KingMaker
Case cover

The Apothecary's Elixir

A man stole a life-saving elixir he could not afford to save his dying wife.

Chapter I: The Account

The Facts

1

The defendant's wife is dying from an extremely rare poison.

2

The accuser, Master Kaelen, created the only existing antidote.

3

Kaelen priced the cure at 1,000 gold crowns.

4

The actual cost to produce the cure is only 100 gold crowns.

5

The defendant, unable to pay, broke into the Guild and stole one dose.

6

He was caught with the stolen elixir before he could use it.

Your Majesty, this case arises from a personal tragedy. The defendant's wife, Lyra, was accidentally pricked by a thorn from a rare Silverwood tree. Its toxin is famously slow-acting but invariably fatal. As fate would have it, the only known antidote is the 'Veridian Elixir,' a complex formula secretly perfected by Master Kaelen. Kaelen set the price for this unique cure at one thousand gold crowns. It has since become public knowledge that the cost of the rare components and brewing process is one hundred crowns per dose. After his public pleas to buy the elixir for a lower price were flatly refused, Torvin broke into the guildhall and stole the single vial that could save his wife. The City Watch caught him fleeing.

Chapter II: The Arguments

Accuser:

Master Kaelen, Head of the Apothecary's Guild

Master Kaelen, Head of the Apothecary's Guild portrait

Your Majesty, this is an attack on the very pillars of civilization: property, order, and innovation. My Guild invested a fortune and years of dangerous research to create this cure. The price is not arbitrary; it reflects that risk and ensures we can fund the next discovery. If you allow this man to justify theft with desperation, then no one is safe. Every workshop, every granary, every home will be at the mercy of those who 'need' what is inside. You would be sanctioning anarchy. We demand the harshest penalty, to show that the rule of law protects us all.

Defendant:

Torvin, a stonemason

Torvin, a stonemason portrait

I stand before you as a husband, not a common thief. I begged. I offered every coin I owned and a lifetime of servitude. A price was put on my wife's head—not a price of necessity, Your Majesty, but one of pure greed. Tell me, what is the purpose of law if it protects a guild's obscene profits more than a person's life? I broke Master Kaelen's lock, yes. But he was hoarding a miracle while my wife faded away. I broke a law of man to honor the higher law of life. I would do it again. My only regret is that I was caught before I could save her.

Chapter III: Your Deliberation

Do you uphold the rule of law protecting property, or rule that the moral imperative to save a life can transcend it?

0 deliberating
146 judged