Undermind

Her world was slime and stench and terror and torment. And above all else, hunger.

Some deep instinct had assumed control, while her mind fled to greener pastures. Any pastures would be preferable to this—even barren fields, covered in cowpies. She thrashed and kicked and bit and ripped at the walls of her fleshy prison, gulping down mouthfuls of the acrid, mucusy membrane. It burned the inside of her mouth and throat, yet that was a mere tickle compared to what was happening on the outside, where the walls were squeezing her like toothpaste through a tube. Except this mouth had never been near a toothbrush or toothpaste. All about her sloshed the frothing liquid that had scoured away her armour and now turned upon her unprotected skin. Every nerve ending cried out in agony as it was seared away—only to be regrown, again and again, to suffer anew.

If there was an actual hell, it could hardly measure up to this. She couldn’t even scream. What little air there was in here was nearly as corrosive as the flesh-eating slime: searing away the inside of her lungs over and over.

All she could do was burn and thrash and tear and feed. She fed to fuel this frenzy of regeneration, which was the only thing keeping her from dissolving into goo.

A great undulating wave swept down the tunnel of flesh, depositing her inside an enormous pulsating sack of gore and acidic slime and tumbling boulders. Some of the rocks looked like giant marbles, worn down to a smooth, round finish.

Her rational mind lifted its head out of the sand for just long enough to recognise this stomach-churning chamber of nopitude for what it was: a gizzard. Found in animals such as birds, crocodiles and impossibly huge flesh-eating worms, the purpose of this organ was to pulverise food into a fine paste, ready to be digested.

Three things struck her in that moment. First was the absolute certainty that she wasn’t getting out of this thing alive. After everything she’d been through, she was going to meet her maker in the gizzard of this ridiculous creature. Of course, everyone was ultimately food for worms, but she never imagined it would end quite like this.

The other two things that struck her were car-sized boulders. A dark crimson stain spread across the slime. She felt a grinding, scraping pressure about her skull, pushing harder and harder and…

Squish!

Leather boots plunged into a shallow stream. They weren’t her boots. They weren’t her feet. The face reflected in the dark water wasn’t hers.

“Och Garri, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.” Ruhildi’s voice sounded weird. Saskia couldn’t put a finger on it, but something had changed.

“It wasn’t a comple—deus!” Garrain halted, his expression in the water turning from grim determination to one of bafflement. “Saskia…?”

The elf’s voice was even more distorted; noticeably lower in pitch than she was used to hearing. This is how he hears his own voice, she realised.

“What’s happening?” she tried to say. “Why am I here? Why can I hear you?” Except the words didn’t come. She had no mouth. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe.

“Go in peace, echo of Saskia,” said Garrain.

Oh, she thought. So that’s what I am. An echo. A ghost. Well this sucks.

Her thoughts spiralled inward, like a cockroach flushed down a toilet bowl. Down the gurgler she went, and for a time there was only pain and confusion and burning hunger.

When next her sight returned, Saskia was back in Wilbergond, looking upon the impossibly large form of the deepworm that had…oh no…no no no no no…that thing had eaten her! The worm looked like it had seen better days. It lay in a limp, tangled heap, while creatures of all shapes and sizes gnawed upon its thick hide.

Even as she watched through Garrain’s eyes, she felt a strange sense of frenzied movement, of hunger, of suffocation. Of rage. If she were dead, how could she be feeling any of these things?

Her head burst free of whatever had been pressing down on it. She felt the touch of hot air against newly regrown flesh, and the drawing of her first breath in what seemed like a lifetime.

At the same time, she watched from a distance as a bloody figure emerged from the worm’s brain in a fountain of gore.

The disconnect was making her dizzy. She was both here and there at the same time. The Saskia that was here in Garrain’s head felt eerily calm, but the one over there was near mindless with terror and fury, wanting only to bite and claw and tear…

Her body dropped to the ground, the impact leaving her momentarily stunned. She could see that it wasn’t quite her body—not the way she’d left it. There were two arms now, and one of her hands was glowing. Something was wrong with her skin. And…

She watched herself turn to face Ruhildi, snarling like a wild beast.

With dawning horror, Saskia realised she—her rational self, the one currently residing in Garrain’s head—wasn’t in control. Not at all. Her muscles tensed, but she could no more stop them than she could will her own heart to stop beating. She felt her claws tearing into her friend’s armour even before she saw it happen.

