From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 535 The Blushing Mermaid

As a well-known tavern in Baldur's Gate, Blushing Mermaid is located at the deepest part of the Grey Harbor docks.

To cater to merchants and sailors, nearly 70% of Baldur's Gate's inns and taverns are located around the Grey Harbor docks, with the Blushing Mermaids being one of the most distinctive.

From a distance, the tavern looks like a ship that has been violently driven, taking the protruding rock walls of Baldur's Gate as waves on the sea and plunging into them, in a strange posture with its bow facing outwards and its stern facing inwards.

The bow and a small section of the foredeck jut out over the street, casting a huge shadow that makes the nearby shabby apartments appear small and dull. Old soft sails hang down from the foremast and are secured with ropes to the railings near the foredeck, forming a uniquely shaped sunshade that shelters a few outdoor tables on the deck below.

Surrounding the mainmast and aft deck of the sailboat, the tavern's stone base and wooden structure are built in sequence, and even during the day, the thin smoke of smoked meat and the aroma of rum and sugarcane still linger.

Above the main gate, a beautiful mermaid with a single horn on her head and a long fish tail swaying is blushing, as if she is embarrassed and annoyed by the vulgar ship's call from the drunken sailor.

"One more round!" a drunken voice yelled, "For...for that damned Lord Gotash, and all those metal junks he patrols the streets with!"

"Hey! Keep your voice down!" the drunkard's tablemate warned in a low voice. "After today, he'll be the Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate! If you say anything out of line, he'll have those metal monsters rip your tongue out!"

“Don’t worry… Gotash has transferred all the Flame Fist and Metal Monsters to the Upper City to guard the High Hall. Haven’t you noticed there are far fewer patrols on the streets today?” another sober drinker reassured him. “But it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Let’s raise a glass to Lord Gotash! May he live a long life!”

May he live a long life!

Scattered voices of agreement rose and fell, and then the drunkards, who had been drinking in broad daylight, once again began to talk about low-class topics.

Stepping on the creaking wooden planks, warped by the damp sea breeze, the creaking floorboards replaced the doorbell as a reminder to the bartender.

The reclining wooden mermaid sculpture, suspended in the air by a hammock, watched as four well-equipped adventurers entered the tavern located in the Grey Harbor.

They are Ivy's teammates, tasked with going to the Blushing Mermaid to kill the hidden green hag Ethel during the coronation ceremony in Gotash, and to rescue the innocent child Vanna who was swallowed by her.

The interior of the Blushing Mermaid Inn was no different from that of a regular merchant ship, with multi-tiered decks and cabins and wooden doors connecting corridors. However, to combat the damp sea breeze blowing from the Grey Harbor, the innkeeper had replaced all the walls with stone.

Judging from the extent of the peeling chalk on the walls, these building materials have been in use for quite some time.

“The witch couldn’t possibly be mixed in with these drunkards.” The white-haired vampire clone looked around. “We need to find a secret door, the kind that leads underground.”

"You mean the wine cellar, right?" Karak sniffed the aroma of alcohol and food in the air, then eagerly walked towards the bar. "Why don't we ask the bartender?"

“Focus on the mission, Karak.” Leizer’s wary gaze shifted from the slumped patrons. “Ivy has high expectations of us.”

However, Kara didn't seem to listen to Leezel at all; she was already eager to strike up a conversation with the bartender.

"If you're here to complain that the alcohol tastes like pee—I already knew that. Is there anything else?" The bartender was a gruff, white-haired man who was almost bald.

Because long ocean voyages would cause the water stored in wooden barrels to quickly turn green and spoil, merchant sailors often used inexpensive light beer or rum made from sugarcane residue as a beverage to replenish their fluids.

Therefore, the reason why Blushing Mermaid could operate for so long, even though its main customers were a group of drunken sailors, was because its staff were often more vicious than the drunk sailors.

"Oh. I'm looking for a quiet spot and some drinks to quench my thirst. By the way, what's the signature dish here? I see the stove behind you! It's been ten years since I've properly explored Baldur's Gate. I'd love to find some new flavors to satisfy my palate and stomach."

“You look like a tough character…” The half-bald bartender’s gaze lingered on Karak’s arm muscles and the weapon on her back for a moment. “There are seats upstairs, of course, but our captain’s bedroom is upstairs. If you don’t want to get beaten up and thrown into the sewage of Grey Harbor, you’d better keep your voice down. Go up, I’ll bring up the food and drinks.”

