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The Twisted Cane

by MelWong

"Oh, I want the pink one, that rock sugar cane as thick as my thumb!"
- Daughter Sarai to her mother.

"Aye, I know the Twisted Cane's a draw, but y'hafta wonder how she gets her stock in the first place."
- Graceful Palm, sweetmeat-seller.

The Twisted Cane is a sweetshop situated smack in the middle on the west side of Crookneck's Row. Small and low, the shopfront's elaborate wrought iron gates and striped silk awning makes it stand out from all the rest of the unremarkable grocers and sauce-merchants on the row.

Every morning the shop opens exactly two hours after dawnlight to reveal a fresh cornucopia of delights. From flat trays of fudge to glass bottles of candied fruit, and wooden barrels filled with rock sugar canes the size of gentlemen's walking sticks, the assortment is always different from week to week. All of the candies are proudly touted as made to the most exacting standards, as the amply-built proprietess, Ginger Torch, likes to claim. Besides the well-made confectioneries, various varieties of sugar and spice are available for sale by the block, the pound, or the gallon.

The specialty of the Twisted Cane, however, are the sweetmeats known only as Dragon's Pearls. Due to their perishable nature and extremely high cost, those gold-flecked candies are only made to order. Rumor has it that in the days of the old Shogunate they were reserved for the concubines of Daimyos alone, and even now they are worth their weight in jade.

Torch appears to be a plump, pleasant woman with only profit and quality on her mind, and she counts the playwright Sangurio Destheme and the lovely Mejhal Ausengrim among the other luminaries on her regular customers' list. Her hands are always sticky from candymaking, and she always smells sickly-sweet.

Peculiarly enough, the shop closes two hours after sundown every day, on the hour, and as to whatever goes on within the shop itself after-hours, nobody can say.

Rumours

• Ghostly snatches of song have been heard coming out of the shop's storerooms in the evenings, prompting talk that Ginger Torch has somehow enslaved pygmies and pressed them into the sticky sweet work of candymaking.
• Disgruntled competitors have claimed that the candies from the Twisted Cane are laced with opium, and that is what actually keeps the customers coming back.

Secret

• Ginger Torch is actually a God-Blooded by-blow of Mellerkar, the Eastern Lesser God of the Kitchen. Her estranged celestial father would like her back in his service; however, his spirit servants cannot harm or make reports on anyone who has offered them something sticky and sweet during the five days of Calibration.

Comments

Pygmies? Music? Oompa-loompas??? -Okensha