a Demonathon Adventure
Potions & Cures Cabinet
As you wander into the "Potions & Cures Cabinet", you are overwhelmed by a strong smell of alcohol and talcum powder. There's some other sickly sweet scents there as well, but none of it makes sense to your nose. There's chocolate and candy apple, and penny bubble gum, and elderflower, and rosewater. And under all that, you swear there's something that smells like cat urine. This is NOT where you want to be!
Your demon taps your nose and suddenly you cannot smell a thing. You thank your demon and they smile at you before doing the same thing to their own nose.
This cabinet is (despite the offensive odor) delightfully colorful and charming. There are ribbons and bunting everywhere, and the walls are lined with bottles and jars of every shape, size, and color imaginable. You hear old calliope music playing in the hall, giving it a circus-y atmosphere. There is fizzy water in the corner with glasses, along with a girl that looks exactly like the advertisement for Coca-Cola. She seems to be handing out little glasses of soda, smiling and chatting up anyone who stops by. You decide to stop by. Whether it's bubbly water or coke, you think it might be nice to drink something right about now.
"Hello!" she says, her accent definitely not of this century. The girl is almost too charming and welcoming. She seems fake somehow, but you find yourself dazzled by her personality. "Would you like a sample? It's simply the most REFRESHING drink in the world!"
You nod and take the glass out of her hand, not even sure what it is that you agreed to drink. She's very pretty and she looks so eager for you to try it. Where have you heard that slogan before? You bring the cup to your lips. Did she say it to the last customer, or was it written somewhere--
Your demon puts their hand over the cup and stop you from drinking. You feel like you've just broken out of a spell. Your demon shakes their head and looks over at the girl. "It's the cocaine formula, isn't it?"
The girl curls her lip, ugly. "Well, yes," she says, but her voice is not the light, airy one of before. She sounds a bit like a pig if a pig could talk. "It was one of my more ingenious schemes, if I may say." The girl rolls her eyes and begins to shift.
You watch as the clothes fade and her face twists into something that resembles a boar with curling tusks. The boar demon leans against the table filled with drinks and smiles at you. "It's safe if you want to drink it, but maybe not more than a glass."
You put the drink down and politely decline.
"Welcome to my cabinet," the boar demon says, gesturing around the room. "I spent a century or two giving people all kinds of ideas for "remedies" for every kind of ailment and illness imaginable. I should have named this Babi Ngepet's Cabinet, but "Potions and Cures" sounded more inviting." He smirked. "And I got to play a sweet little girl for a moment. You almost fell for my trick!" He wheezes out a laugh. "Oh, I do love when the humans get that glossy look in their eye, like they have no idea what's happening!"
Your demon gives them a sharp look, but the boar demon waves it off. "So?" Babi Ngepet says, looking at you. "How do you like my cabinet so far?"
You say you haven't had a chance to look around, but you will.
"When you do, make sure you do a little reading," he says.
Prompt:
Read a book with magic potions
or future technology
You agree and then you and your demon wander around the room. Babi Ngepet transformed back into the girl from the advertisement and waves at some new people who have just come into the hall. You wonder if you should warn them, but you decide it's not really your business. Besides, everyone's demons seem to be protecting them anyway.
You walk around the room, taking a look at the ridiculous snake-oil cures and tinctures that have survived all these years. Some of the bottles still have liquid or pills or powder still inside, while others are empty and dusty, like they've been stored in a cupboard and forgotten for decades. You even come across chocolate-covered arsenic pills (for easy swallowing, according to the advertisement).
"Isn't it silly?" the woman says next to you. "Makes the pills sticky and sweet, and poisons you slowly."
You did think it must have been a short-lived product. Chocolate melts so easily, and it must have made the pills hard to get out of the bottle if that sat there too long.
She points to another bottle, and you see that her hands are scaled like a fish and there is webbing between her fingers. Her long, impeccably manicured nails look less like acrylics and more like claws now. "This one I helped sell," she said. "A hair growth solution with ancient herbs procured from the deepest parts of the Indian Ocean. I used to pretend to be a diver and sit in a water tank for most of the day." She smirked. "Of course, there wasn't a speck of anything from the ocean in it. But, to land-locked hacks who had never seen the ocean, it made no difference. They had seen a diver hold her breath for twenty minutes."
You wonder if that's the truth, but humans were rather gullible at times. You had almost drunk something without thinking not ten minutes ago! (spell not withstanding)
She reaches into her purse and hands you a card. "If you're ever in need of a little distraction," she says with a wink. "I've got a lovely voice that will make sure no one looks too closely at whatever you're trying to sell."
Helper Demon Siren:
Use a book that doesn't fit the prompt
