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Chapter 835: Multiple Ways of Selling Chaos Drinks

Roland needed a moment to place the name. The Joint Chamber of Commerce — a supply-and-marketing cooperative he had organized, its principal members drawn from the wealthy merchant houses of the major Fjords islands. They had reached a working understanding the previous autumn, but Evelyn’s output at the time had been too low for anything wholesale; each Chamber had taken a handful of samples and the formal market launch had been left unfinished. He had been meaning to contact them. They had saved him the effort.

“Take them to the drawing room,” he told Barov. “I’ll be there shortly.” Once Barov withdrew, he turned to Nightingale. “Send for Tilly and Wendy as well. This is effectively the first real collaboration between the Witch Union and the Sleeping Island — Tilly should be present.”

When Roland entered the drawing room, the merchants rose as one and bowed.

He matched faces to names after a moment — Margaret, Gammon, and Marleen he knew from the Chamber of Commerce of Crescent Moon Bay. The others were new acquaintances: Nibelung from the Chamber of Commerce of Shallow Water Town, and Atiyer from the Chamber of Commerce of Sunset Island.

Before Roland had fully taken his seat, Nibelung leaned forward. “Your Majesty, the samples we took last autumn caused a genuine stir on the islands. Every merchant who tasted them was converted. I can say with confidence that once Chaos Drinks enter the market, they will be the most successful commodity in Fjords history.”

Atiyer was already nodding. “And it isn’t only a drink. Take that fiery red spicy juice, for instance. It doesn’t quench thirst, but it’s extraordinary on steamed fish or barbeque — and for warming the body on a cold deck, it outperforms white liquor without the disordering effects. A man can drink it and still handle rigging.”

Margaret smiled. “Not just merchants, either. Explorers are drawn to it. A warming drink with no side effects could save a man after a shipwreck.”

“In that light,” Atiyer continued, “I’d suggest marking the different drinks with different price tags. Something with that kind of practical value deserves a premium, especially if we do a little promotion — and with production limited, scarcity does half the work for us.”

Roland gave him an approving nod. The man had grasped it intuitively: that these were functionally different products occupying different market niches, not a single undifferentiated drink in different colors. Successful Fjords merchants had always been sharp at reading what a commodity actually was beneath its surface.

He clapped his hands once. “Since reception has been good, we can proceed to sale on the terms of our original contract. I don’t expect objections to the pre-order price or the regional distribution — but you’ll each need to put down a thirty percent deposit to claim your orders. I assume everyone came prepared.”

The preliminaries were brief. The primary terms had all been settled during the Months of Demons; what remained was mainly the mechanics. Roland had asked Tilly to witness the signing for one specific reason: to demonstrate, in front of witnesses, that he hadn’t touched the commission rate. Tilly had agreed to keep her witches at Neverwinter and send the Sleeping Island witches to the Western Region in shifts — it seemed right to return something visible in exchange.

Under the win-win contract from the Months of Demons, thirty percent of both deposit and final sale profits would flow to City Hall, the Witch Union, and the Sleeping Spell respectively.

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Nibelung beamed. “No cargo in my hold this time — only gold royals and good masons and sailors.”

“Then let’s go see the goods.”

The drink factory built for Evelyn stood across the yard from the alcohol plant. From the outside it looked less like a factory than a fortified warehouse — a single-story concrete-and-brick structure, windowless, its sole entrance a solid iron gate guarded by a rotation of First Army recruits.

Roland led the merchants across the yard, through the gate, and down a staircase into the basement below — a space three or four times the size of the ground floor, laid out like a wine cellar in a prosperous villa. Wooden racks divided it into orderly sections. No open flames, no live wires; the only illumination came through skylights, which left the whole space pleasantly dim.

On each rack, two rows of wooden barrels rested in their cradles. Not all of them held Chaos Drinks. Evelyn produced one barrel a day, and the current stock stood at just over a hundred, minus what Roland distributed monthly to the Witch Union and consumed himself.

He tapped one of the barrels. The liquid inside shifted with a low, muffled churn. “We can supply twenty barrels per month. Five per Chamber, on average. As long as production holds steady, that allotment never changes, regardless of how quickly or slowly you sell through your stock. Whether you come for pickups every three months or every six, the supply remains the same. The hundred barrels available today — all in the first row here — are yours to take once you’ve inspected them. I’ll have men transport them to the dock district once you’ve made your selections.”

Gammon looked up. “We don’t get to taste them first?”

“This isn’t wine that improves with age.” Roland shrugged. “Some Chaos Drinks have a reasonably long shelf life, but not all of them. So after brewing, we sterilize and seal the barrels to preserve them.”

“Sterilize?”

“Like food — they spoil. Heat accelerates it. Sterilization slows the process. You don’t need to understand the method, but you should remember one thing: once a barrel is opened, the drink inside will not taste as good as it did fresh.” He spread his hands. “Sell through them quickly, or store them in shade and keep them cool. Properly handled, they’ll hold flavor for at least a month or two.”

Gammon’s expression shifted to something more cautious. “But as Atiyer points out, each Chaos Drink is different. Some will sell better than others. If we can’t taste them, how do we choose wisely? Could you perhaps divide each barrel into four portions and seal them separately? We’d have smaller quantities but more variety, and we’d know what we were buying.”

Roland considered this briefly — and declined it internally before he finished the thought. Splitting portions would multiply Soraya and Lily’s work severalfold with no corresponding benefit to production. He said: “Sterilization isn’t simple. If we subdivide the barrels, each Chamber ends up with less stock and more variety — but variety doesn’t improve sales. As for which flavors to favor—” He paused. “The Northern Region and the Western Region have entirely different tastes in drink. What’s unpopular here may sell out instantly there. You move goods across multiple regions every season. You know this better than I do.”

Gammon opened his mouth and closed it again.

Roland did not let his expression change. He was not going to permit tastings — not because the drinks were inferior, but because the distribution had already been carefully arranged, and if individual merchants began picking preferred flavors, Neverwinter would be left holding the barrels nobody chose. Every barrel required the same quantity of Evelyn’s magic power regardless of what was in it. The contract specified barrel-unit sales with no clause on specific contents. That was intentional.

“The flavor is not the point,” he said, tapping another barrel. “The point is your method of selling. Your job is to get the most out of each drink and find its niche.” He looked around the dim cellar at the assembled faces. “Come — pick whichever barrels you like.”

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