The merchant provides the opportunity to pay gold for items that may help you on your travels.
Each time you visit the merchant, do the following:
1. Stock the Shop. Reveal one, two, or three item cards, according to the number of dice you rolled while exploring. Take them from the bottom of the Item Deck. Set them out with their ordinary (orange) sides face up. These become the SHOP, and can be individually purchased with the BUY merchant action. If the Item Deck is ever empty when you would draw an item, reshuffle the discarded items into a new deck.
2. Pay Gold. You may pay gold on any of the four merchant actions shown on the Merchant Card. You may do the same merchant action as many times as you wish and can afford per visit (exception: you can only Buy as many times as there are available items), and you may perform the merchant actions in any order. To perform a merchant action, simply pay the listed cost, which is deducted from the running total on your tracker. You can only choose options you can afford. You may also choose not to take any merchant actions.
3. Tidy Up. Once you are done taking merchant actions, discard any shop items you didn’t purchase to the item discard pile.