it’s naive to pray for world peace if we’re not going to change the form in which we live

[serjeant]

Who: Master Stoneshell and YOU?
What: Blacksmiths do good business in a nervous town.
Where: Seoraj's Forge.
When: Whenever.
Notes: If you'd like me to set up a thread in the comments to run into him somewhere else, drop me a line.
Warnings: Stay tuned.

Chaos is profitable, when your business is weaponry.

It isn't that he doesn't get by otherwise - the farmers keep him busy, and he does casual business with his swords and his knives, and beyond that he's not exactly strapped for cash in the first place - but demand spikes when citizens start eyeing their neighbours the way he's seen lately, and there's money to be made in that. People wanting silver crosses attached to steel stakes and swords they can have blessed by a local priest and one fellow, memorably, gives him a small vial of something to mix into the molten metal before he makes the knife. For the price he gets to name on that one, he doesn't ask what it is.

(He holds onto the vial, though, with the traces left of it; he makes sure he has receipts and records for every purchase and who made it. It seems like the sort of thing it might be useful to have, later, and it isn't as though keeping records isn't standard practise.)

Politics aren't his strong suit and neither are supernatural creatures, but he knows money and he knows trouble - he's been seeing a bit more of both, lately, and if you asked him, then he'd probably say the further he goes, the more familiar everything seems to be.

Comments

[serjeant]

He sucks the back of his teeth for a moment as he considers it for a moment (he'll have to look up what a tampon and a vibrator actually are, enjoy that), but he settles on, "You're looking at around seventeen marks." As far as custom designed knives (especially with the concealment) goes, the equivalent of around two hundred dollars isn't a bad price. He's reputed to be more than worth what he charges - especially given his willingness to take payment in trade or knock down a price now and then, when he thinks it's warranted.

He considers her for a moment, then, clearly not unaware of her manner, he says, "Your business is your own, that's as may be; I'm as discreet as doesn't make me dishonest."

It sounds like a fairly standard disclaimer rather than an accusation or expectation, which is more or less what it is - he doesn't ask questions of people who give him money and dubious legality isn't a problem for him, but he likes it to be clear that that only goes as far as 'dubious legality' doesn't cross into 'flat out morally and ethically wrong'. He's said the same thing more than a few times this week past, and he suspects there are more than a few who just weren't listening.

(But that's why he keeps records.)

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"I'm asking you to make it, not use it," Cindy replies with just a tiny bit of grumbling underneath her breath. She never took people telling her that they were discreet at face value. People can say anything; it's up to her to be the judge of things and wade through all the bullshit.

Seventeen marks isn't that high of a number, though Cindy didn't expect a custom job to be cheap. She can afford up to twenty-five, but that doesn't mean she'll take the first number she's given. "Thirteen."

[serjeant]

Her answer to his cautioning makes him grin, once, fleeting - much less mild than the professional blandness that he tends to present as master of the forge. His assurances are less about his discretion (which becomes self-evident and he lets it be) than they are about the fact it's not something bought and paid for. Just don't prove to him he should be giving your name to somebody and he won't do it.

"Take a look at my work before you undervalue it," he says, mildly, because instead of secrets he keeps his sense of humour in all that hair, presumably. "Sixteen, and you'll need a really good excuse to go any lower."

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

Cindy makes her life on not proving that to people. This guy has no worries on that much at the very least. Still, his price isn't quite to her liking. If he's at stubborn as she is, they'll be bargaining all day long.

For the first time today, Cindy pushes her sunglasses off her face and into her hair, blue eyes flashing with a hint of some odd interest. "Fourteen and I call bullshit because I work retail and I know upsells when I see them. You'll always see your work as worth more than the customer is willing to pay."

[serjeant]

"Fifteen and a half because I do use 'em and I can give you a better weapon than someone who doesn't know how it's meant to feel in your hand when you're using it and not polishing your knob." He concedes, a moment later, "As it were. Ma'am."

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"Fourteen and a half and I'll polish your knob."

Cindy... what are you even sometimes. Except for the woman who doesn't mind saying things like that, of course.

[serjeant]

Seoraj barks a short, sharp laugh - he didn't see that coming, but he figures he probably should've. "Fifteen flat. It's worth seventeen." Does he mean the knife or his- he probably means the knife.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"Fourteen and three quarters and I'll be the judge of whether anything of yours..." Indeed she is waving her hand from his head to his feet. "...Is worth the price you quote."

Now there's probably no way to break a mark into three-fourths, so right now, this is Cindy just being a trolling troll of the trollish sort. The guy's interesting. What can she say?

[serjeant]

Although three-fourths of a mark would be nine shekels, Seoraj repeats, "Fifteen," in a mild tone, "and if you really want to be the judge of any of my work, you can choose your weapon and test it to first blood." On him, he means. Ballsy bastard.

"Still won't knock the price down past that, though," he adds, thoughtfully.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

Cindy pulls her lower lip into her mouth as she untucks her shades from her hair, folding them up into a neat little compact thing. She looks, for the moment, like a woman who is considering his offer thoroughly and carefully. He's about to be disappointed though.

"I can draw blood using a plastic knife." The sunglasses in her hand are slipped into her purse and traded for a pack of cigarettes wrapped in shiny gold foil and an equally as shiny lighter. "Still doesn't make it worth the full seventeen or the fifteen, period."

[serjeant]

Seoraj shrugs, with the easy confidence of someone who knows how good his weapons are and is in a position where he can afford to dictate to his customers, to a point. "Well, if you want a plastic knife, I'm sure you know where to get one."

Final offer, sounds like.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"I'm still on fourteen and three quarters, a knob polishing, and a smooth ride no horse in this place can offer if you do a good job," Cindy offers through the ceremonial lighting of a cigarette. Now she's just completely and utterly fucking with him. She'll pay the fifteen, but Cindy just wants to see how far she can push him before he pushes back a final time.

What a dick.

[serjeant]

"Ma'am, you need to get acquainted with men as know what a horse is and is not for," he says, with an expression of such earnestness that he cannot possibly be doing anything other than playing with her in turn. "It's still fifteen."

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"Make it my offer and I'll throw in a positive testimonial that you are hung just as much, if not more, than a horse."

This guy. She really does like him.

[serjeant]

"You're a damned persistent woman, anyone ever tell you?" Probably, he suspects. "Fifteen, ma'am, no less. I'll let my merchandise speak for itself."

As it were.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

"All the fucking time." What a deadly grin she gives him. All teeth, some humor, and not a bit of actual danger. "Fine. Fifteen. But don't bitch and moan when I tell the female population that they'll need a magnifying glass to hear your merchandise."

Or the male population, if his preferences swing that way. Cindy pulls deeply on her smoke before eying the shop and the owner once again. "How long will it take?"

[serjeant]

"I'm going to stop taking orders a while, soon," he admits - even with an apprentice working, the bulk of the work coming out of here is all him and he's been busier lately than usual. "I'll put this forward, give me a few days to sort you a design, and it shouldn't be long after that."

He'd rather work on something for Cindy than another cross-designed stake, if he's frank.

[fuckyouboots.livejournal.com]

As long as her order isn't the one that's rejected, Cindy doesn't give a good goddamn what his schedule's like. It's not an immediate rush or anything. Cindy still has her other dagger, which by the way, is slipped into the space between the small of her back and her skirt's waistband, plus a gun. Those two are enough to hold her safety for a while. This purchase is more of a want than an actual need.

"I like red." Be creative with that, Seoraj.