There is, in the distance, a town. It too is completely fogged.

She walks through the town. The flying leathers are starting to be too warm, without flying to cool her down. She takes some of them off. She tries to buy some food from a street stall with some copper coins.

"Where the heck did you get these?" asks the fellow selling the potato pastries. "Where are you even from?" (Steel is very unusually pale compared to everyone else about.)

"I'm from Opri, but I woke up at the bottom of a ravine surrounded by - monstrosities. This one seemed harmless." She produces a fuzzy clothes-button. "Would you happen to know where I am and why the roads are all wrong?"

"Embroidered? I sincerely hope my brain has not been worked on with needles. Never mind, where can I find a bank?"

"No, embroidered like, magicked but at least you aren't a candlestick with eyes and you still speak Esevi? Bank's two blocks that way one to the left."

"Okay... magics are things that take anything that falls into 'em, like you, and spits out random stuff, sometimes nice stuff, more often bad stuff, usually just weird stuff, you seem just weird far as I can tell."

"...Alright then. If I was constructed from nothing half an hour ago, I wouldn't necessarily know it, would I? Thanks for pointing me towards the bank." She walks towards the bank, and when she arrives, looks for someone who seems in charge.

There are a couple of tellers, one of whom is helping someone and one of whom waves her over.

"Hello. I have, apparently, come from a magic. I have some coins that I would like to get evaluated and exchanged for local currency if possible. They're pure metal. Or at least I think they are."

"All right, we can evaluate those for you," says the teller. "What is it that you think they are?"

"Copper, silver, gold, a few platinum. I actually have rather a lot, my probably-embroidered memories say that I was responsible for the civil service payroll. Is there some sort of room we can go to so I don't lose track of them all?"

"Of course, ma'am." He leads her to a back room, where there are scales and volume measures, and sets about confirming the purity of all her coins. Eventually: "I can give you one thousand five hundred seo for these."

"How much gold will 1500 seo buy, by weight? How much silver? And does that include my platinum coins?"

"It includes your platinum coins and if you want gold denominations of seo it would look like -" He picks up a coin. "About a hundred and fifty of these."

She does some mental math. They're taking a fairly solid cut, but not an outright ridiculous one. And it's not like she can spend silver circles here. "Very well, it's a deal."

"I'll be right back," says the teller, sweeping all her coins into a box, setting it on a scale and noting the total weight presumably in case she's about to make a surreptitious swap, and departing. He's back with a bag containing a hundred and fifty gold coins.

"Yeah," says the seller, and she gets silver and copper denominations back with her potato thing.

She eats the potato thing and chats with/subtly quizzes the seller. What's this city like? Who's in charge? What kind of jobs are there to do?

This is a midsize city, second biggest in its duchy, with a good-size market that way. A lot of people are craftsmen of one or another sort, or merchants or financiers. This fellow's brother is a postal worker and his sister's a vicar.

Most of them are just sort of sitting or standing around, being chained to stationary objects. One of them is looking curiously at the exotic embroidered person.

Steel asks that one, "Is slavery normal here, or did I happen to be magicked up near a particularly ruthless city?"

"...Slavery's legal throughout Tayane."

"In the probably-fictional world I have memories of, most people are required to work in the civil service for three years, but at least that has an end date. Damn."

"Do you know who or what you were before you fell into the magic?"

"Absolutely no clue. My brain continues to insist that I'm a healthy adult who's been teleported here from another world in the middle of a courier run, as much as the odds are against it. I have my own magic, though." She hovers for a moment, demonstratively.

"Yes. I can't fly without preparing ground for it, but I can hover, and heat things, and make light. Now - I have no memories of Tayane. Suppose I am philosophically opposed to slavery, and I have strange magic from an embroidery that can do a wide variety of physical effects with effort and preparation time. How would I go about ending it, or at least making the conditions less terrible?"

"Can you remove tattoos?"

"Hmm... Maybe. I'd have to actually try - bodies are tricky. If I can't remove the ink directly, I could try to rip out a layer of skin and re-grow it."

"Because if you can do that you can free any slave you can get to quicker than they can change the law. Magical removal of our heel tattoos constitutes Aelare's blessing and requires immediate manumission."

"Is Aelare a diety? My memories are largely void of religion."

"Aelare is a deity, yes. Generally credited with the magics. It's not necessary to believe in them, that's just how the law is worded."

