Fangthane

Interesting take on things. You stand firmly against blackmail, but outright theft is cool with you. While it may be very enlightening to anyone who reads your posts with the intent of gauging your own integrity, or lack thereof, it's not particularly relevant to the topic at hand.

In the simplest terms: the buyer paid for an item that arrived severely broken and the seller is shirking his duty to rectify what he admitted was his own mistake. The actions of characters whose relationship is tangential, at best, absolutely should not be an acceptable justification for withholding what's due to the main principal involved, the guy that actually handed over the money for the dead snake. I believe anything beyond this is completely moot and serves no purpose other than creating lame rationalizations for the seller to justify keeping money received for a product that he ultimately didn't provide in what could sensibly be called a satisfactory condition.