The light from the sun stones had become dim, and night fell over the city of Allfrid.
Checking that their two new roommates were fast asleep, Lynn and Theo quietly slipped out of the room, careful not to make a sound.
They rode the elevator to floor 90, and headed for the town area on the outer block.
The busy, bustling streets of Allfrid at day now seemed like a mere fabrication. Now, at night, they were silent and still.
The streets they walked through were pitch black. Even the moon’s light, which would be mimicked by the sun stones, did not reach them.
The shutters were down on all the shops they passed, and the doors tightly locked. The houses and flats, too, showed no signs of activity. Their inhabitants had turned off the lights, and everyone was at that time, much like the city itself, very likely fast asleep.
Every so often, however, they would catch sight of an exception to this rule. There were, scarce as they might be- yet nevertheless scattered here and there- buildings which even at this late hour still emitted light, light which beckoned any wondering, lonely souls that might still be awake.
None of these premises, it should be said, were at all appropriate for any academy student. Instead, they catered to individuals who sought the indecent kind of entertainment, or indeed gratification.
Around such places, and on street corners, they sometimes caught sight of shadowy figures lurking in the shadows.
Taking care to give a wide berth around such dangers, the two boys pressed on through the streets at a brisk pace. They relied on the light emitted by their rings to aid them in the dark.
They moved as silently as possible, so as not to attract any unwanted attention, while moving as fast as they safely could.
When they reached the next street corner, Lynn decided to press Theo for answers. He spoke in a hushed but urgent voice.
“Theo, it’s so late, where are we going?”
“Shhh! You’ll see when we get there”.
Lynn shook his head in exasperation. There was nothing for it but to follow Theo’s lead.
After a while they had come to an area that was now in decline, and it was filled with derelict buildings, which showed no signs of human presence.
It must have once been an industrial district, but it was now nothing but a shell of its former self. Businesses likely moved their manufacturing to Renryll, where cheaper labour was plentiful.
Today it was a place for lost souls. The odd vagrant, some stray dogs and cats, and some crows were about the sum of its denizens.
Just one look at the area was enough to strike more than one uncanny note in one’s mind. Eerie, seedy, strange, these were all fair enough adjectives that could be used to describe the place. No honest person would ever find themselves exploring these streets.
Lynn was careful not to meet the eyes of anyone he saw lurking around. He focused on the road directly ahead of him, and kept his gaze lowered.
When they arrived at what must have been about the centre of the former industrial district, Theo entered a large building.
Outside, Lynn paused momentarily, before timidly following him inside.
The sight he was greeted with was a large open space. Across the floor, all kinds of old tools and machines were strewn about. The air smelled of rust and oil.
“It’s gross”, he muttered, grimacing at the stale, offensive smell.
“I did come here during the day to deodorize the place. I guess it needs another round though…”
Theo pulled a piece of paper out from his pocket. On it was drawn a fairy magic-magic circle, proof that a fairy resided within the paper.
“Fairy,” he began, uttering the words of the incantation, “remove from this place the smell that permeates it”.
Roused by the incantation, the fairy dwelling inside the paper awoke, and set about clearing up the smell of the place.
Sensing the air becoming cleaner and cleaner, Lynn relaxed.
“Theo, can you hurry up and explain what we’re doing here? What is this place?”
“This place, Lynn, is the figurative magic wand that will make us rich”.
Lynn, one eyebrow raised, shot him a strange look.
“Forget about theory for now, I’ll give you proof. Take a look at this room”, he said, leading him to a different room.
“My god…”
Before his very eyes, in the middle of that room, was an enormous hole in the ground.
This room, much like the last one, was large and spacious- and dark. But the darkness peeking out from the gaping hole in the floor was, somehow, an even thicker kind of darkness.
He felt a breeze coming from the hole, which caressed his skin, and made the fine hairs on his arms stand up. He got the sense that it was very deep. As a test he directed the light from his ring into the hole, but while the circumference was illuminated, the bottom was shrouded in darkness, its depth hidden.
“It’s really deep… Where on earth is it connected to?”
“Renryll”.
“What?”
“You know this place used to be an industrial area, right? Well this right here used to be used as a tunnel. They would transport ore and other materials, gathered from around and within Hedin Forest, in large quantities. It would pass through Renryll, and through tunnels like this. Now though, it’s as you see… No longer in use. Forgotten”.
