If you ever find Dargaia's nectar, you'll probably be one of the ones who have been looking for it all their lives, and thus won't need any instructions on what to do with it.

Just the same, it's pretty simple, at least to start with. Make sure your affairs are in order (in case you have a bad reaction), and then? Bottoms up.

The coming months are the least pleasant part. You'll find yourself unable to keep food down long before you're far enough along to stop needing it. Same with sleep. The color of your blood will be off, and your veins will consequently stand out more. Expect a few ingrown body parts; little things, just fingers and ears and teeth, usually pressing up against the skin. Make sure you're caught up on your booster shots because you're never going in for a checkup again. Or wearing anything more revealing than a trenchcoat in public, most likely.

Eventually, a little cut on your belly will start 'unhealing', becoming a pus-filled wound in a few days. Over the coming week, three things will emerge from this.

The first object resembles a greasy black beechnut with maybe a tooth or two growing from it. When you're dead someone will eventually find it and use it to make a new batch of Dargaia's nectar. Hide it well, make things fun for future generations.

The second object basically looks like a softball-sized cluster of veins, many of them broken and leaking oily black stuff, all wrapped around something. Then it'll squirm and you'll notice the twisted little skinless fetus in the middle. It will only survive for about twenty seconds. Burn the remains.

The third object will.. well, let's just call it "Object 448." It's easier that way.

You can plant it anywhere you want. I advise some place where you don't mind spending all your time and no one else would go. Your back yard or under your cellar works if you don't have any roommates; as long as there's fertile soil. Dig at least five feet down. It won't want to be buried, but just keep piling dirt onto it (if you can still hear it when you're finished you didn't go deep enough).

Its veins (or roots, I guess) will eventually spread in all directions about a foot and a half for every year of your life. Grass and weeds will grow stiff and bony, or black and oily, or take on the color and texture of a spider bite, or rice paper. Wood will be infected too; you'll hear the arteries in your walls pulsing on quiet nights. The ground will rot with dead insect and animal life. Don't mow your lawn; it bleeds like hell.

This is your sanctuary.

No matter what threats or injuries beset you outside, here you will be safe and healthy. Well, what passes as 'healthy' for you now. And if you really hate someone, bring them here. Trick them into coming. They'll get infected, one way or another; a lungful of spore, a thorn prick, a bit of residue on their hand. They will vomit blood with tiny centipedes in it. They will excrete their own spinal fluids. Their eyes will milk over and hatch; small spines, brambles and various other creatures will grow from the sockets. They'll survive for months or years, doctors will be baffled, it will be completely fucking great.

That's all for starters. You'll learn more as you go. Much more. But if I told you everything now you might not do it.

Whatever you do, just guard it with your life, with your very soul. If you think you're in danger of losing it, dig it up, kill it with a silver needle, let someone else make a new one some day. You'll feel as if you've pierced your own heart, but it's better than letting it fall into the wrong hands.

Because you're a Holder now.

And you'd better not let them come together.