The air inside the Weeping Stone wasn't air anymore wasn't air anymore. It was a liquid, thick and cold, that clogged my lungs with each breath. My first inhalation triggered a cascade of warnings:
[SANITY CHECK: ROLLING D6 + WISDOM...]
[ROLL: 3 + 6 = 9]
[TARGET: 10]
[FAILURE: MINOR DELUSION ACQUIRED]
A debuff icon appeared: [DELUSION: THE WALLS ARE WATCHING]. Great. My first failed save, and it was already gaslighting me.
But the walls were watching. Or something in them was. The stone wasn't stone anymore—it was a composite of calcified flesh and something that looked like insect chitin. Veins pulsed beneath the surface, pumping black sap in peristaltic waves. My Tactical Precognition flickered like a bad connection, giving me half-second glimpses of futures that might not exist.
[WARNING: PREDICTIVE ACCURACY REDUCED TO 17%]
[RECOMMENDATION: RELY ON OBSERVATION, NOT PREMONITION]
I switched modes. The overlay shifted from predictive red lines to analytical blue highlights, tagging environmental details: [STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS], [CONCEALED GROWTH], [CORRUPTION NEXUS - MINOR].
The cave entrance had been a vertical slice. Twenty paces in, it became a spiral descent, the floor angled at 12 degrees and slick with sap. My boots—Mira's boots, actually, since mine were scraps—had decent grip. [FOOTING STABILITY: 78%]. Acceptable.
The Sounding Charm's ping returned data, building a wireframe map in the corner of my vision. The cave system was vast, a tree of branching tunnels. The main trunk descended for what looked like half a mile before opening into a chamber the size of a stadium. That would be the Bloom's heart.
But between me and it were three branching tunnels, each marked by the charm as CORRUPTED. The leftmost had movement. The rightmost had heat signatures. The center was cold, dead.
Cold and dead sounded lovely.
I took the center tunnel. My shortsword was out, held low and close. The Gloomvermin spear was lashed across my back—Mira's rope work, sturdy. The Demon-Bark slivers were in my left hand, ready to throw. I was a Level 2 pretending to be a Level 10. The costume had to be perfect.
The tunnel narrowed. The walls pressed in, warm and moist. The corruption debuff deepened: -10% HP REGEN. My natural healing was 1 HP every 30 seconds. Now it was 1 HP every 33 seconds. Over time, that added up. Over three days, that was catastrophic.
[RESOURCE OPTIMIZATION: RESTORE HP NOW? Y/N]
I had three Moss-Drake potions. Each restored 25 HP. Using one now would be wasteful—full health, minor debuff. But the debuff would only get worse deeper in. [DECISION THEORY: USE POTION PRE-EMPTIVELY? PROBABILITY OF WASTE: 68%].
I pocketed the potion. I'd save it for when the math made sense.
The tunnel opened into a smaller chamber, perhaps thirty feet across. The ceiling was low enough that I could touch it with my blade. And it was moving.
Not moving. Breathing.
The entire chamber was a lung. The walls were alveoli, tiny sacs that expanded and contracted with a wet, sticky sound. Black sap pooled in the floor's grooves, pumped by the rhythmic motion. In the center, hanging from the ceiling like a tumor, was a cyst the size of a melon. It pulsed with sickly green light.
[ANALYSIS: BLOOM SPORE-SAC (MINOR DEMON)]
[LEVEL: 5]
[HP: 80/80]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: DO NOT DISTURB]
[RESISTANCES: PHYSICAL (HIGH), MAGIC (IMMUNE)]
[WEAKNESSES: NONE DETECTABLE]
Physical resistance: High. Magic immune. No weaknesses.
I was Level 2 with a common shortsword and 12 MP. Disturbing this thing would be like punching a tank with a spoon. But the chamber was the most direct route to the heart. The side tunnels looped back, adding hours. The map already showed that inefficiency.
I stood at the edge, calculating. The sac pulsed. The walls breathed. My HP regen ticked down every 33 seconds, invisible but relentless.
[TACTICAL PRECOGNITION (INACTIVE): INSUFFICIENT DATA]
[ABSOLUTE CALCULATION (PASSIVE): ANALYZING...]
The sac's pulsing had a rhythm. Expand for 4.3 seconds, contract for 3.8. The light intensified at peak expansion. The floor's sap level rose and fell with it, leaving a 1.2-second window where the stone was almost dry.
Almost.
I watched three cycles. Measured. Calculated.
The sac was anchored by three tendrils, each as thick as my wrist. They pulsed with the same rhythm, but out of phase—when the sac expanded, the tendrils contracted, and vice versa. The anchor points were buried in the flesh-wall.
