Jaina and Illucia sailed south from Menethil Harbor into the waters of the Kingdom of Stormwind.
Under the resolution passed at the previous Alliance High-Level Conference, every Alliance kingdom was to sell forty percent of its marketable grain to the Norwington Family at fair prices.
The policy proved difficult to implement. The major merchants' guilds in each country refused to accept their royal courts' decisions and raised their asking prices to squeeze out greater profits.
Still, Jaina and Illucia swallowed the cost of several massive orders, securing enough grain to feed the people of the Kingdom of Lordaeron for more than six months.
"I just don't understand. How can those profiteers in Stormwind City stomach making money off people dying of the plague?" Jaina had been furious during the negotiations. She had nearly held an Ice Lance to the guild leaders' throats to force them to make the deal.
Fortunately, Illucia had kept a cooler head and offered concessions, securing their current trade orders.
Stormwind City was not Boralus. The nobles answered to the Wrynn Royal Family, not the Family Council, and certainly not the Proudmoores or the Norwington Family.
Force could solve the immediate problem, but supplying grain was an enormous undertaking. The six warships moored in the harbor could not empty the warehouses overnight. If relations soured too badly, it could easily turn into an international dispute.
"Unless there's a knife at their throats, who cares whether anyone else lives or dies? And who ever thinks they have too much money? You'll get used to it," Illucia advised Jaina like an older sister.
The world had always been this cruel. There were hardly saints everywhere. Everyone looked out for themselves, all the more so when they were merchants controlling vast amounts of capital.
"They raised their prices by