“Can’t we just sell it ourselves?” Hura’gh asked. 

“I mean, we can,” Lucas said doubtfully, “But I’m not going to stand on some corner like an asshole just waiting for the guards to notice me.”

“There’s lots of crime that the guards never seem to notice,” Adin added, having a difficult time keeping his eyes off the blue stains on Lucas’s hands. “Some say the watch is incompetent, and others say that the thieves guild gives the crown a cut. No one knows for sure.”

It was just sap and bile. It wasn’t even blue, but the lordling didn’t know that. Still, it was an excellent reminder that the man’s growing addiction was going to be trouble, and Lucas wasn’t sure how he was going to handle that just yet. 

“‘Course the guards are corrupt,” Kar’gandin laughed, “And of course the crown takes a cut. That’s just the way Lordanin runs lad. It’s the way it’s always run. The city is sort of a vast farm where they raise huge crops of gold and silver, and then they dump most of it in the castle. That place is like a bottomless pit for gold, and it’s always hungry.”

“Pity we can’t just rent a space, throw up a shingle, and call it a day,” Lucas said with a shrug. “‘Ye Olde Potions and Shit,’ I think it has a nice ring to it.” 

Everyone laughed at that before the dwarf added. “Ye could do that if ye were a member of the alchemist's guild, of course, but you are not. That would be a sucker's game, though. Ye’d have to charge guild rates and pay exorbitant taxes. No, in my opinion, we should go with the gangs. The pay-off will be much better, and the risks increase only a little.”

Kar’gandin launched into a long tirade about the different taxes and how it was cheaper to get the guards to look the other way, but about the time he started to enumerate the different fees based on types of products and all the rest, Hura’gh got bored and interrupted him. “But what good is saving money when the thieves will just steal from you themselves? Besides, don’t most of the gangs already sell drugs?”

“They do,” Kar’gandin agreed. “Faerie dust, demon blood, Dusk, and whatever else they get up to, but according to our man here, his stuff is going to beat every other potion out there, ain’t that so me, boy?”

Lucas nodded at that. “I do, but the jolly green giant has a point. The Beggars left a pretty sour taste in my mouth. Maybe we could give it to Adin and have him sell the stuff to his rich noble friends.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” the viscount chimed in. Lucas rolled his eyes at that. The man would agree with any plan that put him within spitting distance of the good shit. “I know plenty of dilettante that might show interest if we were to attend a party or—”

“Yeah, well, that would be a mighty fine plan one day, but ye’re still a wanted man,” Kar’gandin nodded. “I don’t see well-wishers lining up to deliver ye calling cards and ask about ye’re health. No, if anyone was going to do that, it would have to be Lucas here.”

“M-me?” Lucas sputtered, almost spitting out the sip of water he’d just taken from his skin. “Why would I have to do it. I don’t know these people.”

“Doesn’t really matter. Lord Parin here can tell you all ye need to know, and when ye get dressed up fancy who’s going to know one way or another?” the dwarf smiled broadly. “Don’t ye know, all humans sorta look alike.”

This time, only Kar’gandin and Hura’gh laugh. Lucas would have joined them once he figured out the punchline. However, but then he was too busy looking at Adin, as the man grew visibly angry.

“What, you think if he just tells everyone he’s a cousin of my family, they’ll—” Adin started to ask indignantly. 

“Aye, a cousin,” the dwarf nodded. “That’s great. Ole’ cousin Lucas from out of town come to share a little bit of blue from abroad. Maybe we can give it a better name to appeal to the upper crust. You know, like Sapphire Fire or Dragon’s Tears. Something like that.”

“But he can’t just pretend to be nobility. The man might be a talented chemist, but how’s that going to help him exercise all of the proper courtesies?” Adin scoffed. “The man knows nothing about dancing or jousting. He doesn’t even know which fork to use at dinner. No offense.”

That last part was tacked on at the very end and only mentioned when he realized that what he was saying might be offensive to Lucas, but he didn’t care what this asshole thought of him. Not really. 

“Well, then ye’ can teach him all that. I would love to see what our alchemist looks like when he’s learnin’ to dance!” Kar’gandin said before he burst out laughing. 

The half-orc quickly followed suit, leaving Lucas to spin it off. “Hey, I’m good with it,” he said with the wide smile he used most often to hide his growing annoyance, “But Adin is the one wearing the dress, alright? He’s about his sister’s size and…”

That made everyone laugh all the louder. Everyone except Adin of course. The nobleman fumed with his lips pressed together tightly until the laughter died off before he added, “None of this is getting us any closer to making dragons.”

“Aye, that’s true enough,” the dwarf agreed. “Dancing lessons will have to wait. Before we can afford to get Lucas dressed up nicely, we’ll have to find a larger source of revenue, which in my mind means the Knights of Brass or the Red Lantern Gang.”

