[quote=@Voltus_Ventus]
<Snipped quote by Lucius Cypher>

The higher he charges for ore, the less money I can make because no latter how good the tool is, it is only a piece of iron and this he can't make it more expensive without losing conpetativness with other smiths in the province. High iron price = Low profit on tools.
[/quote]

All legitimate concerns, which is why we would need to deal with this at some point. I don't know what the GM wants us to deal with first as plot, but this can certainly be a source of stress and conflict for our characters in the IC. Though I'm also interested to see how we, as a group of retired adventurers, will deal with this issue. I know that if we had a powerful wizard or a cleric of the Earth Domain making holes in the ground wouldn't be too tough.