warning: I have never tried the drug and the descriptions here are based on experiences written down by writers who did it at the time (so it was the same substance) and the works I was expected to read for my literature assignment in high school (Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire).
Pema and Dorje knew about natural remedies, about teas they would be given when ill, when in fever, when coughing, when having digestive issues, when in pain, each ailment had its remedy, apparently, or so their experience told them, but people still died, so not all, obviously.
Dorje had seen people under influence of alcohol and drugs before. On the high plains, where he grew up, he saw people purchase some green leaves, chew them and then become senseless, their eyes glassy and lost, or they would simply fall asleep.
The problem was that, his parents were not using it and did not know much about it save it was bad, and as a child, he hardly knew the difference it made, the person was crazy, obsessed and violent before taking it and again crazy obsessed and violent after, except if they fell asleep.
Pema had seen people smoking the drug before. Her mother always started to walk faster when she saw other people taking the drug. She was sure her uncle indulged himself from time to time, but they spent so little time together she wasn't sure.
"That can't be really magical." Longg warned. The kwami did not know much about the remedies and the teas that humans prepared to heal their wounds or feel better, they would often refer to such items as magical and the ancient being did not approve for the use of the word outside his realm.
"Yes, you come from a jewel that can't be spent, but you still require food to be fed." Pema teased her kwami. She was rather familiar with the concept that the miraculous jewels they wielded contained the real magic while everything else was just a human construction.
"That smoke has no magic in it, while the lighting, the wind and the rain I create are truly magical." The tiny dragon protested. "It doesn't affect my powers and it is not made of the mystery and imagination."
"You can't say that it does not affect your powers until you tried it." Pema pouted. "We have seen what effects it had on other people." And she dreaded the possibility to have to try the substance herself, but she had to be brave, she was sent there to investigate and granted a miraculous.
"Those are just human beings, not kwami." Longg protested. "And I am sure that most of them do not even come from respectable families worthy of the true magic that is given by the power of miraculous."
"Indeed." Kaalki confirmed. "They are simple merchants, tradesmen, sailors and local working class, some of them do jobs that are not even worth mentioning by a noble horse so I will not utter them here."
"There is nothing wrong in working for a living." Dorje protested. He came from a family of nomads who raised cattle. Pema rolled her eyes, she hardly came from a family that these kwami would consider noble.
"The two of you have become worthy of wielding a miraculous through your search for knowledge and wisdom and the skill in controlling our powers." Kaalki reminded them.
"You have been through the training process." Longg added. "And the Guardian considered you worthy to wield us. That is how you became our masters."
They continued to walk around the harbour and observe what was going on, although it was late in the evening, the bars were busy and the streets and alleys were seldom empty. They watched as the trade went on all around them, but they never stepped up to participate.
"They are collecting a lot of silver coins in exchange for that magical powder." Dorje noted. "They sold leaves with similar effect on the markets up there on the high plains where I grew up." His father never advertised that as an experience worth trying.
"Well, few people in my village smoked something like that, but I was too young to understand what exactly was going on." Pema retorted and her eyes told him 'so were you'. The only thing she did know was that neither of her parents approved of the practise.
"We were sent here to explore this new magic and we should just do it." Dorje sighed. He was not looking forward to that but he understood that was their task, their mission. He straightened up to embolden himself as if he had just reached a decision.
"Perhaps we should just purchase some samples and take them back to the temple?" Pema inquired. She still had second thoughts, she fiddled with the choker and wondered if she was a coward if she wanted to refrain from this particular challenge.
"We do not have such a device to produce smoke from it in the temple." He stated with certainty of a person who explored each corner of the temple. Finally he had a fact that he could state with certainty in this world full of unanswered questions.
"We could purchase the device too?" She proposed with caution. That device certainly had a price and she was not sure they were given sufficient amount of coins to get that too. That was the most familiar activity she did in the outside world, to go shopping on the market with her mother.
"If this is some kind of evil magic, I don't want to bring it to the temple." Dorje replied decisively he wanted to be the protector of the temple, that was his gift, that was his calling and that what he wanted to be chosen for, if they let him wield a miraculous too, he was fine with that.
"You're right. That is a valid reason. Besides, the temple is enchanted and has magic of its own. The effect of this opium magic could be distorted there." She trained for the temple guardian and had a really bad feeling about this substance they faced.
"This was made by humans, you should not believe that it's magic." Kaalki warned.
"Perhaps it is not, but all the tea remedies are also man made." Dorje replied to his kwami.
"Besides, we were sent here to explore and report what it is." Pema noted.
"And we can't really claim that we know until we ask and try." He confirmed.
The discussion with their kwami continued while the two roamed the streets in search of a trustworthy merchant or someone who would care to explain them what that substance was and what were its effects.
Finally, they stumbled upon a young couple, she was perhaps only a few years older than them and the man was probably in the late twenties. She had light hair, powdered and put up with many decorations in her hair and a large dress. He had blonde hair, green eyes and an elegant suit.
"Oliver, is this all that I get for escaping my father for a night." The young woman teased.
"Therese, I'm getting you back and then I'm going to ask for your hand properly." Oliver replied gently.
"As if my father would give me to you, he wants to give me to his old friend Rufus." Therese huffed.
"Well, Rufus and your father are currently busy smoking the goods they brought to sell to these fine people here." The man was obviously talking with sarcasm.
"Yeah, making a deal, trying to decide how much my hand is worth." Therese huffed.
"I don't think that the trade involves only your hand." Oliver leaned in for a kiss.
"Don't remind me, it makes me sick to my stomach, I would rather … I will jump off the ship." She replied decisively.
"You are not going back, Monsieur Rufus is the outpost of the East India company here." He retorted.
