Libriohexer ~ 20!

Sam followed Velkan through the pillars, bracing for the worst. Unlike last time he’d stepped through a totem portal, he didn’t find himself in the heart of a blizzard with a couple of monsters waiting to mob him. Instead, he emerged into an enormous underground cavern, the ceiling two hundred feet overhead and studded with crystalline stalactites that glimmered from the light of a hundred campfires. All around was a sprawling city of tents and wood-framed shops, manned by more Wolfmen than Sam had ever seen in one place. There were hundreds of them.

Maybe thousands.

Master blacksmiths worked at forges, hammering away at red hot steel, while leatherworks patched armor, and seamstresses measured and cut bolts of cloth. Alchemists brewed potions, and there even seemed to be a Wolfman barber trimming fur with a straight razor—though leaving behind some nasty cuts in the process. That hardly seemed sanitary, but none of the customers complained. More Wolfmen circulated amongst the shops, haggling, buying, battering for a thousand different items. This was easily on par with anything Ardania had to offer, and all right here under Sam’s nose. He’d never suspected a thing.

Quest update! Chicken-preneur. Thanks to your blossoming relationship with Velkan of the Redmane Tribe and your unique position as a Wolfman Noble and a Chicken Keeper, you have been granted access to the Totem Trading ground, known as the Wolfman Marketplace. You can trade and barter freely, but until the Wolfman Merchant Council fully trusts you, you won’t be able to vouch for any other humans.

Perform 10,000 Gold worth of mercantile transactions within the Wolfman Marketplace to upgrade your reputation with the Wolfman Merchant Council from ‘Reluctantly Friendly’ to ‘Friendly.’ Once you unlock ‘Friend of the Merchant Council’ you will be able to vouch for other humans and bring them to the marketplace.

Ding-ding-ding! World’s First! Congrats, you’re the first human to ever step foot in the Wolfman Marketplace. Don’t get me wrong, there have definitely been human feet here before, but this is the first time those feet have been attached to a living breathing person and not served up as a snack food. Between us, I’d stay on your very best behavior if you want to stay alive. For being the very first player to access the Wolfman Marketplace, you gain a permanent +2 Intelligence, +2 Perception, +2 Wisdom, and +50 personal fame with The People! Title unlocked: Merchant Ambassador.

Merchant Ambassador: When this title is actively displayed, buying and selling prices are improved by 10%, and you have a +8% advantage on persuasion checks.

Warning! You have surpassed the maximum number of total titles. Please note that all title effects are active at the same time, but the title you have equipped will be the only one that others can see without analysis abilities.

The maximum number of titles you can have at any given time is ten. You must select one title to remove.

1) Stick it to the Man!

2) High Five, I Tried!

3) Budding Anthropologist

4) Bunny Reaper

5) Soul-Bound Level 2 (Upgradeable)

6) Experimental Forger

7) Night Prowler

8) Warlock IV (Mandatory)

9) Racial Traitor (Secret, Mandatory)

10) Chicken Whisper Level 1 (Upgradable)

Option) Merchant Ambassador.

Sam had known this was coming for a while and knew which title to sacrifice: Bunny Reaper. It offered an eleven percent damage bonus against rabbits, but the sheer fact that it was only useful in very specific circumstances meant that it was nearly useless. He chose to delete it, and quickly made Merchant Ambassador his new active title.

Name: Sam_K ‘Merchant Ambassador’

Class: Bibliomancer

Profession 1: Bookbinder

Profession 2: Chicken Keeper

Level: 11 Exp: 66,894 Exp; to next level: 11,106

Hit Points: 150/150

Mana: 645/645

Mana regen: 18.41/sec

Stamina: 165.5/165.5

Characteristic: Raw score

Strength: 21

Dexterity: 37

Constitution: 20

Intelligence: 58

Wisdom: 56

Charisma: 23

Perception: 22

Luck: 14

Karmic Luck: +1

“Sam! Quick sidebar,” Bill dragged Sam away from his thoughts as he accepted the new title. He sounded like he was in absolute awe, which was very unusual for Bill. The book wasn’t in awe about anything. Ever. …Other than himself. He was a very self-assured book. “I feel like such a moron, but I finally get it now. I know what this is. How this works.”

“How what works?” Sam inquired under his breath, still looking around wide-eyed.

“The Totems. It’s been gnawing at me since we took our trip into the training grounds. It's definitely potent spatial magic, I was right about that much. I’m familiar with Spatial and Temporal pockets—the College used them when designing their campus—but I couldn’t figure out how they were able to move the pillars around. Like I said before, spatial magic is usually built around fixed temporal points. I was assuming that the Totem poles themselves were the spatial anchors but now I’m starting to think that’s where I was wrong; I’m rarely wrong. This place. All of these places, are enormous spatial libraries.”

