The Blazing Violet
Quality Purveyor of Plants and their Products
Located along Lake Road as it passes through the heart of Ambury Town, The Blazing Violet sells everything related to herbs, plants, their derivatives, and the tools needed to harvest and process them. Built into what is left of the refurbished foundations of an ancient watchtower, the building walls are constructed of large basalt blocks with more recently added marble accents and columns shaped like growing vines and leaves. Around the base of the building numerous stones with round holes where angled spikes were originally inserted to deter invaders still tell the story of the building's ancestry. The roof of is constructed of wooden beams and baked, red, clay roofing tiles surrounding a large, circular glass and wrought iron skylight.
Inside, The Blazing Violet displays its wares across three floors. The ground floor has a dizzying array of potions, tinctures, decoctions, essential oils, syrups, infusions, elixirs, creams and lotions, ointments and salves, and other plant-based items for sale. The upper floor holds both fresh and dried herbs, plants, and flowers, each divided up by use with signs above each display table stating the general usage category and the plant names on that table. Finally, in the basement, customers will find all kinds of tools for the professional Herbalist who needs to harvest, process, and store plants in the field. These include herbalist field kits, "portable" laboratory kits, and individual tools that can be purchased one at a time to supplement a professional's supply. In a corner of the basement level is a special area behind a thick, heavy curtain, where poisons are sold. The poisons are designed for hunting and pest control, and are strictly controlled to avoid nefarious uses.
The proprietor of the store, Violet Lapelis runs the shop with her husband, Steve and their pet fox, Swift. Violet handles harvesting and care for their live plants while Steve heads up the processing and derivatives work in the laboratory. With a sack attached to its back, Swift does deliveries around Ambury Town. Both Violet and Steve speak several languages; a plus when dealing with merchants from all over the continent who travel to Ambury to purchase rare and difficult to process plants and their derivatives.
Design
Ground Floor
Across from the entrance is a service table with various cutting and wrapping tools to allow the staff to custom package customers orders. In addition, next to the service table is a very large, white marble mortar and pestle. The pestle is about two feet long and is used within the 2 ft diameter pestle bowl. Adjacent to the service desk, just in front of a large window is a glass-sided display case with a mundane-looking plant inside. The plant has oblong leaves with green tops and black bottoms and little dark violet flowers. There is a plaque on the display case showing the name of the plant and a note that says - Not For Sale. Besides the service table are numerous displays of bottles, boxes that say they are filled with sachets, etc. All of these products are sold within containers of some sort.Upper Floor
Filled with plants and plant materials - dried, fresh, seeds, pods, leaves, etc. In the center of the space is an enormous, domed skylight with a mix of colored and clear glass portions that display leaves and branches, continuing the interior of a tree theme. There are a set of wide, metal spiral stairs that curve around the lower portions of the dome and allow access to a number of shelves and racks holding plants within pots and boxes.Basement
More industrial and bare bones looking that the rest of the store. A large variety of tools are on display including, for example, clippers and sickles, baskets, gloves, small tweezers, funnels, sieves, glass tubes for drop measures, censers, and bound paper notebooks for writing. In addition, in the NW corner of the basement, there is a section blocked off by a thick, heavy looking curtain. In front of this curtain is another service desk that looks to be the point of contact for this floor, as well as controlling access to the back area.Sensory & Appearance
Entering the ground floor, light fills the space through the thin, translucent marble accents that are visible from outside the building. The curving, plant shapes of these accents give the appearance of being within a living tree with glowing roots. In addition, there are several normal windows along the entrance wall and the back, allowing a view of the natural surroundings of the building. Customers are often greeted by a pounding sound, as one of the staff works the large mortal and pestle adjacent to the service counter to extract materials from seed pods, stems, or flowers. The characteristic rhythmic pounding is joined by strong odors of green, fresh herbs, undertones of spice and, in some parts of the store, a slight acrid, nostril stinging scent.
The basement is lit by equally spaced arcane lanterns and is relatively sterile compared to the ground floor. Pounding can still be heard from the upper floor, but the herbal scents are much diminished here as nearly all of the items sold on this floor appear to be for harvesting and processing of plants.
Parent Location
Characters in Location