I didn't take to captivity well.

It wasn't all that long ago that I'd spent an unspecified amount of looping time in a cell not that much bigger than I was currently in. That had not exactly been a high point of my life, and I could feel the rising panic the moment the roots closed over my head.

Of course, there were several differences this time compared to my experience at Aurelius' pleasure. For a start, I wasn't on my own with Drynwyn. Arthur, Owain, Beric and Mark were all similarly imprisoned, and I would be lying if the sight of the corpulently fat King of Gwynedd wedged into a cell barely wide enough for him to scratch his fat arse didn't ease my own suffering.

However, this enjoyment was undercut somewhat by the constant irritation of Beric's bitching.

"Just walked us straight here. Talk about naive."

Arthur just stared straight ahead, ignoring the King of Powys. Every time I felt the need to bite back on his behalf, Merlin nudged me as a reminder that our silence was probably pissing him off more than any bon mots I could come up with.

And that was the second major plus point about this lockup. I had Merlin this time. Obviously, I would pour boiling water on my tits and roll around in salt and lemon juice more readily than ever admit that to him, but something was reassuring about his presence.

When we were left to it, the first thing I did was drop into my Artist's Studio, but the Big M quickly persuaded me that this wasn't sensible.

You're going to be here for three days, my dear. You don't want to be dilating time.

So I popped back out again and did my best to tune out the whinging.

"Do you have any ideas?"

My experience of the Fae is that they are scrupulously fair. Nothing terrible will happen to you until the time of your guest right runs out.

"And then?"

They'll either be on board, or they'll kill you all. You were able to get lucky around a young, inexperienced warrior, but even he - without Drynwyn's assistance - would have wiped you out; there's nothing to be done worryingly about the outcome of their deliberations.

"Easy to say when you're already dead, Big M."

Technically, so are you, my dear.

"Good point. Well made."

Beric and Mark were whispering together between their root cages, which didn't bode anything good for my future. But, on the other hand, Arthur and Owain were swapping legends about the Fae, which showed that - at least for one of the British Kings - the whole point behind this quest had been worth it.

Gwent was, strategically, pretty much the whole ballgame when it came to keeping Cornwall and the Welsh tribes connected. If Owain closed his borders to us, Arthur would need to cross the Seven to have any credible wiggle room to launch an attack to push back the Saxons. And that would be, psychologically, a big deal. Sure, the other kings were important, but Gwent was pretty much the lynchpin to coherent British resistance to the Saxon invasion.

"So, what do you expect me to do for three days?"

Funny you should mention that, my dear. I happen to have a couple of ideas.

*

There's an art to poisoning yourself.

If I weren't stuck in the middle of the Fae realm, trapped in a cell made of roots and contemplating taking a pull that was pretty much guaranteed to burn a hole through my guts, I'd probably be reaching for a Sylvia Plath quotation right now.

But, hey, you'll have to do the work. 'Lady Lazarus'. Google it.

I was holding the pill in my hand, rolling it between my fingers. The dark red dot in the centre was encased in a ball of Earth Qi which, by itself, I think I should have been getting more credit for pulling out of my arse. I wasn't especially talented with that stuff: it was only when I started to think of it as clay to be modelled that I began to get anywhere with it.

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I'd taken a few pottery classes in my time - diversification, don't you know? - and could run off a couple of phallic pots with the best of them. In case any of you are harbouring fantasies about re-enacting Swayze and Moore around a wheel, let me do my bit for public service broadcasting. If you get clay anywhere . . . sensitive, you need to make sure you get that off before it starts drying. That was one visit to the waxing salon, and I'm not keen to relive it in the near future.

Back to the pills, my dear.

"Yep, I'm displacing, aren't I?"

So, the Pill of Agonishing Death. Absolutely guaranteed to positively fuck-up your day.

"Why am I contemplating swallowing this again, Big M? Surely it would be a net benefit for me to slip it to Beric as a smartie?"

Now you are a wizard, Harry - goodness, I hate myself for humouring you with this - you need to take any opportunity to push beyond your limits. It's a very long journey to Hermione, and whereas at the lower levels, it's possible to progress by sheer, cussed determination, the improvements needed from now on are humongous. You will need to consume any number of natural treasures and absorb the Qi of countless spirit beasts to notice any improvement in your current situation.

