Chapter 132: Forest Rise

Chapter 132: Forest Rise

About half a thousand feet into the beginning of the tunnel carving through for paradise, several points of awareness flickered to life in the back of my core.

I could not have stopped digging fast enough.

Evolutions. Oh, glorious evolutions, another balm over the vitriol of Ghasavlk escapingSyalia's mana, Gold-powered, in their blinding radiance that spread over my halls. Perfection, or as close as I could get to it, and from a single death that had immediately triggered new evolutions and allowed me to finish a floor within the same day.

What would an Electrum's death do, if I could ever achieve it? Or even a Mythril?

Gods above, how I wished to discover that.

But for now, I flicked my attention up to the Fungal Gardens high above, rooting through Nuvja's shadows and the rumbling snores of the lunar cave bears who preferred sleeping for every hour of the day, to the little pocket of white in the back side. Something large and blooming underneath, curled around the base of a stalagmite.

The light dimmed and died, already a soft thing under Nuvja's protective shadows so as to not draw attention. Considering the last batch of invaders, who had made it down to the Drowned Forest before cutting their losses as the kobold tribe came howling in, hadn't noticed it, that felt like it was working.

A deal I'd made with Nenaigch, and a deal Nuvja had made with me. One of them would be coming to call. As a sea-drake, I'd rarely involved myself with the gods overhead, little more than pious reminders that I was unfortunately aware of. But while I knew that I was to finish Nenaigch's new floors and obtain her followersquicklyI still didn't know what Nuvja wanted from me. Her changed deal had been vague in ways I was biting myself for agreeing to, but it didn't seem malicious, and any gods who had become my patrons had an implicit reason not to want to smite me.

A concern I, quite truthfully, did not have enough information to properly worry over.

So instead, I pushed past Nuvja's shadows, into the light softening down to gentle white. A mushroom beneath.

A reaper's cap.

It was large and sprawling, no longer limited to a single stalk and cap but instead a rippling forest of them, pale white and ghostly in the shadows. I could sense a web of mycelium under the stone, linking all the different prongs together into one billowing thing. Still pure white, with odd pockmarks over the cap and little marbled lines weaving throughout.

But its gills.

Its gills.

Most mushrooms had gills that served as little more than their nameslines of fabric-like veils under their cap, serving for the release of spores. Already lacecaps had extended them, creating longer, lace-like structures dripping with bile to catch prey, and then this particular one had stretched them further into draping little things with corpses stuck to the tips.

But the reaper's cap took it much further.

Instead of anything resembling normal mushrooms, the gills had evolved into tendrils, spongy white flesh like the thornwhip algae that bloomed beneath each of its many caps. They were thin things, not made for chokingbile glistened over their surfaces, that rich, cloudy adhesive that made any creature quickly regret its life choices. And then, on their ends, was the real prize and meaning behind its name.

I curled my points of awareness around the reaper's cap and crooned.

Little bodies hung from its tips. Some were insects, chitinous limbs poking from the flesh, wings that fluttered and flapped with dazed imperfection. Others were burrowing rats, desiccated fur pulled taut over bones, blank eyes peering through an empty face.

They weren't truly alive, in any sense of the matter, but they were corpses that were now moving, in some mockery of life, in order to attract more prey. Surely this area of mushrooms was safe, with the buzz of dragonfly wings and rustle of rats moving around its basesafe enough for others to come.

And that was with it newly evolved, large but not particularly sobut it would grow, and grow, and grow, past bugs and rats and toads. To invaders.

His anchor point, what kept him locked to Aiqith. Fascinating.

He appeared back with a rattling hiss, exhaustion pulling on his thoughtssomething that would require training. Unfortunately understandable. This was a hells of a power to give to a creature in their first evolution, when before he had been little more than a snake overfond of brutish biting. He would need time to master it.

I slipped into Veresai's mind, humming over our shared connection. Let him train, I murmured, because I knew damn well she wouldn't if I didn't tell her to. Tyrannical overlords were not particularly forgiving, even if I hoped that Kriya would teach her about the importance of offering kindness alongside cruelty.

Although not too much. I didn't want Veresai to lose her violence; it was what made me love her. But a touch of forgiveness so that her followers would stay loyal rather than only fearful would go a long way, and a nervous, quiet human who had chosen to become a healer seemed like the most likely opportunity.

Veresai hissed at nothing, tossing back her crown of antlers, but pushed begrudged acceptance back to me.

Glorious. I grew more moss around her scales before flitting off to the other side of the Stone Jungle, still recovering from the Gold invasion, to a pocket far from their rivalry with the serpents.

In the largest side den, guarded by other mage ratkin who hissed at anything that got close with bared gnawing teeth and a flash of mana up their little hands, their leader awoke.

The forestfall ratkin.

Her emerald green eyes flicked open, a gentle flutter, thoughts stirring alive. With careful precision, her whiskers twitched and her ears raised. The other ratkin squeaked and scurried around her, paws grasping futilely as they kept from touching her. Which was exceedingly fairshe had been kind to them, taking them from the empirical nepotism that had spawned on the first floor, but she was also the one who had swallowed a jewel and descended four whole floors just to get more power. Evolution could do strange things to the mind, particularly when the one it was strengthening wasn't the most stable to begin with.

Their caution was warranted.

The forestfall ratkin squeaked, ears twitching, as she rose. She was enormous for a rat, oddly hunched, until she pushed up from her front paws and rested fully on her back. Her spine straightened out, tail lashing, and she looked almost at home standing like a humanoid. She and her other ratkin had risen to their back paws before, but it was often a limited gesture, little more than grabbing things or casting spells; now she looked like she wouldn't be going back to all fours.

Curious. I'd thought ratkin were still more rats than kin, not up to the level of sapience as kobolds; but much like the kobolds, in her evolution, she had only changed the specific epithet, not the species. Her other ratkin still had a ways to go before rising to her level of strength, but perhaps they were closer than I thought.

The forestfall ratkin shook herself, deep earthen-brown fur rustlingand rustling, because over her flanks and spreading up her back, was moss. Little flecks of jadestone moss, the same she'd swallowed the jadestone from, barely starting to grow but clearly rooted into her fur. The same colour as her deep green eyes.

Light crackled over her black nails, down to the fork in her tail, over her muzzle. Dangerous, particularly as she stood at over four feet tall, nearly the height of the original kobolds. A proper threat and a beastone that Veresai wouldn't be able to intimidate quite so easily, especially considering that I hadn't named the Jungle Labyrinth for only its maze of tunnels. Someone who commanded plants would have plenty of strength to pull from here.

And that was before she could get the rest of her little tribe to evolve.

I pushed more consoling mana into her, a bright encouragement, and then dove down to my own project with reinvigorated vigor. Hells, my floors were getting stronger, day by dayit was time I gave them more tools to succeed. Not the fourth exit, considering I needed Nicau to tell me where, but certainly the other.

My plan for the paradise was rather simple. It wasn't going to be an enormous floor, one fraught with territorial disputes and madness, because I rather explicitly was going to be layering my ambient mana with enough innate compulsions not to fight that it would have quelled a siege. This was to be a haven, for raising families rather than raising strength.

Excluding all the shriveling little prey creatures that would be there to serve as food. Bully for them.

I hadn't ever had a problem before, considering most creatures overfond of dying often had reproduction rates to match, but perhaps I would make a smaller outcrop for rarer prey creatures, so that they could recreate without fear of death.

Maybe.

But it would be enough. It had to be.

I continued digging, my thoughts full of emerald-eyed rats and necromantic mushrooms.