Crimson Servant

Chapter 125: The Witch Who Makes the Medicine
The stairs took John and others to a damp basement. The wooden door was ajar, and a frightening green light seeped from the cracks in the door.

Raven pushed the door open, and the first thing that caught his eye was a large bubbling dark green soup pot. An octopus leg stretched out of the pot, wrapping around a large spoon to stir it. Spider webs and mold competed for territory on the ceiling, and there was the sound of insects crawling around from time to time, but no one saw those things.

There were messy bottles and cans on the shelves, each one the size of an average person's head, and filled with things that even John couldn't name.

The pendant made of shark teeth was hung on the wooden lamp stand. The light was very dim because the candle was covered with a layer of dirty bubble film, like a fish float taken out of some kind of aquatic fish.

There is no wind in this room, and those hollowed-out shark teeth will make a continuous strange sound after being touched, like a dull, short laugh.

The basement was dark and damp, with one wall made of natural rock. The flames under the cauldron cast the shadows of several people on it, and the uneven projections looked like monsters.

John and others consciously approached the cauldron. The flames here were the brightest. Even the weird green flames were easier to accept than the unknown things around them.

The thick soup in the pot has been boiling for a while, with fist-sized bubbles popping out on the liquid surface. After the bubbles exploded, a plume of green smoke rose from inside, and a dark red ribbon climbed up John's face to form a cloth. Covering his mouth and nose, he worried that the woman's previous description was not just about coaxing Barnes to get poisoned.

The familiar female voice appeared on the other side of the cauldron.

"One drop of living dead water can kill you, but what's in this pot is still a semi-finished product, so you don't need to be so nervous. Maybe I don't care about your lives, but I will care about mine."

John took the spoon, Raven had already fixed Barnes' arm, and Lillian held down his head and opened his jaw.

John brought the potion closer, and Barnes immediately twisted his neck like a mad dog, as if his instinct was resisting drinking the stuff. John failed several times, frustrated by Barnes' resistance and his worsening condition. Finally, he was determined and ruthless, and pushed the spoon almost entirely into Barnes' throat, turned it over, and pulled it out. The spoon that came out was clean.

John stared at her, a red light gradually rising in his eyes, and threatened: "He is still useful to me. If you can't save him, I will find a way to let him survive, but you may not be able to survive."

She walked over to the cauldron, grabbed the spoon from the octopus's legs, placed the spoon on the octopus's legs, and pressed it hard into the soup. Her palms were unexpectedly clean, and John could see the veins that appeared on the skin of the back of her hands. The sea witch stirred the living dead water decoction vigorously a few times. The spoon sank to the bottom of the pot and scooped out a spoonful of dark green thick soup. It exuded a disgusting smell and seemed to be still squirming.

"Antidote." John reminded the sea witch. Barnes, who was lying on Raven's shoulder, was cold. He began to retching, his face looked extremely bad, and he looked like he couldn't hold on for long.

The sea witch on the other side laughed so hard that he couldn't stand up straight.

Perhaps the sense of crisis stopped her from counterattacking (several people had seen her ability to express herself). The witch suppressed her aggression and simply replied: "You're not old, you have a bad temper."

"I told you this is a semi-finished product. If you want to cure this bastard..."

She lowered her head, spit into the spoon, wiped the corners of her mouth, and explained calmly under the doubtful eyes of several people.

"Be tough, good medicine tastes bitter."

The sea witch crossed his arms, played with the feather epaulets on his shoulders with his fingers, looked at John who was speaking, and hummed incomprehensibly.

"Feed him and he'll wake up."

John looked over and saw that she seemed to appear in the thick smoke, dressed as a witch doctor and somewhat pretty. The thick curly hair is fixed by several fishbone hairpins, the cheeks are painted with patterns, and the two plump lips are slightly chapped at the corners of the mouth. The deep black cracks are radiating, as if this mouth can open an inhuman arc, which also makes the witch's overall appearance The makeup went from a pretty face to a scary one.

The sea witch smiled and handed the spoon full of soup to John, with a look in his eyes as if he was expecting something.

"What if I say there is no antidote? Or I call you down just because I want to watch this bastard die miserably in front of my eyes."

"An enemy's saliva can make the dead alive."

After being force-fed with the decoction, Barnes showed immediate changes. His body became warm and no longer trembled. The dark spots on his face gradually disappeared, and his breathing gradually stabilized.

"He's not awake." John asked the only question.

The sea witch hummed happily and put the remaining soup in the pot into jars. "He's going to wake up, of course not now. Leave him here and come back in a few hours. I'm going to maintain basic professional ethics with this guy. You can go back and forth wherever you want."

John and the three exchanged glances, and finally Raven stood up.

"We are coming to Artemis Harbor for the first time. We need a safe place to rest. Barnes once said that you can provide such a place."

The sea witch raised her eyebrows, and she pointed at the corpse of Barnes lying on the ground.

"Well, hasn't he already started to rest?"

John and others looked at Barnes' peaceful sleeping face, and an ominous premonition came to their hearts.

"Could it be that……"

The sea witch smiled, took out his medicine bottle, and shook it gently in front of several people.

"I never promised Barnes that I would provide him with shelter. In fact, every time we met, he would annoy me. I would use him to test the decoction I made and then cure him. I would dump him out of the way. Corner, if you think of this as providing a break...well, yes, I do need a few new guinea pigs."

The sea witch walked up to Barnes, poked his face with her toes, rubbed his face vigorously, and stared at John mockingly.

"You actually believe such shameless words. Don't you know the consequences of trusting this captain?"

"Oh, I understand, he wants to take advantage of the healing effect of my potion. This is indeed a good way to replenish energy and relieve fatigue with my life-saving potion. Okay, good, very good, I am very happy to provide it, as long as you To be able to bear my poison before enjoying my healing.”

"Don't worry, you won't die."

Several of John's faces had depressing expressions of being cheated. The miserable situation of Barnes was still vivid in his mind, and no one wanted to enjoy the same deathly peaceful sleep as him.

Vivian was the first to back down. She would carefully protect her face during a battle. It was impossible for her to accept the test medicine and allow acne to grow on her face. She felt skin irritation from the moment she stepped down the first step. Goosebumps appeared on my body, and I just wanted to stay as far away as possible.

Raven and John also accepted the reality one after another. They refused to try the medicine, but still expressed their gratitude to the sea witch for their professional ethics. They dragged Barnes to a remote corner where he would not cause any disturbance. John was in his clothes. Sow the blood of early warning and plan to say goodbye.

The sea witch who was busy sorting out the potions stopped John.

"Wait a minute," she took out a piece of dried lizard and stuffed it into the medicine bottle and shook it, but her eyes were looking in the direction of the door. "This is your first time in Artemis. You are not familiar with the place. What are you going to do?"

The warlock looked at the somewhat absent-minded sea witch and said honestly: "Kill a few people, find a hiding place, empty it, and rest."

The woman covered her forehead and said with some embarrassment: "That will only cause more and more commotion here. Those pirates have their own allies. This is their base camp, and they will not remain indifferent."

"Oh, I changed my mind."

"I know Barnes, but that doesn't mean I'm a bastard like him. I have principles. I treat my own patients by myself, and I won't give you potions to restore your energy if you don't accept trial medicine."

"However, if you can help me collect some medicinal materials that are in short supply and let me make decoctions to consume some of the inventory, I can lend you the spare part of the warehouse for rest, and I can also provide you with some cheap medicines."

"How about it, do you accept the commission?"

John and the three discussed for a while.

"We accept that it's fair."

(End of this chapter)