Desperate Remedies

‘Speak no untruths in the presence of a gleemynx,’ Arlo’s mother used to warn him, growing up in the Oakseed Vines.

How could he have known, though? A gleemynx isn’t always easy to spot. They look remarkably similar to any normal person. Until, of course, you notice their crooked legs, webbed fingers, and pale green skin. Arlo hadn’t been paying attention when he stepped into the Alchemic Spire. He was looking for information regarding a bounty on an elfen grifter who had been terrorising Oakseed’s peaceful streets. A rookie mistake. You mustn’t lose focus on your surroundings when you venture outside the mainland. Arlo knew that. He’d been bounty hunting for seven years. And yet, he’d spoken a lie about the purpose of his visit directly to a gleemynx, who had been wandering the Spire library, and set it off. 'Varden Grale,' her name tag read.

'I’m armed, you fool!' Arlo exclaimed, his eyes tracking Varden's swift climb up a towering bookshelf. Her cackle echoed around them as her limbs began to bend and morph under her brown leather jacket. Her arms grew several new joints under its short-cropped sleeves.

Arlo hovered his right hand over the rusty metal scabbard attached to his hip, ready to draw his blade at any moment. Varden spotted Arlo's preemptive positioning, however, and she froze instantaneously. After a moment, she reached deep into her jacket pocket and pulled out a fastened glass vial filled with a bubbling purple concoction.

'And who might you be?' Varden spat down at her new acquaintance.

'Arlo,' he responded, 'Arlo Fenwick.' He took a step back at the sight of the potion in Varden’s curled, webbed hand. He’d heard tales of their arrival but hadn’t actually encountered a gleemynx face to face in years, not since he was a child when a gleemynx sorcerer had poisoned his mother with that very kind of potion. There was not a chance he was going to let the same fate that took his mother befall him too. Gleemynx are quick, unpredictable creatures. If Arlo didn’t act fast, he’d be splashed with violet venom at any moment.

Think fast. Arlo knew not to draw his blade; that kind of movement would cause the gleemynx to react, not to mention the blade wasn’t long enough to reach her up on the bookshelf.

'Do you like games, Arlo Fenwick?' Varden asked, with a growing, wicked smirk, as she clenched the violet venom vial.

He mustn't lie, Arlo thought. 'Occasionally,' he answered.

'What’s your favourite game?'

'I’m not sure I have one,' Arlo answered, truthfully.

Varden perched on the edge of the eroded wooden shelf, her smile stretching unnaturally wide, the corners of her mouth now reaching her eye level.

'What about Catch?' she asked.

Varden swung her contorted arm, catapulting the vial.

SPLASH.

Arlo shrieked in pain as the purple liquid oozed down his face and chest. It burned like acid, yet left not a single mark on his skin. Varden began howling with malevolent joy, watching terror strike Arlo's expression. Trying to remain focused and endure the horrific burning sensation, Arlo reached for his blade, pulling it from his scabbard. Quickly, Varden leapt over four rows of bookshelves and scuttled across the stone-brick floor of the ancient building.

‘Step back, foul beast!’ Arlo cried out, swinging his blade recklessly around him.

‘Tick-tock, Arlo!’ Varden called out, dancing around the open library hall.

Arlo took a deep breath, trying to recall his mother’s teachings. He knew there was a remedy for violet venom if he could just move quickly.

‘Ah, what is it?!’ he cried, stumbling through the bookshelves. If he remembered correctly, he had about ten minutes before he was completely paralysed. He scanned the labels dotted across the shelves, with blurred vision. ‘T’ was the letter he saw first.

'V. V. V.,' he repeated, muttering under his breath. That’s what he needed. He shuffled between the stretched shelves in search of answers, perhaps a leaflet or a treatment guide for violet venom. The Alchemic Spire library had information on everything: every topic, every species, every disease, every place. Surely, it had a solution for his urgent, burning issue.

'Looking for this?' Varden asked, sitting legs-crossed on the bookshelf above him and holding a scrappy, little booklet labeled ‘The Violet Venom Handbook.’ 

'Please!' Arlo begged, knowing he was in grave danger if he didn’t get that booklet from his gleemynx foe. Varden stared down at him with a mischievous glance, waving the handbook provocatively. She then crawled back behind the shelf, disappearing from sight. Meanwhile, the burning sensation intensified, and Arlo fought to remain conscious.

WOOSH.

Varden's pale green figure dashed between two bookshelves, right past Arlo.

'Come back!' Arlo cried out desperately as Varden snarled and snickered at his struggles from behind the surrounding shelves. He had mere minutes left now.

WOOSH.

And again, Varden dashed past. She was playing games with him, he realized. He had to be ready to catch her if she crossed his path again. There's an idea, he thought.

