Not long after Vex had escaped, in Orbed's chamber...

  The chamber was deep and alive.

  Roots curled through every crevice. Fungal veins pulsed with slow, steady light. Beneath Orbed’s core, the very air seemed to hang, damp with spores and tension.

  Yelinod entered—wounded, dragging a limp step, their cap blackened along the edge from acid burns. A trail of mycelial fluid followed them into the center of the chamber.

  They knelt.

  “The infiltrator escaped,” they said.

  Silence.

  Orbed did not reply—not at first. The core pulsed gently in the gloom, a great knotted mass of rot-veined mycelium, overgrown and radiant, covered in etchings that pulsed like breath. Eyes—embedded in the folds—blinked open, slow and exacting.

  Yelinod’s voice remained steady.

  “Two Veilstalkers were involved. Ypal’s agents. They assisted the Venom Caterpillar in breaching the chamber. Their intent was clear.”

  They hesitated.

  “They came for the artifact.”

  The mycelium in the walls constricted. The air grew colder.

  Yelinod pressed on. “One Ironbark accompanied me during pursuit. They fell. The Caterpillar escaped into Ypal-controlled territory. The artifact was not taken.”

  Orbed’s presence grew heavy then, words pressing into the air like roots into earth.

  “They offered us a Guardian.”

  Yelinod lowered their head.

  “They came to parlay,” Orbed said. “To beg for the safety of Sporehaven. They claimed surrender. They claimed obedience. They gave us one of their own in exchange.”

  A slow beat passed.

  “It was deception.”

  The light across the walls shifted—sickly green and bruised violet.

  “While we entertained their plea,” Orbed continued, “they moved in secret. Their Veilstalkers slipped into our heart. Cloaked. Armed. Aided by the Venom Caterpillar.”

  There was no rage in the voice. Only the certainty of rot.

  “They came for the artifact.”

  Images flashed through the spores: the weapon resting beneath a cradle of infected wood—pale, serrated, veined with decay. A stone that rots what it touches. Not sacred. Not divine.

  Destruction, sealed and waiting.

  “It is not for them.”

  “It is not for peace.”

  “It is for the end.”

  The core dimmed slightly. The roots curled tighter.

  “They failed.”

  Another pause.

  “Now they will pay the full cost.”

  A set of footsteps approached—light, quick, and urgent. A scout entered the chamber, their cap low, their stalk trembling with the weight of what they carried.

  They did not speak at first. The spores knew better.

  Orbed’s eyes turned.

  “Speak.”

  The scout flinched as the word hit them—weight bearing down like fungal roots into bone.

  “We… we’ve confirmed it,” the scout said. “The prison.”

  Yelinod’s eyes flicked toward them, suddenly tense.

  “It’s in ruins,” the scout continued. “Burned. Breached. Dozens of Myconid Workers are dead. The outer cell growths were torn apart from outside.”

  They swallowed, voice shrinking.

  “The prisoners… escaped.”

  Orbed’s light dimmed. Not in silence—but in displeasure.

  The scout pressed on, desperate to finish the report.

  “Several Advanced Myconids are unaccounted for. The Spikeward Mothkin, previously captured… gone. Confirmed missing.”

  Orbed pulsed—sharp and slow, like pressure building under flesh.

  “And… the Pyrocap.”

  Yelinod’s posture snapped upright.

  The scout’s cap drooped lower. “Yyshad is dead.”

  A long pause followed.

  Orbed’s core slowly turned, the roots curling tighter across the walls. The glyphlight shifted to a deep red, flickering with rot and finality.

  Then—Orbed focused on Yelinod.

  The pressure shifted, heavier now. No words yet, but the silence roared louder than any voice.

  Yelinod bowed again, lower this time. “The destruction of the prison was… unanticipated.”

  Orbed spoke—not loud, not angry.

  Just certain.

  “First, you allowed a worker squad to be annihilated.”

