The Management might even be spoofing you right now!
Adventures in Fantasyland
Presented by The Management
- Calanteli, LuckyShadows & Llandaryn -
o - o ^ o - o
3. In Which We Learn About Horse Trading
Ari stomped away with only barely suppressed fury. She had never been so cheated in her entire life! She was certain that Honest Alwin would disown his unscrupulous brother the moment he found out about the exorbitant prices he charged for worthless pieces of junk. She was also certain that the sign proclaiming 'SALE NOW ON' was just a cheap marketing trick designed to drawn unsuspecting passer-bys to happily disgorge the contents of their pursues, fully content in the knowledge that they were getting a one-time deal.
Though at least she now had basic supplies that would hopefully last her until she figured out how to get out of here. Which led her to her next stop - the horse market. Travel via horse seemed to be the only form of transportation (apart from walking) in this bizarre place, and there was no way she was walking! God knew where on earth she was, and a horse covered ground a lot faster than a human, and tired less easily.
She had gone through an obsession-with-horses phase, like many young teenage girls and had enjoyed many a sunny summer afternoon riding at the stables near her grandparents' idyllic country cottage. In fact, she had gone so far as volunteering to clean the stables in order to earn a bit of pocket money, and had somewhat gotten used to motley smell of dung, horse, hay and dust. But even such experiences could not have prepared her for the sheer stench that permeated the air around the horse market. Nor the disturbing number of flies that took up all the available airspace in the surrounding area and buzzed annoyingly at anyone who trespassed in their intended trajectory.
She must have crossed some invisible boundary because in the next moment three eager turbaned heads invaded her private sphere and began babbling almost incoherently at the same time in faux-Arabic accents.
"A pretty horse for a pretty lady?" ask one, leering at her suggestively and waggling his enormous eyebrows. "Shamal has best breeding stock in entire…"
"Oh, don't flatter yourself, Shamal!" cried another, elbowing him away. "None of your horses could make it a mile without collapsing from exhaustion. My horses, on the other hand…"
"Don't believe a word they say," whispered a third, sliding up conspiratorially to her side. "If you want a good horse, for a good price, you should look no further than Jerran's corral."
Ari groaned inwardly. Why was nothing ever simple in this accursed place? All she wanted was a horse so she could get on her way. She didn't want to deal with greedy merchants who were only out to hoodwink her. And who all seemed to be auditioning for the role of the short little Arabian vendor from Aladdin.
"All right, stop!" she cried as the one called Jerran was attempting to her steer her towards his stall while Shamal and the other merchant were about to come to blows. They all paused comically in mid-act and stared at her in surprise. "I have 15 gold on me after being royally ripped-off by that Unscrupulous Uddin guy so I am in a foul mood and have no time for idle bargaining and con acts. I am planning on spending 5 gold coins in a nice hot meal, washed down with a cold beer so I can forget about this whole mess. Now. Which of you will sell me a horse for 10 gold pieces?" She jingled her purse for added effect.
There was a short silence as the three men absorbed her words. The next instant, they erupted into a frenzy of gesticulating and more incoherent babbling in exact reminisce of the very situation she had wanted to avoid.
"Shamal give you beautiful horse for only 9 gold pieces and will throw in a saddle and bridle for an extra 3 gold."
"Bah! Horse from me for 10 gold, including tack, and one that has been recently shod!"
"I will sell you my finest horse for 9 gold including equipment, shoes and a warranty certificate!"
Realising that this was utterly useless, Ari decided to take matters into her own hands. Spotting a decent-looking black horse cropping attentively at his hay, she skirted the crazy merchants (who were so absorbed in debasing each others' mothers that they did not even notice her leaving) and moved towards the animal. Sensing her presence, the horse lifted his head and twitched his ears with curiosity. Scratching his nose, she looked him over - he was quite dusty, a little thin, and his coat could definitely use a brush. But a horse was a horse, and she had wasted enough time already. Spying a rack lined with saddles, bridles and blankets, she grabbed one of each and quickly saddled the horse, surprised that she still remembered how it was done.
She was half-tempted to just walk away without paying (the merchants still were not paying her any heed), but her moral scruples prevented her from doing so. Sighing with resignation, she marched up to the three men and counted out 12 gold coins. At the sound of coins clinking, they paused in mid-argument and glared at her suspiciously. "I have taken the liberty of selecting my own horse, saddling it and I now intend to pay for it against my better judgement. Now the three of you can either fight over this money or you can split it evenly between you. I really don't care either way." She grabbed the hand of the nearest one, slapped the coins in them and walked away, horse in tow.
