After dragging the girl away from the chaotic stench and into a better part of the woods Jason took some time to actually look at her. He imagined all elves being pretty and beautiful from when they were babies to when they died. He was wrong.

She would’ve been beautiful, but she had pockmarks all over her face and her arms. Her arms also had black patches all over them as if someone had dyed her skin. She was wearing a black witch dress that was sleeveless. Jason could tell it wasn’t supposed to be sleeveless as both sleeves were torn off at different lengths. The right one was torn off at the shoulder and the left one was ripped halfway to her elbow. Her hair was ratty and black with her eyes being silver.

Do all elves have these bright metallic eye colors? The girl had also been puking the entire time Jason had been dragging her and Jason was genuinely worried that she would throw up some blood soon. Once Jason got to an area he deemed far enough away from the stench he dropped the witch elf and the deer. He reached into a leather sack at his side, the only thing the guild gave him that he kept, and then took out a wolf heart to eat. There wasn’t any impulse to eat it anymore. Obviously whatever his body wanted from it had already been gotten.

There was also no reason to eat it to regen stamina. Apparently the heart didn’t quadruple his stamina regen like Jason had first assumed. It just added fifteen to it. Which to Jason’s eighty regen wasn’t super amazing. It was good, just not that good.

Jason sat down and rested his back against the tree looking at the coughing and groaning girl. Eventually the girl rolled herself over and just let out a shriek to the sky. Her back arching and the head tilting back. After a few seconds she flopped back down and it seemed that she was thankfully out of energy. Fucking christ woman why? Just why?

Jason waited. At first he was just going to avoid this insane chick and leave, but after being called out and helping he figured he might as well see this to the end. Maybe get her back on her feet and then just leave after making sure she could walk.

It took a few minutes but the girl got into a sitting position by dragging herself to a nearby tree and just like Jason rested with her back against it. She then reached into her dress and pulled out a pink notebook and a heap of papers. Where the hell did she store those? Jason stared at her trying to find a spatial item of some type. The girl didn’t seem to care about “one-eye” and started poring through her notebook/journal/diary and the papers she had. She began to frantically scratch and mess with her hair while mumbling to herself.

She’s insane. Went without human contact for too long. I know those symptoms. I did the same thing back in the caves. Ahh the good old days. Running, running, and more running with the occasional swinging axes and demonic olm. A nice brush with death and insanity if I do say so myself. Jason focused on trying to listen to what she was saying. Mostly out of curiosity than anything else.

“... the frog feet, flying-snake guts, giant bat fur, and giant bat legs increased the intensity too much. Maybe instead of using the magical variants I should use normal variants. The magical confluence of all the ingredients and the experimental specimen was too unstable. Maybe I should add a stabilization rune or expulsion rune to the cauldron. No no no nono… that would require me to get a new cauldron if I carve them wrong which I don’t have the money for. Maybe I should just…” She then devolved into using more words that Jason knew but didn’t really understand. A lot magic this and magic that. Maybe if she was talking about the best way to move your body to throw a punch or avoid an attack Jason could follow.

Even if she went into the more complicated anatomical reasons about how to perform such actions. God knows Baghric as a healer went into enough detail. Although from him it seems that this knowledge isn’t taught even at the Academy which seems to be hated everywhere I go. Anytime anyone mentioned the Academy in Invetia there would be insults and curses hurled at the Academy. Yet even the people cursing them had looks of respect in their eyes. Probably because they at least acknowledge them as a powerful institution. Yet I’ve never actually heard about anything the Academy has done wrong. Just a bunch of rumours and accounts from friends of friends.

Baghric had apparently spent time after every battle to cut open and dissect the different species. He one time when they were running and he was bored told Jason about how he had gotten his party to capture a bandit alive so that Baghric could strap him down and cut him open while he was alive. To see how the muscles and bones reacted to certain stimuli. At the time it sounded immensely cruel and inhumane. Even if Baghric used that knowledge to figure out how to more effectively heal people it still wasn’t the right thing. But now… I probably couldn’t do that, but I definitely understand it better.

