Two days later, they were all gathered on a meeting room on the Logarth Union with the addition of Boni, an elder gentleman and a bulky lady. The elder was called Sarin, and he was knowledgeable about rare goods and materials. The large woman was Fiona and she was the manager for the main branch of the Logarth Union in Kalafrana.

They were all sitting at a long wooden table which was covered by a bunch of different materials. Sarin observed them with glittering eyes. He was evaluating them with attention before giving his conclusion.

“This is a piece of rainbow silk! Wonderful! Rainbow silk is currently on the rise, but I’ve never seen one of such good quality! A spindle of it should be worth at least five gold coins, no doubt in my mind!”

As the elder gave his assessment, Ben would write the values down on a piece of parchment. Of course, what Sarin was seeing was just a sample of the materials, he’d no idea about the amount the group had of each one. If he did, he wouldn’t just be this excited, he would be blown away.

Fiona watched the procedures with interest. Today she was here as an intermediary, so she wasn’t required to do much apart from mediating and applying the soul contracts as needed. Normally, this was a job for the union’s clerks, but she decided to do it herself this time. What caught her interest was the preliminary form her subordinate asked her to review. The form guaranteed a transaction of six figures and asked that a high raking representative of the union be present, one capable of making decisions for the Logarth Union. This made her believe that this mediating session wouldn’t be a simple one.

So far, Fiona was just mildly impressed by the collection of strange materials and waited eagerly for the real fun to start. She stealthily gazed at Liza and company with the corner of her eye. While Sarin was assessing the value of the materials, she was evaluating the people who brought them.

As the manager of the main branch of the Logarth Union, Fiona had heard whispers about a strange group of five that were spending a lot of coins in weapons, elixirs and protective gear for the past few days. It seemed that the “culprits” were right in front of her. She was curious to know how much wealth they had and what they were planning on joining Lawrence in a venture for. He wasn’t a bad merchant per se. He was bold and daring with his ideas, but he didn’t come close to the top earners. If they were going to deal with someone, why him?

Once he was done with all his evaluations, Sarin was paid and guided out of the room. Liza collected the materials and shoved them in her bag of holding, clearing the table for them to use.

“Boni, old pal, it’s your turn. My friends here want you to evaluate some precious stones. Since you also need to be our witness, I’ll have to ask you to sign this magical contract now,” said Lawrence.

The gnome grabbed the parchment, unfolded his glasses and comfortably set them on top of his nose to read the document. The contract was a simple one. He was to keep his silence about everything that was going to happen in this room unless one of the parties wanted him to testify in case of a disagreement. His fees as a witness and appraiser were also noted and the amount left him feeling satisfied. Seeing nothing wrong with the terms, he nicked his thumb and pressed it on the parchment before signing besides it. The contract lit up in a flash of fire before multiplying into copies that were given to all parties involved.

“All right, now that this part is out of the way, can you tell us how much this is worth?” asked Liza as she grabbed handful after handful of precious stones from her bag of holding and put them on the table. Each time she did so, Boni’s, Fiona’s and Lawrence’s eyes would widen in shock. In no time at all, a small pile of gems glittered on top of the table. Apart from a few they were going to keep in case they needed money in the future, all of the stones they acquired were on display. They were going all in with this deal.

“This… you had this much more stones still?” asked the flabbergasted gnome.

“Ha… Hahaha! You really did make it big!” exclaimed Lawrence.

[How did they manage to enter the city with this much wealth? The inspection at the gate would certainly flag them for taxation and since they don’t seem to have a backer, I could easily imagine what would happen afterwards…] pondered Fiona. The union manager was right. The guards indeed checked their belongings when they entered the city, but although they knew about bags of holding, they’d no idea that existed a ring that could do the same. Therefore, Fang Chu ended up acting as their smuggler as they entered the city.

It took Boni a couple minutes to recover from the shock, but he soon pulled his instruments from a suitcase and set them on the table. He began evaluating the gems one by one. Since it was going to take him a while to finish appraising them all, Ben decided to start the main conversation about the deal. After all, everyone in the room was either trustworthy or bound in a soul contract to not divulge any information.

“While Boni appraises the gems, let’s talk business Lawrence.”

“Certainly! In what are you willing to invest? Pelts? Pearls?”

“Neither. You said it before that those require the use of dangerous alternative routes to make an astounding profit. We’re not that desperate anymore. What we want is low, but steady profit.”

Upon hearing Ben’s speech, Fiona nodded her head. There were different times and circumstances for trying to make money. Sometimes you could take a higher risk in search of better profits, while in other occasions it was better to take a steadier approach. That was especially true when dealing with bulk transactions, as the smallest percent of profit would lead to a sizeable increase in wealth.

“Then…”

“We want to hire you as a manager Lawrence. We need someone we trust to oversee a lot of things we want to do in the future.”

[Ah, that explains why they didn’t go to the top merchants in the union. None of them would accept such condition,] thought Fiona.

Ben’s statement caught Lawrence by surprise. He was used to have independence and autonomy as a merchant. A manager was different. He would be someone else’s employee and therefore would have to follow his superior’s instructions and orders. Lawrence was an independent merchant who dreamed of making it big with his own skill, as such this kind of path had never crossed his mind before.

“This… why can’t we make a normal business transaction? It’s not a problem that you require less risky goods, I can think of a few at the top of my head.”

