"I've made twenty five so far, so twenty two are left. You want to pay half now and get them now, and pay half for the rest tomorrow, or just pay for the whole batch tomorrow?"

"Just bring them all tomorrow," says the surgeon. "I'll close for the day soon anyway."

"Do you want some aspirin as well? I sell those at eight pills to one seo. I'll give you a hundred for 10 seo if you agree to sell them at the same price."

"What do you care how much I charge for them?" blinks the surgeon.

"If you charge for more than they help, it might give aspirin a bad name."

"I could call 'em something else."

"Hm. Fine, I suppose. I still want you to tell people the safe doses and such, though. How many aspirin should I bring tomorrow?"

"Of course I'll tell them the safe doses," says the surgeon. "I'll just call them soothers or something. I'll take the hundred."

"So that's 80 seo total, for fifty morphine and a hundred aspirin. And notes on safe doses. I'll be back maybe two hours after sunrise. Have a nice night!"

"You too!"

And she receives money for them.

"The nicest? Probably the place by the pond at the edge of town. I think it's called Chef's Knife."

"I should clarify - the place with the best food, not the place with the fanciest decor."

"I have never personally tasted the food at any fancy restaurants. My guess would be the same, but you might have to ask someone else for firsthand accounts."

"Ah, yes, forgot about that. Thanks anyway. Maybe I'll skip it entirely. At any rate..." She glances around to see that the shop is currently empty, "Are any tattoo-removal-seekers waiting?"

"One will be back any minute. Another is around the corner rather than loitering in here, I'll get her." She goes and gets someone.

"Unnecessarily meaning recreationally, or to stave off withdrawal symptoms after prolonged need for genuine pain relief?"

"I wanted to make the price high for a month or two and slowly lower it closer to what it actually costs to produce. This is meant to discourage people from using it recreationally. Drug abuse was a significant problem in some parts of the world from my memories. Withdrawal could be managed by steadily decreasing the dose."

"Is this basically just... cosmetically different alcoholism, or should I be imagining worse effects?"

"Definitely worse short-term effects, somewhat worse long-term effects. And it's a lot easier to accidentally kill yourself by taking too much morphine or other drugs than by drinking too much alcohol. Morphine is the first thing I've made personally that could be easily abused this way."

"Approximately what fraction of people who are originally given morphine in a responsibly controlled manner will become addicted?"

"If you take it once, there's maybe a one-fifth chance you will get a mild and short-term addiction that disappears in a week and has no lasting negative effects. If you take it for a month, it's almost certain you'll be at least mildly addicted. And this is physical addiction I'm talking about, this is on top of just wanting to keep going because it feels good. You literally can't think straight without morphine if you're in severe, unmanaged withdrawal. It's not nearly as addictive as some other stuff I could mix up if I felt like unethically making a lot of money."