Splintered darkwood clattered against the ground, the sound muffled by the heavy coating of dead spore-flesh, now reduced to little more than ash-gray dust in death. Bits and pieces bounced across the few open places where the dust-like spore-flesh hadn’t yet settled, either by pure chance or for some other reason.

A wall of green mist rushed out of the gap, bursting from the darkness.

“Back!” Will shouted, the noise coated in enough [urgency] that I hardly needed to press my fangs against our link to feel it.

My Coreless jerked back, hands held in front of their mouths and feet moving swiftly. The mist followed, reaching out with grasping fingers made of floating spore-flesh - and died a brief moment later, collapsing. Green shifted to gray, coating the ground below.

Still, more mist continued to follow, spreading out from the gap in the nest in gentle waves, as if the nest was a living bad-thing and the mist of spore-flesh its breath. I glared at it, hissing a warning.

It didn’t respond, still breathing in great puffs of green.

Will coughed, a hacking and choking thing, and his hand fell away from his face. Lines of green and black spread from off-colored lips, pouring outwards from somewhere just beneath his skin-flesh. My other Coreless startled, and I caught the scent-tastes of [concern] and [worry] wafting from our connection. They moved towards him in stuttered steps.

He coughed again, holding up a hand in some sort of signal. They froze in place, waiting. Will coughed again, nearly doubling over with its strength.

Finally, he raised himself up to his full, imposing height. A hand brushed across his face, revealing bared teeth and pale flesh - and pale flesh only. The veins of green and black were already gone.

“Well, that was...unpleasant. Got into my lungs, I think. We’ll need to be careful not to breathe in any of the mist, even with the Guardian Statue so close by. It seems like the healing can’t keep up with such a concentrated dose. Still, it managed to wipe it away fairly quickly, so it should be fine as long as we don’t get stuck inside,” he said. Will paused for a few moments, taking in a number of careful breaths before continuing. “Yeah, I should be good. No problems breathing here, and I’m not noticing any residual effects at the moment.”

My other Coreless let out various sounds in response, the noises dripping with a [relief] that I hardly needed our connection to notice. It still helped, though. It was nice to be able to know for sure.

There was a noise somewhere in the nest, muffled by the cloying mists. A groan. I hissed at it. My Coreless noticed it, too.

“Someone’s trapped in there,” the-female-who-was-not-Needle voiced, the noises laced with a [determination] that matched the hard set of her lips. At the same time, there was a tinge of [anticipation]. She stepped forward, pulling me along with her, and only stopped when Will’s arm blocked her path.

“Wait,” he said. “They’ve been in there long enough. A little longer won’t be the end of the world. We have some time.”

Her face twisted in response to the noises that spilled from his lips, but she didn’t move any further. There was another clatter from somewhere within the mists. She twitched, face twisting further.

I twisted around as well, my neck curving from where I rested so that I could peer closer into the nest. The spore-mist breathed in and out like a living thing, swirling every so often on invisible eddies as something walked within it.

There was a thought; a tempting one.

The spores that floated from the nest weren’t as dense as some of the others that I had seen. The bad-thing that was creating them was probably weaker than some of the others. I wanted to see it. I wanted to slither into the mists, to trust in the strength of my healing abilities and sheer faith in the Great Core to keep me safe from the green-black of the Lesser Core’s corruption.

I wanted to find its source.

I wanted to eat it.

My tongue flicked into the air at the thought, the action almost involuntary. It caught the scent-taste of my Coreless, of rotting darkwood and moist air, of sickness and disease - along with many others, a few of which I couldn’t give a name.

The-female-who-was-not-Needle’s hand came up to scratch at my scale-flesh, and I let myself relax again at the reminder of her presence, as well as the other disciples. The Great Core had placed them here with me for a reason, I was sure, and I needed to remember that.

As much as I itched to take the bad-things of the Lesser Core head on, to devour them and make their strengths my own, I shouldn’t.

Even now, it would only take one mistake to be forced to give up so much. I could probably do it all over again, but there was always a risk that something would go differently. I didn’t have perfect memory and, more importantly, wasn’t always sure why things happened the way that they did.

If this life became just another false-life, it might take a few tries to get it right again.

I’d try to let them handle things for now.

“...be enough to slow the spread, maybe give me some time before I have to come back out,” a muffled noise sounded. I turned my eyes away from the temptation of the mists, noting that Will had wrapped a strip of skin around himself. It covered the lower section of his face, hiding it away.

“Wait,” the newest Coreless said, pointing towards the opening of the nest that had once been the now-shattered moving-wall. “If we’re taking our time on this, we might as well do it right. We’ll tie a rope around you before you go in as well, just in case something goes wrong. Worse comes to worst, we pull you out so that you can heal from the infection. Worst somehow comes to even worse, and maybe we’ll finally get some use out of the big brute here. He can smack you around a bit until you come back to your senses,” he continued, turning around to motion towards The Unrepentant One as the noises came to a close.

“Thanks,” The Unrepentant One replied, his voice dry with - I sunk my fangs into his [Little Guardian’s Totem], having finally been pressed against his flesh - a familiar mixture of emotions. They were still doing the same thing as before, I realized; noises and gestures at odds with what they really felt, not quite false but something else. It seemed to lift the others’ spirits, whatever it was.

“Maybe I should practice a bit beforehand, just in case,” The Unrepentant One continued, hefting his large claw of ore-flesh for some reason. “Wanna be my volunteer, little man?”

“Actually,” Will interjected, looking down as he tied a thick length of interwoven threads around his waist, “that’s not a bad idea. Go break a few of the walls, give the mist some more gaps to seep out. It’s probably pretty dense in there. Maybe we can weaken it a bit by thinning it out.”

The Unrepentant One grunted, turning away from the other Coreless and walking towards the far edge of the nest. His claw of ore-flesh came down again and again, damaging the walls of the nest with every strike.

Mist poured from the damaged walls in thin strands like grasping fingers, fruitlessly reaching for the attacking Coreless. The fingers almost seemed to twitch and twirl as they died, falling limp and lifeless.

The walls shattered further with each hack and slash, bleeding torrents of vibrant green.

By the time The Unrepentant One stepped back, the spore-mist within the nest was noticeably lighter, bits and pieces of its mass bled off with every new opening created. Will yanked at the threads around his waist one more time, securing them around himself, and handed the free end to my other Coreless.

“I’d say that we’ve done all that we really can,” he said, the noises muffled by the strips of skin that covered his face. “Give me one minute in there. I probably won’t be able to hold my breath for much longer than that, especially not if I get attacked by something before I can find and destroy whatever’s releasing those spores. The Little Guardian’s Statue probably won’t be able to completely keep up while I’m in the mist itself, so...if I don’t walk out on my own, do what you can to pull me out and get me healed up.”

He paused. “Try not to bang me against any walls if that happens.”

With that, Will turned and stepped towards the shattered moving-wall, hesitating for only a brief moment before walking into the mists. It swirled behind him, roiling in his wake, and he disappeared.

The thick length of thread slowly unraveled, following him in.

I watched him go, the-female-who-was-not-Needle’s hand surprisingly tight around my coiled scale-flesh.