“Christ, its black as
pitch in here!”
“I never thought a
witch would invoke god! Are you religious, maybe?”
“Hey, just because I’m
a witch don’t mean I can’t mention him! Ugh, give me a moment, I’ll make a
light.”
A mote of light shined
through the darkness, hoving above Dorcha and Henry. They had found this cave
in the corner of the forest, where the sun’s light could not breach the canopy
of leaves. Tori was too afraid to acompany them, so Dorcha calmed her down and
left her outside as the human duo went in. They didn’t see anything interesting
aside from bones scattered throughout the ground. “Looks like some other guys
tried exploring here before,” Henry said, bending over and looking over the
skeletal remains. “Hard to say what they died of, though. I bet it was to
goblins if they’re this close to the entrance!”
“That’d just be sad,”
said Dorcha with a sigh, shaking her head. “No adventurer worth their salt
would die to goblins.”
“I bet they were
newbies!” Henry chirped happily, putting a little spring in his step as they
walked deeper and deeper into the cave. After thinking a bit, though, he
frowned and added, “I only wish I could have helped them! Going on adventures
on your own, unless you’re really experienced or powerful, is just suicidal!”
Dorcha raised an
eyebrow. “And how long have you been adventuring, Henry?”
Henry closed his eyes
in thought, holding up his hands as he counted on his fingers. “One, two,
three…” He smiled timidly and tapped his head with a fist. “I actually dunno!
I’ve done it a long time, though!”
“Can’t even give me an
estimate?”
“Uh…I guess… a few
millenia or so?”
Dorcha nearly tripped up on her own feet and
stared at him. “Are you kidding me?” she stammered, jaw nearly dropped to the
floor. “You barely look 30 years old! How in the hell are you over thousands of
years old?!?”
“Magic, I guess?” Henry
shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Not really, but now
I’m curious! Did you drink something from the Fountain of Youth or something?
Did some wizard grant you immortality? Come on! As a witch, I need to-“
Suddenly, the reporter
reached out and put his finger on the witch's lips and Ssshed her. The witch was about to
protest when he pointed upward, up towards the cave’s ceiling, revealing a
curtain of black bats. She waved her hand and dimmed the light as much as she
could to avoid disturbing them and took tiny steps, careful to keep noise to a
minimum. Unfortunately, she didn’t exactly watch where she was going and
tripped, falling on her front side with a loud THUD.
All at once, the bats
swooped down and out, screeching and flapping their wings frantically as they
tried to get away. Dorcha swore under her breath and kept her head down until
all the bats were gone. Then, she slowly got back to her feet and turned to
Henry, who was happily biting into a live bat like it was a wriggly cracker.
She cringed as the bat tried to wiggle its way to freedom, only to stop soon as
its head was bitten off. Henry, oblivious to Dorcha’s obvious disgust, held out
the partly bitten bat to her. “Want some?” he asked. “It’s tastier when you eat
it fresh!”
Dorcha replied with
disgust, “No way! That bat could have had rabies! And who the hell eats bats
like that, anyway?”
Henry smiled at her
without a trace of embarassment. “I do! Hey, do you need the wings for
anything? You know, potions and all?”
“Well…I guess I could
use the wings for a potion that can let people fly.” Before she could finish,
Henry handed the body to Dorcha. The witch reluctantly took it from him before
pulling out a knife from her knapsack and carefully cutting the wings off
before tossing the body away and putting the wings and knife in her bag. As the
duo continued their journey, Dorcha was left wondering: What in the hell is this guy? He first says he’s been adventuring for
millenia, and now he eats bats like nothing. Next, he’s probably going to bleed
gold or something!
Deeper and deeper into the cave they went, with no sign
of any other monsters. There were a lot more bones and a few corpses scattered
along the way. Some smelled of rot, their armors, varying from humble leather to shiny steel, still attached. They weren't just skin and bones (or just bones, for that matter), but the fresher corpses had dark purple spots around their neck and chest.
“Guess some people tried to get through here recently,” Dorcha
mused out loud, making the mote of light brighter as she examined the corpse of
what looked like a knight from a far off kingdom. “Although why a guy like this
would come all the way over here is beyond me.”
“Maybe the first knight
who provided the head of a basilisk to the king would get a money prize,” Henry
said, tilting his head to the side. “I know one king asked me to cut off the
head of a titan and bring it as proof, and then I’d get thousands of gold!”
“Did you do it?”
“I did, but then while
I was sleeping, some other guy stole it and took credit.”
