4.17: A nasty surprise

But if the sign really does say: I am Merlin. Who touches me disturbs the world then the graffiti scrawled on it - Bog Off! - suggests that someone, at least, has not felt bound by that warning. 

“Suppose someone...” begins Lottie

“Let’s arbitrarily call them ‘Mr X’ in case we ever need mention them again” suggests pTravis, helpfully.

“‘Mr X’ sounds stupid” says Lottie. “Let’s call them... ‘Mr Furbelow’.”

“Oh, OK. Well yes. If so, then had any such ‘Mr Furbelow’, were there to have been one, touched ‘Merlin’ it would have caused the world to be disturbed. That’s how the Modifications must have begun! The inference - though based entirely on creative interpretation of some random graffiti on a mysterious sign outside an obscure quarry to which we’ve been led by an apparently broken compass - is almost inescapable.”

“We must go on and stop this Merlin maniac.”

Lottie steps forward to pass the sign and find ‘Merlin’ but is stopped in her tracks by a terrible pain in her foot. Pebble, now with huge teeth, has taken a large bite out of her toe!

Redeeming himself for past failure, pTravis leaps on top of the bity monster and shouts “You go on, I’ll take care of this fiend-stone!”