Several hours later, the brothel was empty aside from a single black-haired witch.
The building was quite a mess. Empty potion vials were strewn across the tables, dirt was tracked over the floor, and cookie crumbs were scattered in a variety of odd locations. This scene was the clear aftermath of hosting a party. Although the guests had generally tried their best to be neat, several dozen people tracking their way through a small inn inevitably resulted in casualties. For instance, there were shards of glass from a broken potion bottle on the carpet, an accidental spill beside the staircase, and a hefty pile of dirty dishes...
Calypso was sitting on a barstool at the reception desk. Her posture was nearly entirely limp.
She... didn't have the energy to clean up right now.
In fact, the witch was beginning to feel the aches coming in her muscles, as well as dull nausea flooding her forehead. There was a throbbing headache that made her thoughts foggy. Her palms felt clammy and her hands shook involuntarily. Earlier, she had been trying to finish another page on her accounting book, but her handwriting had disintegrated and she couldn't hold her pen properly.
"Ah... the potion must be wearing off," Calypso muttered as she rubbed her aching arms.
Laboriously, Calypso pushed herself to her feet, but her legs nearly gave in.
"Whoops. Better hold on."
She laughed and gripped the bar counter tightly. She reached for the medicine cabinet under the reception desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a flask of suspicious silvery metallic fluid. Calypso placed it on the wooden table with a dull thunk as she waited for a moment to regain her wobbly sense of balance.
It was an energy potion.
Essentially, it was like caffeine, except several hundred times more potent.
If she drank it, she didn't feel tired or sleepy at all, and honestly she was capable of functioning like normal. Similar concoctions were used by the military in siege warfare, when it was necessary for defenders to stay awake for several days straight. However, these remedies only deceived the brain into thinking that one wasn't tired, and it didn't change the body's true exhaustion. When used for long periods of times, the negative effects compounded, resulting in dramatic whiplash when the suppressive effect wore off.
It was a lot like getting hit by a truck, or experiencing withdrawal after quitting a powerful drug.
In short, it was an exceedingly unpleasant experience, and it came with visceral body reactions like vomiting, fevers, and muscle pains. If the "sleep debt" was particularly severe, one's heart rate could shoot through the roof, resulting in ventricular tachycardia or seizures, either of which were life-threatening. Ordinarily, they weren't intended to be used for more than a few days, and the recoil from a month of continuous use was probably immediately fatal.
Of course, that was only talking about the acute side effects.
The negative effects of chronic use were just as bad.
Calypso rarely drank it for more than a 3-4 consecutive days at a time, but she had been consuming it regularly for months on end. Clearly, the toxicity had accumulated from chronic use, so her side effects were progressively worsening.
The black-haired witch stared at the flask of silver fluid in front of her, her eyes squinting.
Should she go for another day?
If she drank it, her headache would go away, and then she could go back to work.
Her massive list of things to do never seemed to get shorter.
She had two weeks before Election Day to convert the stock of black magic ingredients that Sibelius had sold her into liquid cash. The Imperial Senate was poised to effectively ban black magic ingredients (or at least, "regulate" it), which meant that many of those materials were liable to become illegal at any moment.
Obviously, she needed money to do anything, and she barely had enough cash in her pockets to buy her own food. Switch & Ecstasy was currently running paycheck to paycheck, meaning that there was absolutely nothing left over after paying the employees. It was rapidly depleting Calypso's personal savings, and a death clock was ticking unless she could quickly figure out how to turn her shop profitable again. From a business perspective, it was basically already bankrupt, even though Calypso had been reluctant to admit it or tell her customers. Besides, if she filed for bankruptcy and gave up the brothel, she would end homeless with literally nowhere to stay, as well as lose the kitchen that she needed for potion brewing.
The rumor mill among witches was also filled with fears about the "Witch Trials" returning, although Calypso personally thought it was unlikely. Even if there was a conservative majority in the Imperial Senate, there was no way that they would endorse the return of such barbaric practices from over a century ago. Modern society was civilized, and humans and demons alike lived in mutual harmony. Logically speaking, the economic damage from this type of civil war would be catastrophic, and neither side stood to benefit. Money ruled both political parties, and conservatives weren't so dumb to shoot their own wallets.
Regardless, if the worst case scenario occurred and she needed to flee, she would need at least some amount of money on hand or else she wouldn't be running very far. Ideally, she would have some amount of savings, but her net worth was currently negative. Sibelius had fortunately been willing to give her several metric tons of questionable raw materials in the form of a loan, but it would be up to her to convert them into a product that was legal enough to sell.
Calypso was a witch, and she brewed potions.
If it was illegal to sell gender-bender potions, then she needed to find a new product to make up the difference.
Was there enough time to accomplish this?
She really needed her daytime hours to be productive as possible.
Sleep was a luxury she couldn't afford.
+ + +
Suddenly, there was a young child's voice at the front door.
"Hiyoooo~? Ms. Calypso? Are you home?"
The black-haired witch jolted straight up, and she almost knocked over the bottle of silver fluid in front of her.
She still hadn't gotten the chance to drink from it yet, and a powerful headache was still pounding in her head. Nonetheless, it was bad form to take potions and other drugs in front of a child, so Calypso quickly stuffed the potion bottle into a drawer. She feigned normalcy as best she could, although she clearly looked a bit frazzled from sleep deprivation.
"Ah, yes, Mina! Come right in!" Her voice was slightly tense and strained, even a bit airy.
Mina was Mr. Varnes's young daughter, and they were her half-troll next door neighbors who ran a butcher's shop. Unfortunately, Mr. Varnes's wife had passed away some years ago, so he was a single father. Mina was around fourteen years old, but she was the equivalent of a seven or eight-year-old child in terms of mental maturity since trolls aged slower than humans.
Calypso struggled to smile weakly, although she was feeling a bit dizzy.
Mina was practically bouncing.
"Ms. Calypso! Ms. Calypso! I wanted to ask if you could help me with something?"
∎
Ouch. Unfortunate that she hasn't had the time/energy to be selling more profitable potions on the side this whole time.
Well that's doesn't sound healthy, breaking herself like that won't help in the long run. She really is in a desperate situation.