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  [colpse]I wao start learning how to cast fireball, but I had other things to do, like che on the (and st) shop in Rockstack.

  The alchemist shop had the same sign hanging off the front as the alchemist shop in Threewells, a staff with a ball spinning around it. This one had two balls and I couldn’t remember if it was the same for the st I’d seen. Maybe it meant something?

  There was light within, so I pushed open the door and came to a stop in a small waiting area. To my left was what looked like a ic with one of those faerie looking people buzzing around on four wings, they looked like a boy-faerie, but I couldn’t quite be sure. To the right was another door ao it a window set into the wall with a ter jutting out, like a drive-through window at a fast-food ply probably not at all like that.

  The faerie person buzzed over, then nded daintily by the entrance of the ic. “ I assist you, human?” he asked. The voice was definitely a boy’s.

  “Eh? Ah, yeah. I’m looking for a Dyn. I have alchemical stuff to sell. Pnts and things.”

  The faerie nodded quickly. “Of course. Just one moment then,” he said before taking to the air and casually drifting to the window and knog on its frame. “Dyn, you unprofessional oaf, you have a er,” the faerie said. He turned bae. “He should be with you momentarily. Is there anything else I assist you with?”

  “Ah, maybe? I’ve never met someone like you, but you seem nice. What’s your, um, species?”

  One of the faerie's little eyebrows perked up. “I’m a Sylph. Try reading a book if you find yourself g in knowledge, it might help.” He looked at me for a while. “Maybe more than one book.”

  I watched the Sylph flutter back to his side of the id held back a huff. That had sounded positively rude, but maybe Sylphs were just naturally brusque, and the advice itself wasn't that bad. Maybe there neswalking for Dummies book out there?

  I ambled closer to the windoeeked into the room over. It was a mess. There were tables and ters all over, all of them covered in pouches and jars full of glowy stuff and boxes that had been beled with things, then had those bels scratched out and repced by others in sloppier and sloppier handwriting.

  There were tools too. Alembid what looked like bunsen burners, kettles with long necks and gss bottles with loopy tubes stig out of them like something from a mad stist’s wet dream. There were racks to the side filled with finger-sized bottles that had paper bels with things like ‘health’ and ‘water resistance’ glued to them.

  I couldn’t decide if I should have beeed at the prospeagic potions or kind if disgusted at how messy the pce making them was.

  “I’m ing, I’m ing,” a man’s voice said a moment before someone, presumably Dyn, came around a er and pced a bunpty vials on a table already covered in stuff. I winced as one of them went off the edge and exploded in a crackle of gss. “Oh no!”

  “Do you need help ing that?” I asked.

  “No no, It’s all well,” Dyn said as he abahe table and came closer. He had a bit of a limp as he walked, I noticed, then I saw the gsses perched across his froggy fad I had to hold back a giggle at how big they made his eyes look. “I’m Dyn. How I help?”

  “Ah, hello Dyn. My name is Broccoli Bunch, and I would love to be your friend.”

  “Zat’s nice?” Dyn said. “I don’t sell zat kind of potion zough.”

  There were friendship potions? “What? No, no, I mean.... Oh, shucks, nevermind. I have some pnts that I picked up that I thought you might be ied in.”

  “Pnts be good,” Dyn said as he wiped the window’s ter with a sleeve. “Show me what you’ve got!”

  I nodded and pulled out a small cloth with some drying red chokerberries.

  Dyn took then, s the pile, then popped oo his mouth. “Mmm, still good. But not what I’m looking for, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, okay,” I said. I pushed the cloth aside, then because I could I plopped one of the berries into my mouth.

  came a few blood dandelion buds. Dyn made a tent sound and poked them with the tip of a finger. “Much better. One moment.” He left, theurned with a scale which he set to one side and a pen and paper. A few moments ter he nodded. “Seven cop for all of it.”

  I was a little disappointed, but then again it had only taken me moments to gather. I could get a lot more easily enough. If a barmaid made two silver a day, then I could easily make just as much with dandelions alone.

  “You’re not ied in ile or milk thistle?” I asked and he shook his head. “Okay then. I have some march rose buds.”

  “Oh, zose would be worz somzing in Port Royal. Zey make firition potions, scurvy cures and.... marital assistaions. I ’t give you much here zough. Ze locals are all dungeon divers and ze like, zey are in good healz until zey’re not. Two cop each?”

  “Darn,” I said. Still, I didn’t have any use for the buds. They were to prevent scurvy and acted as an aphrodisiad I had inn food now and I wasn’t married so I didn’t hem and they would go bad eventually.

  Six copper s were added to a small pile, bringing my total up to thirteen copper. Enough food meal.

