If possible, Pag seemed to have hung even more obstacles from her ceiling since they’d last visited, as if she delighted in turning her home into an unnavigable maze for anyone over four feet tall. But at least she could count herself well-fortified against a roving troupe of glass-hat wearing burglars, if such a band existed anywhere in the worlds.
Root ducked under a net canopy laden with potatoes and more than a couple strange-looking rocks tossed in amongst them. Not finding anywhere appropriate and obstacle-free enough to stand that wouldn’t put her face inside a cooking pot, she grabbed a wobbly wooden stool and sat down. The others found their own spots around the oversized black cauldron at the center of the room, bubbling away in iridescent pink restlessness.
“Which potion was it you all were after?” asked Pag in clipped, irritated words that each felt no bigger than she was.
“The quostress potion,” said Vit.
“Yes. Right. Eight mantles.”
Azriah handed them over.
“And you have all of the ingredients?”
“I hope so,” said Azriah. He rummaged around and brought them out one by one.
“Salacious sage. Good, yes,” said Pag as he handed it to her.
“It’s still looking at me like that,” remarked Azriah.
“Yes, yes. Dallywill-shembulgart cream?”
Azriah handed her the pouch. She took it gingerly.
“Potent stuff. Toe of trout?”
“Now, I have to say,” said Azriah as Vit brought out a wrapped bundle, “this seemed a little unconventional, so I hope we got the right thing.”
Pag took the wad and unwrapped it to reveal the wrinkled little toe. She sniffed it. “Smells right to me.”
“Okay. Uh, good.”
“And the smock as damp as tears?”
“Right here.” Azriah took out the smock, folded nicely, and gave it to Pag. She laid all of the ingredients on the table next to the cauldron and then set about prepping to begin, moving clutter of all sorts away from the cauldron, kicking a step stool closer to the edge of the enormous pot, and donning an apron. She wouldn’t be wearing the smock they’d gotten, then.
“So, do you have another cauldron?” asked Root. “Or is this one here done… cooking?”
“This? Oh, this won’t get in the way,” said Pag.
“Right, but don’t you need to start with a clean cauldron? This one looks pretty full.”
Pag wafted the steam rising from the boiling surface towards her nose. She dipped a remarkably fresh and shiny looking ladle into the brew and sipped, smacking her lips loudly. “No, there’s nothing in here that will taint the recipe.”
“Oh.”
“Not a very temperamental science, then?” asked Vit.
“Potions are an incredibly temperamental science. Very volatile!”
“Volatile enough to play nice with each other, then,” muttered Root to Beel.
“Maybe it’s like making a soup,” he whispered back. “Throw whatever you’d like in, as long as it’s not peas.”
“Why not peas?”
“Peas ruin any soup.”
Pag circled the room lighting new candles. She snuffed out her lantern and drew the curtains across the dusty window, plunging the room into dim light of a pink hue emanating from the surface of the cauldron’s roiling contents. When she returned to the peak of her stool, the pink light illuminated her from below, casting deep shadows across her flat, splotchy face and turning her sickly green skin a shade of brown.
Root cleared her throat. “Can I ask what these ingredients do, exactly?”
“No!”
“Yeah, what magical properties do you get from a smock that has tears on it?” asked Vit.
“I said no!”
“Oh. Sorry. You said Root couldn’t ask.”
Pag stirred the cauldron and muttered something under her breath, possibly an incantation of some sort, although it sounded an awful lot like the words “idiot soup-brained baby creatures”—though that didn’t disqualify the former option; incantations took on all forms and flavors of offense.
“Salacious sage,” she said as she pinched the leaves and snapped them from the stem one by one to let them fall into the cauldron. Smoke plumed with each added leaf. The liquid turned from pink to cherry red, lighting the room as if suffocated amongst the dying embers of a mellowing house fire. Pag stirred the cauldron faster.
“How fast does salacious sage grow, actually?” asked Vit. “Because when we were looking for it, I swear I checked this one spot, then suddenly—”
“Hush! It’s magic!”
“Magic to grow fast, then?”
“Dallywill-shembulgart cream,” said Pag. She stuck a finger into the pouch and tasted the beige cream. She shuddered. Then she dropped the full supply into the potion, pouch and all. Another puff of smoke billowed and the liquid took on a rusty hue.