This world isn’t a forgiving place after all. It’s not too bad because at least most of the time it’s peaceful but I’ve heard stories when I’m in the tavern about how random guilds will attack other guilds in the wild. Though that only happens a far far way away from the city. I won’t go that far without a proper party. Jason looked up and saw that the weirdo was still mumbling to herself and going over her notes.

Then she jolted. Her head whipped up and stared at Jason. More specifically his skin. With speed that didn’t fit her twig like body she appeared right in front of Jason the air whooshing past them. She then opened up his wolfskin vest to see his bare body. She started touching and inspecting the marks that made up his skin. Mumbling more things.

“...yes yes a repulsion rune. Not as good as the expulsion rune, but it’s good enough I suppose. I don’t know a lot of these other runes though. Probably some form of protection or armour. Hey you. One-eye. This is the Primitive Runic Skin yes. I’ve never seen it before.” Jason just kept staring at her in wonder. Wonder at how eccentric and odd a person could become given enough solitude. Apparently Jason took too long to respond for her taste.

The witch looked up, glared at Jason then slapped him across the face. She then proceeded to let out a slew of curses and clutch her hand. “It’s like slapping a stone. By Krivsta’s Cauldron that hurt.” As she let out more curses Jason got up and rearranged his clothes.

“Yes it’s the Primitive Runic Skin. Now how about asking before just trying to strip me naked ok?” The witch just went back to her notes, still cursing, and brought out a new piece of paper. She bagan to draw something. It took awhile for it to take shape, but after it did Jason immediately recognized it. He had seen it hundreds of times. Whenever he bathed or dressed. It was one of the runes that was repeated a few times around his body.

“This should work. One-eye thank you for allowing me to inspect you for the rune,” Don’t remember allowing you but ok. “Thank you for dragging me out of that mess. The concoction overflowed and created an infective reaction with the surrounding flora.”

“You mean explosive reaction.” Jason corrected her.

“No I mean infective. It should take two days before it dies off, but until then it will keep spreading. See look over that way.” She pointed into the distance at where the trees were starting to become a bit darker green. The more obvious change would be the green smog slowly extending from the ground. “I’d give it two hours before it gets here.” The witch said and then went back to her notes.

“What the hell were you doing to make that thing? Also I don’t remember giving you permission to inspect me.” The elf just packed up her things and started walking.

“Well let’s go. Don’t want that getting to us.” Jason stood there watching her walk away and noticing that once more all her notes had disappeared. Where the hell is she putting them?

“Where are you even going?!” All she did in response to Jason’s yell was turn around and stare at him. Silver eyes glinting in the moonlight.

“Home of course. Come hither. It’s only a few leagues away.” Oh well that’s specific. That’s like saying it’s somewhere in this direction. Jason had multiple better things to do. He could go and sell the skin in the city and gain a few silvers. He could go and hunt some wolves to get hearts which he was running low on. He could also go and try to find people to party with.

Jason had decided that he wanted a hunter, mage, assassin, and then a warrior type build. A build almost the exact opposite of Jason’s current one. Focused on offensive skills with only a few defensive ones. That would give the party physical and melee ranged fighters, a melee who could do massive damage to someone in an instant, a frontliner, and then a tank type which was Jason himself.

Yet Jason was curious. So he followed the witch. Maybe a stupid decision, but he was a curious person by nature. The gentle moon had moved halfway across the sky as the two were walking. Then they came upon the witch's house.

It unfortunately wasn’t made of candy. It was instead made of vines and trees. Not as if she had grown the trees into houses like the elves in stories back on earth. No. She had grown an extremely cluttered grove of trees. The space in between the trees was taken up by dense vines. Then she melted the trees with some sort of acid. She melted a square into the trees and then waited for it to solidify. So her house looked more macabre and disturbing than it had any right to.

