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Mactosius furrowed her brow in distaste at her own lack of tidiness. Her potion room was a mess! Used pots and pans lay strewn about the tables, and the ingredient jars on the shelves were completely disorganized. It was nearly impossible to find anything she needed. The darigan zafara sighed. Cleaning was not how she wanted to spend her afternoon. She turned her back on the mess and stood in the doorway, leafing through the large spellbook she had just bought. There were so many new spells she was just itching to try... but she had neither the space nor the supplies to carry any of them out. She peeked over her shoulder at the mess, wishing it would clean itself, though she knew it wouldn't. There was no spell that would make her room clean itself, and even if there was, it was too messy to find the ingredients to make it work. She made a disgusted face and slammed the book shut.

I guess I'll start with the shelves..." she mumbled to herself. Poking around at the jars and bottles, she noted that she was low on many of the ingredients she was going to need for a lot of the spells in her book. She spent time sorting the ones she had, cleaning out the containers of the ones she didn't, and putting them all back in order. Once that was done, she washed the pots, pans, and utensils that littered the many tables of her potion room, then washed the tables themselves. Satisfied with her work, she picked up her new book and turned to a random page. It was a spell with the ability to bring inanimate objects to life.

Sounds good," she said, skimming through the ingredients list. But it was just her luck... she was out of every ingredient listed. She put a finger to her temple and scowled. First cleaning, now shopping. What was a zafara to do? She read through the list again. Spindly mushrooms, white squid root, clawmatoe... wing of korbat? It was indeed an interesting potion... and there was still the question of what she was going to bring to life. But it wasn't the time to worry about that, now. She had shopping to do. Leaving her book open on the table, she fastened her cloak around her neck and trotted out the door into the cool night air.

To be continued...