Whispering a silent scream, she struggled and strained to control her traitorous body. But all she earned for her efforts was the encroaching darkness, once again stealing away sight and sound and memory and mind.

She drifted awake to the feeling of something wriggling between her teeth, and the taste of hot blood on her tongue. Wherever her body was, it was feeding.

Yet still her sight wasn’t her own. She watched through Garrain’s eyes as he wandered the alien jungle alongside his enormous pet cat. What was up with that, by the way? She’d seen the same beast up on the surface. What was it doing down here?

Even as she recognised the big cat, she was getting this weird feeling about him. He is not alone, she thought. Why those words came to her, she had no idea, but they seemed important.

Also at Garrain’s side was Ruhildi and a growing entourage of zombie creatures. If she’d still had control of her own body, Saskia would’ve sagged in relief. Her claws had ruined the dwarf’s breastplate, but oh thank you thank you thank you, they hadn’t gone too deep.

Her friend and the druid seemed to have formed an uneasy alliance as they wandered the howlscape that was Wilbergond, searching for her feral self. At first, she couldn’t work out why Garrain was still here. Ruhildi didn’t appear to be holding him against his will. His pet had somehow found its way down here, so surely it could lead him back to the surface?

The answer, when it occurred to her, seemed obvious in hindsight. And a lot of other answers fell into place alongside it.

The glowing crystal she’d glimpsed in the palm of her hand. That was arlium. And she was pretty sure she knew where that had come from.

Oh yeah, he couldn’t be too happy about that…

Garrain’s magic staff must have dissolved in the deepworm’s stomach acid, along with most of her equipment. Somehow the arlium from its tip—the focus, Ruhildi had called it—had been absorbed into her flesh. That was the reason she was stuck like this, unable to return to her own body. Touching the staff had always opened the connection to Garrain, allowing her to spy on him. But now she couldn’t stop touching it, because it was embedded in her hand.

The druid would want his focus back, even if the staff itself had been destroyed. He might be able to have it fitted to another staff, and in so doing, regain his magic.

But to get it back, he’d have to cut it from her hand. Saskia very much doubted her feral self would just stand around and let him do that, but she wished him the best of luck. She wanted that arlium shard gone too—even if it meant losing the hand along with it.

Next time Saskia faded back into awareness, it was to the sight of a flickering campfire, back in what appeared to be the deepworm cavern. Garrain sat there a long time, staring into the flames, until Ruhildi stepped into view. “If you’re going to just sit there, we should go back out,” she said. “We’ve a wayward trow to catch.”

“You can’t sleep either?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I won’t sleep soundly again until I find Sashki and knock some sense into her.”

“Aw, Ruhildi, you’re such a softie,” said Saskia. “I’m touched.”

Her view jerked about, and she heard a sudden intake of breath.

“Where are you, demon?” said Garrain. “Stop lurking in the shadows and reveal yourself.”

Saskia did a mental double take, before she finally realised what had happened. “Holy crap, you can hear me!”

At the same moment, Ruhildi said, “What are you talking about, Garri? Sashki isn’t here. A trow that size could scarcely sneak up on us.”

“I should’ve guessed, since I can hear you,” continued Saskia. “That’s how it was with the oracle kid.”

“Tell me you just heard that, dwarrow,” said Garrain.

“Heard what?” asked Ruhildi, frowning. “My ears aren’t as big as yours, you ken.”

“She won’t hear me,” said Saskia. “And I’m not really here, physically. But it really is me.”

“If she can’t hear you, how is it that you’re speaking to me thus?” he asked.

“Oh, that,” said Saskia. “Guess I should explain. I seem to be locked out of my own body right now, and…well, stuck in yours. Long story short, it’s because I have your, uh, focus stuck in me. Sorry to say, I think your staff kinda…melted, and somehow I absorbed the arlium from the staff.”

He was silent for a moment, before speaking. “If what you say is true, then removing the arlium…”

“Should allow me to return to my body. Plus, you get your magic back, I guess? That’s what you want, right? Problem is, right now, I’m not in control of my own body. Feral me is probably not going to be very cooperative.”

“Better a mindless demon than a wily one,” muttered Garrain.

“You’re fair cracked, you are,” said Ruhildi, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Oh yeah, before we go any further, you should fill Ruhildi in on what’s going on,” said Saskia. “Otherwise you’ll just sound like a loony talking to empty air.”

