The party travels back to town, wounded and exhausted. Black smoke can be seen in the background from the remains of a bonfire
As the group reaches Rivermouth again, they immediately head back towards the Black Talon Mercenary Guild.
Baldric walks first. His sword is sheathed, and he is instead carrying the head of a goblin in one hand, while the other holds his shield.
As they walk through town, they get some looks, but no one stops them or asks them anything.
When they arrive, Baldric goes to the great hall to turn the contract in. They have a smaller room with a desk outside, placed on the left side of the bar, which is right next to the contract board.
An older man, with a crooked posture, is working as a bookkeeper. He is in charge of maintaining the contracts and confirming them as complete. His name is Hammoud, Baldric says.
As Baldric turns the contract in, he shows proof with the head of the goblin, quickly explaining what happened but leaving out just enough details about Jack's deeds to label him as competent, but not overpowered.
Jack stands nearby and listens, nodding to confirm the story.
'Baldric sure is helping me, I don't know why, but my ability to persuade people seems much better than I imagined...' Jack thinks to himself while listening to Baldric's tale.
Hammoud listens intently, writing some of it down with ink on blank paper, before storing it in a pile of other papers, signing a document and handing over a pouch of gold coins to Baldric.
Baldric thanks the man and turns around to the rest of the party.
"Here is your payment. You all receive 10 gold coins each." Baldric says to the group while handing over the coins.
Jack doesn't yet have a money pouch, so he just stores it in his pocket for the time being.
'10 gold coins?!?!? Isn't that a lot of money?' Jack thinks to himself.
'But now that I think about it, if a sword costs 10-15 gold coins, and you need at least one sword and shield each, armour and most likely 5 people to do a contract like we just did. Then it gets expensive quickly. That could be hundreds of gold coins' worth of gear. 10 gold each seems almost low then in comparison.' Jack quickly makes some mental calculations based on the prices he remembers from Elphons' shop.
"You all have your strengths and weaknesses, but together you made a pretty good team. Even if we encountered a really bad situation today, we still made it out alive." Baldric continues while the party counts their gold coins.
"I will vouch for you all and have you officially promoted to Talons. The initiation ceremony is this evening. Make sure you don't miss it." Baldric continues proudly.
Dianne and Felix nod and thank Baldric, slowly walking away, looking for a more seasoned healer to inspect their wounds.
Garrick talks to Baldric about what they could have done differently, trying to take responsibility for the mistake in ambushing the goblins. Baldric gives some pointers and explains a bit more about caution, but the conversation isn't long, and soon Garrick leaves.
"Thank you, Baldric. I appreciate not being drawn into too much attention just yet." Jack says.
Baldric nods.
"By the way, could I borrow some real gear and maybe a money pouch too?" Jack asks while looking around quizzically.
------------------------
Roughly 20 minutes later, Jack sits on a bed inside the mercenary guild. The room is small and contains a bed, a big chest, a table, and a chair. It is placed on the upper floor, so a small window peeks out towards the backyard, showing the training area.
Jack is now dressed in a bit more armour. He picked out a chain shirt in combination with some leggings and boots. The armour is classified as medium armour, meaning he still has pretty good mobility to move around, but it can still reduce the damage from certain attacks.
He has his money pouch, containing his gold coins. In the room, he also has a new warhammer and shield. They are of slightly better quality and have a lot fewer dents than the old ones.
The shield can also be attached to his arm properly, giving him the flexibility in battle to sometimes let go of his shield to grab something.
Wearing his new armour and feeling confident, Jack leaves the guild with his 10 gold coins sitting comfortably in his pouch. He heads out and goes towards the market area.
As he has been there before, he quickly navigates over the river Elden again and arrives at the market.
It is later in the afternoon, and some people are on their way home, but it is not late enough to pack up for the evening, as people are still bustling about.
Fish merchants are selling their daily catches at reduced prices, as the freshness is wearing off.
Jack roams around for a bit, thinking to himself.
'I would like to try my abilities to persuade people, but what would be realistic? Or what would be unrealistic levels of persuasion?' Jack thinks to himself.
'I think haggling is a good way to try and showcase some persuasion, but what would I even haggle for? I barely know the currency as I have only ever seen one shop.' He continues mentally.
He approaches a merchant selling beautiful gems and simple jewellery.
The merchant greets him and tries to start a conversation, but Jack mostly gives short answers while browsing the wares.
