Weekly Digest 108 - (#347 - #349) (Patreon)

The Man Whose Name Was On The Sign

The way Ravia stood up told me the man who entered was important, along with how he just interrupted this negotiation. If the guards at the door, the stairs and the hallway outside let him in…

"Ah, father," Ravia said with a nod. "Endlew spoke to you, I take it? Master Rian, this is my father Emborin, the head of our merchant house."

Well, that confirmed it.

I gave Ravia's father a quick glance up and down. He wasn't very tall, standing at about his son's height, but had the stocky build of someone who'd done a lot of heavy lifting for a long time. His muscles were still thick, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was the type who didn't care about getting his hands dirty, hauling things himself. His wide waistline was probably as much muscle as fat, but his orange hair was going pale at the temples, the bright pastel orange standing out against the darker hair on the rest of his head. Even if it wasn't required, I stood up respectfully, giving them a welcoming smile. It was always a good idea to be respectful to someone's whose beads you were going to take, especially when it was a large amount of beads. "Good day, Master Emborin. To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?"

He didn't smile back, his expression remaining smooth and serious despite all the wrinkles on it. "Master Rian. I hear you're the one with the ice boat who can keep it from tipping over." His voice was as deep as you'd expect, with a slight grating quality like he had a mouthful of rocks. Not unpleasant, but surprising after dealing with Ravia.

I shrugged. "It helps to know what you're doing."

The man let out a low chuckle as he walked over to the other side of the table. "I suppose it does. Are you going to be teaching everyone how to do it themselves?"

"Unfortunately, I don't have the time. Lots of things to take care of at home, you know?"

Emborin nodded as he sat where Ravia had been, his son sitting next to him as I settled back onto my seat. He picked up one of the wispbeads from the handkerchief with thick but deft fingers, rolling them across his fingertips. "So… these are the wispbeads… yes, they're far too big to have been swallowed or used before."

"We were discussing Rian borrowing one of our scales so he can weigh the beads he has and calculate a reasonable price per sengrain," Ravia said. "At the moment, he is asking for bead-tani per wispbead."

The older man's eyes rose, though I couldn't tell it was genuine surprise or confusion, or purely for my benefit. "For a large bead?"

Well, as a conversational prop, it didn't matter. I shrugged. "Our demesne isn't Taniar-approved, so even if we put denominations on our bead, that value would only mean anything in our own demesne. Outside of our demesne, its greatest value would be as a fuel for bound tools and for use by Whisperers themselves. We all know how that's going right now. The only way we'd make a reasonable profit is if it's cheaper to buy and use than the remaining denominations of large wispbeads. Depending on how the demesne the beads come from organizes it, the remaining large beads left to use probably cost anything from a hundred to two thousand bead-tani." No one was going to be using double-large wispbeads for their bound tools. They'd never make enough to justify it.

I didn't lose anything by admitting that. A small mid-large bead was almost always denominated at ten bead-tani, unless it was one of those demesnes where the Dungeon Binder has all the beads there valued at one and prime numbers, or all the beads have denominations that were multiples of seven.

Everyone hated dealing with beads from those demesnes.

Theoretically, I could raise the price all the way up to just under the value of a large mid-large bead, but in practice, the cost of the bead was best equal to or much less than the price of hiring a Whisperer to imbue the bound tool themselves. I'd probably putting some Whisperers out of work for a little while, but only as long as the supply of wispbeads locally available lasted, and Whisperers would always be in demand somewhere. They could take up a rewarding new career in salt extraction, for one. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the boats out at sea were evaporating their water with a hired Whisperer.

Both Emborin and Ravia nodded in agreement, either realizing this line of thought themselves or simply agree with my reasoning.

"But," I continued, "to be honest, we don't have the time, resources or infrastructure to sell the beads ourselves. Even if we were inclined too, we'd immediately lose our profits acquiring some sort of premises, local taxes, paying for security against the gangs I keep hearing about—" while there had always been criminality in Covehold, the carpenters I spoke to yesterday all warned me of the recent rise in gang behavior—and all those fun things…" I shook my head. "I'd rather sell them to you and have you deal with all that."

"How honest of you," Ravia said dryly.

