Stripes

Stripes (or "Prążki" (pronounced [ˈprɔ̃ʂkʲi]), as it's called in Blotesian) is a noted confectionery located in the College District of Młarecz. Run by a cheerful woman named Wloskari Jaczak, Stripes sells candies and confits of many varieties, and at a wide price range, from cheap sweets to expensive delicacies prized the world over. While certainly a favorite of local citizens (who form the principal market for its more inexpensive fares), Stripes is also known all over Vlastach, and many of its most expensive candies are exported to distant domains.

Physical Description

The physical store is designed to almost look something like a confection itself. A rectihedron with softened corners and an overhanging roof, it's painted in broad bands of color to match its name. Different surfaces are painted with different colors; the front of the store is pale red and white, the roof white and pale green, the main entrance and the left side white and yellow, the right side white and blue. Several windows are spaced along the front of the shop, giving a good view of the treats within.

The decorative scheme continues inside the shop; not only the walls but also the narrow pillars that support the roof of its single surface-level room are painted in spiraling stripes of various light colors. The various candies are in bins and shelves scattered all over the area, while a single counter at the back of the room serves for sales... albeit a single counter broad enough for more than one worker. The inside of the store, however, is bigger than outside appearances suggest, not because of any multum in parvo effect but merely because it has an underground level. The layout of this level, accessible from a stairway on either side of the main floor, is similar to the ground floor, but it is here in this second level that the more expensive candies are sold.

Stripes has two further subterranean levels, one for storage and one below even that for manufacture, but these are closed to customers, and accessible only through a trapdoor behind the counter. The fanciful decoration scheme of the public levels does not extend here; these lowest levels are purely utilitarian. Stripes has no sleeping quarters; its owner and staff have their homes elsewhere, although Jaczak has been known to let employees in particular need sleep temporarily in the storeroom.

Surroundings

Stripes lies near the middle of the north side of Glass Street, in the upper college quarter. It's surrounded mostly by other shops, though none so distinguished. On the store's left is a bookstore called the Fading Dream, and past that a restaurant called the Friendly Fat Man (which perhaps sounds somewhat less awkward in the original Blotesian, as "Grzeczny Grubas"). On its right is the locksmithy of Łydko Dzdzebdyć, and then the shop of the Smrod Brothers, cartographers. Almost directly across the street is Salamander House, one of the dormitories of the University of Młarecz. The House's residents make up some of the shop's most regular consumers of its cheaper wares.

Wares

Stripes sells candies in almost endless variety; any type of candy commonly sold in Osrodica can be found there, along with some more uncommon varieties, plus an assortment of candy from all over the world, and some proprietary creations. Among the most popular of these latter are sugary candies called "whims" ("kaprysy" in Blotesian), hard but light, literally melting in the mouth of the eater. These whims come in many flavors, and their different varieties command a wide range of prices, from the cheap white whims that cost less than a tłaść (or an asenai) to exotic delicacies made with rare ingredients that can cost a thousand times that. Aside from the whims, some of the confections Stripes is best known for include its sundry candied fruit and its endless varieties of caramels and toffees.

Some of the candies manufactured at Stripes require exotic ingredients that are not generally available for sale, and must be gathered from the wild or brought back from strange locales. Jaczak often hires agents to obtain these ingredients for her, sending them out to the Caloski Swamp or to other distant or dangerous places, and pays well for the retrieval of good quantities of difficult-to-acquire ingredients. A few of the Stripes' priciest bonnes bouches require ingredients from other planes distant from Lothenmydhe; those who supply those ingredients to Jaczak can expect particularly generous pay.

Some of the candies sold at Stripes are more than just tasty treats. The shop's wares include various candies with magical powers. Some of Stripes' candies have healing properties; some give various temporary enhancements; some even impart knowledge to the consumer. A few of the candies even give the eater temporary powers, such as flight or invisibility. Naturally, these enchanted candies command a considerably higher price than its ordinary sweetmeats.

Staff

Stripes' owner, Wloskari Jaczak, likes to take a very active role in running the shop, and keeps on top of everything she's doing. However, one person can't do everything by herself. Jaczak employs a large staff, including nine salespeople (though generally only four will be working at any given time), six manufacturers, two marketers, and eight workers who track outside orders and take care of the shipping and billing to them. The longest-term employee aside from Jaczak herself is one of the manufacturers, a large man originally from Kajak named Garmon Tark.

Rumor has it that Jaczak is romantically involved with Szladek Gdorny of the Brown Circle, and that it is he that provides at least some of the enchantments for Stripes' magical candies.