He spots a smaller gemstone, roughly the size of a thumbnail, which is red in colour.
'That must be a small ruby, if rubies even exist in this world, that is.' Jack thinks while picking up and inspecting the red gemstone.
The merchant notices his interest and immediately starts selling him on it.
"That red gemstone is called a Crimson Ruby and is used in both alchemical procedures, certain spells or a really good gift for a lady." The merchant says while winking towards Jack, hinting at him doing jewellery shopping alone.
'The price tag is 50 gold, let's see if I can haggle this down to 10 gold.' Jack thinks to himself before he begins some serious haggling.
Jack starts talking, his brain and mouth working exceptionally well in saying just the right things and really lowballing the merchant.
Jack notices how he starts telling white lies or just leaves information out of the picture for the merchant to interpret.
After a couple of minutes of intense haggling, bending the truth and an extremely strong force of personality, Jack leaves the stall with the red gemstone.
'I don't understand if the merchant intentionally racked up the original price, or if I just have extremely good persuasion skills now.' Jack checks his money pouch, which is now empty.
'Maybe I could try selling this to some other merchant and actually earn money from it?' Jack makes an evil plan.
He looks for a merchant selling magical wares, alchemical ingredients or similar instead of being a jeweller.
After a few minutes of looking, he stumbles across an older woman selling potions and ingredients.
He instantly walks up to her, trying his best to look like a strong and mighty warrior, his armour really helping him.
After the initial greeting, he quickly brings up the topic of acquiring a red gemstone during one of his missions. Something he thinks can sell for a lot.
He shows the gemstone, explaining that he heard it is surprisingly useful for alchemists and asks if he can sell it for 50 gold.
The woman studies it intensely and then studies Jack.
Jack begins explaining how he knows a guy who told him it was worth at least 50 gold, and basically rephrases what the other merchant said, but uniquely and cleverly.
The woman hesitates at first, looking strangely at Jack and asking a few follow-up questions. She tries not to show any interest in the gem, but Jack quickly realises she is faking it due to the way she clutches the gemstone in her hands.
She seems fascinated by the nature of the gemstone, and especially any alchemical purpose it might have or be useful for.
After some back and forth, she finally agrees to buy it for 40 gold pieces.
Jack thanks her and leaves the stand, now with 40 gold coins in his pouch.
'I cannot believe that worked. Why am I this good at convincing people now?' Jack thinks to himself.
'If I did this all day, it would be like an infinite money glitch, just buying and reselling things. But isn't this exactly what merchants already do? The only difference being that they actually travel to a new place first, where the wares are more expensive.' Jack reflects a bit inwardly.
'At least I can now convince people that I am actually a merchant, or in this case, a warrior. Good to have at least two different professions to switch between.' Jack thinks.
He continues by moving around the merchant stalls and stands, trying to find other wares he could buy and resell for profit.
He uses his knowledge from Earth to try and figure out what wares would be in high demand and not, hoping he could haggle to buy things cheaply, then resell. He specifically looks for things everyone wants and then tries to buy them cheaper, before selling them for the base price somewhere else, making a hefty profit when done in bulk.
Wood, wooden products, and fish seem abundant around here, so nothing related to that. Iron and other metals could always be in use, but it depends on the craftsman.
He manages to assess the local trades and make some purchases for a bit of his newfound gold, then resells it at different places. This takes a while to do properly.
As he spends two hours of his time trading and trying to earn a profit, most of the local merchants start recognising him, becoming less and less inclined to purchase things from him, even if his sales pitch is really good.
He quickly starts having a harder time buying and reselling items, which he recognises.
'Damn, I thought I was overpowered when it came to influencing people, but I guess everything has a limit.' Jack thinks to himself as he gets turned down by yet another merchant who refuses to buy his wares.
'I guess this is it, time to get back to the mercenary guild and perform the initiation rite.' Jack thinks to himself.
He checks his coin purse, which now totals roughly 100 gold pieces, a substantial amount more than what he started with.
'At least I made close to ten times the profit today.' Jack says to himself with a wide grin, getting a few looks from bystanders.
He decides to leave the market and go back towards the Black Talon.
As the evening draws closer, the last merchants stop their sales for today and pack up. Preparing for a new day to come instead. Some talk about the now infamous haggler, who managed to lowball several merchants and resell it for a surprisingly better price.
Jack leaves the market, slowly becoming the talk of the town, as he heads back towards the Black Talon guild for his initiation.