  “Then, Ypal’s subordinate escaped.”

  “Then, the Venom Caterpillar.”

  “Now… the prison.”

  Each sentence landed like rot settling deeper.

  “We entrusted you with Yyshad. A weapon. A promise.”

  The roots above Yelinod’s head began to tighten slowly.

  “You boast. But you have failed us three times.”

  Yelinod said nothing. Could say nothing.

  The spores around them darkened—judgment taking shape.

  “Your next task,” Orbed said coldly, “will determine if you rot with the rest.”

  The glow faded to black.

  And the silence that followed was absolute.

  The silence lingered.

  Heavy. Total. Drenched in the weight of disappointment.

  Then Orbed’s voice returned—soft, cold, final.

  “Were you not crucial to the ritual… you would be dead by now.”

  Yelinod’s body stiffened. Their tendrils curled tight against their stalk, and they bowed lower—so low their cap nearly touched the fungal floor. Not in humility. In survival.

  The roots above them hung still, poised in that dangerous stillness between patience and punishment.

  Orbed did not look at them.

  They didn’t need to.

  “Fulfill your role. Without flaw. Without further failure.”

  A pulse rippled through the chamber—an order, unmistakable.

  “Or become the first sacrifice.”

  Then the glow receded.

  The audience was over.

  A shift in the chamber—spores stirring.

  Then a figure entered, unbidden but not unexpected.

  Thalreek, the Myconid Sporecaster, drifted forward through the pulsing light. Tall and draped in spiraling threads of bioluminescent filaments, their presence was quiet, but it radiated a kind of graceful urgency.

  They bowed with a slow curl of their cap. “Forgive the intrusion, Orbed.”

  They did not wait for permission.

  “The escaped prisoners—those Advanced Myconids—there is strong indication they were rescued, not released. The trails, the residue—Ypal’s spores are present. They coordinated the breach.”

  A pause.

  “That means,” Thalreek continued, voice now rising with significance, “they have met the minimum for ritual quorum. They can proceed. Ypal may attempt ascension.”

  Orbed was still.

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  No flicker. No shift.

  Then—

  “We are well aware of that.”

  Thalreek stilled. The air in the chamber grew heavier.

  “Which is why we begin the next phase.”

  “We will gather the Workers for formation.”

  “We will encircle the Advanced Myconids we still command.”

  “We will no longer wait.”

  Orbed’s glow began to flare.

  “We strike.”

  Their voice sharpened, not in volume—but in intent.

  “We will move while they gather. While they chant. While they dream of rising.”

  Spores across the chamber began to vibrate in time with the pulse of the core. The runes along the walls shifted again—strategy, not ritual. Paths of conquest.

  “The moment they begin to ascend—”

  “—we will ensure they never finish.”

  War had been inevitable.

  Now, it was imminent.

  Thalreek’s cap tilted slightly, filaments twitching in thought.

  “There is one more concern,” they said carefully. “The Mothkin that escaped with them… the Spikeward. If they’ve joined Ypal’s ritual faction, they may complicate matters. A Mothkin of that class could defest four—possibly five—Advanced Myconids alone.”

  The words lingered, heavy with the weight of implication.

  Orbed responded without hesitation.

  “Indeed, the Spikeward Mothkin would be troublesome…”

  Their glow dimmed faintly.

  “…if they were whole.”

  The chamber chilled.

  “During their capture, they fought.”

  “They bled.”

  “And in that moment—I touched them with the rot.”

  The spores rippled with sudden, quiet understanding.

  “The artifact’s wound is not just of the flesh. It also lingers. Seeps. Slows.”

  Orbed’s presence darkened, not with rage—but with certainty.

  “They are weak. Sluggish. Diminished.”

  “Far from their optimal self.”

  A flicker of light passed through the roots, cold and fungal.

  “If they stand with Ypal… they will fall with them.”

  No further objections came. Only spores thick with readiness.

