The Lower Quarter market at eleven o’clock on a Friday morning smelled exactly like twenty different kinds of misfortune competing for your attention.
To the left, a dwarf fishmonger was shouting maritime profanities at a basket of aggressive cave-crabs. To the right, a goblin tinker was aggressively hammering a sheet of corrugated tin while trying to sell "100% genuine dragon scales" that were clearly spray-painted roofing slate. And weaving through it all were the usual assortment of Academy students playing hooky, street urchins dodging town guards, and merchants hauling canvas sacks of grain.
Walking down the middle of the cobblestone alley with a fat orange cat riding comfortably on one shoulder and the Empire’s future Sword Saint carrying a copper-plated coal scuttle under her arm felt remarkably like a victory lap.
“Make sure the handle is properly riveted,” I advised, sidestepping a puddle of suspicious green slime that had leaked from a nearby potion-ingredients stall. “If Pip drops a lump of anthracite because the pivot pin snaps, he gets very depressed, and his furnace efficiency drops by four percent.”
Seraphina adjusted the coal scuttle under her arm, the dark wooden pommel of the Ashen Bough clicking softly against her belt loop as she walked.
“It’s double-riveted cold-forged copper,” she said, her tone deadpan. “It could survive a direct hit from a Level-5 Fireball. Pip is going to have to try very hard to break it.”
“Never underestimate an automated homunculus with a point to prove,” I retorted.
We had closed the shop at ten-thirty after selling out the remaining ten blue jars of Porcelain-Frost Cream to two panicked second-year girls who had heard rumours of Genevieve’s miraculous complexion from Clara. With our morning takings safely locked in the brass cash box back at the glasshouse—bringing our total liquid capital to nearly six hundred gold crowns—we had ventured out into the merchant district for groceries, fresh alembic tubing, and essential creature comforts.
Namely, upgrading Pip’s kitchenware and buying twelve pounds of imported smoked sausages so I didn't have to keep eating bacon and potatoes for every meal.
As we turned the corner past the public fountain into the shaded courtyard behind the Mercantile Guild hall, a tall figure in dark blue robes stepped smoothly out from beneath a stone colonnade to block our path.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
The man looked to be in his late thirties, with sharp, aristocratic features, neatly trimmed brown hair, and silver-rimmed spectacles perched on a very straight nose. Across the breast of his midnight-blue velvet robe was embroidered the badge of the Imperial Alchemists’ Guild: a golden alembic entwined with a silver serpent.
Master Corvus.
The head apothecary of the Royal Academy infirmary, House Redgrave’s personal family physician, and the man who had failed Evelyn Vance in Introductory Herbology twice because she wouldn't pray to the Goddess of Harvest.
In the game’s first-act storyline, Corvus was a minor antagonist who acted as a sycophant to Prince Julian and a regular thorn in Evelyn’s side, constantly threatening to have her expelled for "unlicensed alchemical contamination" whenever she tried to brew basic healing salves in her dorm room.
Corvus adjusted his spectacles, his cold brown eyes sweeping over my plain linen shirt, Seraphina’s training trousers, and the copper coal scuttle tucked under her arm. A thin, condescending smile curved his mouth.
“Lady Evelyn,” Corvus said, his voice carrying that smooth, unctuous academic cadence that instantly made you want to drop a heavy anvil from a third-story window. “Or should I simply call you Miss Vance now that you’ve forfeited your noble dormitory privileges and taken up residence in that damp municipal tool shed on Bramble Lane?”
I didn't blink. I just shifted my weight to my left hip, letting Tax Evasion adjust his position on my shoulder with a low, threatening rumble in his throat.
“Good morning, Master Corvus,” I replied cheerfully. “If you’re here to renew your prescription for social grace, I’m afraid my inventory is completely empty. But if you’ve got a chronic case of uninvited meddling, I can sell you a jar of burn ointment for that permanent scowl on your face.”
Corvus’s smile tightened by a fraction of a millimeter. He clearly hadn't expected the old Evelyn—who used to burst into tears if someone looked at her embroidery sideways—to talk back with a retail smile. This story is hosted at novelping(.)com.
“I am not here to trade insults, child,” Corvus said smoothly, stepping an inch closer. “Though the Student Council has received multiple formal complaints regarding unauthorized commercial activity on Academy grounds. Operating a retail storefront without a Guild Master’s endorsement is a direct violation of Imperial Charter Seven. Furthermore, the third-year combat squad has been circulating absurd claims about... purple liniment that cures calcified joints in thirty seconds.”
He reached into the deep pocket of his velvet robe and pulled out a small, empty, purple-stained amber glass bottle—one of the ones Garrett or Thomas had discarded earlier that morning.
“Quackery,” Corvus pronounced, holding up the empty bottle as if presenting evidence at a witch trial. “Dangerous, unregulated quackery mixed by a student who couldn't even pass a basic distillation safety exam. If the Guild conducts an audit of your so-called apothecary, they will confiscate your equipment, revoke your retail license, and fine you five hundred gold crowns.”
There it was. The inevitable bureaucratic shakedown.
In the old days, Evelyn would have shrieked, threatened him with her father’s nonexistent political influence, and burst into tears while Corvus confiscated her setup.
I, on the other hand, reached into my apron pocket, pulled out my stamped Class-Three Commercial Apothecary License signed by Master Barnaby himself, and held it out for inspection.