My reply was a shrug and a shameless grin. "You already know who to talk to about all these things. I know how government corruption works. I'd rather not lose all my profits just to be able to pay my taxes in a timely manner."

"It's not quite that bad," the younger merchant said, "but I take your point. So you'll simply sell them to us?"

"I was thinking more of a partnership," I said. "You'd have the exclusive contract to sell and distribute our wispbeads to the workshops of Covehold and the Whisperers of the surrounding area. In exchange, you'd probably need to be the one to deal with any government interference and eventual regulation, taxation and other issues that will no doubt arise."

"Exclusive, you say?"

I nod. "Exclusive. While we might get more if we approach another merchant house, or even pit the houses in a bidding war, that would take too long, cause needless and avoidable ill will, and would surely draw the attention of Covehold Demesne's lords and perhaps even the Dungeon Binder, no doubt accelerating government interference." I shrugged. "No, what's important is to start selling these beads to workshops with bound tools and Whisperers who want them as soon as possible. The faster people buy them, the faster we can both make a profit."

"Interesting. And what would your stake be in this?" Ravia said.

I glanced at Emborin, who was watching me intently, letting him know I hadn't forgotten him. They were actually going easy on me, having Ravia doing all the talking. I had no doubt the father could be more aggressive, pressuring me with supposed urgency and added costs that would sound so reasonable to get me to try and concede larger shares or a lower price. "Why, we provide the product and transport it to you, of course. After all, there's nothing to sell without product."

"It doesn't seem like much, considering what we will have to deal with."

"You're welcome to develop the means of producing wispbeads on your own."

Ravia nodded, conceding the point, then glanced at his father. "I admit, the offer is tempting, but I'd like more information on some details."

"Such as?" The hard questions would no doubt be coming.

"How often will you be able to deliver beads to us?"

"I'm afraid it will not be regularly. Not weekly, certainly, and I doubt we'll be able to manage monthly. Once every two months, perhaps, outside of winter," I admitted honestly. "Truthfully, we'd have been here sooner, but my Dungeon Binder wanted to wait to see if there would be a dragon this summer, since travelling would be relatively safer during the period after one passed."

"That does not bode well for having a regular supply," Emborin finally said, tone mildly disapproving.

"It isn't," I admitted readily. "However, that's because we're limited to the resources we have now. Part of the reason I'm here was to recruit Deadspeakers to allow us to build better boats. As nice as the Coldholdis, it could be better. Faster, certainly."

Ravia opened his mouth to respond, then paused. "The… Coldhold?"

"Inaccurate, I know, but it seemed like a good name with all the ice that went into building it."

"I… see." He shook his head as if to banish the tangent. "Well, regardless, having an unreliable or at least irregular supplier is not desirable. Can't you commit to more regular times?"

"Not at this time, no," I said. "As I said, even if I wanted to commit, our resources as they stand make the voyage dangerous. Besides, while having an irregular supplier is inconvenient, I'm sure a merchant can use the reality of a limited supply to raise the price of goods a little, at least until the next delivery."

"That's not a practice we approve of," Ravia said with a glance at his father, who was frowning.

"Then don't," I said. "You're experienced at this, I'm sure you can come up with some kind of solution to the problem of low supply and high demand beyond the usual. It's not like you're going to have any competition. And if we have competition, it means we no longer have a monopoly and you have another supplier of beads." I shrugged. "But as to regular times, we might be able to improve matters in a few months once we've built a better boat. As it is, I can't really promise a resupply sooner than two, perhaps three months, and none at all in the winter. Perhaps when we have more resources, it can be faster, but until then…"

"I see…" Ravia said. "That is unfortunate. Is there anything else we should know?"

"Nothing that I feel you need to be informed of before you commit yourselves to partnering with us," I said. "You know how it is."

"Why us?" Emborin said, and Ravia visibly sat back in his chair as I turned to face his father. "Why not some other merchant house? The Valmert Trading Company would have agreed to any price you named, and so would the Covehold Merchant Partnership."

“Because everything I’ve found out about you, and my own dealings, tells me you’re fair, reliable, and honest,” I said. “Your neighbors don’t resent you, your workers respect you, and your customers like you. There are probably worse people to approach about this, but it will take a lot of work on my part to find someone better. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t have that long. Our Dungeon Binder wants us all back home soon.”

