Alright, my turn.

  The air down here stinks of rot and mold—not the sweet, earthy kind you get from old leaves or wet bark. No, this place reeks of power. Of things that were buried for a reason and stayed quiet only because no one was stupid enough to poke them.

  Until now.

  I move through the dark with a grin tugging at my mandibles. My feet make no sound against the stone, my bristles low and flexed. Not because I’m hiding.

  Because I want them to wonder.

  I want them to feel me coming and not know where from.

  East of the Deepest Part of the Third Zone. That’s where I am. Where the previous Emperor once ruled—back when the fungus freaks still had their heads on straight. Now it’s Orbed’s playground. Whatever twisted artifact they’re hoarding, it’s down here. So am I.

  And I’m not alone.

  Trailing behind me—no, not behind. Somewhere. Nowhere. I can't hear them. Can barely see them. But I know they’re there.

  Myconid Veilstalkers.

  Ypal sent me two of them. Real quiet types. They look like someone peeled the skin off a Myconid and stitched it over a shadow. Thin, wiry bodies like they’ve been starved for elegance, skin like ashen bark, and mushroom caps that shift color with the light. You blink, and they’re gone. Blink again, and they’re breathing on your neck.

  Each time I turn, I almost don’t see them—just a shimmer, a twitch of air, the faint gleam of their red-glowing eyes under the hood of their caps.

  And they’re mine, for now.

  Heh.

  Let’s see how long they survive.

  Because I know one thing for sure:

  Orbed’s expecting someone.

  They just don’t know it’s me.

  As part of Ypal’s plan—Phase Three—my group’s objective is simple.

  Infiltrate Orbed’s chamber.

  Snag the artifact.

  Disappear before anyone realizes what’s missing.

  Sounds simple.

  And that’s exactly how I like it.

  But I’m not stupid.

  Getting my claws on that thing while Orbed and their officers are standing guard? That’s not a heist—it’s a suicide dare. Which is why Ypal’s making the real play.

  They’re on their way now, heading straight for the chamber with the Myconid Guardian in tow—the last piece they need to complete their ascension to Emperor.

  And they’re going to use that piece to bluff.

  Ypal’s going to request an audience. Walk in all proper and humble, like they’re here to parley. Pretend they want peace.

  Use the Guardian as leverage.

  It’s a good distraction. Too good.

  While Orbed and their inner circlejerk are busy playing diplomacy, I’ll be behind the curtains, crawling through the cracks.

  By the time they notice what’s gone missing?

  It’ll be too late.

  I’ll have the artifact.

  And they’ll have nothing.

  I move like smoke through the tunnels, my spines pulled tight against my back, body low and slick with damp heat. The Veilstalkers are nothing but flickers at the edges of my vision now, their footsteps nonexistent. Good. I don’t need noise. I need ghosts.

  Up ahead, the tunnel starts to slope. The air thickens.

  It’s not just the rot—it’s the pressure. You can feel it this deep. Something down here is alive in a way the surface isn’t. Old roots, old rules. Like the stone itself is listening, waiting.

  That must mean we’re close.

  Orbed’s chamber isn’t just a room. It’s a vault. One carved from stone and hardened fungal plates, reinforced with mycelial armor and layered psychic membranes. I’ve only seen sketches—scrawled maps from scouts who didn’t live long enough to confirm them.

  But even those made it clear: there’s only one way in, unless you’re mold and prayers.

  Ypal’s going through the front, all honor and ceremony. Me?

  I’m coming in from the teeth.

  I stop just short of a bend in the tunnel, holding up one claw. The Veilstalkers freeze too, like statues. Good. They understand rhythm. Timing. Respect.

  A few meters ahead, a faint green glow pulses against the stone. That’ll be part of the outer shell. The artifact’s resonance bleeds through this place like a heartbeat—steady, corrupt, ancient.

  I grin.

  Time to peel it open.

