They all looked different. A young and beautiful blond human woman, maybe 18 years of age, even had a very large belly, clearly pregnant.
'Must be a discount.. Two for the price of one' Jack happily though as the civilian woman bowed for her lord and joined the other human civilians.
After 100 seconds Jack told Harken to take the troops outside and safeguard the immediate surroundings around the two 'guardian stones' beneath the old sloped road up the mountains leg to the entrance plateau.
"When you have stationed the current 27 troops, come back here and fulfill the previous orders with the new troops who is still coming out"
"Yes Lord." Was all Harken said, while puffing out his chest with pride. He was happy that he now had sufficient manpower to fulfill his Lords commands.
To the ten human civilians, Jack told them to follow Harken and the troops, and wait at the entrance until Jack came to them.
"You dwarfs, follow me"
Jack led them to the slightly descending tunnel and eventually arrived at the infinite resource: gold mine.
"Is it true that dwarfs lives in mountains or underground? And that you like golden things?" Jack asked curiously. He had only read about them and obviously discarded them as fairy tales.
But watching their eyes light up, and smiles covering their faces, even two of them were rubbing their hands together like they where itching to touch the gold veins, told him that there might be some truth to the tales.
"Mylord, if I may answer?" A robust looking dwarf, with a single braid in his brown hair and a wild beard, asked.
"You may" Jack nodded warmly.
"We certainly thrive in mountains! Actually we are very surprised to be summoned into a mountain such as this. The stones feels rich like a summer breeze might feel refreshing to humans. Its certainly a very rare occasion for us"
The dwarfs seemed to be energized by the rocks in this mountain. If a common mountains rocks was like a normal village house to humans, then this Black Mountain might be compared to a high-end mansion in their view.
The dwarfs attention seemed to had drifted back to the gold veins after he spoke.
"And the golden things? Is that true as well?" Jack patiently continued.
The dwarf was startled and ashamed. This was his lord he was speaking to! He was just a lowly civilian, yet he dared to drift away while being asked a question.
"Forgive me Mylord!" He bowed deeply before he answered.
"We dwarfs have an intimate relation to the earth. It is true. We value silver, gold, rare metals and gemstones beyond anything else" He bowed again to show his respect.
"That's good" Jack smiled broadly.
"What you see here is the only infinite resource on Prime! Gold beyond measure! And you will be the ones mining it! The very foundation of our future!" Jack exclaimed with open arms.
All the dwarfs marveled, they had never thought they would ever see an infinite resource of their hearts desire. Yet here it was. And it was all for them to mine and gather for generations.
"I want you to get started as soon as possible. So tell me what do you need to make that happen?"
"Mylord. We will need pickaxes. For gold, the common iron ones will suffice. Also the common way for dwarfs to work is in shifts, so the axe never stops splitting stone."
The brown-haired dwarf looked embarrassed for a second, then added; "We need lodgings, beds, great greasy foods and maybe…."
The dwarf seemed to hesitate for a second again.
"Ale.. We work much better with ale and songs. If that's possible mylord"
The dwarf named Gondo, hoped he hadn't overreached. But with all this gold he thought his lord might be able to provide it. He certainly had the dwarfs complete loyalty nonetheless, having showed them this treasure as soon as they were summoned!
On the other side, Jack contemplated all these things.
He had expected the tools, lodging and food. But the ale might be a bit more than tricky.
Unless his troops could uncover anything useful nearby, he would have to check the [Global Chat(Human)] and the [Tradehub(Human)] to advance anything at all.
"I will consider everything you have told me. Get yourselves comfortable here and await my return."
With this Jack turned and left the dwarfs in the golden resource room.
As Jack ascended the path from the gold resource to the large main tunnel, he encountered some troops who saluted him, before they moved on.
They were a detachment of troops heading to the gold room, as Harken probably had assigned them watch duty there.
As Jack reached the four small caves with the summon stones, he finally had a light source again. The mountain was otherwise pitch-black, besides the gold resource room and here.
