Georg starts Spring 1416 by engaging in a risk diversification exercise: he has another baby with Julia. This turns out to be a girl who the game names Clarissa. In the meantime Harold graduates from monastery school (with a certificate and everything) and later gets the option to start an apprenticeship. It costs 1,000 up front and poor Harold does even get a stipend. Georg has Harold become a patron just like him. We’re going to need someone to look after the family business when Georg kicks the bucket.
I finally get the event I was hoping for: a contract to provide 2 barrels of Alderman’s Brew at 900 each. That’s a huge step up from the regular market price of 250 so Georg is all over it, buying the necessary recipes and arranging for the ingredients to be sent to the pub. But even as Georg starts working on the first barrel I realize that I won’t make it because Georg needs to be at the town hall to attend the trial. I suppose I could ditch it but seeing what happens there is more interesting than fulfilling the contract so I put the one finished barrel in storage back at the house.
To remind you all, the trial involves one of the Muresans (my rival dynasty) as the aggrieved party and one Wilbur Easton as the accused. Georg had actually noticed Wilbur running away after pickpocketing someone at the market that very same morning before the trial. Wilbur is also the master of the local chapter of the rogue’s guild. Georg is put in the witness stand while the Muresans make their case. Georg doesn’t get to say anything until asked to vote guilty or not. I have Georg vote not guilty to spite the Muresans but the other two people with a say both vote guilty. The magistrate pronounces him guilty but notes that the verdict was not unanimous so the punishment is moderated to six hours in the pillory only.
Here we have the Kant family tree. At this point in time, Georg is 37 years old. Note that children can’t become actively controlled characters until they 16 years old. The game says that you wouldn’t want to expose children to the rigors of adult life. Georg needs to make more money, to expand his business, become a full citizen and pay for his children’s education but attending the trial took a lot of time.
Eventually Georg saves enough to upgrade the pub from a mere public house to a tavern. It’s both bigger and comes with a bathroom that customers can rent (with absolutely no prostitution involved of course, no sir). More importantly for me, I can now make real wheat beer instead of the weak variety. Of course the orchard keeps producing fruit and honey but it runs itself more or less automatically since it needs no import of raw materials.
Summer 1420 passes uneventfully as I have Georg concentrate only on making money. Our tavern also serves salmon fillet now, which proves quite popular and lucrative. We do need to continually buy both ingredients, salmon and mushroom baskets from the market. The logistics starts to get a bit hairy at this point and I see the usefulness of buying an extra handcart. Including Georg, we now have five people working full time at the pub. We need to buy a lot of wheat to sustain beer and porridge production.
All that money goes into a lot of different improvements around the house and the pub. In autumn 1424, one such investment opens up a new option to send our pet thug around town to ferret out rumors and juicy information. This turns out to be much more effective than choosing a particular target to tail. We end up with extra evidence against Wilbur Eaton, which isn’t much of a surprise. More shockingly we find that the King has been up to no good as well. We could use this evidence to blackmail him, but do we want to make such a powerful enemy?
We also spend some of our lucre on buying a local brickmaker’s shop that is for sale. It’s quite far away from our house and it doesn’t have any synergies with our existing businesses but Julia Kant is getting bored out of her mind doing nothing but reading and having babies at the house. Plus at 1,500, the shop is cheap. Our business empire expands!
Next: more money and underhanded tactics!
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