"Hey! You can't do that!" shouted Jerran, running after her, robes billowing out behind him
"I just did."
"But…but… it's against the rules!"
"Oh, really? The mysterious 'Management' has decreed that all tourists must get swindled after suffering interminable and pointless arguments with immature vendors?"
"Something, like that, yes," confirmed the second, as yet still-unnamed man. "After all, us honest merchants do need to make a living. The Management doesn't pay very well, you know." He eyed her seriously depleted coin purse with longing in his eyes, before catching himself and forcing himself to look away.
"But this much better than Arabian Nights Tour!" proclaimed Shamal, jabbing a crusty finger in the air. The other two nodded sagely in agreement. "Shamal could not spend two minutes peeling his dates without tourists posing as street-rats stealing his wares."
"That damnable Aladdin…" muttered Number 2 vengefully. "The role models they give kids these days. In my day…!"
"Plus, it gives you skill points," added Jerran, neatly sidestepping the tangential discussion that was brewing between the other two.
"Skill points?" asked Ari incredulously.
"Why, yes! Successful interactions with merchants raise your Bargaining skills and maybe even add to your Lore if you are able to identify unknown objects."
"What is this then? A computer game?"
"Oh, no it's quite real," Jerran assured her.
"At least that's what The Matrix wants you to believe…" muttered Ari under her breath.
"Tell you what," said Number 2, dropping his arm around her shoulders, apparently through with blaming Disney for his life's woes. "Since you ended up swindling us (that horse, along with the equipment is worth at least 20 gold)…"
"Shamal would have given it to you for 15!"
"Oh, shut up!" snapped his companion before continuing. Ari was beginning to suspect that the two were either brothers or they had known each other for way too long. "As I was saying, since you ended up swindling us and could have probably walked away without paying, but decided to pay more than you promised, we'll call it a successful transaction and celebrate the only way there is."
"And what way is that?"
"Getting piss drunk, of course!"
"Sounds good to me!" agreed Ari, smiling for the first time that day as the three merchants led the way to the ramshackle inn.
o ~ o ^ o ~ o
Daniel looked around at the common room, and as quietly as possible made his way to the bar. The room was full of noisy people. He hated noise, and he wasn't really all that big on people, either. At least four minstrels were vying for the crowd's attention; one was plucking on a lute and warbling quietly. The man next to him was playing a song on a flute that raced up and down the scales. Beside him, another man was frantically playing what looked like a guitar but probably wasn't, and screaming out a song in a foreign language. The last was banging on a tambourine and stamping his foot on the ground as he chanted some lurid ditty. He managed to sneak around them all and haul himself onto one of the impossibly high bar stools. A squat, rotund man was standing behind the bar, cleaning a dirty glass with an even dirtier rag.
"What can I get ya?" he asked Daniel.
"I'd like... um... a glass of port, please."
"Port? Never heard of it."
"Then how about a glass of white wine?"
"Haven't had wine here in years. Used to get it off the Elves, but they stopped coming. Don't know why."
"A stout glass of brandy?"
"Dwarves brought that, one. They stopped coming too. Must be some sort of trouble, to keep the Dwarves away."
"Then what are my choices?" Daniel sighed.
"Ale or mead. Or maybe grog, but I'll have to check the use-by date. Nobody ever wants grog."
"Fine, just give me a glass of ale, then."
"I don't do glasses. It's a tankard or nothing."
"Then I'd like a tankard of ale, please."
"You gots some ID?"
"What? Are you kidding me? I'm eighteen!"
"So you say. But where's your proof?"
"I'm a novice wizard!"
"That may be so, but I still need some ID."
"Fine," Daniel replied. He knew his was sulking, but he was beyong caring. He turned himself on his bar stool and opened one of his many pouches (he'd needed many, for all of his various magical things) and took out a card from his tarot deck. It was The Hierophant. "You're my ID!" he whispered to the card. "Let the barman see what he wants to see!" The little man in the card winked at him. "Here you go," Daniel said loudly for the benefit of the man behind the bar. He handed the card over.
"Hmm. This seems to be in order," said the barman, handing the card back. Go and get yourself a seat at a table and I'll get the serving wench to bring your drink."
