Morkal’s expressions were ordinarily inscrutable, but Jessica thought she saw deep hesitation in the stare Morkal was giving the blood-red vial they made. After a few minutes scrutinizing, she spoke mouthlessly.

  “Let us find a toad.”

  This was easier said than done. Morkal’s limbs might have been thin, but her seven-foot frame was not built for stealth. Her feet thumped against the ground like a kick drum and her scalp brushed leaves like a hi-hat. The only reason Morkal had gotten the jump on her, Jessica realized, was because her brain was a disorganized mess that couldn’t keep track of her surroundings.

  “Could we turn an animal into a toad with one of your potions and then turn the toad into you?” Jessica asked.

  “We would have no means to turn them back into their true form,” Morkal replied.

  “Would a worm care?”

  “It would disturb the Tapestry’s equilibrium.”

  “Isn’t the whole point of having a toad potion to screw with the Tapestry?”

  “Humans can be turned into toads. The Tapestry accounts for this.”

  “Very convenient, Morkal. It’d be bad if you hypocritically violated the laws of the Tapestry, wouldn’t it?”

  Morkal made a humming noise from her mouthless throat. “The Tapestry is not what is violated. The physical world is. The reincarnated are already a cancer accounted for in the totality.

  “Yeah, okay, sure,” Jessica said, still not quite sure how a worm becoming a toad messed up the universe when horny teenagers were running around doing world-ending magic for harems and giggles.

  “Perhaps we need to provide further explanation of the Tapestry. To begin with—”

  “Toad!”

  Before it could crawl behind a rock, Jessica darted forward and snatched the warty little toad. It looked up at her with annoyance and wriggled in her grip before letting out a croak of frustration.

  Jessica placed it on a flat rock and drew her hands away while Morkal tossed the blood-red liquid onto it. The toad disappeared in a blood-colored cloud. A split-second later another Morkal popped into existence. This copy was identical in every way to the original.

  “This is not good,” Morkal said.

  “What do you mea—?”

  Jessica’s question was interrupted by a loud croak from the Morkal she was certain was the original. Morkal’s mouth slit peeled open to reveal her double-row of spiny fangs and she chomped down on the open-air where a dragonfly had been floating.

  “We have failed to consider something,” said the Morkal who had come from the toad.

  Both Morkals croaked in unison then said, “The potion replicated the effects of our entangled existence.”

  Jessica’s gaze flicked between the two Morkals. “There’s a toad in your hive mind now?”

  “Yes,” both Morkals replied. “The Tapestry recognizes all which is Morkal as Morkal, including entities which become Morkal. We should have foreseen this.”

  “Uh… How are the other Morkals handling it?”

  “There are no other Morkals. We are all the same.”

  Jessica pointed at the Morkal body standing on the rock. “Can we fix it by turning that one back into a toad?”

  “We are both indistinguishable from the toad, as the toad is now us.”

  “Okay, how about we turn both of you into toads, take one of you over to the abandoned watchtower, and that’ll be the one we turn back into Morkal?”

  Morkal nodded. The original handed the Potion of Polymorph Toad to Jessica and she splashed some on the Morkal on the rock and it poofed back into a toad.

  “This is quite uncomfortable,” Morkal said.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “What is?”

  The toad crawled around in a little circle and let out a long croak at the same time as Morkal did.

  “We are also now a toad.”

  A headache bloomed like a rainbow from temple to temple across Jessica’s forehead. She pulled her hands over her eyes, forehead, and scalp.

  “Okay. Okay, okay, okay. So… we started with a toad, right? And we turned that toad into Morkal, and because it was categorically Morkal, when we turned it back, it was you we were turning into a toad, so it kept your personality and all that. Am I on the right track?”

  The toad chirped and Morkal said, “yes,” at the same time.

  “So where the hell is the original toad in all this!?”

  “We are the toad,” Morkal said. “We can also now see through its eyes and feel through its skin. We are not used to this. It will take time to acclimate.”

  The last thing Jessica wanted after a hard day of farm work was metaphysics.

  She rubbed her temples. “So we’ll take Toad!Morkal with us, turn this Morkal into a toad when the time comes, bring both of you over, then convert one of you back to regular Morkal. And if I understand correctly, it literally doesn’t matter who we turn back?”

