1. A Career Change Opportunity

The dark mage cackles with unrestrained malice.  “So!  We have a volunteer for my … evil rituals!  A pity you won’t live to see the beautiful results of your sacrifice.”

Alright, now what would a hero say in this situation, maybe something like “arrogance doesn’t become you vile sorcerer!  I shall show you … humility.”

I adjust the hero’s armor, it should look resplendent in the light.  The dark mage’s robes are appropriately umbral, there’s a mismatch.  Hmm now the dark mage needs a line, something like “Then I shall show you my confidence is not misplaced.”

I’m interrupted from my game by the door to my shop slamming open, with a quick thought I disperse the twinned illusion I was playing with and look up at the person coming in.  “I require a vial of liquid life for my upcoming quest.  I assume a simple task such as that would be no issue for you!”

The man in front of me bears a more than striking resemblance to a barbarian from the cover of a romance novel, and right now I’m really failing to see the appeal.  Still, so long as I don’t keel over and die from boredom, liquid life is pretty easy.  “Of course sir, no issue whatsoever.  With the guild covering labor that would be a day’s work, and ten gold.”

I can almost see his pissed off expression before it even happens.  “That’s absurd.  They’re barely worth a gold.”

“I’m sorry sir, that’s just the cost of materials.  I can give you a list if you think you can get them cheaper, but these sorts of plants are expensive.  Everyone but light mages need healing, and even they can always use some extra.”  I hope one of these days I get fully immune to the types of glares I get over stuff like this, but it’s not like I can do anything about them.

“I want the list, at this cost I’ll just find the stuff myself.”

“Of course sir, if you could just wait there one moment, I’ll go fetch it.”  His glare shifts to boredom, but he doesn’t otherwise react which is probably as good as I’m going to get as I slip through the door behind the desk.  I could honestly have just written it up in front of him, I know the recipe for liquid life like the back of my hand, but he’d probably say I’m making it up.  At least this way I get some peace and quiet while I work.  This backroom is always nice for that.

With that done the day goes back to quiet, most of the people who would come down here are probably off on some mission or another.  Nobody’s waiting on something to get made either, so I just have to sit here as my own secretary playing pretend with illusions.  I at least get to finish my scene, naturally the hero wins, his glowing armor repelling the dark mage’s umbral bolts before he forms a blade of light and cuts the villain down.  Maybe I should’ve gone into entertainment, it can’t possibly be as slow as this.  As I’m thinking that the door opens to a much more welcome interruption.  “Hey there Jess, hope I’m not interrupting something?”  I don’t bother dispersing the illusion this time, and he stares up at my in progress model of a brilliantly ruby red dragon as he continues.  “Or is your plan just to scare the other customers out, because that looks terrifying.”

That gets a laugh out of me.  “Nah, just bored, please tell me you’ve got something interesting before I go mad down here.”

He shakes his head no.  “Sorry, I just needed to pick up some liquid life, is it still ten gold each?”

Ugh, it’s not any less boring to make for him either.  “Yeah, how many?”

He gives his best understanding smile.  “One for each of us, so four.”

Well at least it’s something to do, plus it’ll keep Alex alive … well no reason to try and justify it, it’s not like I can just decline it anyway.  “Forty gold then, unless you brought some of the materials yourself.  It’s a pretty light day, you want to stay and watch?”

He puts a bag of coins on the counter “Not today, sorry.  I’ve got to run drills with the team.  They’ve got their eyes on a big quest so we’ve been working all day.  Ya know, except when running errands.”

Yeah … that makes sense.  “Well, you’ll have to tell me all about it once you get back, I should have your liquid lives by tomorrow morning.”

“Great, we’ll be heading out around then, I’ll pick them up before I leave.  Until then!”  He turns to leave … I’d really prefer the company, but there’s no helping work.

That evening I close up shop for the day.  Hopefully it picks up a bit soon, the barbarian guy never came back, so I only had Alex as a customer.  If it stays like this I might actually die of boredom.  With that in mind I have materials to buy, and some fresh air to get.  My shop’s situated in the guild’s basement, so I have to go out through the central guild hall.  There are a few people there, but none of them so much as look at me as I leave.  In terms of the guild most if not all of them outrank me, so it’s usually for the best if they just think I’m not worth talking to.  At least once I get outside people either don’t recognize me, or are friends.  Speaking of friends “Ah, if it isn’t my best customer.  Am I to assume you need to make more liquid life?”  Bridget all but shouts at me from across the marketplace.

