1 Warriors are always so rude!
"Yeah, I'm deleting this character." A human player said to his beastman partner as they walked down the cobblestone road. "It's been a few minutes since I submitted the request so I should be teleporting back to character creation soon. Gonna choose to be an elf this time to boost the Hunter job."
"Well, yer choice, I guess. Ya sure 'bout giving up all yer progress so far though? I hear these first days of the game are vitally important if ya want to become a top ranker." The beastman asked as he opened the door to the storefront with a beaker of liquid engraved on the door.
"Hello, welcome to Madeline's Potions! Can I help you?" A smiling blue-eyed blonde greeted them.
"Don't really care about being top ranked. Not even sure if I'm gonna end up playing this for the long term. I'm in this for the fun, and so far, the game's been rather generic, so I might wind up dropping it soon, anyways." The man turns to the NPC at the counter and states. "I want to shop."
"These are the wares I have available." She said pleasantly, and opened a transfer screen. It hangs sharp and faintly glowing in the air between them just over the wooden counter, the available potions and their prices listed in precise lines. From [Lesser Life Potion] which costs fifty copper coins to [Blessed Revival Potion] which had the price of twenty gold coins.
"Yet yer changing yer character just ta be better at a job ye've only had for three days?" The beastman scoffed. "Why're ya buying potions anyway, if yer character's going ta be deleted soon?"
"I want eleven Lesser Life Potions." The human said to the NPC before turning back to his partner. "They're for you to give my new character, duh. Can't take my inventory with me, and I can't transfer money yet, so might as well buy some stuff to start out with a boost later."
"Ya coulda asked. Limited storage, ya know. But sure, I'll hold 'em for ya." The beastman guffaws.
"That will be five silvers and fifty coppers. Please confirm your purchase." The girl NPC nodded agreeably.
However, the moment the human touched the 'Confirm' button, his entire being vanished into motes of white light.
At the counter, the blonde girl freezes for a moment, before "Hello, welcome to Madeline's Potions! Can I help you?"
The beastman stared at her before breaking out into uncontrollable, belly-holding laughter. "What a coincidence! Ah…he's going ta be furious at being thwarted at the last second."
After gathering himself together, he took off out the door without a second glance at the female staring after him.
-oOo-
This is what she knows.
Her name is Madeline. She lives in a small costal village named Algiore. She sells potions. She never leaves her store.
"Hello, welcome to Madeline's Potions! Can I help you?" she calls, cheerfully smiling, as a customer enters the store. They're all the same – warriors in rough leathers. Women, men, young, old – all in the same type of clothes, carrying just about the same type of weapons. Be it a bow or a staff or a sword, they're always identical.
They buy the same things too. They never browse, never look around – they rarely hesitate. They just walk up to her and do their business, never once looking around.
"I want to shop," the customer says. A warrior in leather, just like all the times before. She's carrying a sword, identical to all the swords Madeline has seen before. Her hair is short, white and tied with little baubles in front of her ears. Her skin is as pale as her hair and her eyes are red.
Madeline has seen that too.
"These are the wares I have available," Madeline answers, and opens a transfer screen between them.
The white haired warrior eyes the list for a moment and opens another screen a little to the side, considering the items displayed the there – hers are on a grid of square boxes rather than in lines, though most of the slots in the grid are empty.
Without saying anything, the warrior drags something through the air into the transfer screen.
-
[Azure Firebell seed x24 ]
[Perhaps you can plant it?]
[Growth time 10 min]
[Requires Green affinity to be used]
-
"You get one silver and twenty copper for your Azure Firebell seeds. Please confirm your sale." Madeline tells the warrior automatically. "Would you like to sell something else?"
She does, selling [Iron Fragment x12] for sixty copper coins and [Wood Rabbit Tail x46] for two silver and thirty copper. Madeline transfers the money for the items and they vanish into the transfer screen.
"I want eighteen lesser life potions," the white haired warrior then says.
"That will be nine silver. Please confirm your purchase. " Madeline answers. The warrior accepts the price without argument and once she has transferred the money over, Madeline answers by transferring the requested potions back. "Would you like to buy something else?"
