“Well you clearly don’t have a single head of the miraculous imperial leaf lettuce. The genius chefs in Tian have ruined me. I simply can’t bother with anything less.”
“Imperial leaf lettuce, sir?” asked the owner.
“It’s a sensation,” said Dakkon in his best appalled-but-still-eager-to-tell-you-all-about-what-I-know-but-you-don’t voice. If smug were an ocean, Dakkon would be its Poseidon. “It’s icy cold to the touch, even without icing it. Once cooked, the leaves unfurl and melt I your mouth like butter. As the salad cools, the leaves crisp again, growing crunchy and crystalline,” Dakkon paused briefly, looking lost. “Damn! I was certain I would be able to have some here, so close to Tian, but even the neighbors are as backwoods as the far reaches.”
Dakkon’s uncontained voice had drawn somewhat of a crowd of spectators from the streets around them. Before Dakkon could accuse the owner that he was behind the times, a man leading a small cart filled with lettuce that was partially covered by a blanket, being pulled by a beautiful black horse passed by. Just before the extravagantly drawn cart was about to slip away unnoticed, one stranger in the crowd said, “Hey, that guy’s got cabbages.”
All eyes turned to the passing Letis, who didn’t have to try with any great effort to look uncomfortable in the situation.
“My god, man. Is that all imperial leaf lettuce?” proclaimed a convincingly shocked Dakkon.
“Ah… yes. It is… sir,” said Letis. “You know of it, sir? It seems I have been misled into believing I would be the first merchant to bring them from Tian as I had forgone the safety of caravan.”
“Merchant,” asked the owner, “I am the owner of this restaurant. May I inspect your commodity?”
“Certainly, sir,” said Letis, “but I ask that you handle them delicately, as I have invested greatly.”
As the owner of the establishment approached the cart, Dakkon dropped his hotspot, which had served to heavily deplete his mana reserve. The owner picked up a head of lettuce, and was stunned to find it frigid to the touch. He examined the cart, in search of some method of refrigeration or anything else amiss, but found nothing. Dakkon drew a Hotspot on the head of lettuce in the restaurant owner’s hand for good measure and cooled it as much as he could. The owner stared at the lettuce in his upturned palm as a plume of icy vapor rose from the vegetable and it pulsed with renewed chill.
“Merchant. Would you mind if I cut this open?” asked Appa.
“Not if that’s the final hurdle to your satisfaction, sir,” said Letis, almost too quickly considering this hadn’t been accounted for in the plan.
The owner grinned, pulled a knife from his belt and sliced the lettuce in half. Dakkon immediately reformed his Hotspot on the two halves, sighing his relief as the owner nodded his approval after a one-fingered probe.
Appa turned to his server, instructed her to take down the specifics of what Dakkon wanted for his meal, then pulled Letis aside to dicker over cost. The scene had generated enough interest that there would certainly be demand for the lettuce—even after the owner found out it was a ruse. While Letis made his sale, Dakkon labored over the specifics of the dish, lavished over details, retracted them entirely, then reinstated them again in a confusing blur until after the owner left and returned with two assistants. Money changed hands and the assistants gingerly picked the heads of lettuce up and transported them to the kitchen’s storeroom. As soon as Letis walked out of eyeshot, Dakkon cried out in a final tirade, “What! Do you want me to cook it for you, too!” and then stormed off, both platinum pieces securely in hand.
Soon, after making good on his word to tip the bystander who had just barely pointed out that Letis was passing by with a cart full of lettuce, Dakkon met with Letis at their predetermined location near a man with livestock for sale on the bottom side of the town’s crescent-moon center.
“What have we done?” asked Letis from a state like shellshock.
“We just sold some lettuce,” said Dakkon. “Nothing to get worked up over.”
“What if we get in trouble!”
“For what?” Dakkon asked, genuinely curious.
“I don’t know. Racketeering?” suggested Letis.
“In a video game?” asked Dakkon. “I feel like we just completed a quest.”
“I feel like we just hustled an established, wealthy member of this community with a ruse that will be uncovered in literal minutes,” said Letis.
“That’s exactly what we did,” agreed Dakkon.
“I don’t think you understand,” said Letis. “There will be repercussions for this. They’ll find us, drag us into a locked room, torture us until we pay up, then finish us off. If they figure out we’re players and respawn, they’ll find us and do it all over again.”
“There’s no way that’s something that happens,” said Dakkon.
“Well then, they’ll report us and have bounty hunters chase us down to kill us some number of times to pay our debt, or capture us to serve time which we can’t skip in a virtual cell. That definitely happens,” said Letis.
“When you put it like that…” Dakkon paused. “You didn’t give him your name, did you?”
“No, but as you can see, in a town, that’s public information for any player who may have been watching,” Letis said, pointing up to the blue name tag floating above his head.
“Ah,” said Dakkon. “So, you’re saying we should go?”
“Sooner rather than later,” said Letis.
“Before that, how much money did we make?”
“We sold 16 of them for 15 gold a head,” said Letis.
“You sly dog,” whooped Dakkon. “I was expecting 10. And here you thought lettuce was unprofitable. Tsk.”
“Let’s get out of here while we still can,” said Letis.
“Forget your burro, buy a horse and we’ll hoof it,” said Dakkon.
\\\\\\
On the road to Tian, Dakkon asked from swift-moving horseback, “So what’s two-plat-forty in credits?”
“Pretty much exactly 240 credits,” said Letis, who had developed the unhelpful habit of frequently and conspicuously looking over his shoulder.
“So, a gold is worth one credit, and a single platinum coin is worth 100?” asked Dakkon.
“Pretty much,” said Letis. “It fluctuates a bit, but it’s never off by a lot.”
“That was easily the fastest money I’ve ever made in my entire life,” said a contemplative Dakkon, “That’s a quarter of my rent for the month in, what, 10 minutes?”
“Yeah,” said Letis. “That’s great, really, but now that I’m already in over my head, I think I’d probably pay 120 credits to not miss a few weeks of game time,” said Letis.
“Hmm,” Dakkon, now beginning to weigh the risks versus the reward of his recent gambit for the first time, had his thoughts interrupted by the sudden jerk of the horse beneath him, the rush of wind, and the thump of earth that comes from being toppled forward over a crumpling horse. Dakkon’s head swam wildly.
[You have slammed into the ground for 201 damage. Remaining HP 224/425]
As his senses returned, he saw behind him that two sturdy ropes had been tied to trees on the far side of the road, then pulled taut as the pair on horses approached.
“Well, well boys. What’s the hurry for?” asked a pleased man approaching slowly on foot. “Don’t you know not to ride so recklessly? Someone could get hurt.” The man sported a grim smile. “My what a lovely horse you’ve brought me.” The man approached Nightshade. “I think we shall call you Marley.” He stopped a few feet away from the horse which was riled and unapproachable so soon after its fall.