FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The group was traveling in a party of four, a wholly standard number for a wholly standard adventure. They had journeyed farther than most into the Wilderness, in search of less-looted Ruins and structures to explore. Their haul thus far was modest, but if they were smart with their spending, it would keep them in food and shelter for a good year or so. Most of the loot was being carried by Albin, a warrior-centaur who was more than happy with letting her overpowered lower half do the heavy lifting. The other three, two mages and one healer, walked in step alongside her through the forest, happily chatting and cracking jokes in the blissful summer air.

“Paper, scissors, rock! Ah, fuck!" Gegg, one of the mages, blurted in anger. His open hand was casually nipped by the scissored fingers of his opponent, Mokka

“You suck at this!" The healer laughed, jabbing at him with her other hand.

“You've gotta be cheating. You're using your magic, right? You have to be!"

“I'm using something far more powerful than magic," Mokka said smugly. “I'm using my eyes."

“Oh, yeah?"

“You pull different faces depending on what you're going to do."

“I do not!"

“You kind of do," Didris, the other mage, said. “It's a good thing you don't do that during real battles; it's like watching a toddler wind up a punch."

“Screw you guys," Gegg snapped. He pulled his cowl over his mouth and raised his hands again. “One more round!"

“That's a weird tree."

The group's steps faltered as their minds shifted gears to process Albin's words. The centaur was peering through a substantial gap in the trees alongside their path. A clearing could be seen through it, and a large one at that.

Didris moved to get a better look. “I see stone. Polished stone."

“A Ruin," Gegg said, his smile obvious even behind his cowl. “Shall we…?"

Mokka glanced at the bulging sacks of goodies draped over Albin's back. “I mean, so long as you two agree to carry whatever we find-"

“I can handle more." Albin started moving towards the gap, hands drifting to the pommels of her swords. “I vote that we take a look, but if it seems out of our league, we just bail. A bird in the hand, and all that." The others made sounds of assent.

After a brief pause to stash their loot in a safe place between some trees, wrapped in protection spells, the party emerged into the clearing. Sure enough, it was big, enough to house a good-sized festival. The reason they hadn't spotted it from their scouting atop a nearby mountain was that it was still covered with a thick, leafy canopy. All of the sturdy leaves and branches hanging over their heads emanated from one point; an ancient-looking, twisted tree, growing up out of the shattered Ruins of an ancient building. It towered above them, higher even than a temple's steeple.

Gegg stopped after only a few steps, eyeing the shattered structure. “That's one badass tree. It cracked the thing open like a nut. I've never seen anything damage a Ruin like that." Normally, Ruins were overgrown with plants, dirty and dusty, but never splintered like this. They could not be damaged, and while many militant nations had tried to harvest the indestructible bricks as material for fortifications, none had succeeded at any sort of scale.

Seeing something like this was like curiosity crack to explorers like these. However… “I'm getting bad vibes from this," Didris finally said.

“Agreed." Mokka glanced around the clearing, lips tight. “It's too quiet. All the wildlife avoids this place."

“Then we bail," Albin said. “We'll regret not checking it out, but we'll regret getting fucked over even more." Slowly, the group began to back away.

Pop! The sound was small, coming from all the way over at the gnarled tree, but in the eerie silence, combined with the heightened senses of the nervous adventurers, it was like a cannonshot. Immediately, weapons flicked into position, blades glinting in the sun-dappled light, flames erupting in the hands of the mages. Something small and fast was streaking towards them, closing the gap in a matter of moments, before getting intercepted by twin fireballs from the mages.

No, not intercepted. Jinking out of the way, the projectile dodged at the last moment, zig-zagging like the change of direction at such a speed was a trivial thing. It dodged one more set of fireballs, punched through the barrier Mokka had summoned, evaded the first of Albin's swords, then struck the flank of her horse-half. She had the faintest impression of an insectoid shape, a needle-like nose jammed into her body, before her second sword sliced a mere millimeter over her own pelt and parted the body from the embedded mouthpiece.

