Alyssandra<br/><br/>Name my price… Alyssandra had thought the man joking before, a haggling trick nothing more.  He had said he didn’t haggle – though that too was a haggling trick – but this one seemed to mean it.  A man would only deal like that if there was some very good reason for him not to deal normally.  Something wasn’t right about this.  Yet, she’d come too far to back out now.<br/>Carefully, she picked up the purse of silver and dropped the sleeping herbs in its place, never betraying a hint of unease.  Straightening herself, she took a single coin from the bag and held it up to the dim light.<br/>“Certainly you won’t mind if inspect this first?  No disrespect, of course, just standard procedure.”  Without waiting for a proper reply she darted off into the back room.<br/>Once there, she dropped the coin on a scale and tossed a standard into the opposite pan.  She didn’t much care about the result, it was mostly a pretence to get away from that man for a moment and collect her thoughts.  She wasn’t sure the man was up to anything; clarification, he was definitely up to something, she wasn’t sure he was up to anything that would put her in danger.<br/>This didn’t worry her too much, men had tried to take advantage of her before.  They soon learned why alchemy was not an art practiced by a great many people – a lesson Alyssandra had learned at the cost of a few fingers.  Although, none of them had had four guards the size of boulders waiting just outside her door.  Better to play it on the safe side.  Alyssandra had been in her fair share of fights; enough to know that disadvantages her femininity granted her.  From a small chest shoved to one side of the workbench she removed a pair of leather gloves that she had specially engineered to even out those odds.  She stuffed the gloves into her belt and leaned out the door into the sitting room.<br/>“Your coin is good, sir, I thank you for your honesty.  Your potions will be done in two days.  If you still wish to complete our other transaction,” they both new she meant the ecstasy formula, “you can bring 500, in gold, and pick it up with the others.  Until then, I bid you a good night, Sir.  May the Gods guide your steps.”