The beggar's medal flashed in my hands, its poorly crafted body feeling ever so out of place amidst nature in all its glory.
Slowly guiding my mana towards and into Spice's gift, I opened up my consciousness enough to let a stream of knowledge tickle through the gaps.
This way, it'd take me some time to call its contents mine in the truest sense of the word. But at the very least, my safety was increased by a few levels.
It was true the emotional part of my being knew that Spice had neither a reason to call for nor would he stand to gain from my demise, the cautious voice of reason within me always had the last call in matters of safety.
Triple-checking that nothing seemed even slightly out of the ordinary, I allowed for the tickle to turn into a stream, gradually laying out its secrets before my inner eyes.
Mortal secrets. Of a certain grandmother I'd met by chance. Supplemented by factual evidence crystallised from... I simply lacked the means to count them all.
Spice might as well have asked every dead to contribute until back to the crack of dawn, for the numbers were mind-blogging.
Somehow I'd lost myself amidst these uncharted waters so full of incomprehensible, contradictory, silly, distorted, radiant, grim-dark suggestions under whose spell I'd been put.
The youth was my salvation, her squeals loud enough to permeate even the most incredulous finding I'd stumbled upon.
I gradually came back to my senses, staring blankly at the youth throwing that bottle around with ridiculous levels of force nobody would expect from someone this young.
The next thing I knew was... me almost blacking out. I recognised the symptoms of a nervous breakdown, yet by the will of all the ridiculous shit I'd willingly swamped myself with, there was little I could do.
"Shit... shit... shit. Shitty-ya-pippy-ya-shit! Horseshite!!!" Then I realised that there were quite a number of words I knew.
With no reason to limit me to such beggarly vocabulary, the words came just pouring out of my overstressed mouth.
"Is that dirt stuck below your claws? Are you out of your mind?! There are a couple hundred sicknesses just grinning at you!"
Then I noted her glorious clothes, rags my eyes hurt just by glimpsing upon all of a sudden. And my nose? That, I shouldn't even consider, else the nervous breakdown would become very real very soon.
"Krept through dung? Ate rancid meat for snacks? Stop your horrendous mana circulation attempts. This. Instant. Do you want to kill us?!"
I did realise that what came out of my mouth sounded like the humming of a thousand insects in midsummer. A prophet would be required to remotely make sense of all that gibberish.
Yet I couldn't help myself. There was just this panic within me that I never realised even existed. In addition, my very life linked to this crazy little contractor made whatever survival instinct resided within me go ballistic.
In other words, there was pitiful little room for my remaining shades of reason to put up a brave fight. Eventually, they lost entirely, me giving in to hysteria.
"Under no circumstances is this acceptable. To the nearest stream with you. And pronto!!" She had yet to realise what this fuss was all about, looking at me as one would at a donkey.
"No ifs, ands and buts. Depart!" My barking made the leaves rustle, prompting some crustaceous scared animals to rain down our heads.
Of course, this didn't do me any good. "Fucking dumpster!!" A wave of my hand pulverised everything coming close, my vigilant eyes staring wide at each and every speck of dust.
Once upon a recent time, dust had been things other than dust. But now, if it wasn't, I'd probably turn the whole forest into a dustbin...
The moment I got such silly thoughts, the last embers of reason banged against my skull so much that a headache followed suit.
Meanwhile, the youth stared at the devastated surroundings in awe and dangerous worship, her laughter ringing out clearly as she happily crawled through this *dusty* mess.
"Nooo~!" My aghast reaction following the realisation of how many diseases she could pick up like this made her laugh even merrier.
"Wahahahehehehuiiiiii~" At any other time, I'd have probably smirked too. But that day? No chance. "To the water, now!"
While I was struggling with the dirty youth, running about the forest like a headless chicken, I started listing what other dangers resided in the water.
Parasites, for example. Carmouflagued muggers... Flesh-eating plants... And then we had the very real chance of drowning, of endlessly choking, of blacking out, of depressive reactions...
The more I spoke, the greater my rationality's rebellion. Yet the greater also my endless fears, turning ferocious and insurmountable like no nightmare could ever be.
Suddenly, I remembered something very essential. With rags like these, the youth would undoubtedly get very dirty no second after the bath.
And with such meagre quality, they'd tear if subjected to a light touch, unnecessarily putting her in danger's way.
"How could I forget!!!" My holler was so trenched in killing intent, the noisy forest turned silent all of a sudden.
Yet the one I'd like to see strangled the most was myself... "Bloody hell!" Racing back in the direction we came from, I speedily raided the high elves' meagre possessions.
Some pieces of armour there, some thick fabric here, strands I used for sewing, the most potent enchantments I could imbue these mortal garbs with and a plethora of swear words.
Coincidentally, these would turn true the moment some braindead fool endangered the youth in any way imaginable.
Spoken and woven into the fabric, the stitchings were modelled after runes of the Language of Old. I tried really hard really fast, almost not bringing my impromptu creation to completion.
This happened only because I was never content with any of the countless iterations. I sought perfection. Which existed nowhere...
As if in trance, I willed my mana to imitate her shape, adjusting the clothes on the fly. Then legged it once more.
Next thing I knew, we already stood at the shore of a gentle stream disemboguing into a nearby lake.
For the next couple of hours, the stillness of the place was disturbed by frantic shrieks ever so wavering between begs and hollers and my curses, ever so menacing as they were imaginative.