2 Can I lock the door?
Twenty customers later, the Blessed Revival Potion is still sitting there, on the counter. No one took it. No one really even noticed it.
They're always in such a hurry to get their things and leave, they never much looked around. Still, the potion is rather noticeable – it's not much like anything else displayed in the store. Surely someone should've at least noticed it. And yet…
Madeline eyes the Blessed Revival Potion with something like dismay and then looks around the store. The things on display look like the things she sells – at least, some of them. There are potions that look exactly like the Lesser ones she sells, even the empty phials match the phial types used in them. On the shelves there are bit more expensive potions – Revivals and various cures and Regeneration potions. No one's ever tried to grab any of them.
She's… not entirely sure why.
After a moment of thought, Madeline looks down and then, slowly, pushes herself away from the counter. Slow, almost meditative, she steps around it – and then, finally, away from it. It's easier than she thought it would be – so easy she's not sure why she didn't try it before. Surely, she could've, if she had just tried.
Shaking her head Madeline steps to the nearest shelf and then reaches out. There are five of Great Regeneration Potions standing in a loose line there, and when she reaches out to touch them, they feel real. And when she wraps her fingers around the bottle neck, it comes loose without trouble.
She's not sure why, but it feels like she's doing something wrong, something… impossible. It feels like the bottle should've been immobile, and yet it wasn't – it sits in her hand, heavy and real.
Madeline stares at the bottle in something like fascination as the door opens. "Hello, welcome to Madeline's Potions," she greets the customer automatically, turning away from the shelf. It's another warrior, of course – a man with long pink hair and pink eyes, with clothes made of leather and sword at his side.
The warrior who stepped in looks first at the counter – and then at her, blinking. He looks a little puzzled for a moment, but then he shakes his head. "I want to shop," he says.
Madeline knows the answer to that – but she usually says it behind the counter. So, after a moment of hesitation, she walks back behind the counter, sets the Great Regeneration Potion down beside the Blessed Revival Potion, and then she smiles. "These are the wares I have available," she says, and opens the trade screen.
From there the transaction goes like it always does – the warrior buys Life Potions and a few Antidotes, shifting them from the transfer screen to his own screen. As he rearranges the items on it, shifting the potions on top – something lot of warriors do – Madeline eyes him curiously.
"Would you like a gift?" she then asks impulsively – a variation from the pattern that makes him pause and look at her in astonishment.
"W-what?" he asks, blinking.
"Here," Madeline says, and takes the Great Regeneration Potion, holding it out. "You can have this. On the house."
The warrior stares at the potion with astonishment and then reaches out to take it. "Whoa," he says, putting it into his inventory. "That's a… oh man, that's a really good potion," he mutters, leaning in and tapping a finger on the potion.
-
[Great Regeneration Potion x1]
[Heals 50 life points every second for 30 seconds]
[Resell value 3 Gold.]
-
Madeline waits to see what he does, not entirely sure what she's expecting. She's never done something like this before, and she hopes… hopes it will be something new. Something… good.
The warrior stares at the screen for a moment and then turns to her. "I want to shop," he says quickly and Madeline opens the transfer screen again, too surprised to even say her usual line. The transfer screen sits on top of the counter, and the warrior looks at it for a moment, deep in thought. Then the pink haired adventurer takes the Great Regeneration Potion she just gave him…
And he drags it into the screen, to sell it back to her.
"You… get three gold for your Great Regeneration Potion," Madeline says, absolutely stunned.
The warrior grins. "Score," he says and accepts the trade. The money appears on his inventory, taking the numbers of [0, 11, 65] G up to [3, 11, 65] G. The warrior shakes his head in amazement. "Man, I didn't even know there was an exploit here," he mutters, and then looks around.
His eyes land on the Blessed Revival Potion.
Before he can reach for it, Madeline takes the potion and drops it into the pocket of her apron. "I am sorry," she says, and somehow her voice manages to stay level. (Her throat aches.) "This store is now closed."
"Figures," the pink haired mutters and then shrugs his shoulders. "Oh well. I'm done shopping."
Madeline doesn't answer, her hands squeezed into tight fists at her sides as the warrior saunters out of the shop, whistling happily over what he probably thought was just good fortune. As the door closes after him, she leans her head back, closes her eyes, and drags a deep breath. Her whole body tense.
