Ch 45

“Fifteen coppers.” The merchant sounded very firm as he told the price of the dress to the woman in front of his stall. “Oh, I can’t possibly go so high. Can you do it for ten?” The young brunette in front of his was showing a dazzling smile and arching her chest forward. “Can’t do it, this thing costs more than that to have made. Fifteen coppers.” The girl pouted, unhappy at being unable to talk this merchant down.

I was hiding behind some crates stacked behind the stall the clothing merchant was running. This was my first mark and I was hesitating. This was the third customer that had come through and the third that he had refused to haggle with. The first two had ended up paying but the third had walked away. “Good evening miss, this skirt would look absolutely lovely paired with that shirt you are wearing. It is a shame to leave it sitting in the stall like this!”

The merchant was already drawing in another customer. I was not hesitating because I felt bad for him or anything. An honest merchant wouldn’t be threatened much by a token that made them tell the truth. What was making me hesitate was fear. Unlike in the arena where I had a chance to fight and win, in this it was not so easy. If I was caught, I would be questioned and then likely punished. There was even a chance that I would be killed on the spot since I was a slave. I had heard some of the goblins talking about what happened to slave criminals.

The day wasn’t getting any younger so as soon as the merchant and the woman he had drawn over began talking I peeked around the crates and looked to see where he was standing. His money purse was hanging from his belt, it would be all to easy to cut it off with a sharp knife and slip away. Burying the thought of making some illicit money on the side I decided to go through with my training. The merchant soon held up a piece of cloth that shielded me from the customer’s sight and I pulled out a token, slipped it into his open pocket and spun back around the crates.

“Like I was saying miss this is really an average quality skirt that will make you look much the same as you do now. The price at ten coppers is really too high.” As soon as the merchant finished speaking there was silence from within the booth for a moment and then I heard the woman curse at the merchant and walk away. Likely the merchant was scratching his head and wondering just what had caused him to change his sales pitch like that.

Snickering silently to myself at the fate of the scrupulous merchant I moved on. I still had nine more tokens to distribute and unless I was missing my guess, I was going to enjoy this a bit. I was no Robin Hood to steal from the rich and give to the poor, but I still felt a bit of satisfaction that at least a few shady merchants would be unable to swindle people for the rest of the day at least.

The second merchant I approached was selling fruit. From the look of things from the street his fruit was fresh and ripe but as I watched, every large sale would include a few pieces from under the counter where less perfect fruit was stored. Yup, this guy was getting a token.

“Excuse me ser, how fresh are your apples?” A man who looked like a farmer was approaching him. “Oh ser, they are exceedingly fresh. All of my fruit is of the highest quality.” I couldn’t take it anymore. Step, step, slip. In goes the token. “Ok I’ll take five of them.” The farmer seemed happy with the apples and handed a cloth sack to the man with a few coins. “Coming right up ser, let me just get you some fresh apples and one or two old ones and there you go.”

The merchant was smiling at the farmer and holding out the bag of apples, having not really paid attention to what he was saying. The farmer was looking at him strangely and then said, “I thought you said all of your apples were fresh! I don’t want any old apples! Give me my money back!” Good for you farmer guy, good for you!

It took me almost two hours to distribute all of the tokens, but I was well satisfied with my labors. I had taken the time to scope out the market and had ensured that each of the ten tokens went to a merchant who was doing business dishonestly.

By the time I was done there was a bit of a commotion forming as now several merchants had begun telling people the truth in the process of doing business and as a result several people were forming an outcry and demanding an investigation of the merchants, each person now remembering at least one other time that they had gotten home only to discover that they had been duped.

I went off, back to the arena in high spirits, making sure to practice my hidden movements techniques the entire way back. It was nearly sunset when I arrived, and I made it into the training room just in time to turn and enter the resting room and go to collect my dinner. After I ate, I heard the door to the training room open and I saw Lilly walk in, heading straight for me.

“Well, how did it go?” she looked honestly curious as if she had no idea how the encounter would have turned out. “I failed miserably. I tried to give out the tokens, but I ended up being too afraid and came back without distributing any.” I tried my best to keep a straight face while feeding her this bold-faced lie. “Oh, that is too bad. I suppose we will have to rethink training you for this, you may not be cut out for this work if you cannot even do this much.”

She sighed and closed her eyes, putting out a hand in front of me. “Give me back the tokens, if they aren’t going to be used, I’ll take them back to the store. They weren’t exactly cheap. She then stood there with her hand out for several moments before bothering to open her eyes and look at me. When she did, she saw a shit eating grin on my face as I couldn’t hold it back any longer.

“As if! I got rid of those tokens no problem. I even managed to cause a small commotion with them.” She looked at me hard as if trying to process what I had told her. “A small commotion…” she seemed to space out for a bit and then snapped back to herself. “Well, as long as you got the job done, I suppose you passed this part of the training. Now get some rest, you have another fight in the morning.”