“You’ve dealt with us twice,” Emborin said. “You’re willing to trust us after that?”

“No, of course not,” was my cheerful reply, which made them blink, though likely it was because of the tone. “There’s no trust in insisting you pay me for the beads on the same day you receive them. Trust is what grows from what happens in between. If you refuse… well, then I’m going to be spending the next few days having to look for another partner in this, on top of all the things I already have to do. I’d bid you good day, take the beads for my salt and skins, and maybe come back later for some things I don’t have time to look for on my own.”

“You’d come back?” Ravia said, clearly both amused and bemused by the statement.

“Well, yes. You still owe me a recommendation and I have no idea where to get any of the things in my shopping list. I have no idea where to find a good papermaker, for one thing, much less where I might be able to buy cloudbloom seeds or seedlings or whatever.”

Ravia chuckled somewhat self-consciously as his father glanced at him. Ah. No wonder the older man didn’t smile much. That expression was slightly unnerving if you weren’t used to it. Still, I took him having so many laugh lines on his face was a good sign. “Ah. Yes, I do still owe you a recommendation. Sorry, it slipped my mind.”

I waved my hand in the gesture Lori was so fond of. “Happens to my Dungeon Binder all the time. I’d recommend writing a note to yourself on a rock and keeping it in your pocket.“ My expression became slightly more serious as I looked them both in the eye. “Now, I’m a reasonable man. I understand if you need to speak with some other people before coming to a decision about this. I can give you one…no, two days to consider.”

“Why that long?” Ravia asked.

“Because we’ll be leaving soon after that, and if you decide ‘yes’, you’ll need some time to properly inventory all the beads, and maybe another day or two to put together the other things on my shopping list that I’ll be able to afford then. After that, we’ll be leaving. And if you refuse, I’ll need that time to find some other merchant house willing to take this deal.”

“You’re not going to look for another merchant house while we deliberate?”

I shrugged. “That’s my problem, isn’t it?”

Ravia shrugged and nodded at the same time, conceding the point, then glanced sideways at the older merchant next to him. “Father?”

Emborin stared at the bead on the handkerchief. Then he nodded. “Could you come back at noon, Master Rian? We’ll have your answer—and the beads for your salt and other goods—ready for you then.”

I nodded, then paused. “I don’t suppose I can get a little advance on that salt money? I promised the men lunch.”

The older merchant glanced at the two men at my back, and nodded. “Of course. Ravia, see that Master is given an advance from the petty beads, will you? Then wait for me in my office.”

“Yes, father,” Ravia said as the man rose and gave me one more nod before leaving the room.

“He seems nice,” I commented. “Reminds me of my father.”

Ravia gave me a quick smile. “If you’ll come with me, Rian, I’ll collect your advance, and we can weigh your beads on the office scales.”

Ah, right. It had almost slipped my mind. I wished I had a convenient rock to write it on. “Lead the way,” I said as I collected the beads from the table.

The young merchant smiled when I asked to weigh the large small-mid bead I’d gotten yesterday, which incidentally came up to twenty and eight-tenth grains in weight. The wispbead came up to twenty-one and three-tenths. I said nothing at either number, simply committing them to memory.

Ravia quickly counted out two hundred bead-tani—thankfully in an assortment of beads and not simply two large mid-large beads—handing them to me along with a little receipt noting the amount was being deducted from the totals of our contract. This time he pointedly didn’t stare as I put the beads in my belt pouch—which would need to go under my shirt again, and the handkerchief and glowing rock had to be used as a separator—as I put them in.

“Here,” I said, putting one of the wispbeads on Ravia’s desk as I stood up. “For demonstration purposes.”

It was, quite frankly, impressive how Ravia seemed to just wave his hand over the bead and it disappeared from the table, tucked into his palm. “Thank you, Rian,” he said. “And… thank you.”

I shrugged. “I hope you remember you said that when things get complicated,” I said as he led me back towards the stairs, nodding at the guard there to let me though.

Now, where do we go eat?

