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Knock, knock, knock.
Licorice jumped in his seat at the sudden sound and hurriedly closed the diary he was writing in. Witches, he couldn't let anyone see his journal! They wouldn't let him live it down, especially Pomegranate Cookie, who he supposed was standing at his door.
Licorice quickly stood up and hid the notebook behind tomes standing on his bookshelf and groaned. He wished he could just make her leave, he didn't want to deal with her right now. She's been a nuisance lately, and he just wanted a break from her. A really, really long break. Sadly, having to see the woman every day didn't help with accomplishing his dream.
But alas, he shouldn't keep her waiting. He opened the door, but to his short-lived relief, no red cookie was standing behind it, but rather a small, purple one holding two bottles of… something in their hands, “Helloo..!” They said as happily as ever, “Can we hang out a bit..?”
“W-what do you want? I'm busy!” Licorice furrowed his brows and scolded the younger Cookie. That kid! Always appearing when the mage was busy with his stuff! The audacity. Besides, he wasn't feeling like babysitting Poison Mushroom right now, having them in his room meant having to constantly keep an eye on them, make sure they don't smash or sniff or drink any potions, keep them away from poisonous and dangerous ingredients and ensure they don't accidentally chant a curse they would see in an open spell book. As dumb as it sounded, he had heard of many such cases, and he wasn't eager to have a ghost of the ancient summoned to the tower because of some ten-year-old. Couldn't Poison Mushroom Cookie just go bother someone else?
Mushroom didn't seem to mind his not-so-welcoming attitude, though, as they wobbled into the room and plopped onto the bed. And he just let them. They wiggled as they sat up straight and showed him the bottles again, “Wanna drink this with meee..?”
“What? What are you even talking about? Did you blend your mushrooms or something?” That seemed.. The most logical at the moment. The kid tried, and failed, to share his fungi with literally anyone. Allies, foes, animals - you name it, and it had been offered a mushroom by the kid. Licorice wouldn't be surprised if Poison Mushroom finally realized no one wanted to eat them and tried to think outside the box.
…but then again, it was the same kid who wanted to welcome a dangerous woman with sharp knives ready to hurt them with a hug.
Licorice shook his head and walked up to the child, “Alright, what is this?” he pointed at the bottles.
“Yummy stuff!” Poison Mushroom handed him one of the bottles and shook it cheerfully.
“Yes, yes, whatever! I’m asking what it is made of?”
The child seemed to deflate just a bit. They looked at the bottles as if in thought, “Um… I don’t know… I took it from Affogato’s stash…” Ah, of course. Nothing could be handed to him on a silver platter, could it? Licorice Cookie rolled his eyes and shook his head. He took one of the bottles from the child and started to examine it.
It was a partially round potion glass, sealed by a bottle stopper; the liquid inside was an innocent pale lavender color. Since it was one of Affogato’s items, it was most probably a potion. There was no label or illustration on it. Just his luck. After some thinking and trying to at least guess what could be inside the glass he decided the best form of action would be to either drink the potion or sniff it and recognize the ingredients, and tell what you want about him, but Licorice wasn’t stupid enough to drink a random potion handed to him by a child.
He took the cork out of the glass and leaned over it. However, before he got the chance to even properly look at the liquid, his face was in the middle of a not-so-big purple-ish gas cloud, “AGH–!” Licorice turned his head away from the bottle, nearly dropping it as he started coughing into his sleeve. The gas cloud caught him off guard.
He coughed for a few moments more before he managed to look back at the potion in his hand. The mixture was no longer lavender in color, but rather a shade similar to that of a rotten grape, an ugly mix of green and really dark purple.
His brows furrowed as he quickly analyzed the situation in his head. His eyes shot towards Mushroom, just in time to see them open the bottle and sniff in the fumes whilst giggling as if it was as innocent as strawberry milk… with gas.
“Put that down!” he shouted and swiftly took the flask away from them. He walked over to the farthest corner of his room and put the bottles down along with sealing them again. He speedwalked to his bookshelf, trying to keep calm. His books contained tons of spells, surely one of them would have a healing spell against poison, right?!
As he leafed through the tomes, his mind couldn't stop running. Why was he so stupid?! Even a student knew not to lean over an unknown potion! I guess he didn't expect Poison Mushroom of all cookies to hand him fucking poison ! The kid most probably didn't even know what he grabbed, no one would just sniff in a toxic gas so casually.
Meanwhile, Poison Mushroom Cookie just stared at him, waving his legs and smiling as they usually did, “Calm down…It’s just poison! It’s not gonna hurt you..!”
