| 6 |
| Moonflower | |||
| Herbalism |
As the light of the setting sun emblazes the room a deepening orange, you decide that you've done enough reading for now. You put the confusing book away, and grab the one about diamond dogs that caught your eye earlier.
After quickly flipping through the pages, you catch a glimpse of some very informative biological illustrations, and figure that you'll have to borrow it for later.
Honourshine: "Good idea. I think I saw something on the Kirin Empire earlier... Ah, there it is. Let's check these out, shall we?"
You nod, and proceed to the librarian's desk. While Plume notes down your information, you ask him if he knows a book somepony like you could read to learn more about spellcasting. Wordlessly, he uses his magic to float a tome from one of the shelves and onto your short stack of borrowed books.
You get "Of Dogs and Diamonds", and "Spellcasting 101"!
You thank Plume for his help, and with the books secured in your sidereal bags, you head outside into the evening sunlight.
When you arrive home, you find Moonflower's rump sticking out of the kitchen cupboard as she organizes her freshly brewed potions in a cacophony of clinking bottles. You greet her with some nuzzles, and ask what she's been up to.
Moonflower: "Welcome back! I made all kinds o' cool stuff. Lemme show you!"
Honourshine looks on curiously as the bat pony places a few of the colourful supplies onto the countertop. Then, one by one, the young herbalist holds up each bottle.
Moonflower: "First, we got this one! When you drink it, it makes you super strong, but then you get tired faster. I think ya got the stamina to use it, though! Heehee..."
Honourshine: "Hm. I bet he does."
Moonflower: "This one makes you invisible when ya drink it! It doesn't last super long, and it only works if you're naked, but maybe it can save us some trouble if we gotta sneak around again."
You remark that having the option to avoid a fight could indeed be useful, especially if unarmoured.
Moonflower: "Yuh uh! Ooh, this one's glowy! And it makes you glow when ya drink it, too. It's kinda like the opposite of the other one."
Honourshine: "Creative. Still, a source of light is always good to have."
Moonflower: "If ya want, this one's more subtle. It makes you see in the dark, kinda like I do! Blazer already had one of those, so I used it to learn how to make more."
You nod. Perhaps now that you have more than one, you won't hold back from using them.
Moonflower: "This one makes you super sticky! You can use it to climb on walls and stuff, but it's probably real bad for best-friendly stuff. If ya get stuck, it's for a whole hour!"
Honourshine: "Don't give him ideas."
Moonflower: "Heehee! I also made a bunch o' regular stuff. We got health potions, magic potions — 'cause ya got a horn now —, and some antidotes and remedies here."
You get 6 Antidotes, 3 Draughts of Invisibility, 6 Elixirs of Night Vision, 3 Eye Drops, 6 Health Potions, 3 Magic Potions, 3 Remedies, 3 Tinctures of Overstrength, 3 Tonics of Adhesion, and 6 Tonics of Bioluminescence! You keep them stored in the kitchen's cupboard for now.
You thank Moonflower for making all of these supplies for your party.
Honourshine: "In a single afternoon, no less..."
Moonflower: "I had fun makin' 'em! How 'bout'cha? Did ya have fun at the library?"
You nod, and say that while you didn't find all of the answers you went in looking for, you did learn a few things in the end. Plus, you brought back some prime reading material for later.
Honourshine: "Something about... dogs, was it?"
Moonflower: "Oooh! Maybe you can figure out how to make 'em wanna—"
You ask your friends what they'd like to have for dinner!
Moonflower: "Heeheehee... the weather's kinda nice, maybe we can get somethin' light from Sungrain Fields, or have a lil' picnic behind the house."
Honourshine: "I agree on something light. As for what: that's your call, Blaze."
Enter a comment
As for food, we should probably clean out the perishable stuff we can before we leave for an undetermined amount of time.
If we don't have to catch a train, we can dive into Spellcasting 101 with zeal! And give Honourshine and Moonflower a chance to bond one-on-one, if Honourshine is amenable to conversation.
If Honourshine weren't here, and the notice wasn't last minute, we could've thrown a party to say bye (for now) to our Hoofington friends… hm.
Note that the book Honourshine borrowed was titled "The Mystical Empire". It's only visible via inventory. There are some minor clarifications in the descriptions of the potions as well.
I would've made my command to enjoy the mead we've had for so long, but I don't want to impact our book reading. 😇
It's looking like we won't be getting those stat boosts from Voyager clothing this adventure. 😢
- …potions are a low margin business, in which the time, effort, and/or expense used to procure the ingredients make it not very profitable and/or difficult to scale.
- …potions aren't actually that useful for most ponies. Of all the potions here, perhaps the overstrength potion could be useful for laboring. The rest are mainly useful for adventurers. But perhaps there were more profitable potions Moonflower could've made; we don't know.
- …there are profits to be had, but Moonflower just doesn't care about getting rich. Sure, she could move to the nearest city and start pumping out expensive potions, but she just wants to be with her friends and her tribe.
- …Moonflower's skills are actually somewhat common, or most potions are manufactured industrially. It's hard to say without seeing some statistics, but it could be appropriate for the setting.
What would she use/want the bits for? Donating to the rebuilding of Starfalls Town or getting fancy equipment may suit her. Maybe she's too young but we haven't seen any entrepreneurial tendencies from her like Rarity yet. Or she has some big savings/spending goal we don't know about. And there's always saving for retirement or investing. But to be honest I have no idea if there are even any banks in this setting. 😂
I would imagine that Health Potions and Remedies are pretty popular. It's good to have them at hoof in case you injure yourself while doing household chores or when you catch a cold. Depending on the location Magic Potions should sell pretty well, too. About one third of the population are Unicorns. Granted you probably don't need them if you only use basic levitation but if you have to do a lot of magic or some more powerful magic in your line of work they may come in handy. The other potions are for specify situations and there's probably not a huge demand. Albeit Elixirs of Night Vision sound pretty useful for jobs like night watchmen, miners or construction works that have to work underground.
- Antidote: 3b * 6
- Remedy: 3b * 3
- Eye Drops: 3b * 3
- Health Potion: 3b * 6
- Magic Potion: 6b * 3
- Tonic of Bioluminescence: 6b * 6
The 27 potions accounted for make up 108 bits. The remaining 15 potions could contribute 45-90 bits depending on price (3-6 bits), or even more (there were some 8 bit potions, actually).
If it's something she can do whenever she wants in just an afternoon, Moonflower has an income source that rivals Honourshine's, depending on how long Honourshine's contracts take. But I'm inclined to believe Moonflower had a lot of ingredients stockpiled that had taken her awhile to gather.