The four of them debated the matter until nearly sunset, and in the end it was the arrival of dinner that decided things more than anything else. There were perhaps a dozen gangs worth the name in Lordanin proper. Each of them had their own territory and their own rackets. 

Some of these, like the Orphans, would have no interest as they dealt primarily with burglaries and other petty thefts. The Illuminated wouldn’t be worth the time to contact, either. Though Lucas kinda dug their brightly colored tattoos, they were largely dock workers and longshoremen and weren’t really good at much besides smuggling things in and out of the city. Their operation would have to be a lot bigger before they’d have to worry about sending things abroad. 

In the end, the Lordanin drug trade mostly revolved around four groups: the Alchemists’ Guild, the beggars, the reds, and the brass. A couple others, like the slants or the equestrians, might be interested, but regardless, it would be a short list.

According to Kar’gandin’s investigations, the Beggars had apparently tried and failed to copy Lucas’s recipe. They sold something black now that they called night and a dark blue formulation that was called dusk. Neither of these was apparently as strong as the mythical blue that had circulated through the city for a while, but it helped take the edge off of the junkies that Lucas had left in his wake. 

“Hah! They’re making methadone to feed the heroin addicts,” Lucas exclaimed, but no one got the joke, and he didn’t feel like explaining it. 

Almost every gang they discussed was already distributing some bootleg intoxicant that they made themselves, but Lucas didn’t care much about that. The beggars were obviously using his little trick to turn goblin bile into drugs. He regretted letting that little detail slip, but other than getting a bigger gang to murder every last one of them, that genie was out of the bottle now. 

Everyone else mostly dealt with reds, though. Reds were easier and more common to make. He’d never seen a good recipe before, but if he was a betting man, he’d say that they were healing potions that had been altered with lesser catalysts in the same way that he used greater catalysts to make his concoctions. 

According to feedback, he’d heard that things like Dragon’s Breath and Demon Blood were more like uppers. They were more directly compared to cocaine or Meth than blue. That made sense. 

Someday, he hoped to get a look at the stuff and see what his little identify screen told him about it, but he’d managed to keep his nose fairly clean since his arrival in this world. He had too much going on to pick up an addiction like he had in his last life.  

Lucas spent a lot of time thinking about this while he listened to the rest of his group argue about which gang had the best territory or was the least untrustworthy. Eventually, it was just too much information, and it made his eyes glaze over. 

Finally, when the debate had gone on long enough, and he could see that the food would get cold before everyone agreed, he rejoined the verbal fray. 

“Listen, you guys, I don’t care if we draw straws at this point as long as it's not the fucking beggars, but I’m at my wit's end here, so how about this,” he said before pausing to make sure he had everyone’s attention. “How about we send every group you can think of to send a member or two in some neutral territory, outside the city, like an inn or something. We tell them to bring along their favorite junkie, and then we, you know, give out free samples and let them bid on the price.”

“Bid?” the dwarf asked, stroking his beard. “Like an auction?”

“Yeah,” Lucas said, leaning forward. “Like an auction. Here’s our shit; you tell us how much you think it’s worth, and we go with the highest bidder, you know, like a real business!”

“Hmmmm, maybe, lad, maybe.” The dwarf said as he mulled it over.

Hura’gh wouldn’t let that settle the issue, though, and asked, “Doesn’t asking others how much they would pay for your potions make us seem weak? Would it not be stronger to simply tell them how much they must pay for our product and establish the dominant position?”

“Maybe,” Lucas agreed. “But when we let them decide, we're playing them against each other, you know? Now, it’s not us versus them; it's them versus all of their least favorite competitors. The question is no longer, ‘how much can I sell this shit for,’ it's ‘how can I keep it out of my enemy’s hands.’ Like… that batch I just made is pretty pure. They can probably step on it once or twice, and it will still sell fine. That’s like…”

Lucas did the math quickly in his head before adding, “Thirty or Forty dragons, but—”

“Thirty dragons?!” Kar’gandin exclaimed. “For a single batch? Are you making drugs or turning lead to gold in there?!”

“I mean, pure it's probably worth that to the right buyer too, but no working stuff is going to have that kind of cash, you know?” Lucas said with a shrug. “Anyway - They aren’t going to bid that. They’ve got to make a profit too, but one guy might say fifteen and another guy might say twenty, you know? We give 'em a taste, and then we see what happens.”

Hura’gh didn’t seem convinced, but he did seem hungry. So, instead of debating it further, he got up and strode over to the barn where they took their meals, ending the conversation for now, and Lucas was totally fine with that. He just wanted everyone to make a decision and move the fuck on, and this was the best non-decision he could make short of putting all the gangs on a dart board and letting his terrible aim decide for him.