Garrain did just that. Upon hearing his explanation, Ruhildi’s eyes widened slightly, before narrowing again. “I want to believe you, but how do I ken this isn’t some alvari trick?”

Saskia spoke up. “She needs proof? Okay, how about this? Tell her…tell her Poggendoobler is a really silly name.”

Sounding a little embarrassed, Garrain relayed Saskia’s statement.

The dwarf’s eyes became slits. “I don’t ken what game you’re playing, leaf-ears, but I’ll have you ken Poggendoobler is a perfectly respectable name.”

Saskia struggled to suppress a laugh.

“This is no game,” said Garrain. “Those were Saskia’s words. I’ve never heard of this…Poggendoobler. Although I do agree with her: it’s an utterly preposterous name.”

“Yeah, you tell her!” said Saskia.

“Feh!” said Ruhildi. “I’ll not hear another word on the matter from the likes of you, Garri. Now there’s a silly little name, if ever I heard one.”

“As I’ve told you several times already, my name is Garrain.”

“Aye, whatever you say, Garri.”

Saskia cleared her metaphorical throat. Perhaps her real one too. It was hard to tell what was going on back there. “Could you get back on topic? Or would you two rather just bicker about names all day? Sheesh, if I knew it was such a contentious subject, I’d never have brought it up.”

With an audible grinding of his teeth, Garrain said to the dwarf, “My point is: she wanted me to pass on those exact words to prove to you that I speak for her. Does that convince you?” Saskia heard the unspoken addendum: Or am I losing my mind?

Ruhildi was silent for a long moment, a frown creasing her brow. “Aye, mayhap.”

Saskia let out a breath. “Frocking finally! Now tell Ruhildi I’m so sorry for what I did to her.”

“Would that you’d done a more thorough job,” muttered Garrain.

“Tell her!”

He did as she asked, and Ruhildi said, “It weren’t your fault, Sashki. You don’t need my forgiveness, but for what it’s worth, you have it.”

The relief Saskia felt upon hearing her words was palpable. Ruhildi didn’t blame her, and they knew what they had to do. She could only hope that between the two of them and their pets, they could subdue her feral self without anyone else getting hurt.

When they came back out of the tunnel, she tried to locate herself on her minimap. The range of the map was only a few kilometres down here, but maybe…

She realised that Garrain had once again stopped dead in his tracks. He was hyperventilating and blinking rapidly, while turning his gaze from side to side.

“Garrain…can you…see this?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, she said, “The circular thingy in the lower-right quadrant of your vision.”

“What are you doing to me, demon?” he gasped.

“Okay, wow, this is unexpected,” she said. He started making retching sounds, so she added, “But there’s no need to be alarmed!”

“Says the demon in my head,” he muttered.

“I didn’t intend for you to see it, but this…well this is a little tool I can call upon. It’s just what it looks like: a map. Pretty nifty, huh? I can also do this…” She activated her darksight, turning the cavern around them as bright as daylight. This brought on another fit of heavy breathing. “…and this.” She called up the overlay that highlighted and labelled some of the flora and fauna and other objects in her vision.

Her view tilted up, before dissolving into white noise. She heard a thud as his head hit the ground.

“Oops,” she said. “Guess I should’ve taken it a bit slower.”

It was only after her next awakening that Saskia was able to get a good look at the minimap.

“No sign of me on the map,” she said. “It’s got a pretty limited range down here. Guess you’ll have to keep looking.”

Now that she could communicate, Saskia felt far more engaged with what was going on around her. Perhaps as a consequence of this, she found herself staying awake longer, with shorter ‘absences’ in between wakeful periods, even as she began to lose all sense of her own body.

Whenever she was awake, Saskia kept an eye on her minimap, hoping to catch sight of herself. There was a lot of ground to cover though, and Garrain and Ruhildi could only suffer so much of this humidity before they had to retreat to the now-vacant deepworm cavern to rest.

“You sound rather too comfortable with the prospect of having us do battle with you,” said Garrain one morning as they headed back out to resume the hunt.

“Well I’m worried that I’ll hurt Ruhildi again, of course,” she said. Then added, half-heartedly, “Or hurt you, I suppose.”

“You’re not concerned for your own safety?” he asked. “Attempting to subdue you without causing injury would be…problematic…”

She gave a single-syllable laugh. “If getting swallowed by a deepworm didn’t kill me, I doubt I have much to worry about from you.”