"Dude, if you want to give me a magic mushroom, I'm absolutely here for it. I'm just a little leery about eating something that is specifically created to kill me."

First up, all cultivation is about risk. If you're not pushing the envelope, you're falling behind. Secondly, the whole point is to do something that nearly kills you. Then, when you come out the other side, you're that much more prepared against it. You have one hundred of these pills. Should you survive them all, you can pretty much guarantee you will make some sort of helpful advance in your skill set.

"Or I'll be dead . . . "

I refer you to my original point. Faint heart never won fair lady.

"I'm not wooing a damsel, Big M. I'm Socrates with a glass of hemlock."

There was a pause.

"Yeah, that's a pretty big reach, wasn't it?"

Just a bit,

"Fine."

And I downed the pill.

*

The second I swallowed it, the Earth Qi pulled into my channels. This gave me a nice little boost of chill - Earth Qi is nothing if not solid, good sense - which was swiftly overcome by the awareness of the drop of deadly poison burning its way down my throat.

I realise this might be a sensation you think you've experienced before - maybe you've sipped coffee that was a bit hot. Or took a bite of stew that was a touch warm as it went down.

Well, boo fucking hoo.

This was nothing like that. This stuff fucking seared my windpipe like it was a piece of burning sandpaper. I panicked as my airway closed up and reached for an Elixir of Wellness.

No, my dear. You must not mix the two. There's no knowing the interaction. It could well be catastrophic.

As I appeared to be having the mother of all anaphylactic shocks, I found that to be a touch fucking catastrophic, but I replaced the elixir in my inventory and took out a stiletto and a thin glass tube.

Trachyotemies are difficult in the best of circumstances, my dear . . .

I didn't give a fuck. I drove the knife into my neck, whipped it out and shoved the tube in the hole before my healing kicked in and sealed it. I could breathe again.

That was kind of where the good news came to an end.

The drop of poison - free from its Earth Qi case - was continuing its merry journey of destruction through my body, burning through my stomach wall, allowing all sorts of pleasant liquids to slosh about. I knew I had some decent health recovery since levelling up, but I doubted I was up to surviving something this spectacular.

I clung to Melehan's Rock of Curing and - mentally, at least - looked piteously at Merlin.

You need to cultivate that drop, my dear. If you leave it in your physical system, it will destroy you.

I didn't need telling twice. A small part of me, though - the part currently not screaming in agony - wished the Big M had pre-taught that slice of crucial information.

I pulled the poison into my core.

To begin with, my paint tried to treat it like any other drop of Qi. It wandered over to it and, with a gulp, consumed it. However, the moment this happened, my poor paint blob turned an alarming colour that I can only describe as 'gangrene'.

More paint hurried over, trying to overwhelm the rot, but no matter how much arrived or how big the blob became, it continued to go that terrible colour.

Okay. I was hoping that would do it. Hmmmmm. Bit of a pickle.

Awesome. The words you always dream you will hear from your legendary mentor whilst you are melting from the inside out are uncertain musings.

As Hamlet vacillated, my blob of paint collapsed. I sensed that if I left it in my core, the whole thing would be infected by this stuff. So, with an almighty effort, I began to cycle it around my channels.

I'd say this hurt, but I'm worried I'd undersell it.

Take the most unbearable physical and psychological torment you've ever experienced. Imagine that being ramped up a hundredfold and then narrated to you by Tom Hiddleston.

It was that bad.

Just as it had crucified my physical tubes and pipes, this stuff burned around my channels like a uranium enema. I kept pumping out my Qi in the hope it would dilute the fucking stuff, and then the store was empty, and I was emptying out my earrings. When they were done, I pulled on a bunch of my rings and drained their mana stones, too.

I was pulling everything I'd put into my cauldron out when I felt the destruction lessen. Not much, don't get me wrong. I was screaming my heart out, but the pain wasn't increasing anymore.

There we go, my dear. That's the sweet spot. That's the apex. All downhill from here.

The sun was just going down on that first day of captivity when I was finally able to open my eyes. My entire cultivation setup was fucked. My channels were burned, I was out of Qi, and I was a physical wreck.

And that was from one drop of the stuff.

I was aware of several pairs of eyes fixed on me. Arthur cleared his throat.

"Erm, you've been screaming for half the day, Morgan. Is everything okay?"

With some effort, I managed to flip him the bird before I lost consciousness, my hand still wrapped around the healing rock.