  The war had begun forming its shape.

  The chamber pulsed one final time.

  Not with warning.

  With resolve.

  All across Orbed’s domain, spores carried the silent command—root channels illuminated with new purpose, tunnels lit with war glyphs, dormant clusters awakening from stillness.

  The Myconid Workers would be gathered. The Advanced Myconids would be bound in formation. There would be no more diplomacy, no more rituals in isolation. Only strategy. Only offense.

  And above it all, Orbed remained still—watching the colony shift like a single organism preparing to strike.

  The rot had been sown.

  Now it would spread.

  The spores thickened, dimming the air into a mist of fungal judgment.

  Yelinod remained kneeling.

  They did not move.

  They did not even breathe if they could help it.

  Above them, the roots had ceased their slow curling—but they hung there still, a quiet reminder that mercy had not truly been granted. Only postponed.

  The dampness of the chamber seeped into Yelinod’s blackened cap, the acid burns stinging anew. Mycelial fluid dripped steadily from their side, pooling against the soft floor. Each drop a quiet, damning metronome counting the seconds of their borrowed life.

  They waited.

  They had learned long ago—Orbed’s anger was not swift. Not loud.

  It was slow, fungal, inevitable—sinking into flesh, into soul, until it devoured without resistance.

  Yelinod’s mind turned, scraping against itself in a spiral of cold calculations.

  Three failures.

  Three deaths.

  Three chances for Orbed to simply tighten the roots and be done with them.

  They had survived only because of necessity—not because they deserved it.

  Not because they were valued.

  Their body ached to move, to flee, to do anything but remain under that suffocating not-quite-light—but instinct rooted them in place. Movement could be seen as defiance. Words could be heard as excuses.

  And Orbed’s disappointment was already a wound deeper than any acid burn.

  They had seen it before.

  Myconids who had failed critical charges—had not merely been killed.

  They had been reabsorbed.

  Slowly, piece by piece. Their mycelium stripped and their cores torn apart—fed back into the colony’s veins without dignity, without grave.

  No names were spoken. No glyphs etched for remembrance.

  Only rot, folded back into rot.

  Yelinod had thought themselves above such an end once.

  Not anymore.

  Not here, beneath Orbed’s unblinking eyes.

  Not after this.

  A tremor passed through their stalk—so slight that even the spores could scarcely detect it.

  A survival reflex, suppressed before it could betray true fear.

  They knew better than to believe they had been forgiven.

  Forgiveness did not exist here.

  There was only usefulness. Only contribution.

  They would serve until they were no longer of use—and then they would become nourishment for the next generation of spores.

  Such was the way.

  Such was the will of Orbed.

  Slowly, carefully, Yelinod shifted their weight to rise—careful to move only after the spores had begun to disperse, after the glow had fully receded into the walls.

  Even then, they kept their cap low, their tendrils tight to their body, every movement a posture of submission.

  Their limbs screamed with pain from kneeling too long — acid burns weeping down their side, the rot biting deeper into the charred flesh.

  But they made no sound.

  Pain was expected.

  Pain was deserved.

  They limped from the center of the chamber, dragging their broken step across the fungal weave without daring to look back.

  Behind them, the heart of the colony pulsed.

  Alive. Aware.

  And already moving on without them.

  Yelinod did not need to be told twice

  The heart of the colony throbbed behind them, distant but ever-present.

  Yelinod forced their limp step forward, out of the central weave and into the narrower capillary tunnels, where the air was thicker with aged spores and the walls breathed slow and wet.

  Footsteps—light, deliberate—approached from behind.

  Yelinod stiffened instinctively.

  Thalreek emerged into view, their long filaments trailing in slow, serpentine motion behind them, their cap tilted at a thoughtful angle.

  They stopped a few paces from Yelinod, studying them with dark, reflective eyes.

  "You are troubled," Thalreek said, voice low and fluid, more observation than question.