“Go!" Mokka yelled, then grunted as Albin heaved her up and onto her back, dashing back into the treeline as the two mages levitated themselves to follow, fireballs at the ready while they retreated to safety.

A few minutes later, the group was gathered around their loot pile. The mages were on lookout while Mokka ran her palms over Albin's wound. She'd already pulled out the needle, but Mokka was hesitant to seal the little pinprick hole until she was sure there was nothing that would need to be sucked out, like venom. She moved her hands outwards in increasing circles, following the veins running through her friend's skin, trying to sense something dangerous in her blood, but there was still nothing. “I think you killed it before it could inject you," she finally said, pulling away. She glanced at the 'needle'; it was surprisingly short despite the size of the bug, and had only penetrated a quarter-inch into Albin. The wound had extended a bit deeper than that, probably from the thing sinking in from the initial impact. “I'll keep an eye on you, but I'm going to close this up." Albin nodded, and a moment later, the little injury was gone.

“I say we put a few hour's walking between us and this place before we make camp," Gegg said. Unsurprisingly, no one argued. With Albin loaded back up, they resumed their travels, albeit at a slightly quicker pace and with their hands closer to their weapons. Something so alarming happening when they'd thought they were in the home stretch had shaken them all more than they wanted to admit. Albin especially felt a little queasy, although it was understandable, considering that the bug had apparently been going straight for her. The way it had moved…! If the others hadn't slowed it down, it would've had even longer to inject her, and who knew what it's venom would have done? Although, the thing had clearly been designed for speed. Why would something that fast suddenly take so long, relatively speaking, to do it's job? It didn't make sense.

Unfortunately, Albin was right. The thing was designed to move and inject before it's prey could notice. It had actually done just that, and even though Mokka had inspected her friend, she hadn't been looking for the right sort of ailment. As Albin walked along, her powerful body saddled with a heavy load, she failed to interpret the faint uneasiness in her lower half as anything other than nerves. In reality, her body was sounding an alarm, trying to warn her that something was amiss.

Six small beings, the bug's larvae, had been squirted deep into her insides by the force of the bug's impact. Each was slightly smaller than a grain of rice, but they found themselves in a veritable paradise; an immense mammalian being, brimming with nutrients and vitality, all ripe for the taking. Already, the larvae had tunnelled into Albin's intestines, seeking out the partially-digested remains of her breakfast, gorging themselves and growing larger, bit by bit by bit…

The sun was setting, the fire crackling softly. The others had bedded down for the night, with Albin taking first watch. As a centaur, she ate far more than the others, but even with the increased ration size, she was still feeling a little peckish. She paced slowly around the edge of their camp, ears alert for threats, trying to ignore the gurgling in her lower gut. I'm just nervous, she thought. Coming so close to death, after coming so far. Her heart rate was still elevated, her body a little flushed. Just nerves.

Alas, she was wrong again. They were more warning signs. Her body could sense the intruders' presence, six points of wrongness eating their way through the food in her guts. The larvae were now the size of thumbs, thick and strong, turning calories into magical energy they used to rapidly develop their own insides. Little digestive tracts were forming, tiny hearts and rudimentary nervous systems starting to pulsate with life. Soon, they'd be developed enough to start properly feeding, not just eating the leftovers that had already been filtered through Albin's body. If they could experience anticipation, they'd be brimming with it. Imagine, finally gaining the ability to EAT, and be surrounded by so much hearty, healthy flesh.

One of the larvae gave an experimental nibble at Albin's thick, rubbery stomach lining. Outside, Albin patted at her lower half as her belly fluttered. Indigestion, too? Damn.

The next day saw the party maintaining their heightened pace. The banter had waned, replaced with an uneasy determination to get home. None of them had slept well; images of the tree and bug kept haunting their dreams.

