Sunday mornings in the Lower Merchant Quarter were usually reserved for sleeping off cheap ale and avoiding the Temple tax collectors. At the Bramble Lane Apothecary, it was reserved for fresh brioche, chicory coffee, and enjoying the sheer, unadulterated schadenfreude of a perfectly executed revenge.
I was sitting comfortably at the stone workbench, sipping a steaming mug of dark chicory while tallying the shop’s ledger. Opposite me, Seraphina was methodically oiling the leather straps of her sword belt, looking remarkably refreshed after sleeping an entire night without waking up to murder a saboteur.
“Rumour has it,” Seraphina remarked, not looking up from the brass buckle she was polishing, “that Master Corvus tried to hold his usual Sunday morning alchemy seminar in the East Wing lecture hall.”
I paused with my charcoal pencil hovering over the parchment. “Let me guess. The attendance was low?”
“Nonexistent,” she corrected, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Apparently, the scent of boiled pig bile and vinegar had seeped so deeply into Senior Apprentice Vane’s hair that when he walked into the enclosed lecture theatre, three first-year students instantly threw up in the aisles. Corvus had to cancel the class and quarantine his own apprentices in the bell tower.”
I took a very slow, deeply satisfied sip of my coffee. “Tragic. A devastating blow to the academic integrity of the institution.”
From his spot atop the warm cast-iron stove, Pip let out a cheerful, high-pitched chirp of agreement, his clay belly glowing a happy amber. On the counter out front, Tax Evasion was fast asleep, occupying a sunbeam with the sprawling entitlement of a cat who knew his food bowl was full of premium fish scraps.
It was barely ten o'clock, and life was glorious. We had nearly four hundred gold crowns in liquid cash remaining after paying Madame Vivienne, a brand-new Guild exemption waiver tucked safely in my desk drawer, and six Mythril-Tier magical smoke bombs hidden under the counter.
Naturally, the peace lasted exactly four more minutes.
The heavy oak front door didn't just open; it groaned inward as if pushed by a collective force of pure misery.
The brass bell jingled sharply, causing four figures stumbling over the threshold to collectively wince, clapping their hands over their ears with pained groans.
I set my coffee down and walked out into the storefront.
Standing on my freshly swept floorboards were four second-year students wearing the silver-trimmed blue robes of the Arcane Theory department. They looked like walking corpses. Their skin was an ashen, sickly grey, their eyes were bloodshot, and they were all squinting against the mild morning sunlight as if it were a physical assault.
The tallest of the group—a boy with dishevelled brown hair and a silver prefect badge pinned crookedly to his lapel—leaned heavily against the doorframe, clutching his temples.
“Lady... Lady Vance,” the prefect croaked, his voice sounding like dry leaves grinding together. “Please tell me the rumours about your shop are true. We went to the Infirmary, but they locked the doors and the whole wing smells like a slaughterhouse.”
I rested my forearms on the oak counter, letting my upgraded Appraisal skill sweep over the miserable quartet.
[Alchemist’s Appraisal (Lv. 5) — Active]
[Condition Detected: Acute Cranial Meridian Depletion (Colloquially: "Mana Hangover")] [Cause: Over-channelling elemental mana while sleep-deprived, followed by consuming cheap, unrefined focus potions to stay awake during weekend midterm cramming.]
[Symptoms: Severe photophobia, migraine, nausea, and temporary magical impotence.] [Standard Remedy: 12 hours of sleep and Temple-blessed willow bark tea.]
“Midterm cramming?” I guessed pleasantly.
“Advanced Elemental Matrices,” the girl beside him moaned, leaning her forehead against the cool glass of my display cabinet. “We took three doses of the Guild’s standard Wake-Root tincture at midnight to finish our essays. Now it feels like a dwarf with a pickaxe is trying to mine his way out of my frontal lobe.”
I tapped my chin thoughtfully.
Treating a mana hangover with liquid restorative potions was a waste of perfectly good Gold-Tier ingredients. Besides, their stomachs were probably far too acidic from the cheap Wake-Root to digest a heavy elixir right now anyway. What they needed wasn't a potion; they needed a localized shock to the cranial nervous system. New chapters come out on novelping . com first.
“Wait here,” I told them, already turning back toward the workshop. “And don't lean too hard on that glass, it was just cleaned.”
In the back, Seraphina had already put her oil rag away and was standing by the archway, her hand resting casually on the hilt of the Ashen Bough. “Trouble?”
“Just capitalism,” I whispered, walking over to the drying racks above the stove.
I grabbed a handful of hollow, thumb-length river reeds I had harvested from the creek behind Bramble Lane earlier in the week. Next, I pulled a jar of coarse, unrefined sea salt from the spice rack, a vial of pure Peppermint Essential Oil, and the remaining dregs of my Hydro-Ether Dew.
Working with the speed and precision granted by my new class, I dumped the coarse sea salt into the stone mortar. I added twelve drops of the icy Hydro-Ether and ten drops of the eye-watering peppermint oil, grinding them together until the salt crystals turned a vibrant, crystalline blue and radiated a menthol scent so sharp it practically cleared my sinuses from two feet away.
Using a tiny brass funnel, I packed the hollow river reeds with the infused blue salt, sealing both ends with a thin, breathable layer of porous cotton and a dab of pine resin.
[Alchemy Success!] [Item Crafted: Spark-Mint Focus Inhaler (20 Units)]
[Quality: Silver-Tier (91% Purity)]
[Effects:
Aromatic inhalation bypasses the digestive tract, delivering Hydro-Ether directly to the cranial meridians.
Instantly cures Mana Hangovers, relieves migraines, and restores mental acuity by 40% for up to 6 hours.