“You did well finding this place”.
“Ever since I heard it was an industrial area, I thought it was strange, because for an industrial area it doesn’t have many elevators nearby. I figured there must be some kind of passage or transportation infrastructure that had gone out of use, and so I did some digging through old books and whatnot… And it turned out I was right on the money”.
Lynn found himself peering into the old tunnel while Theo told him about how he had discovered it. Compared to the elevators, which had become the standard means of transportation of people and cargo, the tunnel looked rough, crude even. It looked as if it had been dug carelessly, and the road surface that hugged the walls looked shoddy and treacherous.
It must have been mighty difficult to transport cargo up such tunnels, back when the magic that made possible the modern day elevators hadn’t been sufficiently developed. Lynn couldn’t help but think about, and admire, the hardships and pioneering that had transpired over the tower’s history.
“This tunnel isn’t even being managed by the Wizard’s Association, anymore. So basically, if we use it for ourselves, we can move as many goods from Renryll to Allfrid as we want, without paying any tax. As soon as we get the goods to floor 90, it belongs in Allfrid then. Going the official route from Renryll to Allfrid gets you taxed up to your eyes, as we’ve experienced, but if we can only get goods here safely, we can move them around the elevators in Allfrid without worry.
This tunnel is our key to opening up all sorts of possibilities. As soon as we get stuff up through here, into Allfrid, we can move it anywhere. To our house too, of course”.
“But, building an elevator… Can you do something like that?”
“Of course. Think about it- all an elevator is is a cage or a box, which is moved by mass magic. You don’t have to spend a fortune to get a cage or a box, it won’t set us back much purchasing something that’ll do the job. It’s just a case of setting up the elevator’s path, and after that all you do is chant the incantation as you usually do”.
I see now, so that’s why he was reading so many books on elevators and mass magic!
He finally understood what Theo had been up to lately. All of his strange behaviour finally made sense.
“Okay, I see… Well, we certainly could make an elevator and transport goods from Renryll to Allfrid, but Theo… I just worry that doing such a thing could land us in a lot of trouble”.
“Of course. That’s why we keep it hush-hush”.
From the very next day, the two boys began the age old process of good old trial and error.
At first, they ran into many problems.
They tried using magic to lift the cage upwards from the tunnel’s Renryll-side entrance, but it got snagged at different points on the way up, and suffered damage.
Each time that would happen, they would have to reevaluate their assessment of the tunnel. They would consult the diagrams and maps of the tower, along with old materials they dug up about of the old tunnels, and they would sit for hours together, debating what route to try the elevator on next.
With considerable effort, though, eventually they succeeded in removing all the obstacles that were in the way.
After that point, it wasn’t long before they were able to get the elevator to ride along the correct path up the tunnel.
The first time they saw the cage make it all the way to the Allfrid-side tunnel entrance, their first instincts were to celebrate- but then another problem presented itself.
The elevator was filled with sand, as well as being scratched up and in disrepair.
They decided to go with a different approach. This time they went with a tailor made a box design for the elevator, which had no holes, and they reinforced it with metal magic.
They went on to face many other issues, but they put their heads together and were able to solve each problem as it presented itself, and through trial and error eventually they succeeded in achieving the capability of transporting a large quantity of goods with their elevator system.
The first time they managed to get their box elevator all the way up to Allfrid, without it being damaged, they cried out in joy.
And, moreover, no tax collector from the Wizard’s Association bothered them.
“We did it! Now we’ll be able to continue our lives in Allfrid”, Lynn exclaimed with delight.
Theo, however, wasn’t satisfied with such a simple minded goal. Instead of simply transporting the miscellaneous and consumer goods that they bought in Renryll to their room, he began selling some of it on the black market.
He was able to earn from the profit margins he got from exploiting the difference in prices between Renryll and Allfrid.
Telling only those who he deemed tight lipped, he created his very own black market network.
At first, he would sell to people on the outskirts of town, but he soon got more customers than he expected.
That’s when he decided to expand his business into the town areas as well.
As expected, he received many complaints from the other businesses.
“Your prices are too low! What on earth are you thinking?”
But Theo saw this adversary as just another opportunity.