  I press a claw to the wall—damp, pulsing, too warm. It shivers beneath my touch, like something alive just realized it’s being touched by something worse.

  Good.

  I motion to the Veilstalkers, and one of them silently moves past me, melting into the wall like smoke caught in a draft. They’ll scout the immediate passage—no killing unless necessary, no alerting the hive. We’re not here to make a mess.

  Yet.

  The other stays at my side, perfectly still. I can feel their tension—not fear, but restraint. They’re killers. The kind that only move when it matters. That’s why I like them.

  The bend in the tunnel leads into a narrow passage with twisted roots spiraling along the ceiling. The glow gets stronger. My antennae twitch. There’s psychic residue in the air—faint, but persistent. Not enough to fry my nerves, just enough to feel like someone’s brushing thoughts across my skin.

  We creep closer.

  And then I see it—at the far end of the corridor: a semi-translucent membrane stretched over the stone like a fungal curtain. Behind it, the chamber opens into a vast hollow. I can just make out the silhouette of the artifact—a jagged, irregular shape embedded in a stalk of thick mycelium. It pulses with that green, rotting light.

  Even from here, it’s wrong. I can feel it scratching at the edges of my instincts.

  A voice inside me whispers: take it.

  Another voice says: this is a trap.

  I grin.

  Good. It’s both.

  I glance at the Veilstalker beside me, then nod once. They vanish again, leaving me in the dark.

  Ypal should be arriving soon. All eyes will be on them.

  My claws flex. My spines bristle. The membrane ahead quivers, as if it already knows I’m coming.

  In the chamber beyond the membrane, I see them.

  Orbed.

  They stand at the center—taller, broader, and far more monstrous than any Myconid I’ve seen. Their fungal ridges arch upward like blades, the green veins pulsing steadily across their frame like living scars. Their presence is oppressive, not loud—but heavy. Like the air warps around them just to make room.

  Around them: six, maybe seven others.

  And these aren’t Worker-class grunts.

  Advanced Myconids.

  I count at least one Sporecaster—taller than usual, with spiraling tendrils that drift like smoke from their arms, the spores shifting colors as if in anticipation.

  And a Sage.

  Just like Ypal.

  Older. Rooted. But not passive. There’s tension in the way their filaments sway, the way the glow on their shelf-cap pulses in a slow, deliberate rhythm. Like they’re already running calculations in their head—scanning for deception.

  This is no patrol squad. No casual audience.

  This is a war council.

  And they’re guarding the artifact like it’s sacred.

  I press myself flat to the wall, breath slow. Even I wouldn’t make a move right now.

  Not yet.

  Because the next voice I hear—the one echoing faintly through the chamber?

  It isn’t Orbed’s.

  It’s Ypal.

  They’ve arrived.

  A low hum begins to vibrate through the chamber—so soft at first I think it's part of the fungal resonance in the walls.

  But then it sharpens. Multiplies. A complex, rhythmic harmony, not sound exactly—more like pressure brushing through the air in patterned waves.

  Spores.

  Ypal’s spores.

  I feel them even from here, slipping beneath the membrane like mist, weaving into the air like thread through cloth. They’re not targeting me—not directly—but I catch the edge of the message, the same way you might overhear someone whispering just behind a wall.

  “I come with offering. I request audience.”

  The words are embedded in the rhythm, laced with purpose, each pulse delivered in a cadence that speaks of deference… and danger. Calm. Measured. Unthreatening.

  But layered.

  Like a blade wrapped in silk.

  I inch closer to the membrane, careful not to let it react to my presence. The Myconids in the room respond instantly—spores drifting between them as their heads rise in near unison.

  Orbed remains still for a long, taut moment. The green light behind them pulses once.

  Then they shift—only slightly.

  The Sage turns first, then the Sporecaster.

  The chamber prepares to answer.

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  And I?

  I’m already inside the rhythm.

  Waiting for the next beat.

  The air shifts.

  Without a word, Orbed moves.