"I might attract attention if I tried to do it right now. I imagine someone has already noticed me chatting to you for longer than usual. Are you likely to be here in a few hours, so I can go buy some paper and do some figuring and planning?"

"Probably, but I can't guarantee it. The proprietor might let you put a hold on me for a couple of hours."

"I accept."

She goes over to the proprietor and offers to buy Ayabel at a slightly lower than listed price, but yields to the listed price if he won't stand for haggling. Once a price is agreed on, she produces gold coins.

The proprietor says she's a bargain to begin with and won't budge. He takes the golds, returns some silver, unlocks Ayabel, and hands the buyer some papers proclaiming her ownership.

"Where can we find a private room, possibly a separate workspace, paper and writing materials? And you're my external pricing module, at least for now - is a little over 1300 seo enough to be getting on with?"

"It'll do for a few months, longer if you're extremely frugal. There are boarding houses on Sunrise Row and some of them should have private rooms available, and I know where in the market to get paper and ink."

"Shall we get paper and ink first first, or head to Sunrise Row? You know, my memories include a way to give other people magic. I wonder if it would work... I don't have the books I'd need to do it even if it acutally works like that, though."

"Which it might not, although you can hover, so maybe it would. Paper and ink is more or less on the way to the Row."

So Steel walks where directed, stops to buy paper and ink but ignores the writing utensils, and then they are at Sunrise Row.

Ayabel wants to know if she wants a pen maybe?

"I can write with the stream." She stops walking and pours a little ink onto one of the pages. Over a few seconds the ink arranges itself into, No pen required.

"Fair point." She buys a pen. And another pastry.

Ayabel looks at the pastry but doesn't comment. Sunrise Row ahead.

"You want one?"

"It would be nice. You are going to have to feed me if you're going to keep me."

"You can call me Aya if you like," says Ayabel, after disappearing the pastry very fast.

"Aya. Hm, I'll need to buy a pot and a bag of potatoes or something. Street stalls are probably more expensive, if nice. But let's look at these boarding houses first."

"I can cook," Aya mentions as they investigate the rooming options.

"That would be nice, but I can cook as well. I'd like to hear all about this world, though. What kind of things are expensive? I can transmute things, some things at least, and money can not but help."

"Gold is more expensive than silver is more expensive than copper... Expensive relative to what, what do you mean?"

"That's what we have to find out. I can make glass from sand? I can pull metal from ores without chemicals or heat? I can make soap, force crystals to form with the right ingredients, mix up a concrete-like stone that makes excellent building material."

"Pulling metal from ores might be very profitable. We have soap... crystals, maybe, especially if you could turn them into decorative stained glass sort of windows or something... concrete might have a market."

They can get single room with a bed that ostensibly could fit the both of them for five seo per fifteen days (it goes up if they want to buy in smaller blocks), or a room with two beds for seven seos, or two beds in a room with other people for two seos every five days.

"Would the room with one bed be fine with you? I can sleep anywhere. Literally."

"It's your money and better than the accommodations I'm coming from."

Ayabel is curious, but none of it makes sense to her and she isn't clear on whether she's invited to look, so: "Can I take one of these coins to get us some groceries?"

"Huh? Oh, sure, take 20 seo for groceries and anything else you want. Those clothes don't look very comfortable, for example. I like fruit, by the way."

"I could replace your clothes too, with that much money."

"Sure, why not. Flying leathers probably aren't a good long-term outfit when I can't fly any significant distance. Light colors and good coverage, please. Say, are there libraries around here? Doctors? I'll want to visit at least one of the two before deciding how to remove tattoos. Oh, and get a nice big pot if you don't mind."

"Some people keep libraries and there are medics of various sorts. And understood."

"I'll walk with you, can you point out when we pass one? Oh, here, take the room key. I can do primitive locks like this one without them." And they walk out the room, out of the boarding house, down the street.

Aya takes the key and walks. Eventually: "There's a surgeon there on the right with the red sign. I don't know if she's exactly what you're looking for."

"She'll probably help. See you later." Steel goes in and asks if she might discuss medicine with the surgeon.

The surgeon is apparently busy sawing a screaming patient's leg off.

This is alarming! And worth using magic. "Excuse me! My embroidery can handle this a whole lot more cleanly!" And she looks at the leg - what's wrong with it, injury, infection?

"I can make such a cut in an instant, and cauterize it too! I won't even charge! He's suffering and I can help, please let me!"

