The Third Gate: Chapter Fifty-Three (Patreon)

Like I said in my minor update / chapter post, with the temporary break on Effaced chapters, I'm going to be doing four Mana Mirror chapters a week. So here's this week's fourth chapter! No vote, but that should return soon. I'm still getting a hang of four a week vs three in terms of pacing, so apologies if it's a bit clunky!
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The old mushroom man led me to a boggy bit of ground a short ways away from the village, then began waving his hands about. It took several long moments, but the bog slowly shimmered and collapsed away, revealing an old set of stone stairs leading beneath the earth. I was struck with a sense of deja vu – the coblynnau had done the same thing to hide their vault of goodies.

I stooped low and headed down the stairs they’d exposed until I found myself in a large, partially crumbling stone room. It was poorly lit, with the only source of light being clusters of glowing mushrooms gathered in assorted spots along the walls. 

My vampiric senses picked up some of the slack, though, and I was able to pick out three pixie rings, circular mushroom growths. The mushrooms in the ring were a deep indigo color, and shed a soft sense of abnegation and physical mana mixed in with the life and death. Within each ring was a war root. Unlike the rather animated one that I’d fought once before, these were entirely still. I gently extended my mana-senses to them one at a time, feeling them out.

The war root I’d fought had been fourth gate, but an incredibly weak fourth gate, like a human who’d never bothered to dig out any of their steps. These three were all roughly the same in power. A bit lower, actually, presumably since the other had begun moving and feeding to restore itself, while these had remained trapped. 

Despite their relative weakness and stillness, the hair on the back of my neck prickled, because they were waiting. It was like watching a venus fly trap, sitting there, ready to snap shut at any moment. 

“The mushrooms ringing them are called blue barrier milkcaps,” the old fungal man said. “Not too useful in combat, but they’re quite strong for containment. They project a dome, trapping things within, but the barrier breaks if anything more than normal wind or water passes through it from this side.” 

“I can absolutely think of combat uses for that,” I said. 

“Well, it takes a good bit of time and energy for the barrier to reform after it breaks,” he responded. “Even feeding it with Enhance Fungi to meet the energy requirements, it still takes us about ten minutes for the dome to be fully solidified. And like any barrier, sufficient power can still crack it.” 

“Hmm. Yeah, that could be a bit of a problem,” I admitted. “Still, do you mind if I take a sample? It would be a good way to contain someone if I beat them, at least until I could get them to a proper prison cell.” 

“By all means,” the old man said. “As this place has crumbled, though, we’ve begun to worry about a stone falling from the ceiling and breaking it, then a root killing us all.” 

I flexed my good arm and began to cycle Mantle Dragonfyre. 

“I do feel kind of bad for killing them,” I said. 

“They’re distinctly non-sapient. They don’t even feel pain, not really,” the old fungal leader said. “Think of it more like plucking a weed from a garden, or shutting off the magical core within a skeleton.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know. It’s like killing a sleeping bear,” I said, then sighed. “Ah, well. I might not feel great, but I don’t feel so bad that I’m going to risk everyone’s lives by letting them free to kill them in a fight. They’re a deadly weed, not a person.” 

With the improved ability to cycle the spell thanks to ingraining it, and taking each cycle very slowly, I managed five cycles, then thrust my hand out. Brown and red magic thundered from my fingers, snapping the barrier like a twig, burning through the mobile plant monster and destroying the twisting nest of energetic knots that served to animate the thrashing vines. 

I turned and began cycling a second breath attack, and then a third. When I finished, I looked at the old fungal folk, who was staring at me. 

“What?” I asked self consciously. 

“You just… Blew them apart. I… I expected that they’d survive, albeit weakened, and you’d need to subdue them with more offensive magic.” 

I shrugged awkwardly, not sure entirely how to respond to that, so I changed the topic. 

“So, should I go hunt down some of the animation-shrooms?” I offered while moving over to the milkcap mushrooms and gently scooping several of them out, then tucking them away into Dusk, before moving to the next one and continuing.

“Ah. Yes! Yes, indeed. And if you don’t mind… here, let’s go up.” 

He led us back out from underground and to Kene, who appeared to be in an intense argument about the difference between a large shrub and a small tree with one of the fungal folk. When I coughed and both looked over, Kene raised an eyebrow. 

“Done already? And no injuries?”

“I mean… Blasting a bunch of war roots trapped in place wasn’t exactly the hardest task,” I said. “Yeah, I’m done. Hopefully, the animation-shrooms should provide more of a challenge.” 

Kene eyed me. 

“I mean. Hopefully the animation-shrooms will die very fast and easily and I won’t need to fight at all.” 

“Alright, let’s go clean those up,” they said, and the older fungal folk interjected. 

“If you two don’t mind too much, could I give you a divination with the location of the other contained threats?” he asked. “If you can clear them out as easily as that, you could do a lot of good. Not all of the animation-shrooms have broken containment, nor have all of the other threats.” 

“Is one of them an abyssal shambler?” I asked excitedly. 

“No, those are natural predators. Sadly.” 

“Curses. Well, I’m still down to help,” I said, then glanced at Kene. “How about you?” 

“Of course,” they said. “I actually have two spells built for purging infections, which includes fungal infections. I can probably use it against some of the animation-shrooms?”