Albin seemed to be fine, at least. She was just as healthy-looking as ever, carrying the cargo with ease. She'd even eaten a hearty breakfast, wolfing her food down with gusto, despite the lackluster taste of the calorie-dense rations she always packed for herself. She hadn't even bothered asking for any of Didris' precious syrup to help ease the things down.

They soon came across a freshwater spring, and Albin took the opportunity to drink her fill… then drink even more when her friends weren't looking. While she wasn't about to let the others on about it, she'd woken up feeling almost hollow, like she hadn't eaten a thing. The rations had taken the edge off, but only barely, and she couldn't afford to start mowing through them at the rate she wanted to. Instead, she placed her lips up to the burbling water and began gulping down huge mouthfuls, quickly flooding her upper stomach and forcing it to start draining into her lower half, swamping her lower stomach with the icy glacial runoff.

Little did she know, doing so bought her some time. The carrot-sized larvae, which had migrated into her stomach in search of fresher food, were stunned into little comas as the icy water engulfed them. Her huge horse's stomach began to fill up, too, and a sphincter opened, draining the liquid into her intestines. It flowed easily into the snaking organ, already picked clean by the parasites. Soon, the larvae were flushed away and spread throughout her intestinal tract, now separated from the small amount of food that still remained in her stomach once they inevitably woke up.

Albin heard her friends approaching, no doubt to check why she was taking so long. She took a few last desperate gulps and stepped away, quickly dunking her head under the water. “Just rinsing off," she said as Mokka peered around a tree, a worried look on her face. Her friend's eyes briefly flitted down to her body, and Albin realized a flaw in her plan; the huge amount of water she'd drunk had caused both her upper and lower stomachs to visibly swell and sag. “I was really thirsty," she said in quieter tone, cheeks flushing.

Mokka frowned. “I see. You feel fine otherwise, right?"

“Yeah. Just a little dehydrated from our faster pace is all."

“Do you want us to help carry?"

“No, no. I've still got it. Come on; we don't want to keep them waiting!" Forcing a little skip into her hooves, Albin strolled past Mokka, her body swaying heavily.

Holy shit, water is heavy.

Albin had rapidly come to regret how much she'd drank. First of all, it had only taken the edge off for a bit, but her body had quickly realized there were no calories to be had in the crystalline liquid. Now, the hunger was back, sharper and almost nauseating. Add on top of that the weight of the water sloshing in her body, and the walk was becoming more and more tiring.

Worst still, Mokka kept shooting her worried glances, so Albin couldn't stop faking her unfazed demeanor. Sweat was starting to glisten on her human half, and her horse's pelt was beginning to froth, despite the pleasant weather and refreshing breeze. Just power through until lunch. I was stupid to think I could solve this with water. I'll have a double ration, just for tonight. Hopefully… no, I will feel better in the morning.

She steeled herself and pushed harder, pushed away the nerves and discomfort, ignoring her body's silent pleas for help. Her temperature rose, hearts pounding…

Waking up her passengers one by one.

The larvae found themselves floating in water that was almost completely pure, no calories to be had. If the group had found the water an hour sooner, it would've been enough. The larvae would have woken up and have been unable to feed with their partially developed bodies, resulting in them silently starving. But, 'would've been enough' is, well, not enough, and the larvae had managed to finish their next stage of development just in time.

One by one, they made contact with her intestinal lining and bit in. Six times, Albin flinched as 'hunger pains' bit at her guts, and six times, the larvae's newly-formed teeth had cut into her flesh, opening up puckered wounds, their mouthpieces easily mating with the centaur's tender, unprotected flesh and fusing to it. Her blood flooded their bodies, hot and strong, rapidly bloating them. They began to swell, their semi-translucent bodies turning pink with stolen blood.

Using the fresh surge of calories, they continued to develop. Tendrils sprouted in their pulsating mouths and began to grow into Albin's body like tiny roots, millimeter by millimeter, seeking out less-used muscle and fat deposits to feed from. A good parasite doesn't kill it's host, after all.

