The green mist swirled in my vision. From this close, I could make out the tiny spores that formed its mass, floating idly in the air for a short while before they died out and fell to the ground. Even as they fell, the green spores began to shift into a slight greenish-gray, crumbling away into tiny flakes. There, the dying spores formed a thick, moss-like mass, one that found itself kicked upwards again with each and every disturbance in the air. A Coreless, emaciated and covered in veins of green and black, stumbled through the slush of spores, limbs jerking unnaturally. We froze in place, breath held still within our lungs. It turned away again, disappearing into the swirling spore-mist.

I could sense the way that the sight affected my own Coreless; they wanted to rush in, to snatch the captured Coreless from the chains of the Lesser Core. I did, too.

Instead, we moved on, just like we had every time before.

My Coreless were quiet as could be, their feet making little more than the occasional light scuff as they walked. It was impressive, with the way that ore-flesh had a tendency to jingle and jangle, bouncing against itself. None of us wanted to throw ourselves against the forces that the Lesser Core had stolen.

None of us wanted to kill the ones that could become ours. I was confident that the Lesser Core’s corruption could be defeated, especially after doing so for not-Needle. Even more, I was sure that any Coreless that I managed to save from the Lesser Core’s control would quickly fall under the light of the Great Core.

Even the-female-who-was-not-Needle, after being saved from the Lesser Core’s corruption, had been overcome by emotion. Horrified by what had almost happened, and terribly guilty. It had taken quite a few words from the other Coreless, along with some work of my own, to turn that emotion aside - and even then, it was still there. Hidden beneath the surface, bound by threads of [determination].

Now, there was the occasional bout of [cheer] when I raked my fangs across our connection, a sign that she was moving past the horror of being nearly ripped away from the Great Core’s service. That was good.

Hopefully, any other Coreless that broke free from the Lesser Core’s control would have a similar reaction, pushing them towards becoming disciples of the Great Core.

We finally managed to sneak past the newest section of spore-created mist, and a few of my Coreless let out sighs of [frustration]. Needle raised a hand to brush against her brow, wiping away the beads of liquid that had begun to form.

“How are we doing, Rowan? Are we getting any closer?” she asked, looking towards the Coreless that had been acting as a guide.

The guiding Coreless answered with a sigh of his own. “Yeah, we’re getting there. If I haven’t gotten turned around in all this mess, anyway. It’s a bit hard to tell sometimes, with most of the buildings in ruins and all of the overgrowth. Add to that how many times we’ve been forced to turn around or go in different directions and, well...” He paused, shrugging his shoulders. “Let’s see if we can find some sort of vantage point that won’t collapse when we try to climb it; I’d like to get a better view and make sure. I might even be able to pick out the Artisan’s Guildhall itself if we can get high enough.”

The other Coreless nodded, beginning to move again. We picked our way through the ruined many-nest, keeping a careful watch on our surroundings and avoiding any locations that seemed overly dangerous. Unfortunately, that was a lot of places.

When it became difficult to tell what was an enemy and what was natural growth, true safety was hard to find.

Despite that, we mostly managed, my Coreless stepping through the areas where plant-flesh seemed least abundant. Only a single Tangleroot attacked, and a Tangleroot wasn’t much of a problem on its own. They were young and weak, more of a distraction than anything else. While their constricting roots would be effective in holding down my Coreless for another bad-thing to attack, they couldn’t do much damage by themselves - not with the ore-flesh that covered much of my Coreless’ bodies. No matter how tight they squeezed, the mana-lit ore-flesh managed to resist.

The-female-who-was-not-Needle fed me its carcass as we walked. It tasted like all of the other Tangleroots that I had devoured so far; chalky, and horribly dry. I swallowed the last of it down. The thought-light flickered.

Level 3 Tangleroot Consumed.

Transferred to Core.

Blooded Trait Acquisition Progress: 5/5.

Analyzing Blooded Trait…

Acquiring Blooded Trait: [Constriction I]

My scale-flesh twisted and contorted with the Great Core’s newest blessing, the muscles that lay underneath beginning to change. They itched and tingled, forcing me to slide and writhe my coiled scale-flesh around not-Needle’s ore-flesh. I could feel the muscles underneath become stronger, and my grip on the-female-who-was-not-Needle’s shoulder tightened for a moment. I adjusted to the change soon afterwards, loosening my coils.

She didn’t even notice the change in strength, just giving me a brief look of [confusion] and running her fingers soothingly across my head-scales.

It wasn’t surprising. If the Tangleroots couldn’t constrict enough to damage the Coreless through their skins of ore-flesh, my own [Constriction] probably didn’t even come close. Maybe if I was larger, [Constriction] - even as a new, weak Blooded Trait - might have been useful. As it was, I decided to leave it be. It wouldn’t be worth upgrading with my limited number of Trait Points - it was better to save them.

There was already something that I was hoping to use them for.

While I was distracted by my newest blessing, my Coreless had moved closer to a ruined nest. It had fallen down on one side, toppling over so that it leaned against one of its neighbors. The Coreless scaled its side in relative silence, only the sounds of their breathing and the occasional bit of sliding rubble marking their climb.

Soon enough, we had ascended the rubble as far as possible. They made a few gestures at one another, and then The Unrepentant One and Will helped to lift everyone else up the rest of the way.

“There it is,” the guiding Coreless said to both Needle and not-Needle, pointing elsewhere in the many-nest and radiating [relief]. “It looks like we’re not too far off course. Do you see that building there, the big one with the stone trees and the water out front?”

I followed his gesture with my eyes, spotting a large nest. Like much of the ruins, it was both covered and surrounded by great masses of glow-caps, each casting light and shadows in turn. We had begun to mostly ignore those; very few seemed to be hidden bad-things of the Lesser Core, likely because they had no way of actually hurting someone. Even the Flame Wisps that had given me [Illusion Spark] were far more useful, able to lead enemies to their unknowing demise. The glow-caps just...glowed.

There was a pool of mana-water near the entrance of the nest, lined by fake-trees carved from stone. Vines wrapped themselves around their lengths and hung from their branches, adding patches of green to the otherwise gray stone.

The nest itself was built from darkwood, like a great many of the many-nest’s many nests. Vines grew alongside it as well, and more than one wall looked to be in disarray. Still, even from such a distance, I could tell that it was thicker than most other nests. More defensible.

It still had those confusing moving-walls that led inside, though, ruining any actual defense. It was a good thing that the Coreless never had to defend any Cores. They would have lost them right away. It was a little pathetic.

“I’m surprised that they sculpted the trees from stone, considering how easily the Nature Core would have let them just grow actual trees there,” Needle replied. “It seems unnecessary.”

“I was too, but apparently there was some worry of allowing trees to grow outside of specific locations. Something to do with the roots and destabilization, I guess.” He gestured towards the giant darkwood that towered over the rest of the many-nest, its roots sprawling across the vast majority of the area. “The darkwood by the Nature Core’s sanctuary was one of the few that they actually allowed to grow. It got pretty big over the years, but nothing like it is now. I’d guess that its size now is probably some combination of a mutation and the normal growth that the Nature Core causes. I’m just glad that we don’t have to deal with more of them. This damn city doesn’t need to be more of a maze than it already is.”

A hint of [alarm] slipped through Needle’s [Little Guardian’s Totem]. She pointed towards a small section of the nest beside it - and at the green spore-mist that spilled out from the cracks in its walls.

“It looks like we might have some neighbors,” she said. “We’ll have to go say hello when we’re done moving in.”