  They step forward from the chamber, slow and deliberate. The others follow—Sporecaster, Sage, a few more whose glow dims as they pass through the threshold like priests leaving a shrine. The weight in the room lessens with each one that exits.

  They’re going to meet Ypal.

  Just as planned.

  But not all of them leave.

  I crouch lower behind the membrane, letting the silence settle, watching with sharp eyes.

  Three figures remain.

  That’s when a soft distortion behind me stirs the hairs along my spine.

  The Veilstalker appears—silent, seamless. Just a shimmer of outline and voice.

  “Two Combatants,” they whisper, their tone dry and precise. “One Dreadcap.”

  I nod, eyes narrowing.

  The Combatants are easy to spot—tall, broad, hulking masses of dense mycelium and armored plates. They look like they were carved out of bark and hatred. Each one has fists the size of my head, and the way they breathe—slow, patient—means they’re not just brutes. They’re trained.

  The third one…

  Smaller. A little taller than a Worker. The Dreadcap.

  Its cap is low, hunched and riddled with strange, dark growths, almost like tumors. Its limbs twitch at irregular angles, not like the others. Nervous. Controlled. But not weak.

  I can feel it from here.

  Something’s wrong with that one.

  Something mean.

  The Veilstalker adds, just above a whisper: “Dreadcap is volatile. Spore pressure is erratic. Likely the strongest of the three.”

  Lovely.

  Of course it is.

  I glance back toward the artifact. Three guards. One shot.

  Alright, Vex, I grin to myself.

  Time to ruin everything.

  I glance sideways at the Veilstalker, keeping my voice low and dry. “Alright, shadow-boy. How’re we doing this? You want me to waltz in and start a party, or are we ghosting past them?”

  They don’t answer right away—typical. Always dramatic.

  But then their form shifts slightly, just enough to notice. One long arm gestures faintly toward the ceiling—then curls downward in a sharp, arcing path toward the artifact.

  I get it.

  Top route. Drop in. Fast. Precise.

  “Coordinated takedown?” I ask, raising a brow ridge.

  The Veilstalker tilts their cap ever so slightly. “Simultaneous. You take the Dreadcap.”

  Of course I do. Lucky me.

  I let out a soft hiss through my mandibles, flexing the spines along my back. “Thought you’d say that. I’ve got a thing for twitchy little freaks anyway.”

  The Veilstalker fades back into the wall, already moving to position.

  I crouch low, glance once more at the artifact glowing like a sick heart in the middle of the room—and start scaling the wall.

  My claws sink into the soft fungal ridges, silent as a whisper.

  Time to strike.

  I slip out from behind the membrane, slow and low, letting the pulse of the chamber mask the faint clicks of my claws against the ridged stone.

  The air is thick—humid, dense with that slow fungal stink that clings to your face like a wet cloth. But it also works in my favor. It drowns sound, eats movement.

  I begin to climb.

  One leg, then the next, I crawl up the wall and onto the ceiling like it’s nothing. My bristles anchor me to the rough surface. My eyes never leave the three below.

  They don’t notice me.

  The Combatants stand with practiced discipline—shoulders back, breathing steady. Their gaze locked on the tunnel Orbed exited through. Not here. Not up.

  The Dreadcap shifts, fidgeting. Its head jerks once, then twitches again. It mutters something low in the Myconid’s native tongue—can’t make it out. Probably just talking to the inside of its own skull.

  Then—movement.

  Like oil bleeding into water, the two Veilstalkers begin to flow. One curls along the left wall, the other melts into the shadow of a fungus shelf on the right. They’re moving in sync. No signal. No sound. Just intent.

  I stay above, inches from the ceiling, breathing slow.

  Waiting for the moment.

  One blink.

  That’s all it’ll take.

  The chamber holds its breath.

  Then—

  Now.

  The two Veilstalkers strike like snapping wires. One lunges from the left, the other from the right—silent blurs of motion slamming into the Myconid Combatants before they can even turn. No war cries. No warning. Just surgical violence.

