Basic Trading in the Mediterranean

The Mediterranean is full of interesting cities, people and produce. As a merchant, keeping tabs on the current prices of goods in cities is a must.

Profitable trading has two advantages. First, it gives you money which you can use to buy more goods, better equipment, a larger ship, etc. Second, it gives you experience in the form of ship experience (Structure Level) and personal experience (Eloquence).

Structure will allow access to new and better merchant ships at Levels 11, 21, 31, ...

Eloquence will allow you to purchase more valuable goods (Purchasing), bribe away pirate attacks for less silver (Negotiation) or vend more goods at your stall (Vendition [sic]).

Doing merchant quests at lower levels will give you much money as well as experience. Many of these involve fetch-me-something-type missions.

For example, the Merchant Guild in Genoa may ask you to fetch 75 glassware. Glassware is produced in Athens so you'll need to sail there to get it. Also, glassware is heavy. Depending on your ship, you will need to shuttle between Athens and Genoa a few times to get to the required number. You can also buy goods in Genoa that you can sell in Athens. That would make the mission more profitable--xp-wise and silver-wise. You can equip your ship with a water-based figurehead in order to increase its cargo capacity.

Don't forget not to get overloaded because it slows you down a lot. This limit is actually 70% of your total cargo capacity.

You can either choose to use a full crew or a minimum crew. Using a full crew will enable you to become more flexible--ride out storms, fend off pirates, do a little exploring on sparkling areas (sailors may get unhealthy or maybe even die when exploring)--without getting the speed penalty for having less than minimum healthy crew members. However, crew cost provisions and provisions cost cargo space. Having a minimum crew will allow you to carry more goods for trading. But make sure you bring a fat purse to bribe attacking pirates.

The Ottoman Empire and Her Humble Servant

Rio was an unknown scholar from the famed Great Library in the desolate port city of Alexandria in the southern reaches of the Ottoman Empire. Alexandria, as famous as it is, is not kind to its penniless citizens such as Rio. Aside from her job at the Library, Rio also works as an entertainer at the local tavern and other odd jobs at the city suburbs.

Juggling so many jobs and still mired in debt, Rio decided to find her fortunes elsewhere. An opportunity presented itself when she overheard some sailors talk about a new ship that docked. The ship was named Glory and Rio heard wild and wonderful tales about its exploits. Scrounging what little monies she had, Rio managed to obtain passage on the ship in the cheapest compartments.

And so it Glory departed from Alexandria, with a hopeful passenger on its decks. Unknown to Rio, hope was not all that the sea presented. The treacherous waters held a lot of dangers: dangerous storms, monstrous creatures, and the most evil of them all--pirates.

Glory had not sailed far from the port before it was besieged by pirates. Rio, who has never witnessed a sea battle before was terrified. She and her fellow passengers have been ordered off the deck by the Mystic Captain of the Glory, and were herded into the passengers' quarters. A few moments later, they heard the ship's cannons conversing with the distant pirates'.

Nearer and nearer those loud shouts came, and the sound of crackling wood and splashing seawater. Soon they could heard pirates shouting while boarding the Glory. There was fighting just above them, and blood started to trickle into their room. Rio's instinct wanted her to scream, but she couldn't find her voice.

After several tense moments, she could no longer stand doing nothing. She and a few fellow passengers who have found the courage to get out of their hiding place, went out. Soon, they found a longboat used by the pirates to board the ship. Rio and her companions went down to the little craft in order to sail away from the ship.

They did not expect another pirate ship to spot them, and so they were soon screaming among themselves. And so, defending themselves, they fired upon the pirate ship with the lone cannon on the longboat. Woefully, none of them knew how to use a cannon properly.

They did managed to fire a lot cannon rounds, and luckily, very luckily managed to disable the pirate ship with a shot. So they went away from the battle, escaping the carnage, and sailed back home to Alexandria.

Or so they thought. Having no skilled navigator, the ship landed in Crete, home of the pirates instead of their home city. Luckily, the pirates were more interested in the profitable trade ships in the Mediterranean than a few castaways.

After spending many nights at sea, Rio and her fellow passengers--now crew--landed in Athens. There was no news regarding the Glory and her Mystic Captain. Things were not so well at home either. Hussein was appointed as the new Sultan's hand in Alexandria and his first declaration was to rename Alexandria as Alexander, after his famous great grand father. And he had all the young men that they could find conscripted into the army of the Ottoman Empire.

In Athens, Rio and her crew decided to become traders and vowed to become the most famous of them all--to enrich themselves with both gold and adventure.

And so starts a new adventure by our heroine, Rio Locsin on the merchant ship Chanak.