At least, not right away.

Step by step by step. Albin's jaw was tight, fighting the urge to pant, to suck as much air as possible into her huge lungs. Normally, a march like this would be no issue. She'd done far worse before and barely broke a sweat. Now, though? She was flagging, hard. It felt almost like a fever, except without the burning heat. Just a general weakness, fogging up her head, and making her mouth dry.

“...bin? Albin?"

Albin staggered reluctantly to a halt. Have to keep moving. Have to keep up momentum. Now that she had stopped, she was all the more aware of the unpleasant sensations within her body, the hunger, the pangs, and now, a strangely numb tingling that felt like it was slowly spreading through her guts. She wanted to keep going, for no other reason than to lose herself once more in the mindless march. But Gegg had stepped in front of her, holding up a hand, his brow tight with worry. “Let us take some bags."

“I've… got this," Albin said through gritted teeth.

“We're taking some bags," Gegg said, firmer this time.

Albin shook her head, but couldn't bring herself to resist as the others bowed down under their cargo. That's my job. So the others don't have to hurt themselves.

“Over here, Albin." Mokka, guiding Albin towards the shade of a tree. When had the forest thinned out? How long had they been walking? By now, Mokka knew something was wrong. Albin didn't have to hide it anymore. She let out a gasp, began huffing freely, making the healer's eyes widen. “Lay down, like that. Good." Albin flopped down onto her lower half, legs folding awkwardly. The impact made the tingling in her guts briefly flare up. It was starting to feel like something had grabbed a hold of her innards and was starting to squeeze, ever-so-slightly at first, but squeezing nonetheless. “I'm going to examine you again. Just try to relax, okay? Keep breathing. Guys, some water, please."

Two canteens were extended to Albin, but she waved them away. Enough water. She was still swollen with the stuff, and it hadn't helped. “Is… is it dinnertime yet?"

The mages shared a glance. “We've only been walking a couple of hours," Didris said.

“Shit." Albin hung her head, panting. Mokka's hands were slowly sliding over her body, starting with her human torso and working around and down. The warm, familiar touch was bliss in comparison to the wrongness blossoming within. Albin closed her eyes, opening them again when she smelled something sweet. Didris was holding out one of his precious biscuits, glistening with syrup. Albin's eyes widened, her mouth watering. “N-no! Those are yours, I wouldn't-"

“Hush up and eat the cookie," Didris snapped. Blushing, Albin took the treat and dug in. A single bite was enough to make her hunger flare like a fireball, and it took every ounce of willpower she had to not just cram the whole thing down her throat whole.

“Fuck, I needed that," Albin gasped, licking her lips.

“Your appetite is all over the place," Mokka muttered, almost to herself. “It feels like your body's trying to fight something, but I cant sense what's causing it." Her hands were now down to the horse-half, running along the ribs and backwards. “There's nothing in your bloodstream that-" Her words choked off into a little gasp.

Immediately, everyone's eyes were on her. “What?" Albin asked.

Mokka had frozen in place. “I… one moment." She closed her eyes, focusing harder, casting her senses deeper into her friends body. “O-oh fuck."

---

Mokka slowly rocked back and forth, nibbling at her thumbnail.

“But how could they grow that fast?" Didris asked, his voice tense. “I mean, they had to come out of that bug's nose-thing, right? That thing was narrow as an actual needle."

“I…" Mokka glanced over at Albin, who was still laying down, watching her with an unreadable expression. The centaur had taken the news rather well, or maybe she was too drained to properly react. “They might not be natural creatures," Mokka said shakily, hating having to discuss this in front of Albin. The victim. Don't think of her like that. “I sensed a large amount of magic from them. Maybe… maybe they're feeding off Albin and converting it to magic, which they then use to grow."

“What happens when they're done?"

Mokka stared at the ground, swallowing hard. The trees rustled in the breeze. In the distance, birds sang.

It was too nice of a day for something like this.