  “This is correct,” Morkal said.

  “And how about the uh… the other one?”

  “We shall remain a toad as we once were. There would be serious repercussions for replicating our form beyond its original extent. This would set in motion a fate of our gradually assimilating more matter into ourselves and cause a disturbance in the Tapestry. Such a thing must not come to pass.”

  Until now, the strangeness of the situation had blinded Jessica to the danger of what they had just made. The Potion of Polymorph Morkal could theoretically create an infinite number of Morkals in defiance of entropy, all of whom were permanently and eternally Morkal. That would be very, very bad.

  Staring directly at a use-case scenario, Jessica was beginning to see why Morkal was so concerned about the effects of too much Tapestry on the world. It wasn’t some vague, woo-woo spiritual thing, but the direct repercussions of screwing around with magic. When Morkal said she was worried about people from Earth coming here and messing things up, it was because of stuff like this.

  “Are you mad at me for creating the potion?” Jessica asked.

  “We are not, for you did not create it to cause a disturbance of equilibrium and under our supervision it will be destroyed when its use has been fulfilled.”

  Jessica had a people-pleasing streak. It was a flaw too deep for her to do anything about. But if she was comforted by Morkal’s praise, it was because she had unknowingly grown attached to the weird hive mind monster lady obsessed with magical equilibriums. Her appreciation of the praise was as irreducible as magic.

  “Good,” Jessica said. “I see your point about the Tapestry now. If this was an isek— a fantasy novel, us ballooning your hive mind would turn everything into a shitfest and derail the story, yeah?”

  “Your narrative metaphor is interesting and, we believe, correct.”

  “I think I’m grasping things now. Are we starting the move today or tomorrow?”

  “It will have to be tomorrow,” Morkal replied.

  “How come?”

  “Do you know where this watchtower is?”

  Jessica clicked her tongue. “Damn… Didn’t think of that. I’ll explain things to John and he’ll come up tomorrow to carry both Toad!Morkals over to the watchtower. After that, he and I will carry your supplies in a wheelbarrow or something.”

  The toad puffed its neck out.

  “Will this arouse suspicion?” Morkal asked.

  Sir Hayek’s threat to have her imprisoned and burned as a witch if she did any more ‘alchemy’ echoed in her mind. Carrying a bunch of alchemical supplies was risky. Really risky.

  “We’ll have to think of something for that too. The important thing is relocating you before other adventurers find you. Any lab supplies we salvage is a cherry on top.”

  “Qwark,” said Toad!Morkal.

  Jessica bid farewell to both Morkals and returned to Barleyfield. Possibly because the discussion had made her jumpy, she swore the farmers she passed were giving her funny looks. When she got back to the hovel for supper, she brought it up with Rosemary.

  “Oh that’s cuz they’re freeholders,” Rosemary said. “Best for us to keep to our own. The freeholders don’t like us serfs and we don’t like them. And anyhow, if something bad happens, you can’t expect freeholders to step up for ya like Barleyfielders. Ain’t that right, Charlie?”

  “Wassat now?” Charles asked, startled out of the dice game he was playing with John.

  “I said it’s better for us to keep to our own affairs.”

  “That’s right. Don’t matter to me what’s goin’ on with freeholders or royals or none a’ that. When that knight fella came ‘round he kept tellin’ us he was late gettin’ to us cuz the queen’s sick. What do I care ‘bout the queen for? Gotta fix tools and bake bread and—”

  “Sick? Sick with what? What are the symptoms!?” Jessica asked.

  The Serf family was taken aback by her excited response.

  “Er… the Sir didn’t say. Just said she ain’t feelin’ well,” Charles replied. “In a lotta pain.”

  “Oh! Those royals are always in pain! That’s what layin’ around all day does to ya,” Rosemary said. “Get movin’ and focus on work and the pain goes away on its own.”

  Jessica had ceased to pay attention. She’d heard everything she needed to hear. What she had was a queen in pain, a field full of opium poppies, and a laboratory certain to have sulfuric acid, ammonium chloride, and sodium carbonate.