The sun was almost directly overhead by the time that Merrick managed to stumble into the area where the teleportation archways were located.

  Curiously, he hadn’t been stopped and questioned his chair or eclectic assortment of year yet. He was chocking that up to the severe lack of guard presence though, something he found very confusing. Usually the entire place was swarming with enforcers to make sure that nobody was causing chaos or attempting to slip through a portal without going through the proper procedures.

  Apparently, the mana allocation per person was very precise and there had been instances in the past of a portal flickering out due to people smuggling themselves out. Ultimately, it was up to whatever company was sponsoring each portal destination to coordinate security as well as a head-count to make sure they got their people through before the next portal was scheduled to take over the archway, but the guards presence did a lot to cut down on the chaos.

  Annoyingly, he couldn’t even ask where all the guards had gone either without seeming extremely suspicious. With a smuggled bramblekin cat snuggled up in his hood, scrutiny was the last thing was trying to draw to himself.

  “Get your portal-resistant fruit over here! Up to thirty percent survive the corruption process!”

  “Don’t forget to resole your boots for the journey! Senior apprentice work, done fast!”

  “Buying two tickets to literally anywhere, our parents won’t let us wed so we’re trying to elope!”

  “Babe, I thought you said we were going to be advertising it as a honeymoon.”

  “Honey, if we did that, people might not sell us their slots to the non-vacation strongholds. We can’t be that picky if we want to be together forever.”

  “Oh, baby.”

  “Jerky! Get your jerky! It’d already tastes weird so you won’t notice a difference!”

  The loud noise of everyone shouting over each other was especially jarring after spending so much time in complete silence while trapped inside of the Mulberry Grove dungeon.

  Merrick really wished he had time to trade some of the plants in his backpack that were almost certainly going to go bad for travel goods but he didn’t think he’d have time to let them get authenticated, or answer questions about their origins.

  Just as he was lamenting his luck, he saw a young apprentice potion maker selling his wares. More importantly, the apprentice as actively brewing while waiting for customers to approach her and even had a spare cauldron.

  Considering he’d left his cauldron back in his workshop and the one in the dungeon had been far to heavy to steal- err, loot- he hoped he’d be able to make a quick trade. A quick glance at the sun, alongside that the portals hadn’t even started lighting up yet, told him that he had enough time to try his luck so he wandered over.

  “Excuse me?” Merrick cleared his throat and asked, shocked by how raspy his voice felt. It was only then that he realized he hadn’t been drinking any water. It wasn’t a problem when he was mumbling and whispering to his feline friend, but when he raised his voice the strain made itself evident.

  “Before you start, I’m not an apprentice. I don’t care how young you think I look, I’m a master alchemist. My prices will reflect that so wander away now if that bothers you. Not so niceties aside, my potions and elixirs are guaranteed to survive a trip through a single Nexus Portal. 100% of the time, I’m not afraid to wager my name on that.”

  The young woman who looked no older than Merrick, if not a couple years younger, stared Merrick in his eyes with a quirked eyebrow as she continued to attend to her current brewing without any direct attention.

  “I was wondering if your spare cauldron was for sale? I forgot mine at home and I don’t have time to run back and grab it before I leave.”

  The lady’s face twitched and Merrick wondered if he’d asked the wrong question. Perhaps she’d wanted him to ask her name, since she offered to wager it on her potion quality.

  “You remembered your favorite chair but not the tool of your trade? Presumable located very close to the chair?”

  Ahh, that made sense too. There was only one thing to do when called out on the inconsistency though.

  “Yup.” Lie.

  “Right. So, you aren’t interested in my wares, just my cauldron? You realize that most alchemists would probably be offended by that and would take advantage of your self-stated plight to drive up the price, if they were willing to entertain the sale, yes?”

  Well, she certainly spoke like she was wise beyond her years.

  “Yes ma’am, I can see how my words could have that effect. I suppose I’m just hoping such a great and well known alchemist like you would have pity on an up and coming apprentice setting out on a journey to expand his craft.”

  “Well known, huh? What’s my name?”

  The two stared each other in the eyes as long seconds stretched by, the un-named woman moving only to stir her cauldron.

