Profit

"So .. what else do you have?" Sweizar had more questions but he stuck to business, fortune waited for no one.

Errit pulled out a pile of herbs, I have these. Pulling out a few herbs at a time, he had about 40 species on the table. He didn't want to try filling out another 158 of the same thing in a row, he needed to know what things were for. 'This appraiser is going to tell me everything he knows.'

Sweizar moved a few of them out the way and started to sort them, he picked up a round ball like melon and rushed to grab a knife. "If this is what I think it is, you've hit the jackpot, but the only way to know is if we split them open." Errit stopped him and pointed at the other melons he had on the table.

"I have a lot of melons, if they have different values, i'll just hold onto them, lets focus on something else." He collected the melons off the table and stored them away. "Here. What is this?" Errit handed over a batch of berries, the bunch had been cut from the tree but two leaves remained on the branch to help identify it later.

"Barberries, its one of the primary ingredients for Dragon wine and curing hangovers. That bunch has 26 berries, 24 ripe, 2 are over ripe. I'd give it three stars to the 24 for the ripeness, and four stars for the two that are over ripe. None of them are rotten. Each of the Berries would count individually, how many of these do you have??" Sweizar's greed never ceased, but greed could be managed.

"Umm." Errit fumbled through his ring. "A lot." He didn't bother taking them out. "Lets just do them one at a time, anything that's like these berries and the Melons, please lets skip those for now." Errit started wondering what he would have to go through in order to get straight answers, there were plenty of herbs in his collection to keep him busy all day. "Okay, Here. Sign this sheet for one the berries and lets get onto an herb, we can do fruits later.."

Sweizar grabbed a bushel of flowers, they were stacked fairly neat but none of them had the roots. "Why didn't you grab the roots?" 'Tsk, tsk' "Witchhazel is a truth serum. But only if you have the roots, the flowers are used to make some very powerful confusion potions. Write this down. What's with you? You ready?" Sweizar started rattling off information that needed to be on the sheets.

Errit filled them out as fast as he could write, he was surprised by the efficiency of the process, nothing would go uncatalogued. 'Maybe they do it for record keeping and inventory, pretty smart to force people to do it themselves before trade.' Errit continued to write things down and slowly they worked through the pile of flowers and grasses.

He had seen a lot today, his fortune in plants would settle his need for currency to read at the library. There was a lingering question. "Where can I find books outside of the library? Is there a bookstore in town?"

Sweizar picked up another herb and started writing. "Magic books are strictly controlled, not that they are banned but the Emperor has put a reward out of lost books, there is a 5,000 CP reward for any books on magic that are found or turned into the Local Magistrate. Bookstore, that's a good one. It would be nice, but official works are all controlled and distributed with contribution points. If you want books of your own, you'll have to find them elsewhere. If you want to buy them with contribution points, you just have to go to the Auction House and bid on them. I'm sure there are a few for sale right now, the adventurer teams don't always keep them. Many of the spells are troublesome to cast and there is no guarantee that you can learn any spell."

"Well, can you show me to the Auction House after I go get some CP from the depository?" Errit swept up the paperwork that was finished and pulled it into a stack. Grabbing one of the hides he had put away, he wrapped up the herbs and onions to go turn them in.

Sweizar looked over at Errit.

His facial expressions said everything. "Okay, well.. when I get back I'll pay you another 1000cp. For Now, I'm going to go look for the Auction House." Errit grabbed the corners of the hide like a sac and started walking out of the door.

"Its down the street, sign is hard to miss. Don't forget our agreement. 10%.." Sweizar shook his head, he had a feeling he would never see Errit again. 'what a waste of my time..'

Finding his way back to the depository was easy, whenever there was a crowd they quickly cleared out of his way. The stench of the Deadfoot onions was enough to gag most of them at first whiff. There were new people at the counters, four of them.

Errit chose to go with the Minotaur looking man.

His horns seemed like they would drag down his head, but somehow the Minotaur had been able to keep it upright. "What brings you today?" He asked.

Placing the hide on the table, he handed the stack of papers over. there were more than 200 sheets in the stack. It landed with a slight thud. "Color me up." Errit passed the papers over in a gentle slide.

"Come with me." Errit followed closely as he was led to a room for counting.

"This is a lot at once, we'll have to have someone come in to verify. Everything seems in order, please wait here." The Minotaur man walked out briefly and returned with another person to act as witness. "Since there are so many, a second set of eyes is necessary before we are allowed to collect." Pointing to his associate he said, "I am Ramm, this is Silvy."

"Please spread them out." Silvy helped while directing Errit. "Try to put them in rows if possible."

Once the plants had been organized, they started to go through the stack of papers, leaving the page with its corresponding plant. One by one, they went over each detail, scrutinizing it. "Everything seems to be in order." Silvy smiled, her wings tucked further behind her figure, revealing it a bit more.

"One moment while I do the math." Ramm started flipping his fingers and produced what looked like a calculator. It was beaten up a bit, but worked. Punching in numbers with a small stick, a number came across and he looked up with surprise. "You have 198 plants, all in peak condition. I can offer you 1500 for ea of the onions, 1000 for the Barberry, 3000 for each of the Peppercorns, and 100 for each of the stalks of barley. The individual others, each have their own prices.. but your total comes to 432,200CP. I'd also like to buy that hide.. for myself. I'll offer you 10,000CP after the sale if you're interested."

Errit thought it over and kept the hide, he had used it a few times. "Just the Plants today, maybe if I find another."

Walking out of the Depository with almost half a million CP felt great, Errit continued his way back toward the bar and stopped at the Auction House. He was underwhelmed.

Outside of the Auction House, a man stood. At least, he looked like a man.. with a bird face. "What can I get for you." He pushed his way up to Errit's face and asked.

"You can get out of my way.." Errit walked past him and entered the building.

It was classy inside, but rather small. several books laid on the countertops, pages, like the ones he had been filling out were stuck inside. An attendant came up and asked if he had decided on anything. "I Just got here, I'm not even sure how this place works. Would you mind helping me?" He asked.

She pointed at a sign. 'Assistants will answer questions for a fee.'

"Fine." Errit pulled out his tabulator and passed over 50cp.

She smiled, took her CP tabulator and stored it away. "These books hold the item listings, each is broken up by category. Feel free to read them but, don't remove the pages.. Is there anything in particular you were interested in?" Her appearance was nice, her rounded ears on top of her head gave her a cute look when she finished talking.

"I just want to take a look, I've never been inside an Auction House, I don't even know what I might find." Errit looked over the books while he talked. "So, how are these organized?"

"This book holds weapons, this one holds potions, that one is herbs." She kept pointing and naming them out, there were almost thirty books laying around on the counters.

"Where would I find books?" Errit paused afterward, hoping for an answer.

"If you want books, you'll have to go to the library. Let me know if you need anything." She turned and headed off to a back room.

'I was just doing that.' Errit started fumbling through each book looking at the items they had for sale.