Dull Colours [EDITED EDITION]

Fourteen | Mortem Potio

"What's 'Mortem Potio'?" Jacob said suddenly in her ear. Hera yelped, surprised. Blowing out a breath, Hera reached beside her and pulled out blades of grass from the green hillside she was laying on with one hand, brandishing the Book in the air with the other. "It says it means 'Death Potion' in a different language," she squinted at the writing scrawled on the page in the Book. "Yeah, something like that." She did her best to shrug while laying down, and did an admittedly good job.

Grunting, Hera stood up and stretched, hearing her back crack. She craned her neck to see where the sun was and guessed two hours until nightfall. Not long. She looked down at the three people flopped on the grass in front of her and felt pity. She had dragged them on this journey. Pushing the guilt to the side, Hera rubbed her eyes to rid her vision of the white spots from looking at the sun. "C'mon," she spoke without turning to her friends. "We should set off so we can make good time before the sun sets. The place to find the potion should be..." she did the quick maths in her head. "Five hours from here? Meaning if we get two hours in today, we can get three tomorrow, which saves ages to get the potion, 'cause apparently there's some kinda riddle we gotta solve when we get to the house. Shack. Thingy." She was rambling. Hoisting her backpack further on her shoulders, she started walking, focusing on one foot in front of the other.

After about ten minutes she heard a grunt and spun around. "Can we please slow down?" Matthew panted, and winced. Hera remembered his sprained ankle, and slowed down. "Sorry," she apologised. "So," Is said in a questioning tone. "Where exactly are we going?" Hera glanced at the Book she was holding, adjusting her glasses. "It says we need to go North and we should come to a swamp thing, and if we climb a tree we should see a shack or something, and in it will be a witch that has the potion and a riddle we have to solve," she lied, keeping the details vague to make it believable. She was getting good at keeping things from her friends.

Hera saw her friends nod with understanding, and pushed down the guilt at lying to them. But it was fine. They didn't deserve to be dragged into this with her. It just wasn't fair on them. She had made up her mind.

~~~~~

Two hours later, and they were already on ground that was marshy and muddy. "We must have to go to the centre of the swamp because it sure seems like we've reached the edge of it." Hera grunted as she pulled her boot out of the mud, which was sucking all of their shoes in. She heard multiple grumbles and squelches as the others tried getting their boots out of the mud. "Where," Jacob panted. "We stopping?"

Hera looked around. "We can't sleep on this muck," she pulled a disgusted face and shook mud off her boot. "So I guess the only other option is a tree." She looked up at the sky, craning her neck to see the canopy, blocking out the sunlight which streamed through the leaves and danced on her face.

Hera shifted her bag, pushed her glasses up her nose, and hoisted herself up on a low branch, reaching down to help Jacob up behind her. Her being Hera, it only took her around 5 minutes to get to a patch where the tree leaned into another, intertwining their branches and creating spots where two branches were next to each other, making a sort of floor which Hera tied her rope around.

Just as Hera stepped back to admire her work, she stepped on a loose piece of bark, slipping down and landing perfectly in a laying position. Pretending she meant to do it all along, she turned to the others. "Time for sleep," she said cheerfully, waiting for them to lay down too to rub her sore elbow. Grunting, she rolled over and fell asleep almost as soon as she closed her eyes, exhaustion overtaking her.

~~~~~

Hera woke to sunlight streaming right into her eyes. Again. Rubbing her eyes, she sat up, yelping when the tree moved and she was thrown off balance. Muttering very nice words at the tree, Hera stood up, arching her back. Hearing a yawn behind her, she turned around to see the others roll over and rub their eyes. "How'd you sleep?" Jacob asked, standing beside her and pulling her into a hug. Hera felt herself stiffen, and forced herself to relax and act natural. She patted his back. "Yeah, good." She forced a smile. 

Hera reached wordlessly for her backpack, lifting it on her shoulders and blinking away the sudden tears. She was good at it, but she hated lying. Reminding herself it was for the best, she nodded at the others when they asked if it was time to go, shimmying down the tree towards the ground.

~~~~~

Minutes merged into hours, time blurring as the group walked wordlessly into the swamp, further and further, fumes from the mud forgotten in the excitement of getting closer.

"Here," Hera said suddenly. She had decided it was far enough, looking at the trees and how close together they were. "How do you know?" Jacob asked. Shoot. Lie time. "I just do," Hera replied dismissively, unable to think of anything else faster. "I'll climb the tree." She volunteered herself.

"Are you sure?" Jacob looked suspicious. Hera didn't look at him, instead focused on climbing the tree. She decided to not reply. When she was up high enough that she was sure they couldn't see her, she yelled down to them, "I think I can see it back a bit further! We must have missed it! Go back and to the West a little, I'll catch up." Hera stomped on some branches to make it sound like she was climbing down, then she waited for a minute to leap to the next tree, and the next, and so on until there was no chance of the others finding her.

Hera dropped down to the ground, and began to run. Panting and exhausted, she felt relieved when a little while later she saw the shack.

It was like the horror movies: it was made of rotten timber, slanted in the mud, a cross-hatch roof and was in complete darkness.

Creeping up to it, Hera flinched as she stepped on a stick and the loud crack echoed through the clearing. Blowing out a breath, Hera ignored the voice whispering in her ear and walked up to the door, pushing it open and stepping inside.

Hera gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth at what she saw next. The room was full of flickering candles that you couldn't see the light of from outside, jars of what looked suspiciously like parts of Conjured - including what must have been a heart, still glowing and pulsing - and sitting in the middle of the room, on an old, rotting wooden chair, was a carcass. A human carcass, the bones brown and cracked, covered in moss, skin still clinging on in places. The smell coming from it was so rancid Hera gagged and, when she tried to breathe through her mouth, realised she could taste the disgusting smell and just tried to block it out.

Pushing her glasses up with shaking hands, Hera didn't know what to do, instead deciding to go for the book in the carcass' hands. Shivering despite the heat and fog which was creeping under the doorway, Hera cringed when a floorboard creaked. Then the carcass moved.

It seemed to blow out a rattly breath and sat up straighter. Hera blinked, sure she was imagining it. But no. The rotting, stinking carcass was looking at her through empty eye sockets. "What have you come for?" It's voice was like nails scraping along a chalkboard. It took Hera a moment to recover before she could answer. "T-the Mortem Potio?" her voice quivered with fear, the tone making her sound unsure. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, standing up straight.

Hera licked her dry lips, waiting what seemed like an age before the carcass finally answered. "I have your riddle."

"What begins and has no end, but ends all that begins?"

"You have two minutes." It settled it's rotting bones into the chair, whistling out a breath from non-existent lungs. Hera didn't know how the carcass would keep time, but she also didn't doubt it. Her mind, on the other hand, was completely blank. Fear filled her with what the carcass would do if she failed - she knew it wouldn't be good. Scraping the walls of her concious, Hera felt the answer float to her mind. Just as the carcass inhaled a rattling breath to tell her time was up, she shouted the answer. "Death!"

Eternities floated by before the carcass slowly nodded. "Correct." And then, so fast Hera could have blinked and missed it, the carcass crumbled to ashes, the black and white pieces floating to the ground peacefully. Picking up the book, Hera gasped as it too crumbled, leaving a small vial of black-marbled liquid which swirled and twisted behind the glass. The vial was hanging on a thin silver chain which Hera slipped over her head, feeling the weight of it on her chest. Relief filled her as she began to traips towards the place she most certainly did not want to go.

The cave where Conjured were first made.

The next item on the list - Conjured blood.