She's never really thought about it one way or the others. The customers – like the shop, like the potions, like the transfer screen – are just things that… are. It's how it's always been to her, this place, these encounters. She's never really thought about it, not before now. And now that she does…
Madeline isn't sure she much likes warriors.
-oOo-
Suddenly, more warriors appear at Madeline's store – and some come again, something that happens only very rarely normally. It starts with the pink haired man, who returns after a couple of hours and pokes around her shop for a moment, as if testing everything. And while Madeline is happy that finally, finally someone is actually looking around in the shop… there is something odd and wrong about this.
The first thing the pink haired warrior says to her that time is not the usual, "I want to shop," but instead he asks, "Can I have a gift?"
Madeline is so confused and dismayed that she can't think of anything to say – and so she says nothing. He makes a face at her and prods at the Great Regeneration Potions on the shelf for a while. Ten minutes later, after making a strange rectangle with his hands at the blank space left by the phial she took before, he leaves, apparently disappointed – only to come again in an hour.
After that, other warriors come to do the same. It takes Madeline a while to figure that the word of her gift had spread somehow, and now the warriors want to see if they too can get something for free. And though she could've easily given them any number of potions with very little trouble on her part, it feels… wrong. It feels hollow. She wanted interaction, she wanted someone to talk to her, to say something new to her, but this…
She didn't even know this was a possibility and she doesn't want it. (There is a peculiar feeling building in her chest. She swallows it down.)
"Can I have a gift?" another hopeful warrior asks, looking at her expectantly. This warrior is a slender woman with dark green hair pulled up on a pony tail and blue eyes. Her skin is suntanned, the colour of her leather jacket, and on her back she has a bow and a quiver. Same as all the rest, really – same as all the people who'd come in lately asking for gifts.
Madeline doesn't answer – the smile on her face, normally as natural as breathing, sits stiff and uncomfortable on her lips.
The warrior waits for a moment before sighing with disappointment. "Maybe it's a special timing thing," she mutters and then shakes her head. "I want to shop," she says, and buys a couple of Lesser Life Potions before leaving.
There is also one warrior who hangs around the shop for nearly half an hour, just waiting and watching her. A tall male with dark skin, spiky yellow hair and pale blue eyes, he just sits on one of the tables and watches her. It's the longest Madeline thinks she's ever been in the presence of another, certainly the longest anyone's spend just looking at her and she doesn't really like it. Her smile grows more and more difficult as time goes on, and she rather wishes she could just… not be there. Or just somehow make the warrior leave. She just doesn't know how.
The relief when the warrior leaves, never once buying anything, is so strong that she staggers a little. And the dismay when another warrior comes in not much after is very nearly as powerful. Though the second warrior – female with long red hair and bright red eyes, skin as pale as snow – leaves not much after coming, Madeline realises something that doesn't bode well for her.
She's a salesperson – and every time a customer comes in, she wishes desperately that they hadn't.
She doesn't want this. This is not at all what she wants. If she'd known she never would've given the potion to the pink haired warrior. And she wants it to stop. The thought forms slow but definite in her head, a true desire, even a little desperate one.
She wants this to stop.
Maybe she can just… lock the door. It's right there, it has a lock. It should work, shouldn't it?
When there's a small break between customers – a blue haired woman who got her spirit potions and who thankfully left after asking for a free gift only once – Madeline quickly goes around the counter and marches up to the front door. It's the furthest she's gone from her desk – the shelf she got the Great Regeneration Potion from was barely a couple steps away. It's oddly liberating. It's the most she's ever done.
She reaches for the door handle, intending to pull it shut and then reaches for the lock. But instead of doing any of that, she instead places her palm against the firm, dark wood, just below the door's blurry window. Through it she can see the front of another shop just across from hers – the one she knows nothing about. And an idea pops into her head.
Her stomach twists with feeling so intense that it makes her shiver and she stares for a moment at the other store and then down the door handle, terrified and exhilarated. It's just there and she can move it, she knows she can move it. She can pull door shut and lock it – that would be easy. But then she'd be locked inside. It would be just her in the shop – and as much as she wants the appeals for gifts to stop… she doesn't want to be stuck alone indoors either.
Maybe if she leaves she won't be a potions seller anymore. She would be outside the shop and one needs a store to sell things from, after all. Maybe outside…
Can she? Is it even possible?
Slowly, she pushes the door open.