“Absolutely no regard for food contamination codes,” whispered Beel. “That’s a physical contaminant if I’ve ever seen one. Someone’s going to get a surprise when they choke on that pouch.”
“It’ll be Betrum, so I’m not too worried about it,” said Root.
“Now… toe of trout!” Pag scooped up the severed toe and dropped it into the pot from as high as she could reach—which was only about a foot and a half over the surface of the liquid. Root couldn’t help but notice that Pag touched the thing without gloves, and then went on about touching plenty of other things without a second thought.
“You want to talk about contaminants?” whispered Root.
“You’re right. It had hair. Now there’s hair in there.”
“Your biggest concern is the hair?”
“Finding a hair in your food is disgusting!”
“Yeah, but the hair is attached to a toe!”
“Ugh, you’re right. And the toe is attached to more hairs.”
“Whatever.”
The toe had changed the potion to a creamier rusty shade of red, like tomato soup. Root wasn’t sure she’d ever eat tomato soup again.
“And finally, the smock as damp as tears.” Pag lifted the garment and let it unfold as she held it over the cauldron.
“So it really goes in the potion, huh?” said Root. “Why does a bit of clothing go in a potion?”
“It’s magic!”
“Do you have to cut it up or something?” asked Root. Pag dropped the smock into the cauldron. A cloud wheezed upwards, and the potion shimmered with a glittery spiral like tiny diamonds floating on the surface. “Ah, nope, you add the whole thing just like that, then. Cool.”
Vit leaned over to peer inside the cauldron. “So how does the potion, uh, know that the smock was cried on?”
“Magic!”
“Of course, silly me.”
“Salinity, maybe?” proposed Azriah. Vit and Pag both looked at him funny.
“Magic!” Pag stirred the pot with her ladle and stared into the liquid with heavy scrutiny.
“Do you have to, like, say stuff about it?” asked Root.
“Hm?”
“You know, like, do you have to chant spells? Kind of describe what’s happening in there and stuff?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, like… ‘Bubble. Bubble. Churning. Sloshing. Cauldron is bubbling. Spilling. Uh—’”
“That’s stupid.”
“Just seems like the sort of thing witches do,” said Root defensively, leaning back and crossing her arms.
Pag stirred furiously for several more minutes, until even Root’s annoyance had to take a back seat to acknowledge Pag’s impressive upper-body strength and stamina. All at once, she stopped and lifted her ladle.
“It’s done.”
From a rack behind her, Pag selected a tiny bottle no larger in width than Beel’s nose but twice as shapely. She ladled a thin stream of the viscous liquid into the bottle, then stopped it up tight and set it on the table. Azriah picked it up.
“So this is it, then? A quostress potion?”
“Of course, you dolt—what do you think all the mixing and puffs of smoke were about?”
“I just… yeah, okay.”
Vit looked into the cauldron again. “Wow, that really made a lot. If that’s a whole dose, there has to be… a hundred more in here. At least.”
“Yeah, what’s that about?” asked Root. “We put in all the leg work getting those ingredients, and now you get to sell the rest of this all bottled up for eight mantles apiece? You’ve got a fortune here!”
“No!” snapped Pag. “Do not push your judgements on things you don’t understand! I will be selling nothing more; the potion is bottled, it’s right there. That is all.”
“But what about all this, then?” asked Root, standing (carefully) and pointing into the cauldron.
“I dump it.”
“What?”
“I said I dump it! Losing your hearing? You humans and your deteriorating forms.”
“You’re going to waste this?” asked Azriah. “All of it?”
“What waste? The potion is finished!”
“So does the rest of it not, uh… do something?” asked Vit.
“No, it does.”
Azriah gestured vaguely. “So you’re wasting it.”
“No.”
“Just dumping it,” said Root.
“Yes.”
“Into bottles?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“I have a spot out back in the garden. It’s where I dump them all. Though the plant life is getting a bit too feisty over there, I may need to start a new spot. It makes for unpredictable fauna as well, but at least they shamble off instead of sticking around. Well, some of the plants do, too.”
“I don’t understand,” said Azriah. “If you’re making such small doses, why not brew the potions in something smaller? Then you won’t have to dump the rest.”