  Yelinod said nothing at first. Their tendrils curled tighter against their wounded side. Silence was safer.

  But Thalreek did not move on. They waited, patient as creeping mold.

  Finally, Yelinod forced words through dry, cracked breath.

  "I live. That is enough."

  Thalreek’s cap shifted slightly, a ripple of faint amusement—or perhaps pity.

  "Is it?" they asked, voice light but edged. "Survival alone?"

  Yelinod said nothing.

  Thalreek stepped closer, their filaments brushing against the fungal walls, stirring old spores from the stone. Their presence was oddly calming and unnerving all at once—like a whisper of rot in a still grave.

  They regarded Yelinod for a moment longer, then asked, almost conversational:

  "What is it you seek, Yelinod?"

  The question hung in the air, heavy and pointed.

  "Why are you here? Truly?"

  Yelinod struggled to form a response, the words clawing at their burned throat.

  Thalreek continued, tone sharpening as they spoke:

  "Is it for the cause of The Rot? For Orbed’s will?

  Or..."

  A pause, deliberate.

  "...is it simply because The Rot stands against Ypal?"

  Yelinod flinched—subtle, but not unnoticed.

  Thalreek's filaments twitched with soft interest.

  "You oppose Ypal," Thalreek said, not accusing, not even judgmental—simply stating. "I have seen it in you. In the way you speak their name. In the way you pursued the Venom-blooded traitor so eagerly."

  They tilted their cap, studying Yelinod as one might study a cracked spore.

  "But that is not the same as believing in Orbed’s design."

  Yelinod remained still, trapped between the words and the wall.

  They opened their mouth to reply—to deny, to affirm, to say something—but no words came.

  Thalreek waited a moment longer, then offered a thin, almost kind smile.

  "It is not a crime," they said, "to hate Ypal."

  The filaments around them shimmered faintly, casting sickly green glows along the corridor.

  "But hatred alone is weak food for roots. It burns fast. It leaves nothing to grow."

  Yelinod lowered their head, the weight of the spores pressing heavier with every passing moment.

  Thalreek stepped past them, their bioluminescent tendrils brushing lightly against Yelinod’s arm—a touch that was not comfort, but a reminder.

  A tether

  "Decide soon, Yelinod."

  A pause, almost thoughtful.

  "Before Orbed decides for you."

  For the first time in many cycles, Yelinod realized:

  They did not know what answer they would give.

  Or if they even had one.

  Thalreek silhouette lingered at the edge of the tunnel, half-wreathed in spores, threads of bioluminescence trailing behind them like drifting veins.

  They turned their head slightly—just enough for their voice to carry back through the gloom.

  "If you don't decide..."

  The words were slow. Measured. Inescapable.

  "...then once Ypal is gone..."

  A ripple of spores stirred as they spoke, carrying the thought deeper.

  "...what is next for you, Yelinod?"

  Yelinod stiffened again, frozen between wounds and words.

  Thalreek’s voice sharpened—not cruel, but pitiless:

  "You will have no enemy left to hide behind."

  Another step forward. Not threatening, not aggressive. Just inexorable, like mold creeping over forgotten stone.

  "You will stand naked before Orbed’s gaze."

  The cap of the Sporecaster tilted, their filaments twitching faintly, casting ripples of bruised green against the walls.

  "And then what?"

  Thalreek’s voice dropped, soft as decaying breath:

  "Will you truly serve the cause of The Rot?"

  A pause.

  A pulse of silence.

  "Or will you simply rot yourself, alone and unclaimed?"

  Yelinod’s tendrils twitched involuntarily—an exposed nerve plucked by the question.

  Thalreek waited.

  Not with patience.

  With certainty.

  Because in the end, Yelinod knew the truth of this place.

  There was no freedom in the Rot.

  No identity.

  No grace.

  Only absorption.

  Purpose if you embraced it.

  Consumption if you hesitated.

