Double, double, toil and trouble, it was Halloween night and the witch's brew boiled. Hilda lived on the outskirts of what used to be a quiet little hamlet, up the hill and in the forest where seclusion was her comfort. Blessed with long life due to the witch's pact with darkness, she kept to herself and studied, researched, and experimented with her magicks. It wasn't often she came into contact with the humans in the valley below, and for over a century that was perfectly fine with her. After all, regular mortals abhorred witches, liked to burn them, drown them, crush them under stone. No thank you, she preferred to sneak on in when she required ingredients that were a bit more difficult to fetch on her own.
Things had been changing as of late, though. The humans were growing fearless, with the loud and disruptive shots of firearms far different from those she had known ringing through the trees more frequently. Young adults also began to walk, wander, and make camp more frequently, too. It was becoming disruptive to her work, and she had to waste more and more ingredients just to keep her hut hidden from the eyes of all who passed by. The town had been growing, evidently some academy that was founded some five or six decades ago had drawn more business to the town, more residents, and now it bustled far more than those old days of quaint little farms and houses.
Yet these were not her concerns this night! It was all Hallow's Eve and the moon was large and orange in the sky! Such celestial conveniences were rare, and thus it was this night she yearned to finally try out the Hallow's Brew once again. A concoction able to enhance one's connection to the mystic magicks of nature, she had failed it the last time. She yearned for success, to have as great a supply of the potion as she could, and so studied the recipe annually, even practiced, in preparation for a night such as this. Scales of a snake, teeth of the bear, moss from a cave, and fur of a boar, just some of the components necessary to boil down into the thick, cream-like soup to bottle up. Reaching to her side she snatched the bottle of Seed of Man and tipped it just enough to let a few drops out... a... a few...
She upended the whole bottle and still nothing would pour. Shook it, even, and still no seed did drip. She knew the stuff could be thick and it was most disgusting when it dried, but her bottles were enchanted to keep the samples as fresh as when first unleashed. No, looking at the bottle, its contents were empty. Clean out. With a frustrated grunt she slammed the glass on the table. She'd have to go out and get another supply.