He refocused on Blotto just as the smile faded from the man’s lips and his mouth drew tightly closed, as if he were desperately trying to stifle a belch. His eyes shown suddenly wide and intense, yet their expression had not changed so much as become frozen in stasis. His shapeless body jerked once, his flesh seemed to roll as does water in a boat’s wake, and then his fat lips were parted by what first seemed his tongue, but was revealed to be a budding red rose, which emerged into the fire-light and blossomed its pedals, spilling blood onto the gangplank and filling the air with scent. Glancing to the hand with which the man gripped Rosethorn, Dravidian saw that she’d sprouted thorn-studded rose stems, which had penetrated Blotto’s beefy wrist and chewed their way through his body.

His heel lifted off the wood and his ankle seemed to lock with paralysis, and then his body listed to the right and he began to fall. The rose imploded as if growing in reverse, retracting into his mouth which fell shut with the clacking of teeth, and an instant later Rosethorn fell to the plank and Dravidian stooped to snatch her up. Blotto’s body fell into the void.