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The Final Negotiations

As much as I wanted to eat at that place with the doughstrands, the men probably wouldn't enjoy it as much as I would. So once we were back out on the street, we asked the guards at the door if they knew any good places to eat. Fortunately, we were early since it was only the early parts of late morning, and founds seats at a corner table before the early crowds started coming in.

By unspoken agreement, there was no stew of any sort. Instead, we ordered shredded meat served on long bread buns—actual bread and not just flatbread— meat balls dumplings, chlyp skewers and mugs of booze for Multaw and Cyuw. I made do with cold tea, which actually had little ice shavings floating on it, as I'd never really managed to developed a taste for booze. My tongue rebelled at the taste.

I'm told I'm missing something really good, but I don't like what I don't like.

Because of the number of people coming to the eatery, we didn't have the table to ourselves for long. Fortunately, because of the proximity to Emborin and Sons, it wasn't unusual to have people from other demesne eating there, and people were friendly enough.

"Oh, our demesne is a long way inland," I said when asked were we were from. "It's new, we only started it last year. The first time a dragon came…" I didn't have to play up the shudder that came over me. That had probably been the point the demesne had been closest to death. If Lori hadn't managed to keep up the protection's she'd set… if she hadn't been capable of maintain what she was doing while she'd been all but asleep, one quivering, partly open eyelid away from true unconsciousness… "It nearly finished us, but thankfully our Dungeon Binder was too stubborn to fall asleep, and the dragon was gone quick." If the first dragon that had passed over them had lingered for a week…

One of them men, Toltar, made a face. "Yeah, you hear stories about that. Everyone knows you don't bother to remember a new demesne until it's survived a dragon or two. I heard a whole bunch of the new ones burned down in the last dragon. Not ready for exploding rain, or just fell asleep in the middle of it and their wizards couldn't keep up what they were doing."

"I heard someone was killed by one of their own wizards, and then the fool didn't know how to do anything so the whole demesne died," another one of the men eating with them, Yhoe, whispered conspiratorially.

"If everyone in the demesne died, how does anyone know the Deadspeaker was killed by one of their own wizards?" Multaw asked.

Toltar rolled his eyes. "Don't mind him, he just likes to spread that one around."

Yhoe unashamedly gave a wide grin. "You wouldn't believe how many people don't ask that question when I tell them."

After some chatting, a casual question let me know where the nearest job placement board was. It was as good a place as any to look for Deadspeakers, and one of the men who'd come to eat with us even commented that it wasn't unusual for a demesne looking to recruit a wizard of some sort to post bills there.

We'd have stayed longer, but noon was approaching, and while there was the possibility that we might be made to wait in the usual power-play of wasting our time, it's more likely we'll be asked to wait because they haven't come to a decision yet, or were still hashing out all the points of the decision. Fortunately, the guards still remembered us from earlier, so we were allowed to wait while someone was sent to tell Ravia that we were back.

It wasn't long before the merchant was coming down the stairs, his usual professional smile on his face. "Ah, there you are Master Rian," he said. "You are very prompt. I trust you enjoyed your meal?"

"It's so good to be able to eat something besides stew for a change," I said. "Are you done already? We don't mind waiting a little if you still need to discuss things."

"There's no need. The deliberations are finished. Please follow me so we can finalize matters."

I let out a small sigh as I climbed up the stairs, my eyes on Ravia's back. That was a great weight off my mind. While the following negotiations were still important, unless I was completely unreasonable—and I liked to think I wasn't—then it was unlikely the merchant house would go back on their decision. They could threaten to, but it wasn't a threat they could use lightly, and I doubted they would.

I followed Ravia back to the hallway with the meeting room, but instead of the meeting room from before, the merchant led us towards the door at the end of the hall. Nodding to the guards on either side, he opened the door for me.

I reminded myself that I was a lord, for all the good that was when our demesne was all but non-entity, and stepped through with a confident smile and a firm step, Multaw and Cyuw following behind me.

Directly opposed the door was a wide window that, while only showing a view of the buildings beyond, let in a lot of light and even a slight breeze. In the room was a long table that was parallel to the window, and on one side sat Emborin, three other men that were probably the sons besides Ravia mentioned on the sign as they shared their father's orange hair in various shades, the Whisperer from before, as well as three other people. One of them seemed to be taking notes, or possibly dictation of the proceedings, but that didn't necessarily mean they were some kind of menial. Maybe they just had the best handwriting.

