[ WP ] You run an RPG pawn shop . You haggle with adventurers who try to sell loot they 've acquired .

`` Yes Gwinthall, I understand I am contractually obligated by my lord and the realm to buy your stacks of badger scalps. However, I am neither obligated, nor charitable enough to actually enjoy doing it. Furthermore, I am allowed to express the opinion that you should n't dump a bunch of oozing untanned carcass skins, some of which still have meat attached, onto my counter and then act like you're doing me a favor. You're not''. 
 Midgelthop Gorlwind said, leaning aside to wretch slightly at the smell of the three day old badger viscera. 
 He'd set up this shop because of it's proximity to the Temple of Skeletons. People called him a war profiteer, but it was really just sound business. Adventurers of all stripes looted the temple and brought back dozens of short swords, flails, and crossbows. Midgelthop bought them and then sold them back to the dark priests that ran the temple at a slight mark up. Basically he filled a very niche market, convenience. He had n't seen Gwinthell in several years, but suddenly the dwarf was back and was bringing him all kinds of weird trophies from animals that were n't even native to the area. 
 
 `` Oh, aye good shopkeep no reason ta get upset, no reason at all. I just want the king's bounty for badgers and I'll be on my way''. Gwinthall was a powerfully built dwarf from the one of the fishing villages in the Cape of Arthel. Midgelthop knew vaguely that the warrior had some convoluted and tragic history and that because of it, most of the other local merchants and adventurers cut him a lot of slack. 
 
 The shopkeeper did n't buy it for a second, unlike the badger scalps which he parted with seven silver pieces for. Midgelthorp was fairly certain that Gwinthall was a con artist. He was n't sure what the con was, but the persona of the warrior was just too far fetched. How could a man be so immensely strong, nimble and sturdy, but so stupid, foolhardy and uncouth. It was as if the gods had designed the body and just dumped whatever left overs were lying around into it's head. The there was also the ridiculous backstory the dwarf had proclaimed while drinking in the tavern on his arrival all those years ago. Midgelthorp did n't know how the the orcs of the cape were, but the idea that they would descend en-masse into a village to pillage and burn was ludicrous. Orcs and the other sentient species had been living in close proximity for thousands of years now. If a place was situated near savage orc bands it was fortified and guarded. The same was true of orc settlements. Sure, sometimes skirmishes would be fought over the occupation of religious sites or the human and orc lords would fight proxy battles between the Elves and the Lords of the Dark, but a nation of green skinned savages descending upon a poor fishing village sounded, not only far fetched but, casually racist. 
 Oh, Midgelthop had given Gwinthell the benefit of doubt at first, the dwarf had supposedly been only a child during the attack. Maybe a child could have mistaken a few rowdy drunken orc teenagers as an invading horde, but then had come the most ridiculous part of the whole hyperbole. According to Gwinthell the orcs had slain his family in front of his eyes and then set fire to his house while the child cowered under the bed. 
 `` Yes, it was absolutely tragic,'' Midgelthop had thought. `` If it were true''. 
 
 Instead it sounded like a half cooked load of barmy. If an entire village had been burned the dwarvern dignitaries at the embassy would have immediately began an extradition order. This was n't the Age of Merdinidian for Harbinger's sake, it was the Za'batist Revival period. 
 
 Midglethop's fingers clenched around the final silver owed as his rant wound down in his head. 
 
 
 `` Are you going to be buying anything today Gwinthall? Maybe a weapon?''. 
 
 `` Ach now, you know,'' started Gwinthall in that weird accent very few dwarves have, as if he was interchanging two or three similar, but wholly different, human accents without meaning to. `` I ca n't be purchasing a weapon here, I am a master of only one weapon. I do n't know how to wield anything else''. 
 
 `` Yes,'' Midgelthop said slyly suspiciously. `` What weapon was that again?'' 
 
 `` The belaying pin''. 
 
 `` The belaying pin?'' 
 
 `` Right, the belaying pin''. 
 
 `` You, the dwarf Gwinthell, have studied the arts of war with a belaying pin to such an extent that you are a recognized master of it?'' 
 
 `` Ach, Aye'' The dwarf said. 
 
 `` The belaying pin, the dowel rod used on ships to secure rigging''. 
 
 `` Also sometimes used by theater troupes, yes''. 
 
 `` Well, perhaps you'd like to purchase a belaying pin''. 
 
 `` You carry belaying pins? I thought this was an armory''. 
 
 `` It is, but I purchased a belaying pin earlier this week, just in case I had a certain repeat customer who would come in needing one''. 
 
 Gwinthell looked a little shocked, but then his face saddened as if he were about to report that Midgelthop's favorite hunting hound had been run down by a carriage. `` Well Midge, that's especially nice of you, but I'll not purchase and carry around a belaying pin on land''. 
 