“Would you be happy in allowing us to be your wholesaler? I’m sure we could give you a better deal than you’re currently getting elsewhere”.
The stores accepted his proposal, and the two boys’ customers changed from consumers to businesses.
They divided the roles between themselves rather naturally. Theo handled all the negotiations, while Lynn was in charge of transporting the goods along their secret passageways.
Lynn became the hands and legs of Theo’s smuggling business, and while he was worked hard, he was able to quit his other jobs and enjoy more free time than ever before. His income had never been higher.
But Theo didn’t stop there. Just as the local market had settled and his ideas had been accepted, he set his mind to expanding the business even more.
He began dipping his hand into the circulation of goods, by purchasing directly from the harbour. Still, he wasn’t satisfied.
He increased the variety of his products, and increased his capacity to wholesale, and in order to extend the business into products other than just daily miscellaneous and consumer goods, he set about drawing up plans to extend the elevator operations.
“At this rate you’re going to be found out. You need to slow down”, Lynn warned him.
However, no matter how much Lynn warned him, he didn’t listen.
“It’s the ridiculous rules that are in place that are in the wrong. From the market’s point of view, what I’m doing is justice!”.
“It doesn’t change the fact that if you break the law, you’re going to face the consequences. Theo, please, let’s just stop. We’ve already made a hefty profit”.
Theo refused to listen.
Instead he reached for ever more extreme measures. He started entertaining ideas of doing business with people from the association.
This is my business, that I’ve grown from the ground up. I won’t let anyone crush it.
“I’ll approach someone from the association, someone who’s in charge of trade laws, I’ll just bribe them”.
Lynn, hearing Theo’s wild idea, went pale.
“Look, Lynn, this is a battle against unjust regulations! We can’t just yield to them!”
Each time Lynn would try to warn him, Theo would go into one of his passionate speeches again.
Hasn’t the aim of this whole thing completely changed…
For Lynn, if he was able to live comfortably in Allflrid, that was good enough for him. However things had moved faster than he had anticipated, and were now moving in a dangerous direction.
His income was increasing further, at a steady rate, and with it, his increasing unease.
Next time… Chapter 45 ‘News’.
The light from the sun stones had become dim, and night fell over the city of Allfrid.
Checking that their two new roommates were fast asleep, Lynn and Theo quietly slipped out of the room, careful not to make a sound.
They rode the elevator to floor 90, and headed for the town area on the outer block.
The busy, bustling streets of Allfrid at day now seemed like a mere fabrication. Now, at night, they were silent and still.
The streets they walked through were pitch black. Even the moon’s light, which would be mimicked by the sun stones, did not reach them.
The shutters were down on all the shops they passed, and the doors tightly locked. The houses and flats, too, showed no signs of activity. Their inhabitants had turned off the lights, and everyone was at that time, much like the city itself, very likely fast asleep.
Every so often, however, they would catch sight of an exception to this rule. There were, scarce as they might be- yet nevertheless scattered here and there- buildings which even at this late hour still emitted light, light which beckoned any wondering, lonely souls that might still be awake.
None of these premises, it should be said, were at all appropriate for any academy student. Instead, they catered to individuals who sought the indecent kind of entertainment, or indeed gratification.
Around such places, and on street corners, they sometimes caught sight of shadowy figures lurking in the shadows.
Taking care to give a wide berth around such dangers, the two boys pressed on through the streets at a brisk pace. They relied on the light emitted by their rings to aid them in the dark.
They moved as silently as possible, so as not to attract any unwanted attention, while moving as fast as they safely could.
When they reached the next street corner, Lynn decided to press Theo for answers. He spoke in a hushed but urgent voice.
“Theo, it’s so late, where are we going?”
“Shhh! You’ll see when we get there”.
Lynn shook his head in exasperation. There was nothing for it but to follow Theo’s lead.
After a while they had come to an area that was now in decline, and it was filled with derelict buildings, which showed no signs of human presence.
It must have once been an industrial district, but it was now nothing but a shell of its former self. Businesses likely moved their manufacturing to Renryll, where cheaper labour was plentiful.
Today it was a place for lost souls. The odd vagrant, some stray dogs and cats, and some crows were about the sum of its denizens.
