Monty has left. You're really in no mood to do much of anything, but concentrated spite has sat you down at your desk with a fettling knife and a lump of clay. You're not over the fact that your last attempt at a model got stolen— on top of everything else! Did you break a mirror or something?

  Did you… okay, well, it doesn't matter. Superstition is for the feeble-minded, Richard would tell you, were he speaking. (He's draped idly over the legs of your cot.) You are going to make something, and it's not going to be a disaster, you swear.

  >[1] Try to remake the model you were beginning before. It'll be difficult— your memory of the cathedral is fuzzy— but it sure will stick it to the man in the grey longcoat.

  >[2] Model a different building. Like the weird tower in Ellery's— not like that. But somewhere.

  >[3] Do something abstract. It's not in your usual repertoire, but you feel like you should probably be expressing yourself, or something like that.

  >[4] Don't aim for anything in particular. Let your tools and fingers do the talking.

  >[5] You give up. Put the knife back and take a surrender nap.

  >[6] Write-in.

  You start four times, and four times smash the clay against the desk. In theory, this should not be difficult. You're just trying to recreate the model that got stolen.

  In practice, it's awful. Your grip on your tools is unsteady, and twice you make a fatal slip and lop off half the nave. Worse, you're finding it difficult to picture the dimensions of the manse: in memory, it has softened into slush. (Much like your clay, which you've worked too much water into.)

  It's not right. Even if you could execute it, it wouldn't be right. Your other models are all of real structures, real places, where the character of them are inherent in how they're constructed. If you reconstruct them properly, the character follows. It's top-down.

  You need to go bottom-up. You need to sculpt the character, and the structure will follow! You are momentarily pleased by your flash of brilliance.

  And then you realize: well, how in the God-damn are you supposed to do that?

  Sculpt the character? What does that even mean? You don't know how that works. You can barely sculpt things you can see directly in front of you. Face it: this is a waste of time.

  You knock your head against the desk in frustration. Something clatters loose in your skull. Buckshot. Buckshot? No, but that's what it feels like— felt like—

  Buckshot? What are you thinking? It's been a long day. You should give up on this. It's late afternoon, almost evening, it's fine if you sleep. You should sleep. By the morning your ears will have stopped ringing.

  Buckshot. No, it's there, plain as daylight, plain as the nose on your face, plain as anything you like. It's not literal. (It can't be literal.) But it's there anyways, defying all good sense, small and round and foreign. You prod it nervously, and receive WHITE and ROSEWATER and BRASS and GLASS and RAFTERS all in your head at once.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The cathedral. You're sure Richard would be happy to give you a detailed explanation, but without him you're forced to discard your questions of "why" and "how." It is what it is, and what it is is an entire building (a space? a concept?), crammed into something the size of a marble, lodged deep in your brain. But you've got it now— you can roll it between your fingers— (if someone were watching you, they'd see your head still on the desk, your hands clutching at empty water)— you can sculpt it.

  >[ID: 7/11]

  You have the character. You pick your head up. There is clay streaked across your forehead and cheek.

  You wipe it off your face and onto the desk, then wipe all the clay off the desk. You take the fettling knife and slice a large chunk of clay off the block underneath. You set down the fettling knife, and pick up a ribbon cutter. You scoop—

  ?Charlie.?

  Damn! Why now!

  ?Charlie. Listen to me. This is an emergency.?

  ?Somebody is in your head.?

  You drop the ribbon cutter. "What? Who— how do you know?"

  ?Like how you were in Ellery's. I don't know. I'm also in your head, Charlie, I can tell these things.?

  You forget the cathedral. You forget the clay. "Oh God. Why?"

  ?I don't know, and I'm unable to find out. I need you here. Now. I'll walk you through the process.?

  Your heart is pounding. "Wouldn't it be better if you just pulled me? Like— like the first time? Faster, I mean."

  There is a short, annoyed pause. ?It would be faster. But that's a lot of work. I'll do it if you insist.?

  >[1] Oh God! Let Richard walk you through it. You probably need to conserve your/his energy, or whatever.

  >[2] Oh God! Make Richard pull you in. Time is of the essence.

  >[3] Wait! You have another question. [Write-in.]

  >[4] Write-in.

  "I don't— if you say so." You tug nervously at a lock of hair. "Will I fight him or her? With, like, a sword? Just as a hypothetical—"

  ?That remains to be seen, Charlie.?

  "Are you sure? Because I feel like speed is of the essence, really— what if my memories all get stolen in the meantime? What if I wake up as hideously corrupted? Evil?"

  ?It doesn't work that way.? Richard untwists himself from the cot. ?Come on.?

  You take the fettling knife in one hand as a precaution and step over. You don't remember what to do. You barely remember what you did.

  ?Then listen.?

  You're made to mouth numbers backwards from 400, all the nonsense rhymes you can remember ("one, three, two / tide, is, blue / skipjack, sets, sail / wyrm, eats, its tail"), all the colors of the rainbow backwards. The tent is smearing into watercolor. You can't feel your lips anymore. You don't know if this is good or not.

  You can't feel your arms or legs either. Is this good? Or is this the sabotage of your unseen assailant? Should you be panicking? You feel like you should be, but your lizard brain is already insensate.

  ?Behave, and this won't take so long. I don't understand your ridiculous affection for your material corpse.?

  Richard sure is tetchy, you think, before the last byssal thread between your body and your consciousness is torn away. You collapse.

  BATHIC'S RECOMMENDATION CORNER #6: