“Seriously, Burzel? I will never understand your constant urge to visit these tiny, derelict shops all over the continent.”
“Yes Vixis, I admit, it is a rather bothersome vice of mine. However, you’d be surprised what sort of diamonds in the rough I occasionally come across. Remind me to tell you about the Progenitor artifact I bought from a halfling hermit last year.”
As the two figures, hooded and clad in dusty grey cloaks, entered the shop and closed the door behind them, they turned their attention from each other to the selection of elixirs and reagents on display. It wasn’t long before one of them, a woman with thick bangs of jet-black hair, became impatient.
“Artifacts I can understand, but…this is just a standard alchemy shop,” Vixis scanned the surroundings with disinterest and borderline disgust. “There’s nothing here that would garner even a passing glance from the Consortium or the Investors Guild. Unless you plan on procuring some ogre bile stain remover for yourself, we’re just wasting time.”
“That’s the trouble with passing glances,” Burzel’s voice had lowered slightly as he bent down near a workbench to peer at something that had caught his distractingly pale grey eyes. “You tend to miss hidden value.”
Vixis looked over his shoulder in anticipation, but frowned when she saw the object that he was transfixed on. “A potion with luminance factor 9? I can get a dozen of those in the Isles for a single doubloon.”
“Look closer,” Burzel beckoned her, still with his gaze locked onto the glowing vial. “Have you ever seen a potion with this complex of a crystalline hue?”
Vixis let out a short huff, asking herself once again why she indulged him, but did as he directed, lowering to his level. As she began to make out the details of the vial’s interior, her eyes slowly widened, reflecting the bright pink glimmer she now beheld. “Wait, what…?” she murmured in disbelief. “I’m not an alchemist, but I’ve read enough to know that pattern should be impossible. There must be an illusion rune nearby.”
“Here? With the rest of the shop looking like this? Highly doubtful.” Burzel shook his head. “Perhaps the shop owner would have more information.”
“Can I help you?”
The pair turned to see Rizzik emerge from his shop, no doubt drawn by the voices he heard from his study. Burzel changed his expression immediately, grinning and spreading his arms wide with a polished air of warmth. “Ah, the power of the spoken word. Greetings. I am interested in procuring this fascinating mixture you have here.”
Rizzik glanced at the potion and tensed slightly, having momentarily forgotten he had left it there. “Oh, I’m afraid that’s a special order that has already been purchased. I apologize for the confusion. I didn’t mean to have it out on display.”
“Didn’t you?” Burzel inclined his head and raised and raised an eyebrow while maintaining the same grin. “I find it hard to believe the peddler of such a marvel would want to keep it so exclusive. Can you at least tell me what its purpose is?”
Rizzik adjusted a few items on a nearby shelf, but kept his eye on the two strangers. Their attire was quite inconspicuous, but their unusual facial features, including the small but prominent tattoos they each had on their right cheek, led him surmise they were not from anywhere remotely nearby. Otherwise, there was little else he could discern, which made him slightly uneasy. “Sorry, I have not been authorized by my client to divulge that. I would be happy to tell you about any of the other items on display, however.”
Burzel nodded as though in understanding, but his smile shifted from that of friendly warmth to mere professional courtesy. “Of course, of course,” he tucked his hands meekly within his large sleeves. “As a fellow merchant, I would not expect you to part with anything—be it a vial or information—in your possession without proper compensation.”
Rizzik was immediately drawn to an object the man produced from within one of his sleeves and set on the work station: a shimmering brick of the most brilliant silver he had ever seen. “B-be that as it may,” he stammered, taking a moment to regain his composure, “I cannot…”
The alchemist trailed off as he suddenly felt light-headed. He briefly thought he spotted the man rubbing some strange, light blue grains of an unrecognized substance between his fingers, some of which then floated aloft in the musty air. But then…this sight and all of his most recent thoughts completely left his mind and only a sense of contentment remained.
