Orbed steps further into the chamber, their eyes scanning—not frantic, not angry.

  Certain.

  “It seems,” they continue, “they were attempting to steal my artifact.”

  They pause, voice sharpening like a blade unsheathed.

  “And from the look of it… they weren’t fast enough.”

  Their cap tilts slightly, the green veins across their body pulsing once.

  “More likely,” they murmur, “they’re still here… with us.”

  My breath stops.

  “Thalreek,” Orbed says, “scan the room.”

  The Sporecaster—the one with that drifting, shifting glow—steps forward.

  So that’s their name.

  Thalreek’s cap flares wide, and already I see it—threads of glowing spores releasing from their fingertips, drifting into the air like mist under moonlight. They shimmer unnaturally, floating in slow, deliberate spirals. Searching. Sensing. Hunting.

  Shit.

  My limbs coil. My bristles flatten. The spores are coming closer, and I know what these ones are—tracker spores. They’ll cling to anything warm, anything breathing, anything alive.

  I have seconds. Maybe.

  I glance across the room—Veilstalker’s still hidden on the far wall, already backing into a deeper fold of the chamber. The other is gone—maybe above, maybe below. Smart.

  I can’t stay here.

  Gotta get out. Now.

  I retreat—fast and low, every muscle burning—back toward the passage where I came in. No time to be clean. Just fast.

  And silent.

  Because if they find me now?

  This whole plan dies with my name on it.

  I scuttle fast—low to the ground, legs scraping stone, spines drawn in tight.

  Back through the crevice. Back through the narrow slit in the wall I squeezed through before. Every movement is calculated—silent, surgical. I don’t look back.

  I don’t need to.

  I can feel it.

  That shift in air pressure behind me.

  The faint whine in the back of my skull.

  Spores.

  Not the slow, drifting kind.

  A wave.

  They’re not searching anymore.

  They’re pursuing.

  The air behind me turns thick, wet, and alive—like a flood of invisible insects crashing toward me, guided by purpose. I risk a glance over my shoulder—

  And see it.

  A spiraling torrent of glowing spores rushing through the chamber like a sentient storm. They crash over walls, tear across roots, light up every surface with eerie green pulses.

  And they’re coming right at me.

  My claws dig in. I push. I twist sideways into the tunnel, mandibles clenched tight, lungs burning as the fear rises again—real this time, earned.

  Almost out.

  Almost gone.

  If I slow down even for a second—

  I’m dead.

  Or worse.

  Caught.

  I run.

  I run like every fire in the world is snapping at my heels. My claws slam the stone, my body scrapes narrow walls, every fiber of me screaming move, move, move. The tunnel spirals behind me, pulsing with the glow of pursuit—but I don’t stop. I can’t.

  I don’t look back.

  Not until I have to.

  And when I finally do, just for a second—

  They’re gone.

  No spores. No glow. Just the dark.

  Too easy.

  I look forward again—

  And that’s when I see it.

  A silhouette.

  A Myconid.

  Already mid-lunge.

  No time to dodge. No time to draw spines.

  But something slams into it from the side.

  A blur.

  A Veilstalker.

  Their body hits the attacker like a blade wrapped in silence, and the Myconid stumbles back—already stabbed. Glowing liquid spurts from a wound I didn’t see coming, and the Veilstalker presses forward, forcing them back into the wall with cold precision.

  I skid to a halt, panting, mandibles twitching in disbelief.

  They saved me.

  The Veilstalker doesn’t speak. Just turns their head slightly and gestures forward with a sharp flick.

  Keep running.

  And I do.

  It hits me as I run—legs burning, the scent of Myconid blood still clinging to my face.

  Phase 3 has failed.

  The words coil around my spine like a cold wire.

  Damnit.

  If it weren’t for that Dreadcap—

  If I hadn’t bit down like an idiot—

  If I had noticed the spores—

  No.

  No excuses. This isn’t the Dreadcap’s fault.

  This is mine.

  I let it in. I let it win.

  And now the artifact is still there, still pulsing in that rotting chamber, guarded by Orbed and their whole cursed entourage.

  Untouched. Unclaimed.

  Which means…

  We have to go with the backup plan.

