The Warden's Awakening

PART I - Chapter I - Monotony

"Lacen!" the large, clean shaven man yelled to the back room with deep, crackling authority. Lacen peeked out from behind an unlocked door. "Get me some of the snarn spines." the man ordered. Lacen nodded without saying anything and walked along the wall of the back room. There were dozens of shelves, all containing pre-filled vials labeled with what they were. Lacen already knew what they all were, seeing as he was the one who filled them. In his head, he spoke to himself about the snarn spines. They were next to the tuff quills on the shelf, and did virtually the same thing to the body. Snarn spines: commonly used for injecting the snarn venom into the body. This can provide relief to painful areas when combined with moth cream.

"How many do you need, Velt?" Lacen called, holding three dark brown spines in his hand. They were long and quite thin, feeling very jagged.; almost saw-like, if the saw blades were curved in one direction. The point at the tip was wrapped in cloth, to prevent accidental injection. Without proper treatment, the venom could shut down ones heart.

"Just one." Velt replied. Lacen put two back into the jar and exited the back room. Velt already had his hand out when Lacen emerged. How long had he been waiting for him with those spines? He put the spine in Velt's thick hands and watched as his employer pushed the spine into a woman's right shoulder. She was a well muscled woman who looked like she could lift the entire building with one hand. Lacen wondered what could possibly hurt her. After several seconds of injection, Velt gently pulled the spine out to prevent breakage, and quickly grabbed a jar of moth cream. He began rubbing the injection site, and massaged the shoulder to work the cream through her system.

"There. You should feel better in half an hour or so. Keep applying the cream until it's gone. Got it?" Velt asked. His asking was more along the lines of demanding.

"Yes, Velt, I understand," the woman said. By the One, even her voice was strong. She reached into her leather coin purse and pulled out five round disks of silver. Velt raised a bushy eyebrow.

"It's another three slips for the injection," he said, folding his arms. The woman sighed audibly and pulled out another three slips. Velt took them from her hand and dropped them through a slot in a small wooden chest. It made a loud click as it landed among hundreds of more coins. "Pleasure doing business with you. And next time you think getting into a bar fight is a good idea, it probably isn't." Velt said as the woman was nearly out the door. Velt turned to Lacen, who had been watching Velt work.

"See what I did there?" Velt asked.

"You injected her in the shoulder, and then applied the cream to the injection site," Lacen replied. Velt smiled, then began laughing.

"No, you fool. We don't actually charge three slips for a snarn spine injection," Velt turned and walked back to the back room. Lacen sighed. Money. Always money. He then hopped over the counter and began organizing the shelves of the filled ingredients. Everything on this side of the counter could be bought and purchased without authorization from a healer. Most of them were simple ingredients one could find around the region of Calcin. Some were more concentrated than others, but Velt, like most apothecaries charged for convenience.

As he was straightening up some of the ground dart flowers, another woman walked in. She was roughly Lacen's age, at least she appeared to be. Her light blue hair was loose and smelled of salt. That may, however, have been the air itself.

"Hi," The woman began, speaking to Lacen. Her voice was light and airy, like cotton. "I'm looking for something to help with my headaches. I keep getting them when I go to bed, and I can't quite figure out why." she explained.

"Okay. How long has this been going on?" Lacen asked as though he was her best friend; his voice slightly higher pitched than usual. It was important for her to feel comfortable in the apothecary's shop.