Chương 8: Trading House

Basil Song was having a bad day. This bad day was at the tail end of a bad week, and that bad week had been preceded by a bad year. He was in charge of the Lorelark branch of the Seven Songs Trading Company. The youngest of seven brothers, he'd been sent to this city to establish a local branch. At the time he'd thought he was being given an opportunity to prove himself. But now he realized that he'd been set up to fail. Lorelark already had two major trading houses, and the city wasn't big enough for three.

Despite all his efforts to claw out some market share, the branch had yet made it out of the red, and he was close to burning through the last of his seed money. One way or another, there weren't going to be many bad days left ahead of him. Either things turned around by the end of next week or he was going to have to return to his brothers in shame. He was going back over the numbers on his balance sheet when a clerk entered his office.

"Sir! There's something that requires your attention." Great. Another fire to put out, another loss to add to the books.

"Did we lose another shipment?" he asked. The bandit situation had been getting worse. At least his wasn't the only trading house suffering. Everyone was losing money from this. But the other two houses had more in the bank.

"A client, sir," the clerk replied.

"But it's most unusual. We'll need your authorization to call in a special appraiser." This got his attention. He had a broad range of experts on staff. It was rare for any merchandise to pass through their warehouse that they couldn't handle. Basil went out to meet with the client, a young woman with a bronze adventurers badge. She introduced herself as Amberlin and presented him with what appeared to be the scale of a red dragon. He picked it up and examined it.

"The other trading houses turned me down," she said.

"But I hope you can give me a good price for it." He looked at her again, trying to figure her out. It was unusual for a client to admit that they'd already been turned down by the other houses. It was the worst thing you could do when opening a negotiation, as she was basically telling him—unprompted—that she was running out of options, leaving him in a position to take advantage of her.

Since she had a sharp and intelligent look about her, he didn't believe for one second that she would make such a rudimentary mistake. There must be some deeper scheme behind this. The other houses would have turned down such a rare opportunity for one reason only—they'd assessed the scale as fake. That's if she'd actually approached the other houses at all. She could have somehow learned of his dire circumstances and come to take advantage of his desperation directly.

A man about to lose his business would grab at any opportunity to turn his luck around. But how did it fit into her scheme to mention the other trading houses at all? He couldn't figure it out. This was far too deep for him. In a situation like this, it was important to stick to the basics. He knew enough about the world to understand that the odds of this deal working out were almost nil. That the sensible decision was to send the woman away. Yet...

when he took the scale in hand, there was a serious weightiness to it. A trick to watch out for was counterfeit scales made by coating a common metal to make it look like dragon scale. It was a difficult and expensive process to get the appearance just right, but the costs paled in comparison to what could be swindled out of an unwary merchant. He'd handled many materials in his time, so he was familiar with the feel of iron and lead. And this scale was heavier than both.

The weight was a good sign, but there remained many other tricks—and he couldn't be aware of them all. His clerk was right. This required a special appraiser. But they weren't cheap, and should the scale turn out to be fake, he'd have gained nothing for the money spent. But taking a closer look, there were some features in this scale that were unusual in a fake. For a start, there were some scratches on it. All the counterfeits he'd ever encountered had been made to appear flawless.

Thanks to the scratches, he could see that the scale wasn't made with some simple coating. That wasn't to say it wasn't a coating, but the sophistication required to achieve this effect was at a level not usually seen in run-of-the-mill counterfeiters. While dragon scale was known for being one of the strongest materials in the world, the presence of damage didn't bother him. It was only natural, after all, that to get the scale, you had to bring down the dragon. But how did a bronze manage it?

Even crystal-rank adventurers struggled against those creatures.

"How did you come into possession of this item?" Basil asked.

"I found it in the mountains," Amberlin replied.

"What mountains?"

"I don't know what it's called. Does it matter? Just tell me what you'll give me for it." Her answers were definitely suspicious. And this feigned impatience was a common tactic among swindlers. They wanted to pressure the buyer into a hasty decision before they had a chance to think it through. There were too many unanswered questions, too many things that didn't make sense. Had his business been in better shape, he wouldn't have continued to entertain the purchase.