“Wait.” Sam stopped abruptly and gestured at the cavern. “But how can this be a spatial library? It's huge. Also, not really a library either.”

“The last bit is semantics. We call them libraries because we’re Bibliomancers, and we pull out power from books and paper and ink. The space an Interspatial Library occupies could be filled with anything. Begrudgingly, I’ll admit I didn’t think something like this was even possible, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. That’s why they can move them around—because they aren’t bound to a location, they’re bound to a person. The Totem poles are just doorway access points. Just like I’m the access point that allows you to summon orbital casting tomes. But I’m almost positive that this space itself is inside someone’s Soul Chamber.”

Sam went stiff as though thunderstruck. They were walking around inside someone’s soul space?

“Is everything alright?” Velkan’s gravelly voice held a hint of concern.

“Yeah, fine,” Sam cleared his throat. He shot Bill a look: don’t say any more. Velkan had been awfully touchy about the Totem’s and how they worked. Now wasn’t the time or place to ask more about this. “Totally fine. Bill and I were just chatting about how amazing this place is. Please… show us the way.”

Velkan’s ears twitched, the hair along his arms rose for a moment—sure signs of distrust. Obviously, bringing an outsider into this space was a big deal, and he had more than a little apprehension about it. The Wolfman quickly schooled his features, the signs of distress disappearing almost as quickly as they’d come. Velkan grunted again and waved them on as he headed deeper into the warren of makeshift stalls. Sam hurried to catch up, though it was hard not to ogle at the stalls as he passed.

There was everything from weapons and armor, to high quality glass and top-notch alchemical ingredients. There was even one vendor selling old books, all penned by Wolfman historians and shamans. Bill buzzed with excitement at those, insisting they stop and take a little peak. The idea of books on magic and history that the College had never even seen before was almost too much for Bill to bear. Velkan growled at them, “Move along. Look at these later. We are here for a purpose.”

Eventually they would be trusted enough to pursue at their leisure. But not yet. This first trip was a business venture. They needed to move with speed and purpose, strike with precision, or else they might be seen as weak targets, easily cheated. Velkan explained that the Wolfmen had some very curious notions about trade. “As with everything else, trade is war. A battle for domination and supremacy between two clashing forces with two differing agendas. A fight between predator and prey. The goal is always to bleed the other dry.”

In physical combat, the Wolfmen had strict ideas about honor, but not so much when it came to merchant craft. There was no such thing as cheating where buying and selling were concerned. If a buyer was unaware enough to purchase a faulty product or pay too much, they deserved to be swindled.

Sam would need to strike a hard bargain, but not so hard that he looked like a fool for overestimating his merchandise. According to Velkan, he also wanted to avoid making his opponent lose face, which could make him a blood enemy; something the Wolf Pack most certainly didn’t need. They were too new for a nemesis out for revenge. But Sam also couldn’t concede so much ground that he lost face himself; that would dishonor his name and then no one would ever take him seriously again. It was a fine balance to walk.

Eventually, Velkan stopped in front of a stall covered by a canvas canopy the color of fresh blood. Out front was a wooden sign suspended from a bronze chain. There were no words on the sign, but rather an ornate crimson marking that was all hard lines and jagged edges. Sam didn’t recognize the symbol, but one look at what was arranged on the tables under the canopy told him all he needed to know: this place sold meat. Rabbit, fox, deer, boar, even bear. There were cuts of every variety—chuck and shanks and racks of ribs, red meat glistening on white bone.

Behind one of the tables was a wolf with jet black fur, his shoulders as big as the slab of beef he was working on. He wore a leather apron and held a meat cleaver the size of a dictionary.

“We are here for business,” Velkan declared, sweeping beneath the canopy. The butcher took one look at Sam and sniffed, ears laying back flat against his skull.

“I want no part in this business with humans,” the butcher waved a cleaver at Sam. “I am not responsible for feeding human whelps unable to fend for themselves.”

“We are not here to buy,” Velkan snarled in the Wolfman tongue, his fur standing stiff, “we are here to sell, and your master will not think kindly of you haggling with a vendor and a noble on her behalf.”

The butcher growled, teeth bared, his golden eyes darting between Velkan and Sam in confusion. Sam had to admit he was more than a little confused as well. Was Velkan implying that the butcher wasn’t the stall owner? That question was answered a moment later when a flap at the rear of the tent opened to admit a tawny-furred female wolf clad in sky-blue robes. She wore golden rings on each finger and a thick gold necklace that held an oversized medallion bearing the symbol of a scale.