"Can't I just take it with me now?" Daniel asked, pocketing the card. "I mean, I'm already here."
"By the fifteen gods, do you have any idea what would happen if my patrons started carrying their own drinks? All of my girls would be out of a job, that's what! This isn't a self-service bar, you know."
"Right. Um, sorry. Well, could I at least have something to eat as well, then?"
"What would you like?"
"I don't know. What do you have?"
"Chicken, pheasant or duck."
"And what are they really?"
"Chicken," said the man with a shrug. "But most people can't tell the difference."
"In that case, I think I'd like duck."
"I'll be right with ya," said the man with a grin. Dodging the minstrels who were playing even more lively than they had been before, and the serving girls who were running hither and thither with drinks and orders, Daniel made his way across the common room floor and finally found a free table. It was a small, rickety old thing with a pathetic lone stool to keep it company. And he quickly realised why it was free; it was right beside the door, and every time it opened it admitted whirls of warm air and dust which slowly began to cover his robes.
As he waited on the rickety old stool for his drink to be brought to him, he tried desperately to avoid eye contact with anybody else in the room. It wasn't hard. Nobody seemed to want to look at him, which pleased him immensely. In one corner, a bunch of Tourists were loudly bragging about who was going to kill the most orcs on their caravan journey. In another corner, another Tourist dressed as a ranger was drinking heavily with the three horse traders who'd tried to con him earlier in the day into buying a mule instead of a horse - Intrepid Ishmael was nothing like Unscrupulous Uddin, and probably didn't have that much in common with Honest Alwin either. In another corner, a group of surly caravan guards were drinking their weight in ale and mead, and Daniel felt some small measure of kinship for them. He'd read his Tour guide from front to back, up in his room, and he knew what was coming next for the guards. And, judging by the way they were drinking, they knew it too.
In yet another corner (and Daniel was beginning to wonder just how many corners one room could have) lounged a group of novice and apprentice wizards of the Tourist variety. A gaggle of young, female Tourists gathered around them, gasping appreciatively whenever one of the wizards-to-be conjured fire or light from the end of his staff. Daniel was not impressed in the slightest. He'd already figured out several hours ago, in the privacy of his room upstairs, that by pressing the top-most button on his staff, which was cunningly disguised to look like a knot in the wood, he could make mage-light appear from the end of his staff as if by will. Pressing the knot beneath it made sparks of mage-fire issue forth from the staff instead of light, and he supposed this would be handy for starting fires if he ever lost his tinderbox. Which, knowing his luck, was probably going to be tomorrow afternoon.
A rather harassed looking serving girl arrived with his tankard of warm, flat ale, mumbled something about his meal being late, and scurried away before he could engage her in conversation or inundate her with requests for local information. Still desperate to avoid eye-contact with any potential enemies, he lowered his gaze to his ale, and saw his own yellow, watery reflection staring back at him. He looked, he realised, rather ugly. His nose was a little too long for his face. His mother had always said he'd grow into it, but he very much doubted that would happen. Shoes were something you grew into, as were coats. Sometimes trousers could be grown into, and the occasional shirt, too. But noses were noses, and no amount of growing would make his fit any better. Besides, he was eighteen, he was fairly certain he'd done all the growing he was ever going to do.
His nose wasn't the only thing going against him. Above it sat a mop of curly hair, so dark brown it was almost black. It was the sort of curly hair that, when the weather turned humid, curled up and went frizzy, making him look like he had a small poodle on his head. Growing up, he would have given anything for flowing locks that he could tie back into a ponytail, or a short back and sides cut that would at least have made him look normal, if not respectable. Even a shaved head would have been better than his unruly mop. And as he'd grown up, so had his hair, and it seemed to resent being forced into anything with a semblance of style. But the true death knell to his appearance was his watery-grey eyes. His vision was so bad that unless he was wearing his glasses he could barely see three feet in front of him. When he was young, his mother had made him wear black thick-rimmed glasses which had earned him no end of teasing at school. As soon as he had been old enough to know what an opinion was and express one of his own, he'd insisted on getting a more respectable pair of spectacles. The wire-framed ones he currently possessed were small and discreet. They suited his face, probably because the first thing anybody saw when they looked at him was his nose.
