[Kindly, Protective]

  After the late night I still needed to be up to author the food and jump it to the vendors. As I was brushing my teeth, I wondered if the cartel members were up this early hatching their evil plans or if they had minions for that.

  I jumped to Juliet’s World and authored five times the products which the vendors normally ordered along with five chests of gold. And jumped it to the warehouse portal. Paula was already there, she’d set up a table and had the contracts spread out. The first vendor stepped up.

  “Okay, let’s go over this one last time to make sure you know exactly what to do right. First your normal customers can have up to three times what they normally order for free, tell them they can come back the next day for the same free amounts. After the three times their normal order they can purchase more for twenty five percent below wholesale up to five times their normal orders. New customers pay ten percent below wholesale. That’s designed to stop the cartel from getting free or cheap products off of you. If you run out of product, borrow from your fellow vendors and have me alerted and I’ll bring you more. Conversely lend when needed and I’ll get you more. The whole point is to deny the cartel from making a single sale. For the next two weeks the other four vendors are not your competition, they are your partners. After the cartel is driven out you can go back to competing but I’d advise you find a way to cooperate without gouging the town folk. Any questions?”

  “Nope, we’ll stick to the plan, Rose.”

  “Good, just sign her, it’s for a one month exclusive contract with me. This chest of gold is five times your daily profit times twenty eight, plus the fifteen hundred gold pieces that I’d promised you yesterday.”

  “You really think this will work?”

  “I do, who do you think will be buying from other vendors, when you five vendors are giving all their products away for free for the next two weeks.”

  We repeated that scene four more times, with the four other vendors. I then walked over to the vendor’s warehouse who I’d banned. I still owed him five hundred gold. I knocked and a clerk answered and asked to see the owner. I was ushered into his office. He looked up at me.

  “I’m here to give you the money I owe you.”

  “Really, I’m surprised, Rose. I thought I’d never see that money. But thank you, it came just in time. The cartel offered me very steep discounts, this five hundred will allow me to purchase even more. I may have exaggerated my profits, but between the discounts and the extra stock I buy. I’ll make more than I claimed.”

  “I know we’ve had our differences but I really don’t want to see you get hurt, don’t over extend yourself and if you feel like selling your whole operation let me know.”

  “Goodbye, Rose, I’m meeting with the cartel in fifteen minutes and it wouldn’t look good for me if you are seen.”

  “Good Luck.”

  “I’m an excellent businessman, Rose.”

  “I know but we’re both playing different games.”

  I portaled back to the bookstore.

  “Good morning EG, I am going to be out most of the day. Is everything alright? Anything I can do for you before I have to leave?”

  “No, everything is fine, Rose.”

  “If Harvey comes in today please tell him I’m in the market and sorry that I missed him.”

  “You didn’t miss him, Rose.”

  “I have some clients to defend but the judge appears to be running late today.”

  “Have you given any thought to the writer’s retreat, Harvey.”

  “I can’t just walk away from a client, Rose.”

  “What if I move twenty to fifty times more produce today than your client?”

  “That’s not going to happen, Rose, my client has product that’s almost three days old, it’s going to be very cheap, and anyone who is more interested in filling a poor family's stomachs will be shopping with my clients until you are out of business, Rose.”

  “I hear you are an excellent lawyer, but come to the market after court and see if you are as good a fortune teller.”

  Harvey left and I portaled to the warehouses and walked over to the market. McCracken was shouting through a cone, ‘Customer Appreciation Days’ , absolutely free food. Be sure to pick up your family's favorites. Going on for the next two weeks, just our way of saying thanks for being a regular customer.

  There were long lines at our vendors, all five of ours were lined up side by side. I could see where I’d made a good sized mistake. If everything really was free, more people wanted the pricier products. I portaled to the gnome colony and asked to see Alvyn.

  After a quick meeting with him I jumped to Juliet's World and authored ten times the normal high end products then portaled it to the vendors warehouse. Where twenty gnomes already stood waiting. I had the one who admitted to be the bossiest stay with a clipboard that had a list of the items and the vendors. His job was to instruct the gnomes which products to take to which vendor. I led the other nineteen gnomes with as much product as they could carry back out to our vendors.

  As I passed the theater wagon I could see Groucho doing backflips to entertain both children and adults. While Gigi in a very pretty gown encouraged the crowd not to miss out on the free food. I saw a large number of guards circulating among the crowd. Their presence has prevented any violence, if any was in fact planned. Even rich people must surely run out of thugs eventually. So much product was moving through our vendors, the gnomes after dropping large packages were sprinting back for more.

  Every once in a while a gnome would bring me a note from bossy gnome, informing which items were running low and I jumped to Juliet’s world and would author what was needed then portal back to the warehouse portal. Adding the new goods to the pile. At one point I portaled to the pub with four gnomes. I bought five kegs of beer and five kegs of dwarven ale for the vendors to share after closing time with their employees.

