The air shimmered where the portal had spat them out. Colors bled together and candy-sky still faint behind them, iron spires melting into blades of grass. Where the two biomes merged the world felt… confused.
They stepped into a field of soft green interrupted by porcelain teacups and rusted cogs. Sunbeams fell through drifting iron lace and sugar dust. In the distance, a soft chorus of tiny barks rose, like a lullaby that had been recorded in a nursery and then edited by someone with a doom-metal phase.
Lin breathed deep. "Okay. This looks… deceptively cozy."
Crystal's voice came in, thin and serious. "Biome Merge Detected: Sugaria + Blood/Metal + Pastoral. New hazard: Charm Tier A."
"Charm what now?" Lin asked.
Before anyone could answer, a dozen puppies tumbled out from behind a gear-shaped bush. They were almost painfully adorable — huge round eyes, velvet ears, tails wagging with absurd enthusiasm. Their fur shimmered faintly with a metallic sheen and sugar-sparkles.
Elara blinked. "They're cute."
Nyra frowned. "Do not look directly into their eyes."
Lin squinted. "Why not? They look like plush toys come to life."
One puppy glanced up at him, head cocked. Its eyes shone like polished moonstones. For a single, sweet second the world slowed.
Crystal's voice snapped like a breaker. "WARNING. CHARM AURA DETECTED. DO NOT MAINTAIN EYE CONTACT."
Lin felt something tug deep inside his chest like a soft, irresistible pull, like nostalgia amplified until it ached. The puppy padded closer, yipping in a sound that was half-whimper, half-invitation. In Lin's head a thousand pleasant images unfurled: childhood, warm kitchens, safety — then an undertow of vertigo into a place he did not want to go.
He staggered. "I… I feel weird."
Elara lunged forward to scoop up the puppy — and the pup's eyes flashed. Her hand froze halfway. The expression on her face changed; she blinked slowly, voice thin as paper. "L–Lin… it's so cute…"
Nyra slammed a ward between them fast, staff flaring. The charm broke like glass. Elara lurched back, shaking off the daze as though waking from drowning.
"By the old rites," Nyra swore, "its charm is a compulsion field. Not ordinary mind-control — a forced, destructive craving. If they take hold, the victim is driven toward self-destructive acts."
Lin's throat closed. The word "self-destructive" hung in the air like a blade. He gripped his club so hard the wood creaked.
Crystal was blunt. "I cannot allow descriptions of specific methods. Danger: high. Countermeasures: visual block, distance, emotional anchor, system override."
"System override?" Lin barked. "You mean you can just shut them down?"
"No," Crystal answered. "But I can attempt to dampen the puppy's charm on a short cooldown — at a cost. Use it and you lose a large portion of immediate support functions."
Lin's mouth went dry. "So basically, use sparingly and hope no one falls under their spell."
---
The Puppies' Tactics
The pack spread out, bounding between iron gears and sugar tufts. They were physically harmless — tiny bites, tiny paws, not even enough to bruise — but they worked as a team. One would perform an emphasis twirl, another would bark-pattern a rhythmic lullaby. The effect was cumulative: an eye held too long, a smile returned, a heartbeat syncing to the pup's softness — and the person suddenly stopped fighting their own mind.
Lin tested it, looking away quickly. He felt his chest unclench.
"Okay," he said through clenched teeth. "Plan: don't stare. Don't approach. And if someone gets hit, snap them out fast."
Nyra nodded. "Anchors help. Hold someone's hand, speak of a memory that grounds them. Crystal, can you send a low-frequency noise to break the compulsion?"
Crystal hummed—then answered, "Possible. Requires power draw. Three-second pulse, ten-second cooldown."
"Do it," Nyra said. "On my mark."
---
First Collapse
One puppy bounded directly at Lin again, tail wagging in perfect metronome time. Lin Wind Stepped aside — narrowly. He watched, glacier-calm, as the pup skittered toward an old gear where a tiny child-sized tea set lay. It sat and cocked its head toward the tea set like it expected to be served.
Across the field, a stray soldier-automaton (a remnant of the Blood/Metal merge) had been silently watching. Its optics briefly centered on the pups, and something like curiosity clicked in its servo.
Suddenly it moved. Not in aggression — it padded like a playmate. Its voice, a soft mechanical chime, said, "Play… with… me."
Elara's eyes locked on the pair — and the compulsion hit like a wave. She smiled, slow and sweet, and started toward them, hands lifting as if to cup a small face.
