Secret Agent Chapter 082 - Witches (Patreon)

Zack Adder [Stifled] a sigh. He’d been dealing with so many new people today and it was starting to wear him down.

Sienna shifted on his shoulders.

Saa tired.

Still, he put on a friendly expression. Not quite a smile, but he cut his [Intimidation] entirely.

“Hi, Kathy. I haven’t seen Zinnie since I saw you last. But now that I’m here, Zinnie, Kathy told me to pass on that you’re a smelly traitor and to go visit her for tea sometime soon.”

Roxy and Henrietta both gasped loudly next to him, and Roxy smacked on his bracer.

“Ow!” she exclaimed

It had hurt her more than him.

“Jack, you can’t say that to a woman!” she scolded him.

But their reactions were mild compared to Zinnie’s.

“Huh? Smelly?! You bitch, I’m gonna hex you! Just you wait… You’ll never find a man when I’m through with you, you hag! Crone!”

Zinnie went off for a full minute while Zack, Roxy, and Henrietta stared, and Kathy just grinned at her.

“Serves you right for staying away so long!”

Zinnie looked away and huffed. “It wasn’t my fault! Work got super busy at the Adventurer’s Guild…”

“You shouldn’t be over there anyway.”

“That’s nunya! Nunya business!”

Zack blinked.

He hadn’t expected to hear that expression here in another world.

Zinnie turned back to Kathy, glared at her, knocked back the rest of her tea, and then elegantly set her teacup on its saucer and demanded “More tea!” with the attitude of a gangster.

“Of course, of course… Just visit more often, would you? And you, Jack.” Kathy pulled a wand out from the sleeve of her robe and waved it. A teapot rose into the air and poured steaming tea into Zinnie’s teacup, then set itself back down. “Next time a witch tells you to do something, don’t delay. I’m a kind and patient witch, but some witches are spiteful and will hex you for no good reason.”

“Jack… You wanted to bring Henrietta here?” Roxy whispered.

Zack looked over and saw Henrietta was pale and standing stiffly.

“I swear Kathy was normal when I was here the other day.”

This time he did sigh, dramatically.

“Kathy, Zinnie, can you please not scare Henrietta.”

They both turned to him with identical grins.

““She should be scared of witches!””

Sienna flickered her tongue, and lifted her head slightly.

Funny women.

Great, now his [Familiar] was developing a weird sense of humor.

“You’ll have to excuse Kathy,” Zinnie said pleasantly. “She’s in a particularly good mood because someone finally collected some high quality Belladonna primitiva and basically saved her shop from closing.”

“Yeah! Praise be to the Adventurer’s Guild! Give us back our Zinnie! Woohoo!” Kathy thrust her teacup into the air in celebration, all the tea flying out and then swooping right back into her teacup unnaturally.

“Roxy…” Henrietta whispered to Roxy behind Zack’s back. “Are they drunk?”

““We’re not drunk!”” the two witches yelled back in unison before descending into a fit of cackling.

“I think they are,” Roxy answered.

But Zack sniffed the air and couldn’t detect any scent of alcohol. Not even the faintest trait.

“No, I think they’re just… witches.”

The cackling intensified, and Zack eyed the sun. It was setting, and it would soon be time to go.

“Ahem,” he took a step forward, and the cackling stopped, and Zinnie jerked back, startled, her tea trying and failing to escape its cup. “Ah, snake! Sneaky hiding snake, don’t scare me!”

Zack was getting fed up with the antics.

“For the record, I was the one who collected Belladonna primitiva today.”

Kathy looked up, blinked at him, and then grew serious.

“Oh. Oh! You did? Wonderful, I won’t hex you after all!”

Zack ignored the provocation. “And I have an idea for helping other adventurers with the gathering requests. This,” he gestured to Henrietta, “is Henrietta, and she’s something of an artist. I’m planning to have her make reference cards for the different kinds of plants that get requested.”

Zinnie waved her teacup at him, sloshing more tea into the air. “Jack… are you alright in the head? Why would you do that? You could make a killing on gathering right now, you know? Ever since, uh, what was his name retired… and what’s her name moved out to Famalfi… And that one guy promoted…”

“More importantly, even if you made a reference card, ain’t nobody at the Adventurer’s Guild could read it. It’s a waste of time,” Kathy cocked an eyebrow and elegantly sipped her tea.

Zack ignored the comments. “To that end, I’d like to show Henrietta some samples of the herbs that are most scarce right now, so that we can make reference cards and rent them out at the Guild.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea!” Kathy slapped a hand on the table and shot to her feet. “Let’s go look at the plants!”

Zinnie rolled her eyes and groaned. “Ugh, now you’ve got her on one.” She drank down her full teacup as fast as she could, and then set it down on its saucer. “Kathy, the tea was as good as the company was poor. May your socks go missing and yadda yadda.”

“Don’t be a stranger, dearie~ Don’t make me come drag you out of that Guildhall myself!” Kathy called over her shoulder as she unlocked her shop, not even turning to look as Zinnie stood, smoothed out her robes, and pulled her hat forward. Suddenly, the relaxed and somewhat inebriated-seeming woman took on the ominous tones of a professional witch, someone not to be messed with. Without another word, she stalked off up Apothecary Row, towards Grand Witch Polly’s archway and the fastest route back towards the Adventurer’s Guild.

