Chapter 4.25 – Blossoms

Note: my game has the ‘occults keep losing their facial markings and eyes’ bug and I couldn’t be bothered to keep drawing them on manually, so there are inconsistencies in their pictures.

After what had been a tiring day for all parties, Broof had been looking forward to his evening meal in the company of the Milt family. Even better that Lilith had joined them, bound now as she was to Leyla’s side for the duration of her stay. Lilith wasn’t overly happy about the prospect of following Leyla everywhere and Leyla even less so, but if it meant that she could be treated almost normally, she was keen to put up with it. At least she’d been given her clothes back, freshly washed and pressed.

The Milt house, like many others in the boggy part of the forest, was a wooden construction on stilts that looked like it was about to fall into the swamp water at any moment. But the food had been fantastic.

“That was wonderful, thank you so much Bo.” Broof said, stifling a belch.

Lilith had been sitting in the living room reading, as she didn’t eat, but she joined them as dinner ended, taking Bruno’s place at the table as he went to watch his children. His children, Broof had realised as he glanced shyly at Leyla, not their children as he’d first thought.

Broof had been expecting conversation to be somewhat stilted in Lilith’s presence and had been surprised at how open Bo had been to talking about her life and her relationship with his late grandmother. Every time he thought he couldn’t learn anything else about Ma, he was proved wrong.

His grandmother. Naked fire dancing with Bo as a pair of young witches. He shouldn’t have been surprised really, although hearing the geriatric witch beside him describe the scene in such detail was making him blush.

Bo was also very responsive to his questions. Except for one question. She was fine to tell Broof that yes, Beth was her daughter and yes, Bo had been banished from the Windenburg Witches, but when it came down to why, the chatty older witch was suddenly surprisingly mute.

Broof was far too polite to push the question. He tapped his full belly and waited for Bo to break the silence in the room.

“So…” she began, rocking back on her chair. “You’re here about a vampire cure, just like your grandmother originally was.”

Ma was looking for a vampire cure? Wait… was Ma the explorer who wrote the tomes— of course she was, who else? But if that was true then who was she looking to cure? Lilith or her brother? Some other vampire they’d not met?

As he thought her name, Lilith looked to him but he couldn’t feel any of her tendrils in his head. Must just be coincidence. He thought her name again but it didn’t work the second time.

He was missing her tendrils. He missed having her all to himself, even if that meant being bitten and snarled at periodically. She was actually very nice in the times in-between.

Seeing that Broof had distracted himself, Lilith took over. “We had an inkling that Marigold might have been the one to point us here,” she lied. “The results of her adventures were inconclusive though; did she ever find what she was after?”

Bo shook her head slowly. “No. She never did and then one day she just gave up. It was unlike her to give up on anything. I suppose the ingredients were just too hard to find and, well, she wasn’t getting any younger and had a new grandson to fill her days with.” She playfully pinched Broof’s cheek.

“Lovely. A new grandson, that’s a good reason to stop a mission, isn’t it?” Lilith cooed half-heartedly. “So… did she have any inkling what the ingredients might be?”

Bo winked. “You don’t really understand sentiment do you Lilith? No matter. Now, you have to understand that I’ve never made the correct potion – I don’t think anyone ever has – but we made a lot of not-correct potions so I could wager a good guess. How is your potion skill Broof?” Broof shrugged and Bo nodded. “That bad, huh. So, first step – you would need someone capable of creating the base for an advanced spirit potion. I’m afraid I’m not the mixer I used to be, and Leyla is simply terrible.”

“Hey! I’m right here!”

“There is one witch in the village capable but she is away for the foreseeable – family emergency – do you know anyone who is willing and able to help?”

“I think I know someone,” Broof said. “Wyatt Harper? Ma maybe mentioned him?”

“Do you think Wyatt’s up to that right now?” Lilith asked through a forced smile.

“Wyatt Harper,” Bo repeated thoughtfully. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard for a while. Isn’t he the boy responsible for Willow Creek’s only recorded monsoon?”

“He’s that one, yes. He’s a dab hand at potion making though.”

