Chapter 25: Cocoon

Subject: Unknown Location: Redtinge Overgrowth

Wake up!

It was dark, but not oppressively so. A chill hung in the air, but it didn’t force shivering discomfort.

Wake up! The urgent thought repeated.

Inis’s internal monologue was accompanied by the sensation of danger.

I have to get my bearings. Where am I? What was I doing?

Grasping in both literal and figurative dark for clarity on her current situation, Inis fell back to a short focus recitation. By the time it was complete, she had remembered some details.

“I’m in Adventide,” she recalled, “in the remote wilderness. My camp is… the book I was reading…?”

Suddenly, Inis remembered why she was in danger.

“Redtinge Overgrowth. I fell asleep in a festerfont? No… I jumped to the lower jungle, willingly. What in Pulse was I thinking?!”

The fall hadn’t knocked her unconscious. Inis remembered using controlled bursts of Virawind in mid-air, an extremely risky maneuver, to slow her descent.

The resulting success of the landing approached tangible perfection. Inis only wished she could take credit, but it wasn’t right to reward herself for an act she barely remembered, at a time when her body must have moved on its own.

What else could explain this mad act? Inis couldn’t understand why she would ever do this. Was the idea of “progress” driving her at the time an early death? If so, she’d done splendidly.

The stranded seeker utilized Virawind and Illumination spells to get a better idea of her surroundings. What she saw shocked her, perhaps more than waking up in a festerfont.

Subject: Inis - [Requesting Reanalysis] Location: Redtinge Overgrowth

She stood in an artificially created cave embedded in the cliff face. Magically created, to be more specific, as evidenced by the wavering pattern in the rock caused by the fluctuations in energy flow that naturally accompanied any spell.

Really, it was just a small hole, with barely enough space to lay down in. But it shouldn’t exist regardless.

“Did I make this? Why?”

The most plausible explanation Inis could think of was that she got tired from using her magic so freely, and tried to make shelter where she could safely rest.

Nowhere in a festerfont was safe.

Assuming that was what happened, and she had somehow escaped the notice of the festerfont and its guardian blightbeasts, there was another thing Inis didn’t understand.

Normally, she would never have been able to cast so many spells in such quick succession without noticeable fatigue. Moreover, after a sleepless night, she should have been on the verge of virastarvation.

It almost seemed like a day had passed since Inis had fallen asleep. No, it felt like she were one of those curious bugs that underwent an incredible metamorphosis in a cocoon, awakening as something else entirely. One such insect was the glowfly.

“How did I avoid the coma?” she wondered aloud, but she was still fixated on glowfly transformation.

When a glowfly larva entered its cocoon, it effectively died. The larva knew it was time to change when its body responded to various internal and environmental factors. If such larvae did not settle and spin their cocoons, they suffered.

“And where they end up nestling helps define what breaks free of the cocoon.”

It could have been the respite shard after the injection that saved Inis. It could have been a unique property of the injection. A delayed energy infusion, her augmented active vira reserve restoration, or any number of things.

Inis was honestly less interested in guessing right now than she was comparing her new developments to the tantalizingly horrific life cycle of a glowfly.

It just feels… right. Familiar.

Inis got the feeling her sleep had been interrupted because of the creatures around her, detected through virasense. Her sleeping self had been passively scanning for movements in the area.

Humorously enough, these intruders were Arth. Insectoid.

Slithering blue centipedes swarmed all around. Almost fifteen in all, and still coming, the smallest was the size of one of Inis’s arms.

“I have a new technique for things that disturb me when I’m trying to sleep,” Inis growled, but not out of anger.

She was actually pretty excited right now. Inis was going to have the opportunity to try out a new spell, incubated in the recesses of her mind. All while she slept in the middle of a festerfont!

“Part one: ignition. Bathe in Solflame!”

The golden flame ignited the brush surrounding Inis’s shelter, catching the insects on their way to her. They began to curl up and writhe in agony on the jungle floor.

