My quest to be the ultimate dwarf has led me to construct warehouses to store ore and trade goods prior to their sale. However, a human aquaintence of mine recently approached me with a strange proposition to use them for something different.
He has, he explains, knowledge of two obscure magics that could make him fabulously rich - but also that his plan requires the use of my warehouses and financial resources to get started. I was immediately suspicious, of course - but when I investigated, I could find no obvious flaw in his plans.
The first magic is the ability to summon a djinni. He could research the relevant spell, he says, for a mere 6,000 gold pieces to cover his costs, assuming he succeeds on the first attempt; He would then be able to summon a djinni that obeys his orders without question for a full day each week. (There are rare and powerful magical rings that can do the same thing, he informs me, but they cost a great deal more and are exceedingly rare.)
The second magic is a power that all genies posess: Specifically, the ability to create up to ten stone of permanent soft goods, three times per day. A single use of this power, he says, is sufficient to create two and a half rolls of fine silk, or two bundles of rare ermine fur - in either case, a quantity of trade goods worth 1,000 gold pieces.
By using these two abilities in conjunction, he believes he could make create trade goods weghing 120 stone and worth 12,000 gp each month - which seems like an absurdly high return on investment.
My first thought was that he was mad, or at least misinformed - but after consuling certain sages, I was forced to admit his knowledge of both djinni powers and djinni-summoning spells seems to be correct. Worse, many tales specifically described djinn causing fine silks and other valuables to appear in the twinkling of an eye, and of those who controlled such djinni gaining wealth beyond measure in very short order.
Even so, this plan of his seems too good to be true. Please, Autarchs, tell me the flaw I've overlooked in this scheme!