Long ago, in the village of Arcodia, there was a man. He lived beneath a Yew tree in a house unbecoming of his wealth and knowledge, but he didn't mind. Each day, he would wander the area, from Empath Abbey to the shrine of Justice, and he would ponder the ways of the world, and each day he would see the same men and women standing in front of houses, leaning against the walls of brick or plaster or wood (for this was before marble and sandstone housing was available to the public), and he would wonder why they stood there so often, peddling their employer's wares rain or shine, chills or sunstroke. When he inquired one of these vendors directly, he dodged the topic and said that he did only what his guildmaster directed him to do. "Ah," thought the man. "I must find this guildmaster." The man entered Yew and found the vendor guildmaster. "Why do these vendors work so hard for so little?"

"Our guild promises satisfaction, and we do what we must."

"Hm. Fine then. May I employ one of your guildsmen?"

The guildmaster said nothing, handing him an employment slip with an address on it. The man went to the address, knocked on the farmhouse door. To his surprise, a woman answered. She couldn't have been more than twenty, but her face, full of wrinkles and wear, showed that those twenty years had been work-filled. "Um, sorry to disturb you, but I have a slip for your employment."

"Yes sir," was all she said.

The two marched off to the man's small wooden house and the woman refused to enter. Instead, she stood on his steps next to the guildstone he used to keep track of the delivery boys that carried his few publications to his compatriots. The man stayed inside for days, often staying up all hours of the night, watching the woman out his window. She occasionally let her eyelids drop as she leaned against the wall, but the moment footsteps approached, she snapped to attention. At the end of a week, the man went outside. "This must stop," he said. He bent down and etched the woman's name into the guildstone. "There," he said. "You're free. Pay lip service to me and you never have to stand on my steps again. Hell, live in my house if ye please. Just stop."

The woman barely seemed to comprehend. "N-no more selling?"

"No! Just live a normal life!"

For the first time in years, a smile cracked the woman's face. She rushed inside and sat down in the large padded chair, and the man had to admit, she was an attractive woman once she took down the facade...

The next time the man took his walk, a few of the vendors smiled at him. Not smiles of relief as the woman had given him, but small "I know what you know" smiles. It was a bit odd, but at the same time a relief...

The man returned to his small wooden home one day to find a long list of names hastily scratched into his guildstone. "What's this?" he asked the woman, who had come to be a permanent fixture in his home.

"Well, some friends of mine... They wanted out, too. The guildmaster, he's just so hard on us." She looked at the man a moment, then gave him a quick squeeze and a smile. In the past few weeks, their relationship had advanced past that of employer and employee.

The man gave a bit of a goofy smile. "Well, we can't have that, can we? It sounds like we had best start a strike, make a guild of our own..."

In the forest of houses in Arcodia, the idea spread like wildfire. Vendors everywhere were going on strike, organizing themselves in such well-known places as Kazola's Tavern and Krista's Ranger Station. The hustle and bustle attracted the patrons along with other such staple citizens of the area as Redlowwinski, EdGuardo, Arakasi, and BlackAngel. The vendors ignored even such heroes as these as long as their demands remained unmet. "I've been selling the mongbat ribs my employer prepares as beef jerky!" one yelled. "We get nothing while our masters grow fat and rich!" another chanted. For three days straight the chaos continued until a meeting of Arcodian citizenry was called. The woman, first liberated, acted as spokesperson for the vendors, and after hours of heated negotiation, an agreement was met. These days, the cause of the economic freedom of the vendors of Arcodia is mostly forgotten, but there is a couple, now grown old and living in the Abbey, that remembers.