  That plan.

  The desperate one. The one we didn’t want to touch unless everything else failed. The one that hinges on a hundred things going exactly right.

  Which means—

  We better hope Phase 1 and 2 went smoothly.

  We better hope Nur and Goldy did their part.

  Because if they didn’t?

  This whole colony’s about to burn.

  I need to get out—get back to Ypal—warn them before it’s too late.

  I break into a sprint through the fungal overgrowth, lungs burning, heart pounding like a war drum. But before I get far, they block my path.

  A cluster of Myconid Workers lumbers out from the mist-choked undergrowth, their eyes glowing with that sickly bioluminescence, spores drifting from their vents in lazy, toxic spirals. They're slow, clumsy even—but there's too many of them, and I can’t go around.

  I brace.

  Before I even step forward—

  they move.

  The Veilstalkers explode from the shadows like living blades, faster than thought, faster than breath. No warning. No mercy. Just death on silent feet.

  One latches onto a Worker’s neck from behind, tendrils wrapping tight, a thin dagger-arm driving straight through the skullcap like it’s paper. Another Veilstalker sweeps low, cutting a leg from under a second one, then driving a fistful of barbed mycelium into its chest.

  I don’t wait. I launch.

  My venom sacs swell, and I spit—

  A stream of hissing acid splashes across the third Worker, melting straight through their cap. They shriek once—short and high—before collapsing into a spasming heap.

  Another one tries to run.

  Wrong move.

  Thwip—I fire a spine. Glowing green. It hits them square in the back and drives through their torso with a sharp, wet pop. The venom takes effect instantly, black veins spreading through their body like lightning through wood.

  The last one reaches for me.

  Big mistake.

  I lunge, jaws wide, and bite down hard—straight through their throat. I twist as I clamp, pumping venom deep, feeling the muscles spasm and collapse beneath me. The body twitches, weak, then goes limp.

  I drop it.

  Breathe.

  Wipe blood from my mandibles with the back of a claw.

  The hallway’s quiet again. Bodies cooling. Spores dissipating.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The Veilstalkers melt back into the edges, barely visible, always watching.

  I nod once.

  Now we move.

  Back to Ypal.

  Before everything else unravels.

  Now I'm Almost out.

  I can feel the shift in the air—the pressure thinning, the heat cooling. The walls aren't pulsing with rot anymore, and the distant hum of the artifact is finally gone.

  So close.

  Then the wall ahead ripples.

  No—not just ripples. It blooms.

  A mass of thick fungal plates erupts from the stone, sealing the exit like a mouth slamming shut. It's fast, too fast, thick vines lashing out to anchor the wall in place.

  And then—

  THUD.

  Something heavy crashes down behind me. Stone cracks beneath the weight. A hulking Myconid lands with both feet—taller than a Combatant, bulkier, covered in jagged fungal plating and moss-grown muscle. Its cap is ridged and low, like a helmet, and its arms hang like wrecking clubs. Glowing spores drift from its mouth as it exhales—slow. Patient.

  Behind it, stepping through the twisting wall fungus like a priest through a curtain of flesh—

  A Myconid Sage.

  Their bioluminescent shelf-cap glows with eerie calm. Filaments drift from their body like floating roots, and glowing memory-fungi pulse across their back in slow, synchronized rhythm.

  They don’t speak.

  This isn’t a random patrol.

  This is a block.

  A message.

  You’re not leaving.

  My spines rise. My venom glands twitch.

  And my jaw tightens.

  Of course.

  I almost made it.

  Almost.

  And then, from the dark, just behind me, the air shivers.

  A shape uncoils—silent, smooth—until the shimmer of a Veilstalker forms at my side. They lean close, voice a bare whisper, vibrating through my shell more than my ears.

  “That one,” they hiss, motioning with the barest flick of a claw toward the hulking figure, “is an Ironbark.”

  Figures. I can tell just by looking—plating thick enough to make spines bounce, joints that crack the floor when it shifts weight. That thing wasn’t built to move fast.

  It was built to end things.

  “And the one behind it,” the Veilstalker continues, head angling just slightly toward the glowing Sage, “is Yelinod.”

  My breath catches.