The furniture on the other hand was relatively normal. She had somehow gotten a bed, chair, desk, wardrobe (that was full of the same black dress), a cauldron, and a chemistry set into the melted house.

The witch walked in and then sat down at the desk and pulled out her notes once more and started to go over them. Jason waited there to see what she was going to ask him to do. She wanted me to come so obviously she hasn’t just forgotten about me right. Right? Jason hadn’t realized yet that the witch was very peculiar in how her mind worked.

Some might argue that it was stupid for Jason to just waltz into a witch’s house without knowing her strength or her disposition towards him. Jason would agree with those people. He would also remind them that he wasn’t known for smart or informed decisions. He moved by emotion and by faith. Faith in his luck and faith in his defenses.

Eventually Jason got bored and then decided it was time to go and sell his skins and hunt some more hearts. He had tried to eat other species hearts, but his body just outright rejected them. In addition to wolves there are rarely monster birds, Jason has only seen them twice. The regular wolves and birds don’t bother Jason or really anyone with the system. It’s as if they just felt that they were a higher existence than them.

The monster birds that Jason had seen were all owls and Jason saw them at night. One time he killed one by crawling up the tree and then choking it. He at first tried to snap its neck only to find he couldn't. The monster owls not only could turn their heads 270 like normal owls, they could turn them an entire 360. The owl had woken up and before it could screech and warn the others Jason had just throttled it to death. When Jason had carved it open and tried to eat the heart he found he couldn’t.

He could find and extract the heart just fine. But when he put it to his mouth his body screamed at him. Screamed at him to stop, that this thing was bad for him, that it would hurt him, that he would die. Jason on instinct threw it to the ground and stomped on it. Splashing blood everywhere. Wide-eyed and breathing heavily Jason only could calm down after each bit of heart was smashed and destroyed. Whatever his body needed apparently was a very specific thing and owls were not that thing. As Jason turned around and was going to kill some wolves and go back to the city the little witch called out to him.

“Ah. One-eye. If you’re leaving, bring back some food and herbs for me.” The witch just waved her arm vaguely in his direction being too distracted to move her entire body.

“Why can’t you?” Jason just stopped at the doorway looking back at her.

“I need to study, to calculate, and to concoct. I’ll pay you. I don’t have silver or gold, but I have other things.” The witch turned to look at him a fanatical gleam in her eye. “If you let me examine you I’ll give you even more.” She was practically drooling at this point. Her eyes never leaving his skin.

Jason shivered. He felt like he was being stripped down naked in her eyes. Not in the fun way either, but in the alien dissect and probe kind of way. Despite that he managed to answer her. “What things?” The witch looked around her house.

“Ah I uh… oh oh. I have this poison. It decomposes anything it touches below or equal to level fifteen at a visible rate. This tonic here can heal you for twenty health points and can also grant you ten fortitude stat points for three minutes, but after those three minutes you go back to normal and lose five fortitude stat points. Uh… this here is called the Suit of the Debonair. I didn’t actually make this. I bought it a while ago. I didn’t realize it was for men…” She looked down at her dress and her face scrunched up like she was going to cry. Maybe she is as old as she looks. To be that overly concerned about how she dresses even when she’s completely alone in the woods. The poison looked like a dark green liquid while the tonic was a light pink. There were a lot more vials and jars of different liquids of varying colors and viscosities. If Jason assumed each one to be a different poison or tonic then she truly did have a lot to pay him with.

The suit on the other hand was not really something Jason would wear. Black shoes, black pants, black belt, a purple button up, black tie, and a dark purple suit vest that had three golden buttons on it, a white coat, and white gloves. The entire suit was made of some type of monster skin. Probably a reptilian monster of some kind as there were faint scale imprints on it. To get a better idea of why she would offer a simple suit along with a bunch of impressive sounding poisons and tonics Jason glanced at the suit and let Eyes of Inspection do the work.