Anya opened her eyes, the silver light of the chapel cavern reflecting in their stony depths. The fury was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp clarity. She let out a long, slow breath, the sigh of a merchant forced to accept a terrible price.
"You're a fool, Healer," she said, her voice devoid of its earlier heat. "An absolute, suicidal, principle-addled fool. You'll walk into that nest and you'll get yourself killed."
Elias stood his ground, accepting her judgment without argument. "That is my choice."
"No," Anya corrected, stepping closer, her gaze pinning him with an intensity that was almost physical. "It's not. Your Resonance—that light, that power—is the single most valuable thing I have ever seen in my fifteen years in this hell. It's a key. It's a ticket to a life where you don't have to count crossbow bolts or eat crawler meat." She poked a finger hard into his chest. "I am not letting my investment get eaten by overgrown insects because of a sentimental whim. You want to go? Fine. We go. But this isn't for them." Her eyes flickered towards Elara's camp. "This is for me. I'm protecting my asset. That's the deal. Understand?"
It was a cold, calculated declaration, a fortress of pragmatism built to protect a flicker of something she refused to name. It was a hunter's bargain, and Elias accepted the terms without hesitation. It was the only way her pride would allow her to stay.
"Understood," he said.
With the bargain struck, Anya transformed. The frustrated tag-along vanished, replaced by a field commander. She immediately summoned Elara, pulling Elias with her.
"We're doing this," Anya stated, dispensing with pleasantries. "Tell me everything you know about the nest. Tunnel layout, numbers, skitter behavior."
Elara, surprised but immensely relieved, provided the details. The nest was in a choke point, a series of interconnected, narrow tunnels. The skitters were fast, traveled in packs, and their primary weapon was the venomous barb they could fling from their tails.
"A direct assault is suicide," Anya concluded, processing the information. "They'd pin us down in the tunnels with venom barbs before we got within ten feet." She began to pace, her mind working through tactical possibilities. "Their carapaces are strong, but their underbellies are soft. If we could flip them or disorient them... And their eyes are simple; they're sensitive to sudden, bright light."
Elias listened intently. The problem reminded him of something from his past—not a battle, but a fumigation. As a young medic-in-training, he'd been tasked with clearing out nests of resilient, disease-carrying insects from hospital tents. They had used chemical irritants, smoke that attacked the respiratory system and eyes.
"Their venom is a projectile," Elias mused aloud. "But what about their other senses? Do they breathe?"
Anya stopped pacing. "Of course they breathe. Everything breathes."
"Then we don't attack their bodies," Elias said, a plan beginning to form. "We attack the air they're in." He looked at Anya, then at Elara. "There are fungi in the Gloomwood, aren't there? Ones that cause irritation, that release spores that make you cough?"
Anya's eyes lit up with understanding. "Cinder-puff. A small, reddish-brown fungus. Usually harmless unless you crush it. The spores are like inhaling dust and ground glass. It won't kill them, but..."
"...it will blind and choke them, forcing them out of the tunnels and into the open where we can deal with them on our terms," Elias finished.
The plan was audacious. It required them to get close enough to introduce the smoke, but it was infinitely better than a frontal assault.
"We'll need a significant amount," Anya said. "And we'll need something to burn it in, something to project the smoke." Her gaze fell upon the clay pots in Elara's camp.
The mission now had two phases: preparation, and assault.
First, they needed the Cinder-puff. Anya led Elias out of the chapel's sanctuary, back into the twilight of the Gloomwood. This time, their dynamic was different. She was the expert, the teacher.
"See that?" she pointed to a small, reddish-brown cluster of fungus at the base of a larger stalk. "That's it. But look closer." She indicated another, nearly identical cluster nearby. "That one's a Crimson Mourner. Looks the same, but its spores are a neurotoxin. You breathe it in, your lungs forget how to work. The difference is the stem. Cinder-puff has a smooth stem. The Mourner has fine, hair-like filaments."
Under her watchful eye, Elias learned to spot the difference, to harvest the correct fungus carefully, placing it in a sealed leather pouch. He learned which glowing mosses were safe to touch and which would deliver a painful chemical burn. He was a quick study, his observant nature and steady hands making him a natural.
They returned to the chapel with a full pouch. The entire community, seeing a tangible plan in motion, rallied to help. Under Elias's direction, they carefully ground the dried Cinder-puff with certain minerals to help it smolder, then packed the mixture into several clay pots, creating crude but effective smoke bombs.
As they finished their preparations, Elara approached, holding a small, sealed vial filled with a thick, pungent, oily liquid.
"This is a gift," she said, handing it to Anya. "Stalker musk. It's the most potent territorial marker in this stratum. If you find yourself cornered, break this vial. Anything that isn't a Stalker will run from the scent. It's a last resort. Using it will likely draw the real thing eventually, but it will give you a window."
Anya accepted the vial with a respectful nod, a rare acknowledgment of value from another survivor.
At last, they were ready. They stood at the fissure leading out of the chapel cavern, two figures armed with a crossbow, a healer's satchel, and three clay pots filled with weaponized dust.
"Remember the plan, Healer," Anya said, her voice all business. "I create the opening. You deploy the smoke. We fall back, pick them off as they flee. No heroics. No new principles. Just the mission."
"Just the mission," Elias agreed, his voice a low, steady echo of her own.
They were a team, bound not by friendship or a shared philosophy, but by a tense, practical bargain. Together, they stepped out of the silver light of the sanctuary and were once again swallowed by the deep, blue-glowing twilight of the Verse.