Ned's chemicals

While fetching blankets from his saddle, Jason found himself alone with Nedwin. The redhead was sorting through a variety of metal vials that hung from his neck by thin leather cords.

“What do you have there?” Jason asked.

“Some of the substances I’ve collected,” he said. “I have a powder that can bother any animals attempting to track us. I thought I’d scatter some here, then more after we cross.”

“How’d you learn so much about herbs and snakes and everything?”

Nedwin’s cheek twitched. “When I was imprisoned at Felrook, I kept my ears and eyes open. Quietly I learned to prepare many of the concoctions administered to me. When I was finally released, it became an obsession to gather the materials they had used. By immersing myself in the endeavor, I continued to learn.” He held up some vials, one at a time. “This induces sleep; this causes gutwrenching nausea; this opens the mind to suggestion; this increases sensitivity to pain.”

“Increases pain?”

Nedwin kept that vial in his long hand, stroking it with his thumb.

“A mixture of tarantula poison and juice distilled from a certain carnivorous plant. After a tiny dose, pressure feels like pain, and pain flares into an otherwise impossible agony.”

Chapter 12