"I got all I need now," the white haired warrior answers, and her screen vanishes.
"Thank you for visiting, please come again!" Madeline says and bows her head in farewell that is just as automatic as everything else about the meeting. Without another word the warrior leaves. The transfer screen disappears and the door closes after the warrior with a click.
The encounter was, all told, exactly like the hundreds and thousands that came before it and the ones that would come after would probably also fall into the same pattern. Madeline knows the pattern well. It's all she does know. And now that the motions have been played through, she stands behind the counter, stares at nothing at all and waits. And waits. And waits.
After a while, when no customers appear, her eyes begin to wander a little.
Her shop is small. Or at least she thinks it is small – she doesn't have anything to compare it to. It's all wood from floor to ceiling, and Madeline thinks it is quite cosy. There are tables in the middle with potions and empty phials on display – under the window, there are bundles of dried herbs. No one's ever bought them – or even much looked at them. It's a shame, she thinks. Whoever arranged them did so very beautifully.
Through the window she can see a blurry store front with a sword carved into the door. She has no idea who owns the other store or what it sells. She's never visited it. She's never left her own store.
Madeline stares at the other store through the blurry window curiously and wonders if the person managing it is like her. Maybe they haven't ever stepped away from their store's counter either.
-oOo-
There is another customer – another warrior in leather, this one carrying a wooden staff on his back. The exact same staff as all the other staffs Madeline has seen. His hair is red and short and his eyes are golden. His skin is dark, darker than the leather jacket he wears. It's another common look.
He's talking to himself when he comes in, and completely ignores Madeline's greeting. But then they all do, more or less.
"… yeah, yeah, I'll be there in just a sec, just let me gets some pots," he says to no one as he marches up to the counter. "I want to shop," he says to Madeline and then continues to talking to someone who isn't there. "Hey, you need anything while I'm at it? I don't have much money, but I can get you a few."
Madeline blinks and opens the transfer screen. "These are the wares I have available," she says. It's not unusual for the warriors to talk to themselves. Lot of them do it, speaking into the thin air as if there's someone there – someone other than Madeline – listening.
"Mm yeah I can't afford a Revival, they're too damn expensive. It's like, one gold for the lowest type. Yeah. Hmm…" the warrior says at nothing, while running a hand over the list of potions. Then he suddenly laughs. " W-what, really? No way, man. Hey, take a picture, alright? What – really? Oh man, I gotta see this – just gimme a mo," he says and then selects what he wants to buy. "Ten Lesser Spirit Potions and five Lesser Life Potions."
"That will be seven silver and fifty copper. Please confirm your purchase." Madeline says, and transfers the potions over once the warrior has accepted the trade. "Would you like to buy something else?"
The warrior turns to leave, and then stops, reconsidering. "Three Lesser Antidotes," he says then, and she sells them for single silver and fifty copper.
"Hey, do you know if there's a place to upgrade into better gear anywhere here?" he asks suddenly and Madeline blinks with surprise. No one's ever asked anything like that from her. Or anything other than for potions, really.
She opens her mouth to say that she doesn't know, unfortunately, but before she can… he speaks again.
"Oh. Right, well – that's just a level above where we are right now?" the red haired warrior says. "Sweet. I'm all for saving money. Right, I'm done here, just hang back for the moment – is the chick still there? Excellent. Be right there, then. I'm done shopping."
"Tha… thank you for visiting, please come again," Madeline stutters, and watches him leave with odd mix of astonishment and disappointment. Right. He wasn't talking to her after all, but to… whomever he was talking to. Why would he talk to her?
For a moment she stares at the empty air in front of her like she always does, a smile plastered on her face like it always is. After a while, though, the smile slips off and her gaze lowers to the counter in front of her.