This spell was nothing new, but the mage was already performing the numerous calculations required to target the sol-infused exoskeletons of the screeching burning blightbeasts.

“Part… two: …”

The cognitive load was tremendous. Inis’s speech faltered, and she was forced to focus solely on using the blightbeasts own bodies to sustain the spell.

Unlike mundane flame, a mage needed to continuously feed a magical blaze, or they would lose control over it. This technique effectively made the latter behave like the former, albeit with intense concentration far exceeding that of a standard spell.

These were the principles outlined in Sol: Coercing Payment, the book Inis vaguely remembered packing in her stupor before stumbling out of camp.

But I don’t remember actually reading the thing!

Along with the blightseed injection, this was another variable signaling the start of her transition from nymph to imago. She used to rely on the castoff glow of magical enlightenment, but she was beginning to generate some of that brilliance to sustain herself.

The light from the shriveled husks all around died down, and Inis no longer detected movement around her. Silence and darkness returned.

Glittering jewels scattered across the dirt, and she knelt down to collect each one. The smell of ash reached Inis’s nostrils, but it did nothing to deter her. Even the smallest blightseed was nearly as saturated as the gem she’d used in her first experimental trial.

Inis suppressed the excitement building inside, and she pocketed the seeds.

There was no doubt this was the result of taking another stab at deciphering the dense magical theory in the meta-analysis. Inis felt like her unconscious self had done the hard work, and her conscious self was reaping the rewards.

Unanswered questions are fine, but there needs to be some lines. I can’t just accept this and move on from here.

That was right. There was a time before falling asleep where Inis remembered what she did, but it didn’t line up with her personality. Injecting herself with blightseed distillate was already pushing the line.

Have I fully adjusted to the change?

No response, but there was no reason to believe this was the end. There would be more stages of transition, and Inis would need to go about them carefully.

Back to her favored comparison, the inadequately cocooned glowfly larva emerged as a partial adult. A malformed adult that met its biological needs by feeding on its brethren. A body lacking the anatomy to sustain itself. It would not reproduce, and it would inevitably die in agony.

If that’s how it’s going to be, then I’ll still be needing... preparation, diligence, and patience.

Subject: Inis - [Requesting Reanalysis] Location: Redtinge Overgrowth

Inis was trapped in the interior of the festerfont, somewhere between the middle of the body and the core.

Rapid thoughts jumped from one branch of thought to the next, following many distinct pathways. Most thoughts related to the Blight and how she was going to get out of this precarious position.

Blight Seekers sometimes spoke of this moment, referring to it as “The Swell”.

Inis wasn’t so much a seeker as she was a field scientist using the profession for her own ends, so she could be misrepresenting the concept in her memory. Either way, she heard it was the moment a seeker became trapped in a situation of their own making.

Not just any reckless mistake would lead up to The Swell. It had to be life-or-death, sacrifice-or-succumb.

Inis had learned that most Blight Seekers weren’t the heroes she’d believed them to be as a young child, looking up to her mother and the work she did to protect the city Inis was born in.

Yet, the pay was barely above that of an unskilled laborer for many. Those who wanted more couldn’t give up, even after seeing many friends die along the way. What kind of person made it through that kind of filter?

The field scientist had no flowery language to describe such a person. No fancy metaphors of her own, and she definitely didn’t want to repeat the stereotyped phrases of others.

Inis refreshed her virasenses with concentration, and reflected on her past thoughts about the motivations of seekers, and how an observer can often fool themselves into believing they know what is really going on in the mind of another.

The Swell was a revelation. If a seeker fought for blightseeds and nothing else, or if they fought for their own strength over advancement over the wellbeing of their peers, The Swell would disabuse them of their delusions about their true character. Whatever the definition of “true character” actually was.

