Denziu was still thinking about Taltios' warning the next morning at a market in Tekagol. All around zir in the grey dreary rain there were vrash (they were nearly all vrash) of variously coloured scales under armour of slight variations who were surrounded by bins of produce. There were a few vashael who were likely out-of-towners seeing as none of them were behind the produce bins. This bit of Tekagol wasn’t quite close enough to Zyrine for dragons there to pick up produce on a whim, but it also wasn’t far enough to prevent planned grocery runs. Zyrine was a big, hungry city, and dragons flying in from Zyrine were probably a major market for Tekagol’s produce.

Tekagoli luck charms were at least easy to find. A central kiosk right in the middle of the market sold them, with every other stall set around it at a fair distance like the luck charms were the most notorious thing they had.

The constant unappealing drizzle made Denziu grateful that the paths in the market were covered, and the surfaces underfoot were crowned vrashwork which resisted flooding. Between the produce stalls and the central kiosk, the paths and roofing were good against the rain. That kiosk had its own broad overhanging roof that kept the rain off of Denziu as zie circled the kiosk to study its stock.

Five bins full of pewter charms lined the kiosk, set around most of a circle. There was an open back to the kiosk where the sixth bin would've been if they'd been spaced all the way around. Each bin was invitingly open and the kiosk had a counter between each pair of them so that the blue-scaled vrash staffing the kiosk could sell on all sides.

Denziu thought about the charms as zie studied the contents of each bin. There were as many theomes which broadcasted "Tekagoli Luck" across the weave of Fate as there were continents. The nature of "Tekagoli Luck" was infamous all over Theoma. The land gods thought of it as a kind of good luck, but most dragons considered it a form of sabotage. Dragons who hated each other sometimes gifted their foes with Tekagoli luck charms. "Live long and suffer," that's what a Tekagoli Luck charm meant, because Tekagoli Luck meant a lot of little things going wrong.

Yet Denziu knew something important about Tekagoli Luck: Praoziu claimed that all of the theomes broadcasting this weird bad luck had 0% death rates. Immortality was a true promise under Tekagoli Luck. It really was about little things going wrong so big things never would.

Denziu gravitated to the pair of bins astride the counter where the vendorgon stood already. Little cast animals on straps filled one bin while little squiggly nonsense symbols on straps filled the other bin. The charms were priced individually, though Denziu was intrigued to see a whole-bin price labelled on a dangling placard, too. The prices were low for good pewter work, let alone enchanted pewter work. They were cheap! Were these despite their reputation the kind of souvenirs dragons took home from Tekagol? Or were they being sold out of faith?

Denziu reflected on that thought. It seemed probable. Tekagol was the polity where dragons least cursed Tekagoli luck and most believed in its promise. So the charms were sold at a fire sale price here, as though unloading unwanted pewter, precisely because these charms were wanted, and the dragons here wanted them to be so cheap that they could be exported.

Denziu lingered over the charms for a while, until the vrash in the kiosk rapped the counter and said, "For the love of safety, just buy one already!" He laughed and carried on as Denziu looked up: "Baggil loves you, so buy one and trust your Fate."

"Are these really safe to buy?" Denziu asked, again thinking about Taltios' warning that they would bring sadistic luck at first. Zie was intending to buy a charm. Definitely. They were just a bit intimidating.

The vendorgon splayed his hands and smiled. "Of course! These are bona fide magic items, and they're a great way to live longer." He reached down over the counter into the open bins in front of him and snatched up one of the charms to hold it up by a pebbled string. It was a pewter triskelion. Denziu was pretty sure zie wanted one with a plainer strap, but zie looked closely anyways. "Baggil protects immortality," said the vendorgon. "Every misfortune that happens while you're wearing one of these is protecting you from something worse down the line. Believe it!"

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"And the bins? Are they really all bearing the same enchantment?" Denziu asked. Zie was tempted to buy a whole bin and try to sell them along the route. Based on what zie knew of how Tekagol was known for exporting Tekagoli luck charms, the low prices appealed to visiting merchantgons who probably purchased an entire case of them and slowly sold them off in other theomes.