"Master Rian," Emborin greeted me as I sat down, Multaw and Cyuw at my back. "Allow me to introduce everyone. This is…"

I listened attentively as Ravia sat down on an empty chair on their side, getting a handful of names. The one taking notes was a brother-in-law who was in charge of the house’s record keeping, Leji; and the other two were the house’s primary lawyer and accountant, which I supposed only made sense. There was a good chance that at least one of the people in the room was a Mentalist, if for no other reason than so that they could have an exact record of the event. Those last three were the mostly likely ones to be it. All three might be, for all I knew. There was no reason to not have more than one.

“We’re thankful that you allowed Ravia to keep a sample,” Emborin said. “It made our discussion much easier.”

“It’s no problem,” I said. “I hope you didn’t have to use up all of it.”

In response, one of Ravia’s brothers placed a wispbead on the table. I reached for it, then paused. “Uh, no one swallowed this, did they.”

“No, I didn’t swallow it,” Endlew the Whisperer said, the left side of his mouth pulling back in a half-smirk. “It’s clean.”

“Uh… let’s leave it there for the moment, then,” I said. “So… what have you decided? Do I have to try my luck somewhere else?”

“No. After discussing it, we’re decided to accept your offer. However, we have certain conditions.”

“What a coincidence. So do I.”

Emborin nodded, no doubt having expected it. “And they are?”

“I’ll bring them up when they become relevant,” I said, “however, I’d like to request that Ravia continues to be the one who handles dealings with me as much as possible.”

Everyone turned to look at the merchant in question.

“Is there any particular reason why?” one of Ravia’s brothers asked.

I shrugged. “I’ve enjoyed my dealings with him, and see no reason to change to someone else unless he says that he can’t stand talking to me.”

Everyone looked at Ravia again.

“I have no objection to continuing to handle our dealing with Master Rian,” he said, looking amused.

Emborin nodded. “All right, then. That sounds reasonable enough. Now, Master Rian, you said you can’t commit to regular deliveries, but you must have some idea of how often you can deliver new products.”

“At the moment, with the resources we have available, the most I can promise is making another delivery of beads once, perhaps twice more if we’re lucky, before winter sets in,” I said. “If we had a better boat, we could probably be more regular, but at the moment it’s not something I can promise.”

“Hmm…” one of Ravia’s brothers hummed thoughtfully. “What if as part of the agreement we commission such a boat for you? We could provide the wood at cost, and arrange the commission with the relevant Deadspeakers and workshops?”

I blinked. Huh. That… honestly, that actually sounded like a good idea. All this time Lori and I had been thinking of having to build a new boat ourselves, but… well, even if we had a Deadspeaker with the skills we needed, if the rate that Lori could build things in River’s Fork was any indication it would still be months before such a project was completed. And Lori had the advantage of having a Dungeon Binder’s endless supply of magic to assist her. The Deadspeaker would probably be limited to how much magic he could work with.

Having a boat built here would be much easier. There would be a large workforce, both of Deadspeakers and woodworkers, to call upon so they could probably solve any problems with attrition… but doing it that way would require funding. I doubt Lori would be happy with me deciding to spend all our earnings on a new boat. Then there’d be the issue of bringing that boat back home with us. I’m not sure the Coldhold could tow such a thing behind it.

“I’m afraid I can’t make that decision alone,” I said. “It’s something I would need authorization for, not to mention a plan so we can get an estimate for the amount of wood it would need and labor. Can we put that suggestion on the side for now?”

“I see. Very well, then. Onto the next matter. How many wispbeads can you deliver per trip?”

I had to shrug. “It depends on my Dungeon Binder. They’re the ones who produce the wispbeads, and…” I sighed. “I’ve asked them to record how much they can make in a day, but you try getting a Dungeon Binder to do anything they don’t want to do.”

“No, I suppose not…” Emborin said slowly.

“The only thing I can guarantee is that I will have beads for you to sell when I come back,” I said. “The amount… well, it’ll depend. I can reasonably promise maybe a hundred beads, but I don’t dare go above that. Not without speaking to our Dungeon Binder and finding out how much time they’re willing to devote exclusively to production.”

