Temate sat uncomfortably in a familiar waiting room. This time alone, though that just let him think. Normally.

  Normally he'd be wandering through the days events, figuring out a list of things he did and didn't do. Figuring out his pn for tomorrow, though he'd forget half of it the next day anyway. It was a rexing end of the day routine that he'd engaged in for years.

  Until now.

  Now his mind was racing with concern and worry. He had 11 goblin's, two partners, and now Kea who was sticking with them for some reason. He was responsible for all of them. Yet here he was, leaving them all behind, he was worried.

  But Toni was right, Surrender was best on look out, one of them needed to stay with the goblins and Kea hadn't been here. Last thing they needed was another 'testing' incident. The goblins weren't allowed in, though he would talk to the Grand Ceil about that, and that only left him and Pipuck.

  Pipuck who'd left him to his own devices after being invited to explore the mangal and gather some herbs. Laurel's offer. And Temate could tell Pipuck was nervous about coming back here again as well. So he let them go.

  Now here he waited, worried about a lot. Chiel who hadn't come back before they'd arrived. Hema who said she absolutely was pregnant but could travel just fine. This whole situation with Voel who tried to take Toni. Toni who was clearly burying way more guilt and other things than he'd realized...

  Himself. Who was falling back into old bad habits. Though, the more he thought about it the more he could justify the need for it. The States were safe for the most part, compared to here, compared to what he was forced into in his old home. This was dangerous, and he'd learned to survive danger by these violent means.

  So was he a bad guy? Or was he just doing what he needed to survive? Was it bad that he enjoyed being good at killing? He came from a warrior family, a warrior culture, fighting and killing were honorable weren't they? If done for the right reason. That was why he'd left, he no longer felt he was doing things for the right reasons.

  But now? Was he-

  "The Grand Ceil is ready. Come Temate." Tharoah spoke as she entered the small waiting chamber. Temate stood and began following her further into the trunk of the tree.

  A few minutes ter Tharoah stopped at the entrance to the Grand Ceils chamber and looked him over. Temate gave her his usual attempt at a soft, disarming smile and she seemed to hesitate for a moment.

  "I appreciate your co-operation with the goblins." She said after a few hesitant seconds. She gestured into the room and Temate began to enter.

  "Thank you, and you're welcome. I understand the concerns, and it is your job to protect this pce." He said as he walked passed her, bowing slightly. She bowed back and followed him into the chamber.

  Once again he marveled at the spectacle of the space. A massive tree, rger around then any skyscraper he'd seen at home. Completely hollow. All except a long, spindly in comparison to the tree's empty space, pilr at the center. A pilr of mycelial life twisting in and around itself.

  As Temate began to approach this towering structure it pulsed with light. A flicker of energy, like the spark of a synapse going off, shot straight up to the ceiling. There in the shadow a massive canopy of fungus filled the space, though Temate didn't look there. Not after st time, when the fshing lights had twisted his mind, nearly distracting him from danger.

  Instead he stepped straight to the base of the pilr, fungus scattering beneath his feet as if his very touch would be their death. He stopped what he felt to be a respectful distance, then he took one more intentional step. Above him bright lights fshed but he refused to be distracted again. No, right now he was pying a character he knew very well.

  Hands behind his back, csped gently. Back straight, a self-assured smile on his face as he waited. After several minutes of waiting the ground began to shift once more. This time it gathered before him, at the base of the pilr and formed into a strangely familiar face. He still couldn't pce who it was, but knew the intention.

  Project congeniality. Friendliness. A trick to make him more friendly. But the person he was pying now only saw family as tools. He should know, he was his greatest tool for years.

  "Grand Ceil. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice." Temate spoke slowly, careful to enunciate every word as if he wasn't sure the other party could understand him if he spoke normally.

  "Knowledge of the Rot within the Rot discerned, you have received what you came for yet you return. Why?" The Grand Ceil questioned him and Temate scoffed.

  "Yes, well we nearly died cleaning up your mess and received no warning about the..." Temate turned as he paused, looking towards Tharoah, then back over his shoulder to the face of the Ceil. "...Complications. I can't help but wonder if you sought our death."

  "I would not want such a thing." There was no tone or expression to read. So Temate couldn't tell if the Grand Ceil was angered by the statement. As he was about to continue It spoke first.

  "Yet it is my failing which put you at risk. I cked knowledge where I thought I knew. Tharoah." It spoke and Tharoah stood to attention.

  "Grand Ceil!" She shouted.

  "What would an appropriate action be in this circumstance?" The Grand Ceil asked.

  Temate was surprised, he'd expected more resistance. A gnce at Tharoah told him she was also surprised by the question.

  "I- Suppose an apology, a gift of some kind equal to the risk? They did cast out a lich which is no small matter and expins the deaths of the Wardens before them." Tharoah replied.

  Well they hadn't cast out the lich but Temate wasn't gonna correct Tharoah here.

  "Hmm." The Grand Ceil made a thoughtful noise and Temate couldn't help but feel as though it wasn't as ignorant as it cimed to be. Though it could just be completely alien to subtlety.

