A Beginner's Guide

to Contract Trading


So now you've joined the guild, and you're ready to start doing some actual trading? The first thing you need to do is to locate the Trade Minister and the Shipping Clerk. The Minister is in charge of issuing contracts, and the Clerk is in charge of loading the goods on your caravan. In many of the smaller outposts, the Clerk and Minister work in the same room, but in the Crossing, Dirge, RiverHaven and Shard outposts they are spread out, so you may want to locate them before doing any actual trading in those outposts.

Now that you know the Crossing Guild like the back of your hand, the next thing you need to do is get a ledger. To get your own personal ledger, go to the Minister and ORDER LEDGER. Now that you have your ledger, the next thing you need to do is read it. A Trader's ledger contains notes on many useful subjects, so you should get to know what is in there, it may come in handy some day.

One more thing which you may wish to do before you actually begin trading is to locate the other outposts. If you feel adventurous, or already have a pretty good idea where the outposts are, then you can go ahead and start trading and find the outposts as you go. There are seven outposts in the Zoluren province, the Crossing Guild, Tiger Clan and Wolf Clan west of the Crossing, Arthe Dale, Stone Clan and Dirge on the Northern Trade Road and Leth Deriel on the Southern Trade Road across the Segoltha River.

Now that you have read your ledger and have located the outposts you'll be traveling to, you're ready to begin! You can begin trading in any outpost, but I like to start in the Crossing guild. To begin trading, just ASK MINISTER FOR CONTRACT, and he'll see whether there's anything lying around that he trusts you with. Next, take your contract and GIVE CONTRACT TO CLERK and he'll get the assistants to load it on a pack animal for you.

Once you reach a sufficient circle, you will have the choice of either using a pack animal or renting a caravan. Renting a caravan is more expensive, but provides you with greater options. Renting a donkey, mule, or yak will cost you 100 kronars, and renting a caravan will cost you 400. In addition, the loadind costs for a pack animal are usually less than for a caravan. There are a few advantages to renting a caravan, though. Caravans can travel faster and can carry more crates than a pack animal can. Also, the caravan drivers know their way around the Northern and Southern Trade Roads, so you can TELL CARAVAN TO LEAD TO (city). This only works for Crossing, Arthe Dale, Stone Clan, Dirge, and Leth.

Ok, now that you have your goods loaded onto your animal, all you need to do is PAY CLERK and you're all set to go! Trading takes alot of patience, since you are a newcomer to the guild, the ministers will not trust you enough to give you very large deliveries. As a result, your actual profit may not cover your loading costs at first, and you may run out of money. If this happens, your best options are to either beg for money, find pawnable items lying around (in goblins, for example), or to go out and hunt for money.

Also, if you are having trouble with getting your money robbed by thieves, don't forget to check out my guide on How to Avoid Theft.

NOTE: Since the time that I wrote this guide, trading was tweaked, and the tweak included a drastic cut to learning rates in Zoluren for low level Traders. This guide should still help you learn the basic method of trading contracts. If you are not learning trading at a satisfactory rate, you may want to head south to Shard and see if you fare better there. There are only three outposts there, the Guild in Shard, and outposts in SteelClaw Clan and Fayrin's Rest. The outposts are also much closer together, although you cannot tell your caravan to lead down there. The main problem with Shard is that it is basically a ghost town, and very few people actually live there. So you may only want to head down there if you are familiar with Elanthia or are feeling particularly adventurous.