Bondsfungi: Chapters 27-28 (The Weirkey Chronicles) (Patreon)

Runcible Technician hasn't stopped with the fanart renders! More Fiyu and Nauda this time. ^-^

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Chapter 27

The rain hammering into the earth didn't seem to impede the bugs in the slightest, which meant its only effect was to make Nauda miserable. She'd finally managed to escape the majority of them after days of running, with numerous cuts and bites for her efforts. But since the pulsing heart within her heartoak prevented her from bleeding much, they seemed to have trouble tracking her.

Now she hid within a tiny little recess, plenty damp but at least out of the rain. She'd have looked somewhere else, if she didn't think this was the best resting place she was likely to get. Here she could recover and soulcraft in peace. Her body hurt everywhere, but at least her injuries were healing at an accelerated rate.

Most likely they'd be healing faster if she could contain all the cantae from her heartoak tree, but it just kept growing. Even though she'd built walls up to the second floor of that tower, it stretched beyond them far enough that she was going to need to trim branches to fit it under the roof.

But she'd soulcrafted too much already, so instead Nauda sat and ate some more of the leafpuller goop. She'd grown more fond of it than she'd expected, so it wasn't too bad having little else to eat. If she sat back and watched the rain, she could almost enjoy herself. The view of the world, all its blues and purples cast in muted shades, was beautiful in a way.

"Hi there!" Tythes walked directly in front of that view carrying an umbrella. "Finally found you!"

There were a number of rips and stains on his robes, making it the first time Nauda had ever seen him looking less than immaculately disheveled. His usual rumples and wine stains were clearly calculated, but this spoke of actually lacking control. It might have been a little humanizing, if he didn't also look so utterly pleased with himself.

"Are you shocked by my survival? It's a long story, I don't want to get into it. Actually, wait, you won't understand how amazing I am unless I do, so let me-"

"Just tell me whether they're still chasing you," Nauda said flatly.

Tythes stepped within her little recess, which didn't have much space, but at least he held his umbrella so it shielded both of them to some degree. "Oh, I did more than just escape. Now I have a much clearer picture of the situation here and the exact path to my survival."

"Do you mean our survival?"

"Not everything is about you, Nauda, grow up." Tythes settled into place and put his hands behind his head. "Fortunately, we have a few days of traveling ahead of us before it gets tricky again. I'm going to need your help, and this one will be a bit dangerous, but I'm also much more certain that you'll actually do some good this time."

Nauda frowned but decided to ignore his jibes for the time being. "I have a question first: how did you find me? I thought that I was hiding myself well."

"Oh, I put a tracker on your soulhome when we met before. Can you find it? Here's a hint: I couldn't get through your shielding walls, but that didn't matter."

Irritated, both at herself and him, Nauda stepped into her soulhome. She retreated through her outer gate to the further reaches of her soul, struggling against the pressure. It didn't take her long to find it: there was a picture of Tythes's face in bright red paint.

By this point, Nauda just sighed and went looking for a sublime material to go scrub it off.

Over the next several days, Tythes didn't explain any of his plan, instead sending her walking while he flew around apparently at random. Slower and more cautiously than before, she noted. He was strong, but whether due to his soulhome damage, his apathy, or something else, he wasn't so overwhelming that he could shrug off opponents at his own tier.

Just when her annoyance was beginning to boil over, that evening Tythes brought back a larger dinner. It contained a surprising number of sublime foods of all types, from meat cooked better than she'd been able to manage herself to dishes filled with fruit to blue rocks that tasted surprisingly sweet when licked. He didn't explain any of it, just sat across from her.

"Have you decided what you want to do with those gloves?" he asked. Nauda searched for a sarcastic reading before she decided she should take his sincerity while it was being offered.

"I have so much to rebuild, I hadn't really thought about them." Nauda pulled the gloves from her soulhome and set them down on the table away from the food. "You said you'd help me."

