*Day 21 after the Fall - Road South of the Sylvan Realm*
Ky'arah smelled her before she saw her.
Corruption and pine sap. Death and growth. Wrong and right fucking in the air and making something new.
"Stop," Ky'arah told her refugees. Seventeen had become thirty-one. Found them on the road, all walking south because south was away from crystallized nothing.
They stopped. They always stopped when Ky' said stop. Not because they trusted her—they didn't know her well enough to trust. But because she never stopped moving, so when she did, it meant something.
Ora emerged from the forest like a wound walking.
Not stepped out. Emerged. Trees bent away from her then toward her, confused. Her footsteps left flowers that bloomed and rotted in the same breath. Her hair was vines. Her eyes were three colors that shouldn't exist in the same space.
Ky'arah's knife was already out. Never stopped to think about pulling it. Motion was thought.
"You're her. The sister."
Ora tilted her head. Movement too smooth. Too wrong. "Lyra's sister."
"Yeah." Ky'arah circled left. Always circling, always moving, shark in human skin. "Saw you try to save her. Saw you fail."
Something flickered in those triple-colored eyes. Pain maybe. Or hunger. Hard to tell the difference anymore.
"You saw."
"I saw everything. Saw her turn to light. Saw you reach. Saw you miss." Ky' kept circling. The refugees pressed back, terrified. Good. Fear kept you alive. "Also saw who escaped while everyone died."
Ora went still. Completely still. The kind of still that made Ky'arah's teeth itch.
"Who?"
"Information has a price."
"Name it."
"Promise you'll kill him slow."
"I promise nothing. Who?"
Ky'arah should have negotiated. Should have leveraged. Should have done anything except what she did.
Which was tell the truth.
Because Lyra was light then nothing, and someone needed to pay.
"Netharion. Councilor fucking Netharion. Shadow-wrapped, walking through walls, taking payment in coins that scream."
Ora's stillness broke. She laughed. Not human laughter. Forest laughing. Ocean laughing. Void laughing.
"Netharion."
"He met with others. Called themselves Distillatori. Said you were planned. Said you were exactly what they wanted."
"Where?"
"South. Toward the Desolation. Direction they disappeared."
Ora started walking. Not toward Ky'. Past her. South.
"Wait—"
"No."
"I'm coming with you."
"No."
She grabbed Ora's arm.
Mistake.
The taint hit like ice-burn. Like soul-burn. Like the sensation of becoming nothing. Ky'arah's hand went numb. Gray. Started to spread—
Ora pulled back. The blight stopped. Reversed. Flowed back into Ora like water finding its level.
"Don't touch me."
"Don't tell me what to do." Ky's hand tingled, coming back to life. "Lyra was mine."
"Lyra was mine first."
"Family doesn't mean shit. I chose her. She chose me. Every night in the abandoned tower, she chose me over perfect lessons and perfect expectations and perfect—" her voice cracked. Motion stopped.
Never stop. Never still. But grief was gravity and even sharks had to breathe.
"She talked about you," Ora said. Quietly. Like wind through dead trees. "Said you made her laugh. Said you were the only person in Crysillia who didn't bore her."
"She said that?"
"She said you moved like you were angry at stillness itself."
Ky'arah barked a laugh. Started moving again. Had to. Stillness meant remembering.
"I'm hunting Netharion. Come or don't. But don't slow me down."
"I don't slow. I consume."
They walked south together. Not together-together. Parallel. Ora in her straight line of corruption and growth. In her constant motion, checking refugees, scouting ahead, doubling back, never still, never straight, never stopping.
The refugees followed because following was easier than deciding.
Thom'duhr would join them two days later with his books and terror.
The dwarven brothers would find them by accident, Spun Duh literally running into them because he never looked where he was going.
But right now, it was just two girls who'd loved the same girl, walking toward the same revenge.
Ora leaked darkness like a broken vessel.
She leaked motion like a wound that wouldn't close.
Both heading south to make someone pay for the light that had been Lyra, then wasn't.
Fair trade.
The vendor's daughter tugged Ky's sleeve. Same girl from the first day. Still alive. Still following.
"She scares me."
"Good. Fear keeps you moving."
"What if she kills us?"
"Then we die moving."
The girl considered this with the practical philosophy children developed when the world ended.
"Okay."
They kept walking. Ora straight and inevitable. Ky'arah in constant motion around her. Two different kinds of weapon, aimed at the same target.
Netharion.
The name tasted like copper and crystallized blood.
Someone would answer for Lyra's light.
Even if answering meant everyone dying.
Fair trade.
Maybe.
----
[SCENE: The Battle for Science - Day 21 Ghul'rok Fortress]
The Ghul'rok fortress loomed ahead, flesh and bone twisted into architectural nightmare. The allied forces prepared for what would likely be their deaths.
S'pun-duh, however, had stopped moving entirely.
"ADVANCE!" Kaelen shouted.
"Can't," S'pun-duh whispered, reverent. "Corpus Decompositus. Growing right there on the skull-wall. 87.3% certain it's the extinct strain."
"We're about to storm a fortress of the damned—"
"THE RAREST NECRO-FUNGUS IN EXISTENCE!" S'pun-duh was already pulling out collection vials. "This specific strain hasn't been documented in four hundred years! Look at the spore pattern! Magnificent! Precisely 0.7 soul-resonances of death-essence per cubic centimeter!"
An arrow whistled past his head. He didn't notice.
"The mycelial structure is— DUCK!" He shoved Ora aside, caught an arrow, examined it. "Iron oxide. Ruins spore viability by 34.2%." Threw it back with mathematical precision. Hit someone. "Where was I? Oh yes, eating death itself!"
