A few weeks have passed since the incident with the Tailor’s Guild. As promised by Mary, those responsible for the attack on Elizabeth and myself were punished, and money for my troubles had also been payed as compensation for the stress and danger I had been put through. Which I suppose is much better than the last time I was put in danger, where I all I got was a gash in my leg from an ax and a bunch of ominous foreshadowing.
After the incident Mary was rather more attentive towards my training than she had been previously, helping to coach me on the specialties and meanings of the various plants in her garden. Some of them I had already recognized from reading in my previous world; while my undergraduate work was focused on microbiology there naturally were per-requisite courses, some of which touched on botany. But this wasn’t as simple as “atropine and digitalis are poisonous but can be used as medicine in small doses.”
This would be closer to ancient Pharmika rather than modern pharmacology. There was a mystical aspect to it, much in the same way people viewed and treated medicines and poisons back before modern science demystified the mechanisms through which they worked. Take Atropine, for example. Modern usages include treating bradycardia through injection, and glaucoma through eye-drops. Interestingly it’s also used to treat exposure to nerve agents, which is likely important to remember if you ever find yourself in WWIII.
So, this substance, found in such plants as Mandrake and Deadly Nightshade, has several “mundane” uses. But that’s just surface level. It’s also used in potions to create flight, demonstrated previously when I fled the Tailor’s Guild, and in potions to increase attractiveness, albeit potions that are too pricey to keep in stock. While more basic tonics and potions are economical to brew in batches to sell in town, the ingredients or methods for many more complex potions mean they’re done on commission. We tend to brew those on-demand for wealthier customers.
We had one such customer last week, actually. It was rather exciting to actually interact face-to-face with a customer, though Mary was the one who did most the talking, and the one who actually brewed the potion for her. One thing I did get to brew was coffee. I was sure to add a bit of milk and sugar since I can’t imagine someone used to tea would be used to the taste of black coffee. She seemed to enjoy it, which means I might have gained another convert to the superiority of coffee over tea! Except, there’s no place for her to buy it anywhere in this country outside of one sea captain with raw beans. Oh well.
And speaking of “potions,” I was able to vastly improve the gunpowder Mary had started to make. While this world’s explosion magic is just about at the level of of 19th century artillery, it requires much less need for industry to support it than gunfire, so as a result gunpowder never really took off. I have the ability to learn this magic if I’m to believe what Mary and the clerk at the Magicians Guild said, but as I may have mentioned previously firearms just have that je ne sais quoi.
They should have the technology to build one, and I just got a massive influx of cash, which brings me to today…
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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“I’m sorry Miss, I just can’t make it.” the burly smith replied. The shop was rather dim. In the background two of the smith’s apprentice’s were hard at work, one working the bellows while the other waited for the iron to reach the right temperature. As the iron got up to a bright red the apprentice snatched it out of the fire with tongs before bringing it over to a post vice to add decorative twists.
“What do you mean? These schematics are clear as day!”
“Clear as day, sure, but I’m just a regular blacksmith. Something at that level is the kind of work you’d expect from a master locksmith, or a jeweler. Why don’t you find one of those? The most complicated things I make are knives and other magician’s tools.”
My plan to get the rifle built so far has been a bust. I’ve only talked to one smith so far at least, but they were recommended by the Magicians Guild. Which in hindsight is probably the source of my problems. In some ways a guild system is a bit simpler to deal with than the way manufacturing worked in my modern world, but there were always roadblocks like this. The smith recommended by the guild wasn’t a bad smith, but he wasn’t the right one for the job.
I know it’s always been referred to as a musket or rifle “lock” but somehow it never occurred to me that there was any reason for that relevant enough to have an effect on my day to day life. There’s a decent amount of filing needed and a precise fit necessary for the lock to work right, but I didn’t think I would get an outright rejection from a smith. I hadn’t even gotten to the part of explaining how to make and rifle a barrel.
“Well, can you recommend me someone who can make this?” I finally asked.
“Maybe Evan’s shop can make it, but he’s away for the moment, and I’m not sure when he’ll be back.” the smith replied.
“I plan on being in the cit- town all day.”
“He’s on a trip to the capital. A major client there had placed a custom order for their warehouses, or something like that.”
“Oh… well, thanks anyways…”
I turned to leave. The bright sunlight that hit my eyes upon exiting blinded me momentarily, and I pulled my jacket in tighter as a gust of wind came blowing down the alleyway. I had said I’d be in town all day, but that was only if I had needed to wait on the smith to look over my plans.
I’d prefer to make my way back to the cottage in a timely manner, considering the turn for the colder from the weather recently. No one wants to spend all day running errands, and after the last incident Mary had made me promise to only stop at the few places I explicitly mentioned to her. Ever since I was attacked that time she’d been acting clingy, in a manner of speaking.
“One more stop...” I muttered to myself, pulling out the slip of paper with directions on it from the guild.
Much like the last stop, I planned to try and talk a craftsman into making something from my world. I might as well, since I got a heavy purse, courtesy of the Tailor’s guild. It’s almost the standard in many of those stories and shows where people end up in another world; Chronicles of Narnia, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Planet of the Apes… most if not all have them bringing in some knowledge from their mundane world lives.
Rather than a telegraph system or Gatling Gun, what I want is a nicer coffee pot. The hippocratic sleeve is working merely “Okay.” I want something much better than okay. Something like one of those Chemex pour-over carafes would be ideal, although finding the right filter material might be tricky. And so I was going to the shop of the craftswoman recommended by the Magician’s guild.
The guild described her as an artisan who’s on the rise, with her business being based in making glassware for witches and alchemists. Having gotten a glimpse at the equipment used for brewing potions and the complexity of their shapes, a pot for brewing coffee should be a cakewalk by comparison.
For an artisan experiencing a period of growth, her shop was humble, a few alleyways down from the blacksmith. A sign out front said simply “Eva’s Glassworks.” Humble isn’t always a bad thing, and the exterior had a comforting air to it. A bell chimed as I walked in through the door.
“Hello, is Mrs. Eva in...”
“Just a minute! I just need to...The witch’s apprentice!?”
In the entryway from the front room to the workshop in the back, stood the potion customer from the other day.