But her aura only lasted until she suddenly stopped and bent down to pet one of the cats lying in the sun on the side of the road.

“Come in, come in! Look at the fresh Belladonna primitiva I just received! Isn’t it lovely?”

Zack led the way, followed by Henrietta, with Roxy bringing up the rear. He strode up next to Kathy at the counter, where there was a box full of the flower stalks he’d collected earlier that day, and beckoned Henrietta to step forward. She did, but hesitantly.

“So this is the plant I gathered this morning.” He pulled out a single sheet of paper from Ed’s. “On one side, I’d like to draw just the plant as it looks now, after gathering. That way, Adventurers can identify it out in the wild, and also how it should look after being collected.”

Kathy leaned over and looked at the paper, interested in what Zack was saying.

Roxy was more interested in gawking at the rest of the plants on display.

Zack flipped over the yet blank piece of paper. “And on the other side I think some pictures indicating where to cut, how to pack it, and some simple written warnings for the adventurers who can read would be fine.”

He looked up at the herbalist. “So, what are the two most scarce plants the Guild gathers at the moment?”

“Hmm…” Kathy hummed and started looking around her shop as she thought.

“Or the plants you get from the Guild most by volume,” Zack amended.

“Probably Pilgrim’s Balm and Spotted Blue Buttons,” she answered after some thought. “Pilgrim’s Balm leaf is used all the time for low potions, but for better potions wild-collected Pilgrim’s Balm is key. And people often mix up Spotted Blue Buttons with Blue-Spotted Buttons. They’re totally different mushrooms but adventurers mix them up all the time.” She fetched a tray from behind her counter, then pulled down two ceramic jars from her shelves. Using tongs, from each she pulled out a small round mushroom, like a White Button from Earth—although Zack didn’t know that. Unlike a White Button, one mushroom was dark blue with large purple and green spots, and the other was white with small, bright blue spots on it.

“I can’t imagine how they keep getting mixed up. They’re clearly very different,” Kathy bemoaned, and then pointed to the Spotted Blue Button, and her gaze flickered momentarily to Sienna on Zack’s shoulders. “This one is a key ingredient in anti-venoms. Not so much for taipans, given how they mostly stay away from the city, but for porcuspines, gravespiders, and especially brown recluses, it’s valuable. I think the latest request for these was ten lindra each? And we might raise that soon, since we’re running low.”

Zack furrowed his brow. There were brown recluses here?

“The Blue-Spotted Buttons aren’t totally useless, so we still buy them anyway, but we have plenty of alternatives for laxatives so they’re not crucial. But the reward is only a lindra for three.”

“That’s a big difference,” Zack noted.

Kathy shrugged, and then pulled a leaf down from where it was hanging from the ceiling.

“This is a Pilgrim’s Balm leaf.” She passed it to Henrietta, who delicately held it in both hands and looked at it closely. “Wild Pilgrim’s Balm usually has better quality and higher levels of mana in it than cultivated Pilgrim’s Balm. Can’t make a high potion with cultivated Pilgrim’s Balm. But cutting off all the leaves will damage the plant, so best practice is to only collect half the leaves, and then let the plant regrow.”

“Henrietta,” Zack said, “can you make some sketches of these plants now, and then work on painting them properly tomorrow?”

“Technically, the buttons are mushrooms,” Kathy added.

“Uh huh,” Henrietta replied. She pulled out a stick of charcoal wrapped in linen and started sketching the desired materials from several different angles. At the same time, Zack asked Kathy about best practices for gathering, and took notes.

“Jack, it’s almost time to go.” Roxy was looking out the window as the sun dipped towards the horizon.

Henrietta’s charcoal stick moved faster.

“Jack, you’re sure you don’t want to just collect these yourself?” Kathy glanced at Sienna again. “With a [Familiar] like her, you’d have no problem making plenty of money.”

“Adventuring is a side-gig for me,” Zack answered.

“Yeah, Jack’s our Understudy!” Roxy interjected. “If he’s out gathering plants all the time, he couldn’t [Act]!”

Kathy heaved a heavy sigh. “Competent gatherers come and go like the winds these days…” she groaned.

“If this works,” Zack said, “I’d like to come back with Henrietta and make more reference cards. Would that be okay?”

“For you, yeah.” Kathy’s hand stroked the box containing the Belladonna primitiva. “I might ask you to go gather some stuff I need as soon as possible, though.”

“I can’t make any promises,” Zack cautioned, “but if I can, sure.”

Kathy smiled, and they made their way outside. “Good. Oh, and next time you see Zinnie—”

“Oh no,” Zack interrupted her. “I’m not passing any more messages between witches. Let’s go, Henrietta, Roxy, we gotta get back to St. Bella’s.”

Kathy had started to smirk, but then her eyes went wide. “Oh… oh! Ahem, well, best of luck to you, Jack, Henrietta, Roxy.”

They hurried through the darkening streets, Zack making heavy use of his [Intimidation], and made it back to St. Bella’s just as the sun touched the western horizon.