"I can do one of two things for you. I could interweave these with a material that would strengthen them for a specific type of technique. But my recommendation would be something different: wear one glove in real life and place the other permanently in your soulhome."

The concept of armaments paralleling interior and exterior was a common one, so Nauda voiced the obvious concern: "Won't they be opposite hands?"

"I can fix that. What I can't do, and probably can't be done, is to create perfect duplicates of these gloves to place inside your soulhome." Tythes lifted the gloves and tested the material between his fingers. "So it's your choice. You can have a fairly strong armament now that you'll eventually outgrow, or you can have one that will start slower and improve as you ascend."

"Hmm, it seems like you're trying to convince me one of these is better, but it's just so unclear..."

"I'll do either, just decide."

Actually, the latter option appealed to her much more and it was only the fact that Tythes pushed for it that made Nauda hesitate. But after all the decisions she'd made... "Alright, take one of the gloves."

"Excellent! Now, bask in the glory of my sartorial prowess!" Tythes grabbed the right glove, then slipped a bobbin of silver thread from out of his cloak. Despite his flourishes, he then proceeded to sew the new thread into the fabric in a surprisingly ordinary way.

"Is that thread from the Chasm too?" Nauda asked. "Just how much did you get from that vault?"

"Not as much as I'd hoped. It's an edge, but sadly not an overwhelming one."

"It seemed overwhelming enough before, when you used an armament and pulled an Authority out of the sky. That wasn't another Scepter of Separation, was it?"

"Oh, not at all." Tythes briefly glanced up from his work to grin at her. "It would be highly amusing to answer your question by using it on you right now, but sadly you're one of the few people the armament would have zero effect on. But against higher tier soulcrafters with more power than training... well, let's just say that it's effective."

That wasn't really an answer, but Nauda was accustomed to it, so she moved on. "All of this just to do... what? To become the Head of House Crimson?"

Unlike usual, Tythes was silent for a time before answering. "My father isn't just the head of House Crimson, and he doesn't want his family to be merely a House." After saying that, Tythes drew the glove into his soulhome and dissolved into a golden haze.

Left alone at the table, Nauda ate in silence and considered his words. It was possible that he'd displayed a moment of honesty, but she thought it was also likely that he was trying to manipulate her. His methods were nothing like the fawning adoration of Tatian, instead making her dislike him while trying to slowly convince her to cooperate. Giving her gloves, which would likely be a true gift, was only another step in that plan.

She couldn't see anything of what Tythes was doing in his soulhome, so she slipped into hers and considered her plan for the gloves. So far she had built her staff tower up to the second floor, including the ceiling, but hadn't yet decided how she was going to divide it. She had begun working on supplementary materials for her binding technique and her wards, but there might be space for a third. Her binding was already associated with her staff, so potentially the glove could be associated with wards...

Nauda shook her head as he realized there was only one real choice. Her nullstone sat in the pile of materials that she had yet to reintegrate, and she'd never explored her nullification technique to its fullest potential. Wards needed to be placed onto a surface to be effective, thus making them less appropriate for something she wore, but she could easily imagine a nullification glove.

She was figuring out the details of how to arrange her rooms when Tythes abruptly returned. He triumphantly held up the glove, so she joined him to examine it. Somehow he'd reversed it perfectly: she was holding two left-handed gloves. Of course he hadn't asked her which hand she preferred, but left was fine with her.

"Now, this is payment for your misery of the past days," Tythes said. "Which means my account is clear to run up a new misery tab! Get ready!"

Despite his enthusiasm, it was a few more days until he demanded anything of her. Nauda placed the parallel glove in her soulhome with the nullstone resting on top, and it created an immediate powerful resonance, but she didn't integrate it with her soulhome. She wanted to talk to Theo again before she sealed in any design decisions in her staff tower.