But he needed a miracle to turn his fortunes around, and he wasn't going to blow it off if the Goddess in her infinite mercy decided to deliver one to his door. So what if it turned out to be fake and he'd wasted money hiring a special appraiser? He was already going to have to shutter his doors. All it meant was that he'd have to shutter them a day sooner. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"I'll have to bring in an expert to examine the item," he said.

"You don't mind, do you?"

"How long will this take?" she asked.

"Do you have other engagements?"

"I've left my cat alone for longer than I planned. I just want to check in and see if he's okay and make sure he's been fed and watered." Being an experienced merchant, he took this new development in stride.

"I'll have to send someone to fetch the expert and bring him here. That will probably take a while, so you should have plenty of time to tend to your pet."

"Great! I'll see you back here in a bit!" She grabbed the dragon scale from his hands and ran off. After sending a runner off to fetch the special appraiser, Basil returned to his office to collect his thoughts. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't unravel the scheme, and he started allowing himself to hope that it could be the real deal. If it was, he planned on making a fair offer. He didn't know by what route the Goddess had sent this girl to him, but he had to show grace in accepting her kindness.

The first to return was the runner with the expert in tow. The expert was a man named Garfunyan. A retired smith from the royal capital, Garfunyan had worked with all sorts of exotic materials over the years, and now he spent his days partaking in alchemy—a heavy partaker, if his dilated pupils were anything to go by.

"Do you need time to come down?" he asked the man with a touch of concern.

"It's fine, it's fine," Garfunyan said dismissively.

"The potion won't interfere with my work. If anything, it helps me see better. Just don't ask me to drive a carriage."

"There's a lot of coin at stake," he said.

"I can't afford any mistakes."

"Boy, I can identify materials in my sleep. Now where's the dragon scale? I left the cauldron on, and I have to get back before it boils dry."

"We're waiting for the client to return." Garfunyan glared at him.

"Maybe I should start charging you by the hour."

"I thought she'd be back by now."

"I may as well get all my tools ready while we wait. You have a shop press I can use, don't you?"

"It's in the corner of the warehouse," he replied. Garfunyan unpacked his toolkit and laid everything out neatly on a work bench. While he was doing that, Basil spotted Amberlin coming up the street and waved to her. She had a tuxedo cat perched on her shoulder.

"Is this the lucky feline?" Basil said.

"His name is Boots." Basil reached out to pet the cat, but it returned such a nasty glare that he withdrew his hand.

"Boots is, uh, lovely," he said uneasily.

"Isn't he?" A thought occurred to him.

"You should be careful taking him outside. There's been rumors of pets going missing."

"That's terrible!" Amberlin cried.

"Why hasn't anyone put up a quest to catch the catnappers?"

"I'm about to fall into a catnap if you lot keep standin' around," Garfunyan interjected.

"Right, right," Basil said.

"Could you show him the scale, miss?" Amberlin presented the dragon scale to Garfunyan, who eyed it skeptically before accepting it without a word and began inspecting it with his assortment of tools. While they waited for the appraiser to do his work, Amberlin turned back to Basil.

"Do you have any leads on those pet thieves? Someone's got to put a stop to them." He shook his head.

"All I know is that there are a few strays that come around the back of the warehouse where I put some food out for them every night. But lately they haven't been coming around. You never see any on the street anymore either. Everyone with a cat keeps theirs indoors now."

"What about the watch?" Amberlin asked.

"They must be doing something about it."

"I imagine they have their hands full with all the people going missing to worry about the animals," he replied.

"So if I help them find the missing people, they'll have time to find the missing animals?"

"Uh..." He wasn't sure how to respond to that. Luckily he didn't have to because a loud crack came from the corner where Garfunyan was on the shop press, followed by the man crying out, "Well I'll be damned!"

"Was that expensive?" Amberlin asked anxiously.

"No, no, it's fine," Garfunyan said.

