A week passed and the three of us spent our entire time wandering around town and getting to know the locals. It was like a paid vacation. Scott did get a letter from Iscarat during that time but it contained nothing more than an informative report explaining that nothing had happened. Otherwise we did nothing that mattered to our job. On the day of the Willowisps visit we staked out the bakery

I was cold and tired of sitting in a bush. My legs had nearly fallen asleep and Scott wasn’t bothered that he had been sitting in the same position for five hours without moving. Elysif on the other hand had gotten bored thirty minutes into our stakeout and started mixing herbs and chemicals she brought with her.

We were armed to the teeth as well as we could be. Elysif was wearing the iron lined suit she was given and she had prepared several of the equivalent of a molotov cocktail. Scott had worn his usual garb and continued to use his gloves, however the ones he was wearing currently were lined with iron instead of silver. I on the other hand had the silver knife, my pistol with iron bullets, and a bag of rice, salt, and other granulated things.

It was taking forever for this thing to show up and I was considering leaving before I heard Elysif say. “There it is.” Scott and I both looked at the giant of a man. I recognized him as the Willowisp I saw last week. I could never forget a face so bland and emotionless. The Bakery woman gave him the sack of bread and with a nod he walked towards the forest. We followed behind it a few meters to make sure it didn’t notice us.

Once he had entered the forest though we saw it morph. The coat along with its other clothing disappeared. It looked like it was hunched over then it stood up revealing it was roughly twelve meters. Its arms were at least seven meters and its legs six meters. It had the skull of a human rather than a deer like the description but the jaw was closed. Its skin was black as night and its eyes glowed a demonic yellow. It had hair similar to that of a willow branches but the closer I looked it seemed more like dreaded hair with leaves stuck in it. The Willowisp’s hands were long and skinny but looked around the size of my chest and it carried the bag of pastries in one of them.

It looked around for a moment before continuing to walk deeper into the forest. Or at least we thought it was going to walk. It started running, at full speed, Jesus it was fast. The Willowisp glided through the trees with such speed that it reminded me of a drag car.

“Well… Fuck!” I said

“Do you think you can catch up to it Scott?” Elysif asked, turning to him.

“Of course. I have been sober all day.” he replied with a devilish smile.

“What? There is no way you could catch up to that thing!” I rebutted but to my surprise he stood up from behind the bush and ran almost as fast as the Willowisp. “JESUS CHRIST!?!?!” I yelled.

“We should try and catch up to him.” Elysif said without even a single sign of shock from what we just witnessed as she stood up.

“... Sure? But that didn’t seem humanly possible?” I said as I stood up behind her. The two of us started to sprint after him.

“It’s not humanly possible. He is the only human in the world as far as we know that can do that. Iscarat turned his body into one giant magic tool and it takes a massive amount of control. It also has a negative effect on his body. Magic tools as you know help people use magic more easily but it has a price.” she said as we ran. “Have you ever felt tired after using your knife?” she asked me.

“Well, yes but only when I use it a lot.” I replied as I jumped over a root.

“His internal organs start tearing if he uses it for too long but he is able to block his focus of the runes inside him with alcohol. Thus he can go as long as he needs to without activating the runes so long as he is plastered. The thing is he can’t activate it while under the influence because of the amount of focus it requires. It also stops him from subconsciously making a mistake. Because if he makes even the slightest error he could bust an artery or worse.” She continued.

“Well now I know why he drinks so much. But why did he do that if it’s such a danger to his health?”

“... I… Shouldn’t say. You’ll have to ask him yourself.” She said as we arrived to see Scott hiding behind a tree. He was looking at something beyond it but was also breathing heavily. He let out a small cough as we ran up. “You shouldn’t put too much strain on yourself Scott.” Elysif said in a truly caring voice.

“I’m fine. Now, get down.” he whispered harshly.