On the Surbrin River, hundreds of merchant ships were sailing south with the current.
They were the "Hundred Merchants' Joint Debt-Collection Delegation" Aierlinni had spoken of, setting out from Silvermoon City.
As a lowly merchant who owned nothing more than a small grain shop passed down through his family, John naturally could not afford a ship.
He could only rent one.
First, he ruthlessly used his own shop as collateral to take out a high-interest loan, stocking up on specialties from the northern lands around Silvermoon City. Then he rented a cabin from Jimmy Grain Store.
That way, he could sell those goods in Water-Drawing City for a profit, then use the increased capital to wholesale grain from Amn and bring it back to Silvermoon City for sale.
If he happened to pass through Minas Tirith along the way and could reclaim that "home purchase reservation deposit," that would be even better. He could stockpile even more grain then.
This was the usual way most small merchants like him operated.
Affected by Silvermoon City's winter "grain price crash," not only had they failed to make a fortune from this food shortage crisis, but many grain merchants who had kept buying up expensive grain had lost nearly everything, down to their last pair of trousers.
The only good news was that, after Northern Farms had been trampled by Orcs, the Silvermoon Federation as a whole was still short on grain this year.
That meant those trapped by low grain prices could wait for prices to rise again, then slowly cut their losses and recover some blood.
It was not that they did not want to join forces and drive prices up again, but after winter, Supreme Mage Alustriel had suddenly issued a decree directly limiting each of their stockpiles and establishing