18-Oct-2019
What if you put Snape and Hagrid together and then had that guy do a potion-making show?
“Hello all you aspiring potion masters. Welcome back. Today, as you can see, we’re in the equatorial rainforests of Yucwer, or Sumatra as the human population calls it. As I promised last week, we’re going to gather the last of the ingredients for our fear potion, which has been brewing for the past eighteen and a half days.”
“Oh look at that. I’ve not seen one of those in ages. A teal anaphalis javanica. The humans can only see the white and purple ones, but these are blooming and in rare form at the moment. I’m just going to nick a quick sample from the lower stem, because we can use that later in the month for our human repellent potion.”
“Alright. On to our destination. You can see the normal corpse flowers around us. The largest is over two meters tall, and they are just beginning to open up. The smell is pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as where we’re going. I’d have to say that on a scale from one dead body to ten, this one is about a four. Give this place a couple of days and it might ratchet up to a six.”
“The last time I was here we were hunting for a rare form of Teak, which we make items that can fly out of. Remember that? I almost got spirited away by an entire plant of the stuff before I realized that I was no longer tethered to the ground. Good times.”
“Oh my goodness. What a treat. If you look through the trees right over there, you can see a unicorn standing by the lake. Now, the creatures have come off of the endangered species list, but each one is protected by a tracking spell. If anyone besides a natural predator attacks one—and we all know what that is—they are instantly transported into a zoo and made to look like a monkey for the humans. The sentence lasts for six months, in which time you won’t see real food and will likely have poo thrown your way. See there? She’s headed away from where we’re going. Smart lass.”
“Alright, I knew I should have brought my flying soles, but instead decided to take the natural route. Mental note to me, next time I shall forego the natural experience.”
“Almost there. These things hide in the crags of these hillsides, which as I’ve mentioned before, look like a much larger mountain to the humans. I see several specimens that will work for our purposes. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?”
“As you can see, this first one is a monster. Over three meters tall, and the flower is wide enough to swallow me whole. They shoot this large, white tongue, disguised as a normal pistil, toward the sky in an attempt to entice insects and birds down into its petals. This one hasn’t started to smell too much. I’d give it a six out of ten dead bodies. We’re looking for at least an eight, so let’s carry on, shall we?”
“I’ve passed three more, and now stand before a full corpse flower. The pistil towers well more than a meter over my head, and I can clearly see several large birds being slowly digested through the stalk. I’ve used a swipe of smelling salve under my nose to keep the stench at bay. Before I used it, this thing was at a nine out of ten dead and rotting corpses. The excrement smell is also very strong, and that’s how we can tell we have a winner.”
“Notice how I’ve gone to the uphill side of the flower? While it is rare for even these true corpse flowers to attack a full-sized human, if it is feeling that it hasn’t stored enough for its hibernation phase, it will gladly digest a man or woman. Especially since the scent keeps most mammals away.”
“The next part is going to be tricky. We need a bit of the pistil for our potion. It won’t take much, but we’re going to have to be quick. I’ve brought a long rod complete with a set of jaws at the end and a little pouch that will store what I take. Once the flower finds that what has attacked it is inanimate, it should let the rod go. Let’s have a go, shall we?”
“Hold it steady. There we go. Now bite!”
“Oh, see? The pistil has retracted, and the petals sealed up. It’s spewing juices on the rod right now, but in a moment it will figure out that the rod won’t digest, so it will spit it out. Hopefully. Stay tuned.
“Ah ha! That took longer than I expected, but as you can see, I have the rod back and if we just…sure enough. There’s what I took with the jaws. This much of the pistil should make twenty or so batches of our fear potion, especially since I have a suspend potion that will keep it from rotting while I travel back.”
“If you’ve enjoyed today’s presentation, join my potions channel, The Most Sinister Potions in the Land and How to Make Them, and find out next week how to finish this project.”
“For now, cheers, happy potion making. Do dark things.”