The dark blue vrash vendorgon nodded. "On Baggil's honour, these are all beacons of the Tekagoli Fate. You a caravanner? Buy a bin," he said.

"I don't have enough on me to buy a bin," Denziu said, thinking that zie wasn’t a caravanner just yet. Yet there was a certain lure to carrying the Tekagoli charms and trying to sell them in distant theomes, so zie said, "But I think I might come back in a few days and do just that." For the moment, zie reached down and grabbed a charm shaped like a predatory bird. "For now I'll just buy this one."

"Better hurry," said the vendorgon with a broad smile as they were trading Denziu’s coin for that new bird charm. "You're not the only buyer. I sell out of closed bins every time a caravan musters." Judging by that smile, Denziu was a little sceptical. The vendorgon was just a little too pleased to hear Denziu talk of buying a bin, but zie smiled back anyways. If zie could overcome the scepticism of buyers, it would be good business to buy one of the bins. Failing all else, zie could get good prices selling the charms to bitter dragons who would 'curse' each other with Baggil's protection.

Fitting zir new charm around zir neck, Denziu walked out from under the covered paths of the market to look at the bulletin board posted outside a local village square cafe, where bulletins were posted about festivals, job requests, and (most importantly) upcoming caravan departures. As the origin point for the more safety-seeking branch of the Tachanigh-Kelkaith trade corridor, caravans were fairly regular.

Fetching zir notebook from zir pouch, Denziu brandished an excellent gift from Praoziu: a lev-i-quill. It was an enchanted and everlasting quill pen that animated itself to write at Denziu’s mental directions. Zie held open the notebook and released the lev-i-quill to transcribe the time and place of the next regular caravan mustering from the board. There was a pre-meet brunch with a price tag on it, and Denziu took note of that as well. Showing up at the mustering without attending the brunch would be poor form.

As zie flew home to Nidrio with zir business in Tekagol completed, Denziu wondered who zie would meet with the caravan.

The next few days were very busy. Pottery was not going to be Denziu's only ware, because zie was also something of a pigment merchantgon. That was another fine luxury item. Zie had drying soil heaps to grind and sieve to produce more of the earth-tone pigments that zie used to paint zirself with, and zie needed all zie could make for every ounce of it was gold on this journey. The paints were saleable for a very solid profit, because the raw materials for it were free, but few dragons ever made it. It was a good, hard work that produced phial after phial of paints which were quite light and would be valuable if zie found customers willing to buy them.

Zir little stone house in Nidrio was a busy pigment-making workshop when Aleicree stopped by to wish zir farewell. Blue-scaled Aleicree, friendly though withdrawn and another sibling of Denziu’s, gave to Denziu a gift for zir prosperity: a cask of late Shaleara cider, a trade good in its own right that could be sold along the way. That it was destined for sale and not for Denziu's consumption went unstated, but Denziu believed in that heartily, for Aleicree knew the lore of Tekagol as well as Denziu did. To drink a late cider or any similarly 'hard' drink while wearing a Tekagoli charm was to invite disaster.

Denziu flew back to Tekagol and bought that bin of Tekagoli luck charms as well. The price was right and the idea of a faith-based trade good was fascinating to think about. Carrying the bin of charms through the air on zir flying wagon felt strangely deviant, like zie were towing a veil of questionable luck across the land.

In these ways, Denziu accumulated other trade goods to add to zir packed stock. Zir wagon would be laden high when zie went to the caravan, and zie strutted before Praoziu to show off that zie was pulling a new cargo.

Praoziu laughed and clapped to Denziu’s strut. When she calmed from that, she swept in close to hug Denziu. “My little merchantgon,” she said with a tender nuzzle. “I have one more gift for you.”

She was a land god, the highest power in Nidrio, embodiment of the land itself. There was no sound or gesture accompanying, no rite or ritual, yet from one moment to the next Praoziu added one final gift to a merchantgon in bloom: a slight enlargement to Denziu's flying wagon.