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Normal Conversation
- The Black Marketeer: Why hello, Portmaster.
- I'd like to purchase some goods.
- The Black Marketeer: Certainly, Portmaster. No questions asked.
- Black Market opens up
- Tell me about your stock.
- The Black Marketeer: I get a variety of goods from the Wushanko Isles. Goods that have fallen off the back of ships, that others have misplaced, that my contacts have picked up. I can't guarantee what goods I'll bring here each day. These goods move quickly, my prices are so reasonable. I'll bring you bamboo from the Arc region and Skull is overflowing with gunpowder. I'll source mountains of slate from the Hook region and the Scythe is ripe with cherrywood. I'll sell you jade enough to build a palace, directly from the Bowl. My contacts will even travel to the Pincers to bring you back steel that does not rust. But only if you can pay the price.
- Player: What's your price?
- The Black Marketeer: Western coin. I only accept western coin.
- Why do you do what you do?
- The Black Marketeer: Well, if we are to work together, portmaster, I should secure your trust. Despite the trade I practise, I'm not a dishonest man. The truth is almost always preferable to a lie. I once lived in New Heritage - one of the largest isles in the Pincer region. I was a well-off merchant. I had a wife and two little girls. Slaved rarely ventured to the Pincer Region. The khans there are powerful - they have vast armies, soothsayers and ships. The exiles and eastern slavers know better than to try their luck. But a ship of slavers did arrive. Slavers from the west - who knows why they were so far out to sea, when few westerners even dared travel past the Arc. I watched them pull my wife and my girls onto their ship. I could do nothing. I was just a merchant, and definitely no fighter. Months passed. I was sure they were dead. I was...preparing...to join them. Then, I got a letter. A letter from their kidnappers. They were demanding coin in exchange for my family. Western coin. A lot of western coin. I shut up shop immediately and set sail for the west with all my goods. I travelled only with my captain: Lily. The oceans only know how we made the journey. I sold everything I had to raise the coin and left the money where they wanted it. A few days later, I got another letter...asking for more coin. And so this pattern has gone on for years. I pay their ransom and they send another letter, but what else can I do?
- Player: Have you considered that your family might be...
- The Black Marketeer: But how could I? Considering that would mean losing everything.
- Who brings you these goods?
- The Black Marketeer: I work with a group of exiles: the Blazing Lantern clan. They are sailors who operate in the Wushanko Islands but who have rejected the rule of khans. A westerner might call them pirates, but that would be a generalisation. The khans who rule the Wushanko Islands are chosen, mostly, for their skills on a ship. Some men an women don't believe that's a just enough reason to rule. If your island is ruled by a cruel khan, the others won't intervene. They'll let him operate as he wishes, unless he engages in open warfare. Only then will the other khans step in...and then the ocean boils.
- I'd better be going, things to do.
- The Black Marketeer: We'll talk soon, Portmaster.