Both of them made their way up the stairs and into the front of the store, with Makhus taking the lead in dealing with a stranger as was usual for them, whilst Sigmund just delivered the wizened soldier stare that came so naturally to him. After all, it was just his resting face.

“My apologies, but uh…” the alchemist began, giving the singer’s battle-scarred visage a once over. Not only was he missing an eye, not only did his face bear obvious ritualistic scars, but he stood in an awkward way that made it obvious his lower left leg was prosthetic - one with very little articulation at that. “...We’re still preparing for reopening, and we probably won’t have anything specific for a lil’ while.”

The soldier’s stare remained squarely fixed to Sigmund even as Makhus spoke his platitudes, and the historian felt as if the man was staring straight past his face and into his soul, somehow. It wasn’t his good eye that caused this feeling, though - it was the brass plug embedded in his right eye-socket, its surface briefly glimmering whenever the singer blinked his good eye.

After what felt like an eternity he at last faced Makhus, thundering out in a polite though annoyed tone, “I need some Liquid Vigor, just ran out. The merchant across from one o’ my spots is a piece of shit that charges fifteen gelt for a quarter-liter, can you believe that? Says it’s made with authentic Viriditas sourced from the Exclusion Zone. I’ve been to the E.Z., the trees there ain’t no greener than here. Just denser.”

Makhus furrowed his brow and let out an equally annoyed murmur of insults directed towards the merchant’s mother before addressing the singer again.

“Twenty gelt for a liter if you’re willing to wait,” he offered on the spot. “How much do you need?”

“A liter and a half, preferably in all half-liters. Is that alright?” the singer responded, pulling a coin pouch stuffed with coppers and silvers off his belt. He opened it, counted out five silvers and five coppers, and held them out for Makhus to take. The alchemist took the money with a nod and an utterance of thanks, quickly stepping behind the counter and stowing it into the venerable cash register to the sound of clacking machinery. He walked into the back, assuring the singer that, “I’ll have your Liquid Vigor right away, just a moment.”

The sound of glass bottles clinking together sounded out of the secondary storage room, followed by the squeak of a valve and the sloshing of liquid. Whilst Makhus filled the bottles and corked them up, the Singer continued to stare holes through Sigmund, clearly sizing him up. Just as Makhus walked up and handed him his order, the singer spoke again.

It was a simple nod of acknowledgment and a “Thanks.” to the alchemist, but he didn’t leave. He continued to stare at Sigmund, uncorking one of the bottles and downing half of its contents right then and there before he burped out a few wisps of green Fog and corked it back up.

Light-green liquid running down his chin, he finally broke the awkward tension.

“How does your excess Rubedo manifest?” he asked. “Spasms? Seizures? Mood swings?”

Makhus froze in place mid-step towards the doorway into the back, turning on a heel and making the choice to observe the exchange, quietly, ready to break anything up if the two veterans were to fight.

“Seizures,” Sigmund admitted, making no effort to conceal this. The singer already knew, which he did question with, “How do you know?”

“Takes one to know one, soldier. You stink of blood and fire and whiskey, same as I used to. You fight your demons every single day, same as I used to,” the soldier said, uncorking the half-empty bottle again and taking another swig. The ornament in his eye-socket began to glow a faint orange and his stance became more natural, the effects of Liquid Vigor compensating for the bodily damage it couldn’t heal.

“Now, for this advice, you don’t have to pay me so much as a single gelt. I give it freely, soldier to soldier - go get yourself black-out drunk on anything akin to whiskey and face the moments you’ve forced yourself to forget. Brawl your demons and put them to rest for good. Once you come out on the other side, you’ll thank me.”

“Getting blackout drunk doesn’t sound like a good way of dealing with trauma,” Sigmund doubted, yet in his mind, he knew he would attempt this ritual regardless of its empirical merits. His subconscious belief in the effectiveness of rituals was only emboldened by the brass-eyed cripple’s next statement.

“It’s ritualistic,” he rebuked, before explaining his reasoning. “They used whiskey as the carrier component of Victory Wash, so now you’ve gotta use whiskey to recreate some of the side effects. You’ve already got more than enough blood and fire in your system, your body will remember. Just get ready to be ravenously hungry once it’s over, and then every time you stoke the flames again. Don’t ask what that means, you’ll know.”

Before Sigmund could question him further, the man turned on the heel of his prosthetic left foot and stepped out of the store, taking glugs of Liquid Vigor as he went much like a drunk would, only fully lucid and fully justified in consuming his substance of choice.

The bearded historian stood stone-still for a little while, staring off into empty space whilst the singer’s words sunk in. He wordlessly walked out of the front door with the intent of buying enough whiskey to get blackout drunk, and Makhus made no attempt to stop him.

Makhus was just about to return to the lab, but after weighing his priorities, he came to the conclusion that it would be a better idea to just get a couple dozen seal-bottles filled and ready for sale. He would leverage that scumbag merchant’s attempt to profit off the scarcity of Liquid Vigor by undercutting not just the inflated price, but even the normal pre-war price. And still, he would make a killing, considering how large a reserve they had and how relatively easy it was to distill more Viriditas.