Considering himself to be a man of culture, between arriving in Fiore donning fine silk himself and refusing to let go of it even for a moment -- and coming from the boisterously luxurious guild Blue Pegasus, Jan Ren was certain this request would be nothing short of a piece of cake. After all, he had a fine eye fit to discern the finer products. Nothing could go wrong here!

After receiving the list from the charming manager, the Sinese was off on his way to retrieve the different materials required. Understanding that the local merchants might try to play him for a fool, he steeled his mind as he headed to the first stop on his list; oddly not dealing with silk or thread, but on decorations. Apparently these were used in the theater's uniforms too, understandably so. While he held absolute confidence in his eye for high-quality clothes, decorum may have been a bit of a stretch. As such, Jan Ren had to make further mental preparations as he stepped into the small store, checking out several of the ornaments offered -- making sure to match with his list's content. Soon coming to realize the store-owners in Hosenka were surprisingly greedy.

After a long while of negotiating, the young man barely managed to lower the offered price for the requested items. However, now that the tough part was over it would be a smooth road downhill. Right? --Right it was. For once, he dabbed a hand in a task he was actually good at. The following store offered numerous kinds of cloth, as the ones requested were accordingly picked. Jan Ren was aware that he might be scammed, and made sure to double-check every time the store owner went into the back room to cut off his threads pieces to hand over; proving to be quite the sly fox, what with attempting to fool the Sinese not once or twice; but three times before realizing that ultimately, he had no chance.

A problem the young man hadn't initially accounted for soon surfaced; as he realized, with the many items gathered he might have a hard time carrying everything by himself. Especially when presented with nothing to aid him. This meant several trips back and forth to the theater, or... Trying to convince one of the nearby merchants to lend a hand in some way.

Feeling awfully adventurous today -- possibly due to constant negotiations actually winding in his favor -- the Sinese tried his luck with one such business owner. A humble cart carrier, apparently eyeing the young man before even answering to his pleas. To his surprise, this 'driver' was Sinese(!!) and such helped a lot in convincing. Barely half the time he assumed would be spent on negotiating was done as soon, he managed to hire the guy out for a laughably large discount; towed all the way back to the theater after several stops, receiving the requested threads and making a successful sum of Jewels -- eventually coming to receive all that he's saved, as his paycheck.

How convenient!

WC: 509