Topped off with his purple hat, he didn't make an impressive sight, which he felt quite good about. He felt a little sorry for the rugged, dashing looking Tourists dotted around the room, because they were the ones who would have Interesting Things happen to them. Good looking men with glossy hair, piercing eyes and gruff voices (and Daniel had always thought that these descriptions made the poor souls sound more like dogs than men) were the staple of every fantasy book or game. Women swooned for them, political enemies plotted to kill them, and monsters fell by the dozen before them. But he desperately wanted to avoid women, enemies and monsters, because in his vast experience, all of these things were terribly dangerous. There was, really, only one thing he could do. He must avoid using magic at any cost. Enough magical talent could make up for a lack of good looks. Magic tended to draw enemies like bees to flowers, and his own situation, being Nerev'At, probably wouldn't make things any easier for him.
Not doing magic shouldn't be too hard, he thought as he took a sip of warm, flat ale. He'd been here in Here for half a day already, and he'd only done one bit of magic, when he'd charmed the card into thinking it was his ID. But a simple little charm spell didn't really count. Not really. Anything bigger, though... now that would be real magic, and he'd stay very clear of it. Which shouldn't be too hard, really. Whilst going through his standard adventuring kit in his room earlier, he'd discovered that his pocket-size book of magical cantrips had been accidentally replaced by an old-looking tome entitled Booke of Spells. He'd had a brief look inside, realised that these spells were much more advanced than he was, and closed it again. In the morning, he'd take it back to Unscrupulous Uddin and get replacement cantrip book. Very little could go wrong with cantrips - not that he intended to use any! - but if he for some reason tried a more advanced spell, it could backfire horribly.
He thought back to his encounter with the caravan organiser. The man had looked like those outside Here, at the registration table, only he wasn't wearing a suit. He was dressed as everybody else in Here was dressed, fine but somewhat dusty clothes that didn't draw attention to him in any way. But Daniel had seen through it; this man was one of The Management, or at least one of the Tour Operators Subcontracted By The Management.
"Excuse me," Daniel had said. "I'm here to sign up to a caravan."
"Ah, yes," the man had replied. "I have one here, bound for..."
"It doesn't matter where it's bound for. Anywhere I go will be fraught with intrigue and danger and monsters. Isn't that right?"
"Well... yes. That's why it needs your protection, of course. If there wasn't the chance of intrigue, danger and monsters, we wouldn't need brave folks like you as escorts, would we?"
"Look, just put me on a Tour with no other Tourists," he'd said firmly.
"Are you sure? I thought you Tourists liked sticking together. I've got one here with Angry Hamish, a fine Barbarian Tourist."
"No."
"What about travelling with Scotty O'Scot Scot McScott's caravan? He's not only a fighter, but also a Missing Heir. I think he could use a good wizard at his back."
"I'm not a good wizard, I'm a neutral wizard novice, and I'm not very good at wizarding. Just put me on a Tour where I won't have to put up with these excitable, suicidal lunatics. I don't care where it goes, though if you can make it to somewhere boring, all the better."
"Alright," the man had said after much huffing and sighing. "We've got one left with no other Tourists on it. You'll be paid five gold per week, how does that sound?"
"I don't care about the money, I just want to stay alive."
"What an unusual attitude! Well, that's your caravan, over there. The one with the white-turtle-on-black-background banner at its head."
He'd wandered over to the caravan to inspect it. There, he'd consulted his Tour guide book and discovered he'd be travelling with a tall, thin, wiry, silent and neurotic Female Mercenary (who would probably be taken hostage by bandits when they attacked the caravan), a Serious Soldier (Daniel was informed by the book that he would miss this man when he was killed), a Teenage Boy (who would probably turn out to be the Missing Heir of some nation or other, and was probably the person the Serious Soldier was guarding), and an Unpleasant Stranger (who, judging by his colour-coding - black clothes, black hair, dark eyes - was probably a spy for the bandits and would betray the caravan to his fellows at the first chance he got). Everybody else assigned to the caravan were extras; guards and mercenaries barely even worth mentioning. But then, every caravan had this same set-up, though one had a dwarf on it, and another had a pair of gnomes or halflings (it was too early for him to tell which).
Yes, he thought, as he took another sip of his ale and tried to appear small and inoffensive. The only way to survive this Tour was to abstain from magic for as long as possible, and leave to look for the exit at the first available chance. And if he did, survive, he might just buy a nice Pirate Tour for Aunt Bertha when he got hom. He ignored the little voice in his head that told him Aunt Bertha would probably end up as the leader of any pirates she encountered within a week.