"My piercing rod snapped. Just got a little carried away. Thought no way this scale could be real, so I was putting a little too much pressure tryin' to break it."

"You tried to break my scale?" Garfunyan held up the scale.

"Look at it! That scratch wasn't done by no sword. Looks like claws to me. A sword mark I can understand. You gotta kill the dragon to get the scale, so it stands to reason. But what's got claws that can scratch red dragon scale?" Basil turned to Amberlin.

"Did you see what killed it?" Amberlin thought for a moment and then said, "I'm not sure."

"How can you not be sure? Garfunyan demanded.

"You either saw it or you din't."

"Well, I didn't see it see it. But I saw the mess it left behind. Though a few times I got close enough that I might have seen it." Garfunyan shook his head.

"Lass, you're as crazy as all the other adventurers. You should count yourself lucky you never met the thing that did this."

"Well, I won't be going back there," Amberlin said.

"That's a wise decision," Basil agreed.

"There are much safer hunting grounds for the budding adventurer. Not even crystal-rank adventurers like to go into the mountains."

"So are you going to buy my dragon scale?" Amberlin asked, glancing nervously up at the darkening sky. Basil looked over at Garfunyan, who nodded his head.

"It's the real deal, guaranteed." He turned back to Amberlin, "How many do you have to sell?"

"Just the one," she replied.

"It's a shame that whatever killed the dragon didn't leave behind more scales," he said.

"But I suppose even one scale makes for a lucky find."

"Oh, there were more," she said.

"I just didn't take them."

"What?"

"I didn't have room in my pockets." Basil decided that it was better for his health not to pursue that line of inquiry. If this was anyone else, he'd try to find out which mountains, and where in those mountains, she'd found the scale. But his business intuition told him that the prospect of getting any usable information from this girl was so remote as to be a complete waste of time. Instead he moved to close the deal. He'd already drawn up the contract of sale, and he presented it to her now.

"In addition to the up-front payment," he explained, "you'll receive a percentage of the sale once we've found a buyer." He didn't want to do it like this, but he simply couldn't afford to pay out the full value of the dragon scale up front—not if he wanted to keep the doors open long enough to actually find a buyer. To compensate for the risks and inconvenience, he'd offered her a very generous cut of the final sale.

"But I'd like to put to you a second option," he continued, presenting her with another contract.

"If you're willing to take just the up-front payment and give up your portion of the sale, I will sign over half of my own share in the trading company." Admittedly his share was the smallest out of all the family, but it was the most valuable thing he owned. As for why he was willing to do this, it was simple. He'd accepted that his branch couldn't survive solely as a trading house and had found some alternative revenue streams. The problem was that he no longer had the cash to pursue them.

This windfall was just what he needed, but he needed the full share to really make it work. In short, it was a fair deal. He was basically asking her to invest her share of the sale into his business.

"Of course, it's a big decision," he said.

"As a prospective investor, you'll be entitled to go over our financial—""This is too complicated," Amberlin said.

"Just tell me how much you can give me right now."

"Ten gold up-front," he said.

"Can you do fifteen?" He shook his head.

"I'm sorry. I'm already giving you the best deal I can." She turned to Garfunyan and asked, "Is this a good deal?" The appraiser was giving them both a strange look but nodded.

"Yeah, it's a good deal." This seemed to satisfy Amberlin. She turned back to him and said, "Done. Can I get my money now?" He nodded at the clerk, who went to fetch the coins. Then he turned back to Amberlin and held up the two contracts.

"As for—""You decide," she said.

"I'm sure you'll treat me right." He couldn't find the words to respond before the clerk returned with small purse, which Amberlin accepted without checking the contents before running off. The cat on her shoulder shuffled around until it was glaring back at him as she disappeared up the street.

"Wait!" he called out.

"I need to know where to send your dividends!" But it was too late. Garfunyan came up to him.

"I've never known you to be this generous."

"That girl is blessed by the Goddess," he replied.

"Are you sure?"

"How else could someone like her have survived to now?" Garfunyan nodded.

"Good point."