“Is that why you preferred to price them by bead rather than by weight?” Ravia said.

I nodded. “Partially. We just didn’t have any scales back home, but we had plenty of time and people to count. So we counted, and some poor girl had to add it all up.”

“How many wispbeads do you have, then?” Ravia asked.

“Before I tell you that… I’d like us to agreed on the price per bead,” I said.

Emborin narrowed his eyes. “And how much were you thinking?”

“As I told Ravia, I want ten bead-tani per wispbead,” I said. “That’s well below the likely value of any remaining large wispbeads in the demesne, and it’s reasonably low enough that most workshops would still be able to afford it even if you added a profit margin of that much again.” They’d probably already discussed what they were willing to pay, so here comes their counter offer—

“Done,” Emborin said, nodding placidly.

I stared, blinking. “What, really?”

“Yes. Why, did you think we would refuse?”

“A little? I fully expected you to give a lower price, and then we’d haggle until we met in the middle…”

“You’ve heard too many stories, Master Rian. Why would we turn down a price that’s already good?”

I considered that, then considered the possibility I might have underpriced my product. But… “I have no objections—it’s the price I quoted, it would be silly of me to object—but I have to say this feels very strange.” I reallyhoped Lori didn’t ask me to renegotiate the price next time I came here. I’d do it, but… No, focus! Don’t let yourself be unbalanced. “So be it, then. However, you’ll need to pick up the beads from us at the dock, as you’ve been doing with our salt. We don’t have the resources to get the wispbeads here in a timely manner, never mind safely. I want you to be the ones responsible for transferring and securing the beads from our ship to your inventory.”

“Agreed,” Emborin said. “A few beads in your belt pouch is one thing, but…” He shook his head. “We’ll have a wagon ready as soon as we finish here. That way we can have guards on the inside with it.”

“And my men as well,” I said. “So they can keep each other company.”

Emborin glanced at one of his sons—the eldest of them, as I recalled—and the man nodded slowly. He was probably in charge of security or something.

“Well, with that settled Master Rian, perhaps you are now willing to tell us how many beads you have to trade?” Ravia said.

I took a deep breath. “Right now, my ship is carrying eleven thousand large wispbeads.”

There was silence. Even the brother-in-law taking notes had stopped as he realized what I’d just said.

There was a reason I said that I would bet on Lori’s work ethic against any other Dungeon Binder on the continent.

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Only Just Starting

“I thought you could reasonably promise only a hundred beads?” Ravia said.

“From your tone, you know eleven thousand is an unreasonable number,” I said. “The only reason we have that many is because our Dungeon Binder spent a long time making those beads in as we waited for the arrival of the year’s first dragon.” I shrugged. “And that was mostly because they were focused on how much we could sell so many for. With the coming year and things like the harvest and the other things they have to maintain, not to mention the projects that they’re waiting on the materials we’ll bring back for, I doubt they’ll have as much free time. You’re looking at a stockpile that arose over a long period.”

“Ah. That explains it. It’s basically winter work,” the last of Ravia’s brothers that hadn’t spoken yet said.

I gave a tired shrug, but didn’t actually confirm it. Lori had actually made most of it this past spring and early summer once she’d gotten her bead-making tray together. The main bottleneck had been getting enough pieces of Iridescence whenever she went out to grow the beads. While grains about the size of sand probably worked, Lori had found it difficult to maneuver them on the tray.

“I can see why you would want us to be the ones to transport it,” Ravia’s eldest brother said thoughtfully. “That many beads… Anyone looking at it probably wouldn’t see the lack of denomination marks. They’d just see an almost absurd number of large beads. And if there’s one thing people would likely be able to identify through a sack, it’s beads. We’ll need a covered wagon, and one of the lakimay to pull it…”

With most of the important details finalized, we moved on to drafting the contract. The agreed price of ten bead-tani per bead was accepted, though the terms would defer final payment until everything was inventoried to confirm there were, in fact, as many beads as promised. Some poor Mentalists and maybe even Horotracts were going to have several tedious hours in front of them. If they were my people, I’d have gotten them something nice once they finished with it all.