  Thalreek let the spores hang heavy between them.

  Their words floated behind them, almost gentle, almost mocking:

  "Think carefully, Yelinod."

  A flicker of faint, fungal light.

  When there was nothing left to hate... what would remain of them?

  Yelinod stood there, the spores thick around them, feeling the pulse of Orbed’s will in the very marrow of the walls.

  The question clawed its way up before they could stop it—raw, reckless.

  Their voice cracked the heavy silence.

  "What is your game, Thalreek?"

  The words echoed dully against the damp stone, swallowed almost immediately by the living tunnel.

  For a moment, there was no response.

  Just the slow, rhythmic pulse of the colony breathing.

  Then—soft footsteps.

  They regarded Yelinod for a long, heavy moment.

  Then they spoke—quiet, unhurried.

  "My game?"

  The filaments around their shoulders coiled and uncoiled, shimmering faintly.

  "I have no game, Yelinod."

  They stepped closer, the light of their body bleeding across the floor in thin, sickly veins.

  "I serve the Rot," Thalreek said, with the careful certainty of someone reciting a truth carved into the marrow of the world. "I serve Orbed’s cause."

  They paused, studying Yelinod’s burned form, their bowed tendrils, the leaking mycelial fluid seeping from their side.

  "But unlike others," Thalreek continued, voice softening into something almost cruelly kind, "I do not pretend it is noble."

  A flick of their cap. A subtle shift of their filaments.

  "I know what we are."

  Yelinod clenched their tendrils tighter, the fungal wound on their flank burning hotter.

  Thalreek leaned in slightly, their voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, barely brushing the spores between them:

  "We are not salvation, Yelinod."

  Their cap shadowed their face, leaving only the glow of the spiraling filaments visible—twisting, tightening.

  "We are decay."

  A long pause.

  "And decay does not ask for permission."

  Thalreek straightened, stepping back with a fluid grace.

  "You and I..."

  A faint, flickering smile.

  "...we are simply more honest about it than the others."

  Another step away, their bioluminescence trailing like slow blood.

  "But honesty," Thalreek said, voice echoing faintly through the breathing tunnel, "is not a shield."

  Another ripple of spores.

  "Orbed cares only for rot. For certainty. For dominance."

  They paused at the edge of the tunnel’s curve, where the walls swallowed them into silhouette once again.

  "And when the world crumbles before us, Yelinod..."

  "...there will be no place left for doubt."

  Their filaments flickered once, bright and sharp.

  Then they vanished fully into the dark.

  Leaving Yelinod alone, bleeding into the floor, with no allies—only spores—and the creeping certainty that they had never truly been part of anything at all.

  Only food for the inevitable.

  Yelinod lingered there a moment longer, caught between the damp pulse of the walls and the echo of Thalreek’s departing words.

  No allies.

  No cause.

  Only the slow certainty of rot.

  The colony moved around them, indifferent.

  Already the tunnels were shifting, reshaping themselves to prepare for the coming war.

  Already spores thickened into patterns of command.

  Already clusters of Workers were gathering, their spindly forms stiff with programmed purpose, their filaments curling into glyphs of conquest.

  There was no room left for hesitation.

  No room left for Yelinod’s questions.

  The Rot did not wait.

  And Orbed’s will pressed forward like a rising tide, unstoppable, impersonal, inevitable.

  Yelinod straightened slowly, the wound at their side tearing wider with the motion.

  They did not cry out.

  There was no one to hear it.

  There was no one who would care.

  They staggered forward, dragging their broken step back into the web of the colony, pulled by the tide of spores and duty.

  Ahead, the paths of war unfurled — a bloom of decay, spreading outward, hungry and endless.

  And behind them, forgotten already by the breathing walls, the blood of their injury soaked into the fungal floor, vanishing without a trace.

  The Rot moved on.

  And Yelinod — willing or not — moved with it.

  End of Interlude