Herald of Steel

As soon as Alexander was made aware of the dire economic straits Lady Miranda was in, he had to fight the urge to rudely shout out,

'How the hell do you make a loss on white sugar and glass? They should be more valuable than gold. Even pigs would be able to profit by just selling a few bits and pieces of them.'

The number sounded so low in fact that Alexander even had the urge to go check the Margraves family's treasury for himself to verify Lady Miranda's claim.

The lady however was incessant on her claim, saying, "I'm afraid expenses have been that high, my lord." but then added something that finally brought some logic to her assertion,

"Also, a lot of our gold coins were used to pay your last year's dues. We thought that we could earn them back by shipping all the products. But that clearly did not happen."

It was only then that it somewhat started to make sense to Alexander.

Hence he turned to ask about Lady Miranda's other sources of income, "What about the yearly war reparations then? I recall that you managed to make the Kaiser Family promise an annual indemnity for attacking you, did you not? What about that? Have they not paid?"

Alexander thought that should at least help the Margraves get up on their feet somewhat.

"Snort! What reparations! Most of that money has been swindled by the Marsh family." Being reminded of the injustice, Lady Miranda could not help but rage in indignation, as with gritted teeth and furrowed brows she delineated,

"With the Marsh family in chaos, the Kaiser family has decided to insert its one puppet candidate into the race. And with the ducal family's blessing, he has managed to turn himself into the most likely candidate to succeed the family's seat, suppressing all his other brothers and cousins."

It was a very reasonable development as Alexander could easily see how the money and muscle of a duke could make all other candidates powerless to contend against it.

While Lady Miranda finished, "And it was that bastard who took most of that war money, claiming it was the Marsh family's cut for the war they helped us win. Bastard! Those bastards did nothing! The money is just circling back to the Kaiser Family."

Listening to Lady Miranda's complaint, Alexander could not help but first and foremost smirk to himself, 'My lady, you really need to increase your cursing vocabulary,' as the use of the single curse was starting to get repetitive.

But it also went on to show how sheltered and noble Lady Miranda's upbringing had been and how hard the current perilous affair must have been on her.

It seemed using the Marsh family's puppet, the Kaiser family was able to effectively circumnavigate paying much of the war reparations.

And from the sound of it, Lady Miranda could have really used the money.

"......." Towards this open daylight robbery, Alexander had little to advise Lady Miranda on. Both the ducal families were thousands of miles away and if they did not pay, there was little way to make them.

Of course, it was also not like he did not have any ideas, such as attacking the governor of the island and looting his treasury as compensation.

After all, taking what was others was the fastest way to get rich.

Since Lady Miranda was running low on money, it only made sense to take them from those who had an excess of it.

Having risen from the very bottom and possessing a military, Alexander was much more partial to using such unscrupulous tactics, finding no fault in employing force to take what was his.

And as for whether that would violate the terms of the treaty, well, yes it would. But the other side was not following them anyway.

There would be no problem as long as Alexander won.

This was of course just one plausible scenario that Alexander was war gaming in his mind to resolve the current situation, and for now kept it to himself, in fear of alarming Lady Miranda.

Thus he then moved to the very last of Lady Miranda's source of coin- her savings.

"What about your reserves then? As a merchant family, shouldn't you have a substantial amount of gold in your treasuries? Surely you did not run out of it so soon!"

Alexander had a hard time believing Lady Miranda had managed to truly break the bank given how they should have been.

The lady of the house however answered with a pang of pain and bitterness in her heart,

"Yes! We once did have enormous piles of gold… enough to fill entire rooms once! But all of it got washed away by the flood. We have very little left,"

The memory of that terrifying tsunami still lingered deep inside Lady Miranda's heart and it throbbed like a poisonous thorn every time she recalled that day.

Dark, overcast, with rolling rumbles of thunder and lightning, it was a day that had taken almost everything from her- her father, her brothers, her husband, and even her mother, along with her family's power and foundations.

The three story high waves had created torrential waters that managed to flood into the basement of their mansion, blasting into the trehasury and taking everything within it with the swirling currents.

And it was like that, in the blink of an eye, the enormous volumes of gold her family had managed to collect over several generals got washed away just like that, going on a marvelous cruise all over the city and its surroundings, floating and bobbing up down until they lost themselves to the wild winds and water.

Each of these precious, gold discs came to rest at places fate ordained for each of them- be they be buried under all the earth and debris, slipping into the crack of rocks and trees, falling into large pits and holes such as mining shafts and wells, eaten by various curious and careless animals, taken to the sea, and the most common of all, simply picked up by humans.

And it did not take a genius to guess that those people did not obediently come to return them to the family.

They of course instead pocketed it.

And despite the family's best efforts to try and retrieve their lost wealth, even going as far as going door to door and searching homes for any suspicious stash of hidden coin, they could only manage to retrieve a scant few.

The fact was much of the coin had been spread out too thin too quickly to make retrieval not even a distant possibility.

And then to further add insult to injury, Lady Miranda went on to inform Alexander,

"Also, not only have we lost the collection of our gold coins, we have even lost the ability to produce more of them. This is because when the tidal waters came, they also flooded all the gold mines we used to have right here in Caira."

"We cannot send any miners until the trapped water recedes. And that is if they recede. Gods know when that will happen." By this point, Lady Miranda sounded quite heartbroken, as she could but help melancholically note, "Sometimes I feel like we have been cursed by the gods."

Saying this Lady Miranda paused as if she was internally cursing her family's recent string of bad luck.

While for Alexander, he was having a whole different set of emotions.

The reason for which had to do with the information that had just landed on his lap.

'Trapped, stagnant water? Could it be this is from where the plague came from?' Alexander could not help but muse to himself, hypothesizing that perhaps the dirty, turbid water had started to slowly seep into the underground water reservoirs contaminating them.

Although it was just a theory, with no proof that the mines were connected to the drinking supply in any way.

Thus Alexander quickly turned to his other, much more important thought- which was that the image of his 'brand new steam engine'

The combination of the two words-'water' and 'mine' managed to subconsciously produce that image as that machine was really created for this one job- to pump water out of deep, hard to reach mines.

To think that Alexander would find a use for this flawed invention so quickly.

'Is this fate?' He could not help but ask himself that the coincidental opportunity, feeling Lady Miranda's luck might have at last started to take a turn for the better.

Finally, Alexander thought he could see the light at the end of the tunnel- as he figured he could use his Newcomen engine as a trump card in the negotiations with Margraves family.

'I give access back to your gold mines and you in exchange give your blessing to Lady Miranda, letting her sit as the family's head,' Alexander thought of the offer in his head, the image of a goatee man in a business suit clasping his hand flashing in his mind.

Alexander did not think the Margraves family would be able to simply brush past such an offer.

Now the only slight problem that Alexander had to solve was the fact his machine tended to take a break every few hours.