Upon waking up in the morning Darian once again took a horse out of the city to practice his swordsmanship in private. He was able to better control his newly integrated self and better blend his consciousness with the memories of his bodies previous occupant. This manifested in improvements in his sword practice and he thought that within a few more days he wouldn't have to do so in private anymore. He then went for a long ride on his horse and even managed to do a few jumps before heading back to the city.
Once he got back to the city he went for a look around the weekly Llun market that was held outside the city to see what sort of things they sold and how much they cost. There was a large range of products available at the market from the finest Teorum linens from the kingdom of Vetris to the multicoloured silks of Ostrun. There were spice galore, bronze statues, perfumes from Nasber and exquisite fruits and vegetables plus pastries and one stall that sold Briet Kababs and small yumyum fruit pies that he bought on a whim.
They were yummy and he went back for seconds but the thing in the market that interested him the most were carved wooden creatures some of which reminded Darian of earth Dinosaurs. When he asked the stallholder if all the carvings were based on real animals he was told that for the most part, they were but the ones that looked like dinosaurs were based on cave painting from a cave found in the last few years on the east side of the island. Upon hearing this he decided to one day visit the cave and see them for himself.
When midday came Amondo paid a visit to Ida and Alice accompanied by his sister. He raised the matter of the three merchant houses with her and while they didn't know that much about them Ida was, however, able to say that two of them had been considered reliable by her husband and as for the other two, as far as she knew he hadn't ever dealt with them.
Leaving Abigail behind to talk to Ida and Alice without him getting in the way Darian paid a visit to the first of the Merchant houses that had invited him over. The Zhamn Merchant House was a medium-sized one that mainly traded with the Teorum Imperium, mostly the Teorumian Celeste Islands but also the mainland. They were a relative newcomer having been founded only thirty-three years ago.
Vino Kanares the head of the firm meet Darian at the door to the houses main warehouse in the city and brought him to his office on the second floor.
"You are no doubt wondering why I invited you here today?"
"Yes I am as you might already know yours wasn't the only invitation I received, this was, of course, a surprise to me so I temporarily postponed by the journey to the barony to meet with you and the others. I imagine that either my father approached you to do something for him or you wish to do some sort of business with the barony, am I right in either assertion."
"You are correct, the latter your father through an intermediary deposit a sum of money with us and we were wondering what you wished done with it. For some reason or other your father didn't indicate what he wanted to be done with it just that when he arrived on the island he would contact us with instructions as to its disposal."
"For now would you kindly hold on to it while I try and find what his intentions were."
"That shouldn't be a problem in the short term anyway but in the long term we would have to charge you for it's keeping."
"That's all right I should be able to decide as to what to do with it within the month if not quicker."
The meeting with the representatives of the other three merchant house turned out to be roughly the same except for the last one. That was with the largest, the Acklise Merchant House they were storing goods for him instead of coin. In that case, he was shown the goods in question and upon inspecting them he was surprised to see that they weren't anything special just some common garden textiles and some kind of seeds which he didn't recognise.
It wasn't all that large a consignment of goods so he told Warin Nocton the representative of the house that a small wagon would be around early the next morning to take possession of them. He had originally hired it and its driver to take some goods he had bought in the market earlier that day and other things he had picked up around town to the barony with him.