Magic without a magic

[sturdycoldsteel]

Steel wakes up. This is not where she went to sleep. She has a peek at the stream -

- And lets out a surprised yelp at the nonsensical cacophony.

"What in the blue hells is this place?" No answer is immediately apparent, so she climbs to the top of the ravine, carefully avoiding the various inexplicable things in the area. The snake-goat hybrid was particularly grotesque.

The top of the ravine has a road. She tries to fly, but can't. Again, very strange. This is a pretty nice road, physically, but magically it's completely undeveloped. She walks towards the city, peeking at the stream once in a while only to see fog, and seeking an explanation.

Comments

[sturdycoldsteel]

She buys a reel of thick copper wire at a metal wholesaler and telekinetically weaves it to make a few metal rat-cages, complete with door and latch. It takes about an hour.

To the surgeon she says, "The drug is called morphine. It's extremely effective at dulling pain and it brings a sense of euphoria, but it can be addictive and repeated use is hard on the body, so I'm recommending to only administer it for serious surgeries, not for daily pain like aspirin."

"I make it with embroidered memories, just like aspirin and the other medicines I sell, and they all work as expected. But still, I'll give you the first dose for free and compensate the recipient for testing an experimental drug. How often do you do surgeries?"

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, little things like pulling teeth or stitching cuts all the time, but big ones rarer, maybe every two or three weeks."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"If I were back home I'd say a morphine pill is a bit strong for cuts and teeth, but you don't have local anesthetics here. I'll work on those next."

"I have more warnings, though, might as well give you the full list now. It shouldn't be given to anyone who is pregnant because it can hurt the baby, whoever takes morphine should not drink alcohol for at least six hours, and it can cause breathing trouble sometimes so people with weak lungs can't have it."

[alicornucopia]

The surgeon fetches a slate and chalk to note all this down. "Home?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Oh, my embroidery comes with a full twenty-eight years of memories of living on an entirely different world. I have no idea who or what I was before I fell in the magic. It's been pretty useful, though."

[alicornucopia]

"Ah, I see."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I know it makes people nervous. That's why I test new things on myself or animals first, and then pay people to try the first doses of anything new. At any rate, if you don't mind I'll be back in an hour with some morphine and hang around until someone wants their teeth or a cut done. I'd like to observe the effect."

[alicornucopia]

"Sure, as long as you stay well out of the way."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I will." She could probably do it faster, cleaner. But she wants people to actually use morphine.

So she goes to the shop and runs the numbers on the ingredient cost and processing time to decide morphine's price, and then comes back to the surgeon's place with a jar of little dark blue pills and waits for someone to want surgery.

[alicornucopia]

When she gets back the surgeon is already lavaging dirt out of someone's bleeding leg gash. "Oh, there she is. Let's have the stuff, then?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Oh, dear. But I still want his verbal consent." She hurries inside.

She rattles off the risks and cautions to the patient, confirms that he hasn't been drinking or had breathing trouble, and says, "I'd like you to say out loud that you want to take this."

[alicornucopia]

"Give it over already," snaps the patient through gritted teeth while the surgeon preps stitching materials.

[sturdycoldsteel]

That wound is fairly nasty. The absolute maximum safe dose would be six - She gives him three pills. "It'll take a few minutes to kick in." And she takes up a position well out of the way to watch.

[alicornucopia]

The surgeon ties down the leg so the patient won't twitch and applies pressure to the wound rather than start stitching before the drug they're trying has taken effect.

When the patient is clearly morphined up: stitching.

[sturdycoldsteel]

Once the stitching is done and the surgeon is cleaning up, she asks the patient, "How're you feeling?" (He should be feeling woozy and lightheaded, and not in pain)

[alicornucopia]

"Drunk?" he says uncertainly.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Yeah, that sounds about right. You'll want to stay here for a few hours unless someone can help you get home. But it doesn't hurt, right?"

[alicornucopia]

"Naw."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Great!"

And she asks the surgeon, "I don't want to sell this stuff unless someone actually needs it, it can really mess you up if you take too much or if you take it for a long time, but can you see a lot of people wanting it?"

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, yeah," nods the surgeon, "it'll be very popular."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"It's pretty expensive to make, unfortunately. I was thinking one and a half seo per pill."

[alicornucopia]

"All the goddesses' tits, that's expensive, you gave him three - I can pass the cost along, suppose, it's still worth it to supply unless it goes bad quick."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"They'll keep for a year, maybe two. Tell you what, buy twenty pills at a time and I'll drop the price to twenty six seo - 1.3 each."

[alicornucopia]

"Effect's pretty linear with dose?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Pretty linear, yeah. Two pills probably would have done well enough for him, one will do for scrapes. I'll draw up dosage tables and wearoff times. And you can stock some of my aspirin for after-pain if you like, that's much cheaper."