"Look!" Karak grinned at her companion, "This is how people in the lower city interact!"

"Straightforward like a sword? I understand." Leezer nodded.

“No.” Karak waved her finger as she climbed the creaking stairs. “Let them see your muscles before we talk, let them know you’re not someone to mess with.”

“My arm muscles aren’t as exaggerated as yours, so—should I kill one or two people before we talk?” Leezel’s cold gaze swept over a drunkard’s neck, startling him into spitting a mouthful of wine in his companion’s face.

“Kill them with your eyes, Lyle.” Karak turned to her companion, rubbing her fingers together. “By the way, anyone want to invite someone from the first round?”

"Whoever gets thirsty first treats," Gale, who joined the team as an anti-witch magic expert, recited a limerick.

“Ha! You can’t trap me with a rhyming poem, mage!” Karak laughed.

“Whoever refuses will drink the worst wine.” Gail has no intention of giving up on his plan to move his household registration to Shuangyashan.

The second floor of the Blushing Mermaid's residence is spacious. The cabins that originally belonged to the merchant ship have all been opened up and separated into individual spaces by red curtains. Soft cushions and patina-covered wooden tables peek out from the gaps in the curtains, and the low laughter and snoring of the drinkers reach the adventurers' ears from all directions.

"Believe it or not, I can smell danger." Asdallen reached for the dagger at his waist.

“That’s right…” Gale agreed in a low voice, “There are red hats everywhere in this place. The witch used her magic to disguise them as drinkers, but a few of them were indeed drunk.”

“So, we didn’t come to the wrong place?” Karak lifted the curtain of a cubicle and peeked inside. “This room is so luxurious.”

“Maybe it belongs to that captain or something.” Gale gave her a push from behind. “I see a staircase leading down. Let’s go in and take a look.”

“Promise me, Gale.” Karak warily drew her weapon, her chatter continuing, “Don’t use any particularly destructive spells—the hag is pregnant. Besides, maybe we can get a free meal from the tavern owner after we take her down!”

As the captain's cabin and reception room of the blushing mermaid, the room the adventurers quietly entered was filled with luxurious furniture, and bright red was everywhere, suggesting that the tavern owner was a man who appreciated luxury. Gale gently tapped the lock on the door with his round-headed staff, and the tightly closed lock clicked open, revealing a dark and damp wine cellar behind the door.

"It seems to lead to the same place as the door next to the bar." Asdell reached out and tapped on the tall stack of barrels, examining them carefully.

"There's a gap here!" Karak pointed to three barrels of firewood arranged in a triangular pattern. "We shouldn't be far from the witch's hiding place!"

Behind the gap is another huge space, but anyone can see at a glance that this is the other half of the main body of the Blushing Mermaid, embedded in the rear half of the ship's hull in the mountain.

"We've got the boat nicely wedged between the rocks..." Asdalon ducked to avoid a giant mushroom growing out of the wall. "I wonder if this kind of piloting is skillful or rudimentary."

As they ascended the merchant ship's steps, the four adventurers witnessed even more bizarre mushrooms. They emitted multicolored fluorescence, constantly spewing out misty spores, exuding an aura of danger from head to toe.

The witch Ethel has transformed this place into a giant alchemical laboratory. The old witch's pitch-black cauldron is bubbling ominously, and an indescribable odor permeates the air. Occasionally, ugly insects and mushroom fragments are revealed in the churning liquid inside the cauldron, making it even more nauseating.

The figure standing by the pot, constantly stirring with a huge ladle, was none other than the familiar one to the adventurers. Just about a month ago, they had killed that ugly hag, covered in pustules and moles, with dry, shriveled skin.

After such a long absence, the old hag's appearance has changed again. Her already skeletal limbs have become even more like rough tree trunks, and her protruding belly looks like it has been stuffed with several barrels of rum, a favorite of sailors.

"Oh dear, how rude of you all, little petals?" The green hag Ethel pointed her long, moldy radish-like nose at the four adventurers. "I once mercifully let you go, but now you dare to arrogantly trespass on my territory again!"

“Looks like it.” Karak nodded. “It’s that stinking hag from the woodland swamp. Good heavens, do we really have to kill this disgusting thing over and over again?”

"Kill me?" The green hag Ethel stretched out her long claws and tapped each adventurer. "There are only four of you, and on my home turf, I'm afraid you can't do it. Not to mention that your handsome and powerful spellcaster is missing."

