Having never seen its kind before, the porcelain jug's value befuddled Zuan. This irritated the trade-priest, though he didn't show it. He handed the vessel back to a smirking Nisher...
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Zuan Coursi's fortunes improved as his tired camels waddled toward a ring of bickering merchants drinking heavily-spiced tea. He met a few distant acquaintances in fact, a few men even from Abodroc, and sought profit and conversation with them deep into the evening, staining his teeth happily with their strong tea. Hours later he emerged from the throngs his purse weighed down with coin. By his count he made a tidy profit of seventy rindods. Not bad for some haggling in a make-shift town outside the city proper. He not only made some profit but he succeeded in unburdening his camels, Hezzab and Maurban, and the maudlin pair turned downright euphoric once the many sacks of spice and quite a few rugs, were removed from their backs. Zuan in turn acquired something beside the coin. A deed, proofed and confirmed by a passing Canagadi trade-minister during the transaction, to a small patch of land in Canagadi country! A tiny stretch of alpine meadow, overgrown with giant lobelias, where cloves grew in abundance. The seller, a skeletal-thin merchant, explained that he was moving his enterprise and family south, and could no longer abide the long travel to the northern spice-land.
Happily riding back along the dusty thoroughfare, Zuan even found a small shrine to the Divine Broker, erected quite recently no doubt by some like-minded travelers. The small pavilion was empty except for a serious looking-guard with scimitar, his arms crossed across his wide chest, standing over a makeshift symbolic "coffer". The trade-priests knew their god would take their offerings of profit, His Fee, yet someone had to guard whatever was placed inside, until such time that he did.
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Find a drink they did. And a cock fight. The venerable yet still ferocious "Capitan" was taking on his arch rival, a fiery bird named "Mesmero", and a large flash-mob gathered to watch the roosters do battle, money exchanging hands. Iskander almost immediately spotted Folca, a minor street tough with aspirations at being a crime-lord. Iskander had once rounded up the fellow in a previous life for the law, and on another occasion fought along-side him in a gang-war in Zola-Garsa. Iskander did not care what brought Folca here, he didn't like the man at all, but he managed a smile when he greeted him. Tagu merely followed Iskander wordlessly, and scanned the crowds for possible trouble.
The general talk was of the Plague in Zamorza and of the northern rebels--followers of the One New God--and how they had become bolder and bolder raiding the "peaceful, civilized, and illuminated" cities of the Ban-Ral-Sab.
(ooc: val, any specific tidbits of information you want to know? About anything at all? Folca will try to answer.)
Minutes later Iskander managed to unload Nisher's (Bulvan's) trinkets on Folca. Nisher had actually caught up to the trio and gladly accepted the forty rindods Iskander gave him for his sack. Folca had paid forty five, yet the price of doing business on the streets, explained Iskander to the spellwriter...
They were on their way back as well, Iskander, Tagu, and Nisher when Iskander slowed beside a dagger display of some fine quality. As Iskander and Tagu examined blades and discussed their virtues, Nisher idled---until he saw a hunched figure crouched down between stalls in the dust, beside a gnarled dwarf-palm. The figure was shivering and the man's eyes were darting spastically. Limp hair was plastered to his pale flesh, and his hands were quivering uncontrollably. As Nisher peered intently, he became sure. It was Alnab Rugen, a fellow spellwriter Nisher had grown up with on the streets back home in the far north. They had joined the spellwriters together, but Alnab had left for the south--the "wondrous cities of the Ban-Ral-Sab" he had said--long before Nisher himslef began traveling the lands south of the great mountains. Now here he was, looking as if he was a slave to some sinister narcotic and fearing for his life.
Beside him on the ground was his book. The tome every spellwriter carried.
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Anquetiti flitted about amidst the humans, little did they know...
How can they see this coming? How could they stop it. This gorgeous dew-drop of larceny and mischief. This magnanimous magpie of multi-talents. They couldn't. And they didn't. Anquetiti successfully pilfered several pockets, purses, and stalls, though as luck would have it, nothing she stole gave her joy. It all amounted to knick-knacks and semi-valuable trinkets worth a few coins sure (15 rindods worth), but nothing to stir her passion. She was almost caught once, when she reached in the wrong pocket and discovered that the pocket's owner had for some reason been *extremely* excited at that very moment. Feeling the tug, he turned to her his eyes wide saucers, and though she smiled, he opened his mouth to shout something--her magic had saved her there--and the man and his body-guard lost her in the crowd.
On her way back to rejoin her interesting new companions, she nearly stumbled upon a man watching a cock fight, who happened to have a sack on him, with what seemed to be something valuable. This would proof too easy in fact, and minutes later Anquetiti was peering inside the sack and smiling at the slightly more valuable trinkets than she had previously seen. (50 gp/rindods worth).
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Saano stalked the stalls lost in his own and his sister's thoughts. He was getting anxious and cared little for this layover. He was anxious to do what he had set out to, that was--to save some poor woman from a demonic infestation. His order had been paid. Now it had to be done. Ebellos' true motives mattered little now, and their was a soul to save. As he strolled he stopped momentarily at a book-seller's stall and gazed upon the titles, then sighed and returned to his companions.
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Inan had quietly made his way to the very walls of Zamorza, only to see guards sporting grimaces staring down from the ramparts. A plague had apparently struck the Wicked City. With Plagues came certain creatures he thought absentmindedly and fingered his amulet. So, the Dervishes will not meet within these walls he concluded and returned to the group that had rescued him from the hellish Moadi cave. He would go with them for now. They would need him. He did not quite understand how he knew that, but somehow he did.
(ooc: Let me know if you guys (Scras and CM) want to do anything specific, buy, sell, other, or anything at all really.)