Sam knew from his time in Narvik that it was the symbol of a master merchant. The newcomer quickly appraised Velkan and Sam before sniffing and flicking an ear at the butcher. She spoke in the human tongue, voice low and rather bored. “Gachev, leave us. There are more cuts in the back. Tend to the stock while I deal with these two.”

“These three, actually,” Bill ruffled his pages to get her attention. “The kid and I are like a dynamic duo, but everyone seems to overlook me on account of the fact that I’m a book.”

The female wolf’s posture changed subtly as she regarded Bill, floating from the silver chain connecting to Sam’s hip. Magical artifacts weren’t unknown in this world, but they were rare, and a talking book was something on an entirely different level. The implication was clear: regardless of what Sam looked like, he was a mage; one with real power.

“I stand corrected. I will deal with these three,” she conceded. The butcher growled, hand flexing around the handle of his cleaver. Finally he sank his cleaver into a wood chopping block on the table and disappeared through the flap the newcomer had entered through a few moments before. “I am Ankova of the Shadowlands Tribe. I have never seen a human walk these ways before. It is a thing not done. Yet here you stand. How?”

The question was blunt and forceful. It was a challenge meant to put him off balance and Sam knew it. Velkan had gotten him this far, but Sam instinctively understood the rest was up to him. The Wolfmen respected strength and honor; allowing another to negotiate on your behalf could only ever make you look weak. Sam reached into his shirt and pulled out a golden medallion, studded with a tiger’s eye stone in the center. Etched into the face of the stone was a single runic mark that roughly translated as ‘Wolf-Hearted’. A symbol of his standing with the People, given to him for killing Octavius and saving Narvik from his deadly magic.

“I am here by the will of the O’Baba and by the blood I’ve shed on behalf of the People. I have every right to walk here. Unless you disagree with the O’Baba’s decrees?” Sam’s tone was cool, and his chin dropped: a sign that he was challenging her standing in the pack. Her lips pulled away from her teeth, but she held her tongue and raised her chin just a hair. Showing such vulnerability was a tacit admission that she acknowledged the O’Baba’s authority. “As for why I am here. That is simple enough. This human has wares, if you have coin.”

“You think to come here and sell me rabbit meat and venison?” She scowled, showing just what she thought of such a proposition.

“Certainly not,” Sam spat to the side, a gesture that would get him tossed out if it were done in a human-owned shop. “I can see that you already have fine cuts of meat. It would be an insult against your honor and mine to try and sell you inferior quality items, hastily scavenged while my party was out adventuring.”

Her shoulders dropped a hair—Sam had thrown her off her guard—but a new wariness seemed to slip into her posture. “What is it that you think we have need of?”

“The finest quality poultry you have ever seen.” Without asking for permission, Sam headed over to an empty table and opened his spatial flask. He laid out eggs and the best cuts of regular chicken meat—tenders, breasts, wings, thighs, and piles of organs. Ankova watched him work, her face neutral and impassive. She was desperately trying not to give anything away. But the very fact that she was not openly sneering was a tell in its own way. When he laid out the first spicy chicken breasts, harvested from Blaze’s brood, Ankova’s eyes widened and her nostrils flared.

It was a small thing, here and gone in less than a blink, but Sam had caught it. So had Bill. The book cackled in his head. <We got her hook, line, and sinker. She might as well be fawning!>

Ankova schooled her face into a mask of perfect indifference before stalking forward to inspect the cuts. She poked one with an extended claw, then carefully tasted the tip of her claw. A good way to get salmonella, although that was probably encouraged among the Wolfmen. She picked up several eggs, testing the weight in her palm. When she got to the spicy chicken breasts, she leaned over and inhaled deeply, the fur momentarily rising along the nape of her neck. She stood and cleared her throat. “Where did one such as you come by such meat?”

“That information is not part of the sale, wolfy,” Bill snapped his cover closed as though the secrets were written inside him. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Sam and Bill.

“He’s right,” Sam echoed the book wryly. “Our supplier isn’t any of your concern. All that you need to know is that I can acquire this quality of goods every week. More, if things go well.”

She seemed to mull it over for a moment. “If you are consistent, I suppose I could sell these on your behalf. On consignment only. I won’t eat losses, and the best I can do is a three silvers per pound of meat, one silver per dozen eggs.”

