The light of the fire flashed off the twin crescent-shaped blades of Nora’s brand-new axe. The woman was enamored despite the late hour. She wasn’t even freaking out that Boopzy was still perched on her shoulder. She was however very carefully making sure the small Tentarat didn’t actually wrap a tentacle around the beautifully carved shaft of her prized weapon.

It would have been funny if I wasn’t still brokenhearted over my lack of gold. The axe wasn’t the only thing Red had for sale that I’d felt the need to purchase. So now here I was, sitting on the weathered stump of a long dead tree while the evergrowing gale stung my face with hundreds of pinpricks with only three hundred gold to my name.

Three hundred. It was pathetic.

I touched the three lines on my inner wrist and navigated through the screens until I reached my crafting menu. The new ingredients that had cost me more than my first car were sitting there in the list along with the tools I needed to manipulate them into something useful.

I had five new ingredients to try in my wakefulness potion along with the Rosemary Sprig and White Snakeroot I had tried before.

Wattle Seed(s)

20

Enhance Perception

Dandelion Root

15

Invigorate

Lemon Myrtle Leaves

20

Resist Stun

Kurrajong Seed(s)

20

Enhance Perception

Dried Coffee Bush Berries

15

Invigorate

Did you know they made traveling alchemist toolkits? Well, I didn’t until now. The cedar box with intricate brass fittings held a tiny black cauldron, a small glass alembic, a hardwood mortar and pestle, and the tiniest little knife. The blade wouldn’t help much in a fight but it was great for chopping herbs.

I closed out of my menu and laid each item out in front of me. I spent time crushing some of the dried berries into a powder and brewing some of the leaves in the cauldron over the fire.

“What are you doing?” Nora asked absentmindedly.

“Trying to save our friend. Maybe you remember him? I think his name is Jacob.”

“Yeah, that’s a tough one,” she murmured, yanking her axe away from Boopzy’s searching tentacles.

I rolled my eyes. If she wasn’t going to listen to my answer why did she bother asking? I continued with what I was doing, just hoping it wouldn’t blow up in my face again. I fingered my eyebrows. They still felt wrong.

Red let out a loud snore and rolled over, flinging his eight spindly legs in a wide arc before settling again. It felt weird seeing the giant spider monster sleeping beside our fire. I had expected him to leave the moment he’d gotten his money but here he was, crowding us all out of our own camp.

Collecting the ingredients I’d just finished messing with I entered my crafting menu and combined the Lemon Myrtle Tea with the Dried Coffee Bush Berry Powder and a Rosemary Sprig. I flinched before the pretty words I wanted but had not expected floated in front of my face.

New Item Received: Simple Potion of Wakefulness

Description: If you need a pick me up give this potion a whirl. It might not make you bounce off the walls but it’ll keep you up a good hour past your bedtime.

I beamed and took the flask out of my bum bag, turning the glass carafe filled with green liquid over in my hands. It was a step up from my last attempt even if it wasn’t top-notch quality.

I turned to Jacob and reached for the boy's unevenly stubbled jaw but paused. It didn’t feel right. I was missing something. I stood with a groan and walked away from the warmth of the fire.

Nora said loudly behind me, “If you’re going number two please go further away than the last time. I still haven’t forgiven you for that.”

“I’m not… I mean. Shut up. Why don’t you and your axe get a room already.”

Nora smiled and ran her thumb over the edge of the curved blade. “If I could, I would.”

“That’s a little messed up,” I murmured to myself as I continued toward the horse I knew was over here somewhere.

Sob’s blue flames seemed to switch off when he was sleeping making it almost impossible to spot him in the shadows of the night. It was a little inconvenient. I stuck my hands out in front of me. It didn’t help, I still walked into the idiot.

Sob nickered. His blue flames flared back into existence with enough force to throw me backward.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Calm down, it’s just me,” I said, drawing my hands up to protect my face. “I need your help.”

The stallion turned his ass toward me and snorted. I guess I should be grateful he didn’t unload on my boots.

“It’s not for me Sob. It’s for Jacob.”

The horse turned its long head to glare at me with one flaming eyeball. Some days it felt like we could almost be friends but the last few he’d been nothing but a rage-filled monster. I don’t know what I had done to piss him off but it must have been bad.

“I was just hoping you could help me with a little spell. Then maybe we’ll have a Gunslinger to help us get back to Stanthorpe.” If the horse had eyebrows it would have lifted one at me but instead, he just continued to glare. “Alright, so it won’t be so much ‘help’, but at least he’ll be able to walk and we won’t have to strap him over your back like a dead deer or something.”

That seemed to get Sob’s attention. He turned back to face me and tilted his head.

I took a breath, prepared for a wave of fiery equine judgment. I held up the flask of green potion and swirled it as I said, “Alright, so, I’ve got this potion. It’s supposed to wake him up but I don’t think it’s strong enough. Can your healing magic do something about the potency? Give it a bit of a boost, you know what I mean?”

The horse stepped forward and nosed the flask, blinding me with a blast of neon blue magical light. I could feel the heat of the bolt through my gloves.

When the white spots cleared Sob was facing the other way again. His flames were starting to wane as he drifted back to sleep. I held up the flask and almost dropped it when I saw the bubbling blue liquid. Whatever he had done it had changed the potion entirely.