"We don't barge into your place of work and steal your customers," says the assistant. "Set up your own shop."

Screw it. Magic. Steel leans around the assistant to get a good view, and safely out of the way goes the bonesaw, off goes the leg, closed go the blood vessels. "You're welcome, goodbye." She storms out, a bit wobbly, and runs after Aya.

"...Twenty," says the assistant, glowering at her.

"Fifteen."

"Twenty, you knitbrained little thief!"

"How did I steal anything from you? I didn't touch a thing in that-" Stop. Breathe in. Breathe out. Two gold coins come out of the pouch. "Only because I don't know if I actually broke a law. I hope we never meet again."

The assistant snatches the gold from her hand and stalks back to the surgeon's office.

Aya is back an hour later with a pot, some fruit, some flour and potatoes and nuts and eggs and cheese, and two outfits - she had to eyeball Steel's size, but she gets a long-sleeved pale green blouse and white linen pants, and Aya's in a fawn-colored dress. Steel also gets a pair of shoes. And some change.

Steel is still upset. "The state of medical care in this place is deplorable. I probably know twice as much about the body as that butcher. I've decided how to make money, I can open a surgery. Or maybe synthesize aspirin, an actually not-addictive painkiller. You have the right plants here, and I saw everything I need earlier. Ugh."

"That sounds like a good idea assuming your embroidery works as you expect."

"I probably saved their patient's life. He was going to die, he was losing losing way too much blood, so I didn't see the harm in trying. Don't know if it worked, though, they chased me out and I had to bribe the assistant to get away without calling any more attention than I already did. Who wants adventure, anyway? Adventures are unpleasant. At least you don't look like you had one."

"Perfectly ordinary shopping trip. I can make dinner."

"Sounds great, thanks. I've worked out the mechanism to get ink out of skin. I remember doing it a few years ago when I was still learning magic, but whether it will still work is another thing. There's more prep to do before I can try, though."

Aya smiles and brings some of the food downstairs to use the boardinghouse kitchen. She comes up with puffy cheesy bread and fruit compote.

Steel is standing in the corner, peering and occasionally waving at a spot of empty air near the floor. "This is the prep work," she explains, "Ooh, smells good. You probably want an explanation of what I'll be doing to wipe the tattoo before I do it, right?"

"That would be nice."

"And this is significantly easier than moving the ink out of my skin entirely?"

"Yes it is. I can convince the ink to move around your body because your body moves things around it by itself, like blood and food. Pulling it out of your body after it's had time to settle in would be like trying to separate the salt from a cooked loaf of bread. I can get it to the very edge of skin, though, so that a good bath will get rid of it."

"That will do."

"I'm worried that as soon as I start scrubbing tattoos, someone who owns a lot of slaves will decide to change the law about Aelare's blessing. I don't know if there's a way around that."

"If you can make it so they wear off only with a good scrubbing, they won't do so obviously right away. You could set up a lot of them and then I could start a rumor that they'll rub off on a certain day."

"Nice idea, not a long term solution but it'll help get the most benefit out of a limited opportunity. Do you think a disguise could help the rumor? What is Aelare supposed to look like?"

"She shapeshifts. Popular forms include a copper-coated fox or a magpie or a woman with moonbeams in her hair."

"She's also supposed to have opal eyes and I don't think I've ever seen her depicted as pale as you are. But I'm not sure exactly how you plan to deploy this disguise even if you perfect it."

"I was imagining personally telling a few of them that their tattoo will wash off two full moons from now. Having Aelare herself appear before them would help the rumors. Oh, I'll have to be physically present near everyone I do this to. It would be best if lots of them would step in the same physical space, such as a lunch-line or something."

"We're usually kept in close quarters whenever someone has a lot. Markets, farms, brothels, labor rentals, you'd probably get more than half the slaves in the country if you managed to hit them all."

She makes a face. "Ugh, brothels. I should have expected that. But the problem is you'll need to put your ankle in about a six-inch wide 'tattoo-removing tool' I can make in the fabric of the world. Making a new one for every slave, even one that only needs to last a few moments, would be extremely tiring and limit the number of them I can do to something like a eighty a day."

"That's still a lot, and could probably complete any single concentration of slaves, but will definitely slow you down. There might not be a way around it."

"Yeah, eighty's more than zero, I suppose. Are you ready to see if this works at all? Put your foot here, if so." She indicates a corner of the room.

Aya puts her foot there.

