A quick flash of my guild identification, and I get to skip the line of farmers, merchants, and travelers attempting to enter, as well as some of my less prestigious adventuring brethren. Thankfully, no one complains about my priority access; or, if they do, they do so quietly enough so as not to hurt my precious feelings. Heh.
My first destination is somewhere to sell these potions. Of course, I could just go to the guild hall, but their rates are pitifully bad with gear of all qualities, why should potions be any different? No, I need an alchemy-focused business where I can sell these off in bulk.
After asking a few adventurer-looking types, I get an answer: Paul's Potions. A really simple, and perhaps even corny, answer to my question, eh?
Still, this place is supposedly quite nice, with the ability to pay well and in bulk when buying from customers and run by a nice enough guy to sell them for a handsome profit. Adventurers get their money (because apparently picking up potions while out on a job isn't that uncommon for adventurers), the businessman turns a profit, and customers find a nice place that sells reliable potions. Works for me.
The only real requirement is that the potions must be of a certain quality. While I am far from an expert on potions, with what knowledge I do have I feel confident that a majority of these potions will meet that quality threshold.
The place looks like any of the surrounding shops in its area, made of wood but actually taken care of, unlike that armorer's place. In the display windows are racks of potions, proudly displaying their effects but not listing their price. You'd have to go in and check, and then you might end up actually buying something; at least, I presume that this is the store-owners logic, and it works well in all cases except for when a product has actually low prices, in which case one wants to make those its defining characteristic, so as to distract from undoubtedly poor quality. And, based on the lack of any observable price tag, this place is advertising quality over price point.
I open the door and a little bell rings. "I'll be with you in a minute!" I hear a man's voice call roughly from somewhere in the back of the store.
While I wait for him, I take a look around. From the ceiling hang countless strands of strange herbs and other strung materials, presumably providing the source of the many conflicting fragrances which fill the room. The walls are lined with materials of all sorts, from feathers and bones to glass beads and shards of crystal. Skulls, talons, and even bars of metal are scattered about the place, each with a little price tag upon them; for this place sells not only potions but their materials as well.
While these materials may seem quite exotic to some, even with my limited time spent working with alchemy under Lector I know that this is only a tiny selection of what can go into potions; after all, mystical and exceedingly diverse effects must also require mystical and diverse ingredients, and this place aims to provide them – at a price, of course; one would almost certainly be better off just buying the potion he needs as opposed to all of the materials, masters of alchemy, of course, exempted; though I suppose having a place to buy materials is nice for those who have gathered the majority on their own and only require a handful of unique materials to supplement them to make their potions; though, even then, one would have to be at least moderately adept in the field of alchemy to make such a process at all worthwhile, someone who has only collected most of the materials but has no experience in the field and yet chooses to supplement himself with materials from this place to try his hand at potionmaking would likely find that he would have been better off to just sell his collected materials and buy the finished product due to the massive difference in quality between that potion which may result from his best efforts and that which is sold by a reputable and capable potion vendor the likes of he who operates this place.
Other than the unique and varied materials, there are of course many potions on display, potions which advertise their mighty effects with pride upon their labels – and hide their exorbitant prices on their backsides, where they might be kept out of sight just long enough for a customer's interest to be piqued to a great enough extent to consider making the purchase; the effects upon the labels make claim so outlandish and varied as to again emphasize that this is a world of fantasy (as if I needed any more reminding by this point); healing potions, sleep resistance potions, energy potions, all types I have seen before; potions of resistance to fire and to ice and to poison and venom, and to paralysis, and to petrification, and to a dozen other, horrid ailments that I shall hope to never encounter; potions to breath under the surface of the sea, or to walk on the same; potions to make one levitate for a short time, potions to increase one's strength output, or his speed, or his rate of leveling (those ones are both so limited and so expensive as to be out of the reach of all but the most affluent of nobles); even stranger potions too, the likes of which I would never even imagine to exist – a potion to alter one's tastes such that anything he eats will taste acceptably pleasant, a potion to make oneself smell like a skunk, a potion which claims to induce one's mouth to well up with a dreadfully poisonous saliva that is more than capable of killing the user – that one has a big warning label on it.
And even more potions besides, covering many tables and occupying many racks strewn about the cluttered store, their brilliant solutions forming a rainbow of every shade of every color when placed beside one another, alongside a grayscale which includes every shade in its range. Of course, there are also brown potions, looking ever unappetizing.
