I stared into the shadowy crack that split this side of the ravine from the other. Leaning further out over the drop off I shifted my boot, looking at the tiny silvery sliver that I assumed was a stream. Tiny tan rocks tumbled over the edge, clattering against the hard stone walls on their descent into the magnificent hollow. The old wooden bridge that crossed it was snapped clean in half. The splintery remains of the columns, steel cables, and planks lay in a tumbled nest far below.
Looking at the wreckage made my stomach turn. It hadn’t been that long since I had crossed it coming the other way. It had seemed so stable then. I hadn’t even considered that it might be damaged.
“Is there another way over it?” Nora asked behind me.
“I almost died,” I mumbled.
She punched my arm then grabbed me when I squealed like a pig and flailed my arms like windmills on the precipice.
“Sorry, but you’re being ridiculous. It’s not like you just crossed the thing. Stop being a bloody princess.”
“I don’t like heights.”
She looked at me with one brow dipped. “What are you talking about? You’ve scaled things higher than this before.”
“Yeah, but I was in control then. If I was in the middle of that thing when it dropped I’d be dead in the water. I mean, I’m only an honorary Daughter of Umbra; I get the crossbow but not the wings.”
“I still don’t understand all of that. Humans can’t just get wings,” Nora said.
“Sure they can, the same way we can wear leather armor for weeks without having to change our underpants. Do what I do; when it doesn’t make sense, blame it on magic.”
She closed her eyes and pursed her lips, clapping her hands together in front of her nose. “Okay, I have two questions. One, how the hell are leather armor and wings related in any way? And two, do you seriously not change your underpants?”
Frank leaned closer to my ear and for the first time in his life with me, he actually whispered. “Danger.”
I swallowed. The warning was unnecessary but still appreciated. I stepped away from her, eyeing the ravine. No matter which way I looked there was no other way to easily cross it. Climbing down and then back up again seemed ridiculous.
“Do we really need to get back to Phlegm’s,” I asked. “There have to be other places we can go.”
“None that will get us back to the Outsiders, though,” Nora said, taking my lead and pretending our previous conversation had never happened.
“I don’t think we need to get back to them. They’ve probably all been brutally murdered by the horde of monsters by now anyway.”
“What else are we supposed to do, Joe? It’s not like we know how to continue the main quest and I don’t know about you but I haven’t really collected any others aside from the Witch of Evermore. I suppose we could go and hunt for those monsters if that’s something you’d prefer?”
“Well, we have plenty of Vampire Bat Wings. All we need are the Gall Bladder of a King Toilet Croc and the Venom of the Nightstalker Rattler.” The thought of the giant snake in the old abandoned gold mine made me shudder. “I know where a Nightstalker Rattler is.
That’s not important though. We do know how to continue the main quest line. I know where Tony the Cable Snake Man is.”
Nora gasped, “You know where he is?”
“Well, sort of I guess. Theo told me he is at the Ettamogah Pub, near Table Top Mountain. It has to be true because the quest description is updated and everything.”
Nora picked up a sizable rock off the ground and tossed it into the ravine, staring after the clump as it fell. “I still can’t believe he could lie to us like that, and after everything we’ve been through.”
I grunted. Thinking about Theo just made me angry. There was no time for that right now. “Either way, I guess we did need to get back to Phelgm and Taki. It’s that or we’re hoofing it all the way back to the other side of the country.
Frank, why don’t you fly up there and see if there is another bridge or something we can use to get across.”
The raven spread his wings and leaped into the air, spiraling upward on warm drafts that carried him toward the clouds dotting the bright blue sky.
“This is boring,” Nora grumbled. “I wish there was something around to smash. At least then we could be leveling up a bit more.”
“There’s more to life than murdering monsters, Nora. Besides, it's not like you even have your axe right now.”
“You know I hate it when you’re right. Stop it, would you?”
My lips lifted in a smirk as I walked away back to Sob. The stallion’s ears flickered toward me but he didn’t bother to look up from the patch of long grass he was eating. His indifference worked for me. I untied the straps holding Jacob in place and gently eased him to the ground. I’d been hoping to wait until we made it back to the safety of Phlegm’s tavern to do this. It had been such a long time since the boy had been put into what was essentially a coma I was beginning to think that he would never wake up from it. With nothing to do but wait for Frank to come back to me, now seemed like a good enough time to try and wake him.
