“Quite. Though, I think Rath will… be able to keep it from coming to blows before we return. There’s a reason I brought it all to him to sort out. And we have a different job.”

"Finding Halsin."

"So let's stop this prattle and move."

"Not yet, Lae'zel, darling. Can you not feel it?"

"Feel what."

That looks like he's about to waste even more time.

"The tug." He looks at the dead dwarf. "He's dead, but I suspect..."

"Tug? ... Towards the thing inside him? Your tadpole wants you to go make friends??"

"Seems to be. The little disgusting thing inside him is probably still alive."

"So we destroy it."

"So we keep it for study."

"... Agreed. Though I should likely be the one to get it, if they aren't too fast and wriggly and likely to manage to get into my head."

"I think that can be dealt with. I can try to tug back..."

And he looks at the corpse again and his eyes go unfocused—

—the other two flinch—

—and the man's face starts to contort.

"...it won't infect you," Astarion says, to Ivetrielle, voice straining. "You can probably—grab it—now—I might be able to coax it all the way out—"

"Right," she agrees, retrieving a vial and a knife and getting to digging a worm-like thing out of this corpse's skull. It's grisly work, but druids are not in the habit of letting any part of an animal go to waste, so. While she hasn't done this in particular, it's absolutely the sort of thing she has a lot of practice at.

Tadpole! Be caught, and get shoved in this little vial thingy!!!

It is pretty wiggly, but in a way that suggests it is successfully failing at doing whatever it is that it wants to be doing. It does not try to escape once Ivetrielle has her hands on it.

And once she's successfully stoppered the vial Astarion releases his psychic hold on it and gasps, staggering towards a tree to lean against it. "Bloody hells."

“Quite,” she agrees, holding the vial with the little… creature… to the light to properly look at it now that it’s pinned. “It’s fortunate that this thing isn’t considered part of nature’s balance, because eugh.” She offers the vial up to the others if they’d like to look at it. “You all right? That looked uncomfortable.”

"Fine, of course, darling," Astarion says, despite the way he is still breathing heavily. "The one in my head was, you know, a little bit agitated, a little bit squirmy, but overall a mostly," breathe in, "painless experience."

"Vile creature," Lae'zel says, and spits on the ground. "We shall make it suffer."

Shadowheart peers at it. "Hopefully this will help us understand more about this false goddess."

“Quite. … Do you suppose it needs liquid in there? To avoid drying out?” She looks back at the corpse as if she’s contemplating filling the vial with liquidated brain matter or something.

"Oh what a disgusting mental image, thank you for that, darling."

"It might, though. Need water."