“Class-Three license, issued by the Chief Bursar of the Royal Academy, valid for three years on Property 14-B,” I recited brightly. “Which, as Master Barnaby verified before I signed the lease, is classified as a semi-autonomous commercial zone exempt from internal Guild jurisdiction during the academic term.”
Corvus blinked, staring at the official gold-embossed seal on the parchment. He hadn't expected me to have actual paperwork.
“A municipal lease does not supersede Guild alchemy laws—” Corvus started stiffly.
“And as for the quackery,” I interrupted, stepping past his outstretched hand to tap the empty amber bottle in his fingers with my fingernail, “that particular batch was formulated using a Silver-Tier Hydro-Ether base, yielding an eighty-nine percent purity rating. If your infirmary priests spent half as much time cleaning their distilling flasks and half as much time treating actual injuries instead of charging twenty-five gold crowns to hit noble kneecaps with a purification hammer, Lord Garrett wouldn't have had to walk down to Bramble Lane for emergency treatment yesterday morning.”
Corvus’s face drained of color, his jaw dropping slightly. “How did you—Garrett’s injury was confidential medical business!”
“Garrett walked into my shop whining like a kicked puppy and screaming about his ulnar nerve in front of seven witnesses,” I said sweetly. “Confidentiality went out the window the second he dropped a ten-gold coin on my counter. Now, are you going to hand that empty bottle back, or do I need to charge you a two-silver glass-recycling deposit?”
For three agonizing seconds, Corvus looked ready to summon a minor lightning bolt right there in the market square. His fingers twitched against the sides of his velvet robe, mana flaring briefly around his knuckles before he forced himself to swallow his fury. In broad daylight, in the middle of the public market, assaulting a licensed merchant with a valid Bursar’s seal was a political crime even House Redgrave couldn't sweep under the rug.
Instead, Corvus let out a slow, poisonous breath, dropping the empty bottle back into his pocket with a dry clink.
“You are playing a very dangerous game, Evelyn,” Corvus murmured, leaning down so his voice didn't carry to the nearby fishmonger. “Prince Julian may have allowed you to walk away from the Atrium with your severance pay, but the Guild does not look kindly on amateurs stepping onto their turf. When your little shop collapses under the weight of its own incompetence, do not come crying to the infirmary for a safety net.”
“Don’t worry, Master Corvus,” I said, flashing him a dazzling, entirely shark-like smile. “If I ever need someone to prescribe boiled salamander liver, I’ll be sure to send for you. Come along, Seraphina—the copper scuttle is getting heavy.”
We stepped around his rigid blue-velbet shoulder without breaking stride, leaving the master apothecary standing alone under the stone colonnade like a discarded lawn statue.
“You’re going to give that man an ulcer before midterms,” she remarked, adjusting the copper scuttle under her arm.
“Good. Ulcers are terrible for the complexion; maybe he’ll buy some of my Porcelain-Frost cream,” I said lightly.
Yet as we turned down the final stretch of Bramble Lane and the cozy, slate-roofed silhouette of Property 14-B came into view behind the giant weeping willow, I didn't feel like joking quite as much.
Corvus wasn't just a pompous academic windbag. He was Julian’s primary alchemical supplier, and the Royal Guild hated losing a monopoly on campus drug sales more than they hated anything else. If they couldn't shut us down with municipal paperwork, they would eventually try something much more creative—like contaminating our water supply, paying off local toughs to smash our glass roof, or sending "inspected" monster parts to poison our alembic.
We were officially past the honeymoon phase of the shopkeeping sim. The tutorial was over; the real-world faction politics were starting to crowd the edges of our little green glasshouse.
I pushed open the front oak door, letting Tax Evasion trot inside ahead of us to claim his usual spot on the counter, and dropped our heavy canvas grocery sacks onto the workbench.
“Seraphina,” I said, turning to face her as she unbuckled the Ashen Bough and leaned it carefully against the wall beside the front door.
“Yes?”
“Starting tonight, we’re adding a secondary perimeter ward around the glasshouse foundations,” I said, pulling my ledger book toward me and reaching for a stick of charcoal. “Nothing flashy—just a basic mana-feedback tripwire that will singe the eyebrows off anyone trying to pick our locks after midnight. And you’re officially moving your sleeping gear from the spare cot out in the conservatory into the corner of the back workshop right beside my loft stairs.”
Seraphina paused, her hand lingering on the dark wooden hilt of her sword. Her slate-gray eyes searched my face, noting the slight, serious set of my jaw.
She didn't ask if I was scared. She didn't suggest backing down.
Instead, a quiet, absolute steadiness settled over her features—the exact look she wore right before drawing her blade against a Rift-Stalker in the dark.
“I’ll check the boundary fence for cracked ward-stones after dinner,” Seraphina said simply. “And I’ll move my things upstairs tonight. Nobody is touching this shop.”
I looked at her, feeling a strange, unfamiliar warmth bloom somewhere deep behind my ribs—something far more solid and permanent than alchemical profit margins or gold-tier elixirs.
“Alright, Head of Security,” I smiled, pulling the copper coal scuttle toward Pip so the little clay homunculus could start storing his anthracite. “Let’s make some more poison for Master Corvus.”
[End of chapter 11]
Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know that alongside this story, I’ve started publishing a brand-new book called [Ashen Weaver]! It’s a [LitRPG]. If you want then you can search it or you can check it out here:
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/2640344/ashen-weaver/
Don't worry, updates for this current book will continue as normal. I just wanted to let you know