-Day 3 -
After our conversation and short flirting session last night, Kaelin and I went to our own separate beds, ready to wake up and be productive the next day.
After waking and welcoming the crew who are upgrading the weapons systems on the ship, we stopped in the skyfarer's guild to collect any information on transport requests and bounties.
Presently, there are a number of incidents of pirates attacking merchant ships travelling from Nimbastra to Aurevela, a dungeon city around 4 days' travel away.
Merchants have been unable to complete the journey properly, as they have been boarded and forced to give up their cargo to pírates, sometimes getting killed in the process. There are estimated to be around 30 small-sized pirate ships operating there, and 2 or 3 medium-sized pirate ships.
We accept a quest to deliver a number of sealed crates, no questions asked about contents, to the shipport there within 10 days. Upon delivery, we can expect to make 60,000 GP.
The receptionist at the guild informs me that there are only 2 large crates to be delivered, which will take up only a small portion of our cargo hold, and we can take delivery tomorrow.
Kaelin informs me that Aurevela is also just outside of the sphere of beastkin haters, so she should be okay to go to the city and not face some kind of discrimination. Our next destination has been officially decided.
I ask Kaelin to show me the winery where the fruit wine is made, and the cheesemaker we discussed last night is located. We have plenty of space in our cargo hold, so I cannot imagine there being much of a problem taking more of any products to trade with us.
The winery looks nothing like what I imagined a winery would be. It resembles a huge warehouse full of large wooden barrels and stacks of boxes filled with wine barrels.
I take a look around and I see a person who stands out greatly from the rest of the crowd of workers. A beautiful middle-aged blonde woman. Instead of the clothes of a labourer, she is dressed in what I perceive to be a professional merchant's attire. I approach her.
"Good morning."
"Good morning, what can I do for you?"
"I am a skyship captain, and I will be leaving here in about 3 days. I have space in my cargo hold for maybe 10 of those crates worth of wine for trading, and I was wondering if we could discuss the purchase of the products."
"Ah, certainly, my name is Mearie. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"A pleasure to meet you too, I am Captain Leon."
She takes me into a side office where both me and Kaelin are served tea. I get the same mercantile atmosphere from the way they treat her as I felt at the monster drop shop; as though money matters more than anything, so Kaelin is treated with indifference.
"We have 3 basic options for wine purchases, which you can choose from, and we can deliver them to your ship on the docks tomorrow morning. We have 1-year, 5-year, and 10-year wines which we stock.
1-year wine sells wholesale for 30 GP per bottle, 5-year wine is 100 GP per bottle, and 10-year wine is 300 GP per bottle. Crates can carry a total of 180 bottles of wine, but we charge them as though there are 150 bottles in a crate."
"I understand, and how much would a bottle of each sell to a dock merchant located in Aurevela, for example?"
I am fairly sure operations this large need some concept of trust, so I doubt that she would lie to me for a quick buck. If the company lost trust, then it would never be able to find buyers who wish to make deals like we do.
"Due to recent pirate activity, market prices are higher than normal. The one-year wine would sell for around 50 gp per bottle, the 5-year wine would sell for around 200 gp per bottle, and the 10-year wine for 800 gp per bottle. Of course, you would need to transport it there, so the risk is higher than normal."
Basically, all of the stuff going there has been robbed by pirates, and due to the low supply and reasonable demand, retail prices have increased significantly. We can take advantage of this massively and make bank.
After doing the math, I will be making a profit of 101,000 gp per crate of the 10-year wine! Also, the 1-year wine crates will profit 4500 per crate.
"Ok. We will take 4 full crates of 10-year wine, and 6 crates of 1-year wine."
That will make it a total profit of 422,000 gp for buying the wine, depending on market prices at the new city.
"In total, that will come to 207,000 GP. What dock are you at?"
"We are at dock 3. If I pay all in cash up front right now. Can we call it 200,000 even?"
"I can agree to those terms, yes. Please sign here and be available tomorrow morning to receive the goods on your ship."
When we are leaving, Kaelin turns to me and asks about the deal I just made. 'I am not good at maths, so if we do well in this deal, how much will we make from it?'
"We should make just over 400,000 gp in profit from the deal, just for buying here and selling there. Every time we are going to leave a city, we should consider doing this kind of business if possible.
Pirates make the goods more expensive when we sell them, so profits are better. Plus, we are going to places with pirates anyway, so we can hunt them; this type of work is great for us.
By the way, your share of this will be somewhere around 2000 gp."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, remember, you get a small percentage of our profits after jobs like these. Also, this isn't over yet. Take us to the cheese maker next."
"Aye aye!"
With a mock salute, Kaelin leads the way to the next location. The idea of receiving 2000 gp for this kind of job has her so excited that she is literally skipping along the road like an excited child. Adorable!
The cheesemaker is more similar to what I expected. We walk all the way to the edge of the city, where there is a large open piece of land with some kind of dairy cattle on it.
The cattle remind me of cows, however, the horns on their heads curl like goat horns, and their teeth make me think that they are at least omnivorous. They do moo though.
I approach an old man who appears to be in a similar position to Mearie, and we strike a deal for another 10 crates of cheese wheels, which will be delivered tomorrow.
Each crate contains 100 wheels; they cost 60 gp per wheel, but the old man assures me that they will easily sell for 250 gp per wheel in Aurevela. 10 crates cost 60,000 gp, but they will sell for 250,000 total. So our profits should be around 190,000 gp from cheese.
That leaves me with around 100,000 GP total. I would like to keep at least 50,000 on hand for emergencies, but the other 50,000 I fully intend to use to buy stock from Pops.