Dorcha groaned. “You
should have cursed him with a million years of bad luck! I know if someone took
credit for my discovery, he’d be finding himself with poison ivy where his
genitals would be!”
The reporter shot
Dorcha a suspicious look, although he was smiling as he did so. “And you said
you weren’t like the others!”
“I’m not like the
others in that I don’t hex others over petty, stupid things.”
“You should at least
try to maybe stop hexing people altogether. I mean, that’s why you witches have
such a bad reputation to begin with: The types of people who become them tend
to be pretty vengeful, you know?”
Dorcha opened her mouth
to retort before thinking for a moment, then closing it. She looked away from
her companion, ashamed. He was right: witches were essentially more vengeful
magicians, cursing those who even looked at them the wrong way. Was she any
better than any other witch? She wasn’t very sure. For all she knew, she might
end up using the venom for… less savory things.
She didn’t have much
time to think on this, however, as she heard a soft hiss. The mote of light
moved in front of her, revealing the sleeping, coiled up basilisk, towering
above the two humans. Carefully, Dorcha pulled out an empty jar and approached
the beast, whispering an incantation and summoning a ghastly hand to gently
part the jaws of the beast open. The hand also pulled the fangs away from the
top of the snake’s mouth and pointed downward before the witch held up the jar.
“Should be a venom gland up on its head, Henry,” she told her companion. “Go up
there and try to give it a push. Probably without waking up the beast.”
Henry nodded before
happily climbing up the basilisk and doing just as she said. Apparently he
didn’t push hard enough, as venom didn’t really drip out. He tried again. Nope,
nothing. A bit irritated, he kept pushing before he jumped up and stomped right
on the basilisk’s head.
Oh, venom did spray out
into the jar, filling it up about ¼ of it. However, that little headstomp woke
up the beast. With a hiss, it uncoiled itself, Henry jumping off of it before
he slid off the snake’s back. And with another hiss, it lunged towards the
mage, fangs drawn, ready to inject the tiny woman with as much venom as it
could. The basilisk found itself trying to grip onto a force field, thrown up
just in the nick of time.
Dorcha frowned and
glared at Henry. “I said not to wake the snake up! You adventured for millenia
and don’t even follow directions?!”
“Hey, it’s more
exciting to actually fight it instead of just getting the venom and getting
out!” Henry retorted, hurrying over to the witch’s side. Dorcha could see some
silvery substance floating around his arms before it stuck to them and formed a
pair of gauntlets around his hands. He leapt up and punched the basilisk in
the back of the head, distracting it from the squishier party member for
a moment. The gauntlets turned into silvery droplets again before forming arm
blades, Henry using them to cut through the tough, layered scales.
The basilisk squirmed
in pain as cold steel stripped scales from its body, leaving flesh out in the
open. It flicked its thick, long tail and swatted Henry away before lunging at
him and slamming him to a wall. Dorcha manipulated the light to reveal
stalagcites up on the ceiling and smirked as an idea came to mind. She took her
staff and pointed it up, muttering an incantation before unleashing an orb of
fire upwards to hit the stalactite. It dropped from the ceiling, hitting the
giant snake squarely on the head. Henry leaped upwards again, over and above
the snake and changing his arm blades to a silvery hammer before bringing it
down-
“AAAGH!”
Dorcha turned towards
the source. The basilisk had its fangs deep into the reporter’s neck and chest.
It didn’t let go until its prey stopped squirming. Henry fell with a thud,
groaning loudly and clutching at his neck. Shit… Now it was only a matter of
time before he would die, and the basilisk would have him for a snack! The
witch wordlessly rushed over to her companion and dragged him out of the way,
hastily digging through her pack for something, anything, that could counteract basilisk venom. “Hold on,” she
said. “I’m gonna save you! I won’t let you die!”
Henry reached out for
her weakly. “It’s too late for me, Dorcha,” he said, his breath shallow as he
struggled to speak. “It’s spreading quick… Don’t waste your time…” He put a
hand to her cheek and smiled. “Go on… without… me…”
His body went limp as
his eyes closed and he breathed his last. Dorcha could only stare in disbelief,
even as the basilisk slowly slithered in to claim its prize. She lost a
patient. Someone she hardly knew, but a patient. The town’s only reporter. The
town would find it suspicious enough she went into a cave alone with him, and
came out without him, with a jar full of venom. They’d blame her, chase her
out, burn her at the stake.