Aya rubs her foot.

"There's a bath in the back courtyard."

"Go ahead, I won't stop you but I don't particularly want to watch. Wait, do we have soap? And do I need to burn those title papers or anything?"

"Soap is included in our board, and no, once my heel's clean I'm free."

"Good for you. Thanks for being a willing test subject. Are you gonna stay here? I like your attitude, you know the area and you're in on my plan. I'll pay you - let's say 7 seo per five days, if my guess is right that's about average, and you'll get room and board and food from my funds."

"Helping you and your useful embroidery seems more constructive than my next best option and I can live on that amount all right, although once you're set up doing magic healings I might ask for a raise."

"That's already about one and a half times the stipend the civil service gets. I was an administrator there. But if you continue to be disproportionately useful a raise is not out of the question. It kind of burns that your full price was less than half a year's wage, though."

"I was underpriced. The reseller thought something might be wrong with me because they got me cheap because the fellow who sold me had to do it quick."

"Well. After you wash off the tattoo, I'll give you your first week's pay and your next assignment. It'll be another shopping run. The ingredients I need to make aspirin, I really want some, such a frustrating day gave me a headache. And I want to refine and maybe practice the tattoo-removing process a bit before applying it to anyone else. Invest effort now to save effort later. Do you think you can find anyone who's free but still has their tattoo? And can be trusted to reasonable levels of secrecy?"

"I don't have anyone I know well enough that I can vouch for them personally, but I can certainly find a selection of manumitted slaves and filter them as best I can."

"Impersonal judgment will have to do. Tell whoever you find I'll pay 15 seo for them being a test subject for a few minutes. I'll give you that 15 too, if you like. If you can, find someone who intends to leave town. I don't think vague rumors of two former slaves' tattoos disappearing in two different cities will make much splash. But I want to test the quickened process on a willing target."

It takes some fairly insistent scrubbing, but after a few minutes there is no further trace of the tattoo.

She was kind of surreptitious about the whole thing and confines herself to stifled giggling on her way back to the room. She changes into her new dress and awaits her shopping list.

"Um - I'm not sure. Some of it I might have to find growing if the age is this specific. Probably less than thirty seo though."

"Finding them growing would be good. The problem is the important ingredient in them decays very quickly once they're no longer attached to a live plant. I'll be working on the magical tools I need to process it. If it looks like the plants will take a while, it'd probably be best to bring the other stuff back here first and then keep looking. Please write down how much you spend on what. Here's 30 seo."

Aya takes the pen and goes on her way. She is back with some but not all of the items just past nightfall and goes to bed.

The next morning, Steel tells her, "I've made a miscalculation. I was basing your pay off the schedule of work I'm used to back home, which is six hours a day, four days out of every five. I'm going to want more work from you to get the Aelare's blessing done, and of course more work means more pay. 14 seo a week for eight or more hours of work per day, every day. Is this acceptable?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then. Here's the difference for your first week's pay. Do you know how one would go about selling a new kind of medicine?"

"Buy or rent a storefront and put up a sign. It'd probably be courteous to inform people that it's experimental."

"Aspirin is not experimental. It's been around for more than thirty years. Except I'm embroidered, which means nobody will trust me or anything I produce, doesn't it? That could be a problem long-term."

"People will probably still try it, and then you can build on that. You're obviously functionally embroidered, and it would be - hardly impossible, but a little less likely, for you to come out with both useful magical powers and detailed knowledge of how to manufacture poisons that you're under the impression are useful medicine."

"If I give out the first few doses for free, that would probably help. The chief advantage of aspirin as a painkiller is that it is nowhere near as addictive as opium. It's weaker, but it's also easy to make. And if you keep to reasonable doses the only negative side-effect is stomach pain and a tendency for wounds to take longer to close if you take too much."

"...A painkiller with pain as a side effect?"

"If you take excessive amounts, like eight times as much as you need, it can hurt the stomach. The other painkillers available here are worse, trust me."

"Well, I hope you can make it work, then."

"I hope so too. Oh, I should mention, some people react differently to some drugs. A very few people will have bad side-effects from it, but nothing lethal probably. And once they know that they can't take aspirin without it making them sick, they can just avoid it. At any rate, how goes the shopping?"

"I got a lot of it done last night and should be able to finish today. I can make us breakfast first."

"That would be great, thank you. You're also on the lookout for someone to test a faster version of tattoo-removing on, right? I think I'll have it worked out by the end of today."

