Ares
The Wandering Merchant
Ares is a 21 year old wandering merchant. Though he has mostly human heritage, he claims to have some dryad blood in him. He lives on his feet and never stays in one place for too long. He enjoys wandering place to place, meeting new people, and is very much a businessman as he tries to sell things to anyone he comes across. He won't decline a trade, and is always open for bartering.
However even though he is a businessman, he still has very high self morals and will never cheat other people out of a deal. He likes being fair, and will never sell things for more than they're worth or take advantage of people's situations. However he's not generous either, so if someone doesn't have the funds or items to trade he won't lower things unfairly. He's very bright whenever it comes to making deals and quality checking, and some people even seek him out for his appraisal of items.
He is very possessive of his wares, however, and is distraught if things are misplaced, even to the point one could consider it an OCD of his that everything has their place in his cart.
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Story
As a kid, Ares always liked collecting things he found. Shells, snakeskin, pretty stones, everything was free game to him. He constantly ran out of room or places to keep things he found, until his parents bought him a small item chest. There, he kept his most prized possessions. However, his hoarding habit was out of control. His parents started tossing things they saw no value in, causing the young boy to go hysterical when he noticed things were out of place.
As his family was poor, they were unable to care for Ares for too long or buy him proper things. Ares turned to learning to make things with his hands; sewing from his mother, and woodworking from his father. His parents were eager to teach him, and before long he started making his own chests to store his items in. His parents were disappointed that Ares' talents were simply going towards his hoarding habits, instead of making things that could go towards providing for the family.
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Eventually, Ares' parents could no longer care for him, and as a teenager he was sent off to town with some money to find his own way. Ares' packed everything he could fit of his and headed off to town. The young boy with the large bags caught many's eye, and after looking around and thinking about what he wanted to do, Ares' struck a deal with a man to purchase a mule he named Chenchen, who helped him carry his many things.
With his money spent and nowhere to live or go, Ares eventually had to sell some of the items he had on him to buy food and board. He learned very quickly some items were worth more than others, and he discovered a brilliant idea. If he were to pick up items in nature that people liked more as he traveled around, he could sell them to people and make enough money to live properly.
At first he set up stalls as he traveled and tried to sell things to people as he travelled, but his hoarding habits became too much of an issue and setting up and taking down the stall became too much time for him. Unfortunately, because of his wandering, he couldn't buy a proper stall. |
He quickly came up with the idea of making a mobile stall. He got to work hand crafting a cart that would easily carry all of his items and would only take seconds to set up. For a while, this worked perfectly... Except the few cases of bandit attacks and misplacing items. At first, he blamed random beasts for his mishaps or missing trinkets. Then, bandit attacks started happening less often, and when they did they started to freak out and attack each other before running off. Ares thought he'd gotten an item that had blessed him, somehow. That all changed when he met Vault, who told him of the Kijis, and of a playful crimson one named Merchandise that followed him around. Merchandise at first played pranks on Ares and misplaced his goods often to tease him, but after a while they learned to work together and have become friends. Since then, he tried his best to interact with the Kijis, and gained insight into communicating with them, even if he cannot see them, and learned to sense their presence. He now regularly trades with them and provides services to them as needed with Dice's help.