I’d gathered a lot of herbs and plants along the way but I was still missing the basic equipment that would have made crafting delicate potions a little bit easier. I wished there was a toolbelt for something like Alchemy where I could keep all the alembics, cucurbits, and lutes that I needed. Making something from raw goods with nothing more than a mortar and pestle made for some pretty weak and often volatile creations.
I fingered my eyebrows, grateful that they seemed to be growing back in nicely. I just hoped I wouldn’t singe them off all over again while I tried to do this.
“Sorry about this, mate,” I said as I roughly tugged a few hairs from Jacob’s head. I had absolutely no idea if they would help in the slightest but having something to bond the other ingredients to Jacob personally seemed like a good idea in theory. Or, as was so often the case, I was simply talking out of my ass again.
Nora had lost interest in what I was doing a long time ago and was now practicing hand-to-hand combat with Stella. The dog was loving the chance to play, her tail whirring at breakneck speed as she tried to reach the warrior woman and danced away before she herself was caught. It was like watching children play tag only much more brutal.
I took a few cautionary steps away from the others before I sat crosslegged on the hard ground and opened my crafting menu.
Ingredient
Quantity
Property 1
Property 2
Property 3
White Snakeroot
29
Resist Stun
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
?
?
Hemlock
32
Nacrotic Poisoning
?
?
Oleander
14
Restore Health
?
?
Aeger Fern
11
Lingering Sickness
?
?
Lavender Sprig
15
Drowsiness
?
?
Toxic Toad Terror Tongue
1
Nacrotic Poisoning
?
?
Wallaby Tail
7
Resist Elemental Damage
?
?
Huntsman Spider Eyes
8
Enhance Stealth
?
?
Crimson Dragonfly Wings
6
Weakness to Burning
?
?
Assassin Bug Saliva
4
Enhance Stealth
?
?
Sandpaper Fig Leaves
16
Nacrotic Poisoning
?
?
Strychnine Fruit
3
Paralysis
?
?
Rosemary Sprig
26
Invigorate
?
?
Sage
6
Enhance Intelligence
?
?
I quickly excluded anything with a poisoning effect from the potion I was going to craft, along with anything that would paralyze or cause drowsiness. That didn't leave me with all that much to work with but even just a few different ingredients could be combined in hundreds of different ways.
White Snakeroot
18
Resist Stun
Oleander
9
Restore Health
Assassin Bug Saliva
3
Enhance Stealth
Wallaby Tail
7
Resist Elemental Damage
Huntsman Spider Eyes
8
Enhance Stealth
Rosemary Sprig
26
Invigorate
Sage
6
Enhance Intelligence
Plenty of options for only three boxes to place ingredients into. My first choice was White Snakeroot, Rosemary Sprig, and Oleander. I took a steadying breath and focused on the craft button.
Searing heat smacked me in the face, taking my eyebrows clean off in one foul-smelling puff of flickering flame.
Potion failed
“Fuck berries and nipple sticks,” I swore, pounding the ground with a fist as I fingered the stubble just above my eyes. This time, even my eyelashes seemed to be mostly gone. “How the hell do ingredients with such good properties make explosions?”
“Everything alright over there?” Nora bellowed from where she stood.
“Fine. Everything is fine.”
I took out my notebook and wrote the combination on a page with a big, smudgy ‘x’ right next to it. I would not be trying the mix again if it was the last thing I did. I ran my fingers through the hair atop my head as I looked over my options again.
The property ‘Invigorate’ seemed like my best bet, I just needed to know what to mix it with. I guess he wasn’t exactly hurt so maybe Restore Health wasn’t necessary right now. Unsure what else to do I mixed a potion with two parts ‘Invigorate’ and one part ‘Resist Stun”.
The whoosh of a chemical reaction made me flinch away, throwing my hands up to protect my already burned face.
New Item Received: Inferior Potion of Wakefulness
Description: This has to be the weakest form of coffee ever created in the world. That includes decaf. Seriously, what even is the point?
I smiled and dug the little flask out of my bum bag, giving my beautiful new creation some love. Look at me, I was really an Alchemist!
Thank you 70% potion crafting success rate bonus.