No one talks to her. No one has ever talked to her. (There is a strange sensation in her chest and she ignores it.) All they do is come in and buy potions and nothing else. Sometimes they sell her things. Seeds and wood splinters, rocks and metal fragments, pieces of jewels, fabrics, thread, silk… sometimes they sell her bits and pieces of animals. The fangs of Wood Spider or the claws of the Field Burrower, things like that. She… isn't entirely sure where the things they sell her go after they've put them into the trade screen.
Things vanish and appear out of nowhere in that thing. There are endless amounts of potions there, that come from nowhere, and when things are put into it… they cease to exist. At least Madeline thinks so. She isn't entirely sure.
She's never actually thought about it before.
She's thinking about it now, and is still thinking about it when another warrior comes in. This one is a big, voluptuous figure, so tall her head touches the top of the door frame. Her skin is fair, her hair is long and light grey in colour and her eyes are pale, pale blue. Aside from that she's just like all the rest, dressed in leather, carrying staff identical to the staff the red haired warrior carried.
Madeline welcomes her to the shop, and she ignores it.
"I want to shop," she says, coming to the counter. She's brisk about making her purchases – the warrior buys ten Lesser Spirit Potions and ten Lesser Life Potions, and five Lesser Antidotes – and after paying Madeline twelve silver and fifty copper for her purchases, she ends the business with, "I'm done shopping," and then she leaves before Madeline can even thank her. This is also nothing new. Many warriors are also precisely rude in such a way that she feels like a redundant part of the scenery.
Madeline looks after her over the still lingering transfer screen. It's not uncommon – the warriors are always in hurry, and they always pay her. No matter how rude they sometimes seem to be, no one has ever tried to just take their purchases and run. She appreciates that, at least.
Though… perhaps they couldn't even do something like that. After all, the trade happens in the transfer screen – the warriors can drag things into it to sell them, but they don't seem able to take anything out. Not unless Madeline allows it.
The transfer screen is still there, and just before it would disappear, Madeline puts her hand on it – and it stays, no customer in sight. Not entirely sure what to do or why she wants to do it, she takes the screen by its sharp edges and turns it more to her, looking at it.
The screen, she knows, is what makes her a salesperson. It's what makes her… anything, really. The things in the shop don't seem to matter to anyone, the bottles on the tables and shelves are worthless even as decorations – no one looks at them. No, it's the things in the screen they want. Things in the screen which they come to get.
There are twenty two types of potions on the trade screen. Five types of Life Potions from Lesser to Blessed, and five types of Spirit Potions with similar scale. Then she sells Antidotes, just the one type. She sells Holy Water, but only few people ever buy it, same with Smelling Salts, Mandrake Draught, Rejuvenation Tonic and Eye Wash. Then there are three types of Regeneration Potions – just the Regeneration Potion, the Great Regeneration Potion and the Blessed Regeneration Potion. And then there are the Revives, the first of which, Revive, costs one gold, then the Great Revive Potion which costs seven gold, and the Blessed Revive Potion which costs twenty gold.
No one's ever bought that one. In fact, no one has ever bought any of the more expensive potions – couple of times people bought the Mid Grade Potions which were twenty silver per potion, but mostly it was just the Lesser ones they bought. No one could afford the more expensive ones.
After a moment of eying the potions and their prices, Madeline reaches out and grabs one of the crystalline phials from the screen. When she pulls her hand back, she is grasping the bottle by it's neck. It is… heavier than she thought it would be, and far more solid than she'd assumed.
It is, she realizes, the first time she's actually held a potion. She's sold them for as long as she could remember, and yet she'd never once touched one. She looks around her store, with the plethora of potions on their many shelves and tables, and wonders why that is.
Slowly, she sets the potion down on the counter. It's a beautiful phial, the surface cut and fractaled like precious gem, glittering in the light. The cap on it is also crystal, a delicate diamond shape. The liquid inside is golden and when the light hits it, it glows.
The Blessed Revival Potion, worth twenty gold, sits on the center of her counter and no one paid for it.
After a moment of consideration, Madeline pushes it to the side, to the corner of the counter closest to where the warriors usually stand. As the transfer screen closes, the potion phial remains, sitting there for anyone to take.
Smiling in anticipation, she waits for her next customer.
