A Mousy Merchant

You are Whitney De Gauss, pride and joy of the De Gauss family caravan. Shopkeepers and swindlers all across Attis fear your sharp eye and skill at bartering. Diligent study and persistent use of your aura have led to you making a profit on nearly every transaction you've ever attempted. Today marks the start of your twentieth year of life, and the day you will seal the deal on a sale of the single most valuable item you've ever laid hands on.

The outskirts of Grand Hyrgin are warm in the summer months, even early in the morn, but nonetheless you have to shake off the impulse to cover yourself in heavier protection as you leave your tent. Donning a cloak would certainly make you feel safer by covering the pouch on your hip, but would draw unwanted attention, and with an item of this much value...

You walk past the dense huddle of caravan and travelers tents and approach the city gates. A flash of your merchants pass and the guards allow you to enter without a word, proceeding to the city proper. As you make your way past the bazaar, already hosting a small crowd of eager shoppers despite the young hour, you reflect on the decisions that have led to today. You had been unable to believe your eyes when you came across your treasure in a small town shop, barely able to conceal your glee from the unsuspecting shop-keep. You have spent the last few months vetting potential clients who would both be able to afford the item in question, and would be unlikely to kill you for it. In the end you had narrowed your list down to a single possibility, and after the exchange of several cautious letters had made your way to the Hyrginese capitol.

Navigating your way through the city towards the palace you begin to pass fewer single family dwellings and apartments and more large homes with decorative exteriors. Even if you hadn't taken the directions to heart you could almost follow the signs of increasing wealth to your destination, and before long you find yourself standing at an archway directly across the river from the royal palace. The sun now having risen enough to shake off the golden glow of dawn and light the grounds of the royal abode, you take a breath to steel yourself, check that the pouch at your hip hasn't disappeared, and step through the archway.

Passing by a bubbling fountain and a statue depicting one Hyrginese hero or another, you approach the guards at the main door of the great manse before you. One of the guards addresses you with a smirk, "Hello little mouse, are you lost?" Without hesitation, you answer confidently, "I believe your employer is expecting me." You pull a letter from your sleeve and offer it to him, "Would you kindly inform Mistress Amelia that Whitney De Gauss has arrived." You flash him your patented merchants smile as he reaches for the letter. "I'll take that." The other guard takes the letter from you and flips it open. "My oaf of a friend here has learned neither his letters nor his manners." You realize this guard is a tiger felis, something you can only take as an encouraging sign.

The woman guard finishes reading the letter and passes it back to you. "Right, that looks in order, please come in miss De Gauss." She opens the door of the manse for you and enters. You follow her through the entrance and down a hallway, leather boots clicking against the wooden floor as you pass more guards and cabinets full of rare artifacts. Your escort stops at a door near the end of the hallway and asks you to wait while she announces your presence. After a few moments of muffled talking the guard returns, "The artificer is ready to see you now." You enter the room and the guard shuts the door behind you.

The room you find yourself in is perhaps the single greatest display of wealth you've ever encountered. Walls covered in shelves of dangerous and valuable alchemical ingredients, work stations supplied with tools of various enchanted metals, a case larger than yourself filled with refined magicite, and in the far wall a window overlooking a courtyard filled with exotic plants. At a glance you can tell the contents of the room before you are worth more than the treasuries of several of the smaller countries you've been to. In any other circumstance you'd be frothing at the mouth at the thought of evaluating and cataloguing every treasure in this room, but right now what holds your undivided attention is the woman in front of you. Sitting in a rolling chair behind a low, wide desk covered in notes and materials is the royal artificer of Hyrgin, Amelia Black.

Having given you a moment to look around, the wizened woman addresses you, "Welcome to my workshop miss De Gauss, it's a pleasure to finally meet you." You approach the desk and curtsy. "The pleasure is all mine, Mistress Amelia." She smiles warmly and gestures to a plush chair across her desk. "Please, take a seat, I do hate to be the only one not standing." She turns to the young man standing quietly beside her, "Arnulf, could you prepare tea for us?" As the boy stiffly turns and walks to a small cooking station in the corner of the room, Amelia turns back to you. "Arnulf is my apprentice, some nephew of a relative of the king, a quick learner but not exactly social around pretty women so please forgive him if he doesn't speak to you." You hear Arnulf **** on something in the back of the room.

The artificer leans forward over the desk. "So, did you bring it with you? I'll admit I'm quite eager to get my hands what you offered." Smiling, you open the pouch on your belt and reach in, your hand going far past where the base should be. You pull a long, thick fiber from the pouch and proudly present it to Amelia stretched across both hands. "The heartstring of the elder dragon Nidhogg, felled by the Wyrm Eater outside Verstatt." The old woman extends her hands towards the fibre and hesitates. "Do you mind if I...?" When you nod she takes the string from you with trembling fingers and examines it closely. By the time she speaks again, Arnulf has finished with the kettle, set a cup of tea in front of you, and returned to standing by his teachers side.

Amelia lays the heart string on the table and leans back. "Miss De Gauss, I must admit I had some doubts before, but this... this can only be the genuine article. I've handled uncountable magical items in my lifetime, but it has been many years since one has excited me like this." She looks across to you and smiles like a child who has been given a new toy. "You absolutely must tell me where you found this, until now I thought it had faded with the dragon." You decide to be completely honest, "Would you believe I found it being used to string a wooden longbow? The man I bought it from had absolutely no idea what he'd gotten his hands on, it was just hanging on the wall." The artificer cackles at that and you cant help but laugh with her.

"Oh I'm glad you ended you ended up finding it, it would have been a shame if this had been lost. " Amelia shakes her head, "A dragon's heartsting on a bow of all things." She laces her fingers together and regards you warmly. "I think it goes without saying that I absolutely must posses it, I'd never forgive myself if I let something of this importance go." You see your chance to close the deal and proceed. "Well then, shall we discuss the price?"