Instead, she focused on the heartoak tower. Instead of hacking off branches, she decided to fully embrace the idea of a multi-floor chamber. She used the remainder of her bricks to build her life tower to the limits of her soulhome and finally seal it off. The heartoak would soon grow to its full height and then hopefully spread out just enough to fill the chamber. She'd added narrow walkways between levels, but didn't intend to fill them with anything. Instead, she could use the heartoak as a spine onto which she could graft other materials, like the pulsating heart.

"Nauda! It's time for you to embrace your inner thieving nature!" Tythes grabbed her while she was still soulcrafting and shook her by the shoulders. "Did you finish the glove? It doesn't matter, because it's time to throw yourself into a war zone fill with brutal, merciless insects. Come on, it'll be fun!"

"You've developed the next stage of your plan?" Nauda pulled her supplies back into her soulhome and followed him as he began striding across the landscape.

"As you saw, we are no longer on good terms with the Blue-Red-Blue colony. Probably because you were an insufficient gift and definitely not due to any error on my part. But the second colony in the region is called Gray-Blue-Gold, and honestly they may be the better option. If we strike today, we can get into their good graces."

"And this involves a merciless war zone?"

"You see, the two colonies are currently in a temporary ceasefire. But Queen Ahyona of Blue-Red-Blue has recently gained an edge, and she intends to use it to defeat her rival. Queen Yeshir of Gray-Blue-Gold is outnumbered, with only one long term hope: her mother left behind another queen egg when she died. She was attempting to take it to a safer location when Queen Ahyona caught up and stole it. We now have a short time to take it back and gain her favor."

"Just how did you learn about all this?"

"I am the beetle whisperer!" Tythes threw up his hands, since there was no stopping him now. "The problem is, I'm too visible to reach the egg - all their defenses are checking for enemy Authorities. I'm going to create a distraction while you slip in, grab the egg, and escape."

"Wait, isn't the group with the egg going to be powerful?" Nauda stopped walking, looking over the horizon for the fighting, only for Tythes to grab the back of her dress and carry her on.

"It definitely will be, and I won't be able to distract them all. That's why I've prepared a pair of defenses for you." Tythes dropped the carved sphere and she nearly missed catching it. "Just hold it. You should be invisible to them until you get close, then they'll have trouble seeing you."

Nauda felt the power radiating from the sphere and looked up in surprise. "Thank you, Tythes. This will-"

"And this!" Tythes pulled a bucket from his soulhome and dumped absolutely foul smelling liquid over her head. While Nauda spluttered and tried to wipe it away, he tossed the bucket over his shoulder and went on. "I believe this will mark you with the special scent the insects use. Don't count on it alone - in fact, once they discover the deception, it may make them angry. Just run in, grab the egg, then run straight south. Don't worry about me, just get to a place where you can hide."

"But I was going to stay and weep for the nobility of your sacrifice."

"A rational response, no doubt, but there's no time. Let me tell you what to expect."

Despite his tone, Tythes did inform her of the exact location and distribution of her target in full military detail. It seemed like the Blue-Red-Blue colony had the egg within their territory, but was taking it to a safer location. Her only hope was getting far enough south that she was in contested territory, where she could hide until Tythes returned.

It was all a bit much for her, but Nauda pulled on her glove and prepared herself.

Before they spotted the caravan, they reached a region with considerably more hives. Long lines of fanged bugs traveled south, apparently not noticing them. Tythes eventually dropped her off with a wave, then hurtled in the opposite direction. Not long after, things began exploding along the horizon.

Nauda ran south, looking for the caravan. It didn't take long: unlike the ordinary lines of bugs, this one was a compact group surrounding a golden beetle. A silk platform balanced on its back, containing several humanoid warriors along with a number of items in the very center. Those had to be the eggs, and allegedly the queen egg was pearly white whereas the others were more translucent.

There were quite a few bugs around it, though, and many of them looked strong. Nauda crept closer as long as she could, trusting the stone to protect her, but it could only last so long. One of the humanoid bugs let out a cry and she sprinted toward them.