Licorice stopped.
“‘Just poison’?!” So that little bastard knew what was in the bottle! “Did- did you intentionally try to poison me?!” He couldn’t believe it. What was wrong with this child?! Nevermind that, right now he needed to calm down. He knew the spell, he learned it as soon as Poison Mushroom was introduced as a new member of Cookies of Darkness a long time ago. It was at the tip of his tongue; he just needed to clear his mind and it would come to him in no time! He did not study so hard just to die a meaningless death from not remembering an anti-spell!
Of course, it was more probable than not that he wouldn’t die, after all, he did not drink the liquid, merely sniffed it. But there was a chance, and he wasn’t going to trust his cursed luck on this.
“Whaa… of course not..!” They looked almost resentful, “It’s tasty, try it..!” Mushroom hopped off the bed and tried to make their way to the potions before getting quickly picked up by Licorice and put at his eye level.
“What are you bl-blabbering about?! What do you mean it’s ‘tasty’?”
“I mean that it is yummy!..”
Licorice's jaw dropped, “Have you already drunk a bottle before coming to me?” That was the only reasonable option, if Poison had drunk it earlier, he would be holding a soulless dough right now.
“Many, many times now… hehe…” They tilted their head once more. If Licorice's mind was running on the highest mode before, then it just got completely fried right now.
As if noticing the weird face he was making, Poison Mushroom explained, “I'm immune... remember? We're both immune to poison, and it tastes good! So try it!..”
Licorice sighed with relief and put the little cookie down. Indeed, the kid was immune to poison, their dough contained it after all! How could he forget? “Don't ever scare me like that again. Ever,” he turned back to his spell book, “But you just put me in real danger right now! I don't know where you got that I'm immune to poison, Mushroom, but I'm not!"
“You're… not?” The cookie seemed surprised, “But the last time... when we were on a mission and that beast attacked us…”
“You merely put it to sleep, Mushroom, like you always do. Yes it took some damage but your spores are not enough to just bluntly kill a creature… well, unless you throw a shit ton of it, but you did not, so don't talk nonsense!” He didn't stop searching for the spell, but there were less and less pages in the book he was reading, and no solution in sight.
“No… Miss Enchantress gave me a treasure for that mission… she said that it would make my shroomies stronger or… something like that… She said it will.. ‘put all into eternal sleep'..?”
Licorice stopped his searching and turned around to face them, “So you mean to tell me that you used a treasure that makes your spores kill enemies, and you used it during a fight with an ally who ISN'T IMMUNE TO POISON?!” Even though he yelled, the kid didn't seem to be ashamed or regretful at all.
“But you're standing right here..! So you are immune!” Licorice stopped once more. …The kid might be onto something. He did try to develop his magic lately. He did steal some of that Espresso Cookie's research while he stayed at the Cookie Kingdom and meddled with his element. What Poison Mushroom Cookie has been saying might have been correct. To some extent, at least.
“Okay, let's assume you are right, don't get too comfortable with that thought though! If I were to drink this, what would happen?”
“Mmmm.. why don't we find out..? Hehe,”
For fucks sake, “Mushroom.”
Poison Mushroom tilted his head back, “Well.. it just makes me feel more.. relaxed,” Licorice Cookie raised one of his eyebrows, “..B-but not in the shroomie way..! The way everyone says is.. ‘bad’, or something..”
He went to the corner of his room and examined the liquid some more. The color seemed to stabilize and decided to take the color of a kiwi, a greenish brown hue, “And you haven't experienced any side effects?”
“No..”
He sighed and put the bottle on his desk with a thud, “Alright, if the poison were to take effect on me, I would have already experienced cough, dizziness and nausea, so I'll be fine.” He should really teach that child not to experiment with cookies’ immunity to poison without their knowledge. Not now though, now he had more important matters at hand.
Mushroom raised his hands in happiness, “Yaay… does that mean we can drink it now?”
“Wh– NO! That means that we are going to sit down and look through every one of my magic books until we find an anti-poison spell or I'll remember it!”
Licorice handed the kid one of his volumes. The child stumbled, almost landing on their back. He himself took another one and made himself comfortable in his bed. Leaning on the wall, he started reading.
From the corner of his eye he could see Poison Mushroom throwing the book onto the mattress and crawling onto it as well. Soon enough, the purple kid was sitting next to him, holding (or rather slouching over) and reading a spell book almost his size. Licorice snickered. It sure was a funny sight.