  "A gift of recompense indeed. You risked death, and in doing so suffered loss. This loss I cannot restore. But a gift of protection. To assure you suffer less loss in the future. All life is precious." The Grand Ceil spoke after a moment of thought. Temate turned back toward It and approached slowly.

  "It depends on what specifically that means." Temate half-asked. The Grand Ceil looked directly into his face and a strange smile crossed it's collected features. A strange smile that tried to be reassuring but cked the warmth of a real living thing.

  Temate felt something on his leg and looked down. Thick, multi colored fungus was clinging to his leg, climbing his body. A fshback of fungus trying to encase him filled his mind and he drew his bde. With a quick swing he tried to strike the fungus off of his body.

  The machete cut through the fungus almost too easily. It didn't take long to see why, the fungus had released from his leg and tched to the bde. It began moving up the bde to his arm, his dominant arm. The bone arm which he moved even now with his own internal power.

  It wasn't an easy thing to do, though he'd managed it so far with little issue. In his panic he lost control, he took a few seconds to release the bde. He shouted as the fungus tched to his arm and began to sink in. It slid into his arm from his wrist, lunging underneath the bck cotton undershirt which loosely covered it.

  He scrambled to grab at the shirt arm and begin pulling it up, to grab at the fungus with his other hand and stop it. A strange stinging pain filled his shoulder causing him to grimace and growl. He-

  "They attacked you AGAIN?!" Toni cut into the story around a mouthful of ith stew. Several goblin's hissed and shooshed her and Tharoah responded before Temate could.

  "It wasn't an attack, let him finish." She smiled pleasantly as Toni harrumphed. Temate smiled and unhooked the bag he'd kept hidden on his back. Atop it sat something strange and Toni couldn't hold back a comment.

  "Wait that's!-" She started and Surrender stuffed her tail into Toni's mouth.

  "SHHHHHHH or we find good use for mouth while everyone watch." She hissed into Toni's ear, causing the girl to blush. A moment ter she waved at an eyebrow raised Temate to continue.

  There he knelt, his eyes wide as he stared at his arm. Restored! It was... Well sort of restored. Temate poked at the strange, multicolored, flesh substitute which the fungus had created. It sunk under his index finger, slightly more pliable than normal flesh. More springy as he released it as well, quickly fixing itself to the perfect replica of his other arm.

  "This is..." Temate didn't know what to think or say. He tried to move the arm. The strange, jittering motion was still there, and the false flesh didn't really cover the bone. Yet he could feel something else there, dwelling within the hollow spaces of his bones.

  "A gift of apology. A life to support your own. A part of myself tied to your conscious instead of my own which will act as you will it. To protect and support you and your companions." The Grand Ceil expined and Temate, mouth still agape, looked up at It.

  "I- Thank you. This is..." He clenched his hand carefully, still in a bit of shock.

  After a second he reached for his dropped bde and hefted it as he had a thought. He pressed his will toward that other thing he felt and could practically hear it in his mind. A desire to grow and shape.

  He gave it a shape, and it began to move out of his arm. A thick mushroom cap of speckled white shifting to bck at it's base formed. From there a long frilled net of fungus extended out and shifted slightly in an unseen wind. Growing and shielding his arm. Quite literally.

  There, resting atop his arm, was a shield woven of mycelial thread, extended out from the cap of a softly luminous mushroom.

  "Huh. Fascinating." He commented to no one in particur.

  "You wield a bde in one arm, and I believe it is customary for those kinds to bear a shield to protect as well. This will serve that purpose." The Grand Ceil expined. Temate reached out and touched the mushroom head. It squished under his hand, but as he pressed more firmly it hardened.

  It was almost like a non-newtonian liquid in a weird way. Except instead of a liquid it was a mushroom cap. He gently lifted it off his arm to examine, watching as the webbing around the side folded back inward. It was strangely beautiful. Mottled color shaped like a retively rge, cssic ft capped mushroom.

  The underside was frilled up to the center, where his arm had left a mold. He pced his arm back in there and watched the fungus wrap around his arm. The netting extending back out becoming a rge round shield that shifted with his focus. It felt like an extension of his mind, with a thought it shifted up to wrap onto his shoulder.

  Then he shifted it onto his back covering his bag. That... That he liked.

  "I thank you this is... more than enough." Temate began.

  "Good, yet your companions fought with you. I will grant you gifts for them." The Grand Ceil answered him and Temate watched in awe as more things grew. A small pouch like object with what appeared to be a handle, a strange long tendril with small csps on it, and a basket bag with a thin yer of strange soil in it. Each formed from various multi-colored fungi as they literally grew before Temate.

  "Mmm!" Toni mumbled around the tail still wrapped around her lips. Temate ughed and motioned to Surrender who released Toni.

  "After that I just talked with It to allow us to bring the goblins through instead of going around, but it refused. So we'll have to take them around the mangal instead of going through." Temate shifted his bag in front of him as he talked.

  There the fungal shield still set, holding it closed. It looked for all the world like a random mushroom growing out of the thick canvas backpackers bag. He opened the pouch, the mushroom smoothly sliding up onto his shoulder. Then he began pulling the various objects out.