“They'll probably eat their way out of me," Albin said quietly.

Gegg made a strangled sound. “Albin…"

She lay a trembling hand on her lower body. “I… I can feel them, now that we're stopped. They're numbing me, I think, but I can feel the, the hollow spots moving." Her eyes had gone distant, her voice low, thoughtful, like when she was helping plan an adventure or meal.

“By the gods," Gegg swore weakly. Mokka buried her face in her hands, breathing shallow, shaky breaths. “Mokka, you can do something, right?"

“If she could, she would." Albin's voice was gentle, soothing, just like always.

Didris shook himself back into focus. “We're at least five days away from Junction. Can you make it that far?"

“We'll ditch the loot," Gegg said, nodding eagerly. “Hide it somewhere. Didris and I can use levitation spells to carry her, take turns. Mokka can keep the magic kickback at bay until we get there. Right? I mean, it's for Albin. I'll risk it. I'll risk anything."

Silence.

Didris took a step towards her. “Mokka?"

Mokka finally looked up, tears in her eyes. She looked to Albin, who gave her a small nod. “We can't," the healer croaked.

Didri's jaw dropped. Gegg swore. “Why not!?"

“Don't take this out on her," Albin said, then flinched at a slight slithering sensation from within. “What if these things… hatch along the way? Or worse, in a populated town? We don't even know what they'll become. That could even be their true purpose; being brought to a larger group of hosts to infect, and spread further." She looked to Mokka, who said nothing. “We need to destroy them before they hatch."

Didris nodded. “So we get them out first. How?"

“We don't," Albin said.

The sunset was beautiful in this part of the country, lively pinks and reds pouring over the cold whites and grays of the mountains beyond. Albin clopped along, Mokka at her side. The healer had given her friend an oversized dose of Go-go, usually meant to keep grievously wounded comrades alive long enough to get them to a healer. Mokka had only given out the stuff a couple times before. This was the first time she was using it to prolong someone's death, however, with no true hope of a recovery afterwards.

One the other side of Albin were the mages, walking in close step, muttering and weaving magic between themselves. A eye-sized gemstone floated between Gegg's trembling hands, the stone thrumming as more and more energy was dumped inside, enough to level a small town. The spell was Albin's idea, as was the rest of the plan. They were almost back to the clearing where it'd all gone wrong, making faster time thanks to the lack of cargo on Albin's back and the drugs in her veins.

Mokka's hand was resting reassuringly on her friend's equine half. Occasionally, she sent out little pulses of magic, grimly monitoring the parasites' progress. Each time made bile rise in her throat. The creatures had created a nest of sorts in what was left of Albin's digestive tract, lazily slithering around in the increasingly hollow space as their root-like feelers grew deeper and deeper into Albin's body, the longest of which had reached skin level around her equine navel. The already sparse body fat of the athletic centaur was visibly shrinking, sucked away by the fibers digging through her flesh. They had yet to encroach on her human torso, but even that was no doubt only a matter of time.

Mokka kept these findings to herself; the mages didn't need any more distractions, and Albin was no doubt aware of just how bad things were getting. The creatures were still numbing her somehow, but they couldn't cover up the symptoms of a failing body. Faint gurgling and sucking noises could be heard as the 'nest' shifted during the long walk, and occasionally Albin would stumble or wince as muscle fibers were invaded by the hairlike roots and slowly digested.

And yet, despite all of this, Mokka only felt more reassured that Albin was making the right choice. There was an intelligence on display from the parasites; yes, they were killing her friend, but efficiently, avoiding anything critical like her heart or lungs. Even the muscles they were eating were lesser-used ones, with the powerful strands that Albin used to walk left unscathed. The only exception was her womb. Mokka would have expected that, with all of it's nutrient-dense linings and flesh, would have been gone first. Instead, the roots had appeared to merge with it, weaving in and out like a basket's weaving. Mokka would never know for sure, but it seemed to her like the things had recognized the purpose of the womb's lining as a nutrient-delivery system, and was using it to even more efficiently consume her friend's strength.