Several of the smaller ones closed on her, but Nauda leapt over their heads. While in midair, one of those on top of the beetle unleashed a burst of green flame. Nauda had no time to think, just instinctively raised her hand... and was surprised when her glove swallowed the majority of the impact.

She passed through the flames and landed on top of the beetle, but was immediately assaulted on all sides by weapons and cantae bolts. Even at her peak, she couldn't fight that many. Nauda retreated off the side of the beetle and turned so that it was at her back. All around her, the slower bugs were beginning to shift toward her, and the strongest already prepared to attack.

"Protect egg! Protect queen!" One of the leaders was shouting the commands over and over again, which made her hesitate, but they'd swarm her in another instant.

Instead of fighting them, Nauda launched herself backward, flipping in the air above the beetle. While she was inverted, she pointed her staff down and grasped the package with her technique. When she continued on and completed her flip, it was torn from its bindings and hurled into the air, to the shock and horror of the assembled bugs.

Sprinting after it, Nauda caught the bundle before the eggs hit the ground. The whole mass was bigger than it had seemed from a distance, as if each egg was as large as her head. She tore off the packaging, hoping that she'd been correct since she wouldn't get another chance.

Fortunately, while most of the eggs were translucent, one of them was a glowing pearl. Nauda set the others on the ground to distract her pursuers, then clutched the queen egg to her stomach and sprinted to the south.

Cries of anger thundered and a swarm began to pursue her.

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Chapter 28

After a day with the city dwellers, Issak was convinced that his first impression had been wrong. Usually his instincts for people were good, but the one called Ivo wasn't nearly as dangerous as he'd seemed. All he did was plan and soulcraft all the time, never hardening himself or training with weapons. Most likely he had a few city tricks up his sleeve, but Issak was no longer worried about them.

He couldn't send any commands to the ambush party, but his old plan would work fine. The instant they had safely taken the strong materials, they would attack and kill Ivo before he got a chance to use any tricks. Then they'd be able to focus on Kathina, likely killing her with significant losses. If only she would listen to reason and join them, because he'd found that she had a warrior's heart. Those still occurred in city dwellers, if rarely.

Worst of all was how Ivo coddled that bug, always listening to its insane chatter and actually letting it touch him. Issak had thought that they'd managed to master this world, but all they'd done was steal a pet. There was nothing for him to learn, which meant every moment he stayed was wasted.

"What are we waiting for?" Issak asked for the third time. He forced the city dweller to meet his gaze and gestured out toward the pit. "I understand waiting until the rain stopped, but why now? They only add more beasts by the day."

"That's because they're preparing the materials," Ivo answered. "Better to let them do the work for us, then take the results."

"Hmph. How long will we end up waiting here?"

"As long as it takes. If you don't want the materials, you can move on without us."

Gritting his teeth, Issak shook his head. If only he had a way to send a message to the others, he might be able to hurry things along. Just then, he grimaced as the bug skittered past him to grab at Ivo's pants leg.

"Ivo-sister, the soldiers are still a bit hungry."

While Ivo thanked her and sent her away, Issak stared at him without bothering to hide his disgust. "You let that vermin call you sister? Not even brother? Do you have no pride as a man?"

In response, Ivo stared at him with the blankest look that Issak had ever seen. It was is if the idea had never once occurred to him and he needed time to think about what had been said. Normally Issak would have brushed it off as city dweller foolishness, but the void in Ivo's eyes almost made him take a step back. That stare suggested that he would much rather spend time with the bug than him.

"She seems to mean well," Ivo said, and the spell was broken. He shrugged weakly and moved away. "Anyway, I'm afraid you'll have to wait until conditions are right to harvest the materials."

Fortunately, Issak didn't need to wait until their cowardice was satisfied. The very next day, the warriors that should have been under his command couldn't wait any longer and attacked the pit themselves. Issak heard their battle cries and rushed closer in time to see a cluster of several of them fighting their way through the line of guards.

