The innkeeper snorts as you pull your sword, unaffected by your attempts at intimidation. You vaguely hear her say something along the lines of "don't pull steel you're not willing to use", but you've already crossed the room before things can escalate. As your approach the merchant, he barely looks up from his meal, continuing to suck the flesh and cartilage from a chicken bone until there's nothing more than a thin coating of saliva upon it, tossing it into a pile with the other remains of this poor bird. You nearly think he didn't hear you, but the man does respond, after he's had another mouthful of bread and washed it down with a gulp of ale.
"A man wears a fine shirt, some lovely trousers, treats himself to a good meal and suddenly he's set upon by all manner of folks with sword and shield and spell. Funny, the kind of attention wealth attracts, isn't it?" He asks, perhaps rhetorically, as his fat-sunken eyes lead up from his meal towards your face. His grease soaked lips turn upwards into a friendly smile as he continues you. "Suppose I should be thankful those swords and shield and spells belong to adventurers, rather than bandits. I'm long past the days of fending off such wicked men by my lonesome."
He gestures across the table to the empty chair adjacent to him, and wastes little time in tearing back into his meal. It's rather grotesque, how viciously he carves into the remnants of the hen, a man with a love for a full belly, if his prodigious weight didn't tip you off. "You are in luck, my long ear friend, for I do indeed have work to be done by those brave enough to undertake it. I am a provider of many goods and services in this town and others all across our fine kingdom and beyond, and my clientele list is vast indeed. I require an escort for a small caravan of specialty goods bound from this very location to a remote outpost in the woodlands west of the city in some two days time, no sooner, no later." He informs you, taking a moment to snap his sausage like fingers and call over a serving girl to refill his tankard and provide him with another freshly roasted hen, which he eagerly rips into.
"Now, there is certainly no shortage of adventurers in our fine little hamlet, but this is a task which requires let us say... a more subtle hand, hmm? If the guild were to know to whom these goods were going, it would spell much misfortune for my burgeoning relationship with this particular client. Indeed, not even the brave city guard may know of our goings on. Problematic, considering they will no doubt check the caravan for contraband before it leaves the gates. I'm sure an enterprising individual such as yourself would have no issues with this stipulations, though, hmm? In preventing any who might interfere with my business from ruining such a profitable transaction, in return for a very generous stipend, say, two hundred gold pieces paid upon your return?"