“It’s questioning your abilities, Gale.” Leezel had already charged forward, brandishing his silver sword.

“I’m not surprised at all.” Gale’s staff unleashed a bolt of lightning that tore through the air, striking a giant blue mushroom behind the hag and turning it into a charred, smoking pile. “Destroy these giant glowing mushrooms! The hag is reborn from these things!”

Ethel the Witch screamed, her voice like rusty metal scraping against each other: "You won't get away with this! You damned bastards!"

A whirlwind erupted around the hag, and an invisible force overturned the large black cauldron blocking her path, spilling scalding, viscous liquid everywhere. If Lyezel's boots had waded through this liquid to attack the hag, he would surely have been scalded with blisters. Moreover, no one could say for sure whether the hag's potions were poisonous to other creatures.

But Lyizer was no longer the novice Gith Yankee warrior who had just disembarked from the hull ship. After a period of rigorous training, she had awakened her psychic power and was able to apply it effectively in battle.

The ruby ​​on Leezel's silver armor glittered, and she stretched her body, flipped and leaped up, like a nimble antelope crossing a mountain stream, leaping over the boiling, viscous potion.

Taking advantage of the Gith Yankees warriors being airborne and unable to gain any leverage, Ethel the Witch fired several spells in succession, hoping to extricate herself from the predicament.

But the power of psionic energy caused Leezel's figure to shift mysteriously several times in mid-air, completely dodging the magical missiles hastily fired by the hag.

The sharp silver sword sliced ​​open the witch's withered skin, leaving a huge wound that made her howl in pain.

"Well done, Lyle!" Karak whistled, plucked her wind-elemental trident from the dying giant glowing mushroom, and struck it again with a thunderous roar. "Just one more mushroom left! You can handle it, right, Asdalon?"

“If you don’t give away my location with that hyena-like voice.” The witch’s resurrection mushrooms were scattered throughout the cabin: in the recess next to the alchemical raw material cabinet, beside the bottomless pit reflecting the sound of water, and next to the barrel where Asdallen stood.

Karak's trident and Gale's lightning have destroyed two of the three mushroom sites. As long as Asdalon can clear out the last one, Ethel the Witch's death will not be far off.

"Stop! You worthless trash!" Ethel the hag gnashed her sharp teeth and hissed, "Those mushrooms are worth thousands of times more than you! I'll use your corpses to repair it!"

Leezel's silver sword sliced ​​through the air, aiming for the hag's ugly head covered in moss and moles. The hag managed to block with her claws, but was immediately knocked to the ground by the immense force of the sword.

However, the old hag lying on the ground did not fall into a state of helplessness and inability to move. Instead, she scattered into a pile of dry, withered leaves.

A green whirlwind swept up a bunch of mushroom spores, which then reassembled not far from Asdallen, where the last glowing mushroom was, revealing the witch's ugly body.

The withered arm pointed at the handsome vampire clone, and vicious curses spewed from its mouth as if they were free. Wild magic from the fairy wilderness spread from Asdalon's limbs, and large amounts of curly, soft fur swelled up, threatening to turn him into a sheep.

“Hmm…” Gale made a disapproving sound, “I never said you could use curses on my companions.”

The arcane magic that had been waiting for so long unfolded from the palm of the Waterdeep Archmage, instantly lifting the transformation curse on the vampire's offspring.

The limb that had reverted from a goat's hoof to a hand reached into his pouch, and Asdallen pulled out a potion from a small ceramic bottle. He smeared it hard on the hag's sharp nose, which could poke a hole in someone, and it shattered into a pile of fragments.

Seeing the liquid in the terracotta bottle begin to spread across the witch's face, Asdalon calmly escaped the witch's claws and returned to the other adventurers.

"Did it work?" Karak asked, her eyes wide. "Ivy finished that thick alchemy book in less than five minutes. I even suspect he read it with magic..."

Ethel the Witch wiped the alchemical potion off her face. Just as she was about to berate the adventurers for their shamelessness, she felt an unbearable urge to vomit rising from her stomach and rising to her throat in the blink of an eye.

It reached out to try to cover its mouth, but obviously its physiological instincts were not so easy to suppress, not to mention that there were four well-coordinated adventurers standing in front of it.

Amidst slime and foul-smelling food scraps, an unconscious little girl was vomited out by the witch Ethel, thwarting her attempt to create a new witch.

(End of this chapter)