[Frozen Falls Market] A Crafter's Kind (Berus, Open)

[Lesserage]

511 AV 24th Spring Even in the early morning, when the sun had just risen, snow cascaded forth from the heavens, littering the ground with a fine blanket of white that was being constantly hacked away by earnest workers who sought to make the market-grounds at least semi-comfortable for the merchants who were just filing in and about to set up shop. On this morning, Lesserage led Bjorn, his trusty Avanthalian steed, across the ice-littered ground. His boots and Bjorn's mighty hooves made certain they were not harried by the treacherous terrain of the market, and they managed to navigate their way through the crowd of struggling merchants with relative ease. Upon reaching a barrier-point that bordered the thundering falls which gave the Frozen Falls' Market it's name, Lesserage nodded in a self-satisfied sort of way, tied Bjorn's reins to the fencing, and then spread out a canvas mat across the ground. He then opened one of the horse's saddlebags, and begun slowly placing a series of plain-looking wooden symbols onto a bowl, which he then placed onto the mat. Lesserage then unpacked a woodcarver's toolkit, and laid his tools out onto the mat. Once this was all done, he sat, legs splayed out, onto the icy floor, and adjusted himself so that he was sitting on the mat and not literally freezing his ass off on the cold ground. The plan today was simple. Spent his time casually carving the talismans he had - thus drawing a crowd through that work alone - and then sell the completed ones. He would also take custom orders, if necessary. For the most part, Lesserage was quite passive about sales. It wasn't his intention to sell much today - merely gage the market. He held out a chisel and begun to make indentions in the first wooden symbol talisman, now laid flat on the mat. Today was going to be a busy day, he reckoned.

[Berus]

Berus admired the hat with a look that was more towards sheer worship than any mere appreciation. It was a glorious thing to behold; a large, green, broad brimmed hat of the finest craftsmanship sporting a massive, marvelous black feather. A god’s hands must surely have shaped it, so perfectly shaped was the brim and so wonderfully smooth the material of which it was composed. Indeed, the feather was most assuredly plucked from the finest fowl to ever grace Mizahar with its beauty. He could only imagine the tales that the feather could tell; perhaps seeing the sun rise from that faraway land where it hid during the night and fall beneath the waves of the ocean on the opposite side of the world or even viewing a massive battle that shook the entire world.

The little bard stood staring and listening to inner voices of praise for the hat that far outstripped the lanky, tall merchant’s own attempts to embellish the hat beyond its worth. His sweet words would have seemed almost bitter in comparison, but Berus’s ears were closed off from all outside noise until he finally heard just a few words uttered by the man.

“This fine hat can be bought for the mere price of eighteen gold mizas, should you be interested young lad,” the mischievous merchant stated, his voice carefully pitched perfectly so that it sounded as if he was actually giving it away! He stared at the little, naïve boy as he struggled between his great desire to possess this magnificent piece of clothing and his fear that he wouldn’t have enough mizas to survive the Spring.

Sadly enough, the beauty of the hat started to overwhelm his practicality, which was admittedly not in a large supply to begin with. However, his ill-used caution started to kick in and told him that perhaps this hat, for all its glory, was not quite what the merchant stated it was worth. The small voice told him that he might be in the process of being swindled by an opportunistic merchant. The clinking coins in the merchant’s purse gave the voice a little bit of credibility, but it was hardly enough to argue with Berus’s starstruck eyes.

Berus reached down into his purse and started shifting through the coins. The coins screamed at him that he was doing the wrong thing, yet he still reduced their number by nearly a score as he swept them up mercilessly, eyes completely captivated by the amazing, wonderful hat. The merchant smiled at him, displaying a great set of perfectly white teeth, and reached out a hand to collect the gross overpayment.

OOCWe need a timestamp, good sir! Also, Broad-Brimmed hats are supposed to be 8gm at regular prices, so please do not let my foolish bard make so grave a mistake.

