RFC-Miniarc-An Average Day-6 (Maxine)

A merchant’s day greatly depended on their level of success. If they were successful, they could spend their days leisurely while their minions did their bidding, tamed by gold and ambition.

Marquis Guiness, the richest man in the kingdom, did little managing of his empire anymore. That, he left to his children desperate for his favor while he gallivanted about the kingdom and beyond in search of profit and beauty. He could afford to wake when he wanted, travel where he pleased, and see only those who interested him. A life of privilege and luxury even most nobles couldn’t afford.

Unsuccessful merchants lived opposite lives. They had to get up with the sun if they wanted to outrun their competitors and work until it went down. They had to fight, scheme, and sabotage for every copper in their purses. For many, the efforts would amount to nothing. One wrong deal had crushed the dreams of many aspiring to wealth and fame. Or they were swallowed up by their more powerful competitors fearing a rising star. It was a journey fraught with peril and struggle. Not one meant for the faint of heart.

Maxine Guiness felt she was lacking in a myriad of ways but if there was one thing she had in spades, it was will. Otherwise, she would have never survived her home, where the unworthy were thrown out with the rest of the garbage.

Despite her pedigree, she belonged to the second class of merchant. A young predator hungry for even the thinnest prey, on the verge of starvation. She had to work hard to make a place for herself in her family and there was a chance it would all amount to nothing. However, she was more hopeful for a successful future than she had been in a long time.

Wearing a practiced smile, she walked toward Quest’s branch of the Guiness Company, her family’s store, nodding at the two knights posted at the entrance. The layout of the store was the same as the others, two long wooden stands with shelving on either side creating wide aisles stocked with common goods. At the front of the store was a long counter with room for two tellers, though only one stood behind it.

A door to the side led to the back, where more expensive products were kept, out of sight of greedy eyes and behind another layer of protection.

Maxine widened her smile a fraction as she looked to the teller on duty but didn’t speak to him, moving to the left wall to examine the goods. When her cousin, the original manager of the branch, was implicated as a conspirator in the attempted assassination of the third prince, she was temporarily given his duties by the family.

It was a rare opportunity to prove her worth and she’d been near fanatical in her attention to the store. Every time she visited, she conducted a small inspection, checking the quality of their products and speaking with a few customers if she had the time for feedback on both their products and service.

As they were based in Quest, their selection was different than what could be found in the capital, where she’d spent most of her life. Quest was a city of hunters. A place filled with opportunity, where those of common origin could come to learn and grow. Where legends were born.

It was also a dangerous place. While the guilds were originally established to hunt monsters, they were not exempt from the typical power plays that accompanied any organization. They were the closest thing to nobility in the city, in some cases more powerful than the men and women with titles. They had more power than the governing lord, treating his orders as mere suggestions lest they be accompanied by a royal writ.

Along with the presence of the Grand Hall above them, it meant the Quest branch stocked items that would appeal more to fighters than laborers or artisans. The aisle to the left was dedicated to weaponry. Nothing specialized. Simple swords, spears, bows, knives and armor of common quality. Enough for an aspiring hunter to get started without paying the much higher prices of having something tailor made.

The aisle to the right was dedicated to aspiring casters. There was paper, quills, smudgesticks, and ink. On an enchanted shelf covered by an attached pane of glass were books on many subjects. A knowledgeable caster was a powerful caster.

The work of a scribe was not a popular profession. They were scarce, which made their time expensive and the products they produced, books, even more so. Only the rich could afford schooling, one of the many reasons the noble houses continued to lord over the masses.

The aisle also contained artifacts. Cheap ones, without accompanying affinity stones, which meant they had to be charged with the user’s mana. Most of them had household applications. Firestarters and water purifiers. Brooms and dusters enchanted to produce gusts of wind to make cleaning easier. Gardening troves, plows, hoes, and shovels that loosened the earth while being used.

There were also teas that provided a variety of benefits. With the many monster carcasses and available errand boys to fetch ingredients, alchemy was a thriving trade in the city and that didn’t always mean expensive potions.

Apprentices made their gold selling teas, a not as potent but cheaper alternative to potions. The most popular by far were the blends meant to improve focus and alertness. Hunters and acolytes could never have enough, buying out the stock week after week.

Maxine had needed to implement a restriction on how much one party could buy at a time after she found out her cousin had been giving one of the guilds preferential treatment, allowing them to buy out the tea and sell a portion to their competitors at outrageous prices.

The blends that promoted good health and combated sickness were popular with parents as an alternative to more expensive medicines. Another favorite was numbing tea, a blend that eased the aches of old age and injury alike.

