"They don't sound it."

"Yeah." Lucien should probably return to his market rounds now.

She's following along and keeping an eye on Eefa the whole time.

This person isn't getting paid for a week and wants to buy something now. Lucien directs him to one of the richer merchants who might be able to offer a loan.

This pair is having a screaming match about how much is a reasonable price for a particular wine - Lucien tells the customer it's not up to them and the seller to have the guy removed if he keeps doing this rather than yelling back.

This kid bumped into Pelape and has somehow ended up grabbing whatever's in her pocket.

She's stopped carrying her everything since it broke and the wax tablet's too big so she's got it in her arm. Nothing in her pocket at all. "Nobody's got loans as a central business scheme, just a side thing?"

"Yeah, no ones good enough at it to have it be their main thing. I considered starting a bank that did that but I've sort of got caught up in all the other things that need doing."

"Huh. This town isn't very big but it's not a minuscule village, I really would've expected a bank."

"I don't think people are good at handling the risk without resorting to threats of violence, and there are usually more profitable options available if you can credibly threaten violence."

"People aren't good at handling - what parts of the risk, exactly, robbery? Lost investment because somebody's restaurant goes under?"

"People refusing to pay, either by outright saying no or running away. Though often this is because the person can't pay for one reason or another."

"Major loans you can't secure with rule-of-law assistance you'd maybe want collateral or a credit history."

"I'm not sure what you mean by credit history exactly - people do use collateral."

"A track record of paying back smaller loans on time."

"Oh, a lot of people don't take out enough loans to have a track record, I think."

"It's common to buy most things on what's effectively credit, at home. So you don't have to carry cash and have a line of credit that's linked to your identity and harder to steal."

"How does that work for people who are only briefly visiting a place?"

"The banks talk to each other and often even have their own subsidiaries in many cities."

"Oh, that sounds like it requires more civilizational competence than we have here."

"Yeah, it wouldn't be an appealing service for anyone just passing through here."

"We might have enough people who are residents here that someone could make a living offering it to just the locals? There are definitely places in town that do something like that but just on an individual business sort of basis."

"Like they just issue and honor IOUs or something?"

"Mostly I was thinking of how most of the bars will allow regulars to have a tab they only need to pay down occasionally."

"Yeah, that seems like the same sort of thing."

"I wonder if that can be transitioned to something more general somehow..."