  Their targets stagger, arms swinging, but they’re already too late. Bladed limbs pierce deep. Spores burst into the air like ruptured sacs, and the struggle begins.

  And me?

  I don’t wait to see how it plays out.

  I drop.

  Straight from the ceiling, I plummet like a venom-laced nightmare. The Dreadcap doesn’t even look up in time—just twitches, sensing something, and then I’m already on them.

  I slam down with all my weight, jaws wide. My fangs sink into the thick side of its cap with a wet, satisfying crunch. The body convulses, limbs kicking, but I clamp tighter and bite deeper.

  Then I inject.

  Venom floods from my glands, pouring into the Dreadcap like liquid hate. My entire body throbs as I flex my jaws again, mandibles clicking. The venom burns as it enters, hissing faintly against the Dreadcap’s spongy tissue.

  It shrieks—a high, gurgling sound that fizzles out before it can even echo.

  Its limbs twitch once. Twice.

  Then slump.

  I don’t let go. Not yet.

  Not until I feel the pulse stop.

  Huh.

  Phase 3 might as well be done.

  The Dreadcap’s body is limp under me, twitchless, oozing faint traces of blackened mycelium. The Veilstalkers have their targets pinned, buried under flesh and shadow. No alarm. No backup. No fuss.

  Easy.

  I glance up toward the artifact, still pulsing that sickly green light from its tangled nest of roots. It’s waiting—like it knows I’m here.

  I grin, wipe venom from my mandibles.

  “Alright,” I mutter, stepping toward it, “let’s pick up this thing and—”

  I freeze.

  What… is this feeling?

  My vision sways.

  No—tilts. The room lurches slightly left, then snaps back like a whip. My legs buckle for half a second before I catch myself, claws scraping the stone.

  Everything's fine. I’m fine.

  Except I’m not.

  My breath shortens. Heartbeat accelerates—no, not panic. Not from me.

  But my mandibles are jittering. My bristles twitch in patterns I don’t remember choosing.

  A cold shiver runs down my back. My instincts scream danger—but from what? It’s dead. The Dreadcap’s dead.

  …I bit it.

  Hard.

  Injected venom, yeah—but I didn’t notice what it injected into me.

  Spores.

  Not any kind.

  Hallucinating spores?

  And now they’re inside.

  I stumble back a step, claws dragging uselessly against the stone floor.

  The chamber feels like it just stretched—wrong. Like the walls moved without moving, like everything is slightly to the left of where it should be. My breathing is sharp now, erratic. My vision swims in pulses.

  The artifact pulses again, but now it feels like it’s pulsing through me.

  No no no no no—

  This isn’t panic.

  It’s not mine.

  I don’t panic.

  My whole body knows how to kill, how to strike, how to win. Fear is supposed to be something I cause, not something I feel—

  But now?

  My claws feel too long.

  My legs feel like they’re crawling away from me.

  And the chamber?

  It’s getting darker, even though I know it’s not.

  I stagger back toward the wall. My spines try to flare on instinct, but they twitch erratically, confused—like even they don’t know what they’re pointing at.

  My mind spirals, trying to grip something solid, something real. The Dreadcap’s corpse. The Veilstalkers. The plan. The plan!

  I force my eyes up toward the artifact again. Its glow is warping—no, not the glow. My vision. It stretches, flickers, pulses in and out like a second heartbeat layered over my own.

  “Ngh—” I hiss, trying to center myself, bite through it, burn through it, but—

  There it is.

  Fear.

  A raw, primal terror crawling up my spine, whispering in my ear with my own voice:

  You’re not fast enough.

  You’re not strong enough.

  You’re not gonna make it out.

  They’re all watching you fail.

  My claws tremble.

  I don’t tremble.

  But here I am. Trembling. Like prey.

  And it’s only getting worse.

  Then—

  More voices.

  Not mine.

