Journal of Akituh, Snapping Turtle Man
It seems that word has spread that there is going to be an election, and the consensus is that there is going to be no clear winner. Apparently someone smuggled some dye with them and has made a few rounds of the fortress, painting campaign posters along the walls. If I ever find who has done this I'm going to ask them to make me a painting. I don't know what yet, but I haven't found them yet either. I've also been made aware of a very notorious bottle of dwarven milk making it's way around the fortress. Some initial trading attempts were made at trading with the caravan. The expedition leader was surveying their stocks and attempting to get himself a bargain when Chedna asked if he could get him some milk. A list was produced of the types of milk available, Chedna asking for dwarven milk. I can only assume that he thought it was from female dwarves, which would have been gross on it's own, but dwarven milk is an extract from a purring maggot. He didn't even stop to smell it or check its viscosity, he just downed it. Needless to say, his non-dwarven stomach had a hard time handling it. He lay passed out in his own vomit for a few minutes as the expedition leader went back to haggling, but once he got up he felt as if he had been betrayed and stormed off. I feel sorry for him, dwarven milk is hardly a drink fit for most. Now the other bottle that was bought is being waved around as a cursed object, daring the boldest to take a sip
Unfortunately, the expedition leader turned out to not be the best broker. He came down to ask around to see if there was anything people wanted/needed. Nobody really had anything on their minds, so I went up and asked for a few things that we could benefit from "Do they have any animals for sale, preferably non grazers that can offer us eggs or wool?". Since I was the only one who seemed to want anything he came over to me for a one on one instead of continuing the group discussion "They don't have any animals, anything else you think we need? Or that you and your bird want?". Urist was all too eager to reply to that "I want some quinoa grain, as much as they have, and I want a...mmph!". I clamped my hand over his beak before he made too much of a fool of both of us "We aren't blowing all of our money on grain. However, if we were to purchase grain now would be a great time to do so. The mountain home is scheduled for a bumper harvest this year, and the extra rainfall that has been accumulating in the south means that their harvests will be good as well. Not being able to sell it to the humans down there, the mountain home will likely be trying to pawn it off on us for a premium because we can't grow it ourselves. But... knowing that they've got no one else to sell it to, they'll be just as eager to dump it on us and be done with it. They'd much sooner just give it to us than have it rot to miasma in some deep storeroom. Oh sorry, I was thinking out loud. I think we could do with buying some cheap armor for our troops. The last thing we want is one of them killed by a lucky headshot, so I recommend helmets first.". He blinked a few times, reeling from the economic trade I had accidentally unleashed upon him "uhhh... sounds good? But if we are going to get armor the mountain home won't have it sized for animal men, so we can just get the metal instead and have it forged here. You seem like you know you're stuff. Here, you're broker from now on. Go get us those bars.". With that he placed a long purple feather in the front of my hat and walked away, mumbling about getting himself voted mayor.
Uhhhh...I guess I could handle bartering? I didn't have nearly as many aces up my sleeve for the market values of the various types of metals and alloys, but more so than most people probably had. I hadn't bothered to check the mountain home's mines like I checked their farms, but it my previous experience with dwarves tell me that they're probably hoarding all of it. I happened to really like the feather, it made a nice addition to my hat. I decided to keep it there even when not bartering, I just hope that someone doesn't try to swat it or something, I have no idea where this one came from. I made my way to the depot to find the female who has been troubling the expedition leader manning it. I also found our goods here, a small pile of Urist's bone trinkets and a barrel of the mussels we had recently started pulling out of the sea. They've been undisturbed for generations it seemed, and had grown big and flavorful. "Are you the new broker? Come on, I'm freezing over here. The sooner we get this done the sooner I can leave this wasteland." she yelled. Rude, this wasteland happens to be a pretty cozy home, but oh well. I took stock of our goods, meager, but good for the first year "Nice to meet you too. Do you have any quinoa grain and metal bars for armor.". "The first isn't exactly a thing we have a lot of, so it's going to cost 100 Urists per pound. And for the other... We got bronze. Will that do?". Bronze sounded like a good enough metal for starting armor, but 100 Urists per pound was ludicrous "Now wait a minute, there is no way that you're going to sit there and tell me that this sack that should be worth 20 is now worth 100. And here's why" It was much the same as the first dissection of grain economics that I had, so I'm not going to repeat it "...so in reality, you might as well be paying ME to take this grain so YOU aren't the one dying in the miasma cloud it's gonna make when YOU bring it back to your overflowing grain closet when I walk away from here without it.". Just like the first one, she stood there blinking for a little bit, then she slowly turned and walked towards her boss. She wasn't very good at whispering, so I caught most of it "...This guy knows his stuff...We aren't going to be able to sell this grain for much...knows we have a surplus...really? Just let him have it?...hasn't said anything about the other stuff yet... okay, I'll see. She walked back over, a little exasperated "Okay, the quinoa grain is now 10 per pound. how much you want?". "just enough to get us to the next caravan, most of our wealth is going into the bronze. Umm... how much will the rest of this get us."."Umm...about seven bars". Good enough, I took it and made my way back into the fort.
On entrance, I hear from the depths that gold has been struck. I guess we're going to have more to trade with next year, unless it gets wasted on something. But I didn't have time to think about it's potential uses, a yell came from the dining hall that the results of the election were being announced. I took a seat and waited to hear the results. I can't remember what the actual results were, but everyone except me and a few others got at least one vote, with Gluk winning with four votes. One of the disgruntled candidates next to me grumbled "he only won because he was able to drink that dwarven milk". Actually that makes sense, I only voted for who I did because they said there was going to be memes. A new form of humor all the hip young folks of the mountain homes are doing. Anyways, Gluk says his first mandate is to create a grand door out of the most precious metals we had. I guess that gold and zircon we had is going to come in handy, and not a complete waste of wealth. I'm just worried someone might try to jack our door off of it's hinges in the middle of the night. After that a small line formed with requests of the new mayor. The only notable one was Ineth asking if he could be sheriff. I didn't bother to wait and see, Urist was pecking at me asking for some of the quinoa grain. I'll see what becomes of this later, I got a bird to settle down for now.
Akituh, Snapping Turtle Man
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