PDARPG Boss Fight Entries: Laguna 3: The Family Business (Prompt 6)

“My brother, the merman you know as ‘Ronin’, was hatched on a silver kelpbed. Everything he needed, our pod gave to him; whatever he wanted, he took without consequence. No toy or delectable was ever out of his reach. Our mother trained him in all her sirenic arts, imparted upon him the secrets of ocean healing, so he might someday take over our family business. But when time came to tote the weary bough, to pay back even a fraction of what we gave up for him, what did he do with all his gifts? Run off to the surface world to hawk our sacred elixirs to adventurers, like some reefside charlatan.”

 

Ahh, of course. Classic case of younger sibling syndrome. Eltanin nodded along thoughtfully as he clung to the shell of a giant sea turtle Laguna had summoned to take them to the family business.

 

It was a little family–run apothecary, so humble that it was only an entire three-storey complex smack in the heart of the City of Lost Songs. Merfolk bustled in and out through its grown-coral archway, leaving with orbs of colourful liquids not quite unlike the cocktails Ronin sold in his shop. But Laguna curled her lip at the sight, and directed the sea turtle to drop them off at the seaweed-curtained goods entrance around the back.

 

Eltanin slid down the side of its shell, gasping as his feet landed on the sandy seafloor. He wasn’t quite used to the water-breathing charm his unwilling companion had cast on him yet; an intrusive thought at the back of his mind kept telling him it was suddenly going to wear off, and he’d die a horrible, watery death right then and there.

 

“A sorry sight, isn’t it?”

 

“You’re right. I would be devastated to have hundreds of customers lining up outside my shop on a weekday.”

 

“Look with your eyes, not your tongue, slugwit. Did you not see how they were all merfolk? The family apothecary used to be renowned across the Paperverse: surfacers would hunt far and wide for the ingredients to make water-breathing potions, seeking genuine Thalassa-pod healing potions. No longer. Why waste time or money coming down to our shop when my brother sells them at half the price out in the open air?”

Laguna parted the seaweed curtain with her staff, revealing a long corridor lined with ingredient boxes leading into the inner workshop. She flicked her tail forward, indicating that Eltanin should follow her inside.

 

“What or who,” here she side-eyed the Paperdemon, “he does in his spare time is his own business. But when he begins to pull custom from his own family’s business, with his own family’s recipes…”

 

Ahh, now a real grievance was beginning to emerge. Classic case of business competition in the free market. If they’d been anywhere else besides Laguna’s home turf, Eltanin would’ve pointed out that her and Ronin’s shops were clearly catering to different clientele– and also, his potions had little cocktail umbrellas in them, which automatically made them the superior quaff.

 

“Ronin– no, I refuse to dignify that ridiculous name. Call him what our pod did all those years.” She made a series of clicks and whistles that a dolphin would’ve struggled to keep up with. “‘Statement untranslatable’? Blasted spell…”

 

“Well, surely he had a nickname, right?”

 

“Certainly, or else introductions down here would take the better part of a day to get through. In your tongue, he would be named for the creature you call the Triggerfish.”

 

Eltanin choked back a laugh.

 

“Bold move for one named after a celestial body.”