Chapter 29

Greenteeth Enchantments

Jeny Greenteeth stood openly in the doorway of her elevated house, the final light of the day illuminating her crooked teeth, green eyes, and warty skin. Atop her head she wore a broad sun hat that must have once been yellow but long faded into pale white. Greasy silver hair rested on the puffed shoulder pads of a garish pink lacey dress, short enough to leave her knobby knees uncovered. She looked to be ninety years old, but when she bowed into an exaggerated curtsy she showed none of the stiffness. With an unsually long-fingered hand she motioned inside and stepped back into the shade of the house. Warily, the four travelers dismounted their wagon and unhitched their tired horses before one by one ascending the rickety rope-and-stick ladder and entering her home. The air was damp and heavy with the smell of herbs, sulfur, and animal feces, and the floorboards creaked and bowed beneath them. Jeny made a puzzled face and asked why their two companions were not joining them inside. It took them a moment to realize she was referring to their horses, and unable to imagine how she would begin to explain the obvious fact that they couldn't get them up the ladder, Pieron resigned to saying they preferred the outdoors. Jeny shrugged, but with a burst of concern demanded they wipe their "hooves" before entering the house.

In the dim light of the house's common area, Jeny seemed to disappear, but the clinking of porcelain from the next room seemed to imply she'd slipped into the kitchen to fix some tea. As their eyes adjusted they saw a series of chairs arranged in a semi-circle around a Victorian coffee table and disintegrating leather arm chair. Along the walls were all manner of taxidermized forest creature, dozens of insect jars, and more potted plants than a respectably sized garden. From the furniture to the décor, nothing matched and it all seemed to be gathered up from every corner of the land, a trash heap of disregarded items repurposed with a chaotic and whimsical sense of taste. She called for them to grab a seat and emerged with a tray of mismatched tea cups, cracked and covered in dirt, and placing them on the coffee-table she sat back in the arm chair, grunting as the chair oozed a bit more stuffing from it's seams. The adventurers each chose a seat about the table, but the moment Erros sat his chair collapsed beneath him into splinters. Jeny sprayed deep-red tea out of her nose and burst into laughter and rose to help Erros to his feet. Bristled, he reached out to her hand and she quickly pulled it away, laughing heartier as he fell again amidst the wood pieces. Fabian huffed, annoyed at her antics, as Dyson rose to help up his friend. together he and Jeny hauled Erros to his feet. Her laughter faded, and she reached down to lift the back of the chair. As she did the pieces rearranged, pulled themselves back together, and in a moment the chair was whole once again. She patted Erros on the cheek and thanked him for the laugh before lumbering back to her chair. Impatient, Fabian asked the old woman what they'd come here to know, wether or not Fiona Wachter made her way to Jeny's hut for healing. She thought for a moment, but then admitted to skipping her latest visit to Vallaki to pick some of the ripest amathron mushrooms she had ever seen on the east bank of the Luna, and that she hadn't see anyone with two legs in forty years, but quickly corrected that to four weeks. Time is strange for her, she explained. Fabian, annoyed, rose to leave, but Jeny burst out that of course they had come to browse her renowned magical wares, and skipped from the room before waiting for a reply. They looked to one another and shrugged, Fabian sat back down, their curiosity piqued.