Mutiny already, then? He needed to strengthen his control, if they slipped away so quickly. But as more and more of the guard bugs moved away to fight them, Issak realized that this might work in his favor.

"Come on," he said, "let's take the materials now! When are we going to get a better chance?"

"Perhaps we should." Kathina appeared beside him, drawing her swords from her soulhome. "This attack might completely ruin the timing, so we should take what we can."

Then it was finally happening. Issak got his cantae ready but nodded to the other two, offering to let them go first and thus putting him behind them. Rebkha stayed even further back, readying her sword and watching the little bug as it trailed after Ivo. Good, she could kill it when the battle turned.

First, however, they sprinted toward the pit they had been staring at for so long. A few remaining bugs turned on them, but before Issak could even prepare a single bolt, the bugs flew into the air. Some kind of cantae trick from Ivo, and it did clear the way for them to run underneath, but Issak was not impressed. All of the bugs thrashing in the air were clearly unharmed, making it a gimmick without any real power.

The sides of the mud pit were surprisingly slick and Issak nearly lost his footing before he created a spike of cantae and slammed it into the mud. Stepping on that, he was able to join the others in searching for the odd red plates that the bugs had been collecting. He noticed that Ivo floated to avoid getting his shoes muddy, which was a sad imitation of the fourth stage of power.

When Issak reached one of the partially buried plates, he carefully pried it out with one hand. Heavier than he'd expected. It was roughly triangular with an odd curve to it, almost like a scale but harder. Not bad, strong enough to take one or two into his soul fortress. Definitely not worth all the waiting, though, so Issak gestured toward his raiders on the opposite side.

Some of them ignored him, but others leapt across to attack as the ambush began.

Ivo flicked a finger and his raiders leaping into the air plummeted. Issak wasn't sure exactly what happened, but they struck the slope and tumbled down, taking bugs with them. Some of the bugs had already been falling down the slope into the hole and he wondered that it hadn't been filled up. Could the strongest materials be at the bottom? Given all the cantae around, he couldn't be sure, but he felt a powerful source.

Another gimmick, even if it was an effective one. Issak had seen city soulcrafters like that before, dangerous at a distance but crumpling at the slightest blow. Checking that Kathina was busy on the other side of the pit, Issak drew up a lance of power, preparing to throw it at Ivo's back.

Without warning the infernal bug leapt at him, making no sound but thrusting all four spears wildly. Issak hurled the half-formed spear but the thing skittered away too quickly. Her attack was infuriating, four limbs allowing her to thrust over and over again and even forcing him back a step.

Issak grabbed at one of the spears, easily snapping off the head, but the next thrusts struck his arm. Even through all his cantae reinforcement, they pierced his skin and he had to draw back. Fine, if the bug was going to get in his way, he could crush it immediately. A quick blast smashed her into the mud, then he gathered a sphere of cantae that would finish her off.

Behind the bug, Issak saw Ivo turn back to him. And flinched. That look of pure evil was back, but there was no surprise at all. Ivo began to raise a hand in his direction and Issak hastily prepared another attack.

Then a roar shook the pit. Issak was deafened by the sound and abruptly realized that it had been more than a roar: all of the mud was shuddering, sloughing down into the pit at the bottom.

Before he could react, Rebkha grabbed his arm and leapt. He wanted to scream at her for cowardice, but as she leapt out of the pit, he saw the beast emerge. A terrifyingly huge bug with a face like a demon, covered in blood red plates just like the one he'd found. It erupted from the hole at the bottom of the pit and slammed into one side, its maw consuming bug and warrior alike.

When they landed outside the pit, Rebkha looked back and faltered when she saw the beast. It swung wildly, taking another bite in their direction. It might have slammed into them if Kathina hadn't swept in, both blades cutting through its side and sending scales in every direction. 

That gave Issak enough time to pull Rebkha to a safer distance and shout at all his warriors, suddenly grateful that most of them had stayed outside the pit. As soon as he got their attention, he gestured for them to come.

