*VRRRRM* *PLINK* *PLINK* *PLINK*
As if she had just the jackpot on a slot machine little gold nuggets began to come out of the magical gold conversion machine as I have decided to call it. I wonder if I can skip the customers and just put junk into the machine and just get rich off of the remaining gold that I find, eh an experiment for another time. While the barmaid disappeared past the large wooden shelves I began to expand my little list of modifications I will need to do to this store for optimal day-to-day operations. Other than a couple of step ladders for the halflings so they can reach more than the middle shelves I also might need those supermarket baskets. Along with that, I could also make a pretty penny selling things like bags for your purchases, I say pretty penny because the barmaid is currently approaching me and it seems as though she has replaced the top half of her body with Chex party mix.
With a big “uff” she placed her bounty of party snacks onto the counter, and I began to note down each and everyone as this is no fancy schmancy electric cash register but a mechanical one. Meaning I had to input everything manually into the machine. When I finally finished and looked up at the little woman to give her, her total she looked at me in confusion.
“That will be 62,91.”
“What... how did you?”
“Oh right, mechanical cash register type the amount and price of whatever ever and it will give you the total.” Looking at her with a smile “neat right.”
“Is that a gick” she asked in her high-pitched voice.
“No, didn’t you hear me it's mechanical, not magical.”
“Okay,” she said while eying me with the same confusion she had before “what do I do with these then” she held out her hand holding the golden nuggets.
“Ah right place them on this scale.”
Walking up and placing the gold nuggets onto the scale as instructed the total of the gold was told to me as 70 dollars. Inputting the number on the cash register and opening the cash drawer, my dreams of easy cash conversion were dashed as all I had to give her were dollars. The question is what do I do now, short-change her and hope she doesn’t notice? Give her an IOU for the remaining 7.09? What the hell am I supposed to do in this situation... Wait, barter, if I remember correctly people used to barter in the medieval ages and the halfling’s society seems to simulate it I could just give her something worth those remaining dollars.
“Is something the matter sir?” she asks seemingly sensing my distress at being without any change to give her.
“Ah no not really, I simply have a tiny little issue being that I don’t have any change at the moment. So I could give you two options, either I give you store credit for the remaining 7 dollars or you could look for something worth those 7 dollars in the shop.”
“Uh okay,” she said unsurely “but what about those coins I saw in the drawer.”
“What these” I was surprised she was even able to see them seeing as her head was all that poked over the counter.
“Well, they aren’t the coins you guys use” I explain handing her a quarter.
After handing her the coin she looked at it for a while studying it closely and only after 5 min have passed (yea I kept track) did she open her mouth again.
“You say you are but a shop keep but would it not be a better idea to change your profession to that of an artist, even as a lowly peasant I can tell the incredible craftsmanship of this coin.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“No, just like with the bag of party mix these coins are not bits of artwork but are used as simple currency where I’m from.”
“Hmm” looking unconvinced I decided to size on her apparent fondness of the quarter and wipe away my little 7-dollar debt.
“How about this I give you that quarter for the remaining value, how does that sou-“
Cutting me off with a “yes” she gathered her newly bought things as well as the quarter and ran out the door.
With my first successful sale, the day was looking good and hopefully, this type of success will follow through for the rest of the day. An hour later, however, that hopeful turned into a doubtful with no one else seemingly coming in to check on the new store in their town. Waiting for the next customer I began to inspect the small golden nuggets I had received; they weren’t your kind of rough nuggets that would come out of a mine. All the nuggets had a sort of uniformity as they looked like little cubes with rough, bumpy surfaces you would find straight out of the ground. Around the third hour of waiting for someone to finally grace me with their presence and was about to give up I heard the door open again and with a hopeful gaze, I turned towards the entrance.
What walked into the store were a pair of halflings clad in green cloaks looking like a pair of hunters with their bows in one hand and a leather quiver of arrows on their back.
“Hello there,” I say greeting them.
Taking off their hoods and revealing their faces showed one man to have some stubble on his chin while the other one had a walrus-type moustache on him. I name thee stubble and walrus... what I’m bored out of my mind alright give me a break.
Stubble was the first to open his mouth, “what are you?”
Oh no not this again, these halfling types seem to be rather direct with their questions, well at least he didn’t as if I was a-
“Are you an elf?” came out before I could even finish my thought.
“Nope, not an elf just a simple shop keep of an amazing store”.
“This is a store?” asked walrus “not like any store I have seen before”.
“Well yes of course it is,” I asked giving the walrus a puzzled look “what did you think this was”
“We thought it was a hunter's lodge if anything” came stubbles voice again “outside doesn’t tell you much”
His words did ring true as the outside building here did look just like a wooden log cabin, and it being out in the woods the confusion was maybe what is causing my lack of customers.
“It is a store if anything and not a hunter's lodge, but I do have some things for hunters if you would like to browse”
Both hunters looked at each other, said some words one of them shrugged and they stepped forward to the metal gate.
“Ah before I forget ya might want to put any coin you are planning on using in the store into that contraption there” I point to the bread box-looking thing (still don’t know what to call it).
The men look at “ah we weren’t expecting any stores here and didn’t see a need to bring any coin on a hunting trip.”
That might be a problem, I don’t want to send them away as my finances are pretty thin at the moment even with that one little bulk purchase.
“Hmm, do you guys have anything to barter perchance?”
Walrus reaches out to his back and pulls out some small dead critters that he had seemingly strapped to his back.
“We were planning to use these to bait bigger prey but I suppose we could spare a few of them if you want to buy them.” He says handing me a few squirrel-looking things tied to a rope.
“Right,” I say carefully handing him back the rope of dead rodents “just pop them into the machine there and it will give you what you need to buy things from my store.”
I really hope this works as it did with that wolf fang.
*VRRRRM* *PLINK*
Thankfully the machine accepted the dead rodents as payment, not thankfully is that the machine apparently decided they were not worth much and only spit out a few small gold cube nuggets.
“Uh, how much are these worth,” says walrus taking the golden nuggets and placing them onto the counter in front of me.
Picking them up and placing them onto the scale revealed them to be around 5.00 USD.
“Alright, your total gold worth is 5 dollars, which means that anything worth 5 dollars is what you can get.”
“OK,” they both said seemingly unsure how to even say the word and both walked through the gate and into the store proper.
I followed them a bit with my eyes seeing how they looked around seemingly awed by many of my products (or more likely their packaging) picking them off the shelf carefully and then putting them back. This continued for a while until they were out of sight and I was once again stuck alone with my thoughts hoping that more customers will flow through the front door.