Therion frowned at the odd kobold statues in front of Master Theresa’s shop. They were well done, lifelike. Still, a strange choice. He shook his head and stepped up to the door, still unsure whether this was the right decision. But Elyn had agreed with his sister. He should talk to them, if only to see what they might have to say. The guild needed its ranger back, she’d argued, and the whole city could use a bit of good news.

  To negotiate terms over an active dispute, Therion should have gone to the Alchemists’ Guildhall in the Crafter’s District, but he didn’t have an active dispute. He just needed help for his father from an organization that he had embarrassed, and who he, as a result, had good reason not to trust.

  The shop’s counter was manned by an apprentice a few years younger than Therion himself who greeted him with a polite, professional smile.

  “Good afternoon, sir. Anything I can help you with?”

  “No, thanks,” he said, smiling politely and leaning to peek into the lab behind the young man. He couldn’t see much, just a few tables and a bit of tiled floor. “I’d like to speak with Master Theresa, if you don’t mind.”

  “Ah…” he said, eyeing him up and down skeptically. “Are you here to inquire about an enhancement? You’re a mage…”

  “I noticed,” he replied dryly. “And no. I’m looking for medical help for my father.”

  “Ah! I’m sure we can find something for you, sir. I can offer healing potions of every grade, spirit restoration, and even elixirs of regrowth to treat burns and disfiguring injuries if you have the budget – .”

  Therion held up a hand to stop him. “It’s not that kind of injury. He survived a mental attack from a shade last fall, but he’s… not recovering well. My father is Garius Treespeaker.”

  “Ah, well I…” The apprentice trailed off, eyes growing wide. “Oh! Ehm… right. Do you mind waiting for a moment? I’ll be right back.”

  He scurried off into the back, emerging again a moment later behind a gray-haired woman with a long, pinched face. She removed a pair of leather gloves and tucked them into her heavy, pockmarked apron while she sized him up. Finally she smiled broadly, showing perhaps a few too many teeth.

  “Well, well. You would be the famous Therion, then? A real tragedy, what happened to your father – soldier’s neurosis. We've had a lot of similar cases from the battle, and not all of them from the shades. It’s common enough, but difficult to treat. Difficult and expensive.” She turned and waved for him to follow her, still smiling. “Why don’t you join me in my office.”

  Therion hesitated for a moment. Her smile was too wide and it didn’t reach her eyes – like something she’d practiced in a mirror. It was unsettling, but he was here, and she was offering to talk. He followed.

  Her office turned out to be a spacious room packed with meticulously labeled shelves of books, binders and folders. The desk was completely clear and polished to a sheen. As she mader her way around it, she gestured to a chair and settled down in her own behind the desk. Then she met his eyes with her unsettling smile.

  The silence stretched for an awkward second as Therion realized she was waiting for him to speak. He cleared his throat.

  “So, you know about my father?”

  “Of course! I work very closely with the Adventurers’ Guild, and with the rangers. Garius is an important man, and his fate is a matter of interest to everyone here, whether they know it or not. His name has come up repeatedly in our discussions with branchmaster Ambrose over the past year.”

  Therion nodded and returned a tight smile of his own. Maybe this was going to be easier than he thought.

  “Right. Well, we’ve been working with several priests, but he’s only recovering slowly. We thought it might be time to look at other solutions – your sort. I understand it can be quite expensive, but we can cover the cost.”

  Her smile grew a little sharper at the mention of ‘cost’. “Of course. Cases like this are, in my professional opinion, best treated alchemically. A carefully administered course of dreamshade elixirs is far more effective than any priest.”

  “That’s great,” Therion said, trying to find a way to get to the substance of the matter. “I just… well, I understand we’ve had our differences in the past, and I’d like to ensure we can have a productive relationship going forward.”

  “Oh, not at all!” she said, sitting back in her chair. “The guild and Master Julian himself appreciate your vigilance with regard to last year’s incident. Safety compliance is a serious issue, and it is essential for our guild that any procedural deviations are corrected. An organization such as ours runs on trust – both from the public and from the powers that be.

  “Ah… alright.” Therion said, confused by her conciliatory tone. “What happened to Master Julian, exactly?”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “He opened a shop in Fergefield. It’s not an ideal situation – the town already had two alchemists and didn’t need a third. Meanwhile, we are left shortstaffed here, especially considering that Halfbridge is a growing market. Our branch in Loamfurth was, by all accounts, wiped out completely. Only a single apprentice turned up among the refugees.”

  “That’s unfortunate…” Therion said carefully. He’d heard a lot about this sort of backroom dealing, but it felt strange to be doing it himself. There was no way the guild was actually fine with what he had done – as far as he’d heard, this woman herself had retaliated maliciously against Bernt over this exact incident – but he couldn’t tell what her angle was. There was nothing for it but to plow ahead and keep his hands off of anything shiny.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m glad that the guild acted so promptly to correct the issue, then. Could I schedule a time for the treatment?