  “Yelinod served under Ypal once. Long ago. Before Orbed's rise.”

  I stare at the Sage. Their posture is calm, serene even—but something about the way they hold their arms behind their back, the slight tilt of their cap… it’s not reverent.

  It’s superior.

  So that’s what this is.

  Not just a blockade.

  A statement.

  Yelinod didn’t come to kill me.

  They came to show me how far Ypal has fallen.

  My claws curl, teeth grit.

  “Traitor,” I mutter.

  Not sure if I mean them.

  Or me, for not finishing this mission before it fell apart.

  The moment that word leaves my mouth—traitor—the tension in the tunnel snaps like a drawn string pulled too far.

  The Ironbark charges first.

  Not quick. Just inevitable. Every step is a deep tremor, their moss-plated arms flexing as thick root-clubs sprout from their forearms—gnarled, jagged, and laced with hardened bark.

  I don’t wait.

  I spit—a burst of venom aimed for their face.

  They raise an arm and let it splash across their plating. The acid hisses, eating into the surface, but they barely react.

  Figures.

  I dash left as the arm omes down with a sickening crack, pulverizing stone where I stood a second ago. Chips rain across the tunnel floor.

  The Veilstalkers move next.

  One of them blinks into view behind the Ironbark, blade-arm poised to strike at the joint. Fast. Silent. Almost perfect—

  But Yelinod raises a hand with pressure.

  With vines.

  Thick cords of mycelium erupt from the ground, twisting like snakes, slamming into the Veilstalker mid-stride. They coil tight, dragging them into the wall with brutal force. Fungal growth binds their limbs—swift, suffocating, alive.

  The other Veilstalker vanishes into the dark to reposition.

  I twist and fire a venomous spine at the Ironbark’s exposed flank. It hits—not deep—but enough to stagger them. Their movements slow just slightly, poison working its way into the thick tissue.

  Yelinod steps forward, calmly, steadily, as more vines slither from their arms, dancing along the walls like they're feeling for prey.

  They’re not just shielding the Ironbark.

  They’re controlling the field.

  “Split them,” I snap to the remaining Veilstalker.

  They vanish again.

  I rear back, venom frothing on my fangs.

  And this time, I spit straight at Yelinod.

  Let’s see how sacred their vines are when they’re melting.

  My venom sails through the air, hissing, gleaming, aimed straight for Yelinod’s glowing face.

  But they don’t flinch.

  They raise both hands—and the ground responds.

  Fwoom.

  A wall of thick, layered fungus erupts from the earth in front of them, wide and tall, spongy and fibrous. It snaps into place just in time—the venom splashes against it with a wet sizzle, burning a hole partway through but not reaching them.

  Smoke rises, but the wall holds.

  Tch. Smart. Fast.

  They’re not just throwing vines—they’re reshaping the battlefield.

  Behind it, I hear the whisper of more growth—roots twisting beneath the stone, vines crawling just under the surface, waiting.

  Yelinod doesn’t hide.

  They control.

  And that wall?

  That’s not defense.

  That’s a message.

  “You won’t touch me.”

  I bare my mandibles.

  We’ll see.

  The Ironbark comes again—no hesitation, no roar, just movement like a living avalanche.

  I pivot hard to the side, the club slamming into the wall beside me and exploding it in a rain of shattered bark and stone. Fungal dust clouds the air. My bristles flare as I duck beneath the next swing, twisting low and fast.

  I drive a venom spine up into their armpit.

  They grunt, flinch, swing wide—and miss.

  Good.

  But the ground behind me moves.

  A sharp crack as Yelinod’s vines tear through the stone like knives, aiming to tangle my legs and pull me down. I leap forward, almost slipping, barely dodging as the roots snap shut behind me like a trap.

  I spin, hissing—and that’s when the second Veilstalker reappears.

  They drop from above, straight onto the Ironbark’s back, dagger-limbs plunging down toward a neck seam. It connects—halfway—before a they grab the Veilstalker.

  Ironbark roars—the first sound they’ve made—and twists violently, slamming the Veilstalker into the ground like a ragdoll. The stone cracks beneath the impact. The Veilstalker rolls, limbs twitching.

