Tehr's ire was raised.  He was never the type to play up the noble versus commoner, he hadn't been raised that way.  Maybe it was his mother, who was a foriegner, who had instilled those values in him.  Or maybe it had been the fact that his father had raised him to be humble, and treat the Hlaford family with respect and dignity, explaining that they were no worse than the Wynt house just because they were servants.  Maybe it was because he'd seen with his own eyes how hard 'commoners' worked to provide the benefits for the nobles.  Maybe it was because, quite frankly, commoners fucked better than nobles for the most part, and that meant more to him than a lot of political machinations.<br/><br/>However despite his normal attitude of never playing up airs, of being a commoner, this gnomish woman had enraged him.  He drew himself up to his full height, while he wasn't a physically imposing man, he was much taller than the gnome.  "Now you listen here!  I never came in asking you for the most expensive statue you could pass off.  I came for a small gift, and you simply assume I want a treasure?  You've no call to take an attitude to me."<br/><br/>He held out a single platinum coin but didn't drop it into the gnome's hand.  "I'll buy this piece, because it's fine.  I also know that it's worth less than ten gold, but I'm no disconnected nobleman who has no idea of the value of coin.  Something like this took less than a week to make, especially considering your stock and your production there."  he nodded at the boy.  "Dock workers have to haul cargo for a week or more to make a coin of this value.  Farmers have to pray for good crops and toil for a week for this coin.  So I'll have an apology from you if you wish to make this sale, and you'll remember not to prejudge your customers in the future or I'll make sure that your little shop here has great difficulty finding new customers and staying open."<br/><br/>Tehr holds the coin out, then holds up one finger, "...and the apology had best be sincere, because I'll gladly leave if I don't believe you."<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">ooc</div><div class="spoiler_body">I did a little research, the average 'commoner' level 1 who has max ranks in any profession can make about 6 gold in a week.   If you figure that 1/4 of that goes to taxes / fees / whatever, and another 2/4ths of that goes to living expenses and material costs, that's an average of 1.5gold a week for things like new clothing, tools, etc.   So a 10 gold statuette is a fairly high cost for a simple piece of art.<br/><br/>Also, I've got to figure out a way to get Tehr some extra gold.  :)<br/></div></div><br/>