In the end, the search lasted three and a half days before they found her atop a small rocky pinnacle to the west, gnawing on the mangled remains of an oversized lizard, amidst a pile of shattered egg shells; their contents spilled out across the lichen-covered rock.

Dogs above! she thought. Did I do that? Bad Saskia! Wait…have I grown?

A thick outer layer of what looked like polished granite had spread across her entire body. That might account for the extra bulk, but she also seemed a head or two taller than before. Maybe it was just a trick of perspective; a result of seeing herself with eyes that weren’t her own. Except this wasn’t the first time she’d seen herself through Garrain’s eyes.

By chance, they’d caught up with her while she was facing directly away from them. Saskia’s sense of hearing and smell were pretty good, so it would only be a matter of time until she noticed them, but until then…

“Okay, I don’t think I’ve—she’s—crap, this is so confusing—seen you yet,” said Saskia. “You might be able to sneak up and…”

Ruhildi’s zombie entourage surged forward. Feral Saskia spun about, roaring.

“…or just do that.”

The hulking demon troll batted aside the first of the charging beasts with contemptuous ease. She felt it as just a slight pressure against the back of her hand. Wow, she’d really levelled up in the worm’s stomach—or gizzard, or whatever it had been. If only her body hadn’t left her mind out in the cold.

The rest of the zombies piled on, and the scene began to resemble a movie gore fest, with blood and entrails and body parts flying in all directions, shredded by the whirling, snarling troll’s teeth and claws. Saskia felt waves of hot rage sweeping over her, and she struggled to keep hold of her sense of self.

The taste. Oh god, the taste. Most of these beasts had been dead for days, and this sauna of a cavern was hardly the place to leave well-preserved corpses.

Garrain and his pet—Ollagor, he called him—rushed forward in their wake. Saskia sighed inwardly. She didn’t see how this could go well for the elf. Did he have a death-wish?

A familiar whispering sound drifted across the cavern, and Saskia saw that Ruhildi had pressed her hands to the floor. The label and timer over her friend’s head told Saskia all she needed to know. “Hold up, Garrain!” she hissed. “Ruhildi’s casting a stone to dust spell. And I think I know what she’ll do next…”

The druid hesitated for a moment, before halting fully and calling back his pet. The floor suddenly gave way between the troll’s feet. Pressed down by the weight of the swarm piling onto her, she fell forward onto all fours. At that same moment, the floor hardened again, courtesy of Ruhildi’s rapid-cast dust to stone spell, leaving her hands and feet trapped.

“I know precisely how that feels,” muttered Garrain.

Feral Saskia roared and swayed from side to side. She felt herself straining against the implacable grip of solid rock. The ground shook, and cracks began to form in the stone.

Saskia, feeling her awareness beginning to slide; to become one with the rabid beast.

“Now, Garrain!” she cried. “You won’t get a better chance than this! Cut off my hand!”

“You seem remarkably eager to lose another limb, demon,” said Garrain.

“It’ll grow back! Better than being stuck in your head forever. Go!”

He didn’t need to be prompted again. Glaive held high, the elf sprang forward, knocking aside a pair of zombie spider-things. With a wordless cry, he brought the blade down upon her wrist.

Saskia felt a sharp sting, followed by a burning sensation. But this was far less painful than she’d expected.

As Garrain surveyed the damage, she saw why. Despite the force of the blow, it hadn’t severed the hand. In fact, it just barely parted the rock-hard skin on her wrist and stuck there, sizzling the softer tissue beneath.

Feral Saskia screeched and writhed and shook, jostling the blade free as she craned her neck in an attempt to bite at the elf who had wounded her. Garrain stepped back, circled around and came at her from another angle.

In an explosion of stones and debris, her hand tore free. Great clawed fingers clamped around the elf’s wrist and twisted it. Bones snapped, and his weapon clattered to the ground.

There was a sudden, intense feeling of dizziness, and…something else. Something forming in the corner of her vision, hovering expectantly in the air. It was shiny and circular, and she thought she could make out the shape of a face painted on its gleaming surface.

Without waiting to see what it was, she reached out with mental fingers and seized the object. Her view wavered and shifted, and then she was looking down at Garrain from a great height as she squeezed his broken wrist.

She squeezed harder.