Her racing mind imagined an outbreak of these things, countless people staggering around homes and streets as they were digested from the inside out, walking and talking and begging for help as they accelerated towards some gruesome final stage.

The group stood at the edge of the forest that surrounded the clearing, exactly where Albin had first pointed out the strange structure. Leaves rustled and branches creaked in the wind, rolling down from the mountains as stars started piercing through the sky above.

Tears fell like rain.

Mokka bestowed upon her friend a bracelet, little more than a triple helix of old string, the color long faded by their travels.

Didris gave her his tin of biscuits and the little pot of honey he so viciously protected.

And Gegg, weeping, laid the gemstone in her palm. Through hiccuping sobs, he said, “Squeeze to prime, release to detonate."

The goodbyes were too short, but no amount of time would have ever been enough. Only a sharp cry from Albin broke the moment, the centaur nearly falling to her knees as the creatures within began to grow more forceful with their search for spare nutrients. Her hand clutched at the joining of her two bodies. The numbness of the spreading roots had begun to creep upwards.

Shaking with the dueling forces of weakness and artificial strength, Albin made her way into the woods. Her friends watched until she was at the clearing itself, then began to make their retreat.

All was silent as she emerged into the clearing. The night sky was blocked out by the canopy above, the wind deflected by the trees all around. Illumination came from the shattered Ruins, the exposed wounds in the stone glowing with ancient magic.

Albin squeezed the gemstone, and held it tight. A static-like sensation crept up her arm, the magic yearning for rapid, fiery release. If anything happened now that incapacitated her, she'd let go and turn this entire gods-forsaken place into a second Infernus. However, the closer she got to the center of this place, the better.

She tucked the biscuit tin under her weaponized arm and opened it with the other, dipping a biscuit into the honey and popping it into her mouth. Delicious, of course. A sudden laugh made her spray a few crumbs; what would Didris think if she told him the saltiness of tears made it taste that much better?

As she approached, there was a familiar pop from ahead. In the dimmer light, the bug was much harder to see, but Albin wasn't worried about evasion this time. She just kept walking, barely flinching as she felt the impact, the bug once again aiming for her larger half, squirting a fresh batch of parasites into her shriveling insides.

Curiosity was a big part of being an adventurer, and even though she wouldn't live to share her findings, there was still that morbid fascination pawing at her mind. The things had, after all, killed her; her body just didn't know it yet. She pulled out a knife and pried the bug off to inspect it. It didn't resist; apparently it had died from the impact. Surprisingly, the thing seemed to be a Bekkar's wasp, a relatively common species around these parts. Or it used to be one. Some sort of blue fungus had eaten its way out of the bug's shriveled thorax and up through the rest of it's body. Two more pairs of wings had grown out of the bug's center, and it's mouthpiece had mutated into a fattened needle. The bug's head was misshapen, the fungus having overgrown it's brain and split open the carapace. If the poor thing wasn't already dead, Albin would have killed it on the spot, out of mercy more than vengeance. She let the corpse fall to the ground, then set it ablaze with her firestarter. With renewed purpose in her step, she approached the base of the huge tree, and the crippled Ruins it clutched in its roots.

The tallest chunk of the upturned structure loomed over her, easily four stories high, with shorter but no less impressive fragments blossoming up around it. Like an explosion frozen in time, with the tree as the billowing mushroom cloud, the last breath of the blast. As she had to begun to suspect, the roots looked strange, the same sort of fungus having invaded the tree and grown alongside the veins and bark, dark blue running through the greyish brown. The same sort of fibers that were likely the cause of the tingling eating away at her body, spreading out from what must be the hijacked wasp's mutated larvae.

Whatever it was, the source of it was in those Ruins, deep underground.

