The lower district at night was dead quiet, except for the cold wind howling through the broken alleyways and the distant sound of city guards marching in heavy boots on the main road.
Huge piles of charred wood, shattered roof tiles, and melted cobblestones lined the streets where the dragon fire had struck yesterday.
Hundreds of poor families whose homes had been ruined were sleeping on dirty wool blankets inside open stone alleys, shivering under the freezing night air.
Philip moved through the darkness like a ghost, his soft leather boots making zero sound against the broken stone.
In his past life back in New York, he had spent five years avoiding police spotlights and building security guards. Sneaking past a couple of sleepy medieval guards holding heavy wooden spears was like taking a walk through a public park.
He stopped near the back of a ruined blacksmith shop.
Lying on a pile of damp straw was an old man with a dirty white beard. His left leg was bent at a strange, unnatural angle, swollen purple from where a falling stone pillar had crushed his knee during the panic.
The old man was clutching his wooden cane, making soft, painful groaning noises every time he tried to shift his weight.
Philip crouched behind a wooden rain barrel, watching the old man for a moment.
"Alright," Philip whispered to himself under his clown mask. "Test subject number one. Let’s see if this works on crushed bones."
Philip slipped out from behind the barrel, sliding silently across the dirty alley until he was standing right next to the old man’s straw bed.
He pulled a paper sachet out of his waist pouch and dropped it gently onto the old man’s chest.
The sudden weight on his chest made the old man gasp. He snapped his eyes open, looking up into the pitch black alley.
Standing right over him in the dim moonlight was a tall, skinny figure wearing a painted wooden clown mask with a wide painted red smile and yellow stars around the eyes.
"AAAHHH!" the old man shrieked, his voice trembling in pure terror. "THE DEMON! THE CLOWN DEMON HAS COME TO EAT MY SOUL!"
"Hey you! Shut your mouth old man!" Philip hissed, dropping down on his knees and clapping a dirty leather glove over the old man’s mouth. "I’m not a demon! Do I look like a demon to you?!"
"MMMMFF! MMMMFF!" the old man muffled violently, staring at the painted red smile in absolute, blinding horror.
"Okay yeah, you have a point. The mask is pretty creepy," Philip admitted, holding his other hand up. "Look, I am not here to eat your soul. I don’t even believe in souls. Now, read the paper on your chest."
Philip slowly removed his hand from the old man’s mouth.
The old man was trembling so hard his beard was shaking. He reached down with a shaking hand, picked up the small paper sachet, and held it up to the faint moonlight.
"Open the paper..." the old man read out loud, his voice quivering. "Sniff one line up your nose... Don’t drink water for five minutes... What is this?! Is this dark necromancy powder?!"
"It’s medicine you old goat," Philip sighed, leaning back on his heels. "Look at your knee. It looks like a purple eggplant. If you don’t heal that in two days, the doctors are gonna cut your leg off with a rusty saw. Sniff the fucking dust."
"I am not snorting strange powder given to me by a midnight clown!" the old man yelled softly, hugging the paper to his chest. "You probably put rat poison in here!"
Philip groaned, reaching over and snatching the paper back out of the man’s hands. He unfolded the top, dipped his pinky finger inside, and pulled out a tiny speck of pink dust. He brought his finger to his own nose and took a loud, dramatic sniff.
"See?" Philip said, spreading his arms wide. "I am not dead. I didn’t turn into a toad. Now stop arguing and take your medicine before a guard patrol comes down this alley!"
The old man looked at his swollen purple knee, then looked at the pink powder inside the paper sachet. He swallowed hard, his stomach churning with fear.
"If I die, my soul will haunt you!" the old man whimpered.
He took the paper sachet, held it right under his nose, closed his eyes tight, and took a deep, desperate snort of the pink powder.
SHOOOOOOK!
The old man’s eyes flew wide open. His mouth dropped so low his lower jaw almost touched his collarbone.
"OH MY SWEET HAMMERS!" the old man screamed.
"Shhh! Keep it down!" Philip panicked, looking back toward the main street.
CRACK!
A loud, violent sound echoed through the dark alley as the crushed bone inside the old man’s knee instantly snapped back into its proper alignment.
The deep purple swelling vanished in two seconds, replaced by healthy pink skin.
The intense, throbbing pain that had been keeping the old man awake all night vanished completely, replaced by a wave of soothing, warm energy that made his whole leg feel twenty years younger.
The old man sat up on his straw bed, staring at his leg in complete, speechless shock. He reached out with a trembling hand, touching his knee, bending his leg back and forth without a single bit of pain.
"My... my leg," the old man whispered, tears springing to his eyes. "The bone was shattered into five pieces! The church priest wanted fifteen silver coins just to pray over it!"
He looked up to thank the mysterious stranger, but the alley was completely empty.
Philip was already thirty yards away, jogging quietly along the roof of a low butcher shop. He looked down into another dark alley, spotting a young mother sitting on the ground, crying while holding a small little girl who was coughing violently from inhaling thick black dragon smoke.
Philip dropped down off the roof like a falling leaf, landing soundlessly behind a wooden crate. He reached into his pouch, pulled out another pink paper sachet, and tossed it right into the mother’s lap.
"Hey," Philip called out softly through his clown mask. "Make the kid sniff half of that. Keep the rest for yourself."
The mother jumped in surprise, dropping her blanket. "Who... who are you?!"
"Just the neighborhood acting as a pharmacist," Philip said, leaping back onto the wooden crate and vaulting up to the stone roof tiles in one fluid motion. "And remember! Don’t drink water for five minutes!"
All through the long cold night, Philip moved from alley to alley, leaving over fifty sachets of pink dragon powder on doorstep steps, inside dirty pockets, and next to sleeping injured citizens.
By the time the first light of dawn began turning the eastern sky a pale grey, his waist pouch was completely empty, his legs were sore, but he had a strange, comfortable feeling in his chest that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
He slipped back through the trapdoor into Brandon’s cellar, pulling off his wooden mask and tossing his empty pouch onto the table.
Brandon was sleeping soundly on a pile of old rugs, snoring like a dying chainsaw.
Philip smiled, kicking Brandon’s fat foot lightly with his boot. "Wake up boss. It’s time to go buy more green cores."