When my sweet but dangerous Faye had beaten me up, without me ever realizing what was happening there, I ended up believing that stupid girl had told her such idiotic fairy tale. It was amazing to notice later on that I had not connected the dots, yet.
My partner loudly complained about me, her moronic wannabe husband, dating the female chancellor or some other woman that looked just like her. She told me I was doing her every bidding as a lousy pet dog, always tailgating his owner wherever she was heading to. I found it strange that I could have gotten an audience with that noblewoman in such a short period of time. My boss had told once me it could take over three days to reach her, waiting for the princess to receive a commoner like me would take even longer than two weeks.
I got to be honest and tell you that I smelled some fresh news coming up my way after I learned about my so called love affair. What could have she used to seduce me? No, wait there, I need to correct my previous statement, she got to have bewitched me somehow! The issue was that I had no clue about what it could handle about, was it some ridiculously effective love potion? Or she used magic on me to turn me into her mindless pet servant? Besides, we could not tell whether or not she was the actual chancellor of Gale…
Searching for the Truth About the Female Chancellor
Scary, it was quite spooky to realize that I was becoming a true tabloid journalist after I had picked that experience as an excuse to further investigate the matter. I was about to become my very worst nightmare, okay, the second worst one, the first being turning into an evil clown! What was the third most horrible nightmare of mine? I do suspect it got to be being bitten by a lousy werewolf and ending up looking like a wandering fur ball during full moon.
My troubled mind could not get some sleep, I had to figure out who was flaunting her charms up to the point of bewitching guys and turning them into slaves, I just could not let her get away with it. Somebody would say I was in dire need to solve this mystery if I truly wanted to live another month, my first step would be a very uncommon shop. As far as my contacts knew, a former medicine man was pretending to be some sort of witch doctor or herbalist and tried hard to sell his strange potions or ointments.
Since the term doctor was only introduced after outsiders like me started showing up everywhere in the queendom, most people did not understand what they were capable of doing and how they could usually heal the sick. That was why I picked him as my first victim, I mean, suspect. I intended to get some information on anybody more suspicious than him that could have been asking for mysterious items lately.
The shopkeeper’s name was Bartolo Niente, obviously he was Italian, he had worked in Napoli as a doctor. Reluctantly he opened his Mystery Shop once he realized he could not practice medicine anymore. His gypsy heritage helped him a lot to find all the merchandise he could ever need to help people recover even from the worst illnesses. Yeah, what a lousy propaganda it was, but he was hiding the fact he mixed it with actual drugs that could really help his customers somehow.
I was unable to learn why he left Italy over a decade ago, he just kept changing the topic as many times as he needed to. I could only imagine he made some serious mistake that he does not want to recall anymore.
Being as curious as I was since I started becoming a tabloid reporter, at a very slow pace, I wondered how he could descend from gypsy folks. As far as I knew, that was supposed to be almost impossible in a catholic country like Italy.
Then Bartolo let me know that they were not considered true gypsy people but some sort of defectors by their families. They only kept some of their customs alive for their own sake since they could not afford to buy expensive medicines when they still were a young couple. Even so they managed to gather enough people around and become famous enough as healers as to sell some of their products to some aging priests. Of course, they wanted their son to get a life so they supported him until he finally became a doctor.
“But that’s not the most amazing story I could tell you now, my dear outsider, for a modest sum I could reveal the secret you’ve been trying to solve for quite a long time as far as I can see…”, the doctor told me.
He seriously thought he was offering me a great deal in his humble opinion. I was not really intrigued by his claim, but I still loved to know what it could be.
I unwillingly inquired of him, “So what do you think I’d need the most now?”
The fake witch doctor grinned before saying, “Nothing really important, just a way out of this messy country full of retards…”
It really made me laugh, who ever said I was interested in traveling abroad at this point?
He further elaborated then, “…back to your old life in your homeland, I guess it might be somewhere in the United States or Canada in the worst case scenario.”