So far he would need to acquire a light source, maybe torches to fasten on the mountain walls? Furthermore he needed food, water, tools and housing.
Jack thought the pickaxes was the ideal start. As gold began to flow he could begin to sort out the main issue. Food and water. After that, the housing and then.. Everything else.
'Lets have a look at that chat and see what's going on' Jack finally decided.
[Entered the Global Chat - Chat is limited to one million nearby Human Lords]
Ramises the goat: I finally fought off that annoying plant-hybrid lord! He lost 35 trash troops, and I only lost 9 trash troops myself! He ran off with his leafs behind his tale!
Plainspeaker: That's awesome! Kick him while he's down!
Bobby: My troops are dying! Can't anyone help me with some food?
Noobulizer: tsk! You've been here for 7 days and you can't even feed your troops yet? How pathetic…
GeneralKanabis: It's hard to provide if you don't have the high ground…
Technicality: I have put up a trade for 1000kg of lamb meat. Each kilo is 25 gold.
Kingslayer: There's the bigshot showing off again! Does anyone know where his territory is yet?
Dantheman: How can you have so much food? This is the third time with such a trade! But I wont miss it this time, I will surely buy!
Xena: You should all remember we need to work together. Those other race-lords will surely gang up on us if we cant even do that! Bobby I have opened a trade with 5kg of small fish. That's all I can spare for now.
Bobby: Thank you Xena! You're a real queen! I will never forget it.
Xena: You're welcome.
Jack tried to filter the hundreds of messages coming in all the time. He gained a simple realization.
Even though his fellow humans had been here a week longer than him, it seemed that most of them was still struggling to provide food. And many of them only had a few trash-houses besides their lords mansion.
It seemed they had to gather whatever they could to turn it into gold coins through trade, just to supply enough troops to stay alive in whatever wilderness, snowing or barren location they had spawned in.
However a few had spawned in a good and relatively safe location, with many resource deposits and low-ranked monsters and beasts. They seemed to be thriving on the food crisis. Selling it at absorbent prices that the poorest and most unlucky could barely afford.
Jack then continued to the [Tradehub], there didn't seem to be a proximity limitation here and the trade was global, yet still only between humans.
Jack realized that each race probably had their own tradehub and chat. Maybe the gods intended for them to have a connection and more easily work together.
[Tradehub - new connection: The Tradehub offers a simple way of trading, at only 50% buyers fee]
'Naa that's insane…' Jacks lip had a comical twitch as he realized the significance of a 50% buying fee.
To put it simple. If he had to pay 25 Gold Coins for the 1kg of lamb meat that 'Technicality' was selling. In addition to that he would have to pay the system 12.5 Gold coins as a fee. A total of 37.5 Gold Coins for 1kg of lamb meat.
'What even is half a gold coin?´ Jack absently thought while checking the tradehub tabs that appeared.
[Lord Resources]
[Treasure]
[Weaponry and armor]
[General goods]
[Building Blueprints]
[Summoning Portals]
It seemed rather straightforward and Jack was in no mood to check everything. He directly searched in both [Weaponry and Armor] and [General Goods] for the pickaxes until he found a batch of exactly 10 pickaxes, sold by a Lord named Xena.
[10x iron pickaxes: Bundle price: 1500 Gold Coins]
'These prices are insane.. Maybe I need to check [Lord Resources] to get a grasp on the exchange prices first'
Jack went on and studied the many transactions for quite a while, his findings where roughly like this;
1kg of timber: 5 Gold Coins
1kg of stone: 10 Gold Coins
1kg of iron: 50 Gold Coins
As for the rare lord resources he couldn't get a proper estimate as they where just that. Very rare, and not many were selling, if any at all.
'So this Xena somehow managed to produce enough pickaxes to sell. I wonder if she has a forge, or what it takes to create them'
For now Jack directly checked the global chat for private messaging, and just as he had hoped, he quickly sent a message.