"So even that escape was taken away from me." Therese whined. "Why aren't you a rich merchant with connections and no conscience."
"I intend to become one." Oliver hinted with a vicious smirk.
"And use me and my father for that!" She smacked his arm playfully. "What makes you different than Rufus, Monsieur Graham?"
"I am younger and better looking." He wiggled his eyebrows. "And you actually want to go to bed with me, Mademoiselle de Vanily."
"Your behaviour is unacceptable for a young lady like me." She retorted. "Anyway, we should go back inside."
"Eager to taste what your father is selling?" He teased.
"He wouldn't let me." She whined. "So let's do it!"
Pema and Dorje followed the fancy couple into a house. It was far more fancy than any house they ever stepped into. Pema paid the entrance fee and they got into a large room with fancy chairs, made of soft dark blue fabric and with lion shaped wooden legs.
The couple were offered to share a wide seat, meant for two and facing the other couple they saw outside. Both couples got their devices to smoke. The candles lit up the luxuriously furnished room and the atmosphere was relaxed.
"Oh, look, it's the monks, they want the stuff too." Therese snickered. "Would you like to try some magic potion that Europeans have brought to your fair land?" She teased. She did not expect to be understood by the couple sitting on the other sofa.
"Can you tell us more about what this is?" Pema asked timidly. She and Dorje nudged each other with their elbows and communicated with their eyes and decided to wait a little and ask a few questions to perhaps learn something before trying the substance.
Therese was talkative, her father was a merchant whose job was to purchase opium in Bengal where it was grown and sell it to China in exchange for silk, porcelain and tea. Oliver joined in and explained how the stuff was also used for a remedy so it had to be good.
Tentatively, Dorje and Pema took in some of the stuff, and as far as they were aware, they felt no effects whatsoever, lulled in the false sense of security, an idea that they might even be resistant to any magic it offered, they continued to use the device..
The couple on the other side seemed relaxed and encouraged the conversation to continue. The two monks started to talk about the temple they came from and their mission to explore the magic brought by the opium. Well, it was Pema who talked and translated for Dorje.
Oliver saw a trading opportunity and encouraged them to talk more. They explained how they got married and got a matching pair of rings that established a special connection between them, they both giggled at that because they had much more powerful jewels with them but never mentioned.
Pema and Dorje were under influence, they started to talk about magic and kwami, but so incoherently that neither Therese nor Oliver took them seriously. The four of them babbled and laughed and even if a kwami did appear in plain sight, they would have taken it as an illusion from the drug.
Pema started to negotiate a purchase of the smoking device and a stash of opium to take to the temple and Oliver was pleased to oblige, as much as any trade could be done in the state they were in.
The two monks fell asleep on the chaise, huddled together in an almost comatose sleep. They woke up hours later, their silver coins, their rings, her choker and his glasses were gone.
"Oh no." Pema was the first to notice that his glasses were missing. "How are we to get back to the temple?"
"It had to be them, they took it from us." Dorje noted tiredly, he was recovering from the influence.
Pema stared at the note on a parcel and the smoking device.
"Have I traded it for this?" She felt her stomach sink. "I would never have traded a miraculous for this. Not even our rings." She noted while she observed her hand.
They discussed what to do next. Pema sneaked around until she found a small and currently abandoned kitchen and made some tea for the two of them to recover. They hid in the kitchen and drank the tea and tried to make a plan.
"They must be regulars here or live nearby." Pema noted while she peeked through a narrow window. "She wanted to return in here after they spoke outside."
"You propose to wait for them here, hidden somewhere?" Dorje asked in return. He was looking for a hiding spot inside the house that would accommodate his already tall body.
"We could scout around, but I don't know if we would be able to come back." Pema noted.
The two monks walked carefully around the house, it was a small hotel and apparently most of the inhabitants were still unconscious. They have found several possible exits where they could easily sneak back inside, through the windows they left unlatched and a back door before they left.
They wandered the streets and watched the city wake up from the busy night. There were merchants, there were ladies in elegant dresses and there were plenty of other people going about their businesses. A church was ringing in the distance and the two monks followed the sound.
Their curiosity brought them straight to the steps of the small church to see a ceremony. The couple they met last night was standing in front of the altar. The two monks hid on the side and waited for them to come out.
"Tell me that this is better than jumping from a ship into the ocean, Madame Graham de Vanily." The man teased while the couple was getting out from the church.
"It definitely does and I'm glad that silver you got was sufficient to bribe the priest to marry us, Monsieur Graham de Vanily." She replied with a laugh.
"Well, it was a fair trade, I left them enough stuff for those coins. And the rings. We needed wedding rings, didn't we?" He grinned.
"Yeah, but why have you taken his glasses?" She inquired. "I mean I really liked the choker, but I swear I saw a mouse floating around when I took it."
"That was that magnificent stuff we bring into this country. I also saw some creatures floating around during the night." He cackled. "The glasses are expensive, we will need the money."
"But why did you then take my surname?" She inquired.
"It is to please your father." Oliver sobered up a little. "I still hope to have a job to be able to support us."
"Oh, yes, you'd need that." She replied coldly.
"Because, you Madame, are not supposed to do any work." He grabbed her on his arms and swung her around.
"What are we going to do now?" She asked quietly.
"We are going to consume our marriage so that your father can not annul it and give you to Rufus. Then we are going to beg his forgiveness and I am probably going to need another job." He smirked.
"Well, you do have a job with the East India company already, and with your father's connections … " She trailed off.
"Your father is far better off than mine and his power and connections reach further, especially here." He replied. "And with my older brothers, I do not have much to hope for."
"Count your blessings that you were not born a woman, then." She retorted. "Apparently the only thing us girly are good for is to seal fathers business deals."