One of the sultan's guards was standing sentry at a corner of the bazaar. Though he wasn't the brightest among the bunch he knew that all of this just seemed wrong. Jafar had been taking gold from the people under his rule. And if it wasn't gold then it was possessions and if it wasn't possessions then it was the people themselves. That's why he never liked the job of collecting taxes. He much preferred having to stay close to his home city. However, even here he didn't like the changes that Jafar had made. Here he had to see what the tax collectors brought in and time and time again he tried to avoid the slave auction whenever they had brought in people.

Now that was done he stood idly by watching the bustle and hustle of the bazaar. Behind him he heard voices coming from the street. He turned to see two men with not-so-innocent looks to them. They didn't seem to notice him at the corner watching them; they were quite into their conversation.

"…Girl from that recent trip looked like quite a prize," said one.

"I'll say," snickered the other. "Looked like she was only twelve years old."

"Young enough for a few fun activities," said the first wickedly.

The two of them laughed. The guard knew that they were referencing the slave auction. He was about to move away when the first spoke again.

"While I was there I saw a face of a merchant I've seen recently."

"To which are you referring?" said the second. "There are plenty of merchants here."

"I can't quite remember his name, but he had this look about him. It especially showed when he saw the vases and jars that were presented. I've never seen such a battle of prices. But he got all of them."

"I think I know who you're talking about. Is his name Abis Mal?"

"Yes! That's the one. Anyway, so I thought that he seemed a little too joyous to get the jars and vases. I followed him to his vendor. He reset his entire stock, which lasted for a while. As I thought that this guy was going to waste my time, he took a few of the jars and took them inside. I went into the building next and got up on the roof. There was a little paddock in the alley and that's where I saw it. I think he was too stupid to know any better because he should've covered them up."

"Covered what up?"

The guard tried to keep a straight face as he listened intently for the man's voice dropped down to nearly a whisper.

"Gold. Everywhere it was gold. Vases and jars just turned to gold. I couldn't count how many there was but I'm sure that it was a fortune."

"Hey, there's another auction going on tomorrow. Perhaps we both could follow him and see the treasure?"

The two men laughed and walked away.

The guard watched them go and as soon as they were out of sight he hurried off to find Razoul. This was definitely important news.