Chapter 17 - 16 : First Lesson
Kael came out of the Adventurer’s Guild.
As he walked, his eyes fell on the clothing store where he had bought his clothes.
A side business, he thought. I could sell things from Earth. There would be huge profits.
If he was going to build a business, he needed intel. Demographics. Consumer behavior. A sense of what made these people tick.
If I’m going to play the merchant game, I need to know the market. I needed knowledge—of who bought what, and why.
And so he walked.
Past the open-air butchers, where massive cuts of meat hung like crimson flags. Past the scribes and scrollmakers in their little ink-stained booths. He saw noblewomen in brocaded dresses, and beggars hunched in the shade of alleyways, their palms open.
And in the thick of it all—between spice merchants shouting over one another and acrobats flipping in the dust—was a shop that caught his eye.
A quaint little place. Wooden walls bleached pale by the sun, a crooked sign that read "Orren’s Curiosities" swinging lazily above the door.
Outside sat an old man with silver hair and eyes like worn glass, smiling as though he’d been waiting just for Kael.
"Young man!" the old man called. "You’ve the look of someone searching for answers... or treasure."