The Alchemist?

... In the meantime, the stranger showed no signs of confusion. On the contrary, he placed his hands on his hips, standing there in the fur cloak with some gilded emblem on the clasp. The noble manners of this piece of work made it clear that a fight with two burly men hides no more danger to him than some public oratorical contest. Dockers, however, did not seem impressed. Broad-shouldered and Toothless flanked the pouting gentleman on both sides.
"Whoa!" the stranger raised abruptly his left hand. Meanwhile, his right hand was stroking the long scabbard, surprisingly presented to the audience as a decisive argument. "Do you donkeys even know who you are careless to mess with?" Not one Rothglenian of a couple of dozen assembled in anticipation of the upcoming show had even a rough answer to that question. "And what did I expect from an audience from the Backwoods?" lamented the stranger. "I am none other than count Parabalsamico, alchemist, demonologist, doctor, and, importantly, an outstanding swordsman! So you two ding-dongs..." he said to the dockers "...You'd better get lost!" The last ray of sunset highlighted, in a heroic way, the gilded emblem of Inverland's royal dynasty on the clasp of the count's cloak.
"Wait a minute," Broad-shouldered said, struck by the fact that his drunk eyes saw no sword sticking out of his scabbard.
"Thi-i-ief!" - Toothless, who had his doubts about the upcoming fight, suddenly found his purse gone. With the last coins he had been saving for liquor.
"Gua-a-a-ards!" - shouted someone from the assembled audience.
Twilight was embracing the city of Rothglen. The portly thief's heels were flashing in the dark, taking the most unpredictable routes. Behind him, skidding wildly in the corners, was Toothless who had lost any interest in count's existence. Fishermen were leaping from the pier, having suddenly remembered the need to collect crayfish at low tide. Broad-shouldered was lying on the harbor planks, surrounded by a patrol of city guards. As for count Parabalsamico, having carefully covered Master Physalis with his warm cloak, he was leading the old man to the Sea Serpent inn.
The inn was known throughout Samreinia as the only one in Rothglen where the food was good, where the wine didn't make your throat ache, and where there was a featherbed on the couches. In other words, it was a highly respectable place, and its rules even banned fights.
Master Physalis, touched by the care, kept trying to thank his savior heartily, but the count only nodded in response. It was only when Parabalsamico opened the heavy gate of the inn, and when he and the old man sat down together at the table in the inner yard, that the count broke the silence.
"Well, Master Physalis," said the count, staring at a handwritten notice on the front door of the inn. It said in the notice that until ten o'clock the Sea Serpent would only serve visitors outside. Which was a bit inconvenient for the count's impeccable plan for the evening. The theatrical gesture of care, as a result of which Parabalsamico had lost a warm cloak, put him in danger of getting cold. Yet he still had to pretend that the old man's health mattered at all to him.
Parabalsamico shivered. "Would you do me the honor of dining with me?" he asked the old man.
"Young man, you are being so kind to an old, nearly forgotten discoverer," Master Physalis said, "Tell me, how can I repay you for your kindness?"
"To begin with..." - the count rang the bell left on the Sea Serpent's table, alerting the inn's servants to the arrival of new guests, "To begin with, tell me of your travel across the Halimatian Sea."
"Young man," the old man huffed regretfully, "My stories have never done anyone any good. Frankly, from this knowledge, only misfortune came."
"That's because no one can think big like me!" - Parabalsamico thought to himself, but aloud he said: "Master Physalis, I have come a long way just to talk to you" ("And to get my hands on your map," thought the count, but of course, he did not voice that either) "You do not mean to say that everything we have experienced together today has been for nothing?"
"Since you insist. It all started with..."