[Establish, Create]
I was just about to portal to the bakery to talk to Paula about the vendors, when Arthur portaled in.
“Rose, I have terrible news.”
“Let me guess Arthur, the judge whose friends with the cartel ruled in their favor. They will be shipping their products to market tomorrow.”
“Yes, but how did you know, I didn’t see you or any of your friends in court?”
“Harvey, their lawyer, stopped to tell me. He actually seems like a nice guy even though he works for the scum of the earth.”
“Harvey is very nice, we went to school together, but his family were very poor and he was very smart, so he aimed for a job that didn’t require capital to begin and got a scholarship to law school so he would have been crazy not to attend.”
“I’d like to hire him once this whole food crisis is resolved. I had a few ideas for other businesses or services that I’d like to open down the road and Harvey seems like he knows what he’s doing. I saw you handing out soup the other night, that was nice of you Arthur.”
“Well as a town leader it’s important to help support the community, most particularly when there is a crisis going on.”
“Don’t worry Arthur, things are going to plan. I told Harvey the other day that if they offered you a twenty percent discount you’d probably let them back in.”
“I don’t think I would have, I no longer have faith in them, and I don’t want to trust our food supply to them.”
“That’s understandable Arthur, but the magical farmers are supposed to start plowing and seeding this morning. As I understand one farmer will drive the horse and plow, with another to assist them. Then two more will be walking behind planting the seeds. If you have time, go on up and have a look. It’ll make you feel better about the near future. Where is Nim handing out soups by the farms or back down at the pub brewing?”
“She’s handing out soup, the beer never runs out at the pub, it’s like the soup and the bread at the bakery. Surprisingly though, the dwarven ale does run out; it's like it’s resistant to the magic at least that’s what Nim thinks. I have to get back to town hall. I could just strangle the head of that cartel, causing so many problems. See you later Rose and thank you for everything you are doing for the town.”
“It’s my pleasure Arthur, I really love this place and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
After Arthur left I portaled to the bakery kitchen, I went out front and Paula and Lily were deep in conversation.
“What’s up Rose?”
“Hey you two I’m not interrupting am I, I can come back later.”
“No not at all, in fact I have some more magical bakes to make for my girlfriend.”
“Instead of candies and flowers straight to magical bakes, hm, how’s that working out for you, Lily?”
“Very funny Paula”
Lily went into the kitchen to start baking. Then a customer came in so I got myself a sweet bun and some tea, and sat on a stool, out of the way. Then another customer came in so I waited on her while Paula finished up with her customer and then another came in. After about twenty minutes we had waited on them all.
“So Rose, what's it feel like to work in a store that actually sells things to the public.”
“I’ll have you know Paula, EG told me this morning that the book store is in the black for the first time in two hundred and fifty years. EG credits it to the portals I installed and the increased foot traffic in the store.”
“Have you waited on any of these customers?”
“No, EG must have waited on them.”
“So my question stands what’s it feel like to work in a store with customers.”
“It’s nice actually, now that you don’t have customers do you think you could come talk to the vendors with me. The cartel won their court case, so they are going to try and sell to the vendors again starting tomorrow.”
“Sure let’s fill Lily in on the developments then we can portal up there and try for exclusive contracts.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”
We explained to Lily what was going on. Then we portaled up to see the vendors, who agreed to gather all the vendors and have one big meeting with us.
“Look Rose, you’re quality was at least as good an most time better then what we were getting from the cartel. But they claim if we continue to do business with you, they’ll setup their own retail stalls and sell at the price that they sell to us at so we’d lose money because we couldn’t compete.”
“So what’s your markup?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Ten percent for basic grocery items and fifteen to twenty five percent on premium and fifty to one hundred percent on a few rare specialty items.”
“Alright I want to crush the cartel, so let’s do a customer appreciation week. Paula and I need to talk to you each and ask for some personal information that we swear will be kept between her and I. For this information I’ll be paying your company five hundred gold. Please all go outside and just start coming in one at a time. This won’t take long I promise and the five hundred gold should more than compensate you.”
They all went out and the first vendor came in.
“I’d like you to give me your best guess about how much profit each of your fellow vendors made last week. Think carefully, because the person who guesses closest is going to get a bonus of one thousand gold.”
He gave all his best guesses to Paula
“How much profit did you make last week?