“Oh, very well,” Rizzik felt himself smiling and nodding in agreement, though he somehow not only didn’t know what he agreed to, he no longer cared. “It is a full-body, permanent transformative beautification potion of my own design, the first of its kind.”
For a moment, Burzel dropped all pretense and peered at the alchemist with an incredulous gaze. “Permanent? You…can’t be serious. Polymorphism in potion form lasts mere minutes, and even then, it needs a kicker spell to ignite the reagents.”
“Of course he’s serious,” Vixis muttered behind him, her tone having quickened with excited realization. “No one lies when under the effects of the dust.”
Burzel hesitated in a rare moment of uncertainty in what to do next, but his partner pushed in front of him, locking eyes with Rizzik. “Can you make more? Say, five crates worth?”
Burzel glanced quizzically back at her, but remained silent. Rizzik blinked a few times, wondering why it took so long for him to answer a simple question as his former sense of uneasiness began to settle back in. “W-well…this particular potion was quite labor intensive to produce. I don’t really have the time to focus solely on…”
He was interrupted by a flurry of the light blue particles being flung in his face by the woman, causing him to cough a few times, but his face emerged from the cloud grinning from ear to ear and his irises having taken on the same color.
“I will get started on it right away. When would you like to pick them up?”
—
Half an hour later, the pair exited Durmrin and made their way on horseback toward the King’s Road, having secured the goods and services of the very cooperative alchemist.
“I’ve never seen someone inhale such a high amount of ohjata dust,” Burzel remarked, a mixture of amusement and wariness in his tone. “You were uncharacteristically aggressive with securing that transaction.”
Vixis shrugged, though her expression remained neutral. “I had to make sure it would last throughout the time it would take him to produce the agreed upon amount.”
“Keeping him dosed for that long will leave him quite confused when he recovers—possibly even indignant.” her partner noted, reaching down and idly plucking a blade of tall grass which he examined briefly before discarding.
“He’ll have five bars of silver-pressed Kurosian amethyst to soothe his troubled mind,” she replied readily. “Should be enough to buy himself a whole county in this dull, dreadful land.”
Burzel chuckled. “Fair enough, though I do hope you know what you’re doing. Investing too heavily in alchemical curiosities has always been a very risky enterprise. You may have just purchased five crates of diseased goblin semen.”
“Lovely visual,” Vixis rolled her eyes, “but I didn’t hear you protest while I made the deal. Besides, I have an…optimistic feeling about this.”
“Your acute business savvy is part of what makes this partnership so successful,” Burzel smiled knowingly, a smile Vixis was all too familiar with, “which is why I think a mere thirty percent of the profit is reasonable for my share.”
“Oh please,” Vixis scoffed. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be walking out with a single vial of ‘goblin semen’, barely enough to even double what you paid and certainly not enough to establish any sort of long-term contract with our consumers. You’ll take fifteen, and be thankful I’m even that generous.”
“And if it weren’t for me,” Burzel countered, “you’d have missed the opportunity entirely and arrived back at the Isles with nothing but that gaudy collection of ancient elven trinkets you bought at Talondale.”
Vixis glared in defiance. “Twenty.”
“Twenty-five.”
Pausing for a second, she sighed. “Fine. If it will wipe that idiotic smirk off your face.” She extended her index finger to touch her ring to Burzel’s to signify a deal had been struck. Next, she produced a small book from a pouch at her side, opened it, and placed her hand on the right side page. Two snowy white pigeons suddenly manifested into existence above her, perching on her wrist and holding a rolled up strand of paper in each beak. “I’ll send messages to our usual shipping channels. Will the Oystergull suffice?”
Burzel nodded. “Yes, should do nicely. She’s usually around the southern ports this time of year, if I recall.”
The next three weeks progressed without incident. With the unhindered work ethic of an automaton, the doped-up Rizzik went to work recreating enough vials of the potion to fill five endtable-sized crates, which were promptly picked up by Vixis and Burzel’s associates and transported to the port city of Highbreeze, from there, it was loaded into the cargo hold of the merchant vessel Oystergull, which resumed its regular route across Amonar to deliver its many products.
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