That sent a bit of muttering through the crowd of fungal folk, but their leader nodded. 

“Indeed. Well, come here then.” 

He held out a tiny hand, and pressed it to each of our foreheads. I felt a spell meant to divine the location of fungi enter my mind, reminding me somewhat of Aerde’s own complex divinations, and of Kene’s ability to use life mana to divine the location of specific plants. This spell was tuned to look for specifically animation-shrooms and the specific contaminants that held other threats the fungal folk had contained long ago. 

“We’ll stay here and work on moving into your miracle-spirit,” the leader told me, “Just come back when you can?” 

“Of course,” I agreed, then started planning. 

Based on the slow drain of the power pushed into me, I thought the spells might last for an hour, hour and a half tops, which meant we were probably best incentivised to track down the escaped threats while we could…

“We should track down the escaped threats,” Kene said. I laughed, and we set off. 

Before long, we’d established a good rhythm. Each time we got close to an animation-fungi, I started to cycle a dragon’s breath, while Kene prepared his cleansing spells. The moment that the reanimated beast appeared, I blasted it, Kene wiped out the spores, and then if it was still standing, let their power run through the body to burn away the mycelium that animated them. Siobhan would then bark at the creature, releasing a wave of her magic to release any beast spirits that had gotten stuck in the area.

By the time twenty minutes had gone by, we’d cleaned up most of the ones in the divination, save for a small cluster of them a little ways deeper into the forest.

“This feels… Too easy,” Kene said with a frown. “We’ve both gotten a lot stronger, I don’t deny that, but this is just too easy.” 

“It is a little strange,” I said, my spell lancing through the nest of connected fungi. “There aren’t even that many of them.”

“To the big one, then?” 

“Let’s collect a sample of this, in case I wind up needing it, then move on to the big one.” 

As we began moving towards the cluster of fungi at the center, I cast my mana senses out around me, seeking the power of the quasi-reanimated beings, before I eventually locked onto two powerful presences. Each one was mid-third gate, but felt starved of power, leaving them in a strange state with potent power, but a limited amount to draw upon. But there was something… off. Slippery. 

I pushed some power through Sky Dragon’s Senses, but nothing stood out to me. Weird. 

As we approached, the birds and bugs grew silent, apparently having learned to avoid this spot and starve out the infection. I cracked my neck, started cycling Mantle Dragonfyre, and stepped forwards through the wall of trees and into the clearing. 

The moment I did, there was a blur of motion as the animation-fungi rushed at me. I foxstepped across the clearing, then fought to wrestle down my spirit while observing the scene. 

The first of the three looked like it had taken over the skeleton of a bear, and it had grown thick, broad plating of oyster mushrooms overlaying giant puffballs. The second looked more like a lithe forest cat, perhaps a panther, with long, thin veins that reminded me of enoki mushrooms. And the final looked to be a wolf, somewhat thicker than the cat, but more agile than the bear, made of what looked like penny bun mushrooms. 

As I forced my mana back under control, I thought about how nice it was that they had such distinct shapes. It would have been annoying to have to mentally mark them as something like bear, cat one, and cat two. 

The cat skeleton-fungal-zombie was the first to turn and launch itself right at me, and I raised my hand, releasing a thundering wave of brown and red fire at it. It leapt to the side and my beam left a long gouge on the forest floor. 

It leapt through the air, moving with impressive speed, teeth glinting in the air. The wolf and bear had both turned around as well, and the wolf was halfway to my position. 

I flared Tortoise Time around me, dropping into a fighting stance and dodging under the cat’s bite. I released the spell then as I cast Enhance Forging and let Briarthreads erupt around me. 

The wolf was on me then, and with the cat’s agility, it had managed to flip its leap in mid–air and launch itself back at me the moment after it landed. I spun my Briarthreads, knocking it out of the air, then punched the wolf in the nose with the one good hand. Both were thrown back, and I ducked into a crouch, letting a swipe of the bear’s claws go over my head, so I pulled a small vial into my hand, then teleported away. 

My spirit rebelled again, but I didn’t need it for this. I threw the vial, which struck the ground where all three were clustered together to try and kill me. There was an earth-shattering boom as a fireball engulfed all three of them, the wave of heat rushing over me even from fifty feet away. 

As the flames faded, and I wrestled down the spiritual rebellion, I was left looking at just the bear. The cat had been reduced to ash, and the wolf was little more than bones and spores. At least until three of Kene’s animated orbs shot over in a triangle and released a wave of amber light, leaving it as nothing but bones.

The bear took a step back, and I raised my hand and squeezed out a quick dragon’s breath attack. It only cycled a single time, so it was weak, but it still took out one of the bear’s legs. 

As it slammed into the ground, the fungus began to writhe and shift, and. The earth beneath my feet erupted, thick strands of mycelium wrapping around my arms and twining around my legs, 

I was suddenly reminded of a critical fact. 

Mushrooms, and many of the fungi, aren’t the bodies that are visible to the naked eye. Those are just the fruiting bodies, like the fruit on a tree. The actual mushroom is the mycelial network beneath the ground, which can span over literal miles. 

And these three hadn’t had any of those networks in their bodies. I’d noted it myself – each looked like mushrooms, not mycelium.