The Herb Merchant

Quest · Chapter 1 · New Camp

Route

  • Baal Isidro is a drunk swampweed seller at the lake tavern. Offer to sell his stock for a fifty-fifty split, then find a buyer such as Cipher, who only takes larger shipments.
  • The batch should make 400 nuggets. Return Isidro's 200 share if you want to complete his own route; giving all 400 to Lares instead serves the bandit-admission version.

Quest Parts

  • The Herb Merchant:
  • Baal Isidro is waiting for his share.:

Outcome

Choose the hand-in that fits the faction route you are pursuing.

A seller who has lost his purpose

Baal Isidro is supposed to be one of the Brotherhood's workers, but he spends his days at the lake tavern selling swampweed for rice schnapps. Baal Kagan describes him as the helper who never came to help, while Isidro's own desperation is easier to see: he has a large stock and no confidence that he can sell it himself.

The hero offers a fifty-fifty arrangement, and Isidro accepts only after suspecting that the newcomer might simply steal the rolls and run. His distrust is justified by the colony's economy, where a promise is often an opportunity to take advantage of someone weaker. In the end, he still hands over the stock because he needs a way to solve the problem in front of him.

Four hundred nuggets and two loyalties

The shipment is large enough for Cipher, who is interested only in bigger quantities. Once it is sold, Isidro expects two hundred nuggets, the share he was promised. Paying him completes the deal on its own terms and leaves him able to resist Kagan's threat to replace him.

The same sale can serve a different allegiance. Lares wants the entire four hundred as a contribution to the New Camp, turning the hero's profit into a token of commitment. The choice is not merely about money: it asks whether the hero honors a vulnerable partner's share or uses the transaction to buy a place in another faction.

Commerce as a test of character

Isidro's errand exposes how closely trade and belonging are tied together. The Brotherhood's herb rolls can be a sacred aid, a tavern commodity, or the currency of a political favor depending on who holds them. The hero leaves with a reputation shaped not only by whether the sale succeeded, but by who was allowed to benefit from it.

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