Wreath of Lilies, Cauldron of Poison

Chapter 66

The Black Widow's Plight

After the two returned their room in the inn, Connie took off her outer robe and threw it to Martell, who hung it carefully on a chair. The subdued wood and flower scent of her sweat lingered in his nose.

She then took the sheet off the bed and laid it on the floor then sat cross legged on top of it.

“Close the curtain halfway, Martell. I need only half the daylight.”

While he did as she ordered, Connie took out the items she bought from the market that morning. A few handfuls of herbs and pieces of barks, a jar of honey, a few jars of what seemed to be spices for cooking, a dead chicken with feathers still on, the jar of fuzzy ball that she bought with 20 gold, and finally a set of stone mortar and pestle.

“Mistress. What are you doing?” he asked.

“Doing what I do best. Concocting poison,” she answered while wiping the mortar and pestle clean with a cloth and pouring a few pinches of white crystals into the mortar. “You may watch, but you’ll have to stand a bit farther away. And don’t block the light.”

“What’s that?” he asked, throwing himself onto the bare mattress. He had seen how she used poison in some of her fights. Yet he had never seen her actually make one.

“Rock salt,” Connie said as she proceeded to grind the rock salt using the mortar and pestle for a few minutes before throwing the off-white particles out. “You don’t actually have to do this for making poison, but old habit dies hard.”

She crushed a few of the pills Martell recognized as the pills for performance the men bought from the store. She mixed them with a bit of chicken blood and honey. Then she put in some leafy herbs before continuing to pulverize the mixture with the pestle and mortar.

While she was doing this, Martell rolled until he could see her doing her work.

“Mistress, can I ask you something?”

Without breaking her concentration on her work, she nodded. “Ask.”

“Why did you let her off so easily? Considering your personality, you would have done much worse.”

“Oh, you know me so well, do you? Then let’s take your brain for a spin. With what we’ve done today, do you think that that woman will take this lying down?”

“No. Of course not,” Martell answered. His eyes turned serious as he began to realize that she was testing him. “She will try to strike back.”

“Exactly. She will try to take revenge on me. But with Gladstone distancing himself from her, what will she do?”

“She’ll try to look for other support,” Martell began to think. “But who would she look for? Other nobles, I guess.”

“How should I know? I’m not a fortune-teller,” Connie laughed. “But with her being abandoned by the leader of the Nobles’ Faction, it would be rather hard for her to get support. That faction is a monolithic one, as are all political factions holding on to old-fashioned ideas.”

“But not all nobles are a part of it, surely?” Martell asked again. “Otherwise there’s no way the Military Faction can stand against them equally.”

“Indeed. Some are neutrals. And some are aligned with the Military Faction. There are 5 Dukes involved with the Nobles. 3 with the Military. 2 are neutrals, including Cornelia’s family. And that’s just because my – her - father had a special position in the Kingdom,” Connie exclaimed as she scraped a piece of bark that smelled strangely bitter and mashed it together in the mortar.

She threw the rest of it into the air and a jelly-like substance shot out of her inner sleeves and took it inside itself. Connie gave it a gentle pat before it returned inside her. “Also, he’s…well, dead.”

Martell stretched his body like a cat, gripping the mattress with his little claws and pulled his back towards his leg and yawned. The remnants of sleep he lacked still had a bit of its hold on him. “She won’t reach out to the Military Faction, of course. That’s the only other choice.”

“The only other choice, eh?” Connie gave a knowing snigger as she paused, gathering her Yin Energy and sending it into the mixture. The Yin Energy began refining the paste, making slight popping sounds.

“Mistress…” the beastfolk boy stopped stretching and gave her a dubious look. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“Hahaha, please,” she laughed him off, ignoring his annoyed look. “Anyway, to be able to have a standing on that faction she only had few choices.”

Martell snorted as he remembered the strong smell of sex mixed with wine on the old sow and grimaced. “She used her body.”

“Yes, and?”

“Grunford’s information. But that’s already a done deal,” his ears perked up as he drew a conclusion. “Oh, but then you said that you know where the First King’s Treasures are. Why would you do that? You are giving her something that she could use to leverage herself!”

“Think a bit more.”

“Unless…” he bit his lips and finally worked it out. “You want her to go to the Noble’s Faction!”

“Good job,” Connie smiled, seeing that he worked it out well. “And just in time too.”

Connie opened her palm after she finished infusing her Yin Energy into the mixture. After she saw that the color of the paste had turned the color of a bug’s carapace, she finally added the item she bought in the harbor. She carefully broke the furry ball with the knife then spooned the black grains inside with the same knife onto the mixture inside the mortar.

“Yuck, that thing smells like shit.”

“It is supposed to. This came from a deer’s ass.”

“Huh? That’s disgusting! Do people really put shit in poisons?”

“Some poisons do.,” Connie pinched a very small amount and rubbed them with her fingers. “Go on. Get a nice whiff of that.”

Martell craned his body forward from the bed apprehensively. He tried sniffing it, expecting to recoil from the smell. Instead he grabbed her hand and sniffed deep of the foreign smell.

“It smells…sweet?”