I have time only to take in these details by the time the shop owner enters, this mysterious man by the name of 'Paul;' a name so suspiciously and conspicuously normal within this world of Lectors, Reinharts, Jorgensons, and Anetors that I almost must doubt its authenticity.
The man is of a pale complexion, painfully thin, with a skin that seems almost green in places; add in the large shadows under his eyes, and the man looks every bit the part of some mad alchemist brewing up his twisted potions in his basement lair.
"Ahem. Pardon me for the raspiness of my voice, I'm afraid I'm feeling a bit under the weather. And pardon the wait, I had something that must be finished. Now, what can I do for you?"
Raspy indeed! Well, no matter. "Yes, I have some potions that I picked up recently while out on assignment, I was looking for someone to sell them to and your name came up."
"Why, did it now? Well, that's a good sign that I'm doing something right – or perhaps something wrong, if people seem to enjoy doing business with me. May I see these potions of yours?"
Despite its raspiness, there seems to be a sort of charisma in his voice, the likes of which makes me want to keep talking with him, though perhaps I am only imagining things; understanding the tones of others was never my strong suit.
I pull out those potions which I had so inconveniently forgotten when selling off my ill-gotten gains from my first assignment – er, I mean, fair and valid reparations for grievances suffered at the willing hands of an entire village. Yes, we'll go with that.
"What have we got here? Hmm… a few healing potions, a few magical energy potions, a few sleep resistance, and a scattered assortment of others. Where did you get these again?"
"On an assignment," I reply evenly, neglecting to add further detail.
The man, 'Paul,' rather, looks at me without saying anything before looking away, apparently having decided that it wasn't worthwhile to try to wheedle such information out of me. Smart man, that 'Paul.'
"Hmm… Well, in that case, I'll need a few minutes to check these over. Not that I doubt their quality, but we have a policy here of making sure that we only sell the highest quality goods."
[Don't you set the policy?] I can't help but question, while giving him a nod. "Well, to be honest, I haven't yet had them appraised, so I can't promise quality, it's probably a good thing that you're looking them over now."
"Hm? Oh, yes…" he replies absentmindedly while carefully inspecting the potion in his hands, in such a manner as to make me almost certain that he hasn't heard a word that I just said.
While he looks my goods over, I continue to do the same for his and his store in which they are contained. Though the place is far more cluttered than that which belongs to the armorer to which the first load of my extortion profits went, it is also much cleaner, devoid of any dust or grime, with crystal clear windows (though they cannot escape the wavy patterns which most glass in this world counts as a defining characteristic in my eyes.)
Other than potions and the materials of their construction, there are a handful of books and a dozen or so lesser texts, placed on their own pedestals. The price tags on these tomes are enormous; after all, the potion industry is one in which a great deal of money is available to be made, the primary obstacle to entry are the material costs and the information costs, if one is wealthy enough, it is a path to great riches. And it is only with that mindset that the prices make any sort of sense, though I would argue that five hundred gold for any written text is ridiculous, particularly for a small scroll advertised as containing "dozens" of recipes. No wonder that one retired alchemist I encountered in that village on the far edge of this nation's frontier was so desperate to acquire my couple recipes; even with me taking the dimension ring, it still wasn't a particularly bad deal on his part. And had I not spotted the ring, his profits would have been absolute.
And one must remember, the five hundred gold price tag is that which is fixed to the smallest scroll. The grandest tome? Five platinum! Five! That's enough to undergo the renaming process twenty five times! And that is with the prices charged by a great and powerful sorcerer of noble lineage, to charge so much! Wait, so how rich does that mean Lector was, with a number of potion recipe books of his own, all of greater weight than even the grandest here?
After a moment, I realize that the answer to that question should come as no surprise; after all, Lector is supposedly on the council of wizards which rule over the ludicrously wealthy Sorcerous Dynasty of Shi'vat – though I really must question what type of dynasty is ruled by a council.
Finally, 'Paul' speaks once more and I turn my attention to him.
"All but these," he says, gesturing to a three potions, "I will buy off of you."
I know better than to complain over the turning down of my products; thankfully, my madness also doesn't act up, so I do not question it. Instead I ask "What is your offer?"
He immediately replies "Thirty coins, and that is as much as I can offer."
I immediately accept; with my limited knowledge, such a number seems fair. And besides, that's sufficient to cover my expenses with a fair bit left over.