The next day before Genesis took it's early stride Alex checked on the clones in his father's room, finding them mulling over a chess board. Chuckling, he shook his head and entered the room.
"Guys, you should get out before the neighbors wake up. I will deliver the masks and poison to the old cemetery's abandoned gravekeeper's house." Alex said and the clones swiftly streamed out of the house.
Alex took care of some household chores till Genesis reached its late stride and headed out to shop.
Manwell was an old man that ran a shop in the slums, he was a bit senile from the age but his hands were still brilliant with wood shavers. He entered his store, greeted the slightly maddened old man. After a minute of painfully reassuring the old man that his mother would visit him again, Alex bought ten wooden masks for the low price of a silver coin.
Putting one on was easy with a nifty adjustable leather strap. It was oddly comfortable for a mask made of wood. His vision was a bit occluded but it was worth the benefits.
Running back to the graveyard, he found the clones chatting while hiding in the gravekeeper's house. He gave each of them a mask and told them to get comfortable with it.
His next destination was the rather obscure black market. That's why he was now walking in the least striking clothes he had.
The only reason he knew there was a black market at all was because of Jacob, who had in his unemployed boredom explored the city and discovered basically everything there was to discover.
One night, before his father died, Alex and Jacob were a bit adventurous and decided to give the ominous black market a visit. It was located in the worst neighborhood of the city, where various gangs ruled and the guards dared not to enter without military help.
The black market was surrounded by deceptively poorly constructed housing, and with a bit of jumping over walls, he and Jacob had entered its premises.
When they found themselves there, they were surprised by the rather orderly structure of the whole place. Rows of shops and stands were organised in a small square the size of a training field.
Though the contents of such shops were bizarre, 'Mercantiles Cursed Stones', 'Cheap Awakening Stones!' and on and on it went. Whether you wanted sexual items or illegal mind medicines - drugs basically - you could buy it there.
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That was all expected for the two young men, what they didn't predict was the caravans of animals, monkeys, human and non-human slaves. In their naivety they asked a caravan guard who those human looking people with beaks and dog ears were, the guard responded with a derisive tone.
"Babes from moms who don't care if an animal fucks'em."
And besides the caravan was a small stall selling…stuff that shouldn't be mentioned.
Those were the bad memories, it was why he was reluctant to visit this shit hole. While it may have looked civilised on the outside, it was rotten to the core.
Months later, the place looked as it did back then, and with relief he saw that there was no caravan or parts merchant.
Alex stayed unnoticeable and entered a shop called 'Myriad Medical Miracles', a pompous name for a shop that sold medicine of questionable quality. The insides felt cramped and moldy from the tightly packed book shelves filled with multicolored vials.
A crone was sitting on a rocking chair and smoking from a bamboo pipe. She noticed him and waved him over.
"Hello young man to my shop, what troubles such a handsome man like you." The old woman leered while checking him out. Alex stayed dead pan. In his opinion he wasn't that handsome, yet that wasn't a problem, he was currently wearing a mask.
So how the fuck did this old bitch even know he was handsome or not?
"I'm looking for a poison, something quick and painless." Alex said, putting his hands behind his back and strolling around the shop.
"Oh, poison. You're gonna kill someone my friend?" Alex refused to answer and the crone continued. "We have a few, they range in price wildly depending on what you want them to do."
"I want to kill myself." Alex said plainly, getting an astonished hum from the crone. What better reason than the truth.
"Mad one are you? Alright." The old man then breathed in and shouted. "ELIZABETH YOU USELESS WENCH, GET SOLIVAN'S TINCTURE!"
The aforementioned Elizabeth stumbled out of a backroom, holding her moop of red hair and carrying two vials. She wore rather revealing clothes, and from what the crone called her, she was a prostitute.
"Sorry for the disturbance my boy, this is Solivan's tincture. It's a two step poison, the first vial contains dormant poison and the second vial contains the activator." The crone held out two vials, one blue and one red. "The blue vial is the dormant poison, you drink it one stride before your suicide. The red vial you can drink at any time after the first stride, it's effective for a whole day."
Alex took the vials from her hands and inspected them. He will have to test this on one of his clones just to be sure but he takes the old crone as a liar, just a bit of a creepy old bitch.
"How much?" Alex said.
"Ten silvers for a handsome man like you." The old crone laughed and hit Elizabeth on the hip with her bamboo pipe, hissing. "Show your body you bloody wench or you be getting any sleep tonight."
Elizabeth, so far silent, started showing more cleavage and doing sexual poses. Alex's face palmed and sighed in disappointment.
"Stop it with your petty plays. Such poison is barely worth a silver coin, no fucker with a brain will buy it from you." Alex retorted, firmly setting his eyes on the crone and avoiding the distraction.
"Maybe he's a sword swallower?" The crone said and gave him a crooked smile. "Deal! How many sets do you need?"
"I will buy five sets." Alex said and Elizabeth stopped her show and brought five sets of Solivan's Tincture. He gave the old crone five silvers and she bade him farewell.
His return to the graveyard house was undisturbed and his plan nearing implementation.