The gnome sat in a full-blown sulk all the way back to Granny’s home. Cross-legged on the raft with his arms laced across his chest, he alternated between staring at the water and throwing dark angry looks at Joe. By the time they were closing in on the islands, Joe’s mood was just as grim. He headed for the islet with the red-leaved tree again. The second after he pushed the raft up onto solid ground, Joe heard the door of the house open. The beautiful witch stepped off her porch still wearing her bright yellow dress. She headed to the shore, flashing a dazzling smile in his direction. Joe tried to keep his eyes averted for two reasons. One, he did not want to immediately become ensnared by her charms again. Additionally, he really did not want to see any more of the shuffling arachnids moving across the walls of the ivy-covered house behind her.
The thought of those skittering shadowy shapes sent a shiver up his spine. Looking as he was at the water of the mere, he noticed his tremble was mirrored on the lake's surface. A large ripple in the water was heading toward where Granny would reach the waterline.
“Lady Growlbee! Look out!” Joe shouted, running to the edge of his island, pointing at the approaching eddies. Fearing the swirl was caused by the high-level snake, Joe took a large step back from the very edge of the water. Granny Growlbee had done the same. A moment later the great serpent drove through the channel of water that divided the two mounds. It did not surface, but in the clear shallow mere, it was easy to see. Irregular round blobs of dark scales were spaced along its spine, surrounded by others that were slate blue in color. It was both stunning and terrifying, this gigantic snake gliding through the water between the two small hills.
Joe looked up at Granny expecting to see an expression of alarm. Instead, she looked intrigued, with her red hair wafting on a breeze that only touched her. When the giant beast had passed, the witch walked across the surface of the water. As she reached him, the enchanting young woman took Joe’s hand to step up on the grassy shore. Joe didn't even remember stepping up to the edge of the lake but somehow leading her to the table seemed completely natural. As she sat in the chair he had pulled out for her, Granny Growlbee pointed towards the smoke on the horizon and remarked, “I assume that is your doing.”
“He did it,” spat Kaid with a sharp nod of his head in Joe’s direction. The gnome had seated himself, still maintaining his formidable bastion of pouting.
The witch artfully raised a pale blonde eyebrow and looked toward the young man moving to his own seat. “There was some sort of mind-control plant monster, a Beguilburr,” Joe supplied. “It had control of Kaid and almost had me too. The only thing I could think of was setting it on fire. I am so sorry it got out of control.”
“And where does the serpent fit into the picture? You clearly knew about it before it presented itself.”
“I was running from the wildfire with Kaid when I saw it. Scared the hell out of me. If I hadn’t stopped to pray, I’m pretty sure I would never have seen it before it ate us.”
“Prayer?" she asked in a smug sounding voice, as if she knew a secret. “To whom, pray tell, did you pray to, Joe Morris?” the witch inquired, steepling her elegant fingers across her chest.
“Ghayle. The rain goddess.”
“As I thought. She is more than just the goddess of rains but that is no matter. I think I know what she is asking for.”
“Wait, what? She answered my prayer.”
“The gods rarely do that which we ask of them. They do often answer in ways that require one to use a bit of insight to unravel. Ghayle’s symbol is the great serpent. I’m quite certain the creature was her answer to your prayer and a request for me.”
A sheet of parchment was suddenly on the table, though Joe had not seen her place it there. In Granny’s hand was a long spine of bone that she was dipping into a bottle of ink that also had not been there a moment ago. Joe could not help but smile at her continued showmanship. She clearly liked to disquiet her guests while at the same time being the perfectly gracious hostess.
The witch drew a pair of perfect circles, one inside the other. With a few more strokes of her bone stylus, the rings became a serpent eating its own tail. ‘I know that one. An ouroboros,’ Joe thought as he watched her work. With deft flicks of her implement, Granny scratched runes around the body of the snake. The sigils on and around the circular serpent became increasingly more complex until most of the page began to fill with arcane glyphs.
As she worked her magic, a change swept over her. Her yellow sundress suddenly filled with misty shadows turning it black. Her features changed as well. She lost the blush of maidenly youth but she did not become a withered grandmother either. She looked to be a woman in her forties, with strong regal features and a single white lock that flowed from her temple down through her long ebon hair.
