An important factor in the game is being able to sell trashy material for less trashy material. However, with most shops scamming people, you want to make the most of the small things. There are 2 main paths to take here, either minimize loss through thrifty spending or maximize gain through murder. For the former, this is done by increasing [[charisma]] and pawning off duplicate items. Even a single point of [[charisma]], if it were to increase the selling price of that horrible bronze dagger by 1 gold, and you had several of those daggers, would make quite the profit when taking into consideration that [[charisma]] (henceforth referred to as charm) also lowers the prices of shop goods. Praying to [[Dulcis]] is currently the most effective method of this, as she can shoot your charm up permanently to about 29, but you can also utilize [[ommel tears]] well. An obscure method is to polymorph into a siren, giving you 75 charm temporarily, but don't waste a wand of polymorph on this. You may also consider the recently added wand of alchemy, which turns materials into pure currency regardless of charm, which can be game breaking with the right materials (namely gold, which can be found without too much difficulty). For the latter, it's easier said than done, really. Killing the well armed guards and the honestly very strong shopkeepers are a challenge regardless of who they are. If you have an archangel of any type (with the possible unlucky exception of [[Amatrix]]), [[Merka]] and the rest of the shopkeepers can be killed with ease. However, they quite literally have a back that can absolutely whoop you. If you so choose to kill [[Merka]] or another dungeon shopkeeper, do not dare venture into the [[Black Market]] without an army or a will (I'll make an exception for the one man army, but that man better be Petrus or stronger). The guards there are strong and fast enough to rip through just about any armor you might be wearing. As for [[Hulbo]], the [[attnam]] shopkeeper, he's well spoken for. This may seem discouraging, but I promise you, unless you can seek to gain from that pick-axe all shopkeepers hold, accept their scams instead.