  “Oh, whatever. I guess I can appreciate the attempt at flattery, even from a little brat like you. The back-up cauldron isn’t as nice as my main one, but it is still top of the line quality with several enchantments for temperature dispersion, herbal potency amplification, and the works. I can sell you it at a new-cauldron price and just replace it later, pass me fifteen gold steelhearths. Seventeen, if you’re using foreign stronghold coinage.”

  Several more long seconds pass.

  “You’re kidding, right? You wanted to buy my cauldron and you don’t even have that much? How did you afford an Archway ticket?”

  A couple more long seconds.

  “Ten gold then. Don’t argue either, that’s middle of the line for a used cauldron of this quality.”

  “Look, ma’am.”

  “No way. You asked if you could buy my cauldron, not beg it off of me. Scram!”

  Stolen story; please report.

  The young woman finally stopped stirring her potion, but only because she launched the ladle at Merrick’s head. The tool thudded off of his forehead before falling onto the seat of his chair, still being carried in his hands, and he was thankful his cat passenger had the wisdom to not make a fuss about it.

  “That’s my mistake ma’am, I suppose I should have said trade.”

  “Trade what, the chair that you decided was more important than your cauldron?”

  “NO WAY!” Merrick jerked the chair away from his front, holding it protectively at his side instead as he ignored his burning arms screaming at him to set it down.

  At least fifteen more seconds of awkward prolonged eye contact passed before he realized his over-reaction, and gently set the chair down.

  He picked up the ladle and slipped it into the satchel on the inside of his cloak, making a point to ignore the eyebrow twitching of the young woman. Whether she’d had a thought about his briefly visible attire beneath the cloak, or had an opinion on him moving the ladle she’d just so kindly gifted him, he didn’t want to hear it.

  Instead, he gently placed removed his mostly torn backpack from his back and set it down on the chairs cushion, before working the fishing line that bound it shut aside enough for him to remove the first plant he could reach.

  “You’re a master alchemist, so I’m assuming you know the value of this reagent.”

  Merrick decided bluffing was his best line of action as he placed a multicolored gourd of mysterious providence on the woman’s stall stand.

  He hadn’t been able to identify the gourd’s base components back in the dungeon when he’d started merging, but he had a feeling it was likely one of the more valuable plants in his pack. The fact that he hadn’t recognized the tier 1 version of the plant, Merrick briefly frowned at the terminology that he was still not happy with, meant that the gourd was local to deeper regions of the dungeon and therefore more valuable inherently.

  That was ignoring the fact that the gourd was also one of the few plants that required him to get it up to a fourth merge before mutating back down to its original size with a [Critical success].

  The woman side eyed Merrick and picked the gourd up, examining it from several angles and closing her eyes for a few moments while holding it to her ear.

  “I don’t know if you’re trying to appeal to my hubris as a master alchemist or just a lucky fool, but I don’t have a clue what this is. It looks similar to a toadhook gourd, which could be turned into a fairly potent monster lure for amphibians. It is obviously different though, the potency, coloration, texture, and density are all off.

  “I’d be willing to take a risk though, I need at least two more to make sure I’ve got enough for experimentation and testing. Lucky for you, we both know gourds grow on vines and not in isolation.”

  The young blonde’s hand went out, palm facing up.

  Merrick stared her in the eyes.

  “How? Why? You’re so damned frustrating! Scram, I said!”

  The woman tossed another ladle she’d pulled out of her bag to continue stirring her brew at Merrick’s head, this one made out of a differently colored wood and covered with engravings of ducks. It, too, found its way to his satchel of its own volition.

  He noticed that she didn’t, however, throw the gourd.

  “There was a horrific accident involving a bramblekin and a silly fletcher’s apprentice named James. Unfortunately, the rest of the gourds were crushed, but don’t fret! I’ve got some more stuff that is just as good.”

  Merrick pulled out a plant that appeared to drip green liquid that evaporated before escaping the bell-shaped flower that adorned the top of its stem.

  An eye twitch.

  “Three of that one then.”

  Extended eye contact.

  “Could I interest you in this miniature tree?”

  “Do you have three of them?”

  "What about this one?"

  "Has anyone else every told you that you hack into these plants like a brute? There was almost no technique used here at all! Even chopping ingredients for proper alchemy would instill better mannerisms than this."

  "Funny enough, yes. Not too long ago, actually," Merrick had replied.