There was a clause that we could update the price from per bead to per sengrain once I received confirmation from Lori. Hopefully she’d understand not maximizing our profit margins in favor of maintaining cordial relations with our partner. And if not… well, if she asked me to get more for the beads, at least we'd be renegotiating the price anyway.

I was already sighing at having to try and figure out how I was supposed to rationalize the reasoning for it to something she could accept.

There were a lot of such clauses on the contract, such as commitments to regular deliveries and the minimum amount of beads we could promise per delivery that would be renegotiated later. As it stood, we were agreeing to another delivery before winter came, for a minimum of five hundred beads. The later was something Lori could do easily, so hopefully we could finalize at a higher number. If I had my way, we’d deliver monthly, but that would tie up the Coldhold to basically being a dedicated delivery ship. If we did that, we’d need to another ship for regular salt-harvesting for Lorian and River’s Fork’s own needs, which… was probably going to need to be the next project.

Well, second-next project. Increasing our harvest yields so we could better sustain our populations and maybe eat something besides stew was more important. The only reason we were able to live like that so far is probably because the local beasts and seels hadn’t yet learned to be wary of us, but that was changing. We needed to switch our staple food from wild meat and forage to domesticated crops as soon as possible. With our staple food secured, we can slowly start recruiting more people, and maybe start having something beyond a favor economy…

One of the smaller concessions I managed to get was an agreement that they would negotiate for our continued use of the docks should the demesne pass some sort of ruling limiting who could use those docks, as well as paying for our docking fee—deducted from later from our earnings—should we be lacking in funds. "Which we would be," I said shamelessly, "since I intend to leave here with more good with beads. Besides, there' a good chance that the increase in boat traffic in the bay might cause policy changes that might force us to have to use the newer wooden docks at the opposite side of the cove, which… well, I don't want to. That place looks very unsafe. I've heard talk of gangs."

Ravia's eldest brother made a snort of amused agreement. "It's a bit of an exaggeration, but given how valuable your goods are, you're probably right not wanting to dock there. Though the old docks aren't all that safe either. Early this spring, a gang set fire to the warehouses and stole a ship that was docked there, then managed to sail it out of the demesne before word could reach Binder Kaures."

I blinked. "They stole a ship?"

He nodded. "It was the first ship of the year and already full of provisions and cargo. The poor fools were probably thinking of using it to get back over the ocean. Probably lost and dead now. I hear sails are hard to use. It's why most boats use oars or wizards to move their boats."

"No arguments there," I agreed. "Well, I'll tell the men that if they see a fire to get our ship away from the dock." Those poor souls. Depending on the time of day they'd stolen the ship, they'd probably gotten lucky about using the sails to get out of the cove. Still, I made a note to keep an eye out for a derelict ship on the way back. There was a lot of ocean it could have drifted to, but we might get lucky. Either we can bring the ship back for a reward or we could keep it for ourselves!

One of the questions I’d been expecting came up near the end of drafting the contract, when we were finishing up going over all the listed points, most especially the exclusivity clause that promised we would provide beads only to Emborin and Sons for the next five years. It wasn’t very long, but it was very likely that someone else would have figured out how to make beads as well by that point. Dungeon Binders would be very well-motivated to figure out the process, if just to get into the market and break our monopoly. Once the period was reached, we could discuss either renewing the exclusivity clause or transitioning it to them becoming preferred partners, where they would have right to first refusal for our beads before we offered them to someone else.

“You have wispbeads to offer, but can your Dungeon Binder produce any other kind?” the accountant who I suspected was a Mentalist asked.

I didn’t even bother misdirecting that one. “No,” I said. “And for pretty much the reason you probably suspect.”

There were nods at that, and the accountant—who I reclassified as almost certainly being a Mentalist—sighed, but nodded in resignation.

It was practically public knowledge that none of the Dungeon Binders who had established demesnes near Covehold—including the Dungeon Binder of Covehold Demesne itself—had shown any ability to use any magic but the ones they been born with. Their efforts to try to fix this lack had eventually been spread by rumor and gossip. Trying to learn by reading basic primers on the other forms of magic, asking other wizards to teach them directly by apprenticeship, swallowing beads that they previously couldn’t utilize to try to align their magic to a different type… none of it had worked.

