Stumbling Up: A Loser's Guide to Progression - [Bonus Chapter]: The Slug also Rises Part 1

"That... them... Artie's sh-uch a fo-ole," the woman said as she took another long draft from a brown glass jug. She stumbled as she walked behind the rows of fancy houses with their fancy windows lit by beeswax candles. She snorted, to whom nobody knows. There was something amusing about people shut in their boxes, staying safe by a wick that could as quickly harm as help.

Harm and help, like medicine for the soul.

Artie needed some medicine. He was a furball stuck to the kettle end of a cat. It was time to shave.

Hettie twirled, a bit unsteadily, her jug arcing wide as she grinned.

It was time for a bit of revenge.

She skipped home in the darkness, ducking through the trees to her cottage in the woods. Her cottage was dark; the gaps in the boards had been stuffed with moss to keep the evening drafts out. Her eyes had adjusted to the night, even if her feet were still a bit iffy.

Her door was unlocked. Everyone knew better than to steal from Hettie. She was the wic... wicked witch of Woodsten. Or was she the last light? No, the last hope? Bah. It didn't matter. She was Hettie the Hedge Witch with a grudge.

Artie Patch thought he could dump her.

She ducked into her home. Yarrow hung in dangling clumps drying next to dill and rosemary. Her house consisted of three rooms, all of which were used to dry and store her precious herbs. She ignored her small bedroom full of lavender and sage. Instead, she went to the other room. The one reserved for far rarer and dangerous fare.

Moonflower and nightshade hung. Hettie held a rag over her nose and mouth as she threaded through the herbs, grabbing a couple of dark, dark-stained glasses. She didn't label these jars in case someone did come peeking, villagers being what they were.

The jar in her left hand sloshed, a bit of pickled brain for the spell. The jar in her right hand held the soft white dust of vengeance served. It was a dark moon, perfect for a summoning circle.

What her village didn't know. Never suspected. Was that she, Hettie Grey, wasn't just a simple hedge witch. She was a [Hedge Witch]. She'd passed into the [Adventurer's] ranks so long ago that no one remembered the fiery-haired sprite. Now her iron braids and milky eye warned most off from tipping her skirt.

Which brought her to Artie.

He was a frequent customer, the long ropey scars flaring on the cusp of midnight reminding him of childhood folly. She prepared balms, part beeswax, part yarrow, part plantain, a drip drop of lavender, the essence of calendula, and a bit of comfort. Mixed, mashed, and soaked for a full moon.

“Only wanted a discount,” she muttered, frowning at the spit and adjusting the angle at which her pot hung. “The barmaid thought his scars told a story. Fftttpp. I’ll show you the face of a boiled turnip.”

Hettie kicked a pinecone into the underbrush. Wait, had she needed that for the magic? Eh, it’d work well enough.

She danced out into the moonlight with her black pot dangling on a spit. On a stump, she put her two jars and the jug that'd been looped around her thumb. If one was not accustomed to witches, her dancing around might have seemed joyous, almost lighthearted.

The shadows deepened as she stacked her tinder, setting the sticks with intention and careful placement. Two sticks crossed for the scratch he wanted to itch. Sixteen bits of straw to inflame a heart. A clump of moss drawn from an old oak tree for the time wasted. She hummed as she collected her bits.

She muttered a skill belonging to most of the herbalists and witches in the hills to cleanse the water collected in her pot, "[Purify]." The water burbled, as bits of leaf debris and insect larvae were ejected from the pot.

Sticks and tinder placed, she examined her work through a bleary eye. It looked good enough for a fool like Artie Patch.

"Boil and brindle, pine and porridge make my fire hot like Hester's tits!" Hettie laughed as she whispered [Fiery Spark], and her tinder caught. She'd used the fake incantation for years, as though these scions of a forgotten world knew of Hester, much less her oath-breaking draw.

The pot dangled over the fire, its black vestige sucking in the heat and light.

It was time for a bit of magic stolen from another world.

She pulled at her pockets, drawing out the prerequisite bits. A clip of hair, a bit of crust, the dried leg of a frog, and she used her fork to push a chunk of pickled brain into the water. She watched as the brain sank.

Taking another swig, Hettie did what all aspiring and attained witches do: she waited.

A watched pot never boils was an adage she proved true. As her slumped form woke with a start, the hiss and pop of an overboiling pot was her only companion. She wiped a bit of drool from her face, checking to make sure her jug of shine hadn't tipped (it hadn't).

She cast about, looking for the required signs. A spider had cast a web high in the trees. Its fat body bouncing on a glistening web that had caught the moisture evaporating off the pot. The sign was good enough. She'd ruin Artie with her summoning cast.

With a stick, she carefully pulled the pot off the spit, setting it onto the leaf-strewn ground. The soft squelch of an unfortunate slug was drowned out by the sizzle of the black heat hitting wet leaves.

Dancing wasn't part of the magic, the skill, or the ritual. She danced because the thought of Artie Patch getting the kick in the ass he deserved made her feet move. To think her feet fluttered as her heart once did. She spat a glob into the pot. It sat congealed and slimy, waiting for the magic to commence.

Hettie carefully unscrewed the lid on her dusty vengeance. Her hands shook even with the lulling drag of liquor. A soft puff of ash floated above her jar, as the whimsy of the night breeze took its pittance.

She'd figured out, long ago, that skills could be altered and adjusted by belief and thread and pizzazz. Her feet tapped as she took out her brush, dipping it into the hot water. She lightly lifted a bit of crushed bone.

She whispered a skill so softly, even the crickets and frogs keeping her company couldn't hear it. The owl kept its own counsel.

Glowing filigree danced at the end of her brush as she designed otherworldly runes using an alphabet she'd almost forgotten. Whether the pits of hell were real, she still hadn't ascertained. However, as she scrawled her wish between the stars and the dirt her toes dug into, she knew the Everbear would try to grant her wish.

Vengeance.

Artie Patch would pay. He had left her for a toss of the dice and a bit of grog. She'd already tripled the potency of his ale, another skill from this ill-begotten world. Next time he drank, he'd be so wasted he wouldn't know a nose from a dongle! The night was filled with her cackling laugh as she scribbled nonsense with her goat hair brush.