[HYPOTHESIS: SPORE-SAC IS A HEART-LIKE PUMP]
[LOGIC: DISRUPTING PUMP = DISRUPTING FLOW = POTENTIAL PATH]
But I couldn't disrupt it. My damage output was maybe 8-12 per swing, before resistances. The sac would take... [CALCULATING... 12 DAMAGE - 70% RESISTANCE = 3.6 EFFECTIVE DAMAGE PER HIT]. 80 HP / 3.6 = 22 strikes. Twenty-two seconds of uninterrupted hacking while the walls breathed and the sac pulsed and something inevitably noticed.
[ALTERNATIVE: UTILIZE ENVIRONMENTAL FLOW]
The sap was the key. It was a liquid. It followed gravity. It pooled in the grooves, then was pumped back up through the walls.
I looked at the ceiling. At the tendrils. At the cyst.
Then I looked at my pack. At the Glowcap Lantern. At the Demon-Bark slivers.
The Demon-Bark repelled demons. Minor effect. The lantern's sap exploded. The slivers were kindling. The sap was flammable—I'd seen it steam, not burn, but steam meant heat. Heat meant energy.
I unslung the lantern. Opened it carefully, careful not to spill the luminous sap on my hands. My overlay warned [WARNING: LUMEN-SAP CONTACT = MINOR BURNS + LIGHT EMISSION]. I could work with that.
I took three Demon-Bark slivers. Wrapped them around the base of the cyst's tendril anchor points like splints. The bark's repelling effect made the flesh-wall recoil slightly, creating a micro-gap.
I poured a single drop of lumen-sap into each gap.
Then I retreated to the tunnel entrance, drew my shortsword, and waited.
The sac pulsed. Expanded. The tendrils contracted, pulling the bark-and-sap splints tight against the anchor points.
The sap heated from contact with the corrupted flesh.
The second pulse pushed more sap into the gap.
The third pulse—
[IGNITION DETECTED]
The Demon-Bark didn't just repel. It catalyzed. The lumen-sap, normally stable, reacted with the corruption like potassium in water. Three simultaneous FWOOSH sounds, muffled by flesh, but bright as flashbangs.
The cyst convulsed. The tendrils spasmed. The chamber's breathing ragged, hitched.
And a crack opened in the wall, where the anchor point had burned through.
Not a big crack. A fissure, maybe fourteen inches wide. But it was a path. The map updated in real-time, the Sounding Charm pinging through the new gap to reveal a service tunnel beyond.
[ENVIRONMENTAL BARRIER BYPASSED]
[AWARD: +100 EXP]
[CREATIVITY BONUS: +50 EXP]
[EXPERIENCE: 650/1000]
I didn't wait for the cyst to recover. I squeezed through the crack, armor scraping stone, pack catching on a jagged edge. The system helpfully noted [PACK DURABILITY: 87%]. I emerged into a tunnel so narrow I had to turn sideways.
The air here was different. Less corrupt, more... processed. The walls were still flesh-chitin, but dry, dead. [CORRUPTION DEBUFF: REDUCED TO -5% HP REGEN]. The lumen-sap fire had burned out a section of the Bloom's circulatory system. I'd given myself a clean corridor.
[MAP UPDATING... 14% COMPLETE]
The Sounding Charm's 3D wireframe grew, filling in with alarming detail. The Bloom was less a plant, more a body. The tunnels were veins and arteries. The chambers were organs. The Demon-Bloom was growing itself a physical form in this cave, and when it matured, that form would step out into Aetheuron.
[ANALYSIS UPDATE: DEMON-BLOOM = BIOLOGICAL BREACH GATE]
[MATURATION: 62%]
Wait. 62%? Varn's intel said 31 hours. That was 37% maturity. [DATA CONFLICT DETECTED]. The Bloom was growing faster than projected. Accelerated incubation.
[QUEST UPDATE: BLOOM SURVEY]
[URGENCY ESCALATED: FAILURE IMMINENT]
[TIME REMAINING: UNKNOWN - ESTIMATE UNRELIABLE]
The ground trembled. Not an earthquake. A heartbeat. The Bloom had a heart now, somewhere below, and it was strong enough to shake stone.
I moved faster. The tunnel sloped downward at 22 degrees, a dangerous angle made worse by the slick walls. My new leather boots gripped better than my old sneakers would have. [FOOTING STABILITY: 65%]. Acceptable risk.
The tunnel opened into a vertical shaft. A chimney, really, dropping straight down into purple-shadowed darkness. The Sounding Charm couldn't ping the bottom—too deep, or interference too strong. My overlay estimated [DEPTH: 80-120 FEET].
There were handholds. Not natural—carved. Demonic runes, glowing faintly, provided grips for something that climbed this way often. [LANGUAGE ANALYSIS: DEMONIC (PRIMITIVE)] [TRANSLATION: "ASCEND/DESCEND/FLESH"]. Charming.
I didn't have rope. I had climbing spikes. I had a sword. I had 12 MP and no spells to spend it on.
The spikes were the answer. They were designed for stone, but the chitin wall was softer. I drove one in, tested its hold. [CLIMBING SPIKE: SECURE] [DURABILITY: 99%]. Good.