“Because we need a manager,” said Ben as he shook his head. “We’ve big plans, but not the contacts nor the time to make them happen personally. Trust me when I say you’ll be handsomely paid and we won’t treat you poorly. What do you say?”

“Let me think about it.”

“No worries, we’ve got a lot of time until Boni finishes his appraisal.”

Silenced reigned afterwards. Eliot and Boro soon became bored out of their minds, so Liza decided to take them out to have fun. It wasn’t like the others were going to need their help for anything here anyway.

Lawrence on the other hand was sweating buckets. He was torn between his personal dream and the prospect of making easier money, but under someone else’s roof. At first, his pride made him want to deny the proposition right away, but his spirit wavered each time Boni said the value of one of the gems out loud. He looked over at Ben, who had a slight smile plastered on his face. It was a look of confidence, one he saw on the top merchants whenever they came to the union, like everything was under control and the result was already known.

“I evaluate that these gems should be worth about… 232,000 gold coins,” said Boni as he finished to add the numbers up.

“A respectable sum,” said Fiona. She was keeping her cool and professionalism as a merchant, but in fact she was shocked to her core. They seem like impoverished commoners… where did they find this much wealth? Questions like this were popping nonstop on her mind.

Lawrence gnashed his teeth for a bit and let out a sigh. What was the point of being frustrated about being someone else’s employee? With this amount of gold on the table it didn’t matter anymore. Any future dealings they would have were sure to surpass the size and scope of anything he could imagine right now where he stood.

“Ok, I’ll be your manager!”

“Great! We’ll add some materials to round that number to 250,000 gold coins. Your first task is to manage this fund and invest it in safe venues.”

Now that he’d overcome his prejudice, Lawrence was feeling much better and his mind was spinning with the realization that he was now responsible for all that gold. Fiona on the other hand was frowning. That was it? she thought. With the amount of gold involved it made sense they wanted to officialise the contract through the union, but they could have done so in other ways besides requiring this large room and her presence.

“For these movements and for the sake of our future ventures, I’d like you to start a small company for us. I hope you could help us with that lady Fiona.”

“Certainly. Anyone with enough coin can start a business after going through the normal procedures.”

“Yes, but that represents only the normal amount of backing and amenities provided. We want a stronger backing and help from the union.”

“That’s impossible,” refuted Fiona on the spot. Inside however, she was grinning. Finally, we’ve come to the interesting part!

“Hear me out first. From overseeing this contract you got 2% of the amount involved as fee, that’s a nice chump of change. But what about being our partner and receiving 5% of the long-term profits? And better yet, we won’t ask you to bend the rules or help us tremendously at the start. We only want your word that you’ll protect our people once the big dogs bare their fangs due to our success.”

The large lady narrowed her eyes. This seemed like a good deal. The union wouldn’t have to help them anymore than normal at first and would be payed extra to do so. They’d gain a steady stream of income in the future for only letting them throw the union’s name around for a bit. That would be more than enough to dissuade any predatory merchant or small time noble that set their sights on them. The only question was how big of an income stream this was going to be. No matter what though, they’d be gaining in the end.

“In that case… agreed.”

“Thank you, you won’t regret it. I can finally be completely open about my plan then,” said Ben as he piled a couple documents on the table. They were the ones he painstakingly wrote for the last couple days after visiting all the stores he could find. They contained not only his observations of the current state of the market as well as a bunch of modern marketing and business concepts like branding, positioning, target audience and such. He handed all of them to Lawrence.

“Read them all later. Here’s the plan. Start a company and invest on safe goods all across the kingdom. The main objective of this phase is not the profit you’ll obtain, but creating a trade route and footing in all the major cities of Balt. Then slowly start to acquire and store all you can get of this fruit.”

“Cacao? That thing is bitter and worthless. Only desperate peasants would eat them when hungry. What do you plan to do with those?”

“For now, that’s a secret. Start trading, create a footing and then I’ll teach you how to transform this worthless fruit in the most delicious thing you have ever eaten. Then we’ll sell it across the kingdom and rake in so much money you’ll go jittery.”

Fiona was curious to know from where the confidence of the young man came from, but she was certain there was some money to be had in case he really did know how to transform a worthless item into something sellable. Ben on the other hand had no doubt on his mind. How much money did the chocolate industry make on Earth? Billions! And that was split between all the brands and companies. Here in Flanac however, they’d have monopoly! He was so sure of success he wanted to laugh maniacally.

They spent a few more hours ironing things out before finally ending the meeting, each of them with different thoughts in their heads. The group spent their last night in the inn and readied themselves to depart. As they were about to leave Kalafrana, Fang Chu suddenly stopped in place. “Guys, there’s something I need to do before I leave, but it’s not convenient with you here. There’s an inn two days of travel down this road. Do you mind waiting for me there?”

“Can’t you tell us what it is Fanu? Don’t you need our help?” asked Liza.

“Right now, it would be inconvenient. I promise I’ll tell you about it when we meet again at the inn.”

“Are you sure?” asked Ben.

“Yes.”

Since that was the case, the others decided to leave ahead of Fang Chu. The redhead watched them go, her eyes filled with tenderness. Once they were gone however, her expression turned frosty.

[It seems he isn’t searching actively for me, so maybe I shouldn’t poke the bear… but that is not my style. I endured that bastard for so long when I resided here and yet he’d the gall to send mercenaries to capture me after I left! It’s time I teach that arrogant brat a painful lesson!]