The walls of the spirit coin farm were five metres tall, made from yellow desert stone. The gates were small, clearly not designed for a lot of traffic. Outside the gate was a fairly large area of tiled ground, scattered with desert sand. The sole feature of the tiled area was a gazebo, providing shade for adventurers to wait in.

It was around an hour after they arrived that Phoebe came back through the gates she had entered alone. She had another person with her as she exited, plus a trio of wagons running behind.

These wagons were the non-magical, heidel-drawn variety, and were longer, wider and definitely heavier than other wagons Jason had seen. They were all constructed from sturdy metal, to the point of looking like old-timey train cars. Each wagon took eight heidels just to move at a crawl. The narrow wheels looked like the exact wrong thing to take onto sand, and the wagons seemed generally useless for desert travel. They stopped in the middle of the tiled expanse and the adventurers left the gazebo for a closer look.

“You’re going to like this,” Humphrey said to Jason.

Each of the wagons had two people on it, who got off and moved around behind them. The back of the wagons folded down into a ramp, down each of which slid a vehicle. They looked a lot like the airboat Jason had ridden on with Clive, and Jason’s face lit up with glee.

“Some kind of sand boat?” he asked.

“We call them sand skimmers,” Humphrey said. “They operate on magic, obviously, so they have to be wagoned out of the farm before charging them up.”

“Don’t want any loose magic in your spirit coin farm?” Jason guessed.

“Exactly,” Humphrey said.

As they drew closer, the people unloading the wagons paused to greet ‘Young Master Humphrey.’ Jason opened his mouth to start off about disproportionate class systems, then stopped himself, shaking his head in self-recrimination.

“What is it?” Humphrey asked him.

“It’s nothing.”

“Really?” Humphrey asked. “Since when do you hold back an opinion?”

“Humphrey, opening my mouth wide enough to fit my foot in it already cost us a healer. It’s past time I learned to keep it shut.”

“It wouldn’t be you if you didn’t go into a rant about something,” Humphrey said. “Just let it out.”

Jason looked at Humphrey, warily.

“Look,” Jason said. “It’s just that you were born as the employer of these people, and they were born to work for you.”

“Just so you know,” Humphrey said, “these men earn more money than an iron-rank adventurer.”

“Really?”

“They work in a giant money workshop,” Humphrey said. “That makes loyalty important. Also, they have to work in the middle of the desert, which deserves fair compensation.”

“Do they live out here?”