Just one look at the area was enough to strike more than one uncanny note in one’s mind. Eerie, seedy, strange, these were all fair enough adjectives that could be used to describe the place. No honest person would ever find themselves exploring these streets.
Lynn was careful not to meet the eyes of anyone he saw lurking around. He focused on the road directly ahead of him, and kept his gaze lowered.
When they arrived at what must have been about the centre of the former industrial district, Theo entered a large building.
Outside, Lynn paused momentarily, before timidly following him inside.
The sight he was greeted with was a large open space. Across the floor, all kinds of old tools and machines were strewn about. The air smelled of rust and oil.
“It’s gross”, he muttered, grimacing at the stale, offensive smell.
“I did come here during the day to deodorize the place. I guess it needs another round though…”
Theo pulled a piece of paper out from his pocket. On it was drawn a fairy magic-magic circle, proof that a fairy resided within the paper.
“Fairy,” he began, uttering the words of the incantation, “remove from this place the smell that permeates it”.
Roused by the incantation, the fairy dwelling inside the paper awoke, and set about clearing up the smell of the place.
Sensing the air becoming cleaner and cleaner, Lynn relaxed.
“Theo, can you hurry up and explain what we’re doing here? What is this place?”
“This place, Lynn, is the figurative magic wand that will make us rich”.
Lynn, one eyebrow raised, shot him a strange look.
“Forget about theory for now, I’ll give you proof. Take a look at this room”, he said, leading him to a different room.
“My god…”
Before his very eyes, in the middle of that room, was an enormous hole in the ground.
This room, much like the last one, was large and spacious- and dark. But the darkness peeking out from the gaping hole in the floor was, somehow, an even thicker kind of darkness.
He felt a breeze coming from the hole, which caressed his skin, and made the fine hairs on his arms stand up. He got the sense that it was very deep. As a test he directed the light from his ring into the hole, but while the circumference was illuminated, the bottom was shrouded in darkness, its depth hidden.
“It’s really deep… Where on earth is it connected to?”
“Renryll”.
“What?”
“You know this place used to be an industrial area, right? Well this right here used to be used as a tunnel. They would transport ore and other materials, gathered from around and within Hedin Forest, in large quantities. It would pass through Renryll, and through tunnels like this. Now though, it’s as you see… No longer in use. Forgotten”.
“You did well finding this place”.
“Ever since I heard it was an industrial area, I thought it was strange, because for an industrial area it doesn’t have many elevators nearby. I figured there must be some kind of passage or transportation infrastructure that had gone out of use, and so I did some digging through old books and whatnot… And it turned out I was right on the money”.
Lynn found himself peering into the old tunnel while Theo told him about how he had discovered it. Compared to the elevators, which had become the standard means of transportation of people and cargo, the tunnel looked rough, crude even. It looked as if it had been dug carelessly, and the road surface that hugged the walls looked shoddy and treacherous.
It must have been mighty difficult to transport cargo up such tunnels, back when the magic that made possible the modern day elevators hadn’t been sufficiently developed. Lynn couldn’t help but think about, and admire, the hardships and pioneering that had transpired over the tower’s history.
“This tunnel isn’t even being managed by the Wizard’s Association, anymore. So basically, if we use it for ourselves, we can move as many goods from Renryll to Allfrid as we want, without paying any tax. As soon as we get the goods to floor 90, it belongs in Allfrid then. Going the official route from Renryll to Allfrid gets you taxed up to your eyes, as we’ve experienced, but if we can only get goods here safely, we can move them around the elevators in Allfrid without worry.
This tunnel is our key to opening up all sorts of possibilities. As soon as we get stuff up through here, into Allfrid, we can move it anywhere. To our house too, of course”.
“But, building an elevator… Can you do something like that?”
“Of course. Think about it- all an elevator is is a cage or a box, which is moved by mass magic. You don’t have to spend a fortune to get a cage or a box, it won’t set us back much purchasing something that’ll do the job. It’s just a case of setting up the elevator’s path, and after that all you do is chant the incantation as you usually do”.
I see now, so that’s why he was reading so many books on elevators and mass magic!
He finally understood what Theo had been up to lately. All of his strange behaviour finally made sense.
“Okay, I see… Well, we certainly could make an elevator and transport goods from Renryll to Allfrid, but Theo… I just worry that doing such a thing could land us in a lot of trouble”.
