Robin winced as his stomach clenched again. The pain wasn’t too bad at the moment; the ghourd was still fighting its way free of the Song that Never Ends. He could tell that much. How long that reprieve would last, though, he couldn’t say.

With his luck, it would end sooner rather than later.

‘Right. What do you need?’ Eli asked, electing not to waste time arguing.

‘Give me something to trim that branch with.’ Robin pointed to the limb of sky-rowan on the floor nearby. ‘And there’s a small pot hidden in the little room nearest Greater and Lesser Arcana. It’s full of string and dye. Hopefully it’s red enough by now.’

Robin didn’t mention that he had another pot hidden away, also dyeing red thread, nor that he already had plenty of rowan twigs stowed in his ring.

‘You’ve been busy,’ Eli observed, pulling a dagger from his haversack and passing it to Robin.

‘You weren’t completely above suspicion,’ Robin replied.

‘Oh, so you were going to test your charm out on me first?’ The cleric sounded amused. ‘I’d say I’m flattered but I’m not sure that’s the right word.’

Robin groaned and clutched his stomach.

‘Less talk, more action,’ he waved Eli away and began trimming more rowan twigs from the branch. ‘I’m not sure how long I can hold it off and get this right. The knots are going to be tricky.’

Eli rose and slipped quickly out of the room.

As soon as he was gone, Robin straightened. The ghourd was still occupied and his distress had mainly served to hurry Eli out of the room so he could work.

Robin set the dagger aside, pulled the twigs he had already prepared from his ring, and retrieved a small, hollow wooden tube from beneath his bed. He pulled out a long string, dark red and wet with dye. Slowly (because slow is smooth and smooth is precise), he bundled the twigs and tied them up with an intricate knot, muttering the words to the charm under his breath. He repeated the words three times before finishing off the work and stowing the completed charm in his ring.

Nine times would have made for a stronger charm, but he could try that with the next one. Robin wanted one on hand that he knew Eli hadn’t come near to.

Speaking of, Robin could hear footsteps returning. With a thought, he covered the dye stains on his fingers with illusion courtesy of his [Mask of Many Faces] and returned to trimming twigs. Eli entered the room moments later.

‘Here,’ he said, setting the pot down next to Robin.

‘Get the string out and pat it as dry as you can while I—’ Robin’s sentence cut off with a hiss as a sharp stab of pain went through his gut and what felt like razor vine started tearing at the edges of his mind.

The cleric did as he asked. There wasn’t much else he could do. None of his magic could oust the ghourd as things stood.

You call that a mental attack? Robin thought furiously at the presence within him. I’ve seen sad trolls lurking in comments sections that can do better than that!

It was a test to see whether or not his [Cutting Words] might have an effect. They were, after all, described as psychic energy.

The feeling of vines at the edge of his mind flinched back. Yes! It had totally worked! It hadn’t done a lot of damage, but he hadn’t tried tailoring his insult to the ghourd specifically.

Good enough for now. Better to hold it off with weak attacks while he finished the charms, then use the sharper insults once that was safely done and he could focus his entire being on destroying the bloody thing.

Eli was patting the string dry. Robin gritted his teeth and trimmed several more twigs from the branch of sky-rowan. It took him longer than he would have liked to assemble two piles of suitable size for the charms.

Robin fired off another mental insult, driving the ghourd back, and quickly knotted two charms. He made sure to chant the words in English. Eli didn’t need to know exactly which protections he was imbuing into the wood and thread.

As soon as he finished, he thrust one of the charms at Eli, pocketing the other. He hadn’t finished a moment too soon. His fingers were beginning to tremble from the exertion of fighting off the ghourd’s control of his nervous system.

‘Get that disgusting gunk over here,’ Robin jerked his chin at Eli. ‘I’m going to go for the kill now.’

‘Get some of this in you first,’ the cleric said. ‘It’ll help weaken the ghourd.’

The smell alone was enough to weaken Robin, but he accepted the spoon anyway and swallowed the lot down fast. If he weren’t afraid to bring his hands near the spoon in case the ghourd managed to seize control and knock it away, he would have pinched his nose shut. That would have helped with the smell and the taste.