Inis turned back to the jungle ahead and began her trek deeper into the heart of the festerfont. Redtinge Overgrowth was known for having a unique safety mechanism for allowing seekers in the lower jungle to ascend back to the surface.

The Redtinge Pillar.

The Blightbane Guild paid government architects to implant a magitech elevator near the festerfont’s core.

If a seeker party was unprepared to survive the lower jungle, they refrained from descending. No one descended by accident unless they fell to their deaths. If they didn’t think they could push close to the core, they brought climbing tools.

And here Inis walked. Deeper, with neither the tools nor the confidence necessary to face the blightbeasts before her. This was The Swell, alright.

I want to understand the Blight. That is my greatest wish.

If Inis could believe, for a fragile moment, she had an active identity as a seeker, her motivations would be tested.

If I die, I can’t study the Blight. This dangerous situation is an unusual opportunity. I came here without my equipment.

Did Inis fail the test before even reaching the festerfont and beginning The Swell? This might be a special case, considering she wasn’t in full control of herself at the time. Still she didn’t want to excuse subconscious motivations that she should have already reigned in with training.

Subject: Inis - [Requesting Reanalysis] Location: Redtinge Overgrowth

Inis progressed slowly, but it wasn’t because she was afraid. She extended her virasense radius as far as it would reach.

Colors were tantalizingly brighter, sharper, and more salient. Disappointingly, Inis could only see the small space before her.

But Inis’s virasenses picked up on so much more, even if it couldn’t be visually interpreted. Blightbeasts of varieties she’d never dreamed of encountering in person so soon. Not before she had the strength to protect herself.

Don’t get carried away, she reminded herself. I’m stronger, but not powerful enough to go to battle here. I need food.

The bulbous Blight energy at the cores of the creatures around her was alluring, detected through virasense, out of reach for now. Along the journey, she would often find her path drifting toward them. She wanted to take more power for herself, but what she needed to do was slow down.

None of these things were particularly dangerous on their own.

Just… fodder, whispered a voice deep inside.

The voice was Inis’s, but with a slightly different slant. A different pattern shaping motivations she couldn’t articulate. Power must have changed her thinking. This abrupt endowment made her old perspective seem foreign.

Any blightbeast can be a threat, she countered the previous comment. They are weapons.

An outsider’s confidence swelled within Inis’s body. It made her feel less like the prey in tainted land, and more like an invader.

Inis never forgot the feeling of power that very first blightseed used to mold her body long ago. When it had settled, she felt a similarly intoxicating strength. This feeling was familiar.

A pack of Chorth blightbeasts closed their distance around her.

What could possibly give you weaklings the idea you could harm me?

Inis wasn’t a true seeker, and she didn’t want to be. However, she appreciated that her profession gave her a trained awareness and knowledge of all the ways these living weapons could be used.

What am I doing? This… isn’t like me.

Inis spun around, killed her pursuers with a barrage of Viradarts, and began to make the kill report in her research log.

It was then that Inis remembered she wasn’t wearing her headset. After a pause, she followed the report with a mental observation she had been reluctant to state.

“I can’t deny it. I feel I’m acting differently after the injection. What I have just decided to call the ‘Accumulation Reduction Conversion [ARC]’ experiment has made me feel distorted. Strength had flooded me with confidence. I don’t think it is a difference in the administration that produced this as a side effect. Instead, I believe it is my own personality interacting with the change, adapting to a greater mastery of magic than I ever believed possible. Time will make that more clear.”

If that had been recorded, Inis would have forced herself to revise the confusing thoughts and better state them.

Down in the lower jungle of Redtinge Overgrowth, she kept her voice low to minimize risk, but even an unrecorded report was important. If nothing else, she would commit her cognitive unraveling to memory.

Inis needed to speak her thoughts for fear of losing them to the whirlwind. No headset to record her, she hoped she would remember each observation for when she returned.

She didn’t want to go back yet, but she didn’t want to lose herself.

