The zombie witch doctor duo continue traveling towards New Orleans. Slowly they start coming across more people. Some seem friendly while others are obviously wary of Huld's witch doctor get up.
One passerby even asks Huld to divine his fate. Huld agrees. For a few coins of course. They go into the wagon for 10 minutes with Huld insisting that Tom not join them. "A mans fate should be between the cards and himself." Huld says.
They pass through the forest, eventually coming to the last camp site before reaching New Orleans. A merchant caravan joined them halfway through the day on the premise that bandits can be quite the problem around the city. As both groups set up for the night Huld pulls Tom into his wagon for the first time.
Looking around Tom sees a small comfy looking cot, a small stove with one burner connecting to the metal chimney and many shelves, drawers, and cabinets. It's a very tight fit and has the musky smell of herbs and smoked tobacco embedded into the walls. In the open drawers and on the shelves Tom sees a multitude of fresh or dried herbs, pastes, and powders.
"I'm just going to show you a few easy recipes using non magical herbs."
Pulling out a mortar and pestle Huld motions for Tom to explain the uses as stated in the herb book, "Cloves, excellent antiseptic and also useful in treating toothaches, sore throats or to numb the pain of a sting."
Huld nods pulling out more, Tom continues, "Witch Hazel extract, generally used as a treatment for burns, sunburns, or insect bites but can also be applied to the nasal cavity during a nosebleed."
"Thyme, a common antibacterial and antiseptic—."
"Bilberry, improves circulation and repairs veins—"
"Ginseng, general tonic and boosts energy—"
"Green tea, antioxidant and tonic—"
After going through many common herbs Huld seems satisfied and pulls a few ingredients from the many that Tom identified. He says as he grabs them, "Turmeric, limestone, and honey, a very simple yet quite effective combination. Turmeric and limestone work wonderfully together to treat small wounds. Just grind up the turmeric like this... Add limestone powder... Heat it up... and apply to a wound after using honey.
Huld does all this very efficiently on a small cut he left unchecked on Tom's shoulder. He applies honey as an anti bacterial, anti fungal, and anti inflammatory before washing it out and dressing the small cut with the limestone turmeric mix. He packs the rest into a small bottle and hands it to Tom.
"Remember voodoo is originally a profession for healing and communing with spirits, not the evil it's made out to be." Huld says solemnly
After making sure Tom has remembered it he moves onto more complicated herbal concoctions for treating things such as headaches, coughs, infections, and an upset stomach. Afterwards figuring it was late and that he needed rest Huld wraps things up and heads to bed ordering Tom to keep watch.
As Tom is sitting on watch he tries his soul vision on some of the passing animal souls and is disappointed to find that they aren't being absorbed. He's slightly confused as he felt the tug from his eyes on the souls of the priest and two knights.
Most of the way through the night just as dawn is arriving Tom sees an interesting spirit. It looks like a human. But the strange thing is that he has antlers coming out of his forehead and deer ears instead of normal human ones. With violet purple hair and eyes, his face is beautifully structured as if made by a professional sculptor.
All this is taken in by Tom but more noticeable was the gaping wound from his upper chest to lower stomach from which constantly pours dark purple blood. It seems he died a horrible death. But stranger still are the glowing purple flowers with pure white accents growing from the wound.
Intrigued Tom is about to talk to the spirit and see if he can get information when of course his eyes act up. The purple haired, horned man is quickly pulled in Tom's direction. Before he's completely swallowed by Tom, he screams words Tom can't understand out in a final act. Just as he finishes his strange words, he reaches the five meter mark and turns into pure white soul energy drilling into Tom's head.
Once again Tom is subjected to many memories. These however seem be to more broken. The first thing he notices is that everything seems to be much more ancient and wild. The trees are larger, giant bugs and animals dot this beings memories. The only humans seen are native Americans dressed completely in animal skins.
It seems the memories are from many hundreds of years ago. Possibly more than a thousand years. Everything seems so primitive and wild. The second thing Tom notices is a constant sense of fear. The purple man seems to have been hunted from birth by all types of creatures. From goblins to wolves to the natives, he lived in a never ending chase.
