My friend told me... They were tied up with vines, real thorny ones, and the vines grew down into the ground so's they couldn't move. Two of 'em, Summoned. Put in front of a -- I suppose you could call it an altar. It looked like a big tree... monster. With a wide-open mouth. Human skulls at the bottom, all around it. There was a bowl with some jelly blob things in it. Sorta like cat's eye marbles, blue and green and a little brown, but if they were made of Jello. They smelled sweet. But they exploded after a minute. There were like, little spores everywhere. They burned and made it hard to breathe. She said they made her feel sick. And like somethin' was crawlin' on her.

[ For just a moment, she pauses and takes a breath. The words have been spilling out in a way she doesn't mean for them to, like she needs to purge them from her own brain. She doesn't even know who she's talking about -- not only did she not recognize the woman she'd seen through, she hadn't recognized the other Summoned, either. Her eyes roll to the tent ceiling for a moment as she inhales. ]

The cult people said the Summoned need to "commune with the gods", but they did the whole thing to natives too. There was one there with my friend and the other Summoned. The native girl, she ate the jelly. Her skin started to split open. She was shakin' like she was 'bout to die of rabies. Then my friend passed out.

[ There's a brief, awkward silence, and she doesn't exactly meet Sten's eye when she adds, ] That's it. For the ritual.