A way out of this land of ignorance and lack of all high technologies I got used to for most of my life, that really sounded quite convincing. Still, he needed to explain why he had never returned to his own country so far.
“It’s not that I can’t go back there, I just think it’s not convenient for me, plus living in a relatively peaceful country like this one isn’t that bad after all”, mister Niente partially confessed.
So there was something making him come back every so often, I then asked him, “That means you’re purchasing your merchandise there in order to sell it here in the queendom…”
I took a break to calm down a bit and added, “Well, does it also imply somehow that you’ve got, by any chance, some quick pregnancy test of sorts?”
He certainly nodded, making me feel a bit relieved because I could probably solve a minor mystery concerning Suzanne’s ridiculous claim.
Something was heavily knocking on my mind’s door, but I could not remember what it could be. I had read somewhere that crossing thresholds could make people forget or recall things due to some weird way our brains work while attempting to access specific memories. Thus I just left the shop for a brief moment. Right then I stopped being so dense at last, allowing me to remember I wanted to ask him about the mysterious woman that could allure men with extreme ease.
“What can you tell me about such a charming girl, mister Niente?”, I quickly inquired of him.
He took a large break to sit down and visualize every single customer that had visited him in the last month. Bartolo also checked his bills just in case there was any useful clue there. Nonetheless, he could not tell me if anybody looked that sexy or was such an impressive sweet talker as my current target. I only thought I regrettably had to get used to those unexpected setbacks. My fists just wished they could have broken everything around me to release some stress if possible.
After a few minutes I told him the few things my girlfriend knew about that witch as some useless way to deal with my frustration.
“I can assure you I wouldn’t dare to offer any customer such a manipulating item. In fact I’ve been asked for such stuff before, but I’ve always told them I’ll never sell things that could strongly alter people’s behavior”, doctor Niente commented, not noticing what those words actually meant.
“So that means there was somebody asking for such potions after all… Do you recall anything else like when it had happened or how he or she looked like?”, I desperately had to inquire of him, it seemed to be my only chance to further my weird investigation.
Minutes passed, we even had time to drink some tea, later he could only tell me, “Something makes me think it was a guy the one you might be looking for, probably he works for that strange woman you met earlier.”
That was helpful indeed, I then knew I had to chase him down to make him reveal the girl’s whereabouts.
“You should also know he left my shop before walking down the street as if he were heading to a place we all have nicknamed the Evil Magic Pot, there you might find out a lot more about them”, Bartolo asserted then.
Knowing that I had hit the mark for the first time made me think I was not as unlucky as I thought, even so I still ignored a few things.
The shopkeeper warned me, “But you better pay a visit to the local priestess first so she can give you some talisman or medallion for your own protection, it’d be just a simple safety measure…”
His last minute advise gave me the creeps for sure, what kind of damn people were working in the so called Evil Magic Pot then? Would I risk my life for any stupid piece of information? Could the priestess’s present protect me even for a few minutes?
If I was really getting into some darn serious troubles, I had some chores to do first. Some of them were buying that test for Sue, kissing my girlfriend one last time, and start writing my will.
Possibly you could think I was just overreacting, but the last time I ever underestimated a dangerous situation, I got too close from becoming a goner. That would not happen to me twice so I really wanted to put everything in order.
Fear seriously walked through every single inch of my trembling body while heading to my hostel. An intense sensation of missing my girls was taking over my poor, crying soul.
That day every single shopkeeper, salesman, and merchant loved to approach me. They were waiting for me to listen to their boring speeches and to buy their stupid stuff I would never use in my life. One of them even tried to sell me some rotten tomatoes, what a barefaced guy he was indeed! I quickly pushed him away, he fell on his back and just kept threatening me. He truly ignored how dangerous my next errand was supposed to be. Nevertheless, one of his laughable threats handled about the unknown woman that looked just like the female chancellor.
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