173: Chefs

Liane laughed. “Before you continue, Trev, you do not know what any of these items are actually worth, so let me get Milo.”

She soon left the room, leaving me with Reginald, who had come back to the table.

“So this is how to get you in a room alone,” Reginald joked.

I just shook my head. “No, not alone. Lily is still watching.”

“I should have guessed she’d be watching everything. Very useful protector, that one,” he said.

We sat for only a few minutes before Milo walked into the room, taking the third chair at the table before pulling out his own notebook.

“Just to confirm, this is only to buy sugar and salt?” Milo said, looking at me.

Nodding, Milo started writing on his pages.

“Well, Lord Fellwood, I would be happy to make a deal right now, but I feel if we do, we’d be denying a young merchant the opportunity for experience. Since these items will be used in a predominantly business capacity, I think it’s best we allow her to make the deal,” Milo explained.

Reginald was just nodding along, clearly in agreement. I felt, again, like an idiot for not even thinking about it. Of course it would help her!

“What we can do, however, is work out just how much you’ll require,” Reginald said.

“Salt is something we require the most. Perhaps thirty barrels’ worth should suffice for a first order. For sugar, it’s not something we need as much of. I would say five barrels is a good starting amount. I think we also should look at getting honey, sugar-reed syrup, and sugar-sap, as these will all be useful. In addition, are you able to get certain herbs in bulk?” Milo asked.

I was very curious about where he was going with this. Initially, I was happy to just get some salt and sugar, maybe some fire salt for the jerky I was going to make, but now Milo was asking about herbs. When I looked at him, however, he just gave me a knowing smile and a tiny wink, so I felt it was best to keep my mouth shut at the moment.

Reginald seemed to regard the question for a moment, pulling out a small notebook of his own. “The salt and all the sugar items are absolutely no problem. I could have that here within hours of striking a deal. The herbs, however, depend on what you’re after. Obviously, I can’t get anything that’s under the control of the alchemist guild, but I’m sure there are some cooking herbs I can certainly get ahold of. What did you have in mind?”

“Lemon tea grass, virfolium, mana truffle, and mana tears,” Milo said simply.

My eyes widened at the request. Well, for just one of them. Was Milo going to go down the route I thought he was?

Reginald flipped through his book, pulling out a similar eyepiece to what I saw Troy with all those months ago. “Mana tears won’t be possible. You might get a small supply through the guild, but nothing substantial. Lemon tea grass, I suppose I can get. It’s mostly worthless, though, so you won’t be paying for the product so much as the labour to collect it. Truffles are easy enough to source a couple dozen. They won’t be cheap. And virfolium—if you’re after it fresh—I believe I can get that for you?”

“Fresh is fine,” Milo said simply.

“Very well, I can get that for you, but I have to ask. This product you’re making, is it possible for me to buy it directly from you? I could distribute it?” Reginald said, looking over to me.

Milo just shook his head. “For the time being, Micca will be the only distribution point, and so you don’t feel we’ll go off to another house with it, you should know that even the royal family wished to purchase it all, and we refused. That said, however, we have something you might be interested in.”

Reginald’s eyes went wide at the mention of the royal family, but the smile returned when Milo offered him something.

“Oh?”

Milo pulled a scale out of his storage ring, which I recognised immediately. “We are in possession of drake scales, as it were—lots of drake scales,” Milo said.

“Now you really have my attention,” Reginald grinned.

“They are all in a perfect condition, like this one,” Milo said, handing over the scale for Reginald to inspect.

After a short time, and while turning it in his hands several times, he handed it back.

“That was no regular drake it came from.” Reginald commented.

Milo laughed, clearly expecting this. “You’re correct, it’s not, and we have around a thousand scales of that quality.”

Reginald didn’t respond. He just stared at Milo, his mouth open as he attempted to form words and failed. Milo didn’t say anything. Instead, he just chose to sit there and wait for him to process it all.

Shaking his head finally, he spoke. “If you’re really talking a thousand scales, we’re talking a deal for multiple large gold coins, or platinum coins for that matter. For that, I’ll need to bring in some other members for the deal. It won’t be something we could do over tea here, but I can speak for the company and the house, we’re interested—very interested.”

The conversation didn’t go much further than that, with Reginald saying he would drop by the shop and meet Micca and Hari to organise a time for a meeting.

Shortly after, he left the house still holding the scale that Milo had given him as a gift, and to show the other investors who would take part.

Staying in the sunroom, Liane took his seat. “Bold move you’re thinking of there.”

“The only reason we didn’t do it before was to not step on the toes of the alchemist guild, but if they want to play dirty, we’ll break their hold over that market. You wouldn’t mind making a bunch of candies with the speed buff, would you, Trev?” Milo said with a grin.

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“How will we sell them, though? If we make it exclusive and limited to just Micca, we’d hardly be breaking that hold?” I said.

“I know the perfect thing to make. Micca is making a cafe, so why go to the effort of making candy? Just sell the tea—Ashmoon’s Lemon Tea. You could even use the smoker to dry the grass, then we won’t get the fire immunity buff on it,” Liane said.

“If you’re happy with it, and Micca has the guards to deal with the fallout, I think that would be the perfect solution,” Milo said, rubbing his chin.

“Would it really cause a lot of damage, though?” I asked curiously.

Both Milo and Liane laughed. “Trevor, remember back on the road to Boltron when you first made it? I told you they would kill you over it. That wasn’t an exaggeration. At the time they absolutely would have tried to. However, now they can’t do that—if we sold the tea for a silver a pot, or even just gave it out complimentary with a cake purchase, what would have cost five gold per dose crashes entirely overnight,” Milo explained.

“That’s going to really piss them off,” Liane smirked.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the front stairs, watching as Crisplet worked on his tree. As the sun dipped below the buildings, Lily joined me. The tree only became more magical as it grew darker. Each leaf was burning in the twilight.