Wanderer no more. Collette thought. And it took less than she thought, but here, in Matron's Hollow, Vandiver opened a small store. She tired of the wandering life, and jobs were scarce. Connloath's recent impasse with Serendipity and all magic types is a rouse for job and supplier opportunities. The store was small, much like a boutique or botanical building. There were three sections to the store originally, the front for preforming sales and considering customers; the area was the size of a small dining room- space for display cases and many shelves with salves and remedies, with a small, unpolished counter which Collette would work behind.
The back of the store was connected by a door with a blackened padlock, the colour matching the pick-proof slide and knob-lock on the front door. The back consisted of a plethora of file boxes filled with manila parchments, and a corner twelve feet away which her bed stood in. It was a single bed, not too uncomfortable, and was covered by a wool and deerskin blanket.
The final section of the building was a basement. The door to it was located in the backroom (her sleeping space) covered by a basic rug of plant fibers- something she picked up from Thanatos a year or so back. The basement held a safe which money was fed into at the day's end, and boxes of inventory. The room was chilly- due to draft, which conveniently catered to the clipped flora. Glasses, bottles, and containers were stacked upon shelves for easy access, and several other ingredients to remedies, such as crawlers, leeches for bloodwork, and other unidentifiable organisms.
And with Connloath's war, money won't be tight. I'm able to provide for both sides-- keeping my interests involved and selling both healing and murderous concoctions. Her visible, red right eye narrowed a miniscule,
And those damned alchemists won't stand a chance in my store! Her eye softened when she imagines a scenario in which an alchemist would stand in her store's doorway, and a slip of her hand would slip water which Oleander (a toxic plant) had been steeped in, into their order of remedial wine or salves.
"I'll give end to anyone I wish..." Her hand reached up to cover her bandaged left eye, "Anyone with a desire to practice certain magics... but
everyone who tries their hand at alchemy will be eliminated."
And with her declaration, Collette uncovers the wooden sign above her store's hardwood door. Its title is revealed:
Vandiver Antidotal
To cleanse the world!