Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 494: New Resources

At gem quality, diaspore blazed. High refractivity and strong polychromism—red and green at once, not shifting from one to the other but throwing both simultaneously—made it unlike any other stone. Locals called it the multicolored stone, and the name was apt. Roland hadn’t connected the description to diaspore when Barov first mentioned the mine’s primary export. Seeing it in person, he knew instantly.

He also knew what diaspore became when it lost its water content: corundum. And gem-quality corundum had another name—one recognized everywhere.

Ruby. Sapphire.

But that wasn’t what had his heart hammering.

“What happens to the debris dug out from the mine?” he asked, shutting the wooden box after a long moment.

“You mean… the rubble from digging the tunnels?”

“Yes. The rubble, and the mud as well. What do you do with it?”

Denver looked genuinely puzzled. “It’s carted out and dumped at the base of the mountain. You needn’t worry, Your Highness—every useful ore is carefully picked out before it leaves. The sorting is done by the most experienced members of my family, and they never miss good stones. Everything left behind is either broken in the process or too low in quality to polish.”

“You’re wrong.” Roland shook his head with a smile. “What you’ve been dumping at the bottom of the mountain may be the real treasure.”

Silence. Denver stood motionless. Around them, the rest of the party wore the same expression—a kind of polite blankness that was really just bewilderment held in check.

It was difficult to explain. In this world, even steelmaking was still barely imaginable; aluminum extraction was a concept several industrial revolutions away. Diaspore consisted primarily of aluminum oxide—a by-product of bauxite formation. Its presence here meant this mountain almost certainly held abundant bauxite. The mud and rubble the Crains had been discarding for generations were raw material for extracting the most abundant metallic element on earth.

Aluminum wasn’t rare. That was the entire point. It was everywhere—more common than iron, dispersed through ordinary rock and soil. Lucia could pull trace amounts from almost any stone she touched. But trace amounts weren’t enough for industrial production. You needed concentrated deposits worth excavating. A bauxite-rich vein next to a diaspore mine was exactly that.

The applications were significant. Low density, high durability, resistance to corrosion—aluminum was a cornerstone of advanced manufacture. Electrolytic extraction was far beyond Neverwinter’s current capacity, but Lucia provided an alternative pathway: her ability to pull aluminum directly from ore, concentrated at a point rather than dissolved in a tank. With enough time and organized effort, weapons and structures presently impossible in this era could be built. Large airships, for instance. The kind that could change the shape of a war.

Roland had come to Longsong intending to focus on the iron mines. The plan had just changed.

He drew Petrov aside and lowered his voice. “How has the Crain family been compensated over the past two hundred years? What was the arrangement?”

“I reviewed Osmond Ryan’s accounts,” Petrov said. “Simple payment in kind. Each year, the Crains could select from a standard box of second-tier gemstones—a box about as wide as two hands and deep as half a hand, and as long as the lid could close. The rare stones went to the lord.”

“Meaning the two stones Denver gave me just now aren’t the finest available?”

“In quality, they genuinely are the best—he wouldn’t dare deceive you. But gemstones are always worth more when they’re large, and these are modest in size.”

Roland looked at Petrov steadily. “You’ve also received gifts from him, I assume.”

Petrov’s composure slipped. “I… yes, Your Highness. I’ll return them as soon as we’re back.”

“Keep them. I’m not concerned with that.” Roland dismissed it. “I’m asking because I want to understand the oversight problem. What stops the family from taking more stones during excavation? Unless we searched the whole household, we’d never catch it.”

“There are monitors at transport and filtering points. Even if they do take extra, they’d be careful not to overdo it—neither side can afford to break the arrangement. The Crains need the lord’s protection; the lord needs the Crains’ knowledge. It’s a balance.” Petrov paused. “If we replaced them with our own people, the same problem would exist—probably worse.”

“I see. Then keep the current arrangement.” Roland nodded. “But going forward, I also want everything they dig up—the rocks, the mud, all of it. When we return, I’ll draft a collection plan for you.”

Petrov hesitated. “Is the mud… truly worth more than gemstones?”

“That depends entirely on who holds it.”

They inspected the two iron mines and one salt well before the sky went dark and the castle lights came on.

After dinner, Roland sat at his desk, cleared a space, and pulled out paper and pen.

First, the steam engines. He’d need to push several units out to Longsong—for mine drainage, for brine extraction at the salt wells, and for ore transport. The Maple Leaf and Wild Rose territories had fallen with their lords; he could bring in experienced workers from the North Slope Mine and recruit additional labor locally to get those iron mines operating first. The ore would go back to the Border Area for smelting. The gem mine’s excavation would wait until Lucia came to Longsong and confirmed the aluminum content in the deposit.

Second, the salt wells.

As expected, the steam engine would help here too—accelerating water extraction and increasing output. The larger problem was refinement. The brine from each well had a different mineral composition, and brute extraction would produce salt unfit for the table without further processing. He’d take samples back to Kyle Sichi at the alchemy workshop and have the chief alchemist determine the specific refining steps for each well. Once that was settled, a processing facility could be built on-site.

He wrote a note to himself: salt industry under City Hall management, exclusive. Like grain. The Elk and Honeysuckle families could receive technical support, but all refined salt they produced had to be sold to the City Hall at set prices—not to competing buyers at inflated margins. If he could secure large quantities of pure white salt at low cost, he could open an entirely new commercial channel for Neverwinter.

He set down the pen and looked at what he’d written. Iron, aluminum, salt. Three supply chains, all currently underdeveloped, all achievable within a reasonable horizon.

This all becomes possible after Timothy falls.

He believed that, and set the papers aside for the morning.

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