I used my Identify skill on it rather than locating it in my inventory.

Prince’s Kiss Potion

Description: A wakefulness draught embued with magic from a talented healer. This potion is strong enough to wake the almost-dead. Each player may accept one kiss from the prince before it turns toxic. Permission is key to the potion's success.

I’m not gonna lie, that was a strange one. Shaking my head I walked away with a quick thank you shouted over my shoulder to Sob. I walked back to the fire and knelt down beside Jacob.

“Nora, come here just in case something happens.”

Nora took an extended moment to come out of her love trance and join me on my side of the fire. Boopzy saw me and stretched up, giving me a happy squeak and a two-tentacle wave. I reached out and scratched his tiny rat head before turning back to Jacob.

“Alright, hold him down while I get him to swallow this,” I said.

I popped out the stopper and forced Jacob’s mouth open. For the second time right before I filled his mouth with an experimental potion, I paused.

Permission is key.

I closed my eyes, preparing myself for the cruel teasing Nora would no doubt throw my way. “ Jacob, if you’re okay with me feeding this potion to you, lay there and say nothing.”

Jacob didn’t move an inch and the only sound that escaped his lips was the quiet whisper of his steady breathing.

“Alright, that sounds like permission to me,” I said.

“Do I even want to know what the hell you’re doing?” Nora asked.

“No, you really don’t.”

I tipped the neon blue liquid into his mouth and stroked his throat until he unconsciously swallowed to keep himself from drowning. The boy started to thrash, forcing Nora to hold him down. Blue light followed the path of the boy's veins, crisscrossing under his skin in an ever growing web that extended from his mouth all the way to his booted feet. It was over almost as soon as it started. He lay there as he had before, still in the deepest of slumbers as the blue light that had filled him faded away.

I sighed and shifted back until my ass was balanced on my heels. “I guess that didn’t work either.”

Nora scrubbed her hand over her face. “I wish I knew what she actually did to him. Then maybe I could help you a little bit more.”

“I really thought that would work. I mean, what wakes up sleeping beauty faster than a prince’s kiss?”

“You think Jacob’s beautiful?”

I glared at the woman. “There is no talking to you, I swear.”

Jacob screwed up his face and mumbled something under his breath. I sucked in a quick breath and leaned over him, waiting for his eyes to spring open.

“Come on, Buddy. Wake up.”

“Don’t kill me!” Jacob screamed sitting bolt upright so fast his forehead slammed directly into my face.

I flung backward, hot blood soaking the bottom half of my face. Waves of agony rushed from my swollen and horribly bent nose. The bleeding icon flashed up beside my slightly lowered health bar. Nora’s wavering face appeared above me with the twinkly-eyed Boopzy gripping tightly to her throat.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“No.”

“What… What’s happening?” Jacob cried, throwing himself around as he tried to orientate himself. “Where am I? Where’s Miranda? Joe, you’re alive?”

Nora yanked me up to a sitting position and handed me a scrap of fabric to press to my dripping nose. “Hey, Jacob. Long time no see.”

Nora crawled away from me and wrapped Jacob in a tight hug. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Jacob hugged her back just as firmly and asked, “How long was I out?”

“Forever. I’m just glad you’re alive. You have Joe to thank, he brought you back,” Nora said.

Jacob frowned and looked at me, half his face lit by the fire and the other cast in shadow. “Did you really?”

“It wasn’t just me, Sob helped,” I said, trying not to be insulted by the pure disbelief dripping from the boy's words.

Red snored and rolled over again, one of his legs almost dropping into the flames. I hopped up and ran over, pushing the oddly thin limb further away from the burning coals. The acrid smell of burning hair filled my nose, telling me I had not moved fast enough.

“How are you not waking up to this,” I grumbled at the sleeping traveling trader.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Jacob muttered. “How did we get here?”

I let Nora tell the boy the story while I fingered my bruised and swollen nose by the fire. I didn’t need to have that part of my life summed up and rehashed back at me. Stella huffed in her sleep and leaned her bulk against my legs. Once upon a time that had been a comforting pressure, but now, with her being practically as big as Sob, it was kind of painful. I considered going over to the temperamental stallion for a blast of blue light but I was just as likely to catch a hoof to the gut as I was to get healed. I didn’t like those odds.

The quiet drone of Nora speaking and the howl of the growing wind was interrupted by a noise I’d not heard before. I frowned, straightening my back and tilting my head to listen harder. It was a slow but steady thud. One that was growing louder with each iteration.

“Shh,” I snapped at the others as I slowly lifted to my feet staring out into the darkness in the opposite direction of the ravine we still had no idea how to cross.

Nora snatched up her axe and leaped to her feet, racing around the fire to stand beside me.

“What is it?” she whispered.

A pulsating red aura appeared at the edges of my vision, far off into the darkness of the night. I swallowed and pulled my sword. Sob’s flames lit again, raging in fiery waves as he wickered and charged over to us. Stella stood from her sprawl by the fire where she had been warming her belly and marched over to stand in front of me with her hackles raised and her teeth bared in a vicious growl.

“Something is coming,” I said.