  I lunge, aiming for the gap in the chest armor while they’re distracted.

  But Yelinod sees it.

  With a flick of their arm, another wall of fungus bursts up between me and the Ironbark. I hit it mid-lunge, momentum wasted.

  More vines slither from the wall, reaching for me like tongues.

  I leap back, breathing heavy, mandibles twitching.

  This isn’t a brawl.

  It’s a war of attrition.

  And we’re outnumbered in terrain that listens to them.

  Still—

  They bleed.

  They burn.

  I just need the right angle.

  One slip. One mistake.

  That’s all it takes to bring down giants.

  It’s a countdown.

  I can feel it in the air, in the vibrations pulsing down the tunnel behind us. Orbed's forces will come. It's just a matter of when. If we don’t finish this soon—if we stall, even for a moment—we're done.

  And then—

  The Ironbark stumbles.

  Their heavy frame sways, club-arm dragging as if suddenly too heavy to lift. The glow from their body pulses once—then flickers.

  The Veilstalker’s poison. It’s working.

  The giant lets out a low, guttural growl. One step forward—then another—

  Then collapses.

  Deadweight. No ceremony. Just down, face-first, cracking the stone beneath them. I see the threads of black decay spreading under their bark—fast, invasive, lethal.

  But the victory’s not clean.

  Because the Veilstalker that delivered the blow—

  They’re under the Ironbark.

  Pinned.

  I hear a soft, wet rasp from beneath the body. A twitch of limb. Then silence.

  Gone.

  No time to mourn. No time to pull them free.

  I clench my mandibles.

  One left. Me and the other Veilstalker.

  And Yelinod.

  Still standing. Still calm. The Sage lowers their hand again. More vines slither from the wall. I can feel the ground preparing to trap me all over again.

  We have two choices.

  Take them down now.

  Or run.

  And we might not get a second chance at either.

  I duck behind a ridge of broken fungal plating, just missing another vine whip that slices the air where my head was.

  “How much time do we have left?” I hiss, turning toward the remaining Veilstalker.

  They’re crouched in the dark, breathing steady, one arm coated in the Ironbark’s blood. Their cap tilts slightly, scanning the corridor behind us—the direction we came from.

  A pause.

  Then their voice, flat and cold:

  “Not a lot.”

  My mandibles twitch.

  “Can we take them?” I nod toward Yelinod, who’s still standing with that perfect Sage poise, arms half-raised, vines twitching like they’re waiting for a thought to become a noose.

  The Veilstalker’s eyes narrow.

  “Not easily. They are rooted. Their control over this place is deep. Any mistake will be exploited.*”

  I glance toward the fallen Ironbark, then back at the living wall between us and escape.

  The air is heavy. I can feel more movement coming. Spores are starting to thicken again.

  No good choices left.

  The Veilstalker doesn’t blink, doesn’t flinch.

  “There is a way,” they murmur. “We strike together. At once. Overwhelm them. Burn through their vines before they root again.”

  Their eyes shift toward Yelinod, who’s slowly circling now—calm, composed, guiding the terrain like a conductor mid-symphony.

  “If it fails,” the Veilstalker continues, “I’ll keep them occupied. You run.”

  I stare at them, claws flexing. “That’s a death sentence.”

  “Only if you hesitate,” they reply.

  They mean it.

  No emotion. No theatrics. Just logic. Survival. Duty.

  The air grows tighter around us. I can feel Yelinod’s influence spreading again—vines creeping along the walls, tightening like veins in stone.

  “Ready?” the Veilstalker asks.

  I take one breath. Then another. Mandibles tense.

  “Let’s do it.”

  We move.

  At once.

  The Veilstalker vanishes from sight, melting into the dark like a breath exhaled. I dart wide, claws scraping against stone, venom already building in my throat.

  Yelinod reacts instantly.

  Vines erupt from the floor and ceiling, slashing through the air like coiled whips, but this time we don’t dodge—we barrel through. I spit, acid carving a line through the first wave of growth as the Veilstalker blinks in right behind Yelinod.

  Their blade arcs.

  Yelinod turns—just enough.