I descended spike by spike, a metal spider on a wall of meat. The air grew warmer. The heartbeat louder. [SANITY CHECK INCOMING...].
[ROLL: 2 + 6 = 8]
[TARGET: 10]
[FAILURE: AUDITORY HALLUCINATION ACQUIRED]
The whispers from the mushrooms were back, but now they were inside the walls. "...so young... so calculated... the River spits up its debts...Join us... join the flesh..."
I tuned it out. Math was my anchor. Height descended: 45 feet. Remaining: 65 feet. Spike usage rate: 1 per 8 feet. Remaining spikes: 7. Optimal. I could make it.
Then the wall moved.
Not the whole wall. A section, to my left, rippled. A mouth opened, a vertical slit lined with needle-teeth, and from it emerged a tendril. Not a vine. A tongue. It tasted the air, forked tip flickering, then oriented on me.
[ANALYSIS: DEMON-BLOOM TASTEBUD (MINOR SENTINEL)]
[LEVEL: 3]
[THREAT: MINIMAL] ⚠️ IN CORRECT
Minimal threat, but I was hanging from a spike with one hand, seventy feet above a bottomless pit. [SITUATION: SUBOPTIMAL].
The tongue lashed out. My precognition gave me 0.3 seconds of warning. I twisted, let go of the spike, and dropped.
My hand caught the next spike down, the one I'd planted three feet below. The tongue passed through the space my throat had occupied. My shoulder screamed in protest, joint stressed beyond its design tolerance. [HP: 58/60] [DEBUFF: SHOULDER STRAIN (MINOR)].
The tongue recoiled, confused. It probed upward, searching for the prey that had vanished according to its senses. [TACTICAL CALCULATION: DEMONIC BIOFORMS RELY ON MOTION + HEAT]. I held still, pressed against the wall, controlling my breathing. The tongue swept past me twice, once so close I could smell the sulfur on its saliva.
[STEALTH CHECK: PASSIVE SUCCESS]
[+10 EXP]
After thirty seconds, the tongue retreated into its mouth-wall. The slit sealed. [THREAT: NEUTRALIZED].
I continued my descent, faster now, less cautious. Speed was safety. The longer I hung on this wall, the more attention I drew.
Spike five. Spike six. Spike seven.
The last spike went in, and my boot touched solid ground.
The bottom of the shaft was a cavern floor, littered with crystallized sap and bones. Not animal bones. Human bones, picked clean and polished by digestive fluids. My overlay catalogued them with grim efficiency: [REMAINS: 12 INDIVIDUALS, TIME OF DEATH 2-6 MONTHS]. River's Reach's missing scouts.
The cavern stretched ahead, a cathedral of flesh and stone. At its center, visible through pillars of calcified tendon, was the Bloom's heart.
It was a sphere, twenty feet across, suspended by a web of arteries that connected to the ceiling. It pulsed with green-black light, each beat sending tremors through the floor. The surface was translucent. Inside, something moved. Limbs, unformed. A face, screaming silently.
[ANALYSIS: DEMON-BLOOM HEART (MAJOR DEMON)]
[LEVEL: ??]
[HP: ???/???]
[WARNING: DIRECT OBSERVATION INFlicts SANITY DAMAGE]
[SANITY: 5.2/6] ⚠️ PASSIVE DRAIN
[QUEST OBJECTIVE: MAP CORE LOCATION - COMPLETE]
[MAP UPDATING... 100% COMPLETE]
The map was done. I had what River's Reach needed. I could leave.
But my overlay highlighted something the charm had missed. The heart's support web—those arteries—attached to the ceiling at three points. Each point had a bulge, a cystic node.
[ANALYSIS: ANCHOR NODES (SECONDARY ORGANS)]
[HP: 150/150 EACH]
[WEAKNESS: FIRE (CRITICAL), LUMEN-SAP (UNKNOWN)]
[FUNCTION: SUSTAIN HEART, AMPLIFY CORRUPTION]
Three nodes. They were the Bloom's true life support. Destroy them, and the heart would collapse.
I had ten Demon-Bark slivers left. I had lantern fuel. I had one shot.
[PROBABILITY OF DESTROYING ONE NODE: 12%]
[PROBABILITY OF DESTROYING THREE: 0.07%]
[ALTERNATIVE: RETREAT WITH DATA, REWARD: 2000 EXP]
I looked at the heart. At the screaming face inside. At the bones of twelve scouts who'd probably had better Luck than me.
[DECISION: SUBOPTIMAL BUT NECESSARY]
[MIRA'S GAMBIT: YOUR TURN]
I unslung the lantern. Drew my shortsword.
The heart beat. The face screamed.
And I started climbing.
[HP: 58/60]
[MP: 12/12]
[SANITY: 5.0/6]
[LOOT SENSE: DETECTING MASSIVE ESSENCE DROP...]
The Bloom had marked me. It knew I was here. It just didn't know what I was about to calculate.