Standing before Floryana is a reasonably sized store with black stone walls and an projecting half-timbered second and third story with plaster walls and dark oak lattices. The wooden sign above the door reads ‘Walth’s Herbs and Spices’ [1] in white lettering, as she walks under it, the top of her hat striking the sign—the little silver bell on the crown rings.

  Trying the brass doorknob, she finds it locked.

  “Locked? locked!” she mumbles, growing evermore annoyed with the minor setbacks plaguing her new mental schedule; she checks her wristwatch—“It is 09:00, and you open at 8:00; so why are you locked?”—she removes her ring and the sound of the world—unfortunately—returns as she places it into her pocket, backing out from under the canopy of the second-floor into the middle of Luhngrov’Lynou and beginning to pick up a variety of tiny pebbles to throw at the shuttered window above her to wake Walth up.

  After about twenty stones and just as many queer looks from passersby and patrons of nearby shops, the dark oak shutters on the window fly open.

  “WHAT! WHAT DO YOU—” Walth Kly starts.

  Floryana interrupts him by pinging the last of her pebbles off his wrinkled forehead.

  He looks down at his assailant, immediately recognizing her hat, he flushes; embarrassed at his outburst, he immediately changes his tone, “Oh! Franheska! I will be down shortly—give me five minutes,” he closes the shutters.

  Floryana moves back under the overhang, placing her pattens on a rack under the front window, setting herself directly in front of the door—close enough so her breath begins to fog the glass, and adjusts her glasses back to a comfortable position and begins to wait.

  Five minutes later, the deadbolt clicks.

  “Do not *dare* touch that doorknob, Franheska,” Walth says through gritted teeth upon making eye contact with her through the glass.

  She raises both of her gloved hands beside her head in response.

  The door opens, revealing the medium-sized shop behind it. The left side wall consists solely of small walnut-stained oak bins with matching hinged and windowed oaken lids that spanned from floor to ceiling. Each was lined with linen and filled with product; hung from each bin is a small sign, stained the same shade, with the name of the product written in golden calligraphy. The back wall is covered in a large oak shelving-unit containing all the tools one might need to pursue botany, pharmacology, natural alchemy, or the general culinary use of the commodities sold, whether they are a mere hobbyist or an experienced artisan of their chosen trade. To the right was the counter; the more exotic and expensive items lay behind it, as well as a curtain against the back wall leading to the storage room and the stairs up to Walth’s residence. The outer wall consisted of waist-height bookshelf beneath the front window; the books on which were all related to the use of the products in the store.

  Floryana takes a long step past him, pushing her way into the store—the bell on the crown of her hat chiming in unison with the welcoming bell on the door, “I need the usual tin of tobacco and 5 grams of Swamlyudh Bloukhfwlehwym [2],” She says, turning on her heel in front of the counter, she takes off her hat and stares at him silently, blinking intermittently.

  “Well, good morning to you as well, Franheska. “ Walth says wryly, he reflects on his weekly encounters with her; he should be used to this by now—how she stares at him as if expecting him to pull exactly what she needs out of the pocket of his blazer, “You are a day earlier than usual—”

  “The coronation is to-morrow.” She says, already aware of what his question was going to be, “I was rolling Gekaryna’s cigarettes for both to-day and to-morrow and ran out of tobacco when making some extras; the gods know she will need them.” She continues, trying to cover all the other things he could ask as a follow-up.

  “Gekaryna vela’Herst smokes too much,” Walth says as he takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose, “If she keeps this up, she will not live to see sixty; just like her Father.”

  “One: it is not vela’Herst; she is still queen-designate, so she is still called Gekaryna dera’Herst—after to-morrow it is vela’Herst. Two: if I had a copper for every time I have heard that in the last—” Floryana quickly checks the time on her wristwatch, “hour and 7 minutes, I would have two coppers; which is not astounding as Anwelyse vela’Herst V says that every time she sees me.”

  “So how—” Walth is cut off once again.

  “Fifty,” Floryana crosses her arms, “give or take a few; some days I have to roll more for her at night and others I do not.”

  “Fifty!” Walth exclaims, walking towards the swinging gate that leads behind the counter, “Does she view it as a competitive sport?”

  “No, it is an addiction, and she does it when she is stressed, just like her father,” twisting her neck to follow him as he goes behind the counter, “and when she cannot smoke, she has a habit of scratching her arms until they bleed.” she adds, looking over at him over her shoulder.

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  Squinting awkwardly and pursing his lips at this information, he dismisses himself to the back room and pushes through a set of blue curtains to get the tobacco she requested, leaving Franheska alone on the sales floor.

  Floryana walks over to the bookshelf, checking for anything new—as she always does when shopping at any store—but everything is already in the Hersts’ Private Library—she removes a large leather-bound book from the shelf, opening it to the about-the-author section at the front, she only gets a few lines into her father’s biography before the curtains separating the storefront and the backroom rustle again, pulling her back to the here-and-now.

  “It was probably a good thing that I slept in to-day,” Walth says as he returns from the back room with a half-kilogram tin of tobacco, “This is the last tin I have; I will not be getting any more until the day after the coronation celebrations are finished on the 18th.”

  “Excellent,” she places the book back on the shelf and returns to the counter.

