You can get your first three circles or so from selling branches, sticks or herbs, and doing basic skill training as described above. At that point, you may want to begin running contracts.

The primary reason to work on building up your bank account before beginning to run contracts is that contracts cost you coin. There are fees for loading the goods, for renting a pack animal, and various other parts of the transaction. If you don't have a good cushion of coin to begin with, you can soon find yourself down to your last copper and deep in debt!

Look up a good map site and walk around to all the guild outposts in your province before you begin. There's a time limit on each contract, and wandering around lost because you don't know where the outposts are is no fun. Several towns and outposts have guild stables. It's a good idea to locate these while you are locating the guild outposts.

Your ledger will be a helpful tool when you are contract trading. You can read it to discover what dues you have outstanding at any given outpost, or study it to learn how much profit you have made in all.

Many senior Traders might recommend that you begin your contract trading career in the province of Ilithi. This is outdated advice, based on the days when there were only three outposts in that province. With the addition of Darkling Wood outpost, south of Shard in the dangerous area infested by eidolon steeds, Ilithi has removed itself as primary province for novice contract traders.

Zoluren is now the best choice for novice traders as a starting province. There are seven stops on the Zoluren route, from south to north: Leth Deriel, Crossing, Tiger Clan, Wolf Clan, Arthe Dale, Stone Clan, and Dirge.

You will start out using a pack animal such as a mule, yak, or donkey to carry your goods. The clerk issues you an animal when you give him your first contract to fill. You can also, if you want to, just RENT ANIMAL if you for some reason don't have a contract but want to get an animal. TELL MULE (or donkey or yak) to see commands related to commanding your animal, or read your ledger about pack animals for useful information. It costs 120 coppers to rent a pack animal, which is added into your first contract's fees. There's an additional small charge with each contract for handling fees. If your load becomes too heavy for a pack animal, the Guild will automatically upgrade you to a caravan, and add that to your fees at that time.

Now, how to run your route. Let us assume you are working in Zoluren, and starting from the Crossing Guild.

If you haven't already, forage up a few tufts of grass – either regular grass or georin grass will be fine – and put them away somewhere handy for feeding your animal. A full animal moves faster than a hungry one, and if it gets too hungry, it will stop following you altogether or even die. Not a happy result.

There you are in the Crossing Guild, a lovely place. You should have a thousand or so copper kronars on your person for fees. Now, seek out the minister of commerce. From outside the front door of the Guild, go north, west, go door and east to find the minister. Most of our business is done through the iron doors – that's the shipping and receiving entrance for the Crossing guild. If you ask the minister for work, or for a contract, he'll give you one and tell you how much he is charging you for the wholesale goods.

Something that might help you is to set yourself to look at things the way a Warrior Mage would through the eyes of a familiar. (Open the Familiar window on your screen.)

Read your contract. You will see where it is bound, how much time you have to make the delivery, and how much the goods are worth on delivery. You will also see, at this point, that it has not yet been turned in to the Clerk.

Make your way to the Clerk a step west from the Minister, and give him the contract. He will have the goods loaded, and charge you a further amount for loading and pack animal rental. Now, pay the clerk. You should always pay up front, both to limit your coin in pocket, and to keep yourself ready to get a new contract at any time.

Pack animal loaded, fees paid, contract in hand…oh yes! That contract! If you're trading in Zoluren choose seven containers that you have on your person. Assign each one to an outpost. You could use containers you are already wearing; for example, Crossing is backpack, Arthe is pouch, Stone is case, Dirge is boot, Tiger is cloak, Wolf is quiver and Leth is sheath. You can see where this would be awkward. I'd recommend instead that you get seven different colored gem pouches and put all seven in your backpack. At the gem shop, ASK APPRAISER FOR RED POUCH (not gem pouch!) in order to get a pouch that you can reference by its color. Assign each outpost a color. Red for Crossing, green for Arthe Dale, blue for Stone Clan, and so on. This way you can easily look in the red pouch when you are in Crossing and see whether you have any contracts for that location, or put a contract for Crossing in your red pouch when you are at another outpost.

Let's suppose your first contract is for Stone Clan. So put it in your blue pouch, go out from where the clerk is, give the pack animal waiting outside the iron doors a piece of grass, then tell it to follow, and hit the road.

When you TELL MULE FOLLOW, it will get ready to follow wherever you lead. You must wait after each step you take for the mule to arrive, before taking the next step. It's a good idea to highlight the words ‘following you' in your text highlights so that you can always see your animal or caravan arriving. If you lose your mule, don't panic. Just retrace your route and you'll probably find it.

You might be tempted to walk right on up to Stone Clan and turn in that first contract. Don't do it! That is a very inefficient way to work. You'll walk right past Arthe Dale, and opportunity for more coin! Your first stop after leaving Crossing is Arthe Dale.

Arriving at Arthe Dale outpost, you know you don't have any contracts to deliver but you can look in your green pouch anyway to be sure, then ask the minister here for a contract. Read it, give it to the clerk to load, then pay the clerk. Oh, and if you're out of coin at this point yet still owing him, don't worry about that just now. You'll be back here in a short while.

