Brewed On Demand
Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2020 7:15 pm
Ash 13th, Year 120, Age of Steel
Alyssum hummed to herself quietly as she finished up with the last couple details. Her Vardo really wasn't much of a shop, and moving forward she'd need to figure out something to attract attention in countries where she was allowed to, but her shop was up and running. The key detail for the time being was alchemy and her potions, but she hoped to expand into some of her other skill sets moving forward. This would do her well enough for the time being and it was better not to attract too much attention while she was still getting herself sorted out and settled. She knew a couple countries off the top of her head where her services would need to be back alley and illegal. Something Alyssum had realized she wasn't completely against as long as the dubious decision wasn't causing more direct harm than good.
Her home country wasn't one such place though, and Alyssum was free to sell her wares however she saw fit, especially considering the kinship and clan she grew up with. If there was one thing Lyssy could say, it was that the Crow kinship provided a small advantage when it come to customers back home. While her kinship was certainly a thing that had fallen from grace within the last generation, it was still a family of renown magical crafters that could have easily become Alt Finla or outright Finla should the situation have been different and should they have actually wanted that kind of power. Yet, it wasn't something that anyone in the family had ever actually wanted. Too much responsibility, being tie much too firmly to the position, it wasn't something that fit a Crow if Alyssum was being entirely straight forward. Clipped wings weren't a moto of her adopted family and that in turn was part of why they became magical crafters.
Alyssum, being the kinships last official and legal member, was able to inherit small amounts of prestige from her family's former glory. Keyword being small. It was a reputation booster but not a big one. It convinced a couple people to give her ratty side street cart a second glance, but it wasn't always enough to tempt them into a close enough range she could hook them and strike up a deal.
This would be the first issue Alyssum would have to learn to deal with when it came to running a business, the actual drumming up business part, but luckily for her first season she didn't need to think too hard about it.
"Excuse me?" A rather nervous looking woman asked as she approached the cart, eyes flicking across its quaint appearance as though she was having second thoughts, but her feet still drawing her closer as though they weren't strong enough to drive her away. Her appearance betrayed her elven heritage, Hyr'Norai in particular, and her weariness of her eyes betrayed her age long before she had the chance to ask her next question. "Aren't you Rúnar's daughter?"
Alyssum paused for a moment, silently chewing on the word. She nodded slowly, tilting her head slightly to the side. "Niece would perhaps be more accurate, but legally, daughter would also be correct," she said. "He passed away a long time ago though, back when I was still a kid myself. That said, he did teach me the tricks of his trades so if you need something I should be able to help you," Alyssum said, ears perked slightly as she leaned over the makeshift counter that was actually just her Vardo's window.
The woman nodded slowly, pausing for a bit. "When I was a little girl I used to get really bad insomnia. Most of the cures would either disagree with me and I'd have an allergic reaction, or they were outright illegal. Nothing seemed to work until my parents got some kind of sleeping potion from Rúnar. All I knew about it was that it was a very simple family potion that could be made with great ease, and few things worked better than it. It was slowly enough I didn't get knocked out immediately and gentle enough that my body actually got restful sleep, where as a lot of other things I've tried if I don't have an allergic reaction I can't get a restful sleep for some reason. You wouldn't happen to know how to make it would you? The local alchemists have tried everything. If you can make it I'll buy a bottle from you every day for as long as you're around."
The desperation was clear in her voice the longer the Hyr woman spoke. A simple sleeping potion? Yeah, Alyssum knew something like that. Rúnar hadn't been kidding either when he said it was simple. It was probably one of the first recipes Alyssum learned as a child. Two steps made from two plants that could easily be gathered by wandering out into the woods during the right season.
"Yeah, I can make it for you. Considering the ingredients I can even charge you cheap and make enough you'll have extra once I leave country. Afterwards I'll be able to provide you with a prescription service, you buy in bulk once a season and a courier will deliver you the potions after the money has been delivered to me. Assuming this actually works for you of course and it's the right potion. Deal?" Alyssum asked as the woman lit up and nodded her head enthusiastically. "Perfect. Swing by, hmmm, it's mid morning right now so probably half till sunset and the potion should be done by then."
The details were worked out and after that the woman left Alyssum cracked open her recipe book and started skimming. The book that Rúnar gave her as a child was precious to her and she kept it somewhere safe even after she sold the house and all her belongings (and regretfully all her magical tools). Unfortunately it also hadn't had much order to it, so Alyssum ended up transcribing the whole thing in a cleaner hand and alphabetical order somewhere later in life. Her eyes brushed across the sleeping potion section of the book until she arrived on the one she was looking for. "Really, I don't know why she's been having such a hard time," Alyssum muttered as she glanced at the two ingredients. Chamomile and lavender of all things!
She supposed it made some sense. Early on Alyssum had realized that a lot of Alchemists once they started to get into advanced potions also started to get vain. They started going for rare ingredients, like monster horns and the flesh of nearly extinct beasts, instead of remembering that basic medical herbs still served a purpose. It was always about the plants they couldn't find in their home countries or had to pay explores and adventures to get for them. Even Alchemists who were still in the relative early stages started to brush off basic medical herbs as they moved along, since they were medical herbs and all. As though medicine and alchemy couldn't walk within arms length of one another. One of the things Alyssum had liked early on is that Alchemy could be used to make medicine, and if the right purification and refinement processes were observed that medicine often had stronger effects because it was made with alchemy instead of something else.
