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Unto the Ages: Chapter 129
🕑 Added 2024-10-21 15:05:16 +0000 UTCNita held Grud's hand as she led him into their new house which was a fusion of wood, stone, and copper, but mostly wood. The first thing that greeted them were two stone steps that led to double doors wide enough for a cart to be pulled through.
When they stepped into the house, or more accurately, a mansion, Grud noticed that the floor was not the usual dirt or stone floor, but smooth sanded wood that had some kind of resin or oil coating it. Grud knew this took fine craftsmanship to accomplish and no doubt would cost much in trade.
So when Grud remembered how big his new house was on the outside, he could only imagine how much floor space of such quality there actually was, not to mention that his house had two stories, which meant twice the amount of this flooring.
“How much did the flooring alone cost us? I know I am wealthy, but not this wealthy… are we indebted to anyone? If so, by how much?” Grud asked with trepidation in his voice while looking around the interior and calculating how many pelts, horns, and other raw materials it would take him to afford a home like this.
Truly, the time before standardized currency was a nightmare for calculating the worth of goods.
It was then that Ida came in from Grud’s other side and looped her arm around his, “You have nothing to worry about, dear husband, while you were away fighting, we have been busy, and prosperous. Even after all the favors and goods we bartered, we are still more wealthy than before you left.”
She then snuggled into his arm, “And with the new women added to the harem, it is a win-win for all of us, you get holes to drain your seed, while we get some proper loving, hopefully, spread out evenly enough that we can all walk around properly to pursue our lucrative hobbies.” she said as she cupped one of his balls and massaged it teasingly.
But before Grud could get any ideas, Nita pulled Grud along to enter a dining hall with rows of long tables and benches, and as Grud looked down the hall, he saw a cooking area that looked to be able to cook big batches.
Grud looked around to his wives, “Do we not eat at the communal area with the rest of the tribe anymore?”
Nita shook her head, “Not lately, the tribe has grown too large and spread out for that to be practical. While we sometimes join in for communal lunch or dinner, it is no longer centralized around one area, it is now broken up into a few spots around the tribe. As for us, our family is big enough to count as a communal area on its own, so we treat it as such. We sometimes feed other families’ children if their parents are away.”
After that, they toured the left and right wings of the ground floor, which respectively belonged to the boys and the girls, each wing was lined with rooms and each had its own communal bathroom, playrooms, and studies. The only thing that was not the same was that the bathroom on the girl’s side had pillars of stone supporting the structure.
Once they toured the ground floor, Grud had to ask, “Where did you even get the flowing water for the bathrooms? The nearest water source is almost a hundred meters away?” he pointed to what he knew to be a stream that flowed to the sea.
Nita nodded, as she answered, “It took quite a bit of goods to buy the manpower, but with all the strong hunters stopping at our tribe to cross over to the Newlands, we had no shortage of hands to dig a small waterway by our house, and with what the Newlanders called a water wheel, we managed to bring the water from a low place to a higher place, that is how we have our private bathroom upstairs.” she then brought Grud and the rest of the family out back to see a two-story water wheel scooping and pouring water into a wooden tub that had channels running to the two bathrooms and the kitchen, and the last channel terminated somewhere at the right wing of the second floor.
Nita then led the group up the stairs and to the right, most of the rooms along the way were officially occupied by a wife each, but they still slept together in the master bedroom.
Just before they reached the master bedroom, Nita introduced them to the second-floor bathroom. Grud immediately noticed differences when compared to the other bathrooms. In contrast, the other bathrooms were somewhat more practical, sporting a big stone tub for multiple people to scoop water to bathe, this bathroom on the other hand was practically a small swimming pool that could easily accommodate the whole harem to sit and soak inside.
It was then Grud realized why the girl’s bathroom below had stone supporting pillars while the boys did not, it was to hold the weight of this second-floor pool.
When they were finished checking out the bathroom, they did not exit through the same door, Nita led Grud to a second door in the bathroom that led to the master bedroom, and immediately, Grud could tell that this room was massive, and most likely took up a big chunk of the wing. And at the end of the bedroom, was a massive bed that could easily accommodate more than twenty people. Grud later found out that it was multiple beds pushed together.
