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The cart brims with Tegean gold – under the moonlight, it takes on a silverish-quality, but you know the look of it under any circumstances. Goblets, mixing bowls studded with jewels, statuettes , and silverware are scattered within – piles of gold talents drown the bottom of the cart carelessly, and hide further treasures from sight. A silver-nailed sword and gilded scabbard, clearly meant as display pieces, stands against the cart wall in the far corner. In the other corner, a heavy tapestry or rug of some kind is rolled up into a long tube, and bent in the middle to fit inside the crammed cart – it is covered with a white linen cloth of high-quality, glimmering under the light of Selene. You trade excited glances with Chabrianos – this is wealth enough for a commoner and his extended family to live like royalty for decades, if they can hold onto it. Even for you, a very wealthy man, it represents a very significant amount of gold. Your own treasure vault might hold three times the gold, although your wealth in herds and livestock cannot be reduced to a single room. No wonder the men were struggling to get this cart up the hill – you actually have to strain a bit yourself to free the cart from the muddy path; it pops loose with a sucking noise.
For player convenience = this cart is basically worth about 500 cattle on its own. I’d like to make clear that Timae points are not all equal; they are a measure of relative wealth and so the “Timae scale” is logarithmic in nature.
<span class="mu-i">A phenomenal find.</span> you consider, <span class="mu-i">this alone might be success enough for the cattle raid…</span> It occurs to you that you might simply take the cart and head back to Argos; it would be tremendously easier and safer to smuggle a single gold-laden cart home than a thousand cattle, although armies cannot eat gold. As you consider, you inspect the bodies of the slain thieves, who have been brought to the cart for closer inspection:
The taller and thinner of the two men is clearly of noble heritage, although only of average height for a nobleman. His hair is light brown, as is his eyes, but his skin is lighter – likely he hails from the middle part of Hellas. He carries almost nothing on his person, leaving you with few clues as to his identity – the only exception, is a silver ring on his left hand. Removing it, you see that there are markings on the interior surface, although you cannot read them yourself – you’ll have to show the ring to one of the literate Argives that you know to discern the meaning. From his features and coloration, you guess that he is Phocian, although you cannot be certain of it. The second man is found to be a large commoner man, bearded, with rounded belly and thick shoulders. There are millions of commoner Hellenes who have this profile – you immediately assume that he is the Phocian’s thiefly lieutenant.
>2nd half of the update will come later tonight, ran out of time before work...