It made some amount of sense that the local alchemists would have brushed off something as simple as chamomile or lavender, and that they both would be the only things gentle enough to hit the criteria of the woman. Alyssum wasn't going to complain about the perceived failings of those around her, though. Ingredients like basic herbs were often cheap to buy if she couldn't outright go and collect them herself. It made her job easier and it meant she could get a better product since she was filling a service gap the other alchemists weren't focused on. Once she changed local and the season shifted to Frost it would be harder to gather ingredients herself, but if she set aside enough of the profits she'd easily be able to buy the necessary ingredients next season and still make a good enough profit to help other clients if the woman continued to use her services. Brewing the potion in bulk also wouldn't be much of an issue since the wonderful thing about basic medical herbs is they tended to be more forgiving.
Hard to get ingredients, in Alyssum's experience, tended to be harder to work with. Prone to blowing up or giving the potion weird side effects if the head was just a little off her alembic was in a weird part of the room that changed the way the ether was able to simmer off and condense before liquefying into the actual potion. Not to mention the purification process was also harder and much more necessary. Forgetting the purify chamomile just meant the potion would be weaker. Incorrectly purifying something like a monster's tooth could lead a person to exploding or making some kind of awful poison instead. Which was especially bad if the poison just so happened to come out the same color and consistency as the potion. It could end an alchemist's career in one fell swoop! There were of course times where advanced ingredients were necessary, but simple was better whenever it could be afforded safely.
Alyssum rummaged around in the Vardo taking stock of not only her tools, which she set out carefully and inspected for cracks and imperfections, but also what ingredients she currently had with her. She still had a couple love potions she'd made a while ago that she could probably sell on the streets. She also had some dried ingredients laying around. Something worth noting was that alchemy ingredients didn't always have to be fresh. Sometimes it was better if they weren't. Drying ingredients or letting them age changed the intrinsic etheric components of the ingredient. For herbs, as an example, a living spring of mint had very different properties from a dead and dried piece of mint, and sometimes it was better to have one instead of the other. There were also oils and extracts to take into account, but that was more than Alyssum wanted to think about for the time being.
While fresh wasn't always a must, personally gathering ingredients in Alyssum's own experience usually was. A lot of ingredients weren't harvested with alchemists in mind so their properties could be muted by bad practices or even thrown off entirely. Not to mentioning for some reason Alyssum just found ingredients she'd harvested herself easier to work with, it wasn't something she could actively explain as much as a feeling she got in the pit of her stomach.
Unfortunately, it seemed Alyssum was missing one of the key ingredients. Chamomile. "That's going to but a toughie," she muttered to herself quietly as she looked outside the window. Chamomile typically bloomed in spring, but it was already Ash... Alyssum knew just the place, fortunately.
Since speed and distance were an element of the equation she grabbed a simple satchel as she got outside, locking up her Vardo, and taking to the skies. She couldn't confidently say that the movements were graceful, but they were still faster than she could have gone if she was walking.
Carefully gliding, enough time yielded the location Alyssum was looking for. A crystal clear pond a ways from town where flowers bloomed next to it as though it was still spring. Alyssum had always been curious about the pond but the explanations she received always amounted to some old mage of the Asmund family accidentally had a spell go wrong and the pond was cursed to live in eternal spring. It wasn't exactly the natural habitat for Chamomile but a byproduct of the spell is that a lot of flowers seemed to grow there regardless of season. Alyssum landed carefully, folding her wings inward as her feet touched the ground.
It wasn't hard to find Chamomile here. Despite the nip of the Ash air she was able to find a bundle of fresh bloom which she carefully uprooted. Chamomile was good for sleeping potions, but despite the fact most calming teas only used the blooms, for Alchemy it was best to use the whole plant in this case. She'd need to be careful about washing it off to make sure no contaminants managed to get into the brew. After she gathered enough to fill the satchel she was finally satisfied, wondering quietly to herself if it would be worth trying to cultivate some herself. Ultimately, she knew that if this woman did become a permanent client, a single plan Alyssum grew herself wasn't going to be enough.
She'd need to find a bulk supplier that catered specifically to alchemists if she wanted decent quality goods. She knew the names of a few back from when she was an apprentice. She need to track some down and see if they were still operating, and if there was any chance she'd be able to start purchasing from them. If she could track down some old Crow family associates, she might even be able to get a better deal than going through one of Atharen's various magical guilds and societies, which had a tendency to think about their own pockets. Yeah, guilds and such were only good for apprenticeships and buying tools you couldn't get or make yourself, like high quality alchemy kits or advanced necromatic tools.
Brushing the dirt off her hands she took flight once more. She was still on a time crunch and there were a couple more steps in the process. The big thing as that Alyssum really needed to purify the Chamomile. If she wanted the full effects at least. In its natural state it was able to work as a sleep aid but alchemically Alyssum could remove a couple of the etheric impurities which kept it from being a more powerful sleep aid. So when she got back, she supposed that would be step one.