 Midgelthop's face darkened to an ugly shade of rage purple. 
 
 `` I mean honestly Midge,'' the dwarf continued, `` It's an improvised weapon. It'd be pretty ridiculous to wander around with a piece of a ship hanging from my belt.'' 
 
 `` Would it be more-,'' Midgelthop stopped to try to control the seething that had entered his voice. He started over in an only slightly more reasonable tone. `` Would walking around with a belaying pin as a weapon be more ridiculous than being a master arms-man of said pin?'' Despite his best effort he was grinding his teeth as he uttered the last word. 
 
 `` Aye, that's true it is an odd thing, but it twas an odd set of circumstances that caused it''. 
 
 Midgelthop had finally given the dwarf the last silver piece owed and was trying to nudge the badger trash into a wooden crate. The shop keep really did n't want to touch the stuff with his hands. Gwinthell was not a skilled outdoors-man. His idea of skinning something was nearly criminally negligent. 
 
 Midgelthop was using the toe of his boot to lift the fur from the floor and then kicking it into the box. The second load had just finished sliding wetly from his boot when he noticed that part of the skull, brain, and eyeball of a badger had not been properly removed from the scalp. It qould be accurate to say that it had not been removed at all. The shopkeeper lurched aside to avoid putting his weight down on it, knowing it would be slippery. Falling into a pile of putrifying badger brains was far, far below the shopkeeper's dignity. 
 
 `` You see,'' continued Gwithell, not noticing Midgelthop's distress. `` After my harrowing escape from my burning village I signed aboard a merchant shop as cabin boy. The lads were not kind to me, an orphan dwarf as I was, and human sailors, as they were. They taught me a lot about drinking and gambling and...'' at this the Dwarf go misty eyed for a moment, as if remembering a painful long ago memory. `` fighting. They used to beat the hell out of me. Having no other prospects for gainful employment I set about to learn to defend myself''. 
 
 What followed was a long drawn out story that involved great warriors hiding out as ships captains that take pity on hopeless orphans, about shipwrecks and having nothing to defend oneself from the deadly beasts of deserted islands but a humble belaying pin. Midgelthop was only partially listening. For one thing, he had become involved in the intricate task of sealing the disgusting crate without adding to its vileness by vomiting into it. For another, most of the adventuring `` heroes'' he met in this line of work tend to overshare their personal histories ad nauseam. `` Well, not that this has n't been interesting, but our transaction is finished now. I'm afraid I have a lot of cleaning to do, so if you're not going to help me out...'' 
 
 The shopkeep looked at the warrior for a moment, but was destined to be disappointed. 
 
 `` Aye Midge, I'll let you get back to it.'' 
 
 Midgelthop watched the huge, powerful, stupid warrior walk out the door. 
 
 `` So, did he purchase them?'' Asked Vyundthrap the Unseen Hand, Watcher of the Gates of Winterbloom and Lord of the Three Mystic Towers. 
 
 `` Oh yeah, totally''. Replied Gwinthell of the House of Doom, Commodore of the Ever Victorious Fleet. He hefted his solid platinum belaying pin, Belthesar the Ash Shifter, and winked at the mage. `` I think next week we should bring in Javelina hooves. We can get four for each one we kill. Imagine dropping a sack of a hundred onto the ground''. 
 
 `` Uhg, the quantity of blood alone would be disgusting. But next week is no good for me, I have to do battle with the Black Dragon Ayezoth on Menstag and then travel to the frozen wastes of Carthinin to seal an abyssal portal by Donnentag''. 
 
 `` Well, I'll be raiding The Caverns of the Black Horde most of next week and I'd like to do a little privateering along the Coast of Blood at some point. Maybe two weeks then?'' 
 
 `` Sure, and just some food for thought, the king has also put a bounty on giant lizards. You'll never guess what the token is''. 
 
 `` I'll bite, hearts?'' 
 
 `` Not hardly. Intestines. twenty-two foot intestines.'' 
 
 `` Oh Harbinger, that is disgusting ”. 
 
 `` Well, if the guy had n't been such a stingy arse to us when we started out in the adventuring business we would n't be doing this now''. 
 
 `` True, he at least owes us for Belthasias's death. Two hundred pieces of gold for a heal potion indeed''. 
 
 `` Not to mention complaining, to our faces, about the mess old Bel left when he bled out on the merchant's stoop''. 
 
 Both of the men were silent for a moment. Vyundthrap broke the stillness first. `` Ya know, black dragons are largely inactive this time of year, he could probably keep for a week''. 
 `` Yeah, yeah,'' said Gwinthell slowly. `` There are plenty of adventurers that can ransack the Black Horde, I'm not even doing it for the money, just boredom really''. 
 `` Lizard intestines on Menstag it is then''. Vyundthrap said, smiling evilly.
