"Hey Morrie, what did you do the brew?" Barroco exclaimed. This batch had confounded Barroco all morning. While retaining the properties of processed lunarfritz, it had strange and non-scientific characteristics, such as homeostasis: keeping its internal temperature like a living being despite its surroundings. It frequently changed its silvery color despite no external stimuli.
"I have no idea. Where did you buy the specter's kiss?" The sickly man sluggishly replied while loading the truck.
"I got it from the Crone's cult," Barroco replied nonchalantly, fidgeting with his gauges. There was a small chance that it could be something legendary.
"What?"
"They're in a territorial dispute with the Loranisburg Companions. Getting contraband from them is the easiest thing in the world!" Barroco remarked, accidentally blurting out his contacts.
"What's the Crone's cult?"
Barroco pondered for a while. The Crone's cult had been around so long that they simply became a nuisance of life, like moths beneath a flickering streetlamp. The simpler something is, the harder it is to justify it to a stranger. How would one explain what chicken tastes like?
Luckily, two hooded figures approached Barroco's shop. Barroco wrinkled his nose, playing a joke on his friends from the dredges of society. Weary and homeless, they both carried heavy patchwork sacs, filled with all their earthly possessions.
"Good show! I was just about to explain to my friend what you guys did around here!" Barocco greeted.
"Greetings. For those who can not forgive the world, and for those who the world can not forgive, we offer solace and redemption with our righteous order." A hooded figure bowed his head. He tried to hand Morrie a cheap pamphlet, to Morrie's hidden annoyance.
"… Are you prisoners?" Morrie scratched his chin.
"Sir… our appearances may be poor, but we are rich in our hearts with love for the Lonely Crone!" The other one proclaimed. As he raised his head, Barroco caught the lightning in the milky white of his blind eye.
"Isn't she some sorcerian swamp goddess? I didn't know she was popular in Loranisburg." Morrie became more confused.
The two Crones Cultists gasped and prayed, begging loudly for forgiveness for a stranger.
"Forgive him; I think he is Crescentian. Anyways, how may I help you, Amon?" Barroco laughed.
The skinnier cultist responded, "We seem to have shipped you the incorrect batch of Specter's Kiss."
"What?"
"We accidentally sent you… ashes."
"What ashes?"
"We hid our specter's kiss inside of urns as we transport them around the city. We may have given you the wrong one."
"I see," Morrie spoke again, cold sweat rolling down his face. At once, the two cultists reached into their sacs and pulled out a sealed urn. The jar, etched with ancient sorcerian scriptures, smelled sulphuric, like rotting eggs. Barroco relished the scent, knowing that it was good Specter's Kiss.
"Why did the Specter's Kiss you gave us last week smell the same?" Morrie countered.
"There are certain ways we process our dead that lead to certain characteristics."
"Where did they die?" Morrie questioned.
"We would rather not say." They answered, eyeing Morrie suspiciously.
"Listen, I'd watch out for the Courageous Companions if I were you; they're planning something," Amon spoke again after a little while.
"Right, I think the recent set of disappearances have something to do with them." The fatter blind cultist responded.
"Disappearances?"
"They're lawless heathens, abusing the power of the gods for their gain." Amon proclaimed.
"Don't you guys hate the Greater God?" Barroco paused.
"Our lady, the lonely Crone, stands together with the lesser gods wronged by him," Amon stated.
"You don't know about the disappearances?" Barroco asked.
"Disappearances?" Morrie responded.
Ever since Barroco's uncle discovered Morrie, there were whispers in the newspaper about the odd missing person. Someone's daughter, a local magistrate, a fisherman, all sorts of people seemingly vanished into thin air.
"Be careful." The two cultists left as quickly as they arrived.
After Morrie finished loading the truck, he turned to Barroco and said, "By any chance, have you ever given them a thorough medical examination?"
"No, why?" Barroco responded.
"I don't know; they seem kinda sickly to me."
"Well, you seem kinda sickly to me."
"Exactly. Listen, I don't trust them," Morrie said, "These are people who have given up on living and are just preparing for the next life."
"I feel like that's a lot of people, is it not?"
"…" Morrie didn't respond. He went back to lifting the barrels into the truck.
Barroco had met Amon a few years ago when Barroco delivered something to a Lonely Crone's soup kitchen. Even if it's only for themselves and the 'people' they've chosen, the cult still dedicated resources to charity, even while contesting the Courageous Companions to control the city. Amon was a shipwrecked fisherman. He had lost everything to the pirate king Buccaneer. Regaling Barroco of tales when he served in the navy, Amon proudly recounted how he lost his eye fighting for old Desmond Canzones of all people. Barroco had reminded him that saying things like that could get him arrested, but perhaps Amon was already gone in the head by then.
"Barroco, darling!!!"
Barroco recoiled in fear. There was only one person who that could've been.
"Here's the bouquet you ordered! Now I hope you know that you're my favorite customer," An auburn-haired woman flirted at him, running into an embrace at the speed of sound. She handed him a floral arrangement of sun-daisies, spider-lilies, and ocean-tulips, in a tri-color declaration.
"Hello, Ms. Ceres," Barroco bemoaned, getting distracted by her emerald floral pin.
"Come on now; you don't have to be a stranger," Ms. Vivian Ceres pouted, playing around with Barroco's hair.
"Now, Ms.Ceres, I hope you understand that these flowers are for someone else." Barroco inspected the arrangement.
"I know; it's for your little nurse. Well, I'll still be waiting, wishing you the absolute best of luck." Ms.Ceres smirked, earning a faint chuckle from Morrie, who was inside the back of the truck.
Bud, Bloom, and husk. Those were the three roses embroidered on the Springfields' banner, and Ms.Ceres was kind enough to include one of each. To Barroco, Florence was all three. Her youthful exterior hid an exquisite mind and a withered soul, and that captivated him.
"This is way more than I paid for," Barroco suddenly realized.
"Someone who claimed to be her relative claimed your tab. Not only is he paying for the party and everything, but he also invited all sorts of people." Vivian reluctantly handed Barroco back his coins.
"That girl has no relatives left with that kind of money," Morrie said.
"He's someone who called himself a Duke of Crescentia. Do you have many of them there?" Vivian asked.