I want sugar. A lot.

I see alchemists who have 250 and over of it. I WANT IT. -weep-

So, here's the deal:

Sometimes I have mercury to trade. Highest sugar-to-mercury rates get whatever amount I have.

Or, if you're selling it for money, I might be interested depending on the price.

Edit: That isn't to say I can't provide anything else from sugar, including begging! Also gladly taking sugar for freeeee!

I would, but I already have a nice deal with someone trading me 1:1

Now, for a public service announcement.

Sugar costs between 90 and -800- gold per unit, with an average of ~125.

Mercury comes from coal, and thus costs an average of ~28 gold.

Mercury happens what, roughly 25% of the time? Burn more coal, you get more mercury, you get more sugar.

I got 1 batch of sugar every 2.5 kegs (10 vials out of 250, or 4% of total vials) but that was the most frequent I've seen it - trying to amalgamate sulfur for sugar and not flushing to up the rate of such occurances took over 40 amalgamations, at a rate of 2.5%. So don't try and stiff Alchemists out of their sugar, that stuff is rare, and costs.

Alchemists: Keep your sugar until people are willing to trade for decent rates! I keep mine for one trader at the moment, but take 100 gold per or 1:1 trade mercury-sugar from her. If alchemists refuse to take lower rates, then we control the supply, and can buy mercury from forgers if the cooks don't like it.

Um, yes, I can see the fact that mercury comes from coal, which is a cheaper base commodity is a point. I can also see that sugar comes from more expensive base commodities.

However, I think it's worth pointing something else out. I'm a fairly hardcore smith in terms of the amount of forging I've been doing lately. I have, from the last...570ish forgings or so...maybe 7 or 8 mercury.

The thing is, we only have the chance to make mercury 25% of the time, and we don't need to light the forge every forging (thank god). I'd say I'd also be somewhat unusual in that I'm working on about four commissions at the moment, so my volume of forging is massively high.

Alchemists, on the other hand, I'd think would be in fairly high demand (I know I burn through health vials like no-one's business), more so than a smith whose product lasts nearly a RL year. As such, you're putting higher volumes of stuff through, so statistically, there's likely to be more sugar than mercury.

Besides, I don't use sugar myself, so Caed gives his mercury to Sarrasri for free, most of the time. Even if it's nominally cheaper to make, mercury is more scarce, so basic economic forces mean that it'll be priced higher than sugar if sugar is plentiful, or even only slightly more plentiful than mercury.

Ill trade ya when I start to brew more. Still getting myself set up, so no promises yet!

Wish the probability of making sugar goes waaaaay down at trans.

Yes..acquiring mercury..

As a cook, I sometimes cook..three, four times a day. I probably use an equal or maybe a little bit more coal in that process. More often than not, it fires normally. VERY rarely, I get a row of 3 mercury. Sometimes, I get a single one.

I also have to point out- I'm probably done cooking whatever I need, even in mass amounts, with a single use of coal...

Whereas, alchemists use the alembic..a lot. And in a commune, food isn't in so high a demand unless it's con platters or herefete food- most anyone can forage. Alchemy is in good demand most everywhere, because it's essential.

Mercury is damit rare. you will get much more sugar then mercury. I tried at one point to produce mercury.
It didnt go too well.
Its much lower rate then 25%. Around 5-10% and one coal burns in forge/oven for quite some tme so you have to spend hours in forge/kitchen to get enough mercury. And if you use coal just to prooduce mercury then price of mercury rise itself also.

I've got to agree with Caedryn, back when I was a cook, I had.. a few mercury, and mobs of alchemists gleeful for the 3sugar-to-1mercury ratio whenever they knew I had any.

The base comms might be different (I've never got coal down at 28 gold per though actually, guess I'm unlucky) but there are loads of alchemists, and not as many cooks/forgers, also the ones using coal don't use it as their main part of the process, even when I was cooking hundreds of platters or dishes(for the Lisae shop) I would only go through a few coal. Alchemists have that small chance every time they make potions, and there are hundreds of characters in the basin living on potions. Aeon is also a very nasty affliction.

It's all about supply and demand. You might have your trade deal that you stick by, but it won't change the fact that mercury is much more rare and much more needed then sugar (I never even used my sugar as a cook, and ended up selling it to another cook when I forgot cooking, you only use it for luxury items anyway), and thus will always be worth more.

Also, forgers don’t have a need for sugar, so half of the mercury suppliers don’t even have a possible use for sugar, whereas all of the sugar suppliers need mercury. (this applies a more standard price for the mercury, whereas sugar floats around just being on a barter system for the most part)

The presence of sugar might represent a larger investment lost(if alchemists are trying to conserve power and batch massive things together), so alchemists might want to, in their version of the ideal market environment, squeeze as much as they can to recoup losses... but that's just not an option.

Edit:I'd love to pick Roark's brain sometime, just thinking about what went into to create Lusternia's economy.

I sell mercury in my shop at 400 gp... because thats how much it costs me to get 1 mercury when burning coal, just for the sake of making mercury.

I went through 200 coal and got 30 mercury. - and that took roughly 10 hours.. (estimating from memory)

Never thougt of this when I had an alchemist. All of a sudden, buying lots of salt or sulphur seems like a lot better idea, given that most jewelers will sell them really cheap.

The mercury rate isn't that bad...I hadaround 22-24% mercury out of about 100 coal.