  A fungal shield slams upward from the floor, intercepting the strike. The blade sinks halfway in before locking tight. The Sage doesn’t even flinch. Their hand rises, and the wall explodes with tendrils.

  The Veilstalker hisses as they’re forced back, vines lashing across their body, tearing cloth, scraping carapace.

  I lunge in from the other side, aiming for their flank.

  A root lashes up midair—snags my body and slams me sideways into the wall. The impact rattles my mandibles..

  Yelinod is too deep. Too anchored. The ground obeys them like a limb.

  We’re not winning this.

  “This isn’t working,” the Veilstalker snaps, now bleeding spores from one side. “We don’t have much time.”

  Their cap turns, sharp and resolute. “I’ll distract them. You escape.”

  I hesitate. Just for a second.

  Their eyes flash.

  “Go.”

  And then they charge.

  I spin around, heart pounding, fangs still dripping.

  The wall.

  The thick fungal mass Yelinod conjured earlier—it’s still there, pulsing faintly with life, like it’s breathing through the stone. Still blocking the path out.

  I bare my mandibles, suck in a breath, and spit.

  A concentrated stream of venom slams into the wall, hissing on contact. It eats into the fibers, sizzling through layers of spongy growth and hardened fungal bark. Steam rises. The wall shrieks—a wet, living sound—as parts of it begin to wither and melt.

  It’s working.

  I lunge forward and tear at it with my claws, raking through the softened layers, ripping at roots that twist and squirm as they die. Another blast of venom clears a hole wide enough to see the tunnel beyond.

  Light. Space. Escape.

  Behind me, I hear the Veilstalker hiss, the sound wet and ragged.

  Yelinod bellows—not loud, but deep. Cold fury.

  Vines thrash the chamber.

  I don’t look back.

  I break through the wall and run.

  Damn it.

  Damn it all.

  Phase 3 went to shit.

  The artifact’s still in Orbed’s claws, the Veilstalkers are dead or dying, and I’m sprinting through half-melted tunnels with the taste of failure and acid in my mouth.

  We were supposed to be ghosts.

  In and out. Clean. Perfect.

  Instead?

  Bodies. Noise. Loss.

  I duck through a narrow ridge, bristles scraping against fungus-laced stone, breathing hard, every pulse in my body screaming at me to move faster. My legs ache. My venom sacs are nearly dry. I’m still trembling from the fear spores.

  And now?

  Now I’m running with nothing.

  No artifact. No backup. Just this miserable, bitter knowledge:

  I couldn’t do it.

  I couldn’t finish what I started.

  And the worst part?

  I left them behind.

  That Dreadcap.

  That damn Dreadcap.

  If it weren’t for that weird spore—if it hadn’t filled my head with those voices, that twisting fear, that crawling guilt—I would’ve finished the job. We would've been out. Artifact in hand. Orbed gutted from the inside out. Ypal Ascends

  If it weren’t for that.

  …Is it though?

  My legs slow just a little.

  What if… what it showed me wasn’t just some hallucination?

  What if it wasn’t all lies?

  The fear, the failure—Goldy dying, Nur hating me, Tessa burning, Victor silent…

  What if that wasn’t just paranoia?

  What if it’s already true?

  What if I’ve always been too slow? Too selfish? Too hungry for the thrill and not sharp enough to see the stakes?

  My claws scrape the stone, hesitating.

  Because even now, with the spores burned out of my system—

  That voice is still there.

  Whispering.

  You let them down.

  I snarl under my breath, dig my claws in deeper, and force myself forward.

  No.

  Not yet.

  Not until I see them with my own eyes.

  Then I’ll know.

  First things first.

  I have to find Ypal.

  Doesn’t matter how bruised I am. Doesn’t matter how badly I want to curl up and let the rot take me. This mission might be ash now, but they need to know what happened.

  How close we were.

  How close we weren’t.

  I take the next tunnel up, body aching, lungs raw, venom dried at the edge of my mandibles. The glow of Orbed’s territory is far behind now, but it still clings to me—on my shell, under my skin, in the spaces between my thoughts.

  I keep moving.

  Ypal’s waiting.

  And I’ve got a grave full of truth to dump at their feet.

  End of Chapter 30