The stuff was so vile, though, it probably wouldn’t have done all that much. It tasted like castor oil mixed with hot rubbish. With afternotes of lockerroom and rotting peas.

‘You had best believe I am going to get even with you for this,’ he promised the cleric before closing his eyes and directing his ire inward.

Eli ignored him. He was busy rubbing more of that disgusting concoction onto Robin’s stomach. Robin reminded himself once again to learn some form of cleansing or purifying spell as soon as possible. Then he forced his attention on the problem inside.

Robin’s mind was an arena of shadows. He imagined it as a vaulted, grey space with nebulous shadows dancing all around the edges. It was a far cry from any form of mind palace, but he didn’t have time to be fancy.

‘All right you,’ he shouted. ‘Free ride is over. Pack up and move out, or I’ll cut you to ichorous ribbons.’

Robin probed the shadows with his mind, looking for the connection between him and the ghourd. The good news and the bads news both was that they were connected, so it couldn’t hide from him for long.

Shadowy tendrils lashed out at him as a prickly will tried to dig into his mind and eat it. For all its formidable powers, the ghourd was still a plant, and a single one at that. It was used to being part of a collective, one aspect of a great, vegetative hive-mind comprised of the thoughts and feelings of every victim the plants had consumed.

Robin grabbed onto the tentacle-vines and pulled. This would be easier if he could see the main body of the plant, not just its edges. He didn’t have to pull hard; the ghourd seemed eager to close the distance now. Perhaps it felt he was weakening.

‘That’s right, come meet your doom, you Great Pumpkin wannabe!’ Robin shouted as the golden bulk of the ghourd’s body came into view. Here in his mindscape, it appeared nearly as big as he was. ‘Though the closest you’ll ever get to “great” is is the business end of a vegetable peeler!’

The ghourd keened in pain and several of its tentacle-vines were sliced off.

Progress. Robin launched into battle. His sharp words clashed with the shadowy tendrils of the ghilded ghourd. It was a battle of attrition. Robin snipped off pieces of the ghourd, trying to crack the main body of the plant. The ghourd burrowed its mental roots and vines deeper into his mind. The vaults of Robin’s mind began to bleed red and gold through the shadows.

The fight was tearing into his mind. There was so much of the ghourd that was rooted and tangled in there. He was going to have to cut the body of it free and absorb the rest. Robin grimaced. Well, better to eat than to be eaten, in this case.

Robin stopped trying to uproot the ghourd entirely and started aiming to strike at the heart of the problem. Crack that, and the vines wouldn’t have anything directing them any more. Robin wracked his mind thinking up insults that would hurt a ghourd.

He tried teasing out if it disliked being too bulbous or not bulbous enough. He sniped at it about colour and shade. He compared its leaves to moth-eaten rags and called it aphid-bait. And slowly, he made progress.

He could tell he was getting to it. The ghourd’s attacks had become more frenzied, less focused. It no longer attempted to burrow into his mind. It simply tore at any exposed surface, desperate to wound or distract him enough that it could regroup.

Robin didn’t give it the chance.

‘You picked the wrong guy to set up shop in,’ Robin shouted. ‘I’m going to crack you like an egg and make you wish for a pie crust coffin!’

The ghourd keened and sent all of its roots and vines at him. Robin grabbed the tendrils and yanked the ghourd closer. The rind showed strain in several places. As Robin pulled it closer, he drilled inexorably into those spots with his will.

‘It’s no wonder you’re having trouble keeping a grip on my mind. You’re more whine than vine at this point.’

Closer.

‘I’ve heard of cowards having a yellow streak, but your colour scheme is taking the idea to extremes.’

And closer.

‘Honestly, they say some beings have minds like steel traps. Yours is more like a rusty wing nut: useless for its intended purpose and with a big hole in the middle.’

The thing exploded in his mental face.

Phantoms chunks of ghourd scattered throughout his mind. Robin felt an answering gurgle in his gut. A wave of nausea swelled, driving the scent of Eli’s ghourd-killing paste into his nostrils once more.

It was too much.

Robin flipped over on his stomach just in time to blow bright-orange chunks across the room. The remains of the ghilded gourd hit the floor with a wet splat. It took several more heaves for Robin to get the rest of it out of his system, all the time with a blue screen flickering before his eyes.

