1-4: RYSN

An apprentice merchant named gathers experience as her babsk, the established trader named traded with a visiting farmer. Through this exchange, she begins to learn principles of successful commerce and cultural understanding.

Young merchant apprentice travel to the country of the fabric device that alerts them to approaching visitors. As the caravan sets up camp in this unusual landscape, characterized by unmoving grass and missing spren, the device warns of riders approaching. A group of farmers led by a man in a multi-colored cloak arrives with guards and servants. The leader, identified as a farmer by the local culture, meets with merchant and them conducts an extended trade negotiation. The merchant reveals that his cargo of scrap metal, worthless in his homeland, was created by ardents practicing with and cannot be sold there. Rather than hiding this fact, both men emphasize the low value of their goods—a bartering style completely contrary to typical merchant haggling. They eventually agree on terms, exchanging the metal scraps for chickens, cloth, and dried meats. During conversation, the merchant mentions he once acquired a "" man in a similar transaction, a person of extremely low value in local culture whom he valued highly as a servant. After the trade concludes, the merchant teaches the apprentice that the key to trading with the locals is honesty and undervaluing goods, and he gives her a pot of the local grass to tend, telling her that understanding this strange place will make her a better merchant.