“That should do nicely,” she exclaimed rising to her feet, dabbing the ink from her fingers on a napkin. The witch walked to the far edge of the little isle and aimed her page at the broiling clouds of smoke and raging flames Joe had left behind. Madam Growlbee spoke a few words he did not understand, though he was pretty sure one of them was the goddess’s name.
The center of the ouroboros turned black, Out of that darkness flew a raven. The bird looked somewhat intangible as if it was not fully real. Another one followed the first. Then dozens. Soon a stream of spectral birds poured from the page. Hundreds of them. Each bird dipped into the water of the mere before emerging again. When they rose back up, they appeared to be considerably larger than they had been on entering the lake. The crows were dripping as they flew away, as if each one had filled themselves full of lake water.
The massive flock winged its way over the Mere and rose up to meet the huge column of smoke. One by one the ravens vanished into the black cloud. A flash of blue energy marked each disappearance. As more and more of the rooks funneled into the smoke, the cloud began to change shape. Instead of being a rising column, it rounded itself until it resembled a growing black raincloud. Soon it became just that. The smoke was suddenly a storm that was rising into the sky, pouring torrents of rain onto the raging fire.
As the thunderhead doused the burning prairie, Granny returned to the table and invited Joe to sit back down. Kaid was still parked in his chair, stewing in his ire.
“Now let us get back to the Beguilburr. I take it it was a sapling?”
“Nope. I don't think so,” Joe replied. He thought back through the notifications he had seen, at the same time watching his disaster begin to diminish under the downpour. “It said Mesmeric Beguilburr.”
“Oh my! That is quite an accomplishment. While Beguilburrs are not particularly high-level monsters, they are considered to be mini-bosses. You must have gotten something very good for defeating it.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Joe winced and barely resisted the urge to facepalm himself. “With all the fire and Kaid being unconscious, I completely forgot to loot it.”
“Are you kidding me!” Kaid shouted. “You lost my best weapons and you didn’t even loot the monster, you are THE worst adventurer EH-VER!”
“Listen you little …”
“Boys. Boys. Clearly tempers are running high, but I must ask you to remain civil. I may be able to help you out. And this I will do for a nominal fee, as removing a neighboring Beguilburr is a great favor to me.” She opened her hand palm up and instantly there was another one of the ghostly crows standing there. “If you would be so kind as to add me to your party, I will see what I can do about recovering anything from the fire that has not been fully consumed.”
Kaid’s continual scowl indicated that he was leaving it to Joe. The action was almost effortless. Joe found he did not even need to open the [Party] screen, he just needed to think of his desire for the witch to join their group and it became so. Granny whispered to the slightly translucent raven on her hand and it launched itself toward the distant smoke and storm. “Now that that is done, let us finish our first deal,” she voiced, dusting her hands against each other.
Joe pulled out the packet of SaddleLeaf he had wrapped in one of his burlap sacks. He opened the scratchy cloth and laid the fat green leaves on the white wicker tabletop. “I hope these are enough.”
“It looks like you grabbed a few extras. Excellent. Would you like to keep the surplus? SaddleLeaf is wonderfully useful stuff.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I’ll hang onto a leaf or two to see if I can use it for something. You can have the rest.”
“Very well, now let us get you that spell. I have two that should work.”
She opened a dark red tome that Joe knew had not been there a second ago. He was also aware that between one moment and the next she had slipped back into her maidenly guise. Her rich brown hair tousled in her personal breeze. Joe was amused that the color of her long tresses kept changing but the yellow sundress remained constant. To flip through pages, she gently dapped her finger against the tip of her tongue. Arriving at a page with a list of spell names, the young witch looked up and Joe had to avert his gaze before he fell into her deep violet eyes.
Joe gazed at Kaid, but the gnome just rolled his eyes at Joe’s dismay. The grouchy little man wriggled deeper into his chair, both arms and legs tightly crossed. With a “humph” he left Joe to deal with the enchantress on his own.
“You are not making this easy to concentrate, madam,” Joe croaked.
“Oh, very well. While you are terribly fun to play with, it is only fair I allow you to make a clear-headed choice.” an amused voice offered from across the table. “You may look once more. I have toned down my glamor for you.”
Joe raised his eye and looked up at the witch. While the young woman was still very beautiful, she did not captivate him quite so thoroughly. It was still easy to get lost in her features but Joe was no longer completely distracted every time he caught sight of her.
