Never mind Ratau. She rushes to cut the stranger's bonds, and reaches for him to offer a comforting touch.

And as soon as she makes contact, a red glow engulfs them both, and she feels herself... take him, somehow, like she's tucking him into her pocket for later. It feels so natural that she doesn't quite realize what she's doing until she's already done it.

"...I have questions," she says to the empty woods. They decline to answer.

Fine. Onward.

Ratau is waiting for her in the next clearing, at a pentagram drawn in red on stone. It reminds her uncomfortably of the slab where she was sacrificed.

"We have reached safety. You have done well."

Has she?

"The Red Crown will allow you to use those markings on the ground to transport yourself great distances. It will take you to a temple that has fallen to ruin. There you will be able to begin your new—"

"Fine," she says, and leaps into the circle. Ratau's words are washed away by a crimson glow.

When the red relinquishes her, she's standing on a much more elaborate pentagram, encircled by mossy runestones. Ratau is visible just ahead, down a set of crumbling stone steps. She picks her way down them, cautious of the possibility that they might be less solid than they appear, but nothing turns unexpectedly under her weight.

"As I was saying," he says. It's hard to tell whether his creaky voice is amused, reproving, or neither. "This hallowed ground which once was mine, is now yours. This crumbling ruin is to be the site of your new Cult."

He gestures outward at the space enclosed by mossy lumps which may once, a very long time ago, have been walls. Irregular tufts of grass cover the ground, along with occasional wildflowers and heaps of rubble.

"We have much to do," he continues. "We begin by indoctrinating," his eye pops far too wide again, "this poor soul into the warm embrace of your Cult."

Which poor soul...?

Her eyes track the sweep of his arm out to a stone circle with what looks like the shape of her crown marked in its center. The background sensation of having something in a nonexistent pocket releases, and the deer-man she rescued pops out of the circle in a twisting flare of red, looking traumatized.

"Followers are useful for many purposes," says Ratau. "I suggest you put this one to work gathering raw materials for now."

One thing at a time, man.

She doesn't say it aloud, just trots over to the circle. The crown shifts tangibly on her brow; it feels like it's leaning interestedly forward. An unsettling sensation, to be sure.

Her new follower(?) kneels on the stone, a posture that puts her uncomfortably in mind of descending axes.

"Convert me to your Cult; I will follow your teachings faithfully," he says.

She's about to protest that she has no idea what she's doing, but the crown takes over, lifting eagerly from her brow and dragging her into the air after it in an exultant rush.

A look of glazed bliss floods the deer-man's face, and he levitates as well, his ragged clothing mending itself in a wave of phantom dye until he settles back onto the ground dressed in a tidy little red tunic.

"What is your will?" he asks humbly.

"What is your name?" she asks, feeling lost and off-balance and trying to ignore the memory of how good it felt to convert him.

"Meron, if it please my lady."

This is the part of the interaction where she's supposed to give her own name, she's pretty sure, but when she reaches into her memory for the last place she saw it, she doesn't find it there. Has she forgotten, after all these years spent running from anything resembling a conversation? Or is it something the crown did to her? Shivering slightly, she turns her attention back to Meron.

"Sounds good to me," she says, projecting a confidence she does not even slightly feel. "Can you get started sorting through all this debris for stuff we can use?"

"Of course!" He literally leaps to the task, whistling a jaunty tune.

Creepy.

She turns her attention back to Ratau, assuming he hasn't—

His spot by the stairs is empty, but he pops out of the earth right in front of her.

"By your hand, our Cult will grow powerful!" he intones. "But your Followers cannot live on prayer alone; they must eat. You will need a cooking fire."

He's already sinking back into the earth as she nods and steps past him. At least those red berry bushes all over the place are a species she recognizes as safe, and one advantage of being a hermit is that she could build a cooking fire in her sleep, with both hands tied behind her—

She flinches, pushes the memory away, and starts snapping branches off half-dead trees and dragging mossy lumps of rock into a vague approximation of a circle.

Meron helps clear the space, and stacks a neat bundle of firewood nearby, and remains disturbingly chipper about all this.

Once she has the firepit properly constructed, she—doesn't have anything to cook in—

The crown flows into her hand as a frying pan. She stares at it for a second, then thinks hoe-shaped thoughts until it shifts a second time. A bit of digging, and she has the ingredients for a sort of berry-tuber stew. It'll do for now.

Meron is disturbingly chipper about this questionable meal!

Of course he fucking is.

Ratau pops up again once they're done eating.

"Now we must build a Shrine—but first we will need more Followers and more gold," he says.