This little shitstain had tried to murder her! Twice! Why hadn’t she killed him already!? She’d rip out his balls and stuff them down his throat! Then she’d rip out his throat and shove it up his…

She hesitated, blinking in confusion as a tiny voice cried out for her to stop hurting the poor guy. It was her own voice. With each passing moment, the voice in her head grew louder, until it was no longer a voice. It was her.

And this rage? This was not her.

Saskia loosened her grip. Almost, she let go, before thinking better of it.

“Sorry!” she said. “But it worked! It’s me again.”

“Release me, demon!” hissed Garrain.

“I don’t think that’d be a good idea,” said Saskia. “Touching you was what brought me back, I think. If I let go…”

“I…see,” said Garrain. “Don’t release me, demon.”

“Och, make up your mind, Garri,” said Ruhildi. She smiled at Saskia. “It gladdens my heart to have you back in your own body, and out of his.”

“Yeah, you and me both,” said Saskia.

The solid stone went soft and flowed away from her. Keeping a steady grip on the elf’s wrist, Saskia stepped out of the sand pit, and gave her back a satisfied flex.

She hadn’t realised how attached she’d gotten to this body until she nearly lost it. This hulking monstrosity was hers, as much as her human body had ever been. Perhaps more, given how much she’d been crippled by her injuries after the accident back on Earth.

She looked down at her free arm, admiring the new flesh that graced its length, beneath the splattered blood and filth. Gone were the lumpy moles, and in their place was something that felt more like stone than flesh. She could still bend her joints, but elsewhere her skin had become as hard as diamond. Well okay, maybe not that hard, but still hard enough to stop Garrain’s magic blade from slicing all the way through it. The new flesh was much smoother than before, as if something had sanded away all the rough edges. Given what she recalled of the deepworm’s gizzard, maybe that was exactly what had happened…

Her new arm was positively bulging with muscles. And her granite abs gave new meaning to the word chiselled. After she grew out of her silly teenage drooling-over-beefcakes phase, she’d never been attracted to that ’roided out bodybuilder look, and certainly wouldn’t have sought such a look for herself. But on this world, with all the enemies she’d made, being strong might just save her life or the life of someone she cared about.

Saskia felt strangely unselfconscious in her nakedness today. Maybe it was the time she’d spent away from her body giving her a new perspective, or maybe it was the fact that her newly hardened skin made her look more like an animated statue than a living, breathing creature. Would she feel the same way once she cleaned all the blood and mud off? Right now, it didn’t seem to matter. There were more important concerns.

“Okay,” she said, drawing a deep breath. “How about we see about getting this arlium out of my hand, so we can send you on your way, Garrain.”

Easier said than done. If her suspicions were correct, the reason why she was back in her own body was because the elf’s wrist was touching the arlium, not because of its contact with her own flesh. She explained as much to Ruhildi and Garrain, whereupon he carefully pressed a finger against the crystal in her palm, and she released his broken wrist.

The arlium seemed to have sunk deeper into her hand over the past few days since she’d watched herself emerge from the deepworm. Now, she could only see a circle of glowing amber the size of a large coin. This surgery was going to be long and full of ouch.

“I think you should be the one to do it, Ruhildi,” suggested Saskia.

“Aye,” said her friend. “Methinks the leaf-ears might slip and fall and stick the knife into your back.”

“Now look here—” protested Garrain.

“Broken wrist, remember,” interrupted Saskia. “You won’t be cutting anything with that hand, and the other is occupied.”

“Would that he’d broken both wrists,” muttered Ruhildi. She pressed a knife into the seam where Saskia’s flesh met the glowing red crystal.

Saskia winced in anticipated pain. None came.

Ruhildi pushed harder, using both hands, but all Saskia felt was a slight pressure. And there wasn’t so much as a drop of blood.

Suddenly, the knife slipped and sliced across Garrain’s finger. He jerked it back reflexively.

Saskia stared into his eyes, which were smouldering with outrage. She glanced at Ruhildi. Then she laughed. “I guess you don’t need to keep touching it after all. Nice job, Ruhildi!”

“’Twere an accident,” said her friend.

“A happy accident. Well he’s not happy, of course.” Saskia flicked her gaze toward Garrain, who had his bleeding finger pressed to his mouth. “But he’s never happy.”

“I’ll be happy when I’m standing under leaves and sky with focus in hand,” said Garrain.