Subject: Inis - [Requesting Reanalysis] Location: Redtinge Overgrowth

Stealing her way to the core of Redtinge Overgrowth, Inis avoided as many fights as she could. Her stomach growled, but she was still conscious and capable of putting one foot in front of the other, brushing through voluminous ferns in the undergrowth.

Inis’s hand drifted to the pocket where her blightseeds were stored. She’d gathered even more since her awakening in the lower jungle.

I want to do it again. I need to do it again, with a blightseed of the same energy saturation. A “replication experiment”, of course.

Even the memory of that extreme pain was not enough to deter Inis. She needed to explore to see if her way really was a much more effective way of consuming the seeds.

The knowledge would help many, so it really was a selfless thing. At least, that’s what Inis convinced herself.

Just because the festerfont was named after its dominant color, that didn’t mean the jungle was monochromatic. Purple, green, and blue-pigmented plants entered Inis’s view quite often. Fungi were even more diverse in color.

To pass the time, Inis silently named each organism from memory. It wasn’t too long before something unexpected came into view.

Inis caught sight of a blue eye in the mist, peering out at her from its obscured position almost directly ahead. She was startled because she hadn’t picked it up on her virasenses.

Wary of the unknown, Inis stopped walking.

You look weak, what with the way you hide… so you’re probably a little stronger, right?

A one-eyed blightbeast variant. Inis couldn’t recall anything like that. If she were to guess, it was Chorth Elfirmant. The eye was animalian, hence the Chorth designation. The concealed creature assumedly walked on land, hence the Elfirmant designation.

Just because most Elfirmant were boring, that didn’t mean Inis would be similarly disappointed by this curious specimen. She sidestepped, and the unblinking eye didn’t move.

I don’t think Titarche Arth stay so still when they sense prey, nor do Chorth coordinate with Arth like those critters from before.

Inis continued pacing at a steady distance from the creature, but it remained still. Impatiently, she looked around, with sight and virasense, to make sure nothing else was around.

What is your depth perception like, anomaly? Why can’t I see you?

Inis still couldn’t formulate an explanation for why the blightbeast didn’t appear on her virasensory mental map.

The scientist took a few cautious steps forward, and still, the eye did not move.

Inis attempted to lure it out of hiding with an Illumination spell. Flare was all she needed. She conjured the initial orb of light and prepared to launch it forward. Inis applied a complementary Virawind Drift spell to disperse the fog.

She had chosen blue for the color of her Flare. Red was the easiest color to produce using this particular spell, but she worried that the jungle backdrop, especially the reddish tree bark, would provide too little contrast.

Virawind pierced through the fog, leaving behind an expanding hole in the direction of the creature. Not enough light filtered down to the lower jungle. Inis fired off Flare to finally bring the mysterious creature into view.

Maybe because Inis was unaccustomed to using Flare or maybe because she was overeager, the intensity of the launch was greater than anticipated. A gush of hot air made Inis’s eyes water, and she hastily rubbed them clear.

Flare had indeed cleaved through the darkness, but in the large space of visibility Inis had created, the creature was nowhere to be found.

Could I have imagined it?

It wouldn’t have been the first time today Inis considered that she was losing her grip on reality. But she remembered seeing the eye plain as day.

No, we saw it, a voice from within confirmed. The abandoned master’s voice is calling it to protect… to kill us.

There wasn’t time for Inis to reflect on the unnatural flow of her thoughts. The sound of something wet sliding across the jungle floor alerted her moments before an eerie white appendage, slick with mucus, coiled around her leg.

The voice also calls on us to kill. Mixed signals. What to do.

Inis felt the grip on her leg tighten, and her heart pounded in panic. More so, because she felt as though she were mentally treading water, fighting just to stay “herself”.

Calm down, she ordered. The master- No, the Pulse forsaken festerfont can’t command me to kill or die. It can’t command us to die.

We won’t die… even if we have to kill everything and everyone in this jungle.