Not even thoughts of
being hunted could compare to the agony of losing someone you were trying to
save. The venom didn’t even give her a chance. She failed him. Completely and
utterly failed him. Dorcha clutched at her chest, restraining herself from
completely losing it. Damn it! Damn everything! She should have never invited
him over! He was completely innocent! Completely!
When the basilisk
closed in and unhinged its jaw to swallow two humans in one gulp, Dorcha braced
herself for death.
In the next moment,
though, she could hear the snake screech in pain. She looked up and saw a
multitude of needles on the roof of the snake’s mouth before it closed it and
backed off. And before her stood Henry, grinning as if nothing ever happened.
“Just kidding!” he
said, giggling like a schoolboy that told a terrible pun. “Venom doesn’t work
on me like it works on blood-filled creatures! Joke’s on you, big snake!”
Dorcha stared. He was
alive? All this time, he was alive? And she could have just checked his pulse?
She clenched her fists tightly and stood up. “You… you…” She could hardly get
the words out.
Henry turned towards
Dorcha with a smirk on his face. “What about me? Was I a great actor?”
Something inside of her
snapped as Dorcha yelled, “YOU MOTHERFECKIN’, SLIMY, DIRTY LITTLE GIT!
I WAS WORRIED OUT OF MY DAMN MIND AND THAT’S’S HOW YOU REPAY ME?!? WITH A FUCKING
JOKE?!? KID, I FUCKING SWEAR!”
Henry gulped hard as
Dorcha launched into a tirade, full of explicitives and spit flying everywhere.
Oops, maybe that was a bit of a mean joke to play on her. “You should have
checked the wounds more carefully, Dorcha,” he pointed out timidly, placing a
finger near one of his wounds. Dorcha stopped her rampage for a second to look
more closely. Something silver dripped out from the wounds. Not blood.
“Are you bleeding
liquid silver here? Christ, that’s one step away from bleedin gold, ya freak,”
Dorcha growled through gritted teeth.
“Its quicksilver,
actually,” Henry said. “Mercury. Don’t touch, it’s harmful to you, okay?” He
quickly checked up on the basilisk, who was getting ready to attack again, then
turned back to Dorcha. “Listen, I’m gonna do something here that you won’t
believe, but you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone else, okay?”
“Oh, I get it,” the
witch said as she rolled her eyes. “Next you’re going to shit out bricks of
gold, and then after that, you can turn the big ass snake into a cute little
bunny rabbit! Like a bonafide freak from the ether, whoop dee feckin do!”
Dorcha was about to add
on more until she noticed that Henry was smiling in response to her sarcasm. “I’ll
do you one much better.” Before she could react, he melted into a puddle of
quicksilver that moved inbetween her and the basilisk. The puddle grew and grew
in size, but the basilisk ignored it as it lunged for the most obvious target:
the squishy mage. Just as it was about to slam into her, though, something sank
deep into its flesh and tugged it away. The snake struggled and struggled, even
turning toward his assailant. A massive pair of gator jaws, apparently rising
up from the puddle of quicksilver, was securely fastened on the snake’s
midsection.
Dorcha’s jaw dropped as
from that puddle of quicksilver, which was once the reporter Henry, rose a
massive gator. Big as an old oak and stuck in this odd shape between solid and
liquid, it squeezed its jaws around the snake before shaking
its prey around, releasing its grip just in time to send the basilisk
flying into a wall. All the witch could do was stammer as the legendary creature,
the magnificant lizard, the one and only Quicksilver Gator, was actually here,
helping her.
“Holy feck,” she
finally managed to get out after several seconds of stunned silence. “That is better.”
Henry snorted before
the basilisk shook off the pain and sprayed acid at him, eager to take down
this sudden new threat. He only had to melt back into a liquid state to avoid
it, then reform himself and form spikes on his back, launching them off like
silvery missiles to strike down his foe. The snake reeled in pain before the
gator slammed into it like a battering ram to a door. Quickly, it wrapped
around the gator’s jaws and forced them shut, disabling the beast from using
its most powerful asset. Slowly, it
began to wrap around not just the jaws, but the rest of the gator’s body.
Dorcha pointed her
staff and launched a fiery orb at the snake, but it turned out it wasn’t really
necessary: all Henry had to do was melt again and appear behind the snake,
opening his jaws and preparing to close them hard enough to snap even a
basilisk in half. And he would have, until Dorcha yelled, “We need the venom!
We can’t kill it just yet!” Unfortunately, in that free moment of time, the
reptilian foe slammed its tail down on Henry’s face, making him reel back in a
daze.