He supplied that information to Paula. Then he left and the next vendor came and I gave him the same speech and he gave Paula the info, and that’s the way it went until we had the last vendor’s guesses.
Then they all came back in.
“Alright Rose, who guessed the closest, I bet it was me, I have a keen interest in a competitor.”
“Actually your guesses were all so good we couldn’t just pick one of you. Some of you were close on some but off on others so we decided that you all deserve the thousand gold bonus added to the five hundred for giving us your private information. Except that is for vendor number six, I’m sorry to say that you either drastically lied about your profit, or misunderstood the question. I promised you the five hundred and you’ll get that tomorrow, but I’m afraid we won’t be able to do business anymore.”
“That’s fine by me, I’ll gladly go back to the cartel. At least they don’t play games with us, like these women.” He turned to the other vendors. “After the cartel finishes with these women, you vendors that stick with them will be next.”
Then he walked out, the others looked about nervously before focusing their attention back onto us.
“I just want you all to know that he clearly lied about what profit he made last week. He claimed that he made five times what the other five of you guessed he made. Which is odd because the rest of you guessed each other's profits within less than one hundred gold of what you actually told us. So I know you are all busy and need to get back to work, just give me ten minutes more of your time and I’ll tell you exactly what I propose.”
“Rose, that’s a lot of gold you’ll be handing out tomorrow.”
“Yeah but it’ll be fun, besides it’s only metal, it’s not worth even one of your peanut butter cookies, you’re coming right, I’ll get them to sign the contracts and you can hand out the gold.”
“Well when you put it that way, I’d be happy to give your gold away. How did you know that one of the vendors would lie about his profits?”
“I didn’t in fact I was hoping that no one would, but I thought we or rather the farmer cartel is going to need with vendors for the foreseeable future, so it’d be nice to know the honest ones from the dishonest and what’s a few thousand gold to find out the truth, better to pay now than have the farmers cheated later. Farmers work hard for their money, they deserve to keep it.”
Then Paula went back to the bakery and I portaled to the gnome colony. The guards were lounging out front as always. I asked to meet with the elder. They knew me by now and ushered me into the meeting room.
“Rose, this is unexpected, how can I help you?”
“I need some contracts for five of the vendors, I have a list of the particulars for each of the vendors and gold amounts, I’m sorry it’s late in the day but I really need them for tomorrow morning before the market opens.”
“Rose, you know enough about gnomes by now that we work an eighteen hour day, so I still have more than a third still to go. But I’m glad you came anyway because we all want to know, was it by chance or design?”
“I’m sorry Alvyn, I don’t know what you are referring to?”
“The talking trees, did you know that some trees would come to life, or was that just a happy coincidence?”
“A happy coincidence, I had no idea that would happen, it’s not causing problems is it?”
“No not in the least, as a matter of fact, they are very polite and will even move if requested. It seems like even the trees want your project to succeed.”
“I’ll walk over and talk to one after we are through, I just wanted your opinion of Harvey Epstein. I’ve met him a few times and aside from his choice of clients he seems like a nice man and Arthur seems to like him.”
“He is a good guy, he just grew up very poor so working for rich people was always his dream. I think he expected it to rub off on him, or that at least they’d treat him with a modicum of respect, but of course they don’t. Why do you ask?”
“I was just thinking long term maybe opening a few businesses but I’d want someone to oversee them and I want someone honest and I think that he is, that’s all.”
“Yes he’s honest but to get him to give up rich clients might be a hard sell.”
“You never know, maybe in a few weeks he won’t have any rich clients left.”
“Rose, you're not going to do something violent are you, I can tell you right now, the gnomes will not support any type of violence.”
“No, violence ever, what I meant was his rich clients would be broke not dead. I’m scared of my girlfriend working in the pub because she breaks up fights when they occur, luckily not very often. But too often for my taste.”
“Well as you could guess our size keeps us pretty peaceful among the big people, but sometimes clans brawl and it can get downright scary. I know you have some very powerful friends who legends purport to be violent and I suppose any magic can be turned to violence by those who want it that way. You did bring a demon lord here.”
“Honestly Alvyn, I think demons have been given a bad rap. Who writes history? Those that survive, that means the victors usually. So all the books that bad mouth demons are written by religions of one sort or another, they all universally condemn demons as evil. But the one demon I know, says that demons are the agents of karmic justice. If that is true, and I have no reason to believe that it’s not, demons are the most unjustly treated race to have ever evolved.”
