Going Shopping

[grim137]

“Been awhile since I've been here, not since my resurrection at least, glad to see the sights of these wretched mongrels matches their smells. Luckily I don't need to be here long,” thought Xanbata Grim as he walked into one of the many stores in Corone's famous bazaar, one called Valdemort's Apothecary.

The powerful vampire moved quickly to the counter, not wanted to spend any more time in the place than he absolutely had to. He ignored the gapes of some people who weren't used to seeing such a creature, especially in broad day light, as well as the various repugnant smells that stemmed from the chemicals and drugs that filled the store.

As he neared the counter, Xanbata pulled out his plynt combat knife, though he held it by the handle to show that he currently had no intention of using it on anybody in the store. No, the blood sucker knew of the plynt's tendency to absorb liquids, it was a property of the metal that the deadly killer planned to take advantage of.

“I need an effective yet fairly cheap poison, I can't afford to spend more than about 650 gold and I would like poison to remain on the blade for as long as the blade last. What have you got in stock merchant?”

((Basically I'm looking to imbue my plynt combat knife with a poison (preeferably one that doesn't have some sort of use limit), though I'm not 100% sure what kind of effects I want, some I just want to see what kind of stuff is in my price range.))

[Bazaar Proprietor]

Sellings hated the people who came in and asked for things that were very vague. He wondered why they bothered shopping at all in the first place if they didn’t know what they wanted. “In my day, a merchant would have thrown me out on my ear if I’d come in asking for poisons,” Sellings thought. “I’d think he was trying to waste my time.”

Since the vampire was the only customer he had, Sellings figured he would indulge the request though. However, if a group of people came in looking to buy something, he would have no qualms ignoring the vampire.

“Poisons can vary based on the strength of what they can do, and how quickly they act,” Sellings said. “For instance, a slow acting fever inducing poison might only cost 100 pieces of gold. If you wanted something that was fatal and quick acting and killed just by the slightest prick of the weapon it was coated on, you’d be looking at something closer to 6000 pieces of gold, if not even more expensive. What most people end up buying is something that takes a bit of time to work, like say five minutes, and effects a status change. The cheapest fatal poisons we have are about 400 pieces of gold, but they are not fast acting at all- about fifteen to twenty minutes- and you need to have a good portion of metal piercing your opponent’s skin.”

[grim137]

((Credit to Dirks for the idea.))

The vampire couldn't help but smile a bit as the merchant rattled off prices. Sure he would need a lot more money for something truly potent but he still had enough coin in his pocket to get something a bit nasty. Yeah the sadistic swordsman had an idea about what he wanted now.

“I must say I'm impressed, merchant. I thought for sure a half decent poison would cost me much more, but cool you tongue,” Xanbata had noticed the slight annoyance in the merchant's voice “I know what I want. I want a poison to be acidic in nature, it doesn't have to be too powerful, but it should be able to do damage over time, especially in large amounts. I want this poison to be able to travel through the bloodstream so that it can reach the vital organs. I'm thinking in about 10, 15 or 20 minutes that the acid will be able to do enough damage to the vitals to kill the poor bastard if say about a third of this blade pierces their skin. I imagine this process will be sufficiently painful for the poor fucker in question. Obviously I'd prefeer if the acid only hurt organic materials since I don't want it to damage the blade.”

[Bazaar Proprietor]

"That'd be something fierce," Sellings said. "And don't worry, any organ destroying poison is going to be plenty painful. If you want it to take 20 minutes, I think that would be about 400, 15 would be about 800, and 10 would be 1600. All with a third of the blade piercing the skin."

[grim137]

"20 minutes should be fine then," responded Xanbata, slightly dissapointed that he could only afford the tale end of the bargain.

The vampire quickly handed fished out the appropriate gold pieces and handed them to the merchant.

[Bazaar Proprietor]

"That seems in order," Sellings said. He called out to the back, and soon a bottle of a yellow green liquid was delivered by one of his child workers. With a grin, he showed it to the vampire to inspect. "I'll need your blade," Sellings said.

[grim137]

"Fine," replied Xanbata handing over his blade "by the way, whatever happened to that John Merchantman fellow that used to run most of the shops in the bazaar?"

[Bazaar Proprietor]

Sellings didn't really know much about Merchantman. He knew the shopkeeper had a similar business model to him, but that was about it. "Far as I know, he packed up a long while ago," Sellings said. "He seemed to think he'd make more money doing something else, given the way the taxes were around here."

By the time Sellings had said that, the weapon had been imbued with the poison. The merchant had been careful to only apply the right amount, and was careful not to get it on his hands. "I would be careful about touching the blade until all the liquid has soaked in," Sellings said. "It's plynt, so it won't be too long, but yeah. Careful with it."

(Grim loses 400 GP, gains an organ melting poison on his blade that takes 20 minutes to act and requires a 1/3rd of the blade to have been shoved into an opponent)