“Buurrrrrrr- eeeppppppp!” I watch the toad croak threateningly up at Tabitha.

“Huh, I thought you would grab a bigger one," Tabitha remakes at the angry toad in my hands.

“You told me to grab one of the smaller ones,” I remind her with a hint of frustration.

“Yeah, but I didn’t say grab the smallest one possible,” Tabitha tries to poke the toad in between its beady eyes. The toad doesn’t take kindly to Tabitha’s attempt and tries to bite her gauntleted finger, but she quickly pulls it back before it has a chance to catch her, much to the toad’s displeasure.

“There’s no need to torture it,” I pull the toad away from Tabitha. The poor thing was already struggling to free itself from my grasp. There was no need to add to its fears.

“It’s a toad,” Tabitha remarks with a stony expression, seeing me try to shield the amphibian from her.

“A toad who just had his heart broken,” I puff out my lower lip and make a sad face at Tabitha. In my past life, I knew what it was like for a man to give his all to attract a woman only to watch her choose another guy. “You’ll get your second chance,” I affectionately pet the back of the toad.

I don't know if the toad sensed that I wasn't hostile to it or if it just gave up on struggling at this point, but it calmed down hearing my reassuring voice. Of course, I wasn't going to loosen my grip or put my hands anywhere near its mouth, but at least now I could easily hold the ten-inch toad in only one of my hands.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but it won’t,” Tabitha interrupts my inner musings.

“What do you mean?” I ask, not liking where this is going.

"How did you think we would determine if it’s poisonous?” Tabitha asks me, drawing her dagger while looking at the toad in my hands.

“I don’t know,” I hug the toad closer to me. “I thought maybe you’d examine its skin, something non-invasive like that.”

“No,” Tabitha flatly tells me. “The best way to tell how poisonous it is, is to dissect it. Those lumps on either side of its head are most likely where it produces its brand of toxin. So I'll cut it open and extract the glands; we can use those for our tests.”

Tabitha reaches for the toad, and I can physically feel it start trembling in fear. “Hold on, can’t we do this another way?” I plead. The toads were no danger to us, and we were already considering stealing some of their eggs. Did we have to add mutilation on top of it?

Tabitha looks at me like she didn't understand why I was going to such lengths for a single toad. I’d hunted plenty of innocent magic beasts for food until this point, so why was this one any different?

I knew it was only a single toad, but what did its species have to do with anything? Needless killing was wrong, and though it would make our lives slightly easier to just filet the amphibian and move on, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“Please?” I try to give Tabitha the largest puppy dog look I can manage.

Tabitha considers my plea for a second before audibly sighing reluctantly. “Fine,” she relents. “I can’t stand here all day convincing you anyways.”

“I’m glad you know me so well," I quip. "So, how do we do this without hurting him?" I again hold up the toad so that Tabitha can get better access to him.

“Simple, I’ll simply ingest what I need,” Tabitha tells me in the blandest tone of voice possible, as my brain fails to comprehend what she is saying.

“You’re going to eat him!?” I yell in disbelief.

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Tabitha rolls her eyes and begins taking off her right glove. “Just hold him still,” she orders me.

The toad begins thrashing again as Tabitha reaches out toward him, but I let her place her hands on him this time. She agreed she wouldn't harm him, so even if I didn't know what she was going to do, I trusted her.

Like a snake, Tabitha's left-hand lashes out and grips the toad's head in a vice-like grip. My heart starts to break when the toad starts whimpering like an injured puppy, a sound I didn't know they could make. The poor thing was probably assuming it was about to die. I try to pat the toad on the back to reassure it everything will be alright, but nothing stops the whimpering.

While my heart is shattering to a thousand pieces, Tabitha doesn’t second guess her actions for a minute, and with her right hand, she starts pinching the sides of the toad's head like an overly affectionate grandparent.

“Is this necessary?” I frown as Tabitha tries to pop the lumps on the toad's heads like they were zits.

“He’s fine,” Tabitha remarks. “I need him to be afraid. The more scared he is, the more toxins he’ll release.”

“Is that really how it works?” I ask nervously.

Tabitha shrugs and continues her work. I’m about to suggest she take a break when I don’t see anything different with the toad, but just as quickly as she starts torturing the animal, she stops.

“That should be enough,” Tabitha holds up her hand for me to see. It wasn’t much, but there was a clear brown mucus covering her fingers, and then I realized what she was planning on doing. Tabitha did say she would ingest part of the toad, didn't she?

“You aren’t going to….?” I start to ask, but Tabitha does the unthinkable and starts licking her slimy digits.

I don't need to fake being sick this time because I gag for real. The toad and I watch in horrid silence as Tabitha licks her fingers clean.

