Pongo buying a Cloak of Protection

Pongo decided to augment his equipment with a Cloak of Protection, a rare magical item. Since he is a master-smith not a tailor, he could not hope to craft it himself, so he decided to venture out to Stoneharbor and try to find someone who would be willing to sell one.

A Cloak of Protection is a rare, but not extremely rare item, so it should possible to find it in Stoneharbor, but one would have to look and possibly use some of contacts to find someone selling it. So first: Where should Pongo look for it? Should he try his noble contacts to see the stock of an elite auction house? Or maybe try his luck with one of the trading companies? Maybe ask Shady? Or even visit the Brass Embassy?

In the end Pongo decided to reach out to his contacts among the nobility and he was given the time and location of an exclusive auction. He dressed up in his ceremonial garb and headed out there. Unfortunately he did not have an invitation and could not convince the guards to let him in, so he had to resort to bribery.

Once inside Pongo realizes that his information was somewhat unreliable, the bidding was already underway, but (thanks to Moradin!) the Cloak had not been sold yet. When its time came the auctioneer announced the starting bid at 3000 gp, somewhat below what Pongo thought would have been the market price. So our dwarf immediately bid on it, only to find that he had two competitors: a fat merchant dressed in rich clothes and a young noblewoman. Soon the bid went up to 3500 gp, which was too much for the merchant, so he folded. Since this would have been the fair price for such an item, Pongo remarked to himself that the merchant was either not serious, or did not understand the true value of the item.

Unfortunately for Pongo the young noblewoman kept matching his bids while wearing the self-satisfied smile of people for whom money is no object. So Pongo decided to remove his cloak to reveal his richly decorated, elaborate armor and raised the bid even further. Soon the noblewoman realized that she met her match and the dwarf would likely keep outbidding her. Not wanting to lose all the money her papa gave her to spend that night, she folded.

In the end Pongo purchased the Cloak of Protection for 5000 gp, at almost one and a half times the market price. but these things happen in the volatile market of magical artifacts.