  “And this is the st pnt I have that might i you,” I said as I pced the stems and leaves of the seveal dle flower I had found onto the ter.

  Dyn cooed, a strange sound from a froggy throat. “Seveal. Where did you find it?”

  “On the road here. I asked a pixie and it helped me,” I said.

  “A... pixie? Well, I suppose zey would know. A rare find! And valuable. Freud-Slip doesn’t have many fire-based traps, but it does use zem on occasion.”

  “Freud-Slip?” I repeated.

  “Ze Dungeon in the ss to ze south. Ze one ze delvers are all here for? Is zat not what you came for?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Nope. Just got a little lost. I’ll probably be leaving with the caravan to Port Royal, but until then I’ll be around the outpost.”

  Dyn tapped his for a moment, then looked down at all the stems and leaves I had brought him. “Twenty sil for ze lot,” he said. “And I have a request. You’re a human. Humans like quests, yes?”

  “I am and I’ll listen if you have something for me to do,” I said as I gleefully watched my wealth grow. I was now up to a whopping twenty silver and thirteen copper. “I’d love a proper quest.”

  “Are you wiz any guild?” he asked.

  “Not yet, but I want to join the exploration guild maybe.”

  “Zen zis will be right up your alley, as ze humans say. Zere was a dungeon called Dunwiot too far from here some time ago. When we came here we rediscovered where it used to be, but it was destroyed long ago. Ze ive mana around ze area has made it unweling to most and zere are a fearitions in the area. It’s not too dangerous, but it isn’t safe. A pnt grows zere called ze Two-Lipped Tulip.”

  “Wait a moment,” I said before searg through my back, out came my herbology book which I pced on the ter to search through.

  “Zat is a very nice book. Forty sil.”

  “Nope,” I said with a grin. Dyn didn’t even look disappoihat I had refused. It took some leafing (hah!) but I found the right page. There was an illustration of two flowers. The first a tulip that had strangely curved flowers that did look like lips. The sed a simir pnt, but the flower was gaping open to reveal a pair of fangs dribbling with liquids that I bet weren’t good for anyone’s health.

  Two-Lipped TulipA pnt that actively seeks out areas with rot-aspect mana, or pces with ive mana. They grow quickly and should be sidered a weed, though uhey are near poputed areas it may be best to leave them alone as they are known to purify an area’s mana though at an incredibly slow pace. The flower whip around and ‘bite’ animals and unwary herbalists, iing them with a weak to mild venom that will drain the person’s health over time.

  The flower tains a pair of sacks that hold their venom. The liquid is a great coating-based poison, but also be used in strengthening potions and as a base for drain-based potions such as ‘drain disease.’

  “These look kind of dangerous to mess with,” I said.

  “A little. I will give you one sil per poison gnd. Zere are two per flower. I need no more zan fifty for now.”

  “That’s a good amount of silver,” I said. “What do you hem for?”

  The alchemist shrugged. “Some for experimentation, but most will go towards drain-madness potions. We need many for ze local dungeons. It’s still young but it is dangerous.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  We soon shook over the pnts I had already sold to him and I walked out apanied by the happy jingle of a couple of pouches full of silver.

  The inn, when I walked in, was pletely empty except for the two barmaids and Juliette sitting by the bar. “Where is everyone?” I asked as I moved closer.

  Juliette snorted. “Gone. Ze lot of zem. Zey are here for ze dungeon and wiz no travel to and from it at night ze only time for zem to work is now.”

  “How does that work, dungeon diving for a living, I mean?” I asked as I took a seat o Juliette and sighed as I got the weight off my feet.

  “Zey go in, zey find zings, zey e out and pay ze taxes on zem, zen zey sell it all to the guilds for some tidy profits. Zen zey e here and make my inn a mess. You ze rooms zat are unlocked. Same price as st time.”

  “I might do that. Dyn gave me a quest though, and I wanna try my hand at it. Maybe after I’ve met some of the adventurers, they seem nice. Oh, and I bought a fireball scroll!”

  “Cast zat indoors and you sleep outdoors, wiz ay stomach,” Juliette said.

  I pouted at her, but it bounced off her tough maternal hide to no effect. “Fine, fine. Maybe ter. I have lunch or is it too te?”

  “It is oo te for lun my inn,” Juliette said. “As long as you have ze for it.”

  I nodded and watched with an eager smile as she got up and waddled over to the kits. I hadn’t even pced an order but I trusted anything she brought would be super delicious.

  Nancy the barmaid shifted over oo be o me. “Be careful around ze divers. Some of zem are not ze sort of people you would want around a young woman. Zey might not look it, but zey kill for a living. And when some of zem don’t e back. It’s not always ze dungeon’s fault.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said truthfully. Then Juliette was returning with lund my focus turo chowing down.