In only a few minutes, they both went deep into their respective books, and the older cookie practically forgot that just a few moments ago, he genuinely thought the younger one tried to kill him. Pft– as if! Although if this research does take him anywhere, then he might have to take Poison Mushroom on some mushroom picking in the nearby forest. Of course, if this led anywhere, it would be all his merit! The kid merely sparked that idea in him!
Even so, he should thank them in some way, as much as he didn't like the idea.
It took them some time, around 2 hours to be precise, especially after Licorice realised Mushroom was more looking at the little drawings and scribbles the writers (and he sometimes) added to the pages rather than actually reading. He did find the spell eventually and put a bookmark on the page. Now that he had a healing spell on hand, it was time to start experimenting.
“Okay, listen up, Poison Mushroom Cookie!” He said dramatically as he got up from the bed, “Tonight, we shall experiment! We will experiment and we will survive!!”
Poison Mushroom Cookie clapped enthusiastically, “Yaaay..! So now you will drink it..?”
“Yes, Poison Mushroom, I will now drink the poison!” Was what he was doing stupid? Yeah, probably, but he would never admit it, and definitely not to himself. Besides, what couldn't go wrong? Nothing! He had the anti-spell ready, and he knew exactly what to do if he felt the poison running through his veins. And if he SOMEHOW didn't manage to cast it, Poison Mushroom could always run for help! …Although he would prefer it not to happen. How would he explain this to Dark Enchantress Cookie? ‘Yes, hello, I almost died because I willingly drank poison and then was unable to properly cast a spell that would cancel its effect, please don't look at me like that, I swear I'm competent.’?
He would worry about that later, now was time for greatness!
He quickly swallowed the liquid before any new thoughts of doubt could form in his head and waited.
And waited.
A couple seconds passed, then minutes. Poison Mushroom had already finished his bottle and looked at him, waitingly. Nothing was happening, he didn't feel the toxins going through his dough, didn't feel dizziness or the need to vomit. Everything felt fine. He let out a sigh of relief.
Licorice looked at the bottle and licked his lips. Poison Mushroom was right, it was tasty.
Pomegranate wasn't expecting anything when she walked up to one of the shared rooms at the tower, some of the Cookies Of Darkness could be resting there right now, but she would just ignore them as always, as she didn’t feel the need to participate in meaningless conversations right now. So when she saw Licorice Cookie and Poison Mushroom Cookie sitting at the table, she didn't pay them much mind. Yet she caught a glimpse of something through the corner of her eye, and her head turned towards the two cookies.
“What on Earthbread are you drinking?” she asked, entering the space.
Licorice looked up at her with an unamused expression, “Poison,” he tried to keep up his stoic face, but she could see a smirk forming on his lips as he tried not to laugh at her dumbfounded stare. Was he making a joke? How useless.
“Hehe..!” Poison Mushroom seemed just as happy when they faced the priestess, “It's okay, Pomegranate Cookie… It can't hurt us..!”
She regained her composure and straightened up her posture once more, “Yes, I am aware that you are immune, Poison Mushroom Cookie. Though I have no idea what Licorice is thinking right now, following your footsteps and drinking a liquid which will kill him in mere minutes,” she sent him a death stare.
Usually, Licorice would flinch, realise he messed up again and try to get out of her sight, but not this time. This time, he just sat there, playing with the bottle, “If you wanted to die that bad, you should have come to me, at least we both would get something out of this,” she said coldly. She had no interest in killing the taller cookie, but one has to make threats if they want to make their point go across to someone unwilling to listen.
Pomegranate walked up to the table just a bit to make her words more intimidating, “I might not know why, but Dark Enchantress took you in, she needs you for her plans, so if you die through something as ignorant as suicide–”
She was interrupted by a laugh. It was unexpected enough to get her to back away a bit, “Can't you just accept what you see, Pomegranate Cookie? I'm immune as well, I'm stronger!” Licorice Cookie smiled maliciously, “You're just jealous of my greatness!”
Pomegranate relaxed and straightened herself, “Very well then, do what you want, but if you die, you have no right to haunt me and tell me I didn't warn you.”
“As if I’d ever want to haunt you out of all cookies.”
Licorice and Poison Mushroom watched her leave the room when she stopped just for a second, “And remember to report your discovery to Dark Enchantress Cookie. I believe that you are aware that keeping any sign of advantage from our Master would be a depiction of betrayal.”
Ah, there it was, that long awaited flinch and scowl from the mage. She wouldn't just let him win, not even over something so trivial. And so she walked away, satisfied with herself.