The five year old Akiza traveled around with her parents, Dylan, her father, and Haruko, her mother. Dylan and Haruko were merchants who traded goods between long distances to make a living. The two of them had met in the caravan eight years ago. Dylan had just started making a living trading the seafood from his home village. Haruko was the bookkeeper for one of the other merchants, recording prices as well as their supply.  

Dylan was a full blooded elf who was born in Playa, a small fishing village to the North. He had short blond hair, blue eyes, and pointy ears like a traditional elf. He was very thin because of his physique and though he looked frail by human standards, he was just as strong as anyone else who worked in the business. However, he left when he was young because he did not want to be a fisherman. He wanted to travel, so he joined a human trading caravan. When he left, he also cut his hair short and started wearing clothes made of animal hides, something that other elves hated him for.

Haruko was a human from an island to the East. She did not talk about it much because she never liked it. She had black hair and brown eyes. She was kind of short, at just over 5 feet (about 150 cm) tall. She was good with numbers and started working as an accountant for a merchant. The merchant brought her around to various cities for a few years, but he eventually retired, leaving her with no way to get home. However, she found the same trading caravan that Dyaln was part of and served as a bookkeeper for the merchant. It was there that the two met. Now many years later, they have a child to call their own.

"Mom what are you doing?" asked Akiza.

"I'm writing down what we bought and sold today, Aki," replied Haruko.

"Why?" asked Akiza.

"Because we have to make money to survive and this is the only way to know how much we made," Haruko responded.

"Is it a lot?" asked Akiza.

"Hold on I'm still counting," said Haruko.

"Okay," Akiza responded.

Akiza watched as Haruko wrote down "x" by the numbers and underlined others.

"What do those symbols mean?" Akiza wondered.

"Well, the 'x' is used to tell you how much we made by counting how many we sold and then counting the price of each one," Haruko explained.

"Okay, got it," Akiza explained. She proceeded to take out a black pen and counting on her own.

"Wow, we made a lot of money today!" Haruko said.

As Akiza looked over Haruko's shoulder, she saw at the bottom of the paper that there was "8G 20S 10C." The G was for gold, which was equal to 100 S, which was silver. You could also exchange 100C, copper, for 1 silver. Considering that the average income of a person was about 2G a day, 8G was great. Just then, Dylan returned.

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"How much did we make today honey?" asked Dylan.

"Over 8G!" said Haruko. Haruko stored the book and her writing utensils back inside her ring. Her ring was a gift from Dylan on their wedding night. It was a special ring imbued with a magic diamond. This allowed it to store materials inside of it and the wearer could bring those items out and put them in when they wished. The quality of the gemstone and amount of energy put into crafting it determined how much could be stored in the ring.

"Wow, that's a lot of money," replied Dylan. "Anyways, we need to get going tonight. The caravan is going have to head over to the capitol tomorrow to try to sell some of the gemstones."

"Already? But I wanted to look around," Akiza said disappointedly.

"How about I take you around Riyadh to have a look the day after we arrive?" asked Dylan.

"Promise?" wondered Akiza.

"I promise you, Aki," replied Dylan.

That night, the caravan had to stop at the side of the road. The bridge they wanted to cross was underoing maintenance. It had been worn down over the years and it was considered as possibly dangerous. There was a group of soldiers and a group of construction workers who were applying something to the bridge. The bridge looked like it was okay, but it was better to be safe than sorry. One of the worst things that can happen is to fall into a river. You would never know if you would survive. And if you do, you would not know where you would end up.

The caravan set up on the hill nearby. Their carts and wagons made a circle for defense in order to protect themselves. They were not the only ones who were waiting for the bridge to reopen. Other caravans had also set up nearby with their own groups.

Samuel, one of the woodworkers in their caravan began to speak, "It is nice to have a day to relax once in a while."

"But every one of these days also cost us a lot of money," Haruko replied as she was scribbling away in her book.

"Is money all that you think about?" Samuel asked.

"Somebody has to do it and the only other person who has any knowledge of this is Akiza," Haruko said. "If I didn't do it, you would not even know what to sell or for how much."

"That's true," said Dylan. Dylan pulled Haruko closed to him and continued, "Most of us can convince people to buy something from us, but we have no idea about how much something is worth. Without Haruko, we would probably would not last a week without going bankrupt."

Suddenly, screams were heard.