"You fools ruined my plan! Let's go, let the city dwellers get themselves killed!"

The warriors included many brave men and women, but one look at the monstrous bug sent them following him. It had crawled almost to the top of the pit now, its legs strangely short, as if they weren't meant for such movements. Issak didn't care, he just wanted to get away before it began its true rampage.

He didn't look back at first as they got to safety. Instead he shouted at all the warriors, reinforcing his leadership and trying to brush past the fact that they were running away. Not that any of them would believe they could fight a monster like that. He'd almost convinced himself when he felt an ominous pulse behind him.

Issak looked back and stared. The monstrous bug floated in the air above the pit, suspended upside-down, but that was barely worth his notice. Where its head should have been floated a sphere of darkness so black he thought his eyes must have been tricking him. Around that sphere spun scales, corpses, bugs, and rocks, all of them slowly falling into the darkness and vanishing without a trace.

Floating on the other side of the chaos, Ivo had his hands raised. Issak could have sworn that he looked directly at him at that moment.

"Faster, you idiots!" Issak turned away and struck at the warriors who were faltering or looking back. "We're done with this wasteland, there's a better kingdom for us to conquer to the south!"

"But..." One of the others panted for breath, but still managed to object. "What about the strong materials?"

"I already have enough for me, and if you obey I might share a few! Come on, faster! Now that we've gotten through here, it will only get easier!"

Yelling at the top of his lungs, he almost convinced himself. But Issak never looked back again.

~ ~ ~

Once the myrm was dead, Theo released the singularity. Kathina had been ready for it according to their plans, so she was safe, but nearly all of the insects in the pit had been drawn inside. Krikree... she had been knocked down and he'd needed to use a gravitational field to keep her from falling in. As soon as Kathina took control of the myrm's body, he moved to find her.

"Krikree help?" She sprang up as soon as he released the field, a bit battered and missing two of her spears but otherwise intact. "Allies bad!"

"We suspected, but we weren't sure." Theo flew them both out with a reversed field and Krikree clung to his side.

"Ivo-sister knew? Double-cross gambit?"

He blinked to hear that word coming from her, but it hadn't felt like a clumsy soul translation. The local language might be blunt in some ways, but he needed to remember that their methods of communication were sophisticated in the fields that mattered to them. Apparently Slescan insects had a concept of double-crossing, which was a bit ominous now that he thought about it.

Of course, all the barbarian soulcrafters had fled. There had been a lot more of them than he expected even in his worst projection, and Theo had only fed a few of them to the myrm. It was probably just as well that Issak had triggered everything early, because an ambush from all of them might have been worse. Given their lack of defenses against gravity, Theo wasn't terribly worried for himself, but Krikree was quite fragile.

An unfortunate percentage of the myrm's body had been consumed by his singularity, including all the head and part of the thorax. There hadn't been much choice, given how it had shrugged off most other wounds and even repelled some cantae. It was definitely a formidable sublime beast, and he understood why the local colonies would farm them so carefully.

"Are the important parts left?" Kathina asked. She stood between them and the corpse, still holding her bloody swords. "We didn't wait so long for nothing, did we?"

"Sublime materials inside," Krikree said as she skittered closer. "Krikree help!"

They took the myrm apart as quickly as possible, since the Blue-Red-Blue colony was sure to investigate the disaster soon. The unbelievable part was that this was just an adolescent myrm, forming a pit to eat any insects that fell inside until it could gain enough strength to molt. Their ancestors must have ruled Slest, before Slescan species with intelligence developed soulcrafting and began controlling their life cycles.

If they had waited until the myrm emerged on its own, in theory the sublime materials would have reached their full potential. Still, if it had been drawn out by a few more bodies sliding into its pit, it must have been close enough. They certainly harvested a bounty of scales, bones, and other sublime materials. Krikree collected many of them while repeating "Good" to herself, and Kathina seemed to believe that certain bones would be useful for strength soulhomes. The creature had many spines coated in a poison that he couldn't think of a use for, but saved in case it was valuable.