"I didn't spot anyone yesterday, but yes, I'm looking for anyone who has papers in their pocket and shoes that cover their heels."

"I think I'll ask about renting a storefront. Where would I find their owners?"

"If it's empty, there will usually be a sign on the door saying where you can go to speak to the owners."

"Sounds good. They say you have to spend money to make money, after all. I'll go after breakfast."

The main market area is pretty crowded, but there are a few empty in side streets (and one that says SOON: GLASSWORKS and is probably not really available). The question is, does she want to optimize for passerby foot traffic or probable rent or noncompetitive neighbors in unrelated industries like pie and flutes?

She has plenty of time to investigate all the options. High foot traffic seems the most important. She wants to avoid that one surgeon's place.

There's a place with good visibility from the main avenue next to an herbseller and a moneylender, and a little hole in the wall that probably used to be half of a full storefront but does have frontage next to the busiest area, wedged in beside a chandler and a greengrocer's.

She tries to locate the owner of the little hole-in-the-wall.

The hole in the wall is apparently owned by someone who lives just upstairs from it, if she's reading the address right! Isn't that convenient?

She walks up the stairs and knocks on the door, and politely informs whoever answers it that she'd like to inquire about renting the storefront.

The lady who answers says that her husband isn't home but he wants a hundred seo a month for the place. And a tidy quiet occupant.

"I intend to make and sell new medicines from a distant land, but I can do it quietly. Would that be tidy and quiet enough?"

"Probably," says the landlord's wife. "As long as you aren't doing surgeries and none of the things you mix explode or catch fire."

It's nearly twice the price, although not quite.

And it's also right next to an herbseller. Who probably would not appreciate the competition very much, if her medicine's effects overlapped. She goes back to the first storefront. Is there a rental contract involved, or is it closer to a good-faith agreement?

First and last months' rent up front, she has to sign a thing saying she's liable for damages that remain when she leaves or that affects the neighbors, and if she abandons the place without telling anyone they can take her stuff and re-rent after one month.

She tries to convince them to add clauses that say they can't kick her out early without refunding her money, unless she was being disruptive or affecting the neighbors.

She can't get a complete refund in case there's disagreement about what constitutes disruption, but they won't make her pay for months she didn't use except insofar as they're holding the last month's rent in case they need to make repairs and she scarpers.

A little after noon, Aya shows up at the store with some more items on the shopping list. There are places to buy paint and iron objects; unfinished wood is harder to come by but someone can direct her to a place a ways out.

"Say, Aya, do you know what the tax system looks like around here? Will I pay property tax, income tax, flat tax, who do I ask if you don't know?"

"I used to do the old lady's taxes but she didn't own a store. Outside of the store there'll be a property tax from the crown if you own land, and an income tax from the duke, how much of each depends on how rich you are - I'd recommend asking at the bank."

"Then I'll go ask at the bank. And haul in some lumber and paint while I'm at it. And here's a new shopping list, nothing so difficult as fresh blackberries this time. I want more than one medicine. I think I can make an allergy suppressant, a cough soother, some ketamine, multivitamins, disinfectant cream for wounds, that'll save a few lives if anyone actually uses it. Rash cream. I could make saccharine, which is a fake sugar that tastes ridiculously sweet, but that's not very useful compared to medicine. And I'm not forgetting about Aelare, I'm just waiting for a consenting test subject for version two."

Aya takes the new shopping list. "I can get all this today, most likely. And I saw a street sweeper who I think might be manumitted but I couldn't catch up to him to talk to him."

The teller explains the procedures, which are not too onerous and were definitely invented over the course of more than two minutes' thought by someone with background in taxation schemes.

Steel asks intelligent questions, takes plenty of notes, and thanks the teller before leaving for a lumberyard on the outskirts of the city in search of clean wood, and paint.

These things are available! She can buy them. With money.

Presuming the price is at least slightly reasonable, she buys a fair amount of wood and half a dozen medium-size wax-sealed pots of paint in various colors, which go in her backpack. The weight is enough to slow her gait to a walk, but not quite enough to require a wagon.

"I'd love to."

Aya mostly watches raptly, but eventually she goes and fixes dinner back at the boardinghouse.

"I, uh, yes?" says the twitchy guy. "Here, I have my papers -" He pulls them out of his jacket pocket; he has been manumitted for a year and a bit.

He rubs at it, frowning, then smiles tentatively.

