As much as I enjoyed buying sex toys, the real highlight of this entire trip was always going to be our stint into the alchemy shop. That was, not least of all, because my reason for this sudden and clear interest in getting the laboratory going right now was as sexual in nature as buying the toys.

About a month back, my efforts to try and make an Ephrogaea Pill were discontinued. That pill, which would have had the capacity to boost my cum production considerably and make it taste sweet to boot, was simply too advanced a project and the materials too rare for the school to continue providing me with them. Since then, I had changed to a humbler project, something within my reach: aphrodisiac massage oil.

The good news was that I had already succeeded in making a batch. The bad news was that I had only done so by recipe. Since the lesson on the Gestalt Effect had taught me that I had a libido-tinted creation process (something that came as a surprise to nobody) I wanted to learn how to create the aphrodisiac massage oil by feeling. To do so would heighten the effect of my psyche on the product and, for an aphrodisiac, boost its effectiveness.

Since I had succeeded with a recipe, I was certain I could succeed in freeform too. Alchemy was one half science and one half esoteric art. What I needed was the additional opportunity to practice. Getting Esther on my side when it came to putting together a workshop in one of the empty rooms of the mansion had been easy. Self-sufficiency was something she craved, after all.

“You have the list prepared?” Esther asked, when the shop came into view.

“Of course, of course,” I assured her, while squeezing her and Aclysia’s butts. The restriction the lady of my purse had put on me was that I needed to have every last item I needed picked out in advance. There was no snooping around the alchemy shop for whatever I wanted. We would go in there, place the order, and let it be delivered before I was tempted to buy the type of condenser I would only need two years from now.

Which I understood, in part, but wasn’t Esther being a bit too strict here? Maybe I was going to make leaps and bounds. Within three months, I could have been at the border of the Ephrogaea Pill or, even better, the Tultin Compound. That alchemical masterpiece induced in the body a transmutation that permanently altered the sweat glands to spread pheromones at will. That sounded a lot lewder than it was, since those pheromones could not force any kind of horniness. The primary benefit was that I could let subconsciously noticed fragrances reflect my mood, which made communication a lot easier, inside and outside the Anomalia. It also ensured that I would smell pleasantly at all times.

I was about to bring all of this up with Esther, when I found her hard eyes already staring in reprimand. “You know me too well, my Queen,” I conceded, before a single word of discussion was exchanged.

“Karitas,” Aclysia chimed in, “may I suggest you continue your attempt to rein in your spending habits? Relying on Esther as a crutch will not serve you.”

“…I’m proud of you for following all of that non-verbal communication,” I told her.

“I have been studying you two,” Aclysia responded, a cute little smile playing around her pink lips. “I aim to please, my King and Queen to be.”

“You are exceptional at it,” Esther said what I wanted to, using much fewer words. I just nodded in agreement.

The shop we were heading towards was in a whole different ballpark than the two sex toy stores. One of those had been cold merchandise, the other hobby shop. This - this was a warehouse. Not an actual warehouse, just a shop with the size and feel of a warehouse, like Labyrinth in Hell or Ikea on Earth. It occupied an inner-city block and had a pretty clear name: Alchemy General.

I would have gone there regardless of Taurus’ recommendations. Unless one needed custom pieces, this was the place to be. The code I had been given would doubtlessly be handy though. We entered through the main gate and found ourselves in the kind of hall someone would expect plants and building materials to be lined up in. That was, in part, because there were plants and building materials lined up there.

Alchemy came with a whole host of side tasks. Herbalism, primarily, and the gardening that was attached to that. Other crafts like animal husbandry, hunting, breeding, engineering, and a whole lot of other things could all be tangled up in the requisites for alchemy as well. It was no wonder that a general store would therefore offer what could be needed for all of that.

I glanced at Esther and again she stared at me. This time, I did not heed the silent warning. “I mean, maybe starting to raise my own-“

“No.”

“Just a few…”

“No.”

“You won’t even let me fini-“

“No, wasteful Karitas,” she interrupted me for the last time. “No. No. No. A thousand times no. You will acquire what you need for the goal you have and nothing more.”

I grumbled but surrendered. Happy wife, happy life, as they said and Esther was my wife with another title. That was what an Anomalia was, for all intents and purposes. Had I married quick and young? Yes. Had I thought a lot about it? I think that was self-evident.

With my surrender, I defaulted back to the original plan. Quickly, we located an unoccupied worker. Unlike shops like this on regular worlds, this warehouse of a business was pretty scarcely visited. Its size was outsized for the actual demand for alchemical utensils, no doubt. Welldark’s economy was, in large part, an illusion.

“I’d like to buy everything on this list,” I told them, presenting them with what I had compiled in terms of utensils and ingredients I expected to need for my endeavour.

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“Some of that isn’t being sold to first years without qualification…” the man said apologetically.

“I have this right here,” I said and handed over the piece of paper Taurus had given me. The man blinked a couple of times. Then he spoke up again.

“If you would follow me to one of our terminals,” he requested, and led the way, both pieces of paper in hand. We stopped in front of the counter, he bowed over the computer behind it. “…alright, who is your reference?” the worker asked, while tapping about on the screen.

“Taurus, why?” I wondered.

I did not receive an answer immediately. The mention of the headmaster caused the man to look up in surprise. Once he realized that Aclysia, in all of her resemblance to Derilea, was accompanying me, the question if I was serious must have answered itself. “Access to higher security levels is granted on a code word and reference system. If it was just the code word, someone could steal it, so we have to send a confirmation request to the person who handed it out.”

