New Wares and New Rumors

Out of the south a merchant caravan has come--coffles of slave bearers, interspersed with great wagons drawn by the massive armored chlen-beasts, trundling up the western road along the Gana River, and ultimately entering Cothon not by the harbor, but by the west-facing Klackon Gate, unused as yet by any adventurer.

Owned by the merchant-hlanessa Chanrr Caissha, a Mrrshan female with keen golden eyes, and led by her captain Gideon al Kyni, the caravan enters Cothon, studiously avoiding the Kzin-haunt of the Herm & Stone, and taking up accommodation instead at the Silver Nenyelu (a tavern not unlike the Copper Qaqtla, though more famous for the pair of swordsmen nonpareil often housed or carousing at the "Nenyelu" ... and if you understand this reference, 100 xp per level to you, per the scribes' private joke).

While Gdeon secures the rights of the caravan at large to sell in the main Souk of Cothon, Caissha drinks milk-and-wine at the tavern and regales patrons there--in her rumbling, purring accents--of their adventures coming up through the iqta' al Zaytun southeast of Cothon. They had intended to offload their wares there, and thence return to the Mrrshan realms to the south, but the threat of the rogue Kzin the Red Cloud prevented the opening of the market, and so Caissha and her coffles had to press on north to attempt to make their sales.

Preoccupied with his raiding of human settlements, the Red Cloud almost missed the passage of Caissha's caravan; and fortunately, when his spies finally warned him of their crossing, it was too late! For the forces of Dalinar al Khalid had already seen the advancing merchant-caravan, ensconced them in the safety of their arms and armor, and thence escorted them to the safety of the western road that runs north-south along the right bank of the Gana Delta.

But as to the fate of al Zaytun and the iqta's there south? Caissha knows not--and alas, her return south to the Mrrshan may prove rather round-about given the lawlessness presented by the Red Cloud and his bandits ...

Well, never let an opportunity go to waste; and so while Gideon secures the rights to the Souk, as mentioned above, Caissha meanwhile seeks buyers of her own wares from among the market of barbarian-adventurers who have cropped up recently in the Dual-Cities, hoping to profit somewhat off all the wealth they have reclaimed from the underworld recesses of the Tel al Safina ... word gets around as to the wares she has for offer:

(and as with all merchants beforehand, all sales are first-come-first-served; please comment on the blog with any purchases, to make tracking the sale of wares easier)

Price	Ware(s) on Offer
10 gp ea.	8 pieces of smoky dark volcanic glass
75 gp ea.	4 varicolored zircon gemstones
100 gp ea.	2 small, clear amethysts
750 gp	1 star garnet
1 sp / feather	266 kurrune feathers (often used for fletchings)
20 gp / roll	10 rolls of dark blue woad-dyed cloth
20 gp / bundle	11 bundles each of 6 fine mowaj pelts
250 gp	1 set of blue woad fur-dyes
300 gp / cask	3 casks of skooma-liquor
15 gp / bunch	12 bunches of dried "aphrodisiacal" black anther flowers
100 gp / cape	8 capes of sleek black kite-fur
500 gp ea.	13 pieces of great-ivory
400 gp ea.	3 spithid carcasses, venom- and silk-glands intact
40 gp ea.	13 slave laborers
100 gp ea.	2 household slaves
1250 gp	1 slave-blacksmith
3200 gp	Balmoth's Wand -- slender white wood staff, inlaid with intricate gilt runes

Concerning "Balmoth's Wand", Caissha can say--though uninitiated in the arcane arts herself--that it is said to have been wielded by the famed wizard-duelist Balmoth ad-Dumbaddor, and that it conferred on him protection from his rivals' spells, as well as granting him "quick access" to another spell of his own ... whatever that may mean to those more skilled in such arts.

Beyond that, Caissha and her company also come bearing certain rumors:

1) An unusually large, aggressive, and intelligent pack of gadhars is said to have moved into the forest region just north of al Zaytun, adding to the worries already accumulating there. The local iqtadar has decreed a bounty of 100 gold dinars per ghadhar pelt presented to him, hoping thus to deal with the menace the pack-hunters represent.

2) Coming up the so-called Western Road (it enters Cothon on the west side, through the Klackon Gate, though it actually leads up from the southern hinterlands), Gideon and Caissha each tell of a nest of shanu'u "gryphons" said to be high in certain of the cliffs overlooking the Second Cataract of the Turma River. There is as yet no formal bounty for their elimination, but both can attest the high value of shanu'u eggs and fledglings, especially in Alkari markets ...

3) Along that same Western Road, between the iqta' al Zaytun and the juncture between the Gana and Turma Rivers, there is talk that there is an especially rich grove of camphor-trees--but alas, it is now guarded by the so-called Sultana al-Luwruth ("Queen of Ilwrath) and her venomous spithid-guardians. The peasants are said to agree that the "Sultana" is some kind of biysaan or wood-sprite, capable of the kinds of magics as wielded the great sorceresses of old. Formerly the major part of the iqta' Kafurustan, alas, the lord there has grown sickly in his eild, white-haired and shook-handed, and without a son to rid the grove of the spirit. And so his iqta' languishes and grows poor without the income from the camphor-trees ...

4) And, of course, there remains the trouble of the ghars in the iqta' of Tolwan, for the elimination of which Tolwan grants free alienation of their valuable nacreous shells--if only they can be slain! These ghars have dug out a lair in the riverbanks of the Gana Delta and threaten not only his iqta', but also the livelihood of many among the Guild of Lighters and Bargemen who transport goods, sand, and clay up and down the stream of the Delta on their skiffs. The barbarian-adventurer Lars Fangripper claims to have seen a vision leading him to seek these creatures, and he is still looking for comrades for just such an adventure!