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“Easy guess.  Four this time, today was weirdly quiet.”  I put forty gold on the counter of her stall.

“Makes sense, it looks like you might have some competition soon.  I heard the church is opening their own supplier for magical adventuring gear.”

That’s a bit more than competition.  “That … well that explains it.  I hope I at least still get the interesting requests.”

She arches an eyebrow at that.  “Well if you end up needing extra work, I’m sure I could rustle something up.  Never hurts to have more people while I’m getting materials.”

That … probably isn’t necessary … hopefully.  “I should be fine, but I’ll keep it in mind.  You think I could get closed down?”

She shrugs.  “It’s always a possibility, you remember what happened to all those food stalls once the church started growing crops.  Heck, I’ll be out of a job if they ever figure out how to grow magical plants.”

That’s a concerningly fair point … I’ll have to ask the guild master about it.  “Right … I’ll keep it in mind.  Thanks for the advice.”

She shrugs.  “No problem, what are friends for after all.  Still, best of luck with your current work”

She sets a package of herbs on the counter which I tuck into my bag.  “Thanks, you too, no matter what happens though, I’m sure I’ll see you later.”

Back at the guild I can get back to my basement pretty quickly, and get to work.  Liquid life is extremely simple to whip up, and just takes a sliver of generic magic to bind all the materials together.  It also makes the entire room smell like a burnt out campfire.  It’s a very pleasant smoky smell, and is about the only pleasant part of having to make it every day.  With the aroma wafting through the room I get startled by a knock on the front door of my shop, and poke my head out of the backroom.

“Who is it?”

There are only a few people who would reasonably be knocking at the door while I’ve already closed up, but quite a lot of people who would unreasonably be knocking there.  “Jezebel?  We need to talk.”

On the bright side I recognize the voice, on the downside that may very well be the most terrifying thing to hear the head of the guild shout through a door.  I run over and unlock the front door.  “Is there something wrong?”

The guildmaster in front of me is the spitting image of an adventurer aged up a few dozen years which happens to be a pretty reasonable shorthand for his resume.  “A bit, but nothing that can’t be fixed.  Surely you’ve heard some rumors about the church’s future plans to open magic shops.”

I just nod as he continues.  “Well I’ve been made privy to a bit more information about their motivation for it.  To make a long explanation short, there’s been recent issues with magical items ending up in the hands of dark mages.”

I nod again, I’m not really liking where this is going.  He continues.  “So, they’re going to close down all the other artificers to keep illegal magical items from spreading.”

Wait what?  “Wait what?  I only sell to guild members, none of them are dark mages!  Why do I need to shut down?”

He winces, and at the moment the expression looks incredibly fake.  “It’s unfortunate I know, but the rule has to be all encompassing to ensure that nothing slips through.  Besides even if the rule wasn’t in place it just wouldn’t be worth the cost.  It’s simply not worth buying herbs to make liquid life when any light mage can make them with a fraction of the supplies and a vial of water.  Perhaps the guild paying for labor saves a few gold on the occasional order for something else, but …”

But if nine in ten orders are for liquid life, it’s not worth the costs.  More importantly.  “But I … live in the guild.  Are you kicking me out?  What are you going to do with these rooms now?”

I swear he does the exact same wince, and it’s even more infuriating the second time.  “I didn’t intend to imply the guild would be kicking you out, so long as you can still pay for your room of course.  You’re still a valued employee of our little family.  A valued employee who will simply have to take a few more normal guild jobs.  I’m sure that even with effectively no magic you’ll be fine with quite a few of the easier tasks.”

I … What can I say to that?  I’ve never even swung a sword, let alone fought something with magic.  Honestly he’s not even wrong that I might as well have no magic, I can’t exactly hurt a bear with illusions, let alone a dragon, and the less said about an encounter with a dark mage the better.  That’s already most of the quests out the window … Bridget offered a job, but that wouldn’t let me make a living on its own, it would just help buy a bit of time.  Maybe I really should try to get a job in entertainment … although I think most of those troupes travel a lot … and I don’t even know how I’d go about starting that process.  The head of the guild raises an eyebrow at whatever facial expressions I’m currently making.  “Well you’ve paid for your room ahead of time for the rest of the month, I’ll handle announcing the closing, so you don’t have to worry about that, just make sure everyone who's already paid gets what they bought and all.  I’m sure you’ll do fine, we’re a scrappy little family around here, nobody here gets kept down for long.”  He rests his hand on my shoulder before leaving without waiting for a response.