'Aaagh!' Arlo wailed, exaggerating the pain for effect. He pretended to stumble further and dropped his blade on the ground, all the while paying very close attention, ready to pounce at any second. And then:

WOOSH—Arlo swung around and jolted out his right hand to grab Varden. She was fast, but not nearly as strong as him. He gripped her tightly and pulled her toward him, tearing the handbook from her grip. She squawked and spat at him, struggling to escape his clutches. Holding her at arm's length, Arlo flicked through the handbook with his free hand, quickly flipping pages with his thumb while gripping it with his other four fingers.

'Remedies,' one page was subtitled. Aha!

As Varden continued to squirm and wriggle, Arlo pulled the page closer to his face to read. The stained illustrations and aged, scribbled text revealed the ingredients of a fabled antidote.

A simple yet precise concoction was required: one frozen ogre tear, four phoenix feathers, a tablespoon of juice from a rotten apple, and water from a graveyard lake.

Just then, Varden tried again to slip through Arlo’s grasp, scratching him with her webbed fingernails. Arlo winced, but his grip didn’t loosen in the slightest.

'You’ll never make it in time, Fenwick,' Varden hissed, giving up her struggle. 'I can easily just wait here for you to fall unconscious, it won’t be long now.' The warm stench of her green breath floated past Arlo’s nose.

‘That won’t happen, Varden, and when I’ve made my antidote, I’ll be throwing you to the ogres,’ Arlo warned, dragging Varden through the library toward the Spire’s laboratory. He knew it was around here somewhere; he could swear he’d seen a door labelled—

‘There!’ he exclaimed, approaching a door labelled ‘LAB’ with cut metal letters. He exhaled a sigh of relief as he swung the laboratory doors open and began to rummage through cupboards and drawers. The air was thick with dust, sweat fumes, and fizzling chemicals, serving as a potent reminder of the years of alchemical experiments that had taken place in the room. Arlo’s fingers brushed against glass tubes, fresh herbs, fossils, teeth, and scrolls as Varden’s weight sank into his left shoulder. The first of the ingredients Arlo found was the ogre tear, in a little jar labelled as such in the back of a small wooden drawer.

'You don’t strike me as a potion brewer, Fenwick,' Varden muttered with a mix of disdain and mild fascination. Arlo wasn't a potion brewer by craft but had learned plenty from his mother. He remained silent and focused, rummaging through boxes and containers. Next, he found a vial labelled ‘Graveyard Aged Water’ and placed the pair of ingredients beside the steaming, water-filled cauldron in the corner of the lab. Hundreds of phoenix feathers lay scattered at the bottom of a large drawer filled with assorted knick-knacks and trinkets. Arlo then reached into his pocket and pulled out an apple. Though he had been saving it for a snack on his hike home, he decided this was a better use for it. Holding Varden at arm’s length by her neck, he aimed her slobbering, wretched face toward the apple. Squeezing her neck caused her to expel green breath like a particularly odorous can of deodorant. 

‘Baaghh!’ Varden screeched.

The green air from her horrid breath clouded the fresh apple, rotting it to a dark yellow colour in mere seconds. And with that, Arlo had everything he needed. He poured a drop of the ogre tears into the cauldron, followed by a tablespoon of graveyard water. Next, he dropped in four phoenix feathers, and then—Arlo tumbled to the floor and groaned as the poison seeped further into his bloodstream. Varden slipped from his trembling grip and fled, dashing out of the room and cackling as she went.

'So long, Fenwick!'

Arlo's vision blurred once again as he fought to stand back up. His limbs ached and shivered, sweat covering his entire body. This is it, he thought. Barely able to move, he reached desperately toward the cauldron. Then, everything went dark…

Arlo’s body sprawled across the cramped laboratory floor, his life flashing before his eyes. Years of adventures replayed at once—flickering images of treetop forts, ferocious swamp beasts, ghouls and goblins, along with memories of his friends and family. In the midst of it all, Arlo could have sworn he heard a familiar voice speaking to him subconsciously.

'Rise, Arlo!' it called out to him. 'Rise and save yourself!'

Suddenly, a surge of energy shot through Arlo’s veins, as if he had the strength of two souls within him. He picked himself back up, still stumbling and shaking, fighting through the pain in his weary body. Taking the rotten apple, he crushed it over the cauldron, allowing the juices to disperse and dissolve within it. He slammed open a cupboard door, grabbed an empty vial, and swiftly scooped up a bottle full of the antidote from the bubbling cauldron.

‘Thank you,’ Arlo whispered, looking up to the ceiling. ‘Thank you, mother.’

He took a huge, desperate gulp of the fizzling potion. Then another, and another, until he had finished every last drop of the antidote swirling in the glass vial. At that moment, his vision cleared, and the agonizing aches all over his body began to fade.

The story of Arlo Fenwick wasn’t over yet; now, he had a gleemynx to hunt.