There was no skull for Nauda, given that it had been consumed by his singularity. Theo hoped that it hadn't been an important material.

Theo noticed that Kathina had stopped working on the body to stare southward. He joined her, extending his senses in case the barbarians were returning, but she immediately shook her head.

"No, I don't think they're coming back. With any luck they'll die in a more chaotic region."

"Not likely," Theo said. "They have some actually strong soulcrafters in the group, and they're reasonably organized."

"Despite their mediocre attempt at an ambush." She turned back to him and shook her head. "Never mind. We obviously need to leave this area, but where to next?"

"East, I suppose. There will be more Slescans coming from the north, the areas the barbarians go will become dangerous, and there's no point retracing our steps."

"Works for me. I'll start loading everything up."

Since Krikree seemed to have the dismantling of the myrm well in hand, Theo floated back into the pit. It had been severely damaged in the battle, but now that the myrm had emerged, the hole in the bottom was no longer a death trap. Theo descended into it, cautious just in case there were other larvae, but found only a dim cavern, not much bigger than the beast itself.

If he understood Krikree's explanation, the larva had been placed there by either adult myrms or Slescans. When Theo investigated more carefully, he found a small nest area at the center, bound by a ridge of sublime stone. It was a rather weak material, likely just designed to shelter the egg, so the cantae that was distracting him must be coming from somewhere else.

Several cantae bolts were enough to tear through the stone, and Theo eventually spotted it: a piece of ivory that had been carved into the shape of an egg. It put off decent cantae, but there was something else about it... when Theo experimented, he found that it could pass through stone easily. Curious. Since there was nothing else of use below, he ascended to meet up with the others.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked Krikree. She immediately sat back to report.

"Tunnelegg. Valuable material, not for soldier caste. Can create tunnels in stone. Can link places without moving between them."

"I see." Theo chuckled as he realized that it was the perfect sublime material at the worst possible time. It would be an excellent cap to his column for creating a wormhole, but that was one of the rooms he hadn't completed yet. Even if he'd built the walls, he couldn't afford to test something as tricky as wormholes in a dangerous world. For the time being, he'd just keep it in his storage room.

"Krikree soulcraft." She dissolved into a haze of green mist and Theo realized that it was the first time he'd seen her touch her soulhome.

She had no shielding wall and her technique was basic, so it was incredibly easy to look directly into her soul. Before he examined her construction, he noticed that she hadn't taken a single one of the sublime materials she'd gathered. Instead, she appeared to be busy repairing damage from the battle with very simple sublime mud.

As for her soulhome itself, it was a mound of half-spheres made of sublime mud, similar to many of the hives on Slest. Unlike those, hers included several chitinous shells for extra reinforcement. That let her build her second floor atop them, but as he looked over the soulhome, he had to wonder if it was structurally sound.

A dome was an inherently stable shape, but he was skeptical that some of them could stand, given all the odd angles and openings. He looked even closer in idle curiosity and noticed that there was something strange about all the points he thought would be weakest. Instead of simply being mud fused together, there were odd green flowers growing. Their roots dug into the mud, binding it together... and suddenly Theo had his solution.

When he'd been deciding where to place his grizzleroot, he'd been thinking about the empty spaces in his soulhome, but that was limiting. His walls would only be weakened by adding plant materials, and he didn't want to mar his perfect outer surface.

But those weren't his only options. His structure of nine rooms meant that he had four extra large pillars in the center. They used up some of his floor space, but he'd considered that an acceptable sacrifice to make his blueprint stable. Now that he looked at them again, he began calculating how easily he could grow the grizzleroot through them. It couldn't penetrate the glassy surfaces, but the interior of stone could easily be reinforced with a living sublime material running through it.

He finally knew where the grizzleroot would go, if he could just get it to grow. Despite everything that had happened, Theo set about soulcrafting cheerfully.