SOLO: Unlocking Potential - Part 1

[Preston]

“200 gold... Each?” The flabbergasted tone was coming from a young man, attempting to haggle with an orc and a goblin. Preston was stroking his beard, pulling out loose strands and examining them before flicking them to the ground. The nervous habit was one that bothered him, but he was too deep in thought about the prices that had been given to him. “I can tell from here they're excellent quality, which is a testament to your skills. But, is that the best we can do here?”

The feral looking orc growled and bared his teeth. His toothy, extreme underbite seemed to protrude just a little more as he leaned in towards the boy. One deep red eye was focused on the haggler’s bright blues, where his other eye should have been was an old leather patch. He snorted and turned to an apprentice. Quickly the creature jumped up on an overturned crate by the table to interpret.

“Torvak is good known smith in Kerebas,” the goblin said, prodding a thick finger into the boy’s chest. He turned back and listened to the grunts and growls, guttural words coming from Torvak the orc. “He say, you take or leave. No more argue price.”

“Torvak, buddy, I wasn’t implying that you weren’t a great smith. By all means, I think your swords are some of the nicest I’ve seen on the whole island. That’s why I’m here, to make a deal with you. I can take these back to the capital and put them in my shop and you would be amazed at how quick they would sell. Let me do the travel for you, and you don't have to have beautiful pieces hanging on a backwall collecting soot.” Preston pleaded with the orc, trying to turn on as much charm and guile as he could. He pulled a small sack of gold from his belt and placed it on the countertop. “Look, here is seven-hundred gold.”

The goblin pulled the heavy sack of gold towards himself and opened it. His dark eyes reflected the glinting of the coins off the afternoon sunlight. If there was one thing Preston had learned quickly on Scara Brae, it was that goblins were as greedy as they were conniving. Shrewdly he looked back up to the younger human, scratching the edge of his cheek with a long fingernail. “What wanted trade for this gold?”

Torvak did not bother looking at Preston anymore, instead retreating back to his forge. “A consummate professional, just wants to get back to work. If this little imp could have just let me talk, he wouldn’t have had to bother the man.”

“A deal, here we go, finally.” Preston had found the Grak-Tong Smithy on accident while browsing the stalls of the market in Berkton. As a budding merchant, born and raised by merchants in Radasanth, he wanted to make a name for himself in trade. It was his experience and keen eye that had caught the layered steel blades hanging on the back wall of the shop. If he could get the smithy to work with him on exclusivity deals, he could make a fortune selling the weapons back to would-be adventurers and self-righteous idiots back in Scara Brae proper. “I want to look at those weapons on the back wall; the longswords, those axes, and that rapier with the basket-hilt.”

The goblin relayed the request to Torvak who reluctantly brought the rapier and other four weapons to the booth. They were placed gently on the table. “No surprise he didn’t want to part with them.” The boy thought as he cautiously lifted the rapier, “Even with steel, these are elegant, masterwork weapons.”

Preston tested the balance, letting the narrow blade hold perfectly steady on one finger just after the hilt. He slipped his right hand inside the basket hilt and admired the stunning detail. With a quick swipe he waved the weapon around, somewhat clumsily, and haphazardly to test it. As he did so he heard a welp of a shreak from his side.

“Oh! Pardon me!”