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    Merchant Ellen

     

    “You really have a head for this, don’t you? Are you sure you want to be an adventurer?”

    Ellen smiled politely at the man’s words, waiting for him to finish looking over her latest attempt. The slate was full of numbers and squiggles, showing the hypothetical expenses and revenue of a pretend route through various cities. The exercise was more complicated than it looked.

    Each leg of the trip between cities had a different length of time, and each city had different prices for each commodity. The ‘game’ was to try to maximize profit within as little time as possible, with the typical method of buying low and selling high. Every iteration of the game, the merchant had added more cities, different travel times, and put other restrictions on it.

    Sometimes the demand dropped if a city wasn’t reached within a certain time. Often, she had a limited budget to start with. The merchant had said that more advanced versions of this ‘game’ were played in the Guild quite often, and those would have competing merchants that would alter the supply and demand values for cities, and include random events to deal with.

    It was surprisingly fun, for a game that was just about numbers and profit.

    The game wasn’t too hard at first… Ellen had moved in with Village Ellen after waking up next to her twin, ceding the ‘adventurer’ role to her ‘sister’ without complaint. Death by spider bite made her glad that they tended to forget the last bit of their previous lives, but another death was worrying.

    Once at the inn she had spent most of her time learning about the management of the inn itself, instead of serving customers… because there had been no customers for almost three days. That was the downside of being one of the out of the way roads. The traffic was common enough to sustain business, but it wasn’t predictable.

    By the time Mister Pulani had arrived, Ellen was eager to hitch a ride. If she’d had more equipment she would have taken the trip by herself, hiking to Merriweather instead of riding. Until Onroc had better shelter, though, the tent was needed there, and they were rapidly running out of bedrolls and boots.

    Again.

    She’d borrowed the new Adventurer Ellen’s boots for this trip, at Hunter Ellen’s suggestion. Adventurer Ellen had quickly figured out it was a way to keep her from running off into the dungeon again. She’d been gracious about the trick, but it put a lot of pressure on Ellen to perform. Carrying Adventurer Ellen’s Guild card was also a big leap of trust.

    Or… it would have been a big leap of trust if they weren’t all the same person with similar goals.

    “We’re here.”

    The deep, calm voice up front announced the arrival with the same stoic professionalism Ellen had heard from him the entire trip. Cort didn’t talk much, but after two days with the beefy, muscular warrior she’d picked up on the fact that he listened more than he let on. The man was probably going to change Class to a merchant of some kind once he got too old to swing the sword.

    “Thanks, Cort!” Ellen called out to the man in front. “I’ll see you later at the market!”

    Pulani chuckled, “Be careful out there, Miss. It was nice of you to keep the two of us company.”

    Ellen winked and dropped three crests on her seat. “The pleasure was mine! I learned a lot… and always pay for what you take, right?” Three crests was more than needed for just the trip, but she’d learned a lot. It was most of her remaining money—she had one crest and a few bits left—but that shouldn’t be a problem shortly.

    Only after the cart had trundled away further into the city did Ellen walk toward the Adventurer’s Guild… and open her Level Up options. She’d tested Hunter Ellen’s theory by focusing entirely on learning bookkeeping and trading, and slacking off at other work at the inn. More specifically, she let Builder Ellen handle her chores while she practiced her numbers.

    “Time to see if Hunter Ellen was right.”

     

    SELECT CLASS

    Your actions during the training levels have given you the following Class options.

    Merchant
    Scholar
    Tender
    Performer
    Laborer
    Artisan
    Fighter
    Hunter

     

    Interesting that Hunter was still on the list even though she’d done nothing at all for it. Did the walk from Onroc to the village count for that much? It was at the bottom of the list, though. Her compatibility must be low, if it worked like everyone assumed.

    She selected Merchant and then chose Willpower for her attribute bonus—she had the option for Perception, and Appraisal would be a useful choice, but Pulani had said that was a frequent mistake people new to Merchant made. There was one Perk in particular she really wanted, after talking to him.

     


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

    SELECT PERK

    You may select a Perk at this time.

    Gambler’s Face
    Hard Bargain
    Memory for Faces
    Suppress Anger

     

    Without hesitation she selected Gambler’s Face. Making her emotions harder to read was definitely top of the list, with what she’d been planning the entire trip. She’d had too long to think through the possibilities, and now she had a plan. The other Ellens might not like what she was about to do, but in the long run it made a lot more sense than anything else.

    Now with her Level 6 selection complete, Ellen took a breath to steady her nerves and pushed the door to the Guild open.

    “Ellen!”

    She nearly bolted in shock at her name being called out, head whipping around. Her foot slid back, outside the doorway, before she caught sight of who had called for her. Then she relaxed.

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