The Mechanical Era

Huge amounts of smoke can be seen leaving through the chimneys connected to the exhaust. Large amounts of rocks were dumped into a large mechanical machine, destroying and pulverizing it into smaller pieces. The air around, which used to be so clean, so fresh, was a little smoggy.

Standing tall with his long legs resting on his desk, was a moderately fat bald man with green eyes on a circular face, who puffed tobacco using a smoke pipe in his mouth. His name? Horner; Horner B Tyler. He wore a modern black cotton suit, tailored and brought over to him from Hoverdam. However, his suit, to match his personality, he had a charcoal-black suit with stripes, as well as a bright red tie and some polished black leather shoes to go with the attire.

He bought the suits just a week prior, after making a few visits to Hoverdam, and seeing people wearing the clothes. To them, the suit was a representation that you were close to the king in some way or another and had become an esteemed symbol of wealth.

You see, unlike the other miners, he was lucky to have connections to a merchant named Tyler Miller. Tyler Miller and Horner were best buds when they met as children because they shared a name. They did everything together, and as the years go by, their friendships strengthened.

With this connection, he not only managed to incorporate the Tyler Iron Company, but also commission some machines to be brought over to the city, and drastically increase efficiency. These are steam-powered pumps, steam-powered drills, steam-powered conveyor belts, steam-powered smelting furnaces, and steam-powered crushers.

The steam-powered pumps pulled water out of the mines, which often flooded and prevented miners from going deeper. The steam-powered drills allowed more iron to be extracted from the ground in a shorter period of time. The steam-powered conveyor belts help transport ore and other materials over longer distances and at higher volumes. The steam-powered smelting furnaces could process larger amounts of iron ore at higher temperatures.

Recently, he had some more machinery brought over from Hoverdam, the steam-powered shovel. Invented to help the construction of the sewers, which ended up being only helped to construct the roads in the end, will now be used to excavate large amounts of soil and rock to access more iron deposits.

As he smoked his pipe, he read the papers that he held with his hands. They were reports, reports of how much iron they had mined and sold last week. As he read the report, he made a wide smile. Just last week, he installed a few new pieces of equipment to help him produce more iron than ever before and increased the production of iron from 7.5 tons to 10 tons alone!

According to projections, he should be able to produce 12.25 tons of iron this week, provided that he doesn't do any more expansions like with the workforce or purchasing new mines and or equipment.

Thinking of which, he just remembered. Horner walks back to the carriage and opens up a briefcase. Inside, were papers, detailing offers for more mines. Currently, the TIC owned the Ironvein mine in the mining town of Keliath. He has got a few offers from a few sellers, wanting to sell off the Steelstrike mine and Ironscale mine located in the south, near Horner's own Ironvein mine.

These specific mines were closer to the port, meaning lower costs of transportation. However, the price that they are willing to offer seems a little too high. Besides, adding up the costs of fitting this new mine with all the new machinery is going to add more, far out of their budget for now. Just then, there were two taps on his shoulder. Horner immediately turns around to see a messenger.

"A letter? For me?" he asks with his deep voice.

The messenger hands him a letter. Before he tips the man, he examines the letter closely. On the front, he spots the red royal seal of Hoverdam, clear as day. Horner's slightly irritated face turned serious. His heart starts to beat rapidly as he carefully opens the envelope to read it to himself.

"Stay here. I will need you," Horner commands before he starts reading.

'Greetings Mr. Horner B Tyler & Mr. Tyler Miller,

We have heard about your company for a while now and have decided to do business with you. With how much iron you are producing and expected to produce in the future, we wanted to know whether you can deliver about 15 tons of iron over to the city of Hoverdam a week starting from the 13th of Nativitas.

We are willing to pay 7.6% over the market price, which should net you a neat profit along the way. Please respond immediately as you can. If you are successful in delivering the quota, we hope to form a prosperous partnership in the future.

Sincerely,

Minister Alan 'Walker' Fleck'

Horner, upon hearing that the palace itself wants to do business with him, calms himself down and even starts to laugh in excitement. From his point of view, he had just gained a valuable customer. One with very deep pockets.

He puts the letter in his pocket, takes a pencil, and paper from his briefcase, and writes another letter down, this time to his dear friend Tyler. Once he finishes, he hands over the letter to the messenger, along with a silver coin as a tip.

"Bring that letter over to Mr. Tyler Miller. Make sure he receives the letter today. Understood?"

"Yes, sir. I understand."

...

A match forces itself through the matchbox side, igniting a fire on the match. Horner then lists up Tyler Miller's smoke pipe, before moving on to his own. Tyler was a rather short man relative to Horner. However, he was also much thinner and fitter than Horner. He had a full set of black hair, with ocean blue eyes on his more square-shaped face.

Like Horner, he wore a suit tailored from Hoverdam. Unlike Horner's, his suit was navy blue, while wearing a charcoal black tie underneath a white shirt. Along with his average height and professional look, he was the one who took care of the business side of things, while Horner took care of production.

By this point, it had entered the night, meaning the meeting room was lit up with the help of a few torches. There was a large long table present, with many seats to sit on. Currently, only two of them were occupied; Tyler and Horner. Horner takes a puff of his smoke and then asks Tyler a question.

"So... what do you think?"

"Hard to say. Although it presents us with a great opportunity, I am not sure whether we will be able to deliver on that promise."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it, Horner. The King so far as we know has..." he presented his right hand closed while holding his pipe on his left...

"Make some kind of crazy invention." he raises his index finger.

"Build a sort of production center for said invention." he raises his middle finger.

"And sells it off to other cities for a higher price." he finally raises his ring finger.  The hand then lightly falls to the table, allowing Tyler to continue.

"I think he is coming up with some sort of machine, or process, to turn our iron into something more valuable. Maybe at a faster rate."

"Do you think it is possible?" Horner asks.

"You saw Hoverdam didn't you? Just at the beginning of this year, we couldn't have dreamed of having those steam engines working for us. No. There must be something else. I am willing to believe that there will be a drastic increase in quotas of iron that we wouldn't want to miss."

Tyler then sits in a more serious and straight position, maintaining eye contact with Horner.

"What we are presented here, is an opportunity."

"Well, of course, it is. What else it could be?"

"No, no, Horner. You don't get it. The reason he chose us, is not because we produce the most amount of iron or sell it the cheapest. No, he chose us because he wants someone that can scale up their production.

We have managed to do so. We have managed to produce half this town's iron in under a month. He is hoping we can do that again. What we need to do, is to capitalize on the opportunity, and start scaling up way more," Tyler exclaims.

Horner takes a deep breath, surprised at what his friend had to say. He thinks it through, and replies.

"Well, if you say so. But where can we get the money to scale up that quickly? I mean... I don't think we should risk getting another loan..."

"I don't think we need to. We can just ask for more funding from the merchants."

"You think they will yield?" Tyler leaned forward.

"Buddy, when a corporation gets a contract from the royal palace itself, that is not something they are going to look away from. Trust me, we will have the money in no time.

While I am at it, find out how much we can start to produce by then. We might need those projections to present to his majesty."

"I understand. So... meeting adjourned?"

"Meeting adjourned."