The basement smelled like hot copper, burnt sugar, and dangerous choices.
Philip sat on his flipped-over wooden crate, holding a small iron pestle in his right hand. On the table in front of him was a small chunk of the orange dragon core he had chipped off with a heavy hammer.
Even a tiny piece of the core was pulsing with soft red light, making the cold stone cellar feel like a hot summer afternoon.
"Are you sure that thing is not going to blow up in my face again Philip?" Brandon asked from five feet away.
Brandon was standing behind a heavy oak pillar, holding a wooden trash can lid in front of his fat chest like a shield. His forehead was covered in nervous sweat, and every time the dragon core pulsed, his left eye twitched violently.
"If it was going to blow up, we would already be flying over the moon Brandon," Philip said without looking up. He brought the iron pestle down on the core fragment.
CRACK!
The stone chipped into tiny bright orange crumbs. Philip kept grinding, moving his hand in fast circular motions until the crumbs turned into a super fine, shimmering pinkish-orange powder.
"Look at that texture," Philip muttered, leaning down to inspect his work. "That is smoother than the fake gold dust they used to sell behind the bowling alley back in New York."
"What is a bowling alley? New York?" Brandon asked, poking his nose out from behind his wooden lid.
"Don’t worry about it," Philip said, waving his hand. "Now pass me that bag of low grade green healing cores we bought off the orphan kids yesterday."
Brandon shuffled over slowly, holding a greasy cloth sack at arm’s length as if it contained a venomous snake. "Those are worthless green cores Philip. They barely have enough mana inside them to cure a minor thumb scratch. Why are you mixing royal dragon stuff with street trash?"
"Because if I snort pure dragon core, my digestive system tries to launch me into orbit again," Philip explained, snatching the cloth sack. "My lower half is still sore from yesterday. But if I mix ten percent dragon fire with ninety percent basic green healing powder, the dragon energy acts like a massive turbocharger for the green core’s natural healing properties."
Philip dumped six small green cores into the stone bowl. He smashed them into dust, then used a flat wooden stick to fold the green powder and orange dragon powder together until it turned a soft pastel pink.
"Now we test it," Philip said.
"Test it on who?" Brandon asked, backing away again. "Not me! I am allergic to magic dust! My doctor said my heart is very sensitive to strange powders!"
"You don’t have a doctor Brandon," Philip sighed. He looked down at his own right forearm.
During his wild flying adventure yesterday, he had scraped a three-inch patch of skin clean off against a stone chimney. It was red, ugly, and scabs were trying to form.
Philip dipped his pinky finger into the pink powder. He brought it up to his left nostril and took a light, gentle sniff.
SHOOOOOP.
For two seconds, nothing happened. Then Philip’s eyes went wide as saucer plates.
His right arm began to hum like a tuning fork. A warm, pleasant sensation spread down his biceps, feeling like someone was holding a hot wet towel against his sore skin. The red scrape on his forearm started glowing with tiny pink sparks. Right before Brandon’s eyes, the torn skin began pulling itself together, sealing up the open wound in less than four seconds flat.
When the glow faded, Philip’s arm was completely smooth. There was no scar, no scab, and not even a single mark left behind.
"Holy crap," Philip gasped, flexing his fingers. "It feels like I just slept for twelve hours and ate three giant steaks. I don’t even feel tired!"
Brandon dropped his trash can lid with a loud wooden clatter. He ran over to the table, staring at Philip’s arm with his jaw hanging open. "It healed a deep scrape in four seconds? That kind of instant magic usually costs twenty gold coins per bottle at the market!"
"And it only took half a gram of dragon dust and two coppers worth of green trash," Philip grinned, tapping the wooden bowl. "This stuff is magic gold."
"We’re gonna sell it!" Brandon yelled, slapping his fat hands together. "We can bottle it up in small glass vials! We can charge fifteen silver pieces per bottle to the rich merchants in the upper district! We’ll be rich by Tuesday!"
Philip grabbed Brandon by his thick leather collar and pulled him down until they were nose to nose.
"We are not selling a single grain of this to the rich upper district Brandon," Philip said, his voice turning cold and serious.
Brandon blinked in confusion. "Why not? Rich people have all the money! Poor people in the slums don’t have two coppers to buy a piece of bread!"
"Because those rich snobs sat in their high towers sipping fancy wine while the dragon was burning down the slums," Philip said, tossing the wooden mixing stick onto the table. "I saw two tiny kids trapped under a burning sign yesterday while some fat noble pushed them out of his way to save his own silk cape. The upper district can buy their expensive cathedral potions. This batch is for the people living in the dirt."
Brandon groaned loudly, throwing his hands in the air. "Philip! You are a peasant! Since when do you care about poor people?! Charity doesn’t pay for my shop rent!"
"I don’t care about charity Brandon, I care about balance," Philip said, pulling out a stack of small paper sachets he had stolen from a tea merchant earlier. "And besides, if I dump ten thousand gold coins worth of dragon powder into the street market at once, the Royal Guard will track it straight back to this cellar in five minutes. Doing it quietly keeps my head attached to my neck."
Philip began scooping tiny, precise amounts of pink powder into the paper sachets. He folded the tops over neatly, then pulled out a cheap charcoal stick.
On the front of each paper sachet, he wrote three simple steps in messy block letters.
STEP ONE. OPEN THE PAPER.
STEP TWO. SNIFF ONE LINE UP YOUR NOSE.
STEP THREE. DON’T DRINK WATER FOR FIVE MINUTES.
"Is that your instructions?" Brandon asked, squinting at the messy handwriting. "Sniff one line up your nose? People are going to think it is poison!"
"Trust me Brandon," Philip chuckled, folding the last paper sachet and shoving it into a leather pouch. "Where I come from, people will try snorting anything if you tell them it makes the pain go away."
Phillip whispered reminiscing the pain of the past.
Philip grabbed his wooden clown mask off the shelf, checking the eye holes to make sure they were dry from yesterday’s tears.
"Where are you going now?" Brandon asked, watching Philip strap the leather pouch around his waist. "It is pitch black outside! The city guards have a strict night curfew because of the dragon damage!"
"Curfews are just suggestions for guys who know how to walk quietly Brandon," Philip said, slipping the wooden clown mask over his face. "Keep the cellar locked. If I catch you trying to sell my pink dust to the butcher, I will snort a chunk of thunder core and jump on your roof."
"I wouldn’t dare!" Brandon squeaked, holding his hands over his head.
Philip grinned under his painted wooden mask, unlocked the cellar trapdoor, and vanished into the cold night shadows of the ruined capital city.