If she let the gem explode now, she'd take out the tree, the clearing, everything alive for a good half-mile in all directions, albeit on the surface. But people might see the blast, come to investigate. They'd find the Ruins, make their way inside…

And get infected by whatever other hijacked creatures might be lurking within.

She clenched the gemstone even harder, and set about finding a way inside.

Ruins followed the same general design language, with a small entrance on the surface leading down to a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers stretched deep into the ground below. They held potentially awe-inspiring treasures of wealth and power, but were always a nightmare to navigate, loaded with regenerating traps and unnatural creatures that did not exist beyond their dank walls. When adventurers died, it was almost always as a result of exploring a Ruin. Recovering bodies was practically unheard of; unless you had a comrade present to drag your corpse away, your body would simply be gone by the time someone else came along. No one knew where they wound up; the common belief was that they were simply dissolved into magic to fuel the Ruin itself.

In short, if Albin had to fight her way through a Ruin solo, there was no way she'd ever make it more than a few chambers in. Her legs were starting to feel lethargic, like she was wading through water, and lightheadedness was setting in. She glanced back at her horse half just in time to see something large and sluglike slowly press itself out against her pelt, then retreat back into her depths. Her time was running out.

All of this is why it was such a huge relief for her to see that the fungus/tree had bypassed the Ruin's defenses by simply tunneling through the enchanted stone like it was little more than soft clay. Albin stood at the top of a oddly tilted staircase, staring down into a veritable casserole of stone and roots. Like the section on the surface, this whole place looked frozen mid-explosion, erupting upwards from the Ruin's core. Albin could see where the fungus/tree had been probing for weaknesses, branching paths that lead nowhere once another path had proven viable. These branches held up huge sections of floor like serving trays on a waiter's arm.

With great care, Albin made her way into the mess, each shaky hoofstep planned well in advance. Several times, she had to jump across a chasm in the floor, and each time when she landed, her 'passengers' would erupt into a frenzy, slithering and heaving against her pelt as if her insides were boiling. Twice, she fell to her knees as the roots started feeding upon muscles meant for locomotion, sparing her heart and lungs for last. The numbness was well up to her human bellybutton by now, and she could feel a sort of downwards pulling motion in her abdomen as parasites began to digest this new trove of nutrients and pump it back into their nest. Her mouth tasted funny, her breath unfamiliar, her vision taking on a slightly bluish hue. Something the fungus was oozing into her bloodstream, further prepping her for the final stage of consumption. Her hearts heaved, the Go-go beginning to wear off.

She found the bottom.

Through blurring vision, she saw thick, ancient roots spilling out of a huge doorway, torn open from within. Her hooves struggled on the uneven footing as she entered the chamber beyond.

It was small, the sort of room that always contained a chest of loot. And indeed, there it was, mostly buried under a hairlike mat of fungal fibers. The lid was open, and had been for some time. The walls of the room, usually smooth stone, were overgrown with the stuff, along with several lumpy masses that glowed with magic.

As she got closer, she realized one of the lumps had a face.

It's eyes widened, black holes with glowing blue pupils, fixing on a point behind her. It's mouth opened in a silent scream.

Something grabbed her from behind. Grabbed her hand.

The one with the gemstone.

Holding it tight, so hard she felt bones crack.

Yelling, screaming, she kicked with all her might. Hooves hitting carapace. A crunch, a gush of fluid, drenching her backside. Yet still, the grip on her hand tightened. More little pops of bone. Her knife out, plunging into the attacker's arm, twisting. An insectoid head, looming into view. More limbs, coiling lovingly around her equine body. The parasites within frothing with excitement.

The creature cooed, a trilling sound both alien and maternal at once.

Albin blacked out.

Awake. Blinking at her surroundings. Laying on the floor, limbs bound by sticky webbing laced with fungal fibers. Broken hand and thrumming gemstone, wrapped tight with fibers.

