“I am capable, if that is what you mean,” she said tersely.  “But,” her tone softened, “I lack the necessary ingredients.  They are quite rare.”

“What do you need?  Can they be found elsewhere in the market?”

“Perhaps.  Anything can be found in the market.  But not everything.  I need alicorn, moonflower and phoenix tears,” the alchemist replied.  Harou’s eyes widened, and he felt sweat beading on his brow.

“Those are extremely rare things.  Two of them are illegal in most kingdoms, since they involve the torture of intelligent magical creatures!” he protested.  The old woman shrugged.

“Legality and morality don’t mean much here, young pup.  You will have to decide whether compromising yours is a worthwhile price to pay, along with whatever price the merchants charge.”

“What do you charge?” Harou asked warily.

“Hmm,” the alchemist smiled to herself.  Harou noticed she wasn’t missing any teeth, but he wasn’t too surprised an elf would have good teeth well into old age.  “I desire something only a lycan can give me.”

Harou blinked and waited for her to continue.  She simply looked at him with her otherworldly dark eyes framed by crow’s feet.  The silence stretched into awkward lengths, and Harou cleared his throat nervously.

“What, uh, would that… be?  Exactly?” he asked, uncertainty clear in his tone.  The elf’s smile widened.

“That is for you to figure out on your own,” she cackled.  Harou’s expression flattened.  He looked at her blankly, unimpressed by this clarification.

“So it’s to be a test,” he said flatly.

The old woman nodded, giggling to herself.  Harou sighed and ruffled his streaky auburn hair.  I shouldn’t be surprised, honestly, he thought.

“Right, ‘such is the way of the goblin market’, yeah?” he asked, sounding as tired as he felt.

“Good, you catch on quickly.  Come back with the materials and the price, and you shall have your elixir.”

“Will it work, though?” Harou asked, eyes narrowing.  The alchemist shrugged.

“We won’t know until we try it.  It might permanently remove the venom, or merely suppress it temporarily.  Or it might do nothing at all.  It depends on the authenticity of the ingredients, the quality of the elixir, and the virulence of the venom.”

“So, in other words, I have to make very, very sure the moonflower, alicorn and phoenix tears are legitimate, you have to do your job properly, and we have to hope the venom isn’t unusually potent,” Harou said, counting off the points on his fingers.

“Yes,” the woman said simply. Harou sighed.  He hadn’t expected this to be easy, but he had sort of expected it to be simple.  He wasn’t pleased to learn he was wrong.

What bothered him most was finding alicorn and phoenix tears.  In order to be sure of their legitimacy, he was going to have to personally witness the horn cut from the unicorn’s head, and the tears collected from the phoenix’s eyes.  He knew the harvesting of the alicorn was torturously painful for the unicorn, and potentially deadly if too much of the horn was removed at once.  The phoenix, too, would be subjected to emotional or physical torture, if not both, to make it weep.  If he found a place that held such wondrous beasts and used them to harvest rare ingredients, he would be more inclined to try and free them than see them tortured for his benefit.

The lycan decided he would keep ‘The Alchemist’s Haven’ in mind, but her offered cure was risky.  She couldn’t guarantee it would work, and he strongly disliked the ingredients required.  The price she wanted was also a riddle he wasn’t excited to solve.  So, he would continue searching.  If there was one vendor who had a potential cure, surely there were others.

Harou hobbled deeper into the market, deciding to search among the stalls and kiosks surrounding the central square.  He glanced from side to side as he went, looking at the signs on the tents on either side of the wide, cobbled road, just in case he passed something relevant.  The lycan also took note of the road on which he walked.  The cobbles were smooth and even, slotted together like a well-made puzzle.  There was nothing to catch and trap the end of his crutch like in the city he’d come from, and the gently curved stones did not feel like a strain to walk on.  The street itself was also far wider than any city street he’d known.  Six carts could travel the road with ease, and still not impede foot traffic much.  There appeared to be two main roads, which intersected in the main square in the center of the market.  There were no side roads, but there were small paths of packed dirt between some of the tents, mostly leading to staff entrances and exits.  It was obvious why the roads were so wide, as they were packed with people of all kinds.  The goblin market was easily the busiest place Harou had ever seen.

The crowd around him avoided physical contact with him and each other.  Everyone protected their personal space, and the coin purses carried on their persons, of course.  And yet, there was an unspoken understanding that theft within this space carried a heavy risk.  Becoming someone’s slave, or worse, their dinner, was not outside the realm of possibility if one was caught stealing.  Everyone paid for what they got here, one way or another.

On the far side of the square from where he stood, a sign caught Harou’s eye.  It bore the image of a lyre made from a horseshoe, bracketed on either side by sprigs of laurel.  Below the logo, the text read ‘The Mystical Apothecary.’  Harou navigated through the crowd, careful not to touch anyone, heading towards the sign.

He pushed aside the tent flap and entered, blinking in the unexpectedly bright light inside compared to the dim, gloomy sky.  Harou took a moment to look around the tent.

The high ceiling of the tall, wide circus tent was spread over tall wooden beams.  Ropes hung from the beams, ending about ten feet from the floor.  The last foot of the ropes had many bundles of dried herbs tied to them, which perfumed the whole space with a nigh-overwhelming herbal scent.  Harou began breathing through his mouth to spare his sensitive lycan nose.

The floor mostly consisted of a soft, gray-green moss, except for a row of polished flagstones that wove around the shelves, down the wide aisles.  Shelves made of thick wooden planks, sanded smooth, were arranged into neat rows along the walls and down the middle of the tent.  Near the back was a sales counter with a mechanical register, next to an unusual workbench.  The bench was practically neck-high to Harou.  He wondered why on earth it would be so tall.

Harou wandered the shop, looking at the extensive array of jars, bottles, and containers filled with herbs, potions, and various medicinal ingredients stacked on the shelves.  Most things were unlabeled, aside from a skillfully rendered color illustration of the plant, mineral, or liquid within the container.  Many showed multiple things.  Harou was again struck by the anti-theft method on display, here.  No common thief would know just by a picture what was in these bottles.  Only another trained apothecary, or at least an herbalist like his youngest sister, would likely know what the majority of these things were.  It would be difficult to sell unknown herbs or compounds like these, so stealing them would be largely pointless.

Harou made his way towards the back to see if the apothecary was available to discuss a cure.  He soon discovered the reason for the unusually tall workbench, as well as the horseshoe-lyre logo.  The proprietor of the shop was a centaur!