・Side: Riene, the Innkeeper’s Daughter
My family runs an inn of long standing.
We have tradition and prestige — but we are so OLD that we’re bound up in obligations on every side… and quite unable to move with the times.
You see, lately the market has filled with inns that cut corners on furnishings and service and compete on nothing but price.
—They took our customers. Yes. Cleanly. Completely.
Meticulous old-fashioned service. Lavish meals, carefully made.
The old ways simply… could not keep pace with the era.
Our finances are a house on fire.
At this very moment, I’m struggling to fund the ingredients for tomorrow’s guest dinners…
Father — who is also our chef — is oblivious to management. His entire philosophy is: finest ingredients, finest technique, careful cooking, nothing less.
The prices, naturally, are also “finest.”
Hence: no customers.
As the one who handles the books and all purchasing, I am shouted at daily — “Skimp and you get GARBAGE! What IS this ingredient?!”
So here I am at the market — and my greatest torment, as always, is the spice purchasing.
Seasonings so dear they’re said to trade for their weight in gold… and for a burning-down business, an agonizing expense.
“Excuse me… isn’t this rather taking advantage?”
“We’re perfectly happy NOT to sell to you, madam?”
My long-standing supplier had just quoted me red powder at forty percent above the usual price.
“But that’s…”
“As I keep TELLING you — a caravan was hit by bandits and procurement costs have risen.”
“With respect—” I began.
I am a merchant’s daughter too.
Fail to say what must be said, and this world marks you as prey.
“—I couldn’t help noticing you sold to the previous customer at only twenty percent above usual?”
“Ah. That.”
Without a flicker of shame, the grocer said:
“We adjust prices for our REGULARS. These are emergency conditions, you understand.”
”…I’m sorry?”
“For that customer, we explained the situation and agreed to split the cost increase between us. They’re an old regular, after all.”
“Then surely you could extend the same to us… we have been buying from you just as long. We’re regulars by any measure.”
And there, the grocer smiled — an ugly, deliberate smile.
“Word is… your inn won’t last much longer, hm?”
His register changed entirely; the look he gave me was open mockery.
”…And what of it?”
“I’m saying a merchant has to cut off dying accounts EARLY. That’s all.”
“Wha—?!”
In my grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s day… our inn extended this very grocer substantial loans, or so I’ve been told.
And through his lean years, we kept buying at prices padded generously in his favor.
I had believed we operated inside that kind of trust…
The grocer resumed his business smile and concluded:
“We’re happy not to sell, as I said. Though — we ARE the only spice dealer in this market. If you object, do try the next town over. Their procurement costs have risen too, of course… you’ll find their price remarkably similar to mine.”
Tears of humiliation were rising, and I fought them down.
I wasn’t asking for special treatment — not for a discount beyond what others receive.
If a regulars’ price exists, treat a regular as a regular… that was all I said. That was ALL…
But without spices, tomorrow’s guests cannot be served.
I opened my purse and was counting out my last precious gold coins, when—
“Aaaand we’re OPEN for business! My chili peppers sell at HALF everyone else’s price! An’ what’s more — grand-opening special, half off the half: SEVENTY-FIVE percent off, today only!”
On a carpet spread across the neighboring pitch, a fox-eared girl was laying out spices till there was no carpet left to see.
Red powder, black pepper, turmeric… and variety upon variety I’d never laid eyes on in my life.
And every kind in BULK — heaped into small mountains.
Her red powder alone was several times the total stock of the grocer I’d just been pleading with.
Beaming, the fox-eared girl continued:
“Take it away, ya thieves! Cap’s five gold per customer — first come, first served!”
“Fifty percent under everyone?!”
“HOW can she sell at that price?!”
“Wait — today it’s SEVENTY-FIVE off?!”
I hardly need to describe what happened: the stall was buried in a human avalanche within the minute.
—And so.
Less than a month later, I hear the grocer my inn dealt with has withdrawn from the spice trade entirely.
Rumor says he’s exited the sugar business as well.
Mountains of unsellable spice and sugar inventory… and debts of a size people only whisper about.
Furthermore — the grocer’s core business, rare monster-derived foodstuffs… a certain trading company, the one that fox-eared girl belongs to, has lately begun selling those at cut rates too.
That company, they say, handles everything in-house: the hunting, the butchering, the transport, the sales.
Everything they carry is first-rate. Everything they carry is cheap.
Truly remarkable, isn’t it.
And this last part isn’t rumor — I had it directly from the moneylender: he has concluded that “a merchant has to cut off dying accounts early.”
Which is to say — that moneylender has begun preparing debt collection against our old grocer… up to and including seizure of assets, by force.