“It’s just how these things are done!” said Pag. “A witch has to mix potions in a cauldron. Obviously! And it must be very large and take her ages to move it out into the yard for dumping. And you only get one potion from every brew. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Clearly,” said Root.
“Well, it seems that’s all, then,” said Azriah, raising the potion and angling his body towards the door.
“Yes, if you’ve all gotten your fill of telling an old spirit how to do her job, you’re free to go.”
“I’m sorry,” said Vit. “We really meant no offense—”
Pag raised her ladle, angled threateningly towards the side of her cauldron.
“All right!” said Root hurriedly. “We’re going, we’re going.”
Potion in hand, they filed quickly out of Pag’s door and back into the woods.
From the desk of Sgt. Sogg of the Lallslatt village guard force: Records of Strange(r than average) Sightings and Unsightings in the Northleft-east Village Sector.
– Two hunters spotted a deer spirit in the woods. Their report reads: “I’m sure as a crow in a raincoat, it had andlers [sic] where its eyes should been, eyes where its andlers [sic] should been, it had its front legs and back legs swamped [sic] round, it did (it was ovious [sic]), and something… unspeakable… growing from it chin.” Hunters likely intoxicated.
– Resident says he found a vine of some kind growing on his property, described as brown with thorns each leaking a liquid substance of varied colors. Resident followed the vine through the outer bounds of the village by pulling it up out of the underbrush. He reports a consideration to return home for gloves but forewent the protective measure and received many pricks from the thorns, claiming to have sustained strange effects from each including: wooziness, skin becoming gaseous, a salty taste in mouth, stage fright, and bleeding. Vine was traced to the home of a spirit outside the village bounds before resident lost consciousness. No conclusion can be drawn on account of inconsistent lucidity.
– Another resident reports invisible bats in her home. Team dispatched—saw nothing, returned, complaint dismissed.
– Responding to a complaint by neighborhood HOA. A small colony of p*gs has taken up residence just within the northern village border. They seem to have an inclination for industry and during confrontation were insistent on building their homes from beams of steel despite alternatives (straw, sticks) offered by HOA. They claim they’ve invented something they call “welding.” Our team left because I think they were making fun of us 🙁
– Local farmer reports a larger than average carrot. General consensus considered it to be within the normal range. Farmer distraught—likely intoxicated.
– Taken into custody: some creature calling itself a “sea berry.” Talked fast. Seemed illiterate, but read aloud an ad in the paper for a used pair of gardening shears. Could (would?) not read any other sample presented to it before or after the ad. Asked repeatedly and with increased agitation how to buy gardening shears. Drug use?
– Local trapper reports a rabbit in “remarkably good health.” Claims to have skinned the animal three times. Also claims to have watched a large bird spirit catch the animal and eat its organs, then the rabbit walked away from the encounter unscathed. Assures us the rabbit is invincible.
– A resident reports finding [REDACTED] clinging to their [REDACTED] this morning. Dispatch team found the [REDACTED] to be [REDACTED] and only responsive to [REDACTED]. Took several minutes to coax it out of [REDACTED] with a lemon-flavored [REDACTED]. All units returned unharmed thanks to the quantity of civilian casualties. Resident has filed regular requests for disclosure of case details; seems erratic and emotional. Possible use of [REDACTED]?
– Responding to a domestic dispute. (Off-record note: not one of our guys so allowed to report.) Husband and wife having altercation in yard, deescalated. Wife claims husband is “lazy, lying baby”; repeatedly threatened to file for divorce over course of conversation. Husband reports that wife has asked him to remove a shrub from the yard, claims he removed it weeks ago but that the shrub mysteriously returned overnight. Says wife accused him of lying, demanded he remove it that day, husband did but says he was met with same result. Husband claims he has removed the shrub “at least six times” including measures such as dragging it far into woods, burning it, and cutting into small pieces, yet says shrub has “returned or regrown” each time. Showed us the shrub; looked like a shrub. Husband seemed distraught and was begging wife not to leave him.
– Really tall guy named Gurrt came to the village.
– Another resident reports that their house cat spirit keeps returning home incrementally larger and with more teeth, says this includes “teeth where teeth shouldn’t be.” Side effect of drug?