“Ahh, that does make sense,” I nodded along. I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but it would indeed be pretty disastrous for the system if it was only on a code word basis. I still would not share it with anyone else, because that would have meant that Taurus got swamped with notifications. I did not want to be the indirect cause of any annoyance on the headmaster’s part. “So, I can’t buy these things today?”

“You can, but they will only be delivered after he has confirmed it is real… which he just did… not that it matters, the size of your order means it has to be delivered by crate. That would be 694 Darks.”

That was about what we had estimated and took a hefty bite out of our savings. Not enough to really worry us though, we would just have to cut back on other luxuries for this month. Esther made the payment. She looked like she had torn out a tooth. “I dislike such massive spending,” she stated.

“As do I, lady Esther,” Aclysia stated. “It will be the basis of future money retained.”

‘Considering the amount of massage oil I use up already with one woman, those things will probably pay off within a month,’ I thought.

_______________________________________________________________________

The crates arrived on Tuesday. “Hello, Josh,” I greeted the driver in charge of getting things out to us. “Sorry for the hassle.”

“Eh, no biggie,” the middle aged, chubby man responded and adjusted his trucker hat. He was the spitting image of a delivery driver, from the hat to the stature and the stubby beard. What was different from usual was his thoroughly friendly attitude. This was probably because, unlike delivery drivers on other worlds, this man did not have a work schedule that bordered on a torture scheme. From what I had heard, he had a pretty regular eight-hour shift and a bunch of extra hands to help him.

Being part of the crate delivery service was, apparently, a popular job with the students, particularly the male side. The reason why, I had needed about half an hour to crack, but then it had been obvious. It was, in all of Welldark, the only occupation where one reliably got to drive a car. A lot of guys enjoyed driving, particularly on otherwise empty roads, at high speeds. I wasn’t one of them, but I could understand the general impulse.

“Alright, have a delivery from a sex shop and the alchemy store for you, alongside the weekly groceries,” he read out, dispassionately. If he, after years of delivering things to nubile students, had been shocked about seeing sex toys on his delivery list, I would have been highly surprised. “You fine if I just leave the crates here and leave you to it? I’ll come by again tomorrow anyway.”

“Sure, we’ll leave them outside the gate after we’re done with them,” I agreed.

“…Right, I also have some books for your housemates.”

“Just drop them off too,” I stated and Josh nodded. He climbed into the back of his delivery truck and eventually pushed a cage trolley onto the part of the truck that could be raised and lowered. Two minutes later, I pushed that very same trolley up to our front door, while Josh went and finished the rest of his run.

There were a total of five crates, all of them made from hardwood, all of them neatly stacked in a way only things designed to be stacked could be. Only the upper ones had lids, everything below was sealed by the bottoms of the crates above. A marvel of simple design. I loved everything about that simple yet most efficient use of space.

I brought three of the crates inside, after checking their contents. Willt had ordered a giant pile of books, most of them further learning on demonology, summoning, alchemy, herbalism, and all the other fields of study one would expect a warlock to dabble in. My friend was quite the typical representation of his occupation (or occupation to be, rather). That was part of what made him so interesting though. People that perfectly mapped onto stereotypes were actually rather rare and even he had more going on beyond that.

His crate, I just left in the living room where either he or Arlethia would see it when they came back. Had this been a few weeks back, I would have also left a note telling them to leave it outside when they were done with it, but we all knew how this worked by now.

Crate number two was filled with this week’s groceries. I left that on the table, for Esther and Aclysia to sort through. The two had entered the living room while I had been outside, taking the delivery.

Crate number three had the sex toys, which I took along to store in my bedroom. A proper BDSM playroom down the line was a possibility we were considering, but what we had did not warrant claiming a whole part of the mansion for it yet. Yet being the operative word, if I had anything to say about it. To my boundless joy, I was the master of household when it came to this aspect of our living.

Much as I was giddy to get a first use for the toys, the time of day and the last two crates did manage to pull me away from them. Esther and Aclysia followed me, the storing of the groceries having occurred as swiftly as two well-sorted order-enthusiasts could make it. Everything had a pre-ordained place in our kitchen.

“Let’s hope everything is in there,” I said, checking the insides of the crates. Both were filled to the rim with the utensils I had ordered. It was too much to scan through at just a glance and so we brought it all inside. We used one of the mansion’s side doors for this.

I had chosen a room at the back, reasonably far away from everything else, and had been modifying it gradually to make it more fitting for what I wanted to do there. To start with, the mansion did have some rooms that lent themselves optimally to being modelled into a workstation. The one I had picked was on the left outside corner of the L-shaped building, on the opposite end of the octagonal tower where we often ate our breakfast.

The room had two large windows and a reinforced pillar in the corner between them. All of that was important, because it gave explosions an easy route to spread outside. Plans to create explosions, I had none, but safety precautions rarely existed because of planned incidents.

Further, this particular place was most attractive because it had a number of vents that laboratory equipment could be attached to and a massive table that could serve as a workbench – or as a particularly large office desk. The space was perfect for what I wanted, but it was so barebones that it could have been turned into a series of other things. That being said I had, with my own money, brought in a secondary desk and some other crafting related furniture already.

“Okay, so, put all the glass on that table…” I pointed to the secondary one. “…all the clamps and connection pieces on the floor…” I gestured at the flat stone ground. “…and all the ingredients on that table.” Finally, I pointed at the original one. “Leave the tools in the crates for now.”