To remain polite they each grabbed a cup of tea from the table. It smelled bitter and earthy, and was a bright hue of reddish-brown, but they dared not drink any for fear of another prank. It was just in time, as Jeny returned with a bulky haversack and used it to wipe the tray from the table without a second look. As it clattered to the floor and scattered a bowl of sugar cubes, all manner of strange and colorful wonders spilled out from the bag. The group was interested indeed and asked after the use of each and every interesting and strange item before them. Jeny was forthcoming, though she often made little sense, speaking in riddles or strange exaggerations, and it took them a good bit of time to decipher what she was truly telling them about the objects. A few comical demonstrations and more than one misunderstanding later, they began to negotiate the price. It became apparent that they were not as wealthy as they thought, and had they the coin they would have purchased half a dozen trinkets. Together they settled on one, an ordinary looking lantern with the relief of an eyeball in place of its hooded opening. Jeny claimed that the lantern, when filled with oil and lit ordinarily, would cast light that revealed all creatures, even invisible ones, claiming that included those with fangs that suck blood. Invisibility was not a trait the group knew vampires possessed, though it worried them a great deal, and they payed handsomely for the lantern. As a sign of thanks Jeny gave them another item for free, a small vial of red sand that she claimed was a potent spice with the unintended side effect of turning your food invisible for a time. There looked to be enough powder to sprinkle the whole group with it several times, and Jeny assured them it would work on people even though she'd devised it to improve her roast chicken recipe, and Pieron thanked her for the generosity. When she rose to accept the item though, she stumbled, and realized she was stuck to her chair. Jeny held in her giggles with both hands until they turned to snorts, but procured a potion from her pocket that neutralized the glue.

Jeny seemed delighted by the successful transaction, and slipped their payment into the bosom of her dress. She exclaimed that though she couldn't fit this on her wooden sign, she also offered her spellcasting services, provided that they supply her the proper components. She could perform a myriad of incantations, identifying magical objects, scrying across the land, seeing into the future, healing disease and ailments, and even speaking to or raising people from the dead. The later of which Fabian was interested in, still possesing an urn of vampiric ashes from one of Vasilli's house guard. She hoped the dead creature held information to Ireena's whereabouts, but Jeny informed her she could not perform the spells without a mostly intact corpse that had passed within the last ten days. Instead Fabian and Dyson asked her to attempt to remove curses that had been laid upon them, thinking of their suspect brush with death and the strange beings of power with which they'd struck a deal. Jeny needed only several clippings of their toenails to cast the spell, but she insisted she remove them herself with her teeth. They thought that a small price to pay for severing their connections to the dark powers, so they reluctantly agreed. It was horrific. Agonizing minutes of Jeny slobbering and gnashing away, the strong smell of onion on her breath made them gag, until finally she had what she needed and cast the spell. They winced, but felt no different, and to their dismay she claimed it failed, that they weren't cursed at all, and offered to refund them the clippings. Next Fabian pulled a black twig from her bag that she had kept from the hall of oddities in the basement of the Durst House, and asked Jeny to identify the object. Where it had been cut, red sap, now crystalized to resin, had oozed out, and Jeny offered to oblige in exchange for a clump of her hair. Fabian used her sword to slice it off, and with reluctance Jeny took it and shoved it in her mouth. The old woman's eyes watered as she struggled to swallow it down as the group looked on in mutual disgust. When she'd finished she handed back the stick. It was non-magical, an ordinary stick, but she had seen a vision clinging to the object. A great black tree and a corpse with slit wrists at its base. The tree burrowed into the corpse and drank it's blood, and from it's roots rose evil creatures of the wood, a horde of corruption that poisoned the land. Fabian was curious, and asked if this was perhaps a clipping of that tree. Jeny said no, that it was as much the tree as a story book of a battle is the battle, but the vision the stick held was not coincidental either. Fabian thought briefly of the other objects from that room, and the visions they perhaps held.

But before they could say more Jeny explained she was tired and could only perform a few spells between each meal. She offered to let them spend the night, and without awaiting an answer, gathered up the remaining objects and practically ran from the room. Alone once again the group watered and bed the horses in the chill night air, and returned to the abnormal warmth of Jeny's hut to sleep through the night in shifts, wary of what pranks could be in store for unsuspecting guests of Jeny Greenteeth. They fortunately made it through the night unaccosted, and awoke rested to the strange symphony of dozens of chirps and croaks from the jars about the room. A far cry from the normalcy of the Blue Water, but more welcome than a huddled night in the bed of their borrowed wagon.