The Art of the Deal

“You did what?!” Exclaimed Artemis after hearing about your little meeting. “No wonder they all refused you! Your plan is stupid!” she scolded. You sheepishly rub the back of your head as the goddess took a moment to calm down. “You need time to build connections” she said “Honestly amazed you’ve made it this far with how little you think”

“I’m not the god of commerce alright!” you say in defence of yourself. That got attention from the silver goddess who gave you a sharp look.

“And what, exactly, are you the god of?” She asked.

“The sun and the sun doesn’t think, it just does” you say, matching her look with a smirk “Besides, most people do their best thinking after dark anyway” you add and Artemis sighed, a smile pulling at her lips.

“Okay, that was cute” she muttered before sighing again. All of a sudden, Artemis stilled, standing up bolt straight and looking like she’d just been electrocuted. “You can make anything out of sunlight right?” she asked in a small voice.

“Umm, yeah?” you reply, not sure what’s going on.

“So why aren’t you mass producing pepper?” Artemis asked, causing you to frown.

“Why would I?” you ask. To you, pepper was that table commodity that was absolutely everywhere and only a few people actually used it.

“Why would you? Because it’s consumable gold!” Artemis snapped, looking very excited as she grabbed you by the tunic. “What did you think it was?” she asked, now suddenly looking confused.

“Uhh, a table commodity everyone has?” you reply as you gently place your hands on the girl’s shoulders and extricate your tunic from her grip. Your reply had Artemis’ eyes widen to almost comical levels as she absorbed the information you just gave her.

“Where are you from!?” she asked.

“That, I think, is a conversation for another time” you say, evading the question for now. Honestly, you aren’t sure how she would react to, well, everything.

“Fine” Artemis said with a sigh “Make some pepper” she ordered. You raise an eyebrow at her but comply, waving your hand and creating a shaker of table pepper. You then notice exactly what you created, turn to look at the commodity you have just conjured into existence and just stare at it for a second. It was a common and popular brand of pepper shaker in the country you are from, complete with the plastic and the language that definitely wasn’t latin. Artemis walks forward and grabs the shaker, twisting the cap which broke the seal. How she figured that out, you don’t know but she did. She turned the shaker upside down and deposited some of the pepper onto her hand before putting the shaker down. With a finger, she scooped some of it up and tasted it before shaking the rest out.

“Well that happened” you mutter and Artemis nodded.

“What is that thing even made of?” she asked, staring at the plastic shaker.

“Plastic” you reply immediately.

“Ahh” was the response, you know she has no idea what that was, but hey she didn’t ask. “Can you make me some pepper, not ground, in a cloth parcel please?” she asked, nicely this time too.

“Sure” you reply, waving your hand and making the plastic shaker disappear and a cloth wrap with a handful of peppercorns appeared in its place. “Is that enough?” you asked

“Yes, thank you” Artemis said “now, you go do . . . whatever, I’m going to fix the damage you did and start building some connections” she told you.

“How are you going to explain our stash of pepper?” you ask.

“Leave that to me” was her reply. That she was channeling some Darth Vader was not lost on you.

“Well, okay then” you reply as Artemis collected her new commodity and left.