"Nyra!" Lin shouted. The word hit the ritual like a bell. Nyra slammed a ward. The charm backfired, and the automaton's smooth fingers clanged against a gear in confusion.
The pup yipped once, offended, and a dozen other puppies rushed to investigate the fuss. The confusion gave Lin a window.
"Crystal, pulse now!" he howled.
A low, harmonic chord hummed across the field — barely audible, but inside it came like a splash of cold water. Elara blinked, hand dropping from mid-air. She stared at Lin like a child with a forgotten toy and then collapsed, sobbing in relief.
"Don't… look… at them," she panted. "They make you… remember wanting to stop… stop…"
Nyra knelt and held her, murmuring grounding phrases. Lin swallowed hard. The taste of steel and sugar mingled on his tongue.
---
Counterplay and Cost
"Pulse drained my active buffs," Crystal warned. "Three-second window only. Cooldown begins."
Lin wiped sugar-sweat off his brow. "We need a long-term plan. Those pulses won't last forever."
Nyra's eyes were thinking miles ahead. "Blindfolds, mirrored surfaces, and anchors. If we block the pupils and force other senses — scent, sound, touch — the compulsion weakens. And we need distance."
Lin looked at his companions. Elara was steadying, Nyra focused, and the new girl from the lake — the guide — watched from the edge with a worried jaw. The guide lifted a hand and, in a voice soft as smoke, said, "I can amplify anchors. But I will need you to look away and trust me."
Lin blinked at her — violet eyes, calm like a lake. He remembered the way she had said the world was "shifting." Maybe she was more than an NPC. Maybe she had answers. Maybe she was a trap. He didn't have time for metaphysics.
"All right," he said. "Do it."
She stepped forward. Her palms glowed a cool blue; the air around her hummed with a different frequency. She spoke a short phrase in a language Lin didn't know. Tiny motes of light rose and settled on Elara and Nyra like moth-words.
Elara's breathing slowed. Nyra's hands stopped shaking. The guide turned to Lin and inclined her head. "I will grant you an anchor. It will hurt like memory at first, but it will hold them back."
Lin did not like the sound of that, but he needed something. "Do it."
She pressed her hand to his chest. For one searing instant, Lin's mind dove into a childhood kitchen — the warmth of a mother's hands, a terrible scraped knee, the sting of being scolded for laughing too loud. Then back. It left Lin reeling but steadied — a compass returned to his chest.
"You will not look at them," she said. "Not with the eyes they want."
He nodded. "I won't."
---
The Puppies' Trick
The puppies circled, sensing the disturbance, their barks rising into an almost-song. They broke into pairs and performed a synchronized "cute display" that would crash a server if it had a codec.
One puppy performed a somersault so ridiculously sweet that Lin had to grit his teeth. He refused to glance.
A mechanical humming rose from the ground: the Biome itself was responding, gears clicking to rearrange the field into more candy-laden hiding places. The charm was escalating.
Crystal's voice came, thin with cool logic: "Long-range plan: herd the puppies to the old mill. Their compulsion is stronger near the biome nodes. Displace the nodes and we weaken them. Nyra, can you uproot the mill's core?"
Nyra's jaw tightened. "I can try. But it will take time. We need to protect the team."
Lin looked at Elara, who was breathing steady now, and the guide at the lake, who watched without fear. He nodded. "Then we keep them at bay."
They moved like a small army of misfit guardians, using blindfolds from silk scarves, mirrors to reflect peripheral motion, and the guide's anchor pulses as a psychological shield.
They reached the old mill — the largest node in the field, a sugar-churn tower rimed with iron teeth. The puppies were converging like bees.
Nyra planted her staff and began to chant. The mill's gears shuddered, responding to ancient wards. The puppies yelped in confusion — their charm faltering slightly.
But the puppies shifted tactics. A chorus of high-pitched barks layered into a harmonic sequence that made the very marrow in Lin's bones ache.
Crystal's voice — drained — warned, "If the field reaches critical harmonic resonance, the compulsion will cascade. Evacuate or neutralize."
Lin gritted his teeth, hands slick on his club. He looked at the guide. "If this goes bad, get everyone out."
She nodded once.
He swallowed and did the bravest thing he'd done in a long time: he wrapped a blindfold around his eyes and stepped forward into the barking snarl, not a glance given to the puppies' pleading faces.
"Do it," he muttered. "Make me useful."
To be continued…