novelraw Chapter 171: The Commotion Outside
Chapter 171: The Commotion Outside
Exactly.
That ramshackle shopfront—calling it a shopfront was generous. It was just a spot she’d rented cheap after her "Empty Vial" stall on Ascension Road got a bit of a name. For convenience. To look slightly more legitimate.
It didn’t have a proper sign. No decoration to speak of. Inside were a few rows of barely-clean empty shelves, a basic water-distillation setup, and an old wooden table for showing samples and making deals.
The real draw was never the place. It was her. The Empty Vial herself.
She never stored the potions there. She brought the refined product each time, using the spot just to dilute her top-grade brews down to safe, stable "common" quality with water and basic additives.
The most abundant things in there were probably the crates of empty glass bottles in the corner—each stamped with her mark—and some cheap base ingredients for dilution.
That wasn’t inventory.
Even if Aldrich was furious and wanted payback, he wouldn’t stoop to looting a hollow shell like that. It would just make him look petty and desperate.
So, that commotion wasn’t about theft.
Pandora’s fingertips tapped twice on the smooth wood of the table. Her gaze was calm, like still water.
If not theft, then what?
..................
About fifteen minutes later, footsteps sounded on the stairs again. Slower than before, but still hurried.
Nicole was back.
She pushed into the booth, her face a mix of shock, understanding, and a thread of nervousness. She dropped into her seat, grabbed her half-finished water, and chugged it—glug glug—as if the scouting mission had left her parched.
She set the cup down with a clack and finally spoke, her voice low and quick.
“It’s your old potion shop! The one you used.”
Her eyes were wide. “There’s a crowd. A big one, packed tight and making a real racket.”
She paused, her eyes scanning Pandora’s unreadable face, then delivered the key detail. “And I saw Wilbur. On the edge of the crowd. It was a ways off, but I’m sure it was him.”
Pandora hadn’t crossed paths with Blighted Hand Wilbur that night, but at the name, her eyes flickered.
Nicole pressed on. “He wasn’t right at the front. Wasn’t shouting. Just… standing back behind the crowd. Watching. Or I guess… providing ‘backup.’ The real noise is coming from a few faces I don’t know. They’re loud. Worked up. Shouting about…” She frowned, her words coming faster. “Shouting about you. Saying the Empty Vial’s potions are defective!”
So.
There it was.
Not a robbery. A smear job.
The revenge against "The Baroness"—against the "Empty Vial"—had arrived quicker than expected. And it was… practical. Marketplace nasty.
Nicole laid out all the details. The agitators had put in the work. They weren’t just yelling nonsense; they’d built a story. Something that sounded logical, something that would stick in an average apprentice’s head.
They claimed the Empty Vial’s potions had serious flaws. Some were duds—weak or even failed brews passed off as the real thing. Others hid brutal side effects. Worked fine at first, then a few days later—boom. Wounds festering. Energy crashing. Strength slipping.
They accused her of mixing real and fake, of having no standards, of playing favorites—good stock for regulars, garbage for new faces.
They’d even gotten a crude charcoal drawing—the features carefully, maliciously rendered—and slapped it up next to the shop’s doorframe. The face in the drawing was ugly, greedy, cunning. Underneath, in sloppy lettering: "Empty Vial Fraud."
A handful of obvious plants nearby played off each other, acting out their "victim" stories with fake tears and snot—how they’d been cheated, how much they’d lost.
It was drawing a crowd. Bystanders stopping, pointing, muttering.
“They’re trying to trash your reputation for good!” Nicole said, her voice hot with indignation, her hand tight around her cup. “They want to kill your business on Ascension Road!”
She looked worried. “Some of your regulars might not buy it. They’ve used your stuff; they know it works. But Wilbur just standing there is a threat. It’s a statement. From now on, when those old customers come to buy, they’ll be thinking about Ascension Road’s stance. About Wilbur. About Aldrich...”
“As for new customers, or the ones on the fence?” She didn’t need to finish.
Pandora gave a slow nod.
The method wasn’t clever. It was downright crude. But it was nasty. And in the right conditions, it could work.
If Pandora actually relied on the Ascension Road channel like everyone thought. If the "Empty Vial" identity was her lifeline for income and connections.
The corner of Pandora’s mouth curled into a faint, mocking arc.
Cut off her roots?
With this?
They’d overestimated how much the Ascension Road channel meant to her. And they’d badly underestimated what she was built on.
Did she need those specific potions? The rare mutant strains? The "precious" materials every other Corpse-Plague Acolyte fought and died for?
No.
The only thing she truly needed was the Meditation Method.
Most resources in the Corpse-Plague system were of limited use to her. All along, it had been her skill—her far-superior brewing—that pulled in customers. In truth, they were the ones scrambling to buy from her, not her begging to sell.
She’d never confused that order.
So what if she walked away from Ascension Road?
She still had Nicole’s steady intel and trade line. She had other, quieter, safer channels. And she had third-rank potions—the real currency of the Ruins. Trading for what she needed wasn’t a problem.
Not a problem at all.