Ashes of the Fallen

Having laid out my tentative plan for her, the next part was the tricky one.

I brought the trade master along because he would earn experience from conducting trades. If they had a trade master as well, then we could even enter into formal contracts between villages. Establishing a trade route was one of my main goals for this trip, and at the least I was hoping to sell off these furs and pick up a few items.

As of right now, I had struck out in every category.

Ellieby's face contorted a bit as she struggled to make up her mind, which wasn't of much relief to me, having already traveled here and expended the time and resources to make it all happen.

It was a little disappointing, but the onus was on me.

I should have clarified everything beforehand.

A beginner mistake and I wasn't a beginner… stupid of me.

"Ahhh but, okay, that does work for me, but," she replied with broken thoughts as she continued to struggle with the heavy proposal. "Are you really willing to risk, leaving this much stuff, here in my hands with nothing but a verbal agreement?"

"It wouldn't bother me that much, no," I answered honestly.

"Oh man, guy, why are you doing this to me," she let out with a laugh and a sigh. "Well look, I don't really feel comfortable just taking everything for nothing… that's a heavy burden. I can't promise you that I'll even be able to sell it all."

Ah, my opportunity has arrived.

"Fair points, so what if we had a contract?" I countered with a restrained smile, as I tried to hide my enthusiasm. "Lax terms, sell at your leisure but we could have a trade route established between our villages, the NPCs could take care of the rest. As of right now, you would be the sole purveyor of Northern goods, you know."

I wasn't being disingenuous, but I was a little happy at the thought of recovering from a bad situation and turning it into a rather successful endeavor. For now though, I didn't want to appear too happy, less she mistook that, as me taking advantage of her.

"I would have to see the terms, but I would be more comfortable with a contract," she stated with some seriousness, her confidence seemingly having returned.

"Yup, we can lay it all out in the open, take a day to sit on it," I followed up. "As far as my interests are concerned, I make slightly more money this way and get access to new goods without having to personally travel through the Northeast. The profit margin should be fairly agreeable for you as well, I think?"

"Oh, Sigurd, you already know your pricing is more than reasonable, you ass," she retorted with a sad smile as she crossed her arms underneath her chest. "Just, when you said a big shipment, you could have explained what big was… that shit is relative you know? Giving a girl a stroke here, making me worry over this."

After a few more minutes had gone by, I changed the subject slightly while my crew of NPCs decided to explore the local territory. Ellieby and I ended up relaxing against a tree as we continued to go over some smaller details.

By the end of our discussion, there was only one hitch.

They didn't have a trade master, and their campsite was only that.

It wasn't a village, and none of the guild members had access to the NPC-Recruiter.

Well, I knew the way to fix that.

Unfortunately, it meant putting in a little physical work, to aid a guild that wasn't exactly on friendly terms with me, outside of two of their members. Though their dislike for me didn't really bother me, since it was mostly born from misunderstandings as they thought I was an elitist asshole.

I admit to being cocky at times, confident most of the time, minus the days when I get randomly depressed, and I definitely consider myself an intelligent person on average but I didn't really think of myself as better than any other person, individually, as a human being.

We all had flaws, and I had plenty.

There was a separation there that some found hard to see. In order for there to be a positive, there must be a negative… or something like that. If one person is right in an instance then the alternate is likely true as well, with one person being wrong.

Maybe my delivery was suspect, as my patience for explaining things to strangers had long run out. But, elitist really wasn't the right term for me, so I found that somewhat disagreeable.

The main issue, was that the hunter wanted to lead his party but his strategy didn't work that well. He wasn't very flexible, and I had to take matters into my own hands. If that makes one an elitist asshole, what of the stubborn leader that fails to lead?

Meh, disagreements and misunderstandings were bound to happen.

That was life in general.

Everyone had an opinion, and very rarely did they all match up.

Well, despite that, I liked Ellieby enough that I didn’t mind helping her and her guild out. I had only interacted with five members from this guild, and the guild contained around thirty members to my knowledge.

So, if three disliked me, so be it.

I was going to build them a public lodge.