Warning: Highly addictive to cramming students. Contains zero calories.]
I scooped a dozen of the little bamboo inhalers into a wooden bowl and walked back out to the storefront. The four second-years were now sitting on the floor in a miserable, groaning circle.
“Alright, scholars,” I announced, setting the wooden bowl on the counter with a sharp clack that made them all flinch. “Listen up. Temple-grade headache tonics cost fifteen gold crowns and take an hour to kick in. These are Spark-Mint Focus Inhalers. They bypass the stomach entirely and reset your upper meridians in three seconds. Six gold crowns each.”
The prefect cracked one bloodshot eye open. “Six gold? For a piece of bamboo?”
“For the contents of the bamboo,” I corrected smoothly. “Pull the cotton plug from the top, hold it to one nostril, block the other, and inhale deeply. If your migraine isn't gone before you exhale, I’ll give you your money back.”
Desperation won out over frugality. The prefect fumbled in his robes, slapped six gold coins onto the counter, and snatched one of the inhalers.
He pulled the plug, pressed the reed to his right nostril, and inhaled a massive breath.
Instantly, his eyes bulged wide open. A faint, frosty-blue aura flared briefly around his temples as the pressurized Hydro-Ether collided with the congested mana in his skull. He let out a sharp, gasping cough, staggering backward a step—and then froze.
He blinked. He looked at the bright morning sunlight streaming through the window. He didn't wince.
“By the Founders,” he whispered, staring at the little bamboo stick in his hand with pure reverence. “The pickaxe... the dwarf is gone. My head is completely clear!”
[Class Perk Activated: "Rule of Equivalence"]
“I can remember the entire fourth chapter of Elemental Matrices!” the prefect suddenly gasped, his posture snapping perfectly straight as the 25% potency boost flooded his brain with razor-sharp recall. “It’s brilliant! It’s like my brain was just washed in an ice bath!”
The other three students didn't even hesitate. A flurry of gold coins rained onto my counter as they scrambled to buy their own inhalers. Within seconds, a chorus of sharp inhales and shocked gasps echoed through the shop, followed immediately by the ecstatic chatter of fully functional, caffeine-level energized mages.
“I’ll take three more!” the girl demanded, slamming more coins onto the oak wood. “My entire dormitory is dying right now! If I bring these back, they’ll elect me Class Representative!”
“Limit five per customer,” I said briskly, sweeping the gold into my cash box as Seraphina stepped out from the curtain to quietly supervise the sudden rush.
Word of a miracle hangover cure in a college town spreads faster than a forest fire. By noon, my shop was packed with groaning Arcane Theory students, bleary-eyed Scribes, and even a few upperclassman combat cadets who had celebrated their Friday exhibition victories a little too hard at the local taverns.
I stood behind the counter, trading little bamboo sticks for gold coins with the rhythmic efficiency of a factory assembly line, while Seraphina leaned against the tall apothecary cabinet, her arms crossed, keeping the rowdy students in a neat, single-file line using nothing but her intimidating posture.
By one o'clock, the wooden bowl was completely empty. All twenty inhalers were gone, leaving behind exactly one hundred and twenty gold crowns in my ledger.
I flipped the sign on the door to SOLD OUT — COME BACK TOMORROW, locked the deadbolt, and leaned back against the heavy oak wood with a long, contented sigh.
“One hundred and twenty gold in two hours,” I told Seraphina, jingling my coin pouch. “And the materials cost me exactly zero copper because I pulled the reeds out of the mud behind the fence.”
“You’re going to be richer than the Chancellor by midwinter,” Seraphina murmured, walking over to hand me a fresh cup of chicory coffee since my morning one had gone cold.
As I took the cup, our fingers brushed lightly against the warm ceramic. Her hands were always so warm now—a permanent side effect of the Abyssal Tide draught fixing her circulation.
“Maybe,” I smiled, taking a sip and looking up at her. “But the Chancellor doesn't have a private security detail with a Mythril-grain sword. Speaking of which, are you going to patrol the outer boundary fence again tonight?”
Seraphina’s expression shifted subtly, the faint, relaxed amusement vanishing back into her focused, professional mask.
“I did a preliminary sweep of the Sector Four perimeter this morning before you woke up,” she said, her voice lowering slightly even though the shop was empty. “Evelyn... the ward-stones are intact. But there were three dead Moss-Rats washed up near the creek grate.”
I frowned, setting my mug down on the counter. “Moss-Rats die all the time in the woods.”
“Not like this,” Seraphina said grimly. “Their fur was matted with a thick, violet-black slime. The exact same colour as the Rift-rot that leaks from Grade-2 Abyssal nests.”
My heart gave a cold, solid thump against my ribs.
I thought about the trace of Blood-Lotus Ash my Appraisal had caught on Master Corvus’s spectacles yesterday. The puzzle pieces were starting to align, and the picture they were forming was incredibly ugly. Corvus wasn't just hiding something in the Infirmary; whatever he was doing was leaking directly into the Academy's underground water runoff near Sector Four.
“Violet-black slime,” I repeated quietly. “Right near the sewer grate leading under the main campus.”
“I didn't touch them,” Seraphina assured me quickly, anticipating my lecture on biohazards. “But whatever is breeding down in those drains is getting bigger. The ambient miasma is starting to pool.”
I looked over at the velvet-lined box sitting on the back workbench, containing the rest of the Mana-Eating Ash and the components for my magic-devouring smoke bombs.
“Alright,” I said, my tone shifting from cheerful merchant to calculated alchemist. “We aren't going down there yet. But I’m not letting Master Corvus’s illegal pet project seep into our groundwater, either. Tonight, we’re going to seal that grate.”