The third thing he notices is that the being seems to learn how to shapeshift halfway through its life and lives easily with little of the previous fear unless he is in his natural form, that is until he comes across what appears to be a dark elf with two slender long blades. No matter how he shape shifts the drow follows him until the purple man is eventually cut down. Even as he is dying the drow is delicately harvesting the herbs growing out of the beings gaping chest wound.
Finally Tom absorbs all the memories of what he now knows is an herbal fae. A very rare fae being born in the Feywild whose wounds grow magical herbs depending on the wishes or mood of the fae. This herbal fae passed through a planal rift into this world in ancient times and was hunted constantly for the magic herbs that can grow from its body.
It lived a brief hundred years since its birth a mere child as a fae. With thirty of those spent in the feywild. Unfortunately the memories are not complete. Many spans of time are missing from the memories, most of which are from the earlier life. Almost as if the fae was losing its memories, Tom speculates that since it lived so long ago the soul experienced degradation just as a body would.
The biggest gain from these memories are the experience of living in fear and constantly hiding. Tom learned how to cover tracks and read the signs of the wild. His talent friend of nature will play a much bigger role now as he has a hundred years of experience of living as prey in the forest.
The second biggest gain is Tom now knows the fae language. He learns that the words the spirit screamed before absorption were, "Your kind was supposed to have been extinct long before my race was! What is this?!?"
A final piece of information passes its way to Tom's head and he instantly curses under his breath, "Shit!"
From his sea of conciosness he gets the information, 'Herb Faerie bloodline acquired'
Almost instantly after that happens his ears grow upwards sprouting fur turning into deer ears. A pair of antlers burst from his forehead and his hair grows into the wavy purple hair the faerie had. His face structures itself into one more beautiful and his body grows proportionally perfect yet slightly skinny. He's a veritable look alike.
Tom panics before remembering the shapeshifting the faerie used. Hoping it's under the umbrella of bloodline abilities he uses it just as the faerie did in his new memories and it works! His body slowly changes back into the one he had before of a Cajun youth.
"Phew" Tom gives a sigh of relief and starts deeply inspecting his new memories.
As he pays attention to the bloodline aspect of the memories he learns he can control what kind of herb he produces from his wounds. The herbal fae didn't pay attention to this except in death when he controlled his wound caused by the drow to create nightmare pansies, a flower that produces a horrible poison. Little to the fae's knowledge this is probably exactly what the drow wanted. Dark elves love poison.
He also acquires inherent knowledge about 100% of magic herbs. Plus of course the shapeshifting ability which allows him to change into many different forms like animals and even insects. Besides these major points it also gives a major boost to his mostly humane senses and a slight boost to his physical quality.
Looking around Tom is wary hoping nobody saw him. While the fae's shapeshifting ability is only beaten by the devils his initial transformation might have been seen by somebody, or something... Yet it seems nobody has noticed.
Again Tom notices his mind has become sharper. Not necessarily smarter but his memory and thought process is a little more clear. This means he can memorize things more easily and think better than the average person. This doesn't mean he has become a genius in any way just slightly more efficient with his mind.
He tries to give himself a small cut with his new knife to see if he can produce herbs but he only creates a cut. It seems as a zombie because he doesn't bleed he doesn't create herbs in his wounds. The herb fae's blood seems to be the catalyst for the growth of herbs in wounds.
Using his newly enhanced hearing, and eyesight he scans the woods and nearby caravans. The only thing of notice is the seemingly sleeping guard whose heartbeat tells that he really is asleep. Surprised at the stark increase of his senses he realizes that he only isn't overwhelmed because of the hundred years of memory he has as the fae.
"Now that I think of it why am I not being consumed by these hundreds of years of memories from other beings?" Tom mumbles to himself.
Pondering for a moment he can't come to a conclusion, "Theoretically 100 or more years of memories should overwhelm my thirty years of mundane life. Or at least have multiple consciousnesses warring over my body."
He scratches his head, "Gah I want to know but I can only attribute it to the overwhelming power of golden fingers." He pauses his scratch, "Or plot armor?"
...
...
"Nahhh. No way."