Dorcha dug through her
bags for something useful as the two behemothian reptiles duked it out. Frog
eyes were useless, unless she wanted to make the basilisk die of embarassment.
Sunflower petals? Well, it would be good for making the Quicksilver Gator the
prettiest. Beholder tentacles? Ugh, she didn’t know what she was gonna do with
those. She dug and dug through her bag until she found the perfect thing: Slime
goo. She opened up the jar lid and
scooped out at bit before waiting for the Basilisk to come by. She tossed some
into its eyes before grinning and saying one word, and one word only.
“Burn.”
The goo was set aflame,
burning brightly and searing the basilisk’s eyes to a crisp. “Slime goo,
perfectly flamable,” Dorcha said to nobody in particular, puffing up her chest
in pride. “Never leave home without it!”
With its eyes
effectively burned out, all it could rely on was scent. And it was hard to
smell out a gator when you’re on fire. It hissed in pain, leaving the gator to
shapeshift back into a human. He climbed up the walls and leapt high into the
air, shapeshifting back into a giant reptile…
When Dorcha realized
what Henry was doing, all she could say was, “You sneaky little fuck!”
CRASH! The whole ground
shook with the force behind that arial body slam. Quicksilver splattered everywhere,
extinguishing the flames but leaving one flattened snake. Henry continued to
pin the snake until Dorcha could open up its mouth and unfold the fangs using
her “ghostly hands” spell. Then it was all a matter of pressing his head hard
onto the basilisk’s, forcing the venom from the glands to secrete rapidly from
the fangs and right into the witch’s jar.
Finally, they got one
jar full of basilisk venom!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Once the duo returned
to Dorcha’s hut, the moon was shining down brightly upon the sleepy village.
Dorcha summoned mystical color-changing lights within her hut again before
putting her newly acquired jar of venom on the shelf. “Thanks for your help,
Henry,” she said, turning to the reporter and smiling at him. “Couldn’t have
done it without ya, although you could have cut down the theatrics.” She glared
at him. “A lot.”
Henry smiled meekly at
her. He was back to his human form, with his wild black hair, square glasses,
and his green hat. “Didn’t mean to worry you so much, miss. Poor thing, I bet
my acting broke your heart in two!”
“Shut up, you ass.”
The reporter sniggered
before he continued on. “Anyway, that was quite the adventure! Not too far away
from home, either! Oooh, I should really start doing this more often… Will you
need new things anytime soon? Or are you gonna hunt down things for fun? Will
you?” His eyes were shining with excitement, his face once again dangerously
close to her own.
“No doubt about it! Now
move your face before I decide to move it myself. Forcefully.” Henry backed
away, whistling and humming to himself. Dorcha crossed her arms and raised an
eyebrow as she asked him, “Anyway, are you really a Quicksilver Gator? I mean, the Quicksilver Gator? The one in
legends?”
Henry
frowned at her, stopping his little personal celebration as he looked her in
the eye and said, “Yes. I am that
gator. The stuff of legends. I did say I adventured for millenium. I was pretty
serious there, too.”
“Then
what’s a guy like you doing in a sleepy little town like this?”
Silence.
Henry put a finger to his chin, but did not speak for several minutes. Dorcha
was almost convinced he wasn’t going to say anything at all until he said,
quite solemnly, “I got tired of the constant chaos, so I gave it up.” He paused
for a moment, then added, “Now I’m craving it again. How about that? I can’t
thank you enough for this opportunity, Dorcha, so I hope we can adventure again
soon. Without the silly theatrics from me, of course!”
The
witch smiled. It wasn’t often that a legend thanked you for a good time, then
asked for seconds. “Long as you keep that dirty rat trick you did earlier out
of it, why not?” She sighed dramatically, pretending that she was about to
faint. “I was so worried, I felt like my heart was going to burst!”
She
expected Henry to shrug it off. She also expected him to mock her for her bad
acting. She did not expect him to start melting out of embarassment and take
her seriously! “I didn’t mean to hurt you!” he wailed, eyes tearing up as he
held his hands together. “I’m so sorry, please forgive me!”
Dorcha
stared. She let out a small giggle. A giggle made way for laughter, tons and
tons of laughter. “Oh god, your face!” she said between bouts, “Aaah, you
should see it! Man, I tricked you good, oh boy!”
Henry
was silent for a while before joining in on the laughter and sitting by her
side. And through the night, the two new friends joked, ate, and told stories
under the moonlit skies, speaking as one freak to another.
Dorcha
could only blame the strings of fate for the twists and turns that were to
follow.
