Summary
Having taken a hiatus of over a month, resolving IT issues, being audited by the finance department, and undergoing training overseas, we finally got the go-ahead to return to operations in Anizay.
Our first order of business was to discuss the fuel deal with Tebbi, which had fallen through early on in our break. We discovered that ION had undercut our prices significantly and as such they had won the contract. On discussing this with the elder, he asked for $5000 off the current price, or suggested we might do him a favour. We visited his yoga student Waj, the hotel security guard in Deraz, who told us of some disturbances caused by Westerners in Muzakhan that had turned the villagers hostile to tourists. Visiting Muzakhan with primary weapons stowed, we convinced the locals that we were not responsible for the disturbances, but rather the ‘dickheads’ of ION were to blame.
On discovering that they were involved in the vegetable trade, and that the infamous delivery driver Zaki was missing, we visited Naudeh to broach a deal with the fisherman and the elder.
The fisherman said that they needed a delivery from Musakhan since it had been 4 weeks since he’d heard from Zaki, which he would be happy for us to undertake in his absence. The elder revealed that his nephew, Zaki was in the hospital, and would hopefully be better next week. We asked if we could deliver the fuel, due tomorrow, a day early – planning to use this as cover for the other truck entering town.
Fueling up a truck at Ali’s oil, we spoke to Ali, purchased half a tanker, and learned that his oilfields could just stretch to covering two further deliveries, but no more. He urged us to investigate other sources of fuel in case he could grow our mutual business.
We loaded 75 bags of vegetables from Muzakhan, before realising the other 25 were at the top of a tower drying. Taking the 100 bags and the fuel tanker to Naudeh, we unloaded under the cover of two specialised tents, to ensure the vegetables were not damaged or overripened by the sun. We received payment from the elder, who once again begrudged our dealings with the fisherman, but was glad we had brought the fuel.
No enemy contacts or escalations to report, ION may have our previous aggressors’ heads down. Definitely worth investigating Dola to see how things stand.
