"Right," Gallus put one hand on his hip and leaned his other hand against the table to mirror Orub, "Our opening offer is for thirty five percent of the price of all stock that survives the voyage, to be paid on arrival in Morrowind. As you would understand, such a large sum of gold is not an amount that we could carry with us for this entire time. How does that sound?"

As planned, Gallus was prepared for counter-offers, all part of the ruse. As long as there was not an unmanageable down payment, all deals could be plausible.

[hr]
Tzirret broke eye contact. "This one is sorry," he said out of politeness. In a neutral tone, suppressing his own memories, he continued, "Ma'tanza was lucky that she had her brother and sister. This one knows that he would have died or become feral if he was not found by Gallus." The lonely cold of those times actually caused Tzirret to still himself and shiver momentarily, despite the heat of the jungle.

Perhaps not being as tactful as he could be, Tzirret remembered something curious and spoke up about it. "Wait, didn't Ma'tanza say that her father was teaching her magic and was killed in the attack? Did you mean when you were turned, or...oh, it might have been a foster father." Tzirret bowed his head, ashamed of himself, "Tzirret apologises, he should not speak of such things."