Mr. Trader looked almost bewildered when Darius and his guards started to unload the carriage into his deal room. Hurriedly Trader’s guards helped the boxes.
“Darius, you really did something big today.” Darius understood the meaning behind his words.
“Everything settled. Just demolish this carriage and skin the horse, and your men can have a feast. Here are four corpse eater potions. Use it for horse carcases. It will result into a yellow liquid.”
“If anyone else said that, I would have to recheck everything, but as for your past actions, I know this to be likely true. Thanks for handling your share of things properly.”
Mr. Trader turned around and opened his office door, “Listen up. You have to break the carriage and burn it under one hour. Use all means necessary. Lui, you can butcher the horse, and we can wrap things up in the back yard. Let the men know we will have a feast today.”
Lui nodded, and the whole hall emptied of people.
Darius nodded to Trader. “Thanks. I will make this one worthwhile for you.”
“No problem, Darius. I haven’t heard a thing yet, so whatever you did probably succeed. I presume that you wanted a deal?” mister Trader smiled wickedly. Darius nodded, and they returned to the office with the floor filled with boxes.
Darius slapped one box, “I would like to put my money in the safe keeping of your bank service. Would a 10% cut be satisfactory for you?”
Mister trader opened one box, smiling with sparkling eyes. He smiled, “That would be a decent cut for me Darius. I’ll accept your offer. We will have to weigh the coins. Nobody is going to calculate these.”
“Yes please, we don’t want to get that old anyways,” laughed Darius.
Trader smiled and used the small bell again. A servant came in. “Count the money in these boxes and bags, and ask at least four other people to help you. Use the scale and calculate the odds for the customer's benefit.”
The servant nodded, and soon few men were carrying the loot downstairs.
“Great, while we wait, I have another business deal.” Darius continued.
“If it's this profitable, I’m barely holding my head from rolling.”
Darius opened the bag and put the papers on the desk in two piles.
“Let's read.”
After a while both confirmed the papers and in midway Trader came with the city map to mark all the land lots. Then he whistled. “This is a goddamn gold mine. Untraceable paper holding ownerships, are there any copies?”
“I highly doubt it. These are Orlond’s private papers from another safe at the office.”
“Oh hahaha, these are Orlond’s papers! Yes, I think so too Orlond is the laziest among the bureaucrats. Do you know where he went, or is he sleeping at home?”
Darius smiled. “Orlond has left the signed notice stating that he is going to the Sarus village.”
“Oh, it is quite far away. I have barely heard about it one or two times.”
“Yes, this trip might be permanent in nature. It also might be that the city officials will hunt him for the lack of funds after all the doors are closed with Orlond’s keys.”
Mister Trader leaned a bit forward and started scratching his forehead while moving his eyes from one side to another. It seemed like he was calculating the odds and problems in his immense bald head.
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“That is what, in all likelihood, will happen. Even if it doesn’t, I silence the opposition. It will be easier. What do you suggest with these papers?”
“Well, as you can see, there are papers for 38 business land lots. I will take these seven lots for my businesses and have to count on you for the slaves.” Trader nodded in agreeance.
“Would you like to have a lot or two? I would like all official problems to disappear.”
Mister trader stared at the map and said hesitatingly, “It would be better to have at least one alias, let's say, Gary, to own the lots. The reason is that the land costs are huge in this city, and it is deeply guarded property. If some land is sold and definitely in these amounts, that will raise many questions, and you might be indicated in the end. These papers are for land leasing, as this other pile of paper says. You must hold both of these papers to acquire yearly payments. This date is typically the last day of the year. The lots are free to use if someone moves out from these, but you must have the papers.”
“Alias seems a good idea in this city. How about your lots?”
“This is a big thing, Darius. You know it's impossible to gain a secure location in any part of the city because the land is always rented, not sold. This is one of the main reasons why I have been operating in the slums. But your suggestion could potentially help us reallocate to a more established place. Maybe we can even conduct private guard services for lords at this rate. It is impossible to say there are so many options.”
“What locations would you need?”
“These two are in the merchant district, and they are next to these three lots you were thinking of keeping for your businesses. Would that be suitable?”
“Actually, yes. You don’t have to pay any rent on the land. When the registry operates normally, we can submit a new rent under the name Gary.”
“Thank gods, Gary is a very benevolent person indeed.”
“You took my words,” laughed Darius.
After over an hour of chatting and looking at a large number of new alchemy tools, ingredients, an assortment of weapons and new slave contracts, Darius had already compiled quite a heavy price ticket. While Darius and mister Trader were having tea, the servant returned with a bewildered white face and numbly gave the numbers to mister Trader.
“This is almost like king's ransom, Darius, 28 gold bars each with the weight of 12 kilos, valued around 3000 gold coins worth times 28 equals 84 thousand gold coins. Then the coins themselves totalled nearly 30.600 gold coins in two boxes, 146 platinum coins converted to 146.000 gold coins, and the rest converted into 540 gold coins. The total value is 261 thousand and 140 gold coins. Minus ten percent bank service fee, that is.” Mister Trader chuckled.
Still, Darius thought that it would still be only near 23 magic stones. Still, for slaves and businesses, this was great. He could have afforded to rebuild all the land lots two times, at least with stupid spending, but he still would have at least several tens of thousands.
“Hmm, you seem displeased?”
“Ah, sorry, I was just thinking how these pieces of metal don’t really offer a lot in terms of magical knowledge and resources. But otherwise, we can start all the businesses almost same time. Albeit, making them work will take years. But in essence, I think my mission times are gone, and I have to start funding magic material acquisition.”
“For the maximum profit,” said mister Trader and lifted his tea mug. “The trade orders total will be 85 thousand golds only, so that I will write you a considerable amount of banknotes for the rest. Don’t cash them all immediately. It will take several months to put the money of this scale into the bank without anyone becoming suspicious.”
“That’s all right. Oh, I had one thing to tell you about, almost forgot,” Darius leaned closer to the table. “I have been conducting potion business with lord Lumbert that you might know already. Their economic situation seems to need some help, so they are trading with non-noble adversaries. “
“That’s good to hear. Maybe they can afford the swords after a year or two.”
“Let's see what will happen. Remember the slave orders, and we will need a lot of workers after this to fill all the locations.” Said Darius lastly while he was leaving.
While Darius was gone, Mr. Trader sat at his office and ate salted horse meat with buttered roasted potatoes. It seemed that his hunger had grown larger during the deals. Then absent-mindedly Mr. Trader almost poured expensive wine over. The glimmering leaf gold in the wine circled inside the small silver cup. The deals today would require a lot more attention this time. In front of Trader Lui waited for his master to come to a conclusion.
After a while, Mr. Trader sipped from his wine and continued sharply, “Today’s dealings were rough, but benefits greatly exceeded the trouble and risk. Hide the money underneath the cellar floor and make sure to dirty the new mortar in between stones. Also, burn all the boxes and ensure no single item is left from the carriage and its luggage. Don’t go asking questions. Just put a few ears listening to lords connected to land registry and city finances. Make sure no one has seen anything.”
“Yes master.”
Lui walked outside the office, leaving Mr. Trader to enjoy his meal.