Congratulations! You have defeated an Adolescent Ghilded Ghourd and regained control of your mind and body! Experience Awarded! Perk Awarded! Incompatible heritage detected! Calculating… Adjustment created.

Perk Awarded! [Shard of the Shattered Manymind]

You have fought a complex psychic entity on its own turf and bested it! In the process, a part of the creature’s hive-mind has broken free and been assimilated into your own. This confers the following ability:

Eldritch Lore: You have an eclectic tangle of knowledge and memories stored in your subconscious. When faced with a new situation or prompted by a question, you have a small percentage chance to access a bit of relevant knowledge.

This ability stacks with other, compatible Lore abilities.

Eventually, he stopped puking his guts up and was able to read and minimise the screens. It seemed like the ghourd really was gone.

Robin decided to check a couple more things, just to be certain, though before he could, Eli interrupted.

‘Here, drink this. it will help.’ Eli held out a cup of what smelled like herbal tea.

Robin sniffed at it suspiciously. His Natural Wisdom proficiency didn’t reveal any obvious poison or trap, but he wished he had a bit more knowledge to back that up.

Would you like to raise Healing with experience? Y/N?

Oh yes. Robin mentally slammed the prompt in the affirmative three times, increasing his knowledge of the healing arts. It was long overdue. Though he still wanted to find a spell or three to supplement the knowledge provided by the proficiency.

He sniffed at the cup again. It seemed fine, so far as he could detect.

‘Thank you,’ he said guardedly and took the smallest of sips.

He waited a moment. Nothing happened except his stomach eased. Well, Eli had never poisoned him, and it didn’t appear the cleric had messed with his senses. Manipulated and tricked him, sure, but not poisoned or whammied.

He took another sip of the tea. His stomach settled further and he realised he was very thirsty.

Robin pulled open his character sheet. It had been behaving oddly before. If it looked alright now, it would go a long way to reassuring him that things were back to normal.

Well, as normal as things around here could be, he suspected.

ROBIN PARKER Heritage: Shadeling, Mature Profession: None Tier: 0 (Progress to Tier 1: 87%) Properties

Free Ranks Available: 1 Physical Mental Social Strength: 11 Intelligence: 17 Charisma: 15 Dexterity: 14 Cunning: 19 Manipulation: 13 Fortitude: 11 Resilience: 14 Poise: 15 Proficiencies

Free Ranks Available: 1 Physical (9/9) Mental (9/9) Social (9/9) Athletics: 1 Arcane Lore: 4 Animism: 0 Brawl: 0 Bureaucracy: 1 Deception: 5 Dodge: 4 Concentration: 5 Empathy: 1 Melee Combat: 2 Crafting: 5 Expression: 5 Pilot: 4 Healing: 3 Gossip: 0 Ranged Combat: 0 Insight: 5 Intimidation: 3 Sleight of Hand: 1 Learning: 4 Persuasion: 3 Stealth: 5 Natural Wisdom: 3 Socialise: 1 Survival: 1 Perception: 5 Streetwise: 0 Peculiarities Blessing of Rhyth Tongue of the Fallen Tower Mark of the Trickster Chronicle of Infinite Visions Perks

Wayfaring Stranger Shard of the Shattered Manymind

Everything seemed to be in order. Though one of his peculiarities had vanished, the one he’d never gotten the chance to investigate too closely. Instead, he had a perk with a similar name.

He had the sneaking suspicion that the peculiarity he had seen briefly had belonged to the ghourd. Killing it had removed the peculiarity. Though the replacement perk was nice. He looked through the description again. He’d have to test that soon, but first he had another thing he wanted to try.

Robin took some of his remaining experience and put it into Ranged Combat, testing again to see if anything would attempt to change his decision as it had when the ghourd still occupied his gut.

Congratulations! Your Ranged Combat had been raised to 2 with experience!

The familiar lessening and replacing-rush had never felt so good. It was a relief. Every test he had come up with so far pointed to him being free of the ghourd’s influence.

Of course that didn’t mean there weren’t still problems to be dealt with. Pixies, a mad dryad, and of course the elf-lephant in the room. Robin turned to Eli.

‘You and I are going to have a nice long chat about what exactly is going on in these gorram woods.’