  “Oh certainly! Though unfortunately we do have a large backlog. You’ve waited so long to put in the order that I’m afraid there are many other patients already on our waiting list. We’re talking months at the earliest, perhaps as late as midwinter.”

  “So long?” Therion frowned. So that was the game. Drag out the procedure, say they couldn’t get the ingredients and ultimately refuse service, probably. “How long can it take to brew a few elixirs?”

  “Longer than you might think,” she replied sharply. “It’s not a simple recipe. Besides, we are short a Master Alchemist here in Halfbridge – one who is also unfortunately no longer authorized to work with such environmentally reactive ingredients. Additionally those ingredients themselves are in extremely short supply and difficult to acquire for us here. We’ll need to wait for new deliveries before we can even begin to address half of the cases already on our list. It would violate our code of ethics for us to bestow blatant favoritism on the basis of celebrity,”

  Therion blinked. There it was. “You want me to get Julian reinstated to make my dad’s treatment?” He hadn’t expected anything so blunt.

  The alchemist raised an eyebrow in mock affront. “I would never advocate for someone with a documented systemic non-conformance of the guild’s safety guidelines to be rehabilitated! That said, he is certainly qualified to create and administer the treatment. If you are determined to find a way around the queue, which I am, of course, in no way suggesting, you would need that non-conformance to be readjudicated as a singular non-conformance. A simple human error.”

  So, she wanted him to get the old rat reinstated and to get the alchemist’s habitual disregard for waste disposal regulations officially reframed as a singular accident. A non-event, and nothing that would reflect upon the guild as a whole. It was outrageous. For that matter, it probably wasn’t even possible. He frowned at her.

  “Master Julian’s waste disposal infractions are well documented with the Underkeepers going back years. Magistrate Gerold read out the entire list at the sentencing! I know that my involvement led to increased scrutiny, but I can’t go and just make that disappear now. What are you suggesting?”

  Master Theresa shrugged and spread her hands. “As I said, I’m not suggesting you should do anything at all, and certainly nothing illegal. I merely pointed out how one might sidestep our waiting list here in Halfbridge. Alternatively, you could simply travel to another major city. You might try Lochholme, though we already requested their relevant reagent stocks several months ago. The tricky one is a hallucinogenic mushroom from Sehesh – it can be difficult to source. Trade between the dwarves and lizardmen is sporadic at best, but they may have resupplied by now.”

  Therion gnawed on his lip. Garius could probably travel that far in his current state, but things were getting more dangerous out on the roads, and there was no guarantee the alchemists in Lochholme could even help. And, of course, it would take time. Weeks, at least. If they were going to do this, he didn’t want to wait that long. Before today, he had mostly given up on the idea of reaching magister this year. If they were going to get his father cured alchemically, though, it didn’t make sense to wait. He would still have time to get to Bronzeforge Hall before snow fell in the mountains with the onset of autumn in six or seven weeks. Provided they could get it done now – or very soon, at least.

  He rubbed at his face. “You’re sure I can’t just pay you? I thought the guild was fond of gold.”

  Master Theresa shook her head and smiled blandly. “Oh, I assure you we are. Dreamshade elixirs cost more than superior healing potions and our time isn’t free, either. Our integrity, I’m afraid, is not for sale, though.”

  ***

  Therion left the shop dissatisfied. It wasn’t all bad – the guild considered his father too important to poison, assuming they weren’t simply lying to get the opportunity to do it. It was true that the Adventurers’ Guild, and specifically branchmaster Ambrose, would take notice if the alchemists harmed one of their local heroes. Still, the help they were offering was too slow. If they were going to wait till winter off-season, they might as well stick with the priests. By the time real trouble started stirring again in spring, his family would have lost another half a year, regardless. That was time they might not have.

  At a glance, everyone out here looked like they got along just fine. People of all races mixed freely in the streets, worked stalls in the markets and argued over the proper price of cheese and bread and beer. But Therion knew better. The Lower City was where people with jobs lived – those who’d made it out of the Undercity’s Refugee Quarter. Most of the survivors from Loamfurth still relied on support from the Count to feed themselves and their prospects for escaping what was rapidly becoming an enormous slum were rapidly evaporating. The Temple of Noruk had, empowered with the authority of the king as well as their god, begun auditing guilds, businesses and influential individuals, looking for what they considered “improper” influences. They hadn’t defined exactly what that meant, of course, and the results had been predictable.

  Businesses who could avoid it had stopped hiring anyone who might get them into trouble – namely goblins and orcs, who paid no homage to the gods of humans. Neither did the dwarves or gnomes, technically, but no one seemed to mind that. Maybe it was because of how long they’d been integrated into Beseri society, or because their gods felt more familiar. It didn’t matter. Thousands of people were quietly being cut off from society, left to fend for themselves down in the Undercity, out of sight and mind of the people up here.

  He didn’t know very much about politics, but it didn’t take a genius to know that spelled trouble. And that meant working with the alchemists and finding a way to give them what Master Theresa had very carefully not instructed him to do – Julian reinstated to work in Halfbridge, and the guild officially cleared of any real wrongdoing. Assuming he could find a way to do it.