“Yeah. That’s musk for you. It’s great for perfumes too. I could have used plants-based musk for this one, but animal musk is best for this type of poison. It lasts longer and works faster.”

Connie then continued to grind until the ingredients were turned into a rough paste.

“Nothing beats granite mortar and pestle for grinding ingredients! See the results? So good.”

She then poured a handful of water and mixed them until it came to her desired consistency.

After that she put the result into a cloth which she squeezed it to a small bowl until it only excreted a small amount of liquid.

“Chen,” Connie called. The slime popped out of her sleeve, intently looking at the damp cloth she was holding.

“Can you suck just the liquid out of this?”

The slime snaked its way up her arm and covered the cloth. Reddish bubbles could be seen being sucked out of the cloth through Chen’s translucent skin. Chen made a quick little wiggle in surprise and quickly returned inside her.

She opened it and what was left was a mound of red powder with ash-like texture that crumbled with barely a touch.

She portioned the powder on top of an oil paper. A quarter for the slime, and half for her. The rest she poured into a small glass jar. She held it up against the light and smiled with an expression of satisfaction.

“Nothing beats making a complex poison from scratch.”

As she did so, Illumca peeked her head in through the window.

“Connie. I did as you asked,” she said while climbing in. “After I took care of your followers - the threads work like a dream, by the way – I tailed Joan Carell. Just as we suspected, she went out to seek help from Gladstone.”

“Oho, then?”

“She was rejected at the front gate. But she did manage to bribe the man guarding the mansion to hand her message to Raoul Gladstone. After that, she went back home and spent her time coaxing the sniveling little shit she called a son.”

“Hmm…she works fast. Desperation is the best medicine, I suppose.”

“By the way. What are these stuffs on the floor?” she asked.

“I was concocting a poison tailored to Joan Carell’s…proclivities.”

“Finally?!” Illumca had no love for Joan Carell and wished for nothing more than her death for making Connie go through so much. Hearing that she had finally decided to end their ties was a welcome news.

“Yes,” She showed her the small bottle containing the red powder. “This is not just poison. But a combination of both poison and healing pill. #214. The Black Widow’s Plight. mixed with Male Enhancement Pill. Very volatile and very dangerous. One whiff could arouse your desire so bad you’ll want to fornicate like rabbits with anything you see.”

Hearing this, Illumca backed away as far away as she could with a leap.

“Hahahaha!! Relax. As long as you don’t breathe it in or drink it, you won’t be affected,” She came over to her, took Illumca’s trembling hand and enclosed the dark elf’s fingers around the flimsy glass bottle. “This should optimally be ingested orally. Best with something room temperature. Make sure she drinks this.”

“You can mix it with wine,” Martell added his opinion. “The smell of wine I smelled from her was so strong I thought I might get drunk.”

“N-now?”

“Yes. Now! She is at her most stressed tonight! She’ll be drinking lots of wines!”

“W-what’ll happen if I happen to…” Illumca gulped, eyeing the dangerous poison on her palm. “…d-drop it?”

“Don’t,” Connie said seriously. “Just…don’t. I cannot stress this enough. Don’t.”

“…”

“Let me draw you a picture,” she said as she majestically took a seat on a chair and leaned her body slightly forward.

“Properly applied, the Black Widow’s Plight will enter the blood stream through small wounds in the throat caused by the reaction between the saliva and the poison. It then travels up to the brain and cause the victim to desire intercourse so bad she would fuck anything she laid her eyes on. And when she does, the partner will feel more vigorous thanks to the Male Enhancement Pills I mixed in,” she explained the horrifying details with a level tone. “But that vigor is only to mask the fact that The Black Widow will suck the Yang Energy from the partner and feed on it, giving it enough Energy to last longer.”

“The man will feel more invigorated and seek the pleasure the victim gives. And he will desire more! But the victim will not be able to fulfill her needs. Yes! Because the poison will ask for more, tricking the brain to become an addict of the unworldly pleasure and vigor it gives. As a result, she will seek other partners to satisfy her needs. And then another. And another. She will not be able to go to sleep as pleasure becomes the only thing the victim desires. She will forget to eat or drink. She will forget everything for the sake of her addiction.”

“This will go on and on until the victim is spent. Both mentally and physically.”

Connie gave a proud smile as she presented her custom made poison.

“Such is #214. The Black Widow’s Plight.”

“Vile…” Martell could only clap his hand in respect to the vileness of his Mistress. “Absolutely vile. It would not only affect her but also the one she’ll fuck. You are going to create such chaos. I am…in awe,” the beastfolk boy bowed towards her. Half playfully and half serious.

“Connie. I – I don’t think I can do this,” Illumca said with a trembling voice.

She was not scared of death. She had faced it many times.

She had no fear of torture. She had endured it for years.

But what Connie explained about the despair inducing item in her hand made cold sweat to run down her neck.

“Hahaha! Don’t worry. I trust that you’ll do well.” She gave her a thumb’s up and a strong pat on her back, making her almost drop the poison. The dark elf scrambled to catch it with a panicked expression.

“Connie! That’s not funny!!” Illumca begged. Her eyes were tearful from her paramour’s mean spirited joke.

“Have fun with it, be creative! I’m waiting for a good news tonight!”