Ent bark was valuable. This came as a shock to Wilona, mostly because she saw Mossheart shave away the excess bark she grows daily. She always believed that it was like a cat grooming themselves. If the cat is a giant tree thing with clawed hands—actually no, cats have claws too.

  Anyhow, seeing Clifford look at the ent equivalent of a hairball with such fascination is pretty funny. Like, bro, chill out. Those are literally just wood shavings, there's plenty more where that came from—well, Wilona burned most of it because she didn't think they were all that valuable but eh, give it two more days and she'd have a pile of the stuff ready to be used.

  "I also have trinkets made of the same thing?" Wilona took out the aforementioned items from her satchel and presented them to the group. "They also don't do anything but glow in the dark but hey! They're like, a permanent source of soft light during the night! Perfect if you have nightmares really!"

  She didn't think her grin was convincing enough because the other three merchants huddled closely together. She tilted her head. Please don't say that witches were known to give children nightmares? She looked at the trio, then frowned—that's completely bullshit!

  "Or... Maybe you can have a constant source of light?.." Wilona put on her best smile. "It's kind of cool?"

  Yeah no, they weren't convinced, if anything, the opposite was happening every time she pitched an idea. If she were looking for investors for her company, she would have been thrown out of the corporate building by now. They would have called her a scammer with a pyramid scheme or something equally insane. Some people.

  "How much would this cost?" Clifford stopped inspecting the trinket and ring to give her a serious look. "I'm willing to buy as much as I can." The large man shook his head at his brother-in-law when Silas moved closer. "I'll take it out of my personal savings, trust me on this."

  "Touching." Wilona drawled. She's seen talent shows before so the little drama doesn't affect her. And besides, she doesn't have access to a golden buzzer to press every time someone tells a sob story. "But if you want to trade for everything I have, it'll cost you a fortune and you still wouldn't be able to buy all of it."

  Wilona raised a finger. "But," she says, "I am willing to trade one or two of my trinkets for some supplies, maybe food?" It's been a while since she's had actual bread, or even proper vegetables! Steamed potatoes would be nice... If they had cheese too, ugh. She's salivating just by thinking about it!

  "Wait no—" Wilona snapped her fingers. "I would like it if you guys give me salt. Bam, easy right? Cheese too, and spices, I don't care about anything else, just some food, maybe a few supplies, you can keep your tools—" because Mossheart can do whatever a tool can, just better. "And everything else you have, I just want food."

  "You know that makes you sound like you're desperately hungry, right?" The young boy, uh, O-something said with crossed arms. A smirk on his face, though that quickly fell when he saw the Ring of Resistance around Wilona's index finger. "How long have you been out here?"

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "That's not important," Wilona's eye twitched. This little shit thinks he can just trash talk her? Is that it? "I'm not desperate for food by the way, I have a lot stocked up, I just want a change in diet and also see what's going on with this world in terms of spices."

  "We don't have spices," Silas stepped in, "those are too expensive, but we do have salt."

  "Uhuh, salt." Wilona took out a ring from her satchel as well as another trinket. She threw it at Silas. "Give me everything you have, I want it."

  "You can't just—" Silas paused. He sighed. When he talked again, his aggressive moments prior disappeared. "We're not giving you all our salt in exchange for some enchanted trinkets, who do you think we are?"

  "Right." Wilona sighed. "How valuable is treant wood?" She faced Clifford. "You clearly know their value, right?"

  "I wouldn't say that it's valuable but..."

  "Oh fuck off!" Wilona spat, like she didn't see how he reacted when he noticed what the material was made out of earlier. "I'm not stupid, I know damn well that these things are expensive, even if the enchantments I gave these trinkets aren't useful, some noble brat out there will still want to make their parents buy it because they're cool or whatever, and who doesn't want magical items that constantly glow? Kids love that shit. And don't try to say no, I've gone trick-or-treating during Halloween so I've seen it with my own eyes."

  "What—" Clifford said, but he stopped when Wilona raised her hand.

  "Also, I have shit that kids will think looks cool." She took out a trinket she carved to look like a dragon. Fuzz's influence added further details that she missed. "This is a dragon, I have five of these so you can sell them to five different barons or some shit, I'm sure those guys know what treant wood is, right?"

  Clifford slowly nods. "I mean, yeah, but we're the ones who are supposed to sell it?" he asks her. "I don't think it's appropriate for you to leave us with nothing and then make us do all the work afterwards."

  "That's how selling stuff works?" Wilona paused. She's not dealing with this, fuck it. "What about it, do you want to buy my stuff or not? Because if you don't, I'll fly away and head to the nearest villages and sell them there. I really don't give a shit, I'm giving you a discount here."

  Clifford sighs. "We'll take them."

  "Good." Wilona handed him the rest of her dragon-looking trinkets and in exchange, she got three bags of salt. "Okay, how about this next; I give you some of my rings and you let me pick out some of your stuff."

  "And how are we gonna sell those?" Iris glared at her.

  "By telling women that it's a good luck charm, duh." Wilona rolled her eyes. "Simple enough, isn't it?"

  "I..."

  "She's right, Iris." Silas shook his head at his daughter. "We'll get more money reselling enchanted items in the end."

  "Enchanted items made from treant wood," Wilona corrected. Well, they've already agreed to this, so she might as well give them tips on how to properly sell her stuff. "That's the bait here, the one which will make people think it's more valuable than they think. I genuinely doubt that they've seen ents before, so chances are, they'll think that items made from treant wood actually have luck-giving properties."

  "So we're tricking people? Is that it?" O-something kid said with a tough glare. "Where's your standards? Your virtues?"

  "Down in the slums with the rest of my morals." Wilona smirked, like she gave a single shit about upholding any kind of morals. "Anyway, you can sell these rings like this, I'm pretty sure it'll net you guys a few coins or something."

  "Ryllae." Iris said, "we're not taking any other form of coin."

  "And I don't have any." Wilona shrugged. Hell, she didn't even know there are different types! "Anyway, sorry to be so aggressive earlier, I'd like this—"

  One by one, Wilona picked out the items that she thought she'd need. She got herself a sewing kit—finally. She can work on her clothes, took a while. — An empty notebook, a quill and a bottle of ink, as well as more foodstuffs that she thought she'd need in the near future. She wanted to try her hand at making meat stew later, that sounded nice.

  And speaking of nice, as a gesture of thanks to the merchants for tolerating her—Wilona was well aware that they were doing it because she has magic.—she decided to give them the rest of her trinkets. Mostly because she wanted to empty her bag to make room for more stuff.

  "Alright, that's everything!" Wilona smiled and waved at the group. To be honest, she didn't take much from them. She didn't even get all of their food, she's not that petty. And besides, the trinkets and rings she exchanged for the items were obviously valuable. If the group had someone who knew how to negotiate and play the people, then they'd be able to sell those things for a high price.

  Hell, they might even come out on top and profit even after everything they exchanged for the enchanted items.