The middle aisle contained more recognizable products. Plates, cups, pots, and utensils, all cheap earthenware, the better pieces made of clay while the others were simply densely packed dirt. A selection of cheap spices. Sewing needles and pools of thread. Dry goods and salted meats, a pitiful selection compared to a store dedicated to foodstuffs. Simple tools needed for basic maintenance on homes or wagons. Toys, dolls, and candies to lure the children accompanying their parents.

Maxine went over all of it with a discerning eye, noting what was selling well and what lingered. Then she went up to the counter. “Hello, Porter. How have things been?”

The young man bobbed his head, adjusting the cap that almost slid off his unruly dark locks. “Quiet morning, lady. Afternoons can get a little busy. The hunters have been buying up more stock than usual.”

“Have they gotten rowdy?”

“Not at all, lady. They know you’ll kick ‘em out so they been behaving.”

Maxine chuckled. If it were the capital, someone with Porter’s rough mannerisms would have never managed to be hired by the Guiness Company. “Very good. If you need me, I’ll be in the back.”

He clumsily nodded as she moved to the end of the counter, going through the door that led to the showroom.

The room contained fifteen pedestals that displayed their most powerful artifacts behind tasteful and powerfully enchanted glass. In truth, enchanting was not a difficult discipline. It required a steady hand but, in the end, it was simply writing out a spell. Some of the variables differed for reasons intellectuals still pondered but it was nothing that couldn’t be overcome with a little trial and effort.

The difficulty in producing powerful artifacts lie in obtaining the ingredients. Materials conducted mana, and even different types of mana, differently. A simple fireball spell carved into a block of wood would take ten times as much mana to manifest as it would from a stone. However, if it was carved into the bone of a monster with a powerful fire affinity, it could reduce the needed mana by half or more.

There existed materials that synergized with any type of mana, allowing powerful multi-affinity spells to be cast, but they were few. One of which being xanderium, the famous mana ore, of which there were no deposits on the human continent. The primary reason her father wanted to build a relationship with Lourianne Tome and her wife.

Affinity stones were less rare, depending on the affinity one sought. Stones for the four elements were rare and expensive, but there were enough around that as long as one had money, they could get their hands on one.

Stones for the five greater affinities were infinitely harder to obtain. Light was a mild exception, as they could be found in places where the First Saint had fought off the draconid invaders. It was thought that his magic was so powerful, the sheer quantity of his mana transformed his surroundings.

Many of the craters and valleys left in the wake of his legendary struggles to defend the fledgling kingdom had been mined of their treasures but it was not impossible for the filthy rich or very well connected to get their hands on one in their lifetime.

Physical and mental were much harder. Both required connections to the crown or the guilds, as hunters were the most likely to stumble upon them as they traveled to every corner of the kingdom during their quests. They were not items that could be bought. A glove that allowed anyone to heal the sick with a touch or a necklace that allowed them to hear the thoughts of those around them couldn’t be valued in gold.

Null, the most prized stone of all, was a myth to all but the most powerful of people. They could be used to create vaults the size of a simple chest that could contain all the riches gathered over a family’s entire history and much more. She only knew of two such vaults, the Guiness family treasury and the royal treasury. It wasn’t information others liked to share but she had it on good authority, her father’s, that only one other family had such a vault. That was how rare the precious stone was.

The celestial affinity stone would undoubtedly be the most precious of all…if they could be found. The ones that existed were holdovers from the time before the Great War, brought by the powerful families that established Harvest. All tiny slivers too small to be used in a proper artifact. Moreover, the First King had forbidden they be used for anything besides determining affinities, leery of artificial prophets. If one could be found…something of its worth could only be paid for in blood.

“Lady.”

Porter’s voice interrupted Maxine’s musing. She frowned at his anxious expression. “What is it?”

“You have a visitor in your office.”

Her office, previously belonging to her cousin, was on the second floor, along with the rooms used to hold meetings. It wasn’t exactly a private space but one did not waltz up the stairs and demand the store’s manager unless they had considerable clout. “Who is it?”

“…I was asked not to say.”

The only people who commanded her family’s employees was her family. If they could compel Porter to silence, who she liked to think had a high opinion of her, they had a much higher standing than Maxine.

She was the temporary manager of the store. The position always had a time limit. A part of her had hoped that an exemplary performance might sway her father but if he was the type to budge easily, she wouldn’t have nearly as many problems with her family as she did. She also had to admit that she hadn’t done anything worthy of such a reward. Keeping the business afloat amid scandal wasn’t noteworthy, it was the bare minimum expected.

It seemed her moment was over. Once again, she had to face the reality of being a Guiness daughter. If she wanted the store, any store even, she would have to fight for her slice of her father’s empire. Particularly ruthlessly if the family had stuck to the plan and sent who she was expecting.

“Thank you, Porter. You may return to your duties.”

It said something that even the teller knew to be afraid for her, shooting her a nervous glance over his shoulder as he returned to his place.