Having eaten and drunk his fill, Raymond immediately got up to take his leave and moved into the most luxurious room at the Happy Time Inn.
Of course, "luxurious" deserved to be in quotation marks.
In his view, the room was merely above average at best, though it was much cleaner than the ordinary guest rooms.
Most importantly, unlike the grand mage tower in the Floating City, this room had no automatic temperature control.
On top of that, Calimport was located in the south of Faerûn and had a typical tropical desert climate.
It was currently daytime, and the sunlight outside was scorching. The temperature was probably at least thirty-five or thirty-six degrees Celsius, while the room itself felt like a steamer.
Raymond carried plenty of magical items and scrolls, but nothing that could regulate the surrounding temperature or improve his tolerance for heat.
Moreover, considering that deadly mutated viruses and bacteria might still be lurking inside his body, he absolutely could not suffer heatstroke, much less fall ill.
Otherwise, Calimport—the most prosperous and densely populated city in Faerûn—would become a living hell within a week or two.
"Damn it! This is really troublesome. Looks like I need to visit the local market and buy something to cool down."
Raymond wiped the sweat running down his forehead and neck, not daring to lie down and sleep at all.
When he had eaten outside on the second floor earlier, there had been a sea breeze, as well as an ice bucket of unknown origin nearby to cool the air, so he had not felt particularly hot.
But the moment he entered the room, sweat began pouring off him like rain.
Well, that was another reason not to stay in Calimport.
With no other choice, Raymond went downstairs to ask the innkeeper where the market for magical items was located, then set off with the soldier.
As for the panther, it was left behind to guard Harlett.
Although the leader of the Thieves' Guild had promised that he would never allow the pirate captain to escape,
Raymond did not trust him.
Or rather, after nearly two years of life in the Floating City Tower, Raymond found it difficult to trust anyone easily anymore.
Because trusting a promise made by someone upon their first meeting often meant taking risks beyond imagination.
He was not qualified to take such a costly risk, nor could he afford it.
Thus, filled with curiosity and anticipation toward Faerûn's magical-item market, the two quickly passed through the imposing Grand Arena and the area dedicated to trading slaves before arriving at the entrance of an arched building.
Unlike the crowded bustle and noise elsewhere, this place appeared exceptionally quiet.
Whether they were merchants selling goods from their stalls or customers browsing and purchasing items, everyone spoke to one another in low voices.
Some of those clad in robes and hooded cloaks clearly possessed considerable arcane casting ability. They were basically either wizards or sorcerers.
As for those carrying lutes or small harps, they were likely the legendary bards.
Besides them, a small number of people dressed like adventurers were also browsing through the merchandise.
Raymond did not hurry to choose anything that interested him. Instead, he first took a lap around the market.
By eavesdropping on prices mentioned in conversations between other customers and merchants, he roughly learned which magical items were valuable in Calimport and which were somewhat cheaper.
First, because there were relatively many spellcasters here, magical scrolls below the third circle were often very cheap.
There was also an abundant supply of consumables such as wands of magic missile, sleep, web, and Mage Armor.
Second, compared with scrolls and wands usable only by spellcasters, equipment that anyone could use—such as magical rings, amulets, armor, weapons, cloaks, belts, and boots—was more popular and considerably more expensive.
Finally, there was the most important point.
None of the goods here had clearly marked prices. Buyers had to rely on their own judgment and knowledge of magical items.
If someone was a newcomer who knew nothing, the shopkeeper could easily fleece them mercilessly.
"How much money do we have available right now?" Raymond asked the soldier following beside him in a lowered voice.
The latter, carrying a heavy pack, answered without hesitation, "About seven thousand gold coins.
Half of that is Bicenta issued by Calimshan, while the other half is Dant issued by Amn.
Besides that, we have more than eight thousand silver-gold coins, almost all of them Amnian Centaurs.
As for silver coins, they are rather mixed. There are Amnian Tarans, Calimshan Dikash, Waterdeep Shards, and Sembian Ravens. Altogether, there should be more than thirty-six thousand.
If the goods seized from the pirate ship are really as valuable as Bernard claimed, selling all of them should bring us another fifteen to twenty thousand gold coins.
However, I only brought the gold coins with me this time. The rest has been deposited with Aipuke at the Thieves' Guild.
According to him, as long as we show the receipt he issued when buying things, it can be used directly as money."
Without question, all this money had been taken from Bloodhand Harlett's pirate ship.
As for who its original owners had been, there was no way to know anymore.
The only certainty was that every gold or silver coin among them was surely stained with the blood of merchants and sailors.
No wonder the pirates of the Nelanther Isles were so rampant. No matter how many times they were purged, fresh blood always joined their ranks.
The profits in this line of work were simply too high.
It did not take much!
Just one successful robbery could yield an enormous fortune that ordinary people would not dare dream of in their entire lives.
Of course, the risks were equally astonishing.
Excluding major pirates who had already established themselves, like Harlett, ordinary small pirate bands usually had only ten or twenty people and sailed single-masted boats.
One careless mistake could see them sunk by a storm, or slaughtered after encountering a large merchant vessel with overwhelming numbers.
It was the perfect embodiment of "death follows me like the wind."
Raymond did not care about pirates' lives, nor did he care where this money had been stolen from or how many people had been killed during the robberies...
What truly gave him a headache was how such a vast variety of currencies were supposed to be converted between one another.
From his earlier conversation with the merchant Bernard, Raymond had roughly learned that one gold coin could usually be exchanged for two silver-gold coins, twenty silver coins, or two hundred copper coins.
There was also a higher-value platinum coin, one of which could be exchanged for five gold coins.
However, very few platinum coins were minted. They were usually hoarded by nobles and wealthy merchants, and rarely appeared in ordinary transactions.
But almost every nation, city-state, and even influential organization in Faerûn issued currency within the territories under its control.
Their size, weight, and precious-metal content often varied tremendously.
This meant that the actual value and purchasing power of the same type of currency issued in different regions were not the same once they left their place of origin.
Furthermore, because of the chaos caused by the gods descending to the mortal world during the Time of Troubles (1358 DR), the value of the two precious metals, gold and platinum, had declined to a certain extent, while silver's value was slowly rising.
Even the most shrewd merchants could usually only distinguish the differences in currency values across the regions along the few trade routes they traveled regularly.
At this moment, Raymond missed Earth's bank exchange services and electronic payment systems more than ever.
Just as he lowered his head and silently calculated in his mind, a female shopkeeper wearing a black veil over her face suddenly spoke beside him. "Young man, have the dazzling array of magical items here left you seeing stars? If you do not mind, could you tell me what you want to buy? Perhaps I can recommend something."
In an instant!
Raymond raised his head and saw a pair of breathtaking eyes...
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