“Why did you do that?!” I finally find my voice after she finishes.

Tabitha tries to play it cool, like what she did wasn't the most disgusting thing I've ever seen, but I can spot the crack in her normally stony face. Her eyes turn misty, and I can see her throat convulsing like she is trying her best to keep it down.

“It’s fine,” Tabitha lies through her teeth. “I have the Poison Resistance skill, and if it is truly too strong for me, I have a strong detoxifying potion in my emergency satchel.”

“There’s no way a bit of water was worth that.”

Now Tabitha scowls at me. “I wouldn’t have had to do it like this if someone would've let me dissect the toad like I wanted to. I could've used its glands on another small animal and seen how it reacted, but someone insisted otherwise."

“We can find other water sources,” I remind her, and Tabitha fixes me with a serious look.

“This isn’t about the water,” Tabitha starts to tell me but pauses and brings her ungloved hand up to her face and starts slowly flexing her fingers.

“You, ok,” I ask.

“Fine,” Tabitha answers slowly. “The toad’s toxins are kicking in. It seems to be a mix between a psychedelic and a paralyzing agent. My limbs feel heavy, and the colors of things are subtly shifting."

Did Tabitha just tell me she’s tripping balls on toad slime?

"Are you sure you're ok?" I felt the need to ask again to ensure she was ok.

Tabitha snorts and grins like what she’s experiencing is no big deal, but I can’t help but notice that she’s started leaning to the left a bit. “My Poison Resistance skill is already nullifying the symptoms. I'll be back to normal without any side effects in a minute."

Well, at least she’s coherent enough to see the worry on my face and reassure me that she’s ok. But I still need clarification on what she said earlier; if we weren't doing this for the water, why were we going to all this trouble to rob a couple of toads?

“Why put yourself through this?” I step next to Tabitha and place a hand on her shoulder to steady her, carefully keeping the toad as far away as possible.

Tabitha shakes her head, and I can see some of the fog clear from her eyes. “I thought it was obvious,” she drolls on. “As soon as I saw the toads, I knew what you needed.”

"I'm not following," I admit, earning another sigh from Tabitha.

"For a girl with such a variety of skills, I would think you would’ve figured it out by now. I want to collect the toad eggs because I think they'll help you earn the Poison Resistance skill. The eggs should contain a weaker version of what the toads have, which will be perfect for you. The effects will be minimal for someone at your level, and it’s even better because it’s a toxin meant to incapacitate, not outright kill.

I can watch over you like I do when you meditate. And before you say you don’t need it, every warrior worth their stuff has at least a few levels in Poison Resistance. I thought we’d run into a creature that used poison earlier, but we only saw those giant centipedes, and I couldn't chance them having too strong of a venom that you couldn't handle.”

“So, all this is for a skill?” Tabitha nods and straightens herself out. True to her word, it appears that the toxin had almost entirely run its course.

"One of the most important," Tabitha stresses. "Don't mistake Poison Resistance for its stronger variant, Poison Immunity. Getting the skill doesn't mean you can shrug off poison with no effects. You saw with me that I still experienced what the toxin was meant to do; Poison Resistance just reduced the effects and helped me purge it from my system faster than I would’ve otherwise. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you why that’s important.”

She didn't. Even if Poison Resistance didn't give me immunity to anything, having it would be vital against opponents like Reel or magic beasts that use poison.

Still, I wasn’t looking forward to how I was going to unlock the skill. I already have Mental Resistance, and I vividly remember the pain I had to endure to unlock it. Tabitha made it sound like obtaining the skill was relatively easy, but if I want to level it, I'll likely need to subject myself to more robust and potent toxins.

“Fuck,” I groan.

“It’s your choice,” Tabitha tells me.

I give her a look that says we both know that isn't true. Even if we left the forest at this very moment, I'd eventually come across someone or something that uses poisons. Whether that was now or a few months when I was in Scholl, it didn't matter; I needed to be prepared.

"Alright, let's get this over with quickly," I grumble.

“I’m happy you see it my way," Tabitha grins.

“Yeah, yeah,” I sigh. “I’m still not letting you kill the toads.

Tabitha’s smile falters for a split second before it returns as an evil smirk. “Fine, then you can distract the toads while I gather their eggs. After that, we'll see how well you stick to your own words.”

"Fine," I try to sound confident in front of Tabitha, but on the inside, I'm panicking. I’ve learned a lot about fighting magic beasts this last week, but enough to keep an army of toads away without killing any of them?

“Good, this should be fun.” Tabitha's remark feels like salt in my wounds, but you know what they say, no pain, no gain.

And I had a lot to gain at the end of the day.

Look out, toads, Aaliyah's coming back for round two! So please don't be too angry.