  “Floren’s book?” Walth placed the tobacco tin on the counter.

  “Yes”

  “I sell a lot of them, you know; it is a textbook at the college, those who practice under aela’Vydlene[3]—”

  The book Floryana just placed back on the shelf falls over; she walks over to fix it.

  “Say it is excellent for both beginners and experts. You should be proud of your contributions to it.”

  “I did not contribute very much.”

  “More than your average eight-year-old ever could, you were very precocious regarding your field.” He pauses, briefly looking up to the left, “I might not be getting any more tobacco for a bit, but I did get some new books and essays; one of which, I believe, you will find quite interesting.”

  He reaches under the counter and slides out a medium-sized wooden chest, places it on the counter, flips up the hasp, and opens it. Inside is a small selection of twelve books, two of each title, ranging in thickness, all bound in cloth, the color of which varies from text to text. Taking the pull-string between his fingers, he removes a thin purple book from the chest.

  “This is a study into sudden suffocation and how its causes might be linked to adverse reactions to food, by a man named Myldhon Thouwan—rumor has it he is actually the bastard child of the recently deceased W?rnyrr Koeh-Styer writing under a pseudonym; but this is hearsay,” Walth explains while passing the small book to Franheska.

  She takes the book, opens it, and flips through the pages, “This is not yet in the Herst library, so I am obliged to get it,” she closes the book and returns it to the counter, “I assume that this is similar to what I am working on; how select plants on the caldera’s shore cause skin irritations to my brothers and I, but not non-blood relatives?”

  Walth nods, “Yes, I will add it to the total; it is only a fifth silver piece,” he slides it over next to the tobacco tin.

  “You mentioned something else that you needed as you came in; what was it again?” Walth asked while sliding the chest of new books back under the counter.

  “I also need five grams of Swamlyudh Bloukhfwlehwym,” Floryana puts the tobacco and the small clothbound essay in her frame-bag.

  She removes a small coin purse make of black velvet, embroidered with flowers of silver metallic thread, and a matching silver kiss-lock.

  Walth notices the coin purse; he is glad she kept it after Floren passed; he nods and turns around, opening the cabinet behind him, removing a small jar labeled S. Bloukhfwlehwym, “Back when I was apprenticing under Floren, forty or so years ago, we were in Kesel’s-in-the-Vale[4], researching the plants that grow there. We went out for lunch in the afternoon, and he found that coin purse among the wares of a traveling mercer; he was ecstatic, I am sure he would be happy that you have it now.”

  Floryana fiddles with the silver clasp briefly before looking up at the jar in Walth’s hand; her eyes light up at the fullness of it, “Well, since you have so much, how about you just sell me all of what you have? I feel as though I am the only one who buys them.”

  “You are, but you also happened to be the only person in the kingdom who is prohibited from buying more than ten grams of any hallucinogenic plants or fungi,” He responds.

  “Then please sell me ten grams instead of five.”

  Walth removes a balance from under the counter, placing a 10-gram counterweight on one end, and weighs out her purchase. Once it is level, he removes the blue and white spotted fungi, placing them in a small cheese-cloth bag.

  “Everything comes to: one half-of-silver and two-fifths-of-silver—half-of-silver for the tobacco, a fifth-of-silver for the book, and a fifth-of-silver for the moonspots; about one-to-one for weight at the moment.”

  Floryana removes five full-coppers and two fifth-of-silvers from her purse, handing them to Walth, who checks the edges of the coins (why would she be clipping them—she is funded by the Hersts; she has no need for such actions) before putting them into his pant-pocket, then places her coin purse and the fungi into her frame-bag and makes her way to the door, stopping just before them to wait for Walth to open it for her.

  Saying her goodbyes, she heads back to the main agora of the Artisan District, and proceeds westward towards the Merchant’s District and her second and last stop: Bwoukhon’s Beastery.

  [1] Opened in 1035 EotG by Walth Kly (b. 28/08/0994 EotG)—with significant assistance from Floren Blumawar (b. 09/11/0985 EotG, d. 23/09/1061 EotG). There are a wide variety of stores that sell similar goods to Walth’s Herbs and Spices in The Crown Isles, but only Walth’s has the ability to source hard-to-find, prohibited, or entirely illegal commodities through his long list of connections. It is the most popular place for herbalist, botanist, and others of similar trades to shop.

  [2]Swamlyudh Bloukhfwlehwym is the taxonomic name for an endemic species of mushroom found in a select part of the Ianian region. When consumed, it induces hallucinations. It can be recognized by its blue head with white spots. Roughly translates to mushroom (Swam) of dreams (Lyudh) that is blue (Bloux) with spots (Fwlex) of white (Hwym).

  [3] Goddess of plants and fungi, trades involving these (e.g. herbalists, botanists, and horticulturists), and other more general uses for plants—there is significant overlap here between her and other deities. The name Vydlene is specific to the Ianyan region.

  [4] Kesel’s-in-the-Vale is a small town ~30 km west of _The Crown_, built on the Kroumir, specifically on a section called the Valerun, currently home to 1,943 people. Botanists flock to it due to the endemic species of plants and fungi that grow there—Swamlyudh Bloukhfwlehwym or colloquially known as “moonspot” is one of these.

  It is believed that the waters that flow out from under The Crown are the cause of these unique species.

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