“Interesting. Well, if he’s half as good at stirring up storms as he is at conjuring them, he would do nicely – if he has learned to control his magic, of course.”

“He has,” Broof lied.

“Oh good,” Bo sighed. “Wayward magic could corrupt this potion, destroying the soul entirely.” And we wouldn’t want that!”

“No, we definitely wouldn’t.”

“You see,” Bo continued, “Vampires live in a suspended state between life and death, with a soul that wanders the gap in-between – that we do know. The rest is not so sure. We know that to return a deceased one to life, you must re-bind their soul to their body. This would usually be done with a Potion of Prompt Resurrection and incantations. However, that won’t work in your case, Lilith, as you are not one hundred percent deceased, so it is most likely that your soul wanders in limbo, as you do.”

“Like a ghost?” Lilith asked.

“No, ghosts are fully deceased, they simply hold on to something from their life that keeps pulling them back to visit. Fascinating stuff.”

“Enthralling,” Lilith mumbled. “So how can I retrieve my soul from limbo and rebind it to me? I’m assuming that’s what I need to do.”

“Correct. We puzzled this for many decades. In the case of a vampire – by definition a creature with no respect for life – we believed that as well as binding the soul we needed our potion’s ingredients to offer a commitment to, and recognition of, the sanctity of life.” She cleared her throat. “Now, we know that it will not be an easy potion to make, nor a pleasant one to take. Like most spirit potions, we believed that it would need three active ingredients. The first would be proof of connection to the land of the living. The blood of a relative would work well for that.”

“Well, that’s that then,” Lilith huffed. “I have no living relatives.”

“You likely will have, if you trace your family tree far enough. Have you ever tried that?”

“Well, no…”

“Perhaps you should. You find many mysteries can be solved that way and many interesting stories unfurled. Perhaps the better question, Lilith, is not ‘do I have any living relatives?’ but ‘How will I get blood from them when I find them?’”

“I’m a vampiric doctor. I don’t think that would be the problem.”

“Oh no. No, No,” Bo shook her head. “You cannot take it; for it to prove your connection to life it would have to be given willingly.”

“I see how this works,” Broof said. “Connection. What other elements would we need to include?”

“The second element is what defines a successful life; balance. In this instance, you would need to demonstrate that you can give as well as take. Now, you cannot take a soul to the land of the living without sparing a soul in return. Unless you have something that Death is willing to trade.”

“A death flower?” Broof asked, turning ashen.

“I thought you were no good at potions – have you used a death flower before?”

“Um, no, I… I have heard about them. From Ma.”

“Of course. Death is crazy about death flowers, it would be a perfect trade. And, as luck would have it, we have a death flower bush right here, in this village.”

“That is lucky,” Broof said quietly.

“Yes. However, it only blossoms sporadically, sometimes not for decades, and only for short bursts of time.”

“When did it last bloom?”

“Three years ago.”

“But there’s a queue!” Leyla interjected. “The next blossom is promised to someone else. Right, Bo?”

“Another vampire?”

“Not quite.”

“I see.” Lilith narrowed her eyes as in the background, Bruno let out a playful roar to the sound of giggling. “Not quite a vampire huh? OK, so balance. And what about the third ingredient.”

“You would require a very powerful ingredient that has the power to preserve and grant life,” Bo said. “We tried oxygen, we tried water, we tried even more blood but there was one ingredient we couldn’t try; a plasma fruit.”

Lilith fell off her chair and scrambled quickly back to her seat. “A plasma fruit?”

“Oh, you’ve heard of it?”

“Heard of it? I’ve been searching for it for centuries! It actually exists?”

“Why have you been searching for it?”

“I read that it can sustain a vampire without the need for blood.”

“Well, yes, technically I suppose it could. But more than that; it can sustain any creature – some even claim that it can prolong life. Powerful indeed.”

“If I can just grow them, I won’t need to be cured, I can live off the fruits!”

“You could… but Lilith, your sustenance would come at a high price. It is a vile fruit that grows from the remains of murdered witches. So naturally not only is it extremely rare, but it is highly frowned upon. There are historic sites in the world where these trees grow, but given that the fruit has the power to maintain life almost indefinitely, the trees are stripped bare the second they are located.”