Even if Albin's legs weren't tied together, she still wouldn't have been able to stand. She was spent. Hollow. Her legs twitched like a dying insect's, the roots snaking down along the bones, eating the culmination of so many years of training and care. The workhorse of the party, now minus the horse. Something shifted and burst in her human abdomen, the numbness almost up to her shoulders. In the muffled silence of the chamber, she could hear the faint fizzing of digestion as she died.

Above her, a faint sound.

She tilted her head back, dizzy from even so slight a motion.

The face was peering down at her. Now she could recognize the rest of the human's body, distorted and mangled as it was. The limbs had withered, abdomen burst open by the fungus, yet still they lived. She could just make out the remnants of a set of armor, previously dangling awkwardly from the shriveled body and now sealed in place by fibers. The only other time she'd seen that design was in museums. A century old, at least.

The back of the person's skull had been split open from the inside out, and was now the epicenter of a huge network of fibers.

Their mouth moved with feeble twitches, but no sound came out. Their expression was one of pain, sorrow. Albin thought back to earlier; it had been trying to warn her.

Albin coughed, a wet, chests-rattling sound. Her lungs, some of the last organs to go. Turning to goo. “'S okay," she slurred.

The face blinked down at her.

She stared back up at it, thinking. Thinking very, very hard. In this moment, as everything else about her died, her mind was the clearest it had ever been.

“It's… using you."

Another blink.

“To… think."

Blink.

“Control… it?"

A long pause. Then, a slow blink.

Hope fluttered in Albin's chest, followed by more slithering. “Release… my hand."

The eyes went wide. Frantic. Apologetic.

“... Try." Albin took another breath, then let out a long shriek. Her equine chest had exploded with pain, building building building then-

Her lower heartbeat fell silent.

Human chest pounding with the added strain of keeping her alive, she tried to speak, and couldn't.

The face above contorted with effort.

Darkness, closing in. Unable to breathe; diaphragm dissolved. Human heart, beating unevenly as it began to melt.

The pressure on her hand began to ease.

The face above finally made a sound. A long, tortured sound, agony layered with misery with a century of suffering, all undercut with rage.

The fibers fell away. Albin let go-

“Something must have happened."

“Give her a little longer," Didris said.

Gegg tried to stand up out of the ditch they were hiding in, and was immediately yanked back down. He swore. “I must've fucked up the spell! I'll go out there and fix-"

The ground heaved.

A roar filled the air, more than a sound, an earthquake in the very fabric of reality.

A column of flame cut into the night sky, erupting out of the canopy in the distance, gushing around the trunk of the huge tree. It went from red to orange to blue, the roar growing louder and louder, the air horrifically hot, thrumming like a thing alive. Mokka threw up a shield, which hissed and spat as the first chunks of flaming debris came raining down, the pillar of flame still bellowing into the night sky. Everything was sound and heat and the trembling of the earth, on and on until, as if a great switch had been flipped, it all went silent.

For several more minutes, fire fell from the sky, chunks of hot stone and charcoal. Ash-gray leaves with glowing edges continued to tumble down around the party as they got to their feet, staring at the destruction in horrified silence.

The awful clearing and eerie tree were gone. Not just gone; swallowed up by a crater of molten stone, magma pooled at the center, roiling and belching smoke into the air.

Mokka gaped at her comrades. “How…?"

“There… there must have been a secondary fuel source," Didris managed. “There's no way we could've done that with what we had."

The stars above winked out one by one as the mushroom cloud continued to unfurl itself.

Gegg swallowed, hard. “A good way to go out. A good way to go out." He clenched his jaw. “... Sh-shit." He started sobbing again.

His friends hugged him. “You sent her off right," Didris said.

“A warrior's death," Mokka agreed. “Who knows how many lives you've just saved? Both of you."

“All of us."

At the bottom of the magma pit, nothing stirred save for lava. The fibers, energy-dense and rife with surface area, had all gone up at once, igniting like trick paper, fueling their own destruction, the chest now reduced to its component atoms.

And, at the risk of not encouraging returning readership, the fungus was well and truly gone.