Let's say this contract is to Crossing. That might worry you…do you go on to Stone Clan or back to Crossing, now? Well, don't fret. There is plenty of time when you're just beginning. The Guild seems to nearly expect you to get lost. So just go on with your route, heading up to Stone Clan. Tuck that Crossing contract in your red pouch, and get moving!

Arriving at Stone Clan, get the contract from your blue pouch and give it to the clerk. Remember at this point to look in your blue pouch to make sure you have turned in all your Stone Clan contracts. Since you're just starting, of course you only have one. He'll give you coin for it, and unload the goods. Congratulations, you've just completed your first contract!

Now, ask the minister at Stone Clan for a contract, read it, give it to the clerk, pay the clerk from your proceeds from the contract you just delivered, and put your new contract in the appropriate container. We'll say this one is for Arthe Dale, just for symmetry. Put it in your pouch, then head out to again. Not to Arthe Dale yet! There is one more outpost north of Stone Clan. Go to Dirge and get a contract there, as well, before feeding your animal and starting back. Stop in at Stone Clan if your Dirge contract is bound there, otherwise go all the way to Arthe from Dirge.

Arriving back at Arthe Dale, get the contract from your pouch, give the clerk the contract, and pay him, in case you still owed from your previous visit. Double check your pouch to be sure you are done here. You will not be able to get a new contract this time, since you still have one to Crossing from these folks. So now you may be down to one crate on your pack animal. That's fine! Mosey on down to Crossing.

Arriving in Crossing again, go directly to the Clerk. Get the contract from your red pouch and give it to the clerk. Look in your red pouch to be sure that's all you had. If you just turned in your last contract you could stop trading at this point and return your animal. (RETURN MULE at the clerk) Or, you can start again from the minister. If you choose to start another round, or are still working your route, go to the minister, get a contract, give it to the clerk, and pay the clerk.

Now, pause a moment. Go to your animal and tell it to wait, then run to the bank and drop off your coins. Visiting the bank often will help to keep your coins safe from theft. It is heartbreaking to trade all day and then lose your work in an instant to a set of thieving fingers. You can pay your dues from the proceeds of your contracts as you go, so you don't need to carry much coin on you. What coin you do carry you should try to keep in coppers as much as possible, as the thief will get only a certain number of coins on a grab – and you want those coins to be small ones.

You will have noticed that you were feeding your animal both at Crossing and at Dirge. If you make it a habit, you'll never have to worry about your animal going hungry. It may not need feeding that often, but better safe than sorry. So at each end of your route, feed your animal. On a longer route, such as the seven outposts of Zoluren, you may want to choose three points where you will feed your animal. If you have a feedbag, put several bits of grass in it, then just give the feedbag to your animal. It will then eat just enough from the feedbag.

Bear in mind that trading takes time. Plan ahead so that you don't have to suddenly rest, or leave, before you have finished your route. Whenever you choose to stop for the day, return your animal to the clerk and run to the bank to deposit your coin.

If you left the realms while your animal was out on the road and didn't come back for a time, you may need to visit the Guild stable to reclaim it. There's a fee for this so try to avoid doing that, but if needs must you can go to the nearest stable to where you left your animal and RETURN MULE (or whatever it is) to get it back.

No matter which province you trade in, setting a route and sticking to it is usually the most efficient way to run contracts. If it happens that you are trading in Zoluren, you might want to keep Leth Deriel, for instance, out of your main route, saving that town until you have several contracts bound there, or time running close on only one. The ferry to Leth charges an extra fee for loaded trade animals or caravans, so be sure you have at least a silver or two on you when you go to board it. In Therengia, there are both Riverhaven, across the lake, and Muspar'i in the desert to think about. And of course you should always adjust your travel to fit your planned deliveries.

You may be wondering about caravans. A caravan can be a very useful tool. Caravans move a bit faster than pack animals. The drivers do know some of the trade routes, and while you are following your caravan you can work on some of your skills such as appraisal, foraging, hiding or mechanics. The expense is the main thing to consider when deciding between a pack animal or a caravan. A caravan upgrade costs 300 kronars, and an additional fifty or so kronars per contract in loading fees.

After you reach your fifth rank in the Guild, you will have the opportunity to take inter-province contracts. These contracts move between Shard, Crossing, and Riverhaven. Remember what I told you earlier – ferries charge a fee. So if you choose to take an interprovince contract, be sure to have enough coin in the right currency on you for those ferries. You will also need to know the routes well. Most interprovince traders do use caravans, first because of the convenience of telling the driver to lead the way through Zoluren, and secondly because interprovince contracts tend to be higher profit, so the extra expense isn't such a burden.

You can, if you wish, do a little local trading while you are carrying an interprovince contract, but that can be a bit hard to manage. If you have taken an interprovince contract from a guild, you cannot take another contract from that guild, but you could take some from local outposts.

At your eighth rank, you will want to talk to Guild Leader Willowbrook, in Riverhaven, about a useful skill. At your tenth rank, Guild Leader Raelem will have a word or two for you about a skill she has to share, also. These are all things you don't have to know to do your work, but fun or interesting abilities that can make your life more varied.