“So, why and how’d you get the gallbladder and not anything else?” after cutting a small hole on the gallbladder and started dripping the foul and bitter smelling juice from the inside into a small bowl made of lava rock, Josephine Wong asked Jianmen: “You know, I’m not trying to cast doubt on your judgment, but I’m still curious.”

“There’s a saying, ‘Break your opponent’s gallbladder, and the threat they pose shall be no more’.” Jianmen smiled while continuing to grind the herbs inside of a rock bowl: “Hmm, that doesn’t translate well. It’s actually a Chinese saying, and the word ‘gallbladder’ also meant ‘guts’ and ‘courage’, and ‘morale’ ...”

“Yeah, but - was that just it?” Josephine Wong narrowed her eyes and sighed.

“It’s a common belief in many Asian countries and regions that the gallbladders of poisonous snakes possess great healing properties and can serve as some kind of general purpose antidote.” Professor Kapur said with a weak voice: “It’s even a traditional practice for some Chinese communities to feed their children snake gallbladders soaked in alcohol to give them a detox treatment.”

“Exactly, Professor.” Jianmen nodded at Professor Kapur: “And, uh, since the mother crab got completely fried by one of my awesome yet overly destructive weapon, it’s kinda hard to come up with a direct antidote from the toxin gland. So all we can do is use the next best option - it’s bitter as fuck, but at least we can have some spicy crab later.”

“Hehe, your new friend here is funny.” Professor Kapur chuckled while shaking her head: “But like I said, the neural toxin is pretty destructive, and it’s already been hours, so ... I doubt even the first best option is gonna be good enough.”

“Why are you talking like that in front of your student hee?” Jianmen rolled the crushed herbs into a few tiny balls and gently placed them into the bowl of gallbladder juice: “Have some hope and be a good example.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Professor Kapur smiled and shook her head: “It’s been a painful and really depressing couple of hours.”

“Okay. I am not a good chemist, but I think we’re good here.” Josephine Wong used a simple inspection spell on the gallbladder and the crushed herb balls: “I think the detoxifying properties are setting in. But I think we’re still gonna need something long term...”

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“The lizard brains would serve for now.” Jianmen gently placed his fingers on Professor Kapur’s ankle and frowned after : “But I hate to agree with you on this one Professor - the toxins had dissolved quite a bit of your nerves, sinews and muscles. We could stabilize your condition for now and counteract the toxin, but I think you might need a complete limb reconstruction, if you want to regain your ability to walk as soon as possible.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort.” Professor Kapur refused immediately without a hint of doubt.

“Okay, then open up.” Jianmen scooped up a crushed herb ball covered in snake gallbladder juice with a stone spoon: “If you can shut down your taste buds go ahead and do it.”

Professor Kapur opened her mouth and took in the crushed herb ball, and struggled to swallow it: “Oh my god, it actually burns ...”

“Take it in, slowly.” Jianmen still had his fingers on Professor Kapur’s ankle: “Concentrate and guide it.”

Professor Kapur coughed, then writhed in pain as the medicine started to take effect. But she placed a small twig in her mouth so that she could bite down on it without letting her screams out.

She was able to hold off the pain for a while, but eventually the pain got to her and made her pass out.

“We’ll need a place to crash.” Josephine Wong said: “This place is not safe.”

“I think the swamp’s a good option.” Jianmen looked to the direction from which they came and said: “This place had that crab mother, but now it has a power vacuum and it’s gonna get bloody and ugly soon.”

Josephine Wong sighed and said: “Okay, agreed.”

“Let’s wrap up and go.”

“Is it really that bad?” Josephine Wong asked as she drained the gallbladder and tried to seal it inside of a stone jar: “Professor’s legs, I mean.”

“It’s indeed a hell of a neural toxin, I suspect the mother crab uses it to not only disable the prey but also to soften them from inside in order to feed her spawn.” Jianmen sighed: “By normal measures it’s probably gonna take decades to slowly recover. I know of some ways that could heal it or expedite the process, but they all involve either tremendous cost or really bad side effects, or at least some incredible pain. I’ll maintain that limb reconstruction is probably the best option for her - sounds like you do have that kind of magic right?”

“Professor Kapur’s faith would not allow her to go through that.” Josephine Wong sighed: “And she’s a really experienced mage with tremendous power at her peak, so even if she agreed to it, it’s gonna be beyond difficult to reconstruct legs that won’t be rejected by her body.”

“Understood.” Jianmen thought for a short moment and said: “Let’s go, oh, let’s grab some crab legs and save me two of those eggs, I’ll see if any of them is close to hatch. We can probably extract some diluted toxin from them.”

“And food.” Josephine Wong looked at the now red and smoking crab monster with very visible grudge and hatred.

“Of course, and food.”