I’d kept the information from Lori, even as she'd told me to try and find primers on the other three magic she lacked with the profits from selling the beads. Partly it was because it didn't really change her situation. While she was utterly confident she would learn how to do other forms of magic, she only made plans based upon her and the demesne's current capabilities. It was why I wasn't too concerned about Shanalorre's safety. When Lori said the little girl would be all right until Lori learned Deadspeaking, she meant it.

The other reason was that as long as Lori still thought it was possible to learn other forms of magic, there was a very good chance she could stubborn her way to doing so. The woman had managed to learn how to both make beads and expand her demesne, a singular feat in this continent. Even the Dungeon Binder of Covehold Demesne had managed only one of those things, and while he seemed to have put it to good use, from what I heard he seldom left his dungeon and had never left his demesne. The chances of him matching Lori are practically non-existent.

I was still getting her the books, mostly so she'd have something else to read so that she'd finally lend me the almanac, and partly so that we had some way of educating Shanalorre and any of the children who showed the potential. While all the current generation of children were confirmed to not possess magic, we had a new generation of babies now. They were still far too young to be tested, but…

Well. Hopefully Lori would know better than to not educate a population that had proved loyal to her for many years. Otherwise, I had plenty of time to get the right books as reference for pointing out how doing so has historically been a terribleidea economically.

Finally, the contract was drafted, and both Master Emborin and I read over the copies before we signed our agreement. This time they gave me a nice leather folder embossed with the merchant house's sigil to keep the contract, which was nice. I was able to unfold the contract I'd gotten from Ravia earlier for the salt, skins and furs and put it in the folder as well. Hopefully the fold marks would flatten out.

Multaw, Cyuw and I hitched a ride with the wagon that was readied to pick up the beads. The lakimay pulling it was thankful well trained, staying still instead of shuffling nervously as we, Ravia, Ravia's eldest brother Royt, and the four guards got onto the back. The beast was undead, of course, the Deadspeaker sitting behind it controlling it with chain-link reins. Its feathers were still bright, vibrant and mostly intact, which meant it was either newly made or well taken care of.

The streets had cleared again since it was a past noon, so the wagon had few obstructions as the undead beast pulled us along. There was no conversation, since we were all too busy trying to keep from being bounced hard over the streets. The wagon had some springs and suspension, and it was probably enough to keep inanimate objects from breaking too badly, but as animate objects, it still hurt.

When we reached the dock, the Coldhold was lingering several paces away from the dock according to my orders. Even before I'd known about the ship that got gotten stolen, someone forcing their way aboard the Coldhold had been a concern. Fortunately, we were paid for the day, so the dockmaster didn't charge us again when ship docked once more. The water level had also risen, letting us put the ramp onto saner spot.

Ravia and his brother stayed ashore as I went down and directed the others to open the front room and start pulling out the sacks of beads, making sure we only pulled out the beads that were marked for sale and not the ones for all the ships bounds tools. The spare oversized beads for the bound tool driver remained where they were, covered in one corner where they couldn't be seen when the door was open.

It took a while to get all the sacks of beads out, passing them all in a chain with Ravia and the merchant house's people taking care of getting them on the wagon. Each sacks was tightly sealed, with a number on it that listed how many beads were inside. I'd tallied them twice before we'd left to make sure they added up correctly, because it would have been embarrassing to claim eleven thousand and actually have only a little over nine thousand wispbeads. All in all, it represented nine out of ten of the beads Lori has made before we'd left. Two-thirds of the rest were also on the boat to keep us in creature comforts. In an extreme emergency, we could sell some of the rest for extra funds, but it shouldn't be necessary.

"Once we leave, head out and start collecting more salt," I told Yhorj as the last of the sacks were carried out. "I'll signal you from here at the same time as yesterday. And since we have beads now, we'll bring food. And yes, we'll get some booze too if we can."

"Thank you, L—"

"Ah?"

"—uh, Rian," he corrected.

I nodded, and turned to head towards the wagon. After all, I needed to see the exchange through to the end, which included watching the merchant house confirm how many beads there were. I needed to place the orders for what the demesne needed. And then I needed recruit Deadspeakers.

The work was only just starting.