Flushed with cash from the proceeds of the hunting trip and reward money, I head to the shopping district of Lago. Due to the amount of hunter activity in the town, there is a disproportionate amount of shops in a town this size. I am looking for anything that can help me get started on potion making. I plan to make ample use of my analyze skill.
I need to see this as an investment. If I can reverse engineer the potion I can make a business out of it. Heading for the counter the girl pulls a vial from behind the counter and puts it in a small brown paper bag. The vial looks identical to the one in the display. I even get a nice paper bag, a sign of an expensive purchase. As I make ready to hand over the money I check the vial with analyze just to be certain. Even through the paper bag I get all the readings I got from the other vial, but they are much lower. The vial I am being handed is low quality knockoff made to look like the real thing.
I stop in my tracks and the girl at the counter looks confused. She is trying to scam me. How should I handle this? I really want to give her a piece of my mind, but then I notice the slave markings under her scarf. She is not to blame, she is just the pawn. "Please bring the shop owner here." The girl looks confused. "Surely you have been given orders by your master to bring him to the shop if need be. I can assure you that this is that time." I put just a bit of my intimidation skill into the tone to send her running into the back of the shop.
"Can you tell me why your slave has been ordered to sell cheap knockoffs as if they are high quality potions?" I am making sure he knows that I will not accept him passing the blame of the scam onto his slave. From what I know of slaves, they can''t go against their master, and they are highly unlikely to do something proactive that could cause trouble for their master if not specifically ordered to do so.
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