"Congratulations. I'd like to ask you to keep covering your ankle and tell no one of this, at least for now. Aelare's blessing would be revoked if anybody important realizes this is possible. But if you know anyone else who is manumitted and would like the same done for them, you can tell them to come to my shop and ask for a white pill. I'll know what they mean."

"Is no one else going to want white pills?" wonders Aya.

"I won't sell any pills that are white. Unmarked pills are dangerous, if I don't color them I could potentially lose track of what they are."

"All right," says Aya, and the twitchy guy nods and puts his shoe back on and scurries.

"You know," she remarks, "The average person's fear of an unfamiliar embroidered pharmacist is worse than I expected. I hope that once I save a few lives things pick up and I can save more peoples' lives."

"I'd expect so, yes. Once people know it works they won't have any reason to expect it to stop."

"I think proper sanitation would help prevent disease a whole lot better than medicine, honestly. A public clean water supply, a better sewer system, getting people to wash more frequently. That would require the cooperation of a whole lot of people with no reason to listen to me, though."

"They'll have reason to listen to you if you wind up rich and famous and a known expert."

Aya nods, reads, and takes notes of her own on separate paper.

Aya gets most of it right, although she mixes up a couple numbers and hesitates on some of the other questions.

"Pretty good. But if you're not sure about something, look it up. Consider it at least as bad to sell someone the wrong pill than to sell them none at all. I think I've given you more than enough work for today, though. I'll see you tomorrow."

"You're going to keep sleeping here?"

"Yes. I'm already renting the place, after all. And like I said: I can sleep anywhere. I'd appreciate if you keep bringing me meals, though."

"I can do that. Should I expect to take over the rent at the boarding house after the duration of the first payment is up?"

"I hadn't decided whether to increase your pay to account for that, or to simply keep paying for it myself. The former is probably neater, in case you want to move or something. Remind me when that happens."

Aya writes that down. "I will. Anything else for today? Can I take the notes to study from while I cook?"

"Sure. Just don't damage 'em or new paper will come from your pay. And I'll see you tomorrow."

Aya nods, takes the notes, sleeps, and brings breakfast and undamaged notes in the morning.

Steel eats breakfast, gives her the shop key, wishes her luck, and tries to locate the families she gave medicine to the other day and see how they're doing. If she can't figure out where they live, she'll go to the slave market and pretend to be considering the offerings, instead.

She walks around the market, pretending to consider various people at no clear pattern and applying her tattoo-removing technique to them. Hopefully the proprietor won't kick her out for loitering before she gets a majority of them. It might help that she gave him a significant amount of money to free Aya, a few days ago.

Nobody stops her. Some of the slaves look at her suspiciously or assessingly, but none of them try to talk to her.

Aya has done quite a business compared to yesterday while Steel's been gone - for values of "business" that involve honoring the promises of free product - maybe people just like the native-looking shopkeeper more. Aya can spread that rumor, sure.

Aya gets fewer "curious" and more "actually want things" - so, no, but more relevantly interested people come in.

Aspirin in particular with its obvious and frequently useful effect is popular. One lady is hooked on the allergy suppressant, and a small family who seem to be primarily motivated by spite against their previous herbseller-of-choice come back with a list of things they want her to stock or come up with replacements for.

"All right, I can mind the store," says Aya.

Aya has managed to build up a decent customer base in her boss's absence and has taken the liberty of rearranging the displays and painting a few new signs (with pretty decorative borders, even). "Where did you hit?" she asks, when Steel is back.

"A handful of people. They should be back today or tomorrow."

"It's not impossible. Or quick surreptitious illegal re-tattooing. But it should get some people out."

"I hope my medicine and antiseptic is saving people, too. This place is a bit terrible compared to what I'm used to. But at least I can be useful. I should research ways to produce medicine that don't rely on magic, let the good spread around - I know most of the principles of transmutation, it should be possible."

"...Transmutation without magic?" says Aya. "Could I learn it? We could trade off, one of us teaching classes or something while the other minds the store."

"Well, I call it transmutation. But it's really more like - manipulating the physical properties of things. If you mix two things and heat them up just right by magic, it's transmutation. And if you do it with your hands, it's still transmutation, just without magic being involved. I can try to teach you during slow hours, sure."

"So it's like cooking?"

They certainly could, but Aya (in between selling things to people who come in) is fascinated.

