The Flask of Acute Nicotine Withdrawal

On the Shelf:	Behind the Counter:
₵$45 Ghost Tobacco (20)	₵$20 Self-Cooking Olive Oil (375 ml)
₵$20 Bloody Mary	₵$285 Brick of Cocaine
₵$50 El Dorado Green (1/4)	₵$95 Memory Coffee
₵$14 Black Meat (g)	₵$19 Christian Repellent
₵$1 Slut Root (kg)	₵$95 Anti-Flimflammatory
₵$30 Marital Aid Potion	₵$12 Extrasolar Teas Box
₵$50 Quetzalcoatl Feathers (doz.)	₵$2 Rare Minerals (g)
₵$5 Blue Roses (doz.)	₵$16 Fine MRE Spice (g)
₵$29 Mythril (oz.)	₵$10 Magic Coat Hanger
₵$4 BZTCN	₵$46 Cleansing Ale

This Week's Special:

Magdalene likes to brew potions. Magdalene likes to drink. Magdalene has a mortgage and a full time job in horticultural retail, so bitch has got to multitask.

One such Thursday night produced the Flask of Acute Nicotine Withdrawal. Self-refilling flasks are usually produced by lacing ingredients, in exact proportion and spread, on interior surface. Reverse electrolysis provides the power and water for automated alchemy. The why escaped Magdalene sometime between beers six and seven.

The target market is someone looking to - repeatedly - experience the cranky nicotine receptors of six hours' withdrawal. This market is not entirely hypothetical - a decent chunk of media consumers prefer their feels to be ragey. Food also tastes better.

That market is Azrael.

Azrael is a thug, thief, dealer of illicits and, on weekends, an adventuring party's DPS wizard. The adventuring party is also a wine party. They follow their noses and Gustav Odenkirk's Wine Journal (1991-1992). Regarding a shiraz: notes of plum, pepper, decomposing flesh, emergency flare.

The second-to-latter is probably due to zombie horde, then Betsy's pyrotechnic response. So the adventuring party finds themselves in a restless cemetery. The undead return to their graves when Iris repairs the nearby telecommunications tower, thereby restoring their  phones internet. The slow-coaches have their skulls beaten in, because alcohol.

Azrael's share of the loot is the Quad-Option Flare Gun. It has a jiggermithing that allows for emergency flare to be fired with different effects:

·         S.O.S. - Standard call for assistance, the flare lingers longer in the air.

·         Stun - The flare launches faster and explodes like a flashbang

·         Party - Fired into sky, the flare provides a three minute fireworks show.

·         Combat - The flare becomes three, fired in burst and flaming green.

Azrael does not want the Quad-Option Flare Gun because he can throw fireballs.

That market is Easy.

The most cost-effective form of the shifting wall maze is the hedge variety. It requires an aggressive grower and a full time gardener. Easy is not allowed to touch the treasures guarded by the maze. Easy is allowed compensation for rescuing adventurers lost amongst its hedges, or to loot their corpses.

Easy has come into possession of the 180° Periscope. This periscope, handheld, pokes a metre above and looks backward. It oversees the contours of the past, a topographical narrative of life leading up to present. It reminds people where they left their keys.

Easy does not want to look to the past. He has a cognitive implant that holds his gaze forward and simultaneously looking back makes him dizzy. Somebody else may have forgotten why they do the things they do and want to remember their why. Particularly if booze is involved.

That market is Magdalene.

*Mandatory footnote