The Patre and his two personal guards (Skippio and Burris ) set up their booth and
continue to man it as they try their best at trading a (1-2 bolts) portion of their goods
so as to have as many silk tabbards made for such an exhange, and possibly find someone
that will take trade healthy and breedable warpony stock in exhange for several of their
bolts of rare cloth, and mayhaps some coin as well.
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This quote was taken from the Dwarven Company Thread *(message #46) and involves the booty that had been aquired by Arctos as his spoils after the battle of Tullum.
12 Bolts of Fine Cloth . . .
Ben:
Cirostis hits up the merchants at the tavern, who are busily preparations to leave.
He finds he can't get as good as an offer as he had hoped. Burgundians do pay well for saddles, but a possibility of a 1/8 return isn't much to a merchant- their expenses would normally consume that and more.
(rule of thumb, selling wholesale to a merchant usually won't get more than 50% of the retail value, unless it is a “commodity” good or something along that line which is more certain to sell. The merchant has to look at not only the likely resale value, but what is the likelihood that he actually would sell it. Expensive “luxury” goods could easily sit around for a year unsold, and merchants must take that into account.)
There's also the problem of the merchants being on their return trip. They had counted on coming home with money, not more goods. But on the third hand, the saddles are impressive, and they could likely sell in Burgundy.
On the fourth hand, the merchants do need their cargo animals. How else would they pull their wagons?
That being the case, Cirostis gets an offer: Two mules AND two Oxen, plus the wagon they were pulling (which the merchant couldn;t take now anyway), the large mostly empty a wine rack, 24 gallons of unsold Burgundian wine, tack and harness for all the animals, and one tent, for all four saddles and the eight saddlebags.
Arctos inquires of his strange little question answering ring, and finds that much to his surprise, he is looking at the most valuable “unclaimed” item. AND it can help the troops. Not only is it worth a goodly sum in the right quarters but...
Much of the cloth is high quality fine, soft material, satin, silk, gossamer and the like. While such cloth is often made into luxurious garments for Humans and Elves (and maybe Halflings) some experienced warriors know it has another use: A quilted silk shirt helps reduce the severity of wounds from piercing weapons. Often, a weapon that pierces armor will merely push the silk into the wound, instead of cutting through it. This spreads the energy of the blow, and reduces the sharpness of the cutting edges, and also, in the event of a barbed or serrated weapon, frequently catches the barbs and edges, instead of letting them hook into flesh.
The bolts of cloth could easily go with the cargo mules, of which the Dwarves already have a number.