Everything was expensive in this world. Gold and silver barely had any value here, there was so much of it. Back home even silver coins were a rarity, here you couldn't buy a good meal without spending a handful of them.

Even though I had more than seven hundred gold coins after our recent adventures, and twice as many silvers, I felt that my fortune was melting away like snow.

I had to pay five silvers a day for food and fuel to the caravan, in addition to three coppers a mile. Then came the costs of Rhodarr travelling with us, and his salary. This we halved with Beldrak, but the cost still amounted to eleven-twelve silvers a day on my side. And if we spent the night in an inn, my daily spending could exceed three gold pieces!

To practice the writing of Draconic, I have sketched up a reckoning of my expenditures for the journey between Trapper's Port and Sky Hall, and the results were nothing short of horrifying. Let it stand here for the sake of posterity: between the 9th of Sextilis and the 2nd of September, I have spent no less money than sixty-three coins of gold, eight silvers and one copper! Which means that my average spending was over twenty-six silvers a day!

A great many unforeseen costs had arisen, it is true. There was a severe accident when, on the 18th of Sextilis, near a town called Tsepjú-Upaksoráv, a pack of giant rats attacked the caravan. The beasts were awfully smart for a bunch of simple animals. They split their pack into two groups and one of these stalked the head of our column, showing themselves in the open. After all our scouts and most of the armed travellers were massed against this threat, the other group struck.

There were about twenty or so beasts that sneaked up on the tail of our caravan. They used the bush near the road as cover, and the drivers and horses didn’t know they were in trouble till the very last minute. Three horses were killed and one driver wounded before we chased away the monsters.

What’s more, the horses that heard the noises of the slaughter, bolted in terror. Several wagons were turned over, and five animals have broken their legs. That was especially unfortunate, because according to our contract with the caravan we had to shoulder the costs of procuring replacement horses. This little episode in itself ended up costing me ten gold coins.

Just two days later, in the city of Tsepjú-Tnopzök, some street urchins thought it would be great fun to loosen the screws (a great invention by the way), which held our wheels in place. Mordred was still groggy from the wild night before when we started our journey in the morrow, so he didn't realise there was a problem until one of the wheels simply flew off. Jim and I tracked down the urchins after that and gave the little bastards a good thrashing, but as they had no money at all, we still had to pay for repairs.

The third, and perhaps most infuriating incident was Beldrak's fault, surprisingly. He was extremely anxious about his new books and checked on them at least twice a day. On the eve of the 1st of September, he realised with great dismay that one of the chests holding his precious loot was not waterproof enough. Its oilcloth wrapping was torn.

The weather was rainy, so he searched for one of the small storage tents that were built every night for the more delicate wares. As the tent was chock full, the damned fool yanked out a sack, left it at the entrance of the canvas, put in his chest, then, satisfied, went to sleep. The books survived the night just fine, the sack of delicate spices Trueanvil left lying on the ground, less so. The whole bag was worth around a hundred and fifty pieces of gold...

Thankfully, a driver whom Jim used to play cards with, went by the storage tent before daybreak, and saw the soaking sack lying on the ground. When he looked into the tent, he discovered our chest, immediately realised who the culprit was, and with quick thinking removed the damning proof.

Thirty gold coins (I contributed five) were enough to shut him up about this little mishap, but it was still a somewhat harrowing experience. The wronged merchant was screaming bloody murder for the whole morning and threatened to take “all you thieving bastards to the magistrate,” or “whip the truth out of you”. The former threat being addressed to his fellow travellers, the latter to his employees. After he regained his composure, he started to walk around the camp with his goons, fully intending to interrogate the whole damned caravan over the matter before we broke camp.

We bore the delay with resignation, until the worthy vendor approached us, and started to pose some very uncomfortable questions. Videlicet, what we knew about the incident, whether we have seen anyone around the storage tent the night before, and why was the dwarf twitching every time he heard the word “spices”. With each question Beldrak grew visibly more agitated.

As I am a man of peaceful conviction, and a firm believer in the diplomatic approach, I first asked the fellow to kindly cease his interrogation and mind his own damned business. That provoked him to make some very unwise remarks about the nature of my parents' relationship and the profession of my mother. Only then did I break his nose. In response, his goons piled on me, whereupon Trueanvil put everyone to sleep.

The mystery of the ruined spice was unexpectedly solved by a perceptive driver, who happened to be a cardplaying partner of Jim, and had just obtained a small bag of gold coins. Which had no relation whatsoever to his desire to see us acquitted. As they say, the world is full of coincidences.

Anyway, the man pointed out that there were small footprints around the tent. He then reminded us that some children followed us from the village we travelled through last day. Finally, the man emphasised to us the wretchedness of children; their fascination with distasteful jokes and wanton property damage. Mordred (bless his heart) chose this moment to chime in and remind everyone how the street urchins played a trick on us just a few days before, and concluded that the culprits must have been some of the children who followed us.

The wronged merchant was not the least satisfied with this story, but at this point, everyone else wanted to continue the journey, so he had to swallow the metaphorical frog and leave us alone.