--- Kat --- Discover hidden stories at empire

The source of this c𝓸ntent is frёeweɓηovel.coɱ.

Julyn continued explaining exactly what those issues were "See, we’ve bene stuck here for a while. We were originally camped just by the river when we heard the avalanche. It was fine then, so we headed up here to see the road blocked. Spent the night debating what to do… before some of us decided to turn back. It was already too late though, and were stuck between the blocked road and the flooded river. It’s been a couple of days now and we’re not doing the best on food.

"Ah, wait… um…" Julyn waved her hands around frantically. "I don’t mean to imply that anyone here is starving or anything. We’re not going to like… jump on you for food or anything like that but while we’re not going to starve anytime soon… we’re not exactly in a place where we can stock up. If the blockage isn’t cleared soon we might not have the food to make it to the next town and as such… things are getting a little tense,"

Kat frowned at the news but wasn’t really sure what to say.

I mean… why make your food situation so precarious? Like… surely they haven’t been here for more than a week right? Why not pack more food just in case?

[Kat… a week’s worth of food takes up a lot of space. If they don’t have big enchanted bags or even a couple of small ones… all that extra food would cut into their business. Well assuming these guys are all merchants I guess?]

Ah… I guess was just thinking that they definitely have storage artifacts but that’s unrealistic. I mean… I know if I was a merchant it would be my first proper purchase but maybe they don’t know where to order them

[Eh could also be a matter of making money. Say the bags here only last so long. Say ten years? If it cost more than you could make utilising the bag then it’s not actually worth the money.]

Who would buy it then?

[Adventurers who COULD make money with it? Or nobles who want it for storing snacks and stuff? Ignoring fools with more money then sense, what you put in the bags matter. If you’re a simple grain merchant or something then you just wouldn’t make any profit with them… but if you’re an adventurer on extermination missions you might’ve just been leaving behind hundreds of gold in monster parts.]

I guess that makes sense…

While Kat was working out the economics of spatial items in the transportation business Meg was trying to further suss out the situation. "Just how bad is the food situation?"

Julyn shrugged, "Eh could be better could be worse? The mushrooms around here are edible up to a point so we can stretch our rations a bit but they don’t have everything you need to keep going… and the taste is pretty awful on the larger mushrooms. Still, we go out and pick them regularly…

"I suppose the real issue is that not everyone has the same amount of food. The adventurers that’ve gotten stuck with us have the least but they’ve been willing to pay a small premium for a share of the food, or bringing back something to add to the pot… but if the merchants get antsy they might stop selling food and start hoarding it… and the adventurers aren’t going to stand for that.

"Or at least, the ones that aren’t getting food because they’re caravan guards. Still… if it gets to that point things are going to be real bad. Fights might break out, and the guards may or may not side with the merchants. Sure they’re getting fed… but they aren’t paid to fight people so they might just step aside. It really depends…"

Meg nodded a few times going over the information in her head before examining Julyn and asking, "So what exactly do you want from us?"

Julyn shrugged, "Eh I guess it depends what you’d be willing to do? Ideally you could clear the road for us, or give us a way over the bridge but as I said earlier I know at least that it can’t be forced and I’m not sure we have anything to pay ya with… or that the merchants would agree to pay you anyway…"

"Oh, I had assumed you were a merchant yourself?" offered Meg.

Julyn flinched a bit at that before sighing long and hard. "Eh… yeah it’s sorta like that. My mother runs one of the caravans and wants me to marry some lad and continue the family business but I’ve always wanted to be an adventurer. I spent years studying magic and I’m pretty good… but pretty good isn’t quite enough and because I never really found a good team to get some practical experience I’ve sort of just been languishing with the caravan.

"I sort of act as a body guard but not really, and Mum hires other people to guard the caravan. They don’t really let me help either because they think I’m some foppish merchant’s daughter with no true understanding of what it means to be an adventurer. Pompous asses. I’m here on a freezing mountain in the ass end of nowhere delivering a specialty order of mining tools and they think I’m still some fat cat city merchant!

Julyn was clearly relishing in the chance to complain a bit, because she did just that. "I mean seriously! I’ve been on the road for fucking months! And Mum redid the bunk space in the caravan so that she could store more stuff because ’if you want to be an adventurer you can sleep outside like one’ so I’ve been roughin it with these guys since we left! In a shitty tent that barely has acceptable enchantments for this sort of weather because they don’t make ones better unless it’s special order…

"And like I get that these new guys have only been with me a couple weeks but COME ON! I’ve got more muscle then almost all the other mages combined. I sleep outside like the rest of them, I’ve run out of the good food I packed, and I actually do train. Yet I get no respect from my mother. No respect from adventurers because I’m not some orphan with a chip on her shoulder, or a noble, or the youngest of eight children!"

Kat didn’t really know what to do… so like Meg she just like the girl keep ranting. "Sure I couldn’t beat many of them in a fight, but that’s because nobody will train me without charging an arm and a leg that my Mum isn’t willing to pay for and I possibly never will! Do you know how much I’m getting from this delivery? Not enough I tell you! It’s going to be months of work and I’ll receive a pittance from the sale because ’it’s the family business all the money will be yours once you take over’ which is such bullshit because Mum knows I’m never going to be taking over!"

Meg snorted quietly, clearly too quietly for Julyn to hear. So Meg coughed loudly and interjected with, "Why do you stick around with her then?"

Julyn slumped down like a deflated balloon. Glancing back once before deciding it was too icy to risk flopping down. With a long sigh she waved her hand around for a few seconds before the words came to her, "I guess it’s because I don’t know what to do. I just don’t have the experience to survive out on my own. Ok that’s an exaggeration. I could keep myself alive but not much more than that…

"I recognise my books and training are things that are hard to get. I’m not super talented and able to just learn magic from an old crackpot in a cave… and if I left? Well that’s all gone because I’d have nowhere to store it. I can sort of hunt for game to eat but I don’t really know what’s edible nor how to hunt things properly. I mean I’ve tried but I’m not quiet enough to do it properly nor do I know how to look for the signs…

"I guess I could get a different job but then what? I’d never have time to practice and I’d probably be trapped in a town which… is worse then my current situation." Julyn paused for a few seconds. "Look, sorry for offloading onto you, it’s been a rough few days and it yesterday I was one of the people who tried and failed to bring in any extra food. Except more fucking mushrooms!

"That plus most of my cut from this delivery is going to have to go into buying more food because Mum didn’t budget for the delay. Hopefully she’ll reimburse me. She really should, and if it was any of the other caravan heads I’m sure she would. Take a bit of a hit on the profits for the major sale, but a week or two’s worth of food is nothing on that… but I’d bet my ass she’s not going to bother refunding me…"