Thankfully I knew for a fact that Impstool was sold by the alchemy shop down in the canal side area, Elgrim's Elixirs. It was run by an aging middle to late aged man and his wife. The man, Elgrim, was stern and didn't want me in the shop at all since the ingredients were dangerous and his wife was kind but equally not wanting me in the shop for the same reason. Still in my brief time there I had spotted the ingredient and it's price tag, 7 gold.-
About three gold more than bread at market, not much at all. Gold was referring to the standard currency literally everywhere. As it turned out this world had simply not bothered with the specific currencies by region like Earth and stuck to a standard sized literal golden coin universally. The design on the coin might vary but so long as it was gold and the right size it was all the same for buying or selling. Made things easy to understand at least. Actually getting that gold however would prove tricky for me. What three year old goes around trying to collect money after all?-
I got creative in the face of this troublesome issue. Occasionally the thieves in the market picking pockets or cutting purses got messy and got caught. When this happens all attention is focused on the thief running away and not on the coins that hit the ground sometimes in said thieves panic. I "accidentally" caused a few of these incidents by causing the targets of the theft to act outside the thieves plan. Typically by walking right up to a targeted person and asking them something like curious kids are known to.-
While attention was on the thieves I'd sneakily pocket two or three coins while leaving the rest. After two months of doing this and hiding my ill gotten gains under a stone next to the orphanage I scrimped up fifty gold, enough for the Impstool and to pay someone else to mix the stuff into a bottle of mead. See the old crone had a sweet tooth for the stuff and always had a bottle with her dinner. If I showed up with a bottle she'd definitely take it for herself and greedily guzzle it down. Probably getting some cruel satisfaction from literally stealing something belonging to a child knowing her.-
I carefully gathered the rest of the ingredients into a bundle and set out looking for Vex. It was a busy day at the market and I almost missed the blonde as she was leaving when I found her.
"You want something brat?" she asked with a deep set frown and narrowed eyes when I walked up to her.
"Need something done." I said childishly.
"Then go find someone else." she said with a scoff.
"Something bad." I added before she could walk away.
That got her to stop in place and look at me in a calculating way.
"What makes you think I can help you?" she asked pointedly.
"You do bad things. In the market. Take things not yours." I said childishly.
"Observant little brat I see. Fine what bad thing do you need help with?" she asked curiously.
I pushed the bundle forward "Mix with Impstool and put in a bottle of that sweet smelling stuff Grelod drinks. She can't know." I said mustering as much seriousness as I could.
The trouble Vex had not laughing made it apparent how well that went. Still she took the bundle and looked over it's contents which caused her repressed laughter to die as a seriousness overtook her features.
"You know what this stuff is?" she asked firmly.
"Books said it makes people sleep for good. Grelod should sleep for good." I said and she looked struck between horror and approval.
"You know something like this takes money right?" she eventually asked quietly.
I nodded eagerly as I retrieved the fifty gold I had saved up.
"This good?" I asked making my eyes as big and hopeful as I could, really laying it on thick.
She looked at the gold speechlessly for a moment before taking it along with the ingredients.
"I'll see what I can do." she said as she hurriedly left the area as though a fire was chasing her.
As I learned two days later I kinda created a misunderstanding with Vex during that whole conversation. See when I said to put the poison in a bottle of mead and for Grelod not to know I was expecting to get said poisoned bottle of mead. Instead apparently at some point Vex or one of her other guildmates swapped a normal bottle of mead for the poisoned one at the orphanage. -
As a result I was left staring in stunned shock as the crone convulsed foaming at the mouth with her skin turning purple after she took a long drink from her bottle. I expected to feel reviled, nauseous, something at effectively murdering someone but there was nothing but calm numbness. I tried to rationalize that it was because I hadn't physically harmed her but even I knew that was just denying reality. I simply felt nothing as I met those empty bulging eyes while the guards were called. The investigation was surprisingly thorough if rather quick.-
A caged Skeever, Chihuahua sized rodents with greasy grey fur, was brought in and fed both her food and a bit of her drink. The food was clean but when the poisoned mead was sent down the beasts throat it died within a minute in an identical manner to the crone. The remainder of the bottles content was sent ironically to Elgrim to figure out what poison it was. I had to hold back a twitch of outrage when the guard who did that came back and relayed what Elgrim said. Apparently the man called the recipe sloppy and amateur. He also said it was wasteful as any more common toxin would have sufficed rather than this concoction that was potent enough to down a mammoth.-
The part that made the guard captain sigh in annoyance was that the ingredients to the poison were so common there was no way to trace them back through purchases. The stuff literally grew in the city wildly! As for motive? The guards didn't even bother as Grelod's nature was WELL known. The amount of people who wished her dead but couldn't be bothered to do it themselves was NOT small. Once the trail went dead at that point the guards declared the matter at an end and Meralda was given the orphanage.-
It was almost funny how stunned the elf was at this sudden turn of events. One moment she was just an assistant at the orphanage and the next she was in charge of it. I knew she'd get over it in time but in the meanwhile the other children were straight up celebrating Grelod's death. I acted totally clueless and played along with the celebration as though I wasn't sure why we were even celebrating.