A Ghul'rok charged. S'pun-duh absently swung his hammer, crushing its skull, never taking his eyes off the mushroom.
"Look! It's phase-shifting between dimensions at exactly 47.1 resonances! MAGNIFICENT!"
The battle erupted around them. Swords clashed, magic exploded at harmonic frequencies, people died. S'pun-duh carefully scraped samples with the delicacy of a surgeon.
In the chaos, the Five Constants moved with purpose. Sicc'ius had built barricades that somehow held against impossible odds. Ky'arah saved those who should have died. Thom'duhr's knowledge of ancient weaknesses turned the tide in key moments. And F.D... F.D. appeared wherever the battle was about to turn, always tipping the balance just enough.
"SPUN-DUH! HELP!"
"Busy! This is a once-in-four-centuries opportunity with 0.00025% probability of recurring!"
Three Ghul'rok surrounded him. He sighed, enormously put upon, and spun his hammer in a devastating arc that sent them flying. Then immediately returned to his fungus.
"The pH level is 6.66— MOVE YOUR CORPSE! You're dripping on my sample! Die three feet to the left—no, 3.2 feet for optimal decomposition gradient!"
Kaelen was being overwhelmed. S'pun-duh noticed, groaned, charged over, saved him with a perfectly executed combat maneuver achieving 94.7% efficiency, then ran back to his mushroom.
"Almost got it... just need the root structure..."
The fortress gate exploded. The God-Eater itself emerged, resonating at precisely 47.1 resonances.
"FINALLY," the God-Eater boomed, "WORTHY OPPONENTS—"
"SHUT UP!" S'pun-duh roared. "SCIENCE IN PROGRESS!"
Everyone stopped.
"Did the dwarf just—"
"The acoustic vibrations from your voice are disrupting the spore release pattern! Frequency disruption at 47.1 resonances is causing 73% reproductive failure! Four hundred years I've waited to see this fungus, and you're ruining it with your villainous monologue!"
"I am the God-Eater, the End of—"
"You're a mycological CATASTROPHE! Your wrongness is making it panic-spore! Four centuries of growth cycle RUINED by your DRAMATIC ENTRANCE! The soul-gram disruption alone is causing 12.3% cellular degradation!"
The God-Eater actually looked at the mushroom. "It's just a fungus."
Wrong thing to say.
S'pun-duh's face went purple. "JUST A FUNGUS? JUST A FUNGUS?! This is Corpus Decompositus Majora, the Grave-Denied Mushroom! It exists simultaneously in five dimensional states at precisely 47.1 resonances! Its spores can cure soul-rot at 0.7 soul-resonances per dose! Its mycelium connects the living and the dead with 99.97% accuracy! And you... you AGRICULTURAL CATASTROPHE... are killing it with your presence!"
He charged the God-Eater.
Not for glory. Not for justice. Not for his friends.
For a mushroom.
"FOR MYCOLOGY!" he screamed, hammer spinning at optimal angular velocity.
The impact actually staggered the God-Eater. Not because of strength, but because of the sheer, incomprehensible absurdity of being attacked over a fungus during an epic battle.
"Are you seriously—"
"DEADLY SERIOUS! 100% commitment!" Mid-dodge, he scraped samples. "This could cure death! Or cause it! BOTH USEFUL WITH 67.3% PRACTICAL APPLICATION!"
"I'LL SHOW YOU DEATH!"
"Excellent! Fresh corpses provide ideal growing medium with pH 7.2! Try to die near the fungus!"
Ora gaped. "Is he winning?"
"He's weaponizing academic enthusiasm," Kaelen muttered.
"Your combat stance is disturbing the air currents!" S'pun-duh criticized while parrying. "Spores disperse optimally in still air at 68.4% humidity! Could you die more quietly?"
"I CANNOT BE DEFEATED BY—"
"By someone with actual priorities? Yes, clearly you can. Oh! OH! It's entering reproductive phase! Nobody move! NOBODY MOVE! Movement disrupts spore trajectory by 23.7%!"
Everyone froze. Even in the middle of a battle, the absolute authority in S'pun-duh's voice was compelling.
The fungus released a cloud of spores that glowed with impossible colors, resonating at exactly 47.1 resonances—the same frequency that had destroyed Crysillia, now creating life from death. This moment would later help Ora understand the space between states where new possibilities are born.
"Beautiful," S'pun-duh whispered, tears in his eyes. "Four hundred years of waiting. The texts were right. It really does sing during sporulation at precisely 47.1 resonances."
A tiny, haunting melody filled the air—the sound of death becoming life, worth exactly 2.3 soul-resonances of pure transformation.
"I'm going to kill you now," the God-Eater said quietly.
"After I finish collecting samples. 28.6 seconds required."
"No, now."
"Twenty-eight seconds. 27.9. 27.8..."
"NOW!"
"26.2 seconds."
And somehow, impossibly, the God-Eater waited.
Because even a God-Eater recognized the authority of a specialist in his element.
Twenty-six point two seconds later, samples secured at optimal preservation temperature, S'pun-duh stood. "Acceptable. You may resume your apocalypse. Try not to bleed on any more rare specimens. Blood pH disrupts mycelial growth by 41.3%."
The battle resumed. But something had changed. The forces of darkness had been forced to pause their world-ending invasion for a mushroom.
The absurdity of it would become legend.
But S'pun-duh didn't care. He had his samples. 14.7 grams of pure mycological history.
Worth it. 100% worth it.
----