“We’ll figure this out, don’t worry,” said Saskia. “Lemme see how deep this thing goes…” She activated her X-ray medical overlay, and held up her hand. A little gasp escaped her lips. She swept her gaze down her arm, stopping at her chest. “Okay, we might have a problem.”

“Explain,” he said.

“Well, as it turns out, the arlium runs really dogram deep. Like all the way down my arm and into my chest, and there are threads of the stuff reaching all through my body. It looks like some kinda glowy red root system.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

“I’m not making this up! I have no idea what’s going on here, but I don’t think it’s gonna be coming out any time soon.”

“Pray that you are wrong, demon, for if you are correct—”

A meaty thwack rang out across the cavern, and the elf doubled over, clutching his groin where Ruhildi had kicked him.

“Och shut your prattlehole, impotent keeper!” said the dwarf. “What are you going to do? Flop your broken wrist at us? You’re fortunate we didn’t just end your worthless life days ago! Sashki has been far kinder to you than you deserve, you ungrateful shite!”

Saskia sighed as the two of them faced off for what would no doubt be a very one-sided confrontation. That was quite enough of that. She reached out and lifted them both into the air; one in each hand.

“What are you…put me down!” shouted Ruhildi, while Garrain just glared at her.

“Thanks for defending me, Ruhildi, but please don’t kill him,” said Saskia. “And Garrain, you’re in no position to be threatening me. So just shut the hell up and let me figure this out, okay?”

She lowered them both gently to the ground. When they didn’t immediately leap at each other’s throats, she relaxed and let her gaze turn inward once more.

The network of arlium reaching through her body was even more extensive than she thought, branching off into tiny filaments thinner than a strand of hair. They extended to her toes and fingertips, and threaded around every major organ. There may actually be more arlium inside her now than there had been in Garrain’s staff. But if that were so, where had the rest come from?

She peered down at her reflection in a nearby rock pool. Okay, this was creepy. There were even threads of arlium reaching into her brain, like some freaky body-snatching alien parasite.

Saskia dismissed the X-ray overlay, sighing inwardly, and inspected her newly-hardened face. Still as hideous as ever, she thought with a slight grin. In truth, she’d gotten used to her distorted visage over the past few months, and she’d long since stopped cringing at her own reflection. Those now-familiar facial features remained—just writ on a tougher substrate.

It was then that she noticed that something new was forming in the corner of her vision; yet another oracle doodad. Soon, it had coalesced into what appeared to be a vial of bubbling blue liquid.

Fantasinating. A potion?

When it came to potions, the colour blue had come to symbolise a very specific thing in games. She had no idea why, but very few game developers even considered breaking from tradition in this respect. A blue potion was almost always a mana potion.

In a typical game, mana was fuel for magic, in a very literal sense. Mages had this invisible well of mana that they drew from to cast spells. When you ran out of mana, no more casting for you.

This world didn’t have anything called mana, but Ruhildi had mentioned another magical resource. She’d called it essence.

So was this new widget on her interface some kind of virtual essence potion?

That didn’t make much sense. There was no such thing as an essence potion. According to Ruhildi, spellcasters drew essence directly from the world tree using wands or staves tipped with arlium. A spellcaster’s proficiency and her chosen focus affected how quickly she could draw essence, the degree of control she had over the resulting spell, and how tired she got after casting it, but there was no hard limit to the amount of essence she could draw. There was no well to fill, and there were no potions to fill it.

But if not a potion, what was this thing?

Saskia reached out with a mental finger and tapped the vial-shaped object.

Nothing happened.

“So much for that idea,” she muttered. Then she saw that Garrain was staring at her with wide eyes. “What? Is there something on my face? Of course there’s something on my face. I’m so filthy right now, there’s something on my everything.”

“There’s nothing on your face ’cept a fair big nose, Sashki,” said Ruhildi.

“I hope there’s eyes and a mouth too.” Wiping her sticky, matted hair out of her eyes, Saskia dabbed at her forehead. Sweat was pooling across her body at an alarming rate. “Is it just me, or is it getting even warmer in here?”

A gust of hot wind swept over her. There came a faint whisper on the air, becoming louder with each passing moment. Was Ruhildi casting a spell, or…?

Crouched with his palm brushing across a patch of phosphorescent lichen, Garrain had an exultant expression on his face. The brittle fronds seemed to writhe and stretch under his loving caress. He swept his hand around in a wide arc, and what had once been lichen billowed upward, engulfing the druid in a whirling vortex of shimmering fungal blades.