“That’s horrific,” Broof gasped as Leyla asked, “How on Earth does one locate the remains of a murdered witch?”

Lilith smirked at Leyla. “I could make one.”

“Rude.”

“OK, so blood for connection, death flower to maintain balance, and plasma fruit for life. Then what would I do? Drink it and bam! Cured?”

Bo sighed and settled back in her chair. “Possibly, although I would wager that the potion would have a limited effect, as all spirit potions do. Souls in limbo tend to stay close to where they exited the body, so you would need to take the potion near to where you lost your soul.”

Leyla looked to Lilith. “It has clearly been centuries since you were turned; do you remember where that was? Does that place still exist?”

“Of course I remember. It was my childhood home. I left when I was sixteen and I’ve never been back there. I suspect the vampire hunters burned it down. It’s probably a motorway or something now.”

“Do you remember whereabouts it was?” Broof asked.

“About thirty miles north of Windenburg village… give or take ten miles…”

“Ten miles will be too far. You’ll need to be within a few yards.” Bo said. “Then once the soul has re-entered, it must be bound immediately by a witch. This is very dark magic and can only be performed by a witch with experience of necromancy.”

“Does anyone here—?”

“It’s not my place to say.”

“Great,” Lilith mumbled. “So let me recap; I need an ingredient that can rarely be found, blood of relatives I don’t have, to find my soul in the vast wilderness north of Windenburg, and to convince a necromancing witch to help me bind my soul back to my body. This feels impossible.”

“I didn’t say that this would be easy. It may well be impossible. I guess that remains to be seen.”

The conversation was brought to an abrupt halt by a crash and another loud roar from the adjacent room, followed by a child’s voice yelling “I’ll save you Molly— Ow! He bit me!”

Leyla leapt to her feet and ran to the living room where Bruno was half carrying his children and looking knackered.

“You bit Brodie?” Leyla asked carefully.

Bruno sighed and readjusted his clinging kids. “We’re just playing.”

Leyla let out a half gasp-half sob. “Why would you bite them? You need to start taking this seriously, Bruno.”

“What’s the worst—”

“You know what could happen,” Leyla whispered angrily.

“Ley,” Bruno began, setting his children down. “It was barely a nip.”

“We were just playing, Leyla,” Brodie confirmed. “It doesn’t hurt or anything.”

“That’s not the point.” Leyla snatched Molly up, grabbed Brodie and left the house, Bo at her heels, leaving a dejected Bruno crouching on the floor.

“What was all that about?” Broof asked, bewildered. “There was no harm done?”

Bruno muttered under his breath getting to his feet and shaking out his hair before he followed his family from the room.

Realising he was once again alone with the beautiful vampire, Broof rushed back into the kitchen before Leyla realised that Lilith was unattended. “What was all that about?” he asked again. “Did you catch what he said?”

“Yes,” Lilith replied, “He said ‘maybe she thinks they’ll catch something.’”

“Catch something,” Broof repeated. “Like what?”

Lilith rolled her eyes. “Honestly Broof, sometimes you’re so dense. Bruno is a werewolf.”

“He is? How can you tell?”

“How can you not? He’s huge, hairy, covered in claw and gouge marks and his family freak out when he play-bites his kid. Not to mention that he constantly smells like wet dog. And who do you think they need the death flower for?”

“A werewolf?” Broof repeated in amazement. “I’ve never met one before. Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“I hope so,” he thought he heard Lilith mutter as she pulled her phone from her pocket, but he must have misheard. He made a mental note to pay the extra simoleon to get his ear hair sorted next time he visited the barber.

“Who are you messaging?”

“Melinda. I promised updates and seems like we have some.”

“Why would Melinda care that we’ve met a werewolf?”

Lilith shook her head. “Seriously Broof? Have you completely forgotten what we’ve been sat here talking about for the past hour? There might be a cure if we can find the ingredients. Time for the girls to get researching.”

“This is even creepier than the last house. Is this the right place?”

“This is the right place…”

“Well hello dear! You must be Jessica – Rose has told me all about you! Please, won’t you come in?”

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