That was an insulting low quote, and offering it on consignment? Three dollars per pound and a buck for a dozen eggs. Those prices were low even back on earth and this? This wasn’t earth. What Sam had to offer was top-notch and hard to come by.  Likely, she would sell out in hours and charge ten times that rate or more, especially considering how much Wolfmen enjoyed chicken. Unfortunately, Sam couldn’t just call her out without impinging on her honor. Sam needed her. He couldn’t just slap her in the face, but she needed him, too. This was a prime opportunity to get a leg up on other vendors, and she would regret running him off.

As Velkan had said, this was a dance as much as it was a battle.

“These are premium wares and that meat there,” Sam gestured toward his spicy chicken, “offers active fire resistance. In the Human capital, they are selling enhanced chicken breast with similar qualities for nearly nine gold a pound. These chickens are fed only the finest quality enhanced ingredients and there isn’t another farmer around that can make that promise.”

Sam paused and leaned in, a confiding position. “You’re not going to find better anywhere, that much I can guarantee you. I suspect I can find another vendor to pedal my wares if we can’t come to a suitable arrangement.”

He let the subtle threat hang in the hour. Not outright aggression, but a firm reminder that he could, and would, walk away unless she started treating him with respect. After a moment of tense silence, he pushed onward. “The regular meat is worth a gold per pound, and the enhanced chicken is worth two. I could part with the eggs for… five silvers per dozen. Even though it will hurt me inside to do so.”

“Even at that price, you’re getting a deal,” Bill added harshly, “since you’re going to turn around and sell them for double. Don’t insult us by pretending you’re not. Fifty percent profit margins are a great deal any way you look at it.”

“I suppose that is a fair offer,” Ankova admitted with a dip of her chin while raising her hands, palms up. A concession and an admission that she’d been greedy and had gotten caught with a hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

“We also aren’t going to sell on consignment,” Sam snarled lightly. “If you can’t sell what I’m offering you, then you aren’t the vendor I want to work with.”

This last was as close as he dared come to an insult, but it was necessary. He needed to draw a line in the sand and show that he wasn’t going to be pushed around. Her eyes narrowed, and Sam glimpsed anger stirring in those golden depths. But she didn’t snarl and her fur stayed flat. She knew Sam was the one holding all the trump cards.  She snuffed hard, “Very well. We have an accord. I will pay a single gold mark per pound of regular chicken and two gold for enhanced meat. Five silver for eggs is also acceptable.”

“Egg-ceptable,” Bill snorted softly, trying to hide his pleasure.

“There is a caveat,” Ankova stared them down. “I want assurances of delivery. Guarantee me one two-hundred pounds of poultry per week, and at least fifty pounds of enchanted poultry. Plus, no less than five hundred eggs. I want bulk, and I want exclusivity. No other vendors.”

Sam did some quick math in his head. His chickens were much larger than anything he’d ever seen before, each one weighing in at close to thirty-pounds. Of that, bone, cartilage, skin, and feathers accounted for about thirty percent of the weight, leaving almost twenty pounds of edible meat and organs. He would only have to harvest ten regular chickens per week, and three enchanted chickens to hit that quota. His coop was already producing those kinds of numbers, and he only expected that number to swell over the weeks and months ahead.

Delivering on the quantity wouldn’t be an issue, but there were a few other considerations. At that volume, he would bring in just over three-hundred gold and another two-hundred silver from eggs—roughly equivalent to thirty-two hundred dollars, per week. Not a bad rate. Not a fortune, but that would change once he started to produce other types of enhanced meat and started harvesting monster cores. He rubbed at his chin while he thought. He was fine with offering Ankova exclusivity, so long as she was a consistent buyer, but there was a catch. She couldn’t sell to human markets and he could.

“Two minor points of contention,” he finally decided he had a good plan in mind. “I’ll agree to make you my official distributor for the Wolfmen… but I reserve the right to sell to human traders so long as I meet my weekly supply obligation to you. Also, when other types of enhanced meat become available, I further reserve the right to renegotiate the wholesale price based on rarity and demand.”

“A shrewd compact,” Ankova agreed with a sniff, “but one I will accept.”

She extended a hand in the manner of humans, which was a rarity. A peace offering of sorts, maybe? Sam took it and gave it a pump. She nearly pulverized the bones in his hand before releasing. Ah, that was more in keeping with the Wolfmen traditions. “You are not at all what I was expecting.I have heard you are different. That you have the heart of a Wolf. Now… now I think I believe. I look forward to a mutually profitable partnership.”

“So do we,” Sam finished unpacking their wares—over a hundred pounds of meat in total and just under five hundred eggs. They walked away with a cool one hundred and twenty gold.

An eggcellent start to their fowl empire.