After enough weaselling from my side, I managed to convince them that if they want any more answers about where I came from or what even I am (as it seems like humans don’t exist in Badalia the name of this world). Oh right after weaselling out of being the subject of conversation once again I got to speaking with the bar’s patrons about the surrounding lands and apparently, the town of Pasdur was located on the outskirts of the Darum Tsardom. When I mean outskirts I mean located on the border of where civilization ends and a large untamed steppe begins only known as the wild lands. Apparently, the town mainly subsists off of a trade route for furs and surrounding communities who provide them with herd animals while doing some small amount of farming. Asking more about the town I found out it has a small wooden keep at its centre with it being the place where most of the local political structure is located as well as most of its military/law enforcement.
As for the steppe, the only things that live there are large herds of buffalo-like creatures and countless nomadic orc tribes one of which the two present orcs are actually from. Apparently, the little group of elves and orcs are part of some sort of trading mission to contact a tribe with the two orcs being sent as their guides. This is because most of the furs that come from the trade route here are sourced from those buffalo things that the orc tribes hunt, apparently these beasts are huge which explains the large, muscled build of the orc tribals (can’t be no string bean to hunt something the size of a car). Thanking everyone for their time I gave them more specific directions to my store and in return asked for directions to their local store so I could check out what local prices were, what was being offered and most importantly scope out the competition.
“The only store that matches yer description would be the one Hotchlick the peddler runs, it’s close by” smiled the barkeep and I went on my way following his directions to the store.
After a bit of walking, getting lost and needing to ask for directions I finally got to the building that matched the description I was given. Before you give me shit about losing my way when told the store is close by I will have you know that every single building here is made of the same wood and is built in a similar way, something about wood being cheaper than stone here. Walking in I was met with a familiar sight it was the first ever person I had met, the piss-smelling peddler Hotchlik. Thinking back to that encounter my nostrils were dreading being face to face with him once more though either he changed his clothes or had a good bath as he longer smelt like he bathed solely in yellow showers.
“Ah hello I see you have come to find me, does this mean your store is open for business now?” he said in a booming enthusiastic voice.
“Yes,” I say looking around at his own wares on display, looking around I saw many trinkets and baubles that puzzled me to their use after getting a closer look. I started to understand how the people at the bar felt after showing them my own wonders “what is it you sell here?”
“Oh what ever is needed, things like cutlery, shoes, clothing, gicks, and my main business furs” he answers with a big smile.
“Gicks?” I ask.
“You must be from a far-off place indeed as every child and labourer knows about gicks ” he explains. “Gicks is a term for wonderful little contraptions which consume magi dust to work”.
sensing my continued confusion, he says “you might remember our first meeting while I was still on the road, I wasn’t smelling my best, that was the use of a gick which produced a pungent odour warding away hostile animals.”
“I would counsel you to buy one yourself seeing as your store is on the outside of the town” he warned, “there have been more beast attacks in the past few days on surrounding villages and their livestock. I fear a pack of beasts have set up around in the woods”.
“I will take heed of your warning but don’t worry, I have protective measures of my own,” I say holding up my lovely 12-gauge.
“I see, I take it it´s a noisemaker of some sort?” he guesses.
“Oh, it is so much more than that my friend” and I began regaling him about the history of hunting weapons and how they work, only noticing that I began to lose my conversational partner the moment I started to explain the technical aspects of a shotgun.
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“Sorry about that, I get a bit passionate about these kinds of things but in essence, it is a gun and will keep me safe if needed.” Attempting to reassure him that I won’t suddenly be snatched up by a group of wolves or whatever is in those woods.
“But” I continue “I have come to you for some advice on the local prices in town.”
“Happy to help, my main business is fur trading, and I am quite happy to see some other enterprising individuals take the none fur part of this town’s business into their own hands.”
Apparently, the market for household items is large but has razor-thin margins due to logistical issues (i.e., on the very border of civilization). Food is usually provided by surrounding villages who sell their produce on something called market day in return for spices and products the villages can’t make themselves. Also, I managed to learn a bit about the history of this little town with it starting off as a trading outpost for buffalo beast furs it then becoming a pseudo-military outpost in case of nomadic attacks. Though that second job the town had seemed to have become obsolete as it seems the nomadic tribals have been pacified or at least are no longer interested in attacking and raiding the town.
Finally getting a good enough idea of the local price structure of coins:
Special wooden tokens are used only in town and surrounding villages
Impure silver coins= 1–2 dollar bills
Silver coins = 10s and 20 bills
Vials of magi dust= 50-100 bills
Special white and pink gold coins= the more valuable dollar bills
As well as getting a good idea of what the local market holds in high or low demand, for example, clothing not made out of fur is expensive and a show of your wealth/being an out-of-towner. This would explain why the adventuring group wasn´t clad in furs (except the orcs) with Hotchlick having a bit of money to spend allowing him to wear something else. Since it started to get late we bid our farewells and I made my way back to my store with a newfound sense of purpose seeing as I now have a potential stable customer base to exploit. Walking past a few more people that were heading home for the night I struck up conversations with them about my store of wonders hoping to get more potential customers and spread the word about my store. Nearing the entrance of the little forest path I had to take to get back to my store I felt a slight chill run down my spine and a feeling in my gut telling me something was wrong.
Dismissing those thoughts as simply being due to the cold and having only had a small breakfast and ale for food today I walked into the forest. That doesn’t mean I completely ignored my body’s warnings and racked my shotgun to see what was in the chamber. My gun revealed to me a red plastic casing which meant bird shot was loaded first, so I slid the pump back and made it so my gun was ready to fire. I was maybe 3-5 steps away from my front door when I saw something in the corner of my eye causing me to spin around gun ready to fire. What I saw was a weird mish-mash of forest foliage and a wolf having stepped onto the dirt path eyeing me as its next prey with two more sets of eyes right behind it. However, my sudden 180 turn seemed to have startled it for a second not expecting me to have noticed them and I pulled the trigger to my shotgun.
Now I can tell you about how accurate and cool I was with my shot but that would be a lie and also beg the question as to why I am currently kicking a gillie wolf off of my left foot. Well, simple I missed my shot in a panic I shot too high only startling the trio, after the initial shock of the big boom stick had worn off the leader of the trio jumped and went for my foot. Now I was very lucky to have two things happen; one the leather boots I wore were too thick for the wolf to bite through and two my second flailing shot that should have missed hit the wolf on the right square in the face dropping him.
“GET OFF GET OFF GET OFF GET OFFFFFFF” I screamed bashing my right leg into the biting wolf´s unprotected face.
Thankfully blunt-force persuasion is something that works on these beasts and he retreated back to where his remaining friend was looking at his fallen comrade. Now the beast´s whines and continued prods with his snoot to get his “sleeping” friend to wake up may have been heart-breaking if it were not for the fact, they wanted to make a meal out of me. Sitting up I pointed my gun at the leader´s head who was seemingly distracted by telling his friend to stop messing with the dead and help him and pulled the trigger yet again. This shot was not filled with panic nor flailed with luck and found its mark nailing the wolf in the head and ripping away its face. This promptly told the remaining wolf that this battle was lost and that running away with its tail between its legs was the better option and so it turned and ran.
“Oh no you don’t” not wanting these things to stay around and potentially try and maul me again pulled another bead onto the running wolf only to hear a *click* once I pulled the trigger.
“Ah right, only three shots” I was so hopped up on adrenalin that I forgot my rifle only has 3 shots and no more. I may have gone hunting with my uncle quite a few times but never was I in any actual danger. Deciding not to want to deal with any more potential bullshit that may come my way today I opened the doors and fucked off back home.