  Not the twisting echo of my own fear pretending to wear my thoughts.

  No, these are different.

  Familiar.

  “You failed your colony.”

  A voice sharp as a snapped spine.

  Goldy.

  “Your broodmates died because of you.”

  “You weren’t strong enough.”

  “You hesitated.”

  That one sounds like Nur—cutting, cold, that perfect deadpan edge that slices cleaner than any claw. I can hear her glare in it.

  “Thou dost boast grandly, yet in the final reckoning, thou art naught but mere clamor.”

  Victor, soft but disappointed. Somehow that’s worse.

  “Failure.”

  Tessa’s voice. But empty. No warmth, no giggle. Just one word, and it hollows me.

  My legs lock up. I dig my claws into the floor, but the weight of their words crushes through me like rot through bark. They echo in my skull, not just sound—memory. Rewritten. Corrupted. False.

  But they feel real.

  I see Goldy’s body, torn. I see Nur’s spines shattered. Victor, twitching in the dark. Tessa’s fur scorched and smoking.

  All because I was too slow.

  Too weak.

  I snarl through my mandibles, forcing myself to move—but my body doesn’t listen. It jerks. Falters. The artifact pulses again, and this time it feels like it’s laughing.

  Fear spores.

  Hallucinogenic. Parasitic.

  They’re not just showing me fear.

  They’re weaponizing my worst truths.

  And I’m losing.

  Fast.

  I try to move.

  I try. But my legs feel like they’re made of sludge, my claws like they’ve been dipped in tar. My breath rasps in and out too fast, like it’s not mine anymore, like I’m borrowing lungs I never asked for.

  The voices don’t stop.

  They multiply.

  Every time I blink, the world tilts again—and now I’m not even in the chamber.

  I’m back.

  Back in the tunnels. Back with the brood. But it’s wrong. Everything’s off.

  Goldy is screaming.

  She’s got a spine through her chest—one of mine. I don’t remember firing it.

  Tessa’s fur is burning. She’s trying to run, but her legs are twisted at the wrong angles, and she’s calling for me.

  “Vex—Vex help me—please—”

  I try. I lunge.

  But I can’t reach her.

  Victor is lying still, his bristles torn out, eyes wide and silent in that awful polite way of his.

  Nur’s not even moving. Just staring at me with those ice-glare eyes like she always knew. “You’d let us die,” she whispers, and her voice splits me down the middle.

  “Stop—” I rasp, claws dragging across the floor.

  My mandibles click out of sync. My bristles twitch wildly. I bite down hard enough to taste my own venom, but the vision doesn’t stop.

  It just gets worse.

  I see them die.

  Over and over.

  And I can’t stop it.

  And it’s my fault.

  My spines tremble, no longer in readiness, but panic.

  What if I’m not the weapon I thought I was?

  What if I’m just…

  A fluke.

  A coward in disguise.

  A mistake born with fangs.

  And now?

  Now I can’t even scream.

  It gets worse.

  So much worse.

  The chamber warps again—if it even is the chamber anymore. I can’t tell. The floor beneath me keeps folding in and out, pulsing like a throat. The walls stretch, bend, collapse inward like lungs choking on mold.

  My body’s shaking now. Every part of me. Spines clattering. Mandibles twitching. My legs buckle and scrape, leaving drag marks behind me. I try to stand, and my own weight feels wrong—too heavy, like gravity's mocking me.

  And the visions—

  They don’t just repeat.

  They escalate.

  I see Nur again, but this time she's begging. On her knees. Clawing at the dirt. “Why didn’t you come back for us?”

  Tessa’s not just dying now—she’s looking straight at me, while the flames crawl up her back. “You said you’d protect me.”

  Victor’s whispering something, but it’s all static. A constant, buzzing hum of disappointment, layered under screaming I don’t recognize.

  Goldy turns to me—her eyes aren’t glowing anymore. They’re empty. Hollow. “You wanted to be strong? Then where were you when we needed you?”