Which is Aya's cue to close up shop and go back to the boarding house.

The next morning, Steel asks Aya, "Where can I buy or catch small animals? I want to test some new medicines. Mice, rats, birds, rabbits. Mice in particular mostly work like humans medically speaking, despite the size difference."

"I saw someone selling caged birds - mice and rats I'm not sure where you'd buy them, but they're pests, some will be somewhere eventually and you might be able to trap them if you left out food."

"Hm. Birds aren't ideal. Do you think anyone will take me up on it if I go around greengrocers and such saying I'll pay half a seo each for live rats or mice? Or should I just build traps myself?"

"I could see grocers switching to live traps for that kind of incentive, easily."

"I don't need an infinite amount of them, but a steady stream would be nice. I'll have some chats with a few places later. You did good with the store while I was gone, by the way. And since I don't want to be a bad boss, how are you liking your job lately?"

"I like my job very well, more than anything else that could reasonably have happened to me post-market and more relevantly better than what I was doing before that or what I would have done if my owner's death had freed me as she promised."

The grocers, with varying amounts of enthusiasm, all agree to bring her rodents (one wants her to supply a cage for them). There are not that many surgeons, but if she walks long enough and asks directions, she can find a couple, one of whom prefers not to administer anything she doesn't understand but the other of whom detects opportunity and is very keen.

"Oh, little things like pulling teeth or stitching cuts all the time, but big ones rarer, maybe every two or three weeks."

The surgeon fetches a slate and chalk to note all this down. "Home?"

"Oh, my embroidery comes with a full twenty-eight years of memories of living on an entirely different world. I have no idea who or what I was before I fell in the magic. It's been pretty useful, though."

"Ah, I see."

"I know it makes people nervous. That's why I test new things on myself or animals first, and then pay people to try the first doses of anything new. At any rate, if you don't mind I'll be back in an hour with some morphine and hang around until someone wants their teeth or a cut done. I'd like to observe the effect."

"Sure, as long as you stay well out of the way."

When she gets back the surgeon is already lavaging dirt out of someone's bleeding leg gash. "Oh, there she is. Let's have the stuff, then?"

"Give it over already," snaps the patient through gritted teeth while the surgeon preps stitching materials.

That wound is fairly nasty. The absolute maximum safe dose would be six - She gives him three pills. "It'll take a few minutes to kick in." And she takes up a position well out of the way to watch.

Once the stitching is done and the surgeon is cleaning up, she asks the patient, "How're you feeling?" (He should be feeling woozy and lightheaded, and not in pain)

"Drunk?" he says uncertainly.

"Yeah, that sounds about right. You'll want to stay here for a few hours unless someone can help you get home. But it doesn't hurt, right?"

"Naw."

"Oh, yeah," nods the surgeon, "it'll be very popular."

"It's pretty expensive to make, unfortunately. I was thinking one and a half seo per pill."

"All the goddesses' tits, that's expensive, you gave him three - I can pass the cost along, suppose, it's still worth it to supply unless it goes bad quick."

"They'll keep for a year, maybe two. Tell you what, buy twenty pills at a time and I'll drop the price to twenty six seo - 1.3 each."

"Effect's pretty linear with dose?"

"Pretty linear, yeah. Two pills probably would have done well enough for him, one will do for scrapes. I'll draw up dosage tables and wearoff times. And you can stock some of my aspirin for after-pain if you like, that's much cheaper."

"Can I get another price knockdown if I invest in fifty pills at once?"

"Hold on, let me do some math." She does some math. "Seventy seo for fifty pills. I won't go below that, I'm getting pretty close to ingredients cost now."

"Fifty it is."

"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."

"Well, don't make things that serve no other purpose, but - say there are five hundred people who need morphine varying amounts in a given year, which is a number I just made up. Assuming everyone is either apprised of the risk ahead of time, or in so much pain that someone else has to decide for them, the choice is pretty straightforwardly between giving a hundred people an in-most-cases-temporary problem that sounds much less unpleasant than receiving surgery while merely blind drunk - itself not a risk-free painkiller - or torturing five hundred people who would have preferred the risk. I... think this is fairly straightforwardly in favor of making morphine as available as you would with any other drug, and just peppering it with warnings and maybe not giving out too much at a time to anyone who isn't themselves dispensing it."

"Or you could mark it up when selling to surgeons in quantity so they lock it up and don't overdo it and if they skimp on the warnings you'll still be a more appealing source," shrugs Aya. "Although that won't last if any of them come by here."

