Whatever cosmic anomalies Pearl had brought didn’t resurface, nor did any explanation for them, leaving a gaping hole which the Festivalgoers filled with endless speculation. Dorian heard all manner of rumors flying about as he trudged over to the merchants’ quarters, ranging from Pearl’s being a Blessed of the Dweller or the bastard son of an Oasis King. Fiction drowned out what little fact there was to glean. Nobody, it seemed, knew jack about the man or his origins, other than that his tribe was a composite of rejects. Perhaps he’d chanced into some ancient artifact, they said. Perhaps he was touched by the gods.

Dorian hadn’t the time to sort through the noise right now. This was a matter he’d need to look into later; unearthing accurate information was looking to be a lengthy headache. His suspicions leaned strongly toward the rumors of Godly relations; it wasn’t unheard of for the son or daughter of a God to go joyriding in a Lower Realm. Or perhaps this was the foppish Young Master of some Godly Sect, stripped of his cultivation and banished here by his family as a means of building character. Explanations swirled about in Dorian’s mind like shipwrecked sailors in a whirlpool, struggling to stay afloat.

Neither sounded likely. To shift someone from a Godly realm to a Lower Realm invited the heavens’ displeasure, and what clan would undergo heavenly tribulations to offload one of their kind in a Lower Realm, of all places? He had no answers and he suspected nobody here had them either, save for Pearl.

He shook his head. For now, he needed to marshall his efforts on a more pressing matter: making a disgusting amount of money. After the Trials, there was the trading: the markets opened for the day. He had but a scant few more minutes to set up his and Hu’s booths before the crowds descended upon them. As he picked his way across the grounds, eyeing tents and canvases inflating, tables of all manner of goods dragged out, from jerky to polished sandstone armors.

Hu was struggling to fix a tent pole to the ground when Dorian found him. Dorian raised a brow.

“What are you doing, Master?”

“Eh?” Hu looked up, deep in a full-body squat. His face reminded Dorian of a ripe tomato. “Ah, you’re here—thank Heavens!” He stood and wiped a flood of sweat from his face. “I—thought—I was done for!” Then he bent over, hands on his knees, and heaved in great gulps of air. When at last he stood straight, his lips quivered with indignation. “Tent poles!” He cried, shaking a fist. “Cursed things, bane of my existence!”

Dorian blinked. “Then why bother putting them up?”

“Why—huh?” Hu blinked back. “Well, for the tent.” He gestured to a big, battered leather tarp; next to it was a stone sign that read “Elixirs For Sale” in drab, scraggly writing. It was one of the least appealing things Dorian had ever seen.

“Uh. Then…why bother putting up the tent? Why not…leave it all in the open, so people can see ‘em?”

Hu looked taken aback. “Why—preposterous!” As he spoke he inflated like a pufferfish. “What shall we do? Let them all lay there, as though in a street food stall? What if some ruffian nabs an elixir?!”

“Ruffian?” Dorian looked around. The Marketplace was already laden with patrolling Azcan guards. “Surely they wouldn’t try something here…”

Hu’s nose wrinkled as he shook his head. “It simply isn’t done, boy. You’ll soon learn that we Alchemists have our ways, our traditions! We aren’t the common riffraff, selling—“ He eyed a stall in the distance, nose wrinkling. “Sinkhole shells and dingy trinkets! We are Alchemists. Our position demands a certain respect. Prestige, as it were.”

“Uh-huh,” said Dorian, unconvinced. He glanced to the sagging tarp of a tent canvas which Hu was about to set up. “This is what prestige looks like?”

“My!” Hu stood upright, blinking. “Is that an undertone of sass I hear, apprentice? How strange.” A smile took up his face. “I hope your Trials showing hasn’t puffed you up. Ha!”

“No sass meant at all,” lied Dorian with his own grin. “I was simply thinking that a little break from tradition may be in order.”

Hu’s smile shifted to a quirked line. “Go on…?”

“After my success selling the modified healing elixirs, I had some ideas on how to fix up our stall. Ways to get more money, like last time,” said Dorian. At Hu’s uncertain look, he added—“Just for today! If it doesn’t work, we can do it the old way for the other three days.”

“Hm…” Hu mulled it over, tickling his chin with a hand, then cast a baleful look at the other three tent poles. That seemed to decide it for him. “Bah. Alright! You’ve done well so far, apprentice. You have free reign for a day. Impress me.”

He gestured to the half-finished setup and collapsed into a soggy heap.

“I won’t let you down,” said Dorian with a smile. A sharp, ravenous smile.

***

The first thing he did was to scratch out the dull “Elixirs for Sale” sign, which drew a reaction from Hu that sounded like a very old camel slowly dying. He cut out a strip of hide canvas, strapped it over the sign with rope, and scratched on in bold, capital letters: MASTER HU’s SUPERB ELIXIRS! FINEST IN IZOD! CHECK OUT OUR NEW & EXOTIC BREWS! FLASH SALE! Which drew a sound from Hu like a very old camel rolling around in its grave.

“Apprentice,” he hedged as he saw Dorian shuttling to and fro, pulling out tables and setting up racks, “Isn’t this a bit…much?”

“Not at all,” said Dorian smoothly. He swept a hand across the rest of the Alchemists in the field, a few of whom were looking over with incredulous stares. “Look at them—the same tents, the same signs. All that’s different is their name! This sets us apart.”