“As for your spell, the first option is [Summon Leeches]. The leeches are actually strong enough to be useful in combat against weaker opponents. They can inflict minor damage and impart a weakening debuff. They will follow your commands so you can also use them for scouting, though to figure out what they saw, you would need an ability that would allow you to speak with vermin. Of course, you can also use them for healing. Leeches excel at drawing out poisons and blood impurities. The only real drawback to the spell is that the poor dears often unnerve their patients. Such misunderstood creatures.”
“I think I like the idea of the other spell you mentioned better. [Dispel Rot]?”
“Very well. I did want to let you know of your choices. [Dispel Rot] is a very good skill, especially for a common one. Not only is it effective for treating numerous diseases, it can also be used to combat many forms of undead creatures. Just don’t try it on skeletons. It is useless against creatures without flesh.”
“That sounds perfect. Thank you. Is that how many witch skills work? They all seem to mix multiple uses into one skill.”
“That is quite right. Your traditional healer spells will do one thing but they will do it very well. Witch spells are not as powerfully focused but they often mix boons and banes together allowing you to use one spell in multiple ways.” She withdrew a page from the back of the tome. The ink on it was clearly dry but it looked like it had been written very recently. “This will function just like a crystal. Concentrate on it and it will transfer itself to your skills.”
Joe picked up the page she slid across the table to him. If it was a common skill, then he still had quite a few unassigned attribute points he could spend. “Do you have any more spells you would be willing to sell? The general store did not have any more skills that fit my class well. It sounds like your spells could be fairly compatible.”
“Well, I do have a copy of [Summon Leeches] here,” she exclaimed, pulling a second parchment from where it had been held in the back of her red tome.
“Umm, no thanks. I think I am also one of those who do not give leeches their fair consideration. To be honest, they freak me out. Anything else?”
“How about something he can use to fight with,” a grumpy voice interjected. “If he had even a tiny bit of offense maybe he would not need to resort to starting forest fires.”
“Hmm. Hurtful cures are our specialty, but I am not sure how many of them would be suitable for our healer here. That is the challenge.”
“It does not have to have any healing. Give him some nasty curse, Gran. He needs something he can fight with.”
Giving Joe a long, considering look, she replied to Kaid. “Curses are most effective when the caster can conjure the correct degree of malice to make them stick. I don't think this young man would be very good at reaching that mindset. He will need something he can accept if he is ever going to be able to master it. Hmmm.” she mused, running her long fingernail down the list. She flicked it several times, discounting one spell after another until her finger stopped toward the lower half of the page.
“That would work. I think I have just the thing. Give me a minute and I will write it into a scroll. In the meantime why don’t you two work out your differences.”
“What is there to work out? You and I are square now,” Kaid stated, glowering at the witch.
“Not with me. With him,” the witch replied, gesturing towards Joe. Turning back to a new sheet of parchment, Granny began to write, very obviously ignoring the two men beside her.
Joe and Kaid stared at each other for a few minutes. Clearly, Kaid was waiting for him to speak. Joe had no intention of going first. He had nothing to apologize for. He did feel sorry for the outcome, but he was not going to let Kaid drop this fiasco on his shoulders. The gnome, for all his vaulted skills, was still the one who had to be saved from the evil plant. And it was Joe who saved him.
He stood up and walked away from the table. Joe walked to the trunk of the crimson-canopied tree and leaned against it, watching the tall birds wade in the shallow lake. Their numbers did not seem diminished so it looked like the anaconda had not devoured many, if any. Picking up a red leaf from the ground, Joe began to tear it into small pieces. The small bit of destruction did not help his annoyance. Joe forced himself to take a deep breath and calmed his frustration.
He wanted to hold onto his angry determined resolve, but the more he thought about it the more he realized he just didn’t care enough to stick to a drawn line in the sand. With everything that had just changed for him; a new life, a new world, powers he never dreamed of, he just didn’t have it in him to hold on to this pointless little feud. Joe was almost free of the little guttersnipe.
Joe watched the clouds on the water for a bit longer. He knew he was just being stubborn, not wanting to take the kick to his pride in letting Kaid win. Telling himself he didn't really care that much who made the first gesture, it still took Joe quite a bit longer before he could turn back to the table.