  "Whatever, do you have at least two of this root over here?"

  “Well, you see…”

  “There is no way any fletcher’s apprentice, no matter how mentally deficient, could mess up the harvest of so many high-level herbs. What would he be doing so deep in the dungeon, anyways?”

  “What you don’t know is…”

  “Really? A knight? With an innate skill that makes woodworking better? What an idiot!”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying! So, what do you say? I really do have to go soon.”

  It took several minutes of haggling and some heavy embellishments, as well as a few tall tales, but Merrick was pretty sure he had the woman right where he wanted her.

  “Look, kid,” the woman ignored his snort at being addressed as kid from someone who looked as young as her, “we both know you’re full of shit. I don’t know how you made these, or who you stole them from, but you didn’t find them in the dungeon. Lucky for you, I don’t care. Here is how it is though.

  “You’ve got a bunch of herbs that look suspiciously like local dungeon generated counterparts, most of which will likely become near useless the moment you step through a Nexus Portal. You can’t sell them for the same reason most won’t buy them, the church has an iron grip on any new dungeon produce. First dibs, so to say.”

  “So you don’t want them?”

  “Oh hells yes I do, I’m just not going to pay you full price. I won’t be able to safely sell any thing I produce from these things in the public eye, which means that the potions are going to take longer to move. That’s assuming I get anything right, since you only have one sample of each. If I wasn’t such a damned good alchemist, I wouldn’t even consider taking the risk. So here is what we’re going to do.

  “I want all fifteen plants you’ve set out for me already. In exchange, you can have my back up caldron, I’ll give you a travel kit of some of my best-selling potions, swap your backpack for a better quality and untorn pack I’ve got over here, and I’ll offer you some advice. If you don’t like that, you can walk.”

  “That sounds like a very gracious deal, what’s your advice?”

  The woman swiped her hand over the counter and all of the plants that Merrick had displayed for her perusal disappeared. She handed the new bag to Merrick with a couple words.

  “My first piece of advice is that you should try and fit whatever plants you’ve got left in that back pack of yours into the satchel you’ve got in your cloak. The cloak its obviously magical and with any luck, the extra level of isolation might help more of them survive the portal.”

  Merrick supposed that made sense. With that in mind, he began pulling some of the alchemical tools he’d stashed in the satchel and put them in the larger backpack. The woman’s hands started twitching alongside her eyes as he pulled more and more objects out of a satchel that shouldn’t have fit them, though he made sure to leave the heavier objects in the satchel to take advantage of the weight reduction.

  Luckily, it seemed that the various plants he placed in the satchel benefited from the same size reduction as the tools and didn’t break the weight reduction the same way the bramblekin cat had. Nice.

  “My second piece of advice, and this one I suggest you take very seriously, is that you need to be less open with your secrets. Just that satchel alone would get you knifed in a dark alley. Hells, some more unscrupulous master alchemists in this city would slit your throat with a gilded scalpel on their own shop floor. That’s ignoring the fact that you started breaking out contraband in the center of the most populated market square in the city on its busiest day. You’re lucky I threw up a diversionary barrier right when you started or we’d have tons of lookie-loos by now.”

  Merrick’s hands slowed for a moment before he finished loading his satchel and stowed it away beneath his cloak, far more paranoid then than he’d been seconds before.

  A quick glance at the young-looking woman with scary words showed she didn’t look like she planned on robbing him of his gear, unless she planned on doing so with the cauldron she was handing toward him.

  Merrick slipped his new backpack on over his swords before staring at the cauldron, then his chair, and finally the pile of fishing line that he’d torn to open the backpack rather than carefully unknot.

  Gently, he set the cauldron down on top of his chair’s seat while listening for creaking to make sure the weight wasn’t going to snap it. Thankfully, it didn’t let out even a squeak.

  “By any chance, do you have any rope I could borrow?”

  Almost before he finished the question, a selection of bound chord struck him in the face in the exact spot the previous two ladles had.

  “Thank you for the trades, and thank you so much for the advice as well. I’ll make sure to take it to heart.”

  “I wasn’t done yet, my last piece of advice is probably the most important.”

  Merrick spared the women a few seconds of eye contact as he paused his attempt to tie the cauldron to the top of his purple throne.

  “Get some new boots, those are ugly as hells!”