Verad

At the rate she kept prodding, he realized, she was going to tear a hole in his shirt. There was nowhere to go, though; despite his best efforts, merging with the alley wall and oozing out the other side, to reclaim his cart at a later date, had yet to occur. It was clear he was going to have to approach the problem head-on, despite whatever crazy ideas she might have about his sanity or business acumen. Rotting fish, honestly. She had no idea how to evaluate a product. He held up his hands in something approximating surrender, head tilted up to what he could see of the sky in order to hide the exasperated look on his face. "Fine, fine. Very well! We shall set aside the, ah, difference of opinion regarding the value of our deal to fix this other, demonstrably less-important one. Never let it be said that I never did anything for you." A silent plea to the Twelve for patience later, and he dropped his eyes to Zhavi-level, folding his arms together and glancing to the side with a knitted brow. "So, to be clear, there is a product, you do not have the product, and as far as anyone knows the product you should have is scattered across the bottom of Limsa's harbor - " He had to check himself before he finished his next thought, and closed his mouth. "Does anyone know what it looks like? Perhaps we could make something. With paint and glue, you know." He waved his hand up in a circle at the wrist. "Construction paper, maybe. I have some lovely scraps. Would that work?"

Verad was very careful with his boots; it took a great deal of time, but he was always able to find the kind of boot that looked close enough to being serviceable and presentable to the public while still being nevertheless a tattered mass of holes and torn leather, ready to collapse at the slightest wrong look. The sudden wad of wed slithering down between his toes told him that his eye had not failed him again. It was small comfort. His brow furrowed, the perfect gesture to stifle a grimace as she made her accusation. "Where was I?" Glancing down and to the side, he cupped his chin between thumb and forefinger. "A good question. Where was I, where was I . . . " It was all sort of a blur once the mob had broken out. He tended to purposely forget such things, and the struggle was evident on his face. "Something to do with a good deal on imitation fool's gold, if I recall correctly." He looked a bit hesitant, but then nodded. "Yes, that was it. You seemed more than capable of taking care of yourself, didn't you? I thought the fish was excellent camouflage, if, perhaps, a bit hastily applied. Anyway, you said you needed a distraction, did you not? I should think they were properly distracted."

"Rott-ing, yes." Despite the smell, the slime, the sick, and semi-serious threat of maiming alike, he continued to speak as if he were giving an address at a high and noble court, his hand held out hand, thumb and forefinger together, bobbing along with his words to emphasize the stress. "Rott-ing. Not rott-ed. And that was precisely the problem, you see?" Digits still poised as such, he gingerly picked a bit of the once-fish from her body - somewhere decent, certainly, most likely her hair - and held it up between them for inspection. "Now, look, see here, I'm not saying it's not . . . adequate. Good putrefaction. That the barrel was in the sun? Fine business. But it wasn't long enough. I have seen a good many rotten fish-carcass in my day, and I assure you, madam, - " Here it should be noted that the word was spoken without irony. "That this! This!" He waggled the bit of slime with such emphasis that it flew out of his grasp and was flung, accidentally, in the direction of her nose. "This is nearly acceptable." Only with that phrase did a look of disgust cross his face as he recoiled back against the wall, stifling a shudder. "At any rate, you told me it was rotted, and not rotting. Exactly why I went with you, as I recall. 'Mut'al good', wasn't it? I take the fish, and you take the gil?" He folded his arms, looking cross. "Besides, my speech was impeccable. I held up my end."

In spite of the semi-rough and quasi-involuntary manhandling to which he found himself subjected, Verad never lost his smile, even as he felt the unpleasant stain of some previous alley occupant's sick splatting up against the back of his coat. "You know," he said, spreading his hands wide in a placating gesture, "I haven't the slightest what you mean. Of course we have a deal!" His mind raced for an instant, found itself quickly out of breath, and settled in for a steady mental power-walk. Her expression had certainly left her agog, for lack of a better word (or perhaps there was a better word, and agog was simply more fun to think). It was unlikely that, apart from the inevitable negative publicity of cheating one of the city's unfortunates, this would be a serious problem. But where was the pleasure in letting a dubious deal go uncompleted? He settled for placation, and the sigh he offered was a mixed bag, long and full of exasperation, bemusement, and just the slightest touch of existential crisis. Gave it some depth, he felt. He tried to tilt his head as he spoke, kinking it downwards so he could look up at her with a raised eyebrow, half of a wry grin, and keep his other eye on his cart, a rickety thing that appeared to be made out of cast-off scraps of metal and driftwood, filled to the brim with nothing of value whatsoever, and therefore just the way he liked it. This particular position turned out to be impossible given the difference in height and the angle at which the cart was placed in the alley, and so the full effect of it was to make it appear as if his neck had broken and was lolling about aimlessly. "And we will continue to have a deal. The problem is not with a deal and the presence or absence thereof, but with the quality of the deal. Or rather, the quality of the merchandise, if you follow me?"

You know, it's information like that which reminds me just how sparse the lore in my other MMOs can be. Glad to see the devs put some thought into the matter. As far as controlling the issuance of gil, that's also an interesting question. The broad range of motifs present means that it would be relatively easy to pass off counterfeit gil as being a newly-issued motif, or to rely on easier-to-forge motifs; I expect issuing a new fake emblem will result in short-term gains until the fake is identified, but a motif that can "pass" well will last quite a while. On the other hand, the combined mutual interest in protecting the gil as a unit of common currency means the city-states would be more invested in collaborating to eliminate counterfeiters where possible. Apart from that, I wonder how "official" issuance is regulated to minimize inflation, and whether individual city-states might engage in economic warfare by threatening to devalue the currency if certain demands weren't met. I can see Uldah and Limsa in particular engaging in this behavior, Gridania not so much.

Good evening everyone. My apologies for not having been on the streets hawking my wares; I have been out of town, but will correct this absence in the next day or so. In the meantime, I have a question. We all use gil as a unit of common currency. Naturally there's a great deal of abstraction in this, as there is in any MMO. However, unlike other games, which abstract coins down to the name of their precious metal, all we know, as far as I know, is that the gil is the gil, named as such because it is Final Fantasy and therefore certain elements must always be present. When did Eorzea recognize this as a universally accepted standard? Do all of the city-states back it as having the same value, and what is their basis for backing it? How much gil on a per-day basis assures a reasonable standard of living for the average Eorzean? What's it made out of anyways, and who mints it? Does competition over the issuance of the gil between the city-states lead to economic turmoil? I don't know; I'm pretty bad at economics. Maybe you do. Lore, fanon, speculation, and conspiracy theories are all welcome. Please share.

I'm perfectly willing to torture my character and find a reason to place him in places if it will result in RP, at least within the bounds of my schedule. If you'd like to set up a meeting, please let me know.

Good evening. I'm Verad, and I'm new here. I've roleplayed in a bunch of things for longer than I care to admit. If you, for any reason, happen to need a random plot device, my character will be happy to sell it to you from amongst his stock of garb - that is, dubious goods - for a reasonable price. After all, you never know what you might need. His profile is in my signature. I am pretty much incompetent at page design outside of copy/paste, so this is probably as good as it's going to look for a while. Feel free to check it out anyway. Glad to be here!