A few minutes had passed since the witch had sat down next to him.
TehLulz asked: "How is living here, in the swamp?"
"It is a quiet and calm life, I can say that." She answered. "During the day I go around collecting herbs, during the night I am here, sleeping or brewing."
"How often do people pass by?" He asked.
"Not very often and they generally leave me be, they are just passing by on the way to the village near here." She stood up and walked over to her chest and searched it for something.
TehLulz wanted to know: "What are you looking for?"
She replied: "You'll see."
"Okay…" He answered, a little confused.
He looked over to his sleeping friends and a smile went over his face, they were together again. Seeing Fire however caused a sting in his stomach, he was not sure if he was going to make it, but on the other hand he knew how powerful the golden apple concentrate was.
He heard the witch say: "Found it."
She came into the room holding a pointy metal object in both hands.
"Look." She said and sat down next to him again.
TehLulz asked: "Is that a… knife?"
She demanded: "Yes, take a closer look."
TehLulz took the knife from her hands and looked at it closely, it was about as long as Fire's claws but shaped like you would expect a knife to be shaped. It seemed to be made from a dark metal, it was etched with ornaments of herbs and other plants.
"Those ornaments are like the ones on Fire's bottle…" TehLulz mumbled.
"Yes, that was why I was stopped after seeing them. They reminded me of this knife." She said.
TehLulz wanted to know: "Where did you get that?"
"A travelling merchant gave it to me after I healed someone from his caravan convoy, they were bitten by a spider, a very nasty bite but by far not as, you know, Fire's wound."
He answered: "Don't remind me of in what danger he is, you have done everything you could."
The witch said: "There is something about his condition that doesn't leave my mind though. I know that golden apple concentrate can sustain life but I never knew that it can do so to such a high degree. The only other potion I am aware of that can do such a thing is deathsleep poison."
TehLulz asked: "What does it do?"
"It suspends your entire metabolism and functionally turns you into a corpse. At the same time it prevents any of the decay that comes with being dead. Once the poison wears off or someone gives you the antidote you wake up. It's notoriously hard to brew since even a small mistake can lead to death."
He said: "While that's interesting I would really like to take my mind off of Fire, at least for a little while."
"You are right. Let's talk about something else." She replied.
"About that knife, did the merchant say where he got it from?" He asked.
The witch answered: "He said that he bought it from a blacksmith in Rockhaven."
"Hmm… That might be the same person who made the bottle, or the same group of people."
For the next few minutes they just sat there and looked at the knife, partly because the patterns were so detailed that TehLulz discovered something new every time he looked at the knife. The other reason was that if they looked at the knife, they didn't have to look at Fire.
TehLulz was just looking at the metal image of an herb he had never seen before as a thought flashed through his mind.
"Do you think that Fire uses bottles somebody else makes for his potions?" He asked the witch.
She scratched her head and replied: "Hmm… I don't know much about Fire but from what my mother told me he doesn't seem to be the kind of person."
"If I think about it, you are right… especially with all the knowledge he has…"
"What knowledge do you mean?" She asked, a little confused.
TehLulz answered: "He's been around for a long time. And, you know, the knowledge from the Books of Knowledge."
"Haven't those been lost?"
"Oh right, you don't know about that…" TehLulz said and then explained: "Fire stole them from there, he said that somebody might abuse them."
She asked: "How did he get into that town? I have never been there but from all what my mother told me, that town is a fortress."
"When I think about it, there is a whole lot we don't know about Fire."
TehLulz wanted to say something but he wasn't sure how the witch would react when he talked about the server, she was an NPC after all.
She looked outside through the open door and asked: "Look at the sunset, isn't it beautiful?"
It took him a few seconds to realize that it was already evening.
He just said: "It is."
She suddenly said: "We should go to sleep."
"Where do you sleep here, I haven't seen a bed in here."
She chuckled: "I sleep on the floor, those plants I am wearing keep me warm."
TehLulz looked at her and replied: "I have been sleeping on hard ground since we started, why not sleep on hard ground for one more night?"
He laid down on the floor, careful not to touch any of his friends with his feet and fell asleep within a few minutes. The last thing that he saw was the witch storing the knife in the chest and walking over to him.