[Lesserage]

Lesserage was halfway through his first carving when he heard the commotion. It distracted him from the fragile nature of his work, which annoyed him somewhat. He had been in the process of chiseling in the outline of Morwen, who happened to be his favorite carving subject. While chipping away at the wood to highlight her beautiful, snow-white hair, and make it seem alive through the surface of the talisman he held, Lesserage's focus was suddenly disrupted by a bold shout from a rather boisterous, and annoyingly loud nearby apparel merchant. Sighing heavily, Lesserage set the piece down, the mood gone, and placed his tools back into his toolkit before getting up, dusting himself down, and striding over to see what the noise was about. En route, he caught a snippet of what the merchant was saying: "This fine hat can be bought for the mere price of eighteen gold mizas, should you be interested young lad,” Eighteen golden mizas? For a hat? What, was it made of silk and satin, studded with rubies, sprinkled with mystical Djed, and then plumed with the feather of Morwen's pet bird or something? What kind of hat sold for eighteen mizas? The carver, somewhat nonplussed by the stated value of this piece of headwear, skulked past and stopped right beside Berus, then reached for the hat and patted it once, testing the material - a smirk crossed his features. The other merchant looked somewhat worried. "It seems to me the material of this hat is quite normal with a stiff cloth base, and at base value would be no more than a single, lonely, golden miza," Lesserage pointed out cheerfully. "Putting shipping into play, drop in a handful of coppers, then with the plumage you'd possibly get another gold piece..." Ignoring the panic now writ all over the opposing merchant's face, Lesserage went on relentlessly. "Resell value, wholesale wise, would be about seven, or eight golden mizas, I think? Ah, but the winter's chill is quite biting, and spring has only just come! Certainly the material would have stiffened beyond what is accepted, and the feather become somewhat wilted. Perhaps a discount is in order, to compensate for the decay in materialistic splendor?" Lesserage eyed the merchant square in the eyes. Then he smiled. Taking a step back, the merchant patted Berus on the shoulder loftily and commented lightly, "Don't buy for more than nine gold. And don't haggle below five." With that, he proceeded back to his mat on the ground slowly, whistling merrily to himself. OOC!Whoops. Edited. Tell me if the timestamp date is no good! We shall change it! And, I shall save you from wasted cash! >:o

[Berus]

The lure of the hat and the smoothness of the merchant’s voice combined into a horribly powerful hypnotic trance, beckoning to the subconscious part of Berus’s mind and demanding that he purchase the marvelous specimen post-haste. The combined magics overpowered him completely, for he was not trained in the arts necessary to defend against them, and captured him to be their temporary slave, all to the merchant’s benefit. The little bard was quite in their power, so much so that he did not notice the evil gleam in the beady eyes of the merciless swindler.

Then, out of the white, whirling snow, a tall, confident looking man with the critical eyes of a sculptor and the silvery tongue of a merchant marched into Berus’s view with purpose and easily shattered the vile merchant’s power with a simple pat on the little bard’s future hat. At first, still a little in the hypnotized state, he barely kept himself from moaning and groaning in anguish as the tall man assaulted the quality of the hat, challenged its infinite beauty. He managed to remain absolutely silent, though his pain was evident in his rapidly whitening face, as the god-like hat was torn down from its lofty pedestal and verily thrown down into the dirt to be stomped upon. Indeed, it took a second glance at the hat for the little bard to convince himself it was the same piece of headgear he had admired earlier!

Ah yes, there it was. There was great field of green in which he could frolic happily forever. There was the magnificent, noble feather that graced the-

Snap out of it! he demanded of himself as he realized the tall fellow started speaking about prices. He said something strange about ‘base value’ and something that sounded like ‘Hole Sale’-whatever that was-but finally started speaking about nice, solid little gold coins. Berus glanced down at the small pile collected in his hands as he gnawed upon the figures that the tall man-Berus decided that he was obviously a merchant of some sort-had proclaimed were about the right prices for the object he was considering purchasing.

He looked up at the merchant and noticed that he was rather deflated, even the man’s great white teeth had seemed to lose quite a bit of their luster in the face of the tall man’s sudden and uncalled for assault upon his business. Still, Berus could see that there was still a glint of defiance in those beady eyes and he was most assuredly going to fight for every little gold miza he could get. If the foolish even suggested the lower side of the tall man’s suggestions, five gold mizas, he would be quite rudely pointed away from the hat of his dreams and told to seek similar headwear elsewhere.

Instead, Berus reached forward and silently offered eight gold mizas, one less than the highest number suggested. He figured that was a good deal for both him and the merchant. It was low enough that it wouldn’t injure the poor, though merciful, little bard too much but also allow the merchant to keep some of his pride and his belly. The merchant, of course, greedily snapped up the coins and virtually shoved the hat into Berus’s eager waiting grasp. Then the merchant put a hand to his shoulder and twirled him about, wishing him well and sending him quite forcefully on his way.

Berus grinned broadly and put the broad-brimmed masterpiece upon his black hair with reverence. His eyes sought and found the tall stranger who had helped him so much and his little legs pumped as he rushed after him. He called forward as he chased, “Hey there, stranger! Do you regularly patrol the market for ne’er-do-wells or do you just plague this particular swindler?”