"Quite understandable," Talus replies. "That's only fair."
"And I will need 25 percent of the payment in advance, which comes to 13 pawns."
"I'll have to jump back home for that," Talus says, "which will require leaving the Aegis. But that won't be any trouble. I assume that's Form vis, by the way."
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OOC: Talus can leap to Malta and back to get the vis he needs.
"Form vis, or vis of account, either way."
Very good then," Talus replies.
He can pop back to Malta for the vis. Once payment is complete, he'll go off and see what else if going on at the Tribunal.
The main meeting room is closed to outsiders, but in the halls around it you catch on to conversations of politicking and vote swapping, and vote buying. The mercer out in the hall are not voting themselves but are certainly willing to play the part of vote brokers, especially when there is vis involved. There is jockeying for positions on various committees or councils- some trying to get on and some trying to stay off, as well as Fredrick's court wizards being discussed, in context of the Lombardy league as well as the Pope and the Pope's wizards. Additionally you overhear issues of legal claims, minor deprivation of magics and what price in vis it should fetch, and so on and so forth.
Additionally there is a room where there is gambling- both cards and dice, with pawns of vis as stakes, occasionally getting bids up to a rook or so, as well as betting based on 'friendly' contests of certamen.
Talus has no votes to swap and no interest in buying any, so he avoids those conversations. He will listen in on some of the talk about Frederick's court magicians, however, to see if anyone has better news than what he heard last night. He'll even watch a little bit of the gambling, though he won't participate.
Finally, he remembers that he has some books to sell (or at least arrange for copying), and returns back to the booksellers. Surely some of them will want the superior magical theory tractatus that Tartessos and Vulpis have prepared.
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I forgot, we have some level 13 and 15 MT tractatus to sell/trade. We don't have copies made yet, but we can arrange to have them copied and delivered. I'm hoping that at level 15 we can get a premium for them.
The man looks a bit incredulous at your descriptions of the texts "If you were to go and fetch them, are you looking to sell directly or are you looking for an agent? I have a scriptorium and can handle the copying and distribution of this tractatus, for a share of the income."
"They are truly treasures among the Order," Talus assures the man. "We have scribes available to copy them ourselves, though there's always a question of capacity. What would we be looking at for sale price, versus shared income? And would you be willing to work in trade? We're also looking to build up our library and new books are often more appealing than simple vis."
"I can give a credit of one and a half pawns per copy of each, if the quality is as you say."
"And if I was looking for trade?"
That was the trade value. Fractional pawns of vis only make sense in the context of trade.
Man, that seems a paltry amount for a Q15 tractatus.
He assumes you are over-hyping the quality of the tractatus because tractatus of that quality are not generally available for sale.
Alas, we haven't had time to copy that tractatus, so I can't bring him a copy to prove how good it is. Best give him a deal on the first one and go from there.
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"Okay," how about 2 vis for the first one," Talus offers. "And if you don't agree that it's the best tractatus you've ever read, I'll give you one back. Then, once you've seen the quality, we can renegotiate over the rest of them - and yes, there are more than one."
He shakes his head "even if it is the best tractatus I have ever read, there is no way I'd make a profit on the resale."
"I"ll have to speak to the author about that," Talus replies. "See if he's willing to let a copy go for such a small sum."
"Make sure you also repeat my offer to handle distribution. Obviously costs such as paying the scribes will factor in, and I will take a percentage, but he will get far mor eout of the work for far longer with that plan."
"I'll be sure to tell him," Tellus replies.
I'm not sure what else is going on at the Tribunal that Talus can participate in.
As Talus wanders the tribunal, a hotheaded young magus selects him apparently at random- "You, I challenge you to certamen over an issue of five pawns!" Others around him are chanting "certamen" and "arena fight!"