Chapter 6: A Suspicious Garden

During the workday, Durri had overheard that there was another, bigger town to the north. Hopefully, the greater size would mean more opportunity for work than building the house of a corrupt mayor.

But he had another concern as well.

"I can't take a single stupid word more about being a lizard man. And yet, revealing I'm a golem is too risky. What should I do?"

As he trudged through the dark forest, squinting in the moonlight which poured down from the trees, Durri read the Codex in his head, searching for any sign of potions that might help him out of this situation.

Finally, he found just the solution.

"Ah, the Humanshape Potion! Invented by lonely dragons so they could walk among ordinary people, the Humanshape Potion compresses or expands the body of the one who drinks it to an average human size and shape, then gives them an illusory skin which looks and even feels like the real thing.

"But the user keeps their basic physical attributes, such as strength and toughness. A dragon who drinks it can still fly, though they appear to sprout wings if they do so."

However, this potion required a mandrake root. Durri knew those were pretty expensive to buy, but he was not sure of the reason. He flipped to the plant's entry in the Codex, and laughed to himself as he read the list of uses.

"Wow, that's a lot of drugs. Goodness, you could keep partying for days on some of these."

If he remembered correctly, a single mandrake cost around ten shillings at his hometown market. He had too little money to buy one, assuming similar prices wherever he ended up.

"Hmmm. It says that mandrakes grow in swamps. I wonder if I could find one of those in these woods."

He remembered how seeing the bread had made his head tingle. Now that he paid attention to it, Durri realized that same sensation filled his skull—or whatever it was—as he looked at the trees and shrubs and mosses of the forest. It was easy to ignore while he was thinking of other matters, but when he quieted his mind, the tingling seemed to grow stronger.

"Wow, there's got to be dozens of different plants around here!"

He stooped and picked the broad leaf of a plant with bulbous purple flowers. Though in his original life as a construction worker, Durri knew little about local flora, the name popped easily into his head. "The illustrious skunk cabbage! Funny, I've never seen one before. The mastery of alchemy I got as my reincarnation gift must have given me the ability to identify plants."

In his mind, he flipped open the Codex to read about skunk cabbages.

"Oh my! When growing in winter, they create enough heat to melt snow. It looks like I can use them to make a stink bomb or a potion to burn through metal! That sounds useful."

Durri pulled the whole plant from the ground, then frowned at it. "I wonder... I 'am' made of clay, after all."

He stuck the skunk cabbage on his left arm, and was shocked to see the plant move on its own! In moments, its roots had dug into him and buried themselves in his flesh.

"Ha, that tickles! Incredible! So I can keep some of these plants alive until I need to use them again. That's very good to know." Durri wished he had kept the last of the hot peppers from the wizard's tower. He probably could have grown them in his clay body. Not having any pockets, he had simply thrown them aside while leaving the ruins of the tower.

For that matter, Durri was still carrying his wages in one hand. Remembering how the crossbow bolts had stuck harmlessly into his chest, he now pushed the coins into his palm, then experimented with popping them back out.

"It feels just like flexing a muscle. Very interesting! And it seems my skin closes up right afterward. No harm done."

Yet, despite knowing what an individual plant was by looking at it, Durri knew little about the forest itself. He would know a mandrake if he saw one, but had no idea where to look.

"Now that I think about it, my sense of smell seems to be stronger as a golem than it was as a human. I could smell those peppers from across the room in the wizard's tower. That's not something I could ever do before. I wonder..."

Durri closed his eyes and thought about mandrakes.

"They smell... sweet. Almost like apples."

He poked his nose into the air and tried to inhale deeply. That was impossible, since he had no lungs. Yet, Durri tasted the air in his mouth and found he could separate out all the distinct smells as though he were.... well, an alchemist in a laboratory!

"Frogs, deer, maples... quite a lot of skunk cabbage, but I suppose I'm standing in a patch of it."

Wait!

There, to the northeast!

The scent of mandrakes, though so faint it was nearly imperceptible.

Extraordinarily pleased with his abilities, Durri set off to find the root that would make him human.

***

Durri trudged for the entire night. Stumbling through the forest was nothing like walking along a well-maintained road. Rocks and branches constantly tripped him up, and once he had to crawl carefully across a log stretched over a roaring river.

"What would happen if I fell in?" Durri wondered aloud as he shimmied across. "Probably best not to think about it."

Once, a pair of beavers cornered him and tried to attack, but a few kicks sent them scurrying away.

In a word, Durri found the forest 'annoying.'

The sun had barely risen by the time he reached his destination.

However, Durri did not find the marsh he expected.

Rather, he stumbled into a clearing which housed a cozy-looking cottage and a lush, sapling-fenced garden.

Durri blinked a few times. "Well, I wasn't expecting that. I sure hope this isn't a witch's cottage. I'd love to never see another witch as long as I live."

No one stood outside, though smoke rose lazily from the building's chimney.

Hoping to avoid meeting whoever lived in the home, Durri circled around the side of the clearing and crept to the garden. He hopped the fence and did his best not to trample plants underfoot.

"Wow, quite a lot of mandrakes here. And... poppies. And catnip."

Durri frowned, glancing around and indexing each plant to its Codex entry.

"These people are growing a lot of drugs."

Several of these ingredients could be useful for potions in the future, so Durri decided to take samples of everything in the garden. He stooped down and—

"Hold it right there!"