Hu frowned but didn’t deny it. It was true: the rest of the Alchemists all sported about the same setup, indistinguishable from the next; a worn, leather tent, perhaps a sign in fancy, pretentious writing denoting it as an Elixir Shoppe, and nothing else. Presumably this was all that was needed in their Tribes, since they were the only alchemists there for every other day of the year; they held a monopoly. In a competitive market, it was woefully inadequate. The only way they survived, Dorian surmised, was because they’d come to some tacit agreement to stick to the old ways in lockstep, an informal cartel held together by twin forces of tradition and unoriginality.

All the better for him. Amid this sea of browns, his setup would snatch the eye. Everything was open-air, arrayed in inviting stacks. Each Elixir put up, from the shocking blue-white ‘Ultra-Strength Healing Elixirs’ to the roiling black ‘Dragonbone Growth Elixir’ sported its own attention-grabbing look; Dorian had allowed none of them to be inert, still, and colorless. If they were, then he modified them ‘till they gained a cosmetic shine. For instance, the first instance of the Elixir of Lust had come out with a dull, dark-green mossy look. After a few enhancements—the equivalent of sprinkling in food coloring, purely cosmetic—it’d taken on a throbbing red hue. By the time he’d gotten everything set up, their stand was a sparkling carnival extravaganza in comparison to the rest of the competition.

At the end of it, Dorian could hear chitters from the other alchemists nearby; he caught more than one mocking sneer. Hu was so mortified he’d taken to hiding behind a back rack which only covered half of his girthy frame. “Are you certain this’ll work?” He hissed at Dorian, his eyes darting wildly. Dorian ignored them all as he put up a finishing touch to the display: a table up front with another tall sign which read, “FREE SAMPLES! COME ALL!”

Then the customers flooded in. It took a few minutes for them to trickle over, past the confectionary stands and the armories; Rust Tribe, as a small tribe, had been given stands in the back-end. Dorian stood up front with a light smile, ready to receive them.

It started slow. At first, the whispers and the muttered speculations far exceeded the actual customers. There were giggles and raised brows, sure, but nobody seemed to know quite what to make of them. Word of mouth spread like wildfire.

“This was a mistake,” moaned Hu. “Oh…”

“Give it some time,” said Dorian easily. He shot a fetching smile at a dark-haired lady nearby who was looking at their stand with vague interest. By the looks she was giving, she seemed more interested in him than his goods. She was dressed in colorful, clean wear: likely the daughter of a Tribal elder. Next to her, a few of her friends trailed her. “Good day, madam! Looking for high-grade elixirs? We’ve got all sorts, from healing to cosmetic—sure to surprise and delight.”

“So I see,” she said dryly, nodding to the sign. Her smile was tinged with amusement. Teasing. “Say, is this a circus or a store?”

Hu had gone behind a back counter to bury his face in the sand. Dorian kept smiling. “We like to keep up a fun facade, true, but I assure you our products are the best in the Desert. Care for a free sample?”

“Free sample? Like a food stand?” At least she seemed amused, if not convinced. Behind her, one of her friends giggled. She came closer. “Very well. What do you recommend?”

“Well…” Dorian scratched his chin. “For a lady of your bearing, why not try the Draught of Bliss? It’s among our finest creations.”

“Draught of bliss?” A dainty, arched brow.

“It’s like mead, but better. A perfect addition to any dining table. Here…

Dorian pulled out an elixir which shone like liquid gold; it bubbled joyfully. He poured a little into a sample cup, then one into a glass of his own. He raised his glass. “Cheers?”

She paused to look at his guileless smile. Then, shrugging, she raised her cup, clinked his, and downed the drink in a gulp, as he did the same.

Her eyes widened instantly. A euphoric shock filled her system, just as it filled his, sending his nerve-endings tingling with sunshine. It left an afterglow of warmth and joy which settled in like a snug hug from a loved one, a brightening feeling.

“Oh my,” she gasped. She set down the cup, taking a deep breath. The girls behind her looked on in rapt attention. Behind them, a small crowd of onlookers was starting to form. “Another,” she said, wiping her lips with a smile.

She left that day having bought four draughts. More importantly, she’d broken the dam; now her friends came up, wide-eyed, and curious onlookers came in to browse among the stands. Dorian summoned his salesman best, a picture of geniality, as he fired off pitches—“Might I interest you in our Ultra-Strength Healing Elixirs?” or “You’ve got lovely hair, madam. May I suggest our Elixir of Everlasting Youth?” Or “For a strapping young lad like yourself, our propriety Super-growth elixir is perfect! Half off only for today!”

In a mere hour they’d hovered up a good half of the traffic to the elixir shops. The marketing served to get buzz, but the real selling point was the elixirs themselves. Dorian had spent weeks brewing never-before-seen and high-grade concoctions which far outstripped what most Tribes could offer; even a small sip of a sample was enough to tell that their store had substance to back up the flash. Hu stared in a wide-eyed trance as money streamed in by the hundreds of Lira. Soon, the thousands.

As they wrapped up the first sales day, even a few of the Azcan representatives hovered at the edges, looking on in interest. None yet approached, but Dorian aimed to reel in one of the big fish in the upcoming few days. They were the real money-makers.

At the end of a day they’d garnered more than Hu usually made in six months. By the end of it, Hu was near tears. “Ah… apprentice, you’re a miracle-worker. A true blessing! This… this may be the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me,” he sniffled. He nuzzled a bag of coins like it was his firstborn child. “And I didn’t need to nail down one damned tent-pole!”