You have 16 Days Until Your Place of Business is Shut Down

> OK, clearly our time is a finite resource. Read 'Gathering ingredients' whilst walking to the exit of the town. Stop by Hagel and see if you can wangle some weapons before you go.

> Continue reading and walking at the same time to suggest to nearby monsters that you have zero self awareness, and they might not attack you out of pity. In the highly likely event that this fails, you and Dave may have to fight some things.

> Find ingredients, I guess. We can read about what to do with them later, but if we want to do some alchemy we're going to need so many ingredients. Let's see if we can't go out, retrieve ingredients and get back in one quarter of the day.

While I agree that we have limited time, there is such a thing as rushing too quickly, friend. Besides that, of what I understood, those two buffoons might have straight-up made Hagel hate them...maybe learning to talk to people properly would be a better idea if we have to deal with him in order to get weaponry.

>I have no commands right now, except that if you are unable to get any weapons from Hagel, read up on "Interacting With People."

oh, and >DON'T GO OUT OF TOWN WITHOUT A WEAPON OF SOME KIND!

Date: 1/1
Time: About a quarter

You try flipping over to the 'Gathering ingredients' section and find yourself nearly at the end of the book. It's not really all that thick to begin with, and apparently that first section contains a few alchemy recipes which account for most of its girth. Getting through this won't even take enough time to properly measure, honestly.

This section takes up only a couple of pages; there are some notes scribbled in the margins which you recognize as Marie's handwriting. It would be indecipherable to most people, but years of grocery lists have prepared you to make sense of it.

There are two ways for an alchemist to obtain ingredients. The first is by purchasing or trading for the ingredients in town. A surprising number of ordinary everyday items have unusual alchemical uses. However, this is an expensive way to get ingredients, misses out on rarer items, and results in consistently mediocre quality, all of which is unacceptable for any sensible alchemist.

In the margins is a list of names, shopkeepers around town. You know a few of them and have been to all of these stores enough to know how to get to them. There is a grocery store, Hagel's smithy of course, a place to buy sundries and a shop selling antiques and curiosities.

The better way to obtain ingredients is by going out into the world to gather them. The basket is an essential tool for alchemists, just as important as the cauldron and the staff. However, the task of gathering is fraught with danger. It is wise to hire help to deal with the inevitable monsters, not only because they get in the way of gathering items from the surroundings but because the remains of monsters can make invaluable ingredients themselves.

Marie has added an arrow from where it says "The basket" to a brief note in the margins reading "On the coat rack" along with a scribbled heart. Another arrow points from "hire help" to a note reading "Scruffy should do fine at first!"

Well, if you're going to actually try to gather ingredients, you probably need weapons. You actually have a hand-me-down Basic Staff which Master gave you quite a while ago, which apparently doubles as a tool for alchemy and a weapon, and Dave has some Hatchets he uses outside town, but it would be nice to be able to get better weapons later on. You decide to go to Hagel's and try and patch up relations somehow.

Hagel is a positively huge, muscular Mana with brilliant red skin and dark hair arranged into big bushy eyebrows, a big moustache and a rug of beard along his chin and the sides of his face. Of course, he has no hair on top of his head.

When he hears the door jingle as you come in he turns from his work to pronounce welcome. "Hey, how--oh, it's you." He returns to work. "I thought you two had run out of jokes by now."
"We di--err, that's not why I'm here," you say, barely catching yourself. "I actually...sorta...need your help," you add nervously, tapping your index fingers together.
"Hmph. What about?"
"Well..." You explain the situation.

"Oh, so they finally took notice, eh? Honestly, I'm surprised they let old Marie get away with it this long. Once when I closed shop for a week on account of a bad cold the knights came knocking to see if I was okay. Then again, my work is actually valuable to the crown to begin with."
"Yeah.." You don't know what to say to that, so you just blankly agree.
"Well, if you're going out of town I'd hate to see you get eaten by monsters as much as anyone else," he says. "But I don't think you know how to use normal weapons, and I can't exactly afford to mass produce special weapons the way I do those..." There is some stroking of his beard while he thinks. "Ah! I've got it."

"If you bring the materials and pay for it, I can just custom-make weapons for you and whoever else you'd like to take with you. For weapons, you'd need some metal Ingots, and some kind of material for armor...you don't look like you'd do too well with metal armor, after all."
"So, where would I get that stuff from?" you say. "Buy it from you"
"Hmm, that's one option. But..." Hagel gets up and bounds off to the back rooms. "Now where was that..ah!" He comes back out holding a book and shoves it at you. "I bought this dusty old thing a few months back, it's supposed to have a special way of making Ingots and Cloth out of all kinds of things, but I couldn't make it work. Maybe you can figure it out, and make your own materials a lot cheaper than buying 'em from me. This way you oughta be able to customize a bit--y'know, the materials affect how good the weapon that comes out is and all that."
"Oh! Thanks," you say. "Uh, I'm really sorry about the bald jokes thing..."

"Aww, don't mention it," he says, and then glares as he adds, "...ever again."
"Y-yeah, okay."

Back at the workshop, you set aside the tome Hagel gave you after skimming its table of contents quickly. It seems to contain alchemy recipes for Ingots and Cloth, as advertised. Then you turn your attention to the other short section of the book on the desk.

An alchemist is a businessperson first and foremost. As such, it is vitally important to know how to deal with others. Generally having friends is good, and being popular is even better. The nature of alchemy makes it best suited to a freelance style of work, taking up jobs to create items from individuals one at a time. However, this can be quite a hassle to do on one's own, so it's best to seek official help in doing this where available, especially for the inexperienced alchemist.

Marie added to the margins here "Talk to Stahl. Front desk at the castle nearly every day. Don't be intimidated, he's just a big softie under all the scowls!"

Having allies when going out of town is equally important. Doing jobs for an individual already familiar with you personally is likely to improve their opinion of you, and if you hire them to help you fight monsters out of town they may give you a discount. Don't think of it as using other people, just think of it as scratching each others' backs as friends ought to do. Building friendships is also important--and also likely to produce discounts--when it comes to the owners of shops you frequent for alchemical supplies. You may even be able to get some unusual perks from a shop if you can befriend the owner enough.

Surprisingly, there are no notes in the margins for this paragraph. You guess she thought they covered this one pretty well as-is.

Speaking of money, you make a quick check of things. You have 236 Cole left over from allowances and things, which is not really much money at all. Now, should you go out to gather ingredients or check the rest of the book?

>

Date: 1/1
Time: About a quarter

Status & Inventory:

236 Cole

Character Status:

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Sarah Kennigan: Uninjured, Energetic
Weapon: Basic Staff
Armor: Normal Clothes
Accessory: None

Dave Barrett: Uninjured, Energetic
Weapon: Hatchets
Armor: Normal Clothes
Accessory: None

Basket (0/60):

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(Empty)

Container:

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Spoiled Milk x 1
Tap Water x ∞

Known Recipes:

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Ingot: 1 Day; [Metal]
Cloth: 1 Day; [String]

A/N

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Wow, look at all that ground covered. I hope this isn't too overwhelming yet. I'm experimenting with how to display all the status and inventory information; hopefully this is clear enough for now.