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  The day was finally winding down, I instructed the gnomes to come back the next day, but bring double their number. After the market closed I handed out the ale and beer to the vendors, and asked for new lists tomorrow morning taking today’s sales into account. The vendors looked tired but happy, they had made their customers very happy. Very happy customers equals very loyal customers.

  A guard came with a note from Dogberry, please come to the Guard House, after the market closes. I saw a very dejected vendor number six, throwing most of his displays in the trash. It was very rotten produce, he’d tried to sell for bargain basement prices. But who in their right mind would pay for rotten food when farm fresh produce was being given away for free. I walked over to talk to him.

  “Go ahead, tell me you warned me what was going to happen, but you lost a small fortune today.”

  “Maybe but I told you we were playing different games. I don’t care how much money I lose now, I’m trying to set up the new farms for success if they don’t have to compete with a corrupt cartel, whatever I lose now they’ll gain in the long term. Do you still plan to stick with the cartel?”

  “No, how can I, no one wants substandard food when better is available for the same or less money.”

  “Then I have two offers for you, take the night to think them over. I’ll buy you out, outright at a fair price. Or you can sign an exclusive one month contract with me, give away food and I’ll pay you what your ‘real’ normal profit is. Just think about it.”

  “Why would you do that for me?”

  “Do you think I’ve never made mistakes in my life, and people have forgiven and supported me. Why shouldn’t I do that for you. Just come to the warehouse portal tomorrow morning at seven and let me know your decision.”

  “Thank you Rose.”

  Then I portaled to the Guard House, where a new guard sat at the front desk.

  “Could I please speak to Dogberry?”

  “Are you Rose? Ma’am.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “He told me to have you go straight back to his office, he said you know the way.”

  “I do, thank you guardsman.”

  I found Dogsberry feet up reading a report at his desk.

  “Hi Dogsberry, I received a note you wanted to see me.”

  “Yes Rose sit down, eleven of the thugs were sent to the mines today. The twelfth is the son of a cartel member and the leader of the little group of arsonists, he’s asking for a jury trial, so he’ll be remaining here as our guest until that happens. Would you be able to bring back the other twelve?”

  “Sure they are all chained together and I portal them out front, do you want to have a couple of your men out there. It’s easy to control them in the other world but I have no control over them here.”

  “Understood, if they are all still shackled it’ll be no problem for my men and I.”

  So I jumped to my pit trap on Hilltop World. I floated the twelve men up out of the pit. I authored the prisoners and the trap clean. I touched them and portaled back to the Guard House. Dogberry and guards were waiting as promised.

  Then I portaled out to the farms to see how the new farmers were settling in. I was shocked to see fields of produce, grown almost to my knee. I don’t know much about farming, but I assume you don’t normally see growth that fast. The minute Juliet saw me she came racing towards me.

  “I want that for my fields, Rose, I dropped everything for you this week when you needed me. Promise me I’ll get fields like those.”

  “I’ll try Juliet, the problem is when I created your world it was for a romance story, I don’t have any idea if your world has any magic.”

  “Well you are the author, just create some. Besides, I've seen you do magic there before.”

  “No you saw me do bibliomancy there, it’s different from this field magic. Look I will do everything in my power to encase your fields, I can’t promise to do more than that can I?”

  “No, I guess you can’t. We need seed and farm supplies for thirty four more farms.”

  “Alright simple enough, but let’s just add two more farmers and then stop at sixty eight for right now.”

  “Why.”

  “Because look how much food grew in a day and a half, we are going to have a glut of food. We are going to have to export a good deal of what we grow or the farmers aren’t going to get hardly any money for their crops. Plus it’s year round. This is what happens when amateurs like me try to improve a system that has fed men since they evolved a brain big enough to learn how to farm.”

  “Look on the bright side, no one in Wyldwood is going to go hungry.”

  “I need to find the gnome in charge of clearing the land, Juliet.”

  “Mossbeard is over with Lu, he probably knows.”

  I went over to the farmer recruitment tent, Mossbeard and Lu were chatting.

  “Was there any trouble at the market Rose?”

  “No, Lu, none and the place was loaded with guards. It was a madhouse of customers though. Mossbeard I need you to find the gnome in charge of clearing farms and have him stop clearing once he hits plot sixty eight.”

  “But why Rose won’t it be easier to clear and build all at once.”

  “Just look how much food those few farms produced in a day and a half, we are going to have a big problem, once all sixty eight farms are growing food year round, we are going to have more food then all the local towns, maybe all the towns in Emain Ablach can use. Just get him to stop, Mossbeard.”

  “You got it, Rose.”