"Yeah, that won't work long-term. What if I warn anyone I sell to in bulk that if they use them irresponsibly I'll either stop selling to them or start upcharging? And that I'll make sure any blame falls on them, since they were warned pretty thoroughly. And send someone around once in a while to surreptitiously check."

"You're planning to hire more people soon?"

"If my medicine keeps getting more popular I'll need more help eventually. Might as well start looking early. I'll want to pay them hourly, not weekly like you. Do you think I can get someone attentive and trustworthy enough to run a storefront for a fifth of a seo per hour?"

"There will be a lot of Aelare-blessed slaves abruptly looking for work very soon. I'll see if I can grab a bright one."

He's giving a lady a C-section. As soon as the cord's cut he gives her morphine and starts sewing her up.

When he's done and the lady and baby are seen to, "I'll see if I can come up with something that's safe for pregnant people. In the meantime, I've come to give you some of your money back. I just found a much cheaper way to make benzene, which is the most expensive intermediate ingredient in morphine. It's still safe, it's the exact same stuff just made in a different way. But it wouldn't be very fair to charge you so much for buying it a little too early. From now on, the cost will be half a seo per pill - and here's 45 seo, just as if you'd bought them all at that rate."

"Grand, thanks," says the surgeon, accepting his refund with a smile.

"Just as a warning, I plan to sell these at my own shop. I understand you have to upmark it some, but keep in mind that it might come back to bite you if you upcharge too ridiculously. Is it popular, though? How many have you used so far?"

"Most people want 'em. If they want too many I remind 'em they were made by a weird embroidered person and then they don't want too many anymore. Fellow with the gash yesterday wanted more but I talked him down to the soothers and he hasn't been back to complain about how much less they work."

Hooray!

Well, there's a bawling brothel madam crying on the front step of her establishment.

Aya, in her spare time and while walking to and from the boarding house to cook and bring Steel food, finds and presents an ex-brothel-asset along with two other candidates for work in the shop. She's already given them preliminary tests of memory to see if they'll be able to handle the work.

Steel asks each of them a series of questions about hypothetical customers, presents them with a couple of moral dilemmas (would you push one person into a magic to stop a runaway wagon full of five people from falling in), and asks why they want to work here, to get an idea of each one's personality.

By and large they want to work here because if they do she will pay them. They are divided on the wagon question but are mostly capable of repeating what Aya briefed them about with regards to customer hypotheticals.

"Okay. I will hire all three of you for now, but only for a couple of hours a day. After a week, I'll decide which of you to hire permanently. Maybe none, maybe one, maybe all three. You'll be keeping shop mostly, but there will be some cleaning and carrying stock around. Pay is one fifth of a seo per hour. Sound good?"

None of them have such stellar alternative prospects that they have the luxury of turning her down.

Over the course of that week, Steel spends a fair amount of time watching them go about running the shop. Preferably when they don't realize she's watching. At the end of the week, she gives them a surprise quiz on the various medicines, with a few tricky questions that require some actual thought and not just memorized facts.

At which, being several people and not just one, their performance varies, but Aya did a reasonable job of filtering them.

She looks over sales records. Is the shop's patronage still growing quickly enough that she'll probably need four employees sooner or later?

She's definitely snowballing in popularity, and the surgeon has apparently had a steady enough supply of customers that he anticipates wanting a resupply soon. She could run the place with Aya alone if she wanted to work Aya really hard, but she can certainly find things for all these people to do.

Nope. There's a potter there now.

She takes half a day to walk around the city again, incidentally visits the slave market and unbinds tattoos, and looks for someplace with a nice big workroom, preferably cheap.

She can get a large, unfurnished empty space on the third floor of a building a few blocks away from her storefront for fairly modest rent.

She asks the building owners if they'd mind her putting in a larger, openable window in. She plans to use her embroidery to lift heavy, bulky things in and out of the workspace. And she offers to increase her deposit a sufficient amount to undo it once she leaves.

They don't mind a bit as long as it doesn't introduce structural weakness to the structure.

The employees have to pay taxes too - Aya already knows how to handle it, since she did her former mistress's accounting, and helps the others. Aya moves to a different boarding house - she'd already switched to a different room after Steel made the extra space redundant and stopped paying for it, but now, feeling stable in her ongoing income, she's closer to the workspaces with a better kitchen and a room to herself.