of us alone won’t be able to affect the market enough to achieve this though, so my suggestion is that we form some kind of contract that we will all work together to achieve this. To this end, I would seek Arbitrator Nolan’s advice.”

Nolan thought for a minute before he spoke up, “Your use of sprites to further refine the steel is a great shortcut but it won’t be sufficient long term, nor do I think it is the best use of these sprites as the use of a Grandmaster’s forge to merely create refined steel would be a tragedy. For now though, it seems reasonable.

“My suggestion for you all is to form an Association and establish rules in that Association for how you will do business with each other and collaborate in the future. All members of the Association should buy into it to have an equal stake within it, whether through the use of resources or labor. Of course, to go with the cost of joining, there should be a benefit, such as preferential prices on goods produced by the Association for members.

“From there, with the existence of the Association in place and the capital on hand, the purchase of further tonnes of this lower quality steel could be guaranteed and after the initial effort of refining the steel has borne fruits further methods of refining could be pursued. To put the intended pressure on House Fontana, I suggest you begin undercutting their steel prices by ten percent. This will force them to lower their prices or purchase your goods.

“If they lower their prices, you lower yours again, until the price settles back to where it should be, or until they purchase your product. If they purchase your goods at any point, you continue to introduce goods to the market to force them to keep their prices competitive. If things turn out in your favor, they will not be able to continue this business model and they will have to give up their idea of monopoly.”

One of the men in the room spoke up at that point, “And if they don’t go in our favor.”

The Arbitrator looked at him, then at the others. “If things don’t go in your favor, then your opponents will outspend you, and you will instead go out of business. Looking at this situation, though, It is harder to raise the price of something arbitrarily high than it is to suppress the price. Especially when you consider that your opponent’s finances are already strained by their efforts.

“That is my suggestion at least, use of it what you will.”

The people of the room turned and started talking to each other. Derek spoke quietly with his grandfather, Priest Cnut, and the Arbitrator for a while before stepping forward once again and interjecting, “After taking the Arbitrator’s advice into consideration, I have this suggestion to make then.

“I suggest that we move forward with the plan of an Association. The buy in would be the purchase of one tonne of high quality steel at the original market value. What say you?”

With that, negotiations began. With the expert advice of Arbitrator Nolan, the Windreach Rune Smith’s Association was founded. It was notarized both by the Church of the God of Wealth and the Church of the Forge God. The two churches had been given honorary membership in the association, with important positions for the two men involved. Entry into the organization was set at the fair cost of one tonne of refined steel or the labor to produce two.

The benefit of joining the Association was the ability to purchase goods from the Association at a significant discount and the ability to subcontract out work at competitive rates to other members of the Association. Each member of the Association would also receive a dividend from any successful ventures of the Association.

Their next courses of action as lined out by Arbitrator Nolan were to hire and elect representatives of the Association to work for the interest of the Association as a whole and handle its business deals, to acquire storage for the Association’s goods and a storefront to sell them, to spread the word among other Rune Smiths in the city, and finally to commence the work on the refined steel plan.

Derek smiled as he watched the Rune Smiths leave to commence their tasks in the whole plan. He was feeling very confident that they would be able to succeed. His grandfather walked up beside him and spoke, “Derek, this is only the beginning. The plan looks good for now, but we have yet to see what House Fontana will do about it. Don’t expect things to be so easy.

“That said, there is now fifty tonnes of low quality steel in my yard. Why don’t you use the remaining part of your time before classes to start refining it?”