I quickly got Gertrude out of the mine, and took her back up to her office. From now on I told her not to go into the dungeon, and just to send a messenger.

  I also put together a strike force made up of most of our guards, Tom, and Jim's gang had also finally arrived. They stormed down, into the dungeon. They searched through the whole village tearing places apart until they finally found a large wine cellar below a tavern, which was filled with the slaves, and it also had the deed for the business hidden in a safe down there.

  We took hold of most of the slaves, and me and Gertrude decided to sell them on the free market, or keep them.

  The deed was taken, and renamed to Deepside Mining Co. we didn't find the owner but it was listed as a Jesse Lanthid. What we did do was sell it to one of the dwarves who was living in the town, and helping with construction projects. We also made him the mayor. His name was Grugnar.

  I'd never seen a dwarf so I was a little bit surprised by the beady red eyes, and the pointed teeth, but he was very nice, and has a small family. He only paid half the asking price, but in return he promised to develop the town, and land, bring in more citizens, pay taxes, and be willing to cooperate with our administration.

  Me, and Gertrude also set up a visa system that costs 10 silver at the start, and 20 copper a month to allow them to keep. We basically just set up a desk right outside the portal with someone working there, and little pamphlets explaining why they would want that visa.

  This was more difficult than we anticipated because most people didn't have copper, silver, or gold when coming out of the portal, but that was easily fixed when apparently the foreign government set up a little shop just on the other side that allowed you to exchange their money for our money, which worked very well.

  The visa system was slow, but it very quickly started making a lot of money, as the slave market expanded. A whole district of our city is now pretty much just dedicated to selling slaves, and the majority of them are other worlders, who did not pay for the visa.

  We also enacted taxes on the slave market which created a spectacular increase in income, allowing us to hire more guards, and pay a group of contractors to start putting defenses in place.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Due to our cities location it is very easily defensible. We are completely surrounded by mountains, meaning if we wall up the three passes that go through the mountains, we are pretty much safe. Speaking of expansion, the city has grown incredibly rapidly, and has now packed the entire valley with zigzagging narrow streets with tight overhangs, and shady alleys. Except for my private land of course, which is about an eighth of the valley. The valley is separated into two parts by a river, and I do not allow any development other than farming on one entire side of the river, and that is where I live.

  It is selfish of me, I know, but also… I don't care. I'm a selfish person. Plus we need to grow food somewhere, so we aren't importing ALL of our food.

  Because of the tightly packed city people are starting to expand up, even chiseling houses into the mountains side, or erecting beams near the side of the mountain, and placing houses on top, so they can go above the other houses.

  The houses being chiseled into the mountain side are very popular with dwarves, and our population of dwarves has actually risen quite high. I wasn't sure about why this was, but apparently the Herdlands had been waging a war against the dwarves in the eastern mountains for quite some time, and many dwarves wanted to get away from the fighting.

  Due to this our population has skyrocketed, but also cleanliness has slid down the drain. Since most of the land in this entire valley is within my fief as a Baron, I can also tax everyone living here, which is what I have begun doing. Just a light 10% income based tax.

  Using those taxpayer dollars, and the money from the visas, i've been working on setting up a sewage system, because right now, i've been paying Aquamancers to flush the shit through the streets, and out into the river, which is really annoying because I would rather not have my river filled with shit.

  So I've been hiring earth mages, who have slowly been tunneling under the city, and directing all the waste into a series of incinerators, which will be manned by fire mages.

  The urine will be directed into earthen wells which drain the urine into the earth. The earthen wells are about 20 feet below the surface, and are mostly made of hard non-porous stone, but the very bottom of the well has been churned to make a very soft area for the urine to eventually be soaked into the earth. The whole well is completely sealed, the only way being the sewage pipes that pour the urine into it. As well as the whole thing being 90 feet deep, and almost 20 feet in diameter. The whole valley is set up with 20 of these urine wells, and 20 of the shit incinerators. Of course that is the plan. It's only about halfway set up, but Ivan has been helping so it should be done within the month.

  And, the coal shipment should be back in about 2-3 weeks.