Previous -- NextLet's see . . . I believe I've incorporated everything you folks told me. I'm running with
Tohil (randomgenericusername)'s suggestion to sell the hide off of the
rock hydra before it can rot, because 1) that's a good idea, 2) it lets me distribute a little wealth to handle
Dwain (Starver)'s slight deficit
and round up a bunch of those stupid 0.5 opal weights you people will get left over (argh, uneven totals!), and 3) it gives me an in-world excuse to lighten the money load problem. I'd been thinking about this solution since I invented the society down here; looks like it's needed.
(Tell me if I got anyone's purchases wrong. I haven't actually copied anything into your character sheets online yet.)
It's a hearty afternoon of discussion and money. Dustan, Alyssa, John, and Bob make straightforward exchanges.
Louis makes a trade for that damaged backpack and moves the contents therein to the less-damaged one. While doing so, you get out your rock hydra tooth and think about ways to thread it into a necklace. The trader offers that if you'll forget about the change, he'll gladly string it up on a little bit of surface thread. "Better than carrying around little opal chips to cut ya."
Well, with that settled, you leave him to drill a tiny hole and promptly get distracted. Ooh, nice pool of water. Time for a swim.
Dwain gets most of the way through a purchase and comes up a little short. However, Tohil, who's in the middle of a different exchange, has an idea: the rock hydra is already most of the way in pieces, so why not sell off the skin for tanning and just cart away a wheelbarrow of bones to bring to town? By Dwain's calculation, a little of that would be his fair share, and that resolves the problem.
Though it does raise the question of whether it's more efficient to carry around heavy chunks of opal--apparently the only form of money down here--or the looted and hunted goodies themselves. At this, Etrigan nods and brings you together at a table with another gentleman. "We're from the Cornu family," he explains, "the same ones who run the whole stupid bank in Rock Bottom. I try to stay away, but they're useful at times."
The gentleman gets out parchment--irreplaceable parchment from the surface. Etrigan continues. "Since it's us, we can write you a letter of credit for sums you trade in here. Seal up the letter right and proper, and the bank back in Rock Bottom will give you what the Halfway House owes you. The only limit is they prefer to issue credit in multiples of 10 opal, because that makes it easier to reuse the letters in their accounting without running out of parchment."
The gentleman works a piece of graphite in his hand. "You know the family credit's good," he says. "We run the whole stupid bank, after all."There. Why not recapitulate the history of paper money? (I established a banking system months ago, and struggled for ages over just how much "credit" I wanted to be involved. Plans evolve.)
Here are your current lists of goodies, post-purchases:
Dustan (Dustan Hache)
--Waterskin (standing jellyfish leather): 1 opal
--Glowstone: 1x 4 kg rough stone, 16 opal
. . . You now have:
--Food, three days
--Opal: 1 kg loose currency (it should be only 0.5, but I'm giving extra from the sale of rock hydra hide because I hate those little fractions)
John (ziizo)
--Pick (iron): 12.5 opal
--Sickle (iron): 35 opal
. . . You now have:
--Food, three days
--(And as much water as you can carry)
--Opal: 1 kg loose currency (same rounding deal as above)
Alyssa Alpine (Rautherdir)
(It's iffy. Do you want a sword? You can get one. But by your instruction, these first two entries should be transformed into 13.5 opal.)
--Damaged tunic (wall tiger leather): 10 opal
--Cultist hood (wall tiger leather): 3.5 opal
--Glowstone: 4x 4 kg rough stone, 16 opal each
--Workstone: 6 kg metal bars, 15 opal
Dwain (Starver)
--Waterskin (standing jellyfish leather): 1 opal
--Cultist hood (wall tiger leather): 3.5 opal
--Etherstone: 1 kg metal bars, 5 opal
. . . You now have:
--Fine tunic (wall tiger leather)
--(And water)
--(And no debt, because I'm going with transferring value from that rock hydra hide sale.)
Gary (Coolrune206)
--Mining helmet (iron): 3.5 opal
Bob (magmaholic)
. . . You now have:
--Waterskins: 3x (with one new one taken from the wheelbarrow)
--Ether cola (etherstone): 2x
--(And water in the remaining waterskin, the one you entered the underground carrying)
--Splitter wand (sparkstone, scaled turkey bone): 2x
--Opal: 5 kg loose currency (same rounding deal as above)
Louis (dustywayfarer)
--Iron: 3x 10 kg metal bars, 10 opal each
. . . You now have:
--(Changed your backpack)
--Sling (scaled turkey leather)
--Necklace (thread, rock hydra tooth)
Tohil (randomgenericusername)
--(I didn't sell the tunic (surface fabric); instead I tossed it into the wheelbarrow and sold a damaged leather tunic from it instead so you can retain fabric for bandages)
--Bindstone: 5x 5 kg rough stone, 10 opal each
. . . You now have:
--(A swapped-out waterskin arrangement)
--Sling (scaled turkey leather)
--Fire skull (glowstone, bug bat bird skull): 6x
--Opal: 6 kg loose currency (same rounding deal as above)
The second group's wheelbarrow
--Damaged tunic (wall tiger leather): 2x 10 opal each
--Waterskin (standing jellyfish leather): 4x 1 opal each
--Backpack (surface leather or scaled turkey leather): 2x 2.5 opal each
--Cultist hood (wall tiger leather): 3x 3.5 opal each
--Dagger (iron): 3x 6 opal each
--Iron: 1x 10 kg metal bars, 10 opal
--Coal: 1x 3 kg rough stone, 1 opal
--Opal: 2x 5 kg rough stone, 5 opal each
--Bindstone: 2x 5 kg rough stone, 10 opal each
--Scaled turkey: some bones and a piece of tanned hide, 4 opal in total
--Wall tiger leather: 5 opal
--Rock hydra leather: 3x 10 opal each
The third group's wheelbarrow
--Rock hydra: 90 kg pile of messy bones, 150 opal
And also
--Opal: 16 kg loose currency (after the sale of raw hide and some transfer of value)
And also
--Standing jellyfish: 40 kg carcass, 50 opal
Here's your current buying power:
Dustan (Dustan Hache): 18 opal
John (ziizo): 38.5 opal
Alyssa Alpine (Rautherdir): 92.5 opal (you wanted to make 13.5 in change, but the question of buying something is still in the air)
Dwain (Starver): 9.5 opal
Gary (Coolrune206): 3.5 opal (I know, I know: one day your shield will come)
Bob (magmaholic): 5 opal
Louis (dustywayfarer): 30 opal
Tohil (randomgenericusername): 50 opal
The second group's wheelbarrow: 137.5 opal
The third group's wheelbarrow: 150 opal (that's the
rock hydra's bones)
Plus, there's 16 in leftover opal from selling raw hide
Plus, there's that
standing jellyfish carcass: 50 opal
Cash in anything you want (probably all that junk from the hoarding wastrels), and I'll give you letters of credit at multiples of 10 opal. We'll just totally let it blur when you're spending it in Rock Bottom. This way the only otherwise-dead-weight in your inventory or the wheelbarrows will be less than 10 kg. Does that sound like an okay solution?