“Of course. That’s why we keep it hush-hush”.
From the very next day, the two boys began the age old process of good old trial and error.
At first, they ran into many problems.
They tried using magic to lift the cage upwards from the tunnel’s Renryll-side entrance, but it got snagged at different points on the way up, and suffered damage.
Each time that would happen, they would have to reevaluate their assessment of the tunnel. They would consult the diagrams and maps of the tower, along with old materials they dug up about of the old tunnels, and they would sit for hours together, debating what route to try the elevator on next.
With considerable effort, though, eventually they succeeded in removing all the obstacles that were in the way.
After that point, it wasn’t long before they were able to get the elevator to ride along the correct path up the tunnel.
The first time they saw the cage make it all the way to the Allfrid-side tunnel entrance, their first instincts were to celebrate- but then another problem presented itself.
The elevator was filled with sand, as well as being scratched up and in disrepair.
They decided to go with a different approach. This time they went with a tailor made a box design for the elevator, which had no holes, and they reinforced it with metal magic.
They went on to face many other issues, but they put their heads together and were able to solve each problem as it presented itself, and through trial and error eventually they succeeded in achieving the capability of transporting a large quantity of goods with their elevator system.
The first time they managed to get their box elevator all the way up to Allfrid, without it being damaged, they cried out in joy.
And, moreover, no tax collector from the Wizard’s Association bothered them.
“We did it! Now we’ll be able to continue our lives in Allfrid”, Lynn exclaimed with delight.
Theo, however, wasn’t satisfied with such a simple minded goal. Instead of simply transporting the miscellaneous and consumer goods that they bought in Renryll to their room, he began selling some of it on the black market.
He was able to earn from the profit margins he got from exploiting the difference in prices between Renryll and Allfrid.
Telling only those who he deemed tight lipped, he created his very own black market network.
At first, he would sell to people on the outskirts of town, but he soon got more customers than he expected.
That’s when he decided to expand his business into the town areas as well.
As expected, he received many complaints from the other businesses.
“Your prices are too low! What on earth are you thinking?”
But Theo saw this adversary as just another opportunity.
“Would you be happy in allowing us to be your wholesaler? I’m sure we could give you a better deal than you’re currently getting elsewhere”.
The stores accepted his proposal, and the two boys’ customers changed from consumers to businesses.
They divided the roles between themselves rather naturally. Theo handled all the negotiations, while Lynn was in charge of transporting the goods along their secret passageways.
Lynn became the hands and legs of Theo’s smuggling business, and while he was worked hard, he was able to quit his other jobs and enjoy more free time than ever before. His income had never been higher.
But Theo didn’t stop there. Just as the local market had settled and his ideas had been accepted, he set his mind to expanding the business even more.
He began dipping his hand into the circulation of goods, by purchasing directly from the harbour. Still, he wasn’t satisfied.
He increased the variety of his products, and increased his capacity to wholesale, and in order to extend the business into products other than just daily miscellaneous and consumer goods, he set about drawing up plans to extend the elevator operations.
“At this rate you’re going to be found out. You need to slow down”, Lynn warned him.
However, no matter how much Lynn warned him, he didn’t listen.
“It’s the ridiculous rules that are in place that are in the wrong. From the market’s point of view, what I’m doing is justice!”.
“It doesn’t change the fact that if you break the law, you’re going to face the consequences. Theo, please, let’s just stop. We’ve already made a hefty profit”.
Theo refused to listen.
Instead he reached for ever more extreme measures. He started entertaining ideas of doing business with people from the association.
This is my business, that I’ve grown from the ground up. I won’t let anyone crush it.
“I’ll approach someone from the association, someone who’s in charge of trade laws, I’ll just bribe them”.
Lynn, hearing Theo’s wild idea, went pale.
“Look, Lynn, this is a battle against unjust regulations! We can’t just yield to them!”
Each time Lynn would try to warn him, Theo would go into one of his passionate speeches again.
Hasn’t the aim of this whole thing completely changed…
For Lynn, if he was able to live comfortably in Allflrid, that was good enough for him. However things had moved faster than he had anticipated, and were now moving in a dangerous direction.
His income was increasing further, at a steady rate, and with it, his increasing unease.
Next time… Chapter 45 ‘News’.
