A couple of days had passed and the empty soul bottle still sat on the herbalist's desk in that same wooden crate upon that same soft velvet cloth, completely untouched. Giving it a glance over, he finally decided to pick up the bottle and look at it more closely. He set the bottle down on the desk before laying his chin down to stare straight through it. With a heavy sigh, he sat back in his desk chair and mused, "What soul would you want?" Nothing seemed to come to mind whatsoever. Continuously drawing a blank.
Darting his eyes back and forth between the essence jar and the empty soul glass, he couldn't stop thinking about what could possibly go wrong as his cards had suggested. Maybe they'd fall and shatter, though he surely wasn't that clumsy. But, with that thought, he pushed the jar back further onto his desk and after placing the soul glass back into it's designated crate, took it off his desk completely, placing it onto the floor. There was no way they'd break that way. Turning his attention back to the jar that sat upon his desk, he couldn't stop staring into it's beauty. Getting lost in all the colors was so much fun after all. Just then, someone began to vigorously knock at his workshop door which shook Reuben from his thoughts. Looking at the time, it was still rather early, seven o'clock to be exact. Reuben went to the door and peeped through the small window next to it before opening it up to view an elderly woman standing there in a pantsuit. She looked very put together, aside from her rather frizzy, unkempt hair and she carried with her an expensive looking leather briefcase. When the door opened, she gave a polite nod and a gracious smile. "Can I help you?" Reuben asked. He wasn't used to getting any visitors this early in the morning. "I sure hope so. You're the alchemist, right?" she asked in a quiet and timid voice. "I...am considered that by many. Why, what can I do for you?" "One of your clients gave me your business card. I'm hoping you can make me a special tea...a type of divinatory tea to be exact." Ah, so this woman was wanting to try divination. The herbalist smiled and with a nod, began to speak, "I can definitely do that for you, ma'am." "Oh, wonderful! I haven't been able to find someone who can make it the right way, but I hear you're pretty good at what you do." Reuben chuckled, "Well, thank you, I appreciate the confidence. I'll do some research and get on this right away." "Thank you...and here's this," she began as she opened the briefcase in her arms to show a few hundred dollars bundled together and a slip of paper banded around it. Not to mention many personal papers and documents she surely had in there with it. But the money caught the herbalist's eye first. "This is the first portion of your payment, mostly for your time and for the ingredients you'll need. If you can bring me the tea by tomorrow, I'll pay you the delivery fee and since it's the weekend, I'll pay you double the cost of the tea altogether. The address is on that slip of paper attached. If you're not able to deliver it, I'll be back to pick it up on Monday. I would just really appreciate it this weekend." "Tomorrow, huh? I'll see what I can do. Thank you so much." "No, thank you." With that, the woman left and Reuben was a few hundred dollars richer. It was always nice when a client spread his name about. These types of surprise visitors were always welcome. Now he just had to get the ingredients and begin this little infusion. Comments are closed.
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