Seeing the bed, Grud was tempted to test it out with his women, but seeing that they were excited to show him what they had been up to when he was away, Grud did not have the heart to spoil the moment, so he followed his wives around as they toured the rest of the second floor and assigned the new wives their personal rooms, not that they will be using it much.
When they were done with the main house, Grud was led outside and next door to his new mansion where a warehouse as big as his old house was. When walked up and threw open doors the doors with pride, there were rows upon rows of shelves full of assorted goods and wares, sacks of grain and storage crops, and hooks hanging from the roof scaffolding, all ladened with goods ready to trade for goods and services.
The only thing Grud could say when exposed to his family's wealth was, “Wow, I guess we really don’t owe anyone anything.”
***
Once they were done with the house tour, they decided to take Grud on a tour of the other wives’ places of work/hobbies. The nearest one was Mita’s “workplace”, but it was more like a place she could gossip with wisps and shamans all day.
What used to be a medium shaman’s hut, turned into a full-on building as tall as two stories, but it was actually just a one-story building with a tall pointy roof. When Grud entered the building, he could practically feel the mana concentration of the place making his body tingle.
Shortly after, all the wisps in the building stopped in place, then started swarming Grud as they did what wisps did, be playful, some of them rested on his body, while others played a game of catch around him. The same thing happened to Nita but to a lesser degree.
It was then that he heard a voice in his head that he missed, [It seems like my kin are curious about you, they sense our link, and some of the younger ones think you are kin.] Mita telepathically said to Grud, and he could practically sense her smile.
After playing with the wisps and talking to a few shamans, Grud decided to move on with the tour.
***
Their next stop was the Barterer Market district, this time, it was Ida who led the way, but instead of going to the central area full of carts and carriages where most of the hustle and bustle of trade was happening, Ida Grud to the side along the district walls, toward a less crowded but no less busy crowd.
And with Grud being the tallest man anyone has ever seen, he was able to see what the crowd was crowding around. They were crowding around a few carriages that had been modified to become a showcase for the wears they had to barter, and each carriage seemed to specialize in something, be it fresh or dried herbs and spices, jewelry, textiles, foodstuffs, and a few others.
But the main thing he noticed was that the people manning the stores were some of his eldest children, and most of them were his girls. Gerd gave Ida a questioning look and she just shrugged, “After helping me renovate my first cart, they were interested in what I was doing and followed me. After I got the hang of the trade, I decided to if they could man the stall for me. There were some learning bumps along the way, but after telling them what was the lowest I was willing to go on certain goods and how to bargain, they slowly got the hang of it.”
When Grud’s group got closer to the display carriages turned stalls, his children manning the stalls one by one noticed him and wanted to run to him, but a stern look from Ida, made them stay at their post while customers were perusing their wears. Ida then lightly slapped Grud’s butt to encourage him to go say hi to their kids.
Grud went stall by stall to hug his children and kiss their heads, telling them that they would meet for dinner later.
When Grud got back to his harem, he asked Ida, “Why are your carriages not in the center? And why are our children manning carriages with specialized goods?”
“Well, the short answer is, I got too big, too fast. After I got the trick of the trade, I approached Reta, Uchi, Silne, and Oso to see if they could barter their goods through me, and with my stall overflowing with goods, I had an easier time trading in bulk, this made it easier to barter with crafters who in turn, trade with me at better rates. Soon, I had more variety of goods than I knew what to do with, that is when I decided to open more stalls to barter specialized goods, these stalls will be supplied by me while I use the large trading power of our warehouse full of goods to trade with crafters, hunters, and farmers. So I needed more hands to man the stalls, and our children were willing.”
“As for why we are out here instead of in the center? It is mainly to keep the visiting traders happy. By now, I am big and well-known enough to draw in customers on my own, I can well afford to let traders who come from afar to occupy prime locations to make their visit worth it, or else they might go elsewhere if I hog the prime locations. Another positive side effect of my carriages being at the border is those traders who are near us would get more traffic from the crowd that come to see my goods.” Ida explains with excitement.
After taking some time to pursue the goods that were brought in from external traders, it was Uchi’s turn to show off what she had been up to, so she took the lead toward the crafter’s district.
