Upon the Winds of Trade
Fourth Day of the Fifth Month 293 AC
Much to Embra's disappointment you decide not to pursue the chaos-monger for his misdeeds and instead trust the Sultan's guard to do their work. By contrast Ser Richard is obviously relieved, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like: "Thank the bloody gods I don't have to learn how to gut frogs." The locals give him confused looks, even more pronounced than when you had so handily produced Alvar.
Delivering said sell-spells into Teana's keeping does little to lessen their bemusement, but all of them prove remarkably amenable to the tasks you had assigned them, whether teaching at the Scholarum, enchanting, or working with the Legion's battle mages to help smooth out the transition between the lecture hall and the battlefield.
Thus it is that you can finally turn your eyes to trade, this time able to disclose the provenance of your wares, rather than play to the buyer's expectations, in guises more or less dissembling.
***
Fifth Day of the Fifth Month 293 AC
"...That ain't no genuine Balance-wrought silk anymore than I'm a wart on the Sultan of Brass' sooty ass," one quarrelsome merchant proclaims, leaving you in equal measure amused as his colorful language and frustrated at his intransigence. To judge from Embra's giggling she is far less conflicted on the matter.
"Would you like to take a trip?" she asks slyly. "On the honor of my house you shan't be harmed and you will find it most
elucidating."
Though the thought of the fellow being unceremoniously dropped into the ocean from Embra's inexact transitions is enough to make you to swallow a laugh that would hardly get your silk sold any quicker, so you present the writs of quality and provenance acquired from the Office of Trade. Unsurprisingly even that is put into question, requiring that you summon the increasingly ill-tempered elemental who had been assigned the generally little called upon task of verifying such documentation at need.
"One more damn time..." Some of the curses that rumble forth are remarkable enough to recall besides the invocation of the Sultan of the Efreeti's posterior.
So it goes with the rumors of your arrival racing ahead of you, allowing you to clear a prodigious volume of business simply by selling to intermediaries who hope to profit from the the novelty and wild rumors. You wish them all the joy of such a scheme, as your days as a swindler have made you all too aware of the perils such trickery can bring with it.
You gain 110,000 Gold from trade
You gain 100,000 Reagents
A return to Odd's tower sees the curious merchant give you some very pointed looks as he delivers onto you strange black tomes the likes of which you have never seen, explaining that though the magic upon them does not make one more knowledgeable in the secrets of the world when liked through a proper source of lore it can help one deliver said lore in a swift and timely manner.
You gain 2 Tomes of Knowledge (max bonus +10)
Lastly he offers scrolls containing spells and invocations of summoning and binding, one of the sixth and the other of the eight circle.
That the last seems to be writ upon the skin of fiends and locked with a silver chain rather than a simple seal does not escape your notice... or Ser Richard's.
"We've been attacked by stranger things," the knight points out at your curious look.
To that you have no counter for it is nothing but the truth, though thankfully the scroll remains still and quiet in your keeping.
You gain scrolls of Planar Binding and Greater Planar Binding
You lose 2930 Gold
In the meanwhile Vee and Waymar had not fared well in finding any beasts for a decent price, for some of the very rumors that had so aided in your trade had also fueled the notion that magic was far scarcer in your home than it truly was. Thus the kindliest things Waymar can call most of the merchantsthe spoke to are thieves and cheats, with the remainder being perhaps of less than the height of knightly courtesy. Hopefully by the time the storm of speculation settles you can make further purchases under more reasonable conditions.
If nothing else then at least they happened upon the survivors of a failed trading expedition with little save their skills to sell and thus quite willing to start off a new life elsewhere, even in so distant a place as another world.
Gained 30 Sylph and Human handlers with knowledge of Hippogriff Training
Lost 1500 Gold (Hiring Fee)
As you are about to leave a conundrum you have been expecting for weeks rears its head: What to do with Embra? While disappointed that she did not have the chance to hunt down the mad Slaad, she is still game for traveling father afield upon your world than Sorcerer's Deep or even aiding as best she can in the raids against the Efreeti.
What do you do with Embra?
[] Take her along on the raids in the Sea of Fire
[] Send her to fight the Ghiscari
[] Have her join the Sothoryos expedition
[] Write in
OOC: The rolls were very uneven this round of trading.