I was on the sofa, slumped like a sack, my head tilted back against the cushion, and my body on the verge of sliding onto the floor, staring at the ceiling above me with a glossed blank gaze
My nose had bled at some point during the third or the fourth herb.
I had not noticed when it started.
Noticed it when it dripped onto my shirt and then stopped noticing it again because the headache was occupying all available attention, having firmly established itself as the top priority in whatever survival instincts I had.
The table in front of me had eight small plants on it.
Four of them were the original spirit herbs I had bought from the System: the Silverleaf, the Redstem, the Bitterfern, and the Sunblossom, each one different in color and shape and leaf structure, each one now permanently mapped in my long-term memory at every level of its existence simultaneously.
The other four were copies I had manifested through Nature Manifestation after each Trace session.