  "Though there may be something we can do for that but first gifts. This is basically a sap, for Toni." He pulled out a glowing, bulbous pouch like mushroom with a handle. He gestured like he was swinging and the pouch extended out to hit the air a few inches in front of him. "Give it a good swing and it cracks out a good distance. Even at short range a good wacker."

  Toni was grinning as she took it, pulling the wooden bear cw out of it's sheathe and holding it in her other hand.

  "Now I can duel wield! Whoo ha!" She swung the cw dagger, then the sap. "AH!" She screeched as the sap swung out and cracked against a nearby tree spitting a small cloud of spores.

  "Yeah, careful. Those are apparently noxious, they won't kill anyone but they will knock out or really fuck up creature's heads." Temate expined as he began pulling out the second object. Toni looked confused for a moment as she watched him removing the long spindle of fungus. That bag had been packed full when he entered hadn't it?

  "How bags not full?" Surrender asked for Toni.

  "Oh. Yeah I was compining about carrying it out and the Grand Ceil just... put some fungus in my bag. It's not like some grand bag of holding but I could probably squeeze another bags worth of stuff in here." Temate grimaced and then looked over to Toni. "Unfortunately it doesn't lower the weight so I can't take your bag, but I can remove some of the heavier stuff."

  Toni blinked at him and then shook her head. "I'm fine, it's not that heavy and I'm pretty strong." She flexed at Temate who smiled a bit, a natural smile. She liked that smile which prompted her own back at him.

  "Anyway this..." Temate held up the long tendril of fungus, small csps of another fungus growing off it. It made it look almost like a long, mushroom centipede. "Is symbiotic hyphae. For Surrender." He held it out to Surrender who grabbed it with her tail bringing it closer.

  "Attach it around your tail from base to tip and you can connect with local pnt life. Get minor control, extend your sense of touch through them, a few other things I didn't understand." Temate expined to her and Surrender's eyes widened.

  "Obviously you don't-" He didn't get any further, Surrender had already begun tching the hyphae to her tail.

  "Eugh, it tickle." Surrender ughed a little while also frowning slightly. She finished attaching the length by the time Temate had dragged the small basket from his bag. Small, but awkwardly sized for the entrance of the bag.

  "Oh!" Surrender muttered as she touched the ground with her tail. Small white shoots extended out of her tail and into the ground where she shifted her tail. Like running thick thread through water. She shivered.

  "Strange. Good strange. Useful." She mumbled thoughtfully.

  With a grunt Temate pced the st of the three gifts in front of Pipuck. The basket made of woven ptes of multicolored squishy fungus. Inside a strange pink-purple soil rested comfortably, not shifting no matter how the basket was moved.

  "Growing basket." Temate said, nodding to Pipuck. "Apparently-"

  "It'll grow things and keep em nice and safe even in ba' climate?" They finished for Temate who chuckled a bit.

  "Yeah, and grow em faster and stuff. I figured you'd be the one to get it." Temate nodded and Pipuck grinned up at him.

  "Of course, this kinda stuff is par for the course where I come from. We go' all this-" Pipuck motioned towards the gifts each of them held. "For one job?" They finished their question and Temate nodded.

  "Technically it's for nearly dying doing the job, the reward for the job was knowing about the Rot. The fact that something greater is influencing the dead. Apparently the Grand Ceil wasn't expecting a full lich but something more minor. But it get's worse." Temate looked between them all. Each looked back at him in concern, curiosity, and wariness in various combination.

  "How?" It was Kea who asked, stepping into his line of sight from her listening spot. Her eyes were hard as she prepared herself.

  "Apparently. It's under the Grand Ceil."

  Around the campfire everyone, the goblins, Kea, Pipuck and Toni, the awakened who had joined them for this meal, all gasped or muttered in surprise. Only Tharoah and Laurel did not seem shocked by the reveal. Tharoah even nodded her head and continued for Temate.

  "It's growing beneath us. It started at the edge, with the Fallows. Every day it's grown deeper, for months. Something dead marches and not long ago it reached the Grand Ceil's roots. It's true roots which divide the east and west of the forest." She spoke quietly, looking around at the other awakened who seemed dismayed.

  "Is the Grand Ceil alright?" "Are we in danger?" "What about-" "How long-" Panicked questions began to bombard Tharoah who held up a single hand.

  "It cks the strength to defeat the Grand Ceils roots, thus it strikes from above. Where it can go around. We did not worry as we believed it to be something less then it apparently is. Something dark is spreading beneath our feet, and has been for a long time." Tharoah answered them.

  "You are not in danger here, the Grand Ceil can protect us even against this, but we cannot protect everything." Tharoah looked at Temate and nodded. Temate continued.

  "The spiders. The Darklings. Whatever they followed into Bearbhaile?" Temate turned to Toni and spoke slowly. "They were running away. That's the danger Bearbhaile faces. Monsters fleeing death and rot. And eventually, the thing they're fleeing from."

  Toni shook at the words, imagining hordes of skeletal marchers storming into the Bearbhaile from the ground. Skeletal hands shooting up and grasping at fleeing paws. Dead bears lumbering after their kin.

  The dead.

  The dead were marching, and everything living which could flee, was.