58th of Summer, 512 AV
It was never hard to find the apothecary’s shack with it’s rusted iron signpost and hanging rags from the roof. Lesh placed her hand on the splintered wooden door and gave it a knock. When no one answered she clasped the rusted iron handle on the door and gave it a modest tug. The old hinges screamed in protest but it gave way none the less allowing Lesh to enter. The room was dimly lit as always and the taste and smell of herbs and chemicals were pungent in the air.
“Lesh... Lesh is that you!? … You know my eyes are not as good as they once were...” an elderly man was hunched over a workbench looking in her general direction. “It’sss me...” The Dhani responded in a hiss. “Oh, thank Rhysol himself! I’ve been getting far too many odd customers of late demanding this and that...” he croaked in his usual raspy voice.
“You know why I am here... cccertain othersss do to...” she would have to do something about those certain others relatively soon. “Of course, of course you sell I buy... everyone is happy!” The old man coughed violently into a sleeve, “...very well, let’s be done with it... now if you would be so kind as to-” Lesh had already slid out of her clothes and had left them in a pile on the floor as she walked as naked as on her name day toward the apothecary.
“Ah yes... quite...” he shied away slightly at her nudeness. “You... you have lost weight again. You haven't been eating well... have you?” It was true. Back in her earlier years of Ravok when she worked for the ‘Black Crows’ she had been able to eat her targets without so much as a second glance from the Ebonstryfe. After leaving the Black Crows it had become far too risky to attack citizens of Ravok and so she had resorted to consuming rats and stray cats along the canals. Even that seemed risky nowadays.
“That isss none of your concccern...” Lesh responded as her body began to change from human to snake. Arms fused to the side, hair sank in to the skin, bones cracked and transformed and legs became a tail. A fourteen foot rattler with gold and black scales had replaced the young human woman. The old man shuddered. “Ah... a wonderful yet terrible sight to behold... let me fetch my things!”