  My breath rattles out of me like I’m suffocating inside my own shell. I try to answer. I try to scream, but nothing comes out. Just a dry, choked hiss that sounds like it came from somewhere else.

  And the artifact?

  It pulses harder now. Brighter. Like it’s feeding off this.

  My fear.

  My guilt.

  My failure.

  I collapse.

  Hands scraping against the ground, venom dripping from my mandibles in long, trembling strands. My bristles are all flared now, but it’s not defense. It’s instinct. Panic. My own body trying to protect me from something inside.

  I curl up—not because I want to.

  Because I can’t do anything else.

  And in the dark behind my eyelids, I hear the last voice I want to hear.

  My own.

  “You were never meant to survive.”

  “You were just the sharpest tool in a dying clutch.”

  “And now they’ll die because of you.”

  And I believe it.

  Because it’s me.

  Just as I think it can’t get worse—

  As I’m curled into myself, drowning in screams that sound like they were born from my own bones—

  SLAP.

  A sharp, wet crack across the side of my face. The sting bites through the fog.

  Then again. SLAP.

  Harder. The other side.

  My eyes snap open, and the visions shatter.

  Not cleanly—like glass ripped in half—but enough. Enough to tear me out of the loop. I suck in a breath so sharp it burns, venom still pooling at the edges of my jaw.

  I see it.

  Towering over me, cap lowered, gaze like smoldering coals—

  The Myconid Veilstalker.

  No voice.

  No lecture.

  Just presence.

  They're shaking. Barely. Spores cling to their fingers, where they struck me. Probably burned through the outer layer just to reach me. Their hand lowers slowly, curling back into place.

  The air is still again.

  But it’s heavier now.

  I cough once, the sound guttural, and spit something black onto the floor.

  I’m still here.

  Still me.

  Barely.

  The artifact’s still there.

  Still pulsing—low and slow now, like it’s waiting. Like it’s watching.

  I glance at the other Veilstalker across the chamber. They emerge from the shadows, silent as breath, their cap tilting ever so slightly as they meet my eyes.

  I nod.

  No words. No need.

  They move toward the artifact with that eerie glide, arms outstretched with careful precision, steps measured—no contact with the roots, no sudden motions to stir the thing awake.

  But just as their fingers begin to reach—just as the first inch of distance is about to close—

  Steps.

  Soft, slow, echoing down the tunnel.

  I freeze.

  The Veilstalker stops mid-motion, head snapping toward the entrance like a predator scenting something wrong.

  The sound isn’t fast. Not charging. Not running.

  It’s walking.

  Deliberate.

  Confident.

  Too confident.

  Someone’s coming.

  Someone who doesn’t expect resistance.

  Someone who thinks this chamber is theirs.

  The moment I hear that first step turn into two, three, four—

  I move.

  So do the Veilstalkers. Like scattered shadows we vanish, slipping into the cracks of the room, behind fungal ridges, into ceiling hollows, and beneath root-slick shelves. Not a sound. Not a breath. I can still taste the venom on my tongue, the fear clawing at the edges of my vision—but I shove it down.

  Now’s not the time to fall apart.

  A figure enters the chamber.

  Then another. And another.

  It’s them.

  Orbed.

  They glide in like they own the ground. Regal and massive, the green veins in their arms glowing brighter now, humming in rhythm with the artifact’s pulse. Behind them comes the Sporecaster I saw earlier, the Sage, and two more silhouettes I don’t recognize—each one advanced, heavy with presence.

  Orbed stops.

  Their cap tilts upward.

  And then, they speak.

  “It seems,” they say calmly, evenly, “someone sent assassins while distracting us with ritual and flattery.”

  The chamber stills.

  My jaw locks tight, limbs tense in the dark.

  They know.

  Not a guess. Not a hunch.

  They know.

  And I’ve got one claw already wrapped around this disaster.

  End of Chapter 29