THE ASTRALACEAES COMBATALIS: Chapter 1

“Haledon.” The voice whispered through the darkness. “Haledon, look.”

With a turn of his stiff neck, Haledon slowly crept his vision over his shoulder. From darkness to darkness, his world remained the same.

“Haledon.” The voice whispered once more. “Do you see it, Haledon?”

He strained his eyes, searching through the abyss for something, anything.

“No,” Haledon tried to speak, but his voice erupted, buzzing like a cloud of bees. He attempted to close his lips to no avail as the bees spewed forth a torrent of static buzzing.

“There.” The whispering voice spoke directly into the back of Haledon’s mind.

A point in space began to push through the darkness. The bead of light swelled, banishing the abyss before withdrawing into a dimly glowing amber seed. The exterior cracked as fractals danced over the thin shell and petals emerged from within. Like a flower blossoming in the morning light, the blazing florets erupted from its tempestuous capitula.

The bees shot forth from Haledon’s mouth and into the flower with an agitated hum. And as they splashed against the liquid fire at the flower’s heart, the noise began to fade. The gravity suddenly shifted, and Haledon felt himself falling toward the flower. Nothing could pull him from his plummet, no matter how hard he fought the sensation. And as his face neared the capitula, he felt a sense of readiness for his end in the final moments.

Haledon awoke with a start, his body instinctively flinching in response to his dream. The thin mycelial threads connecting him to his leafy bed quickly responded to the strain, flexing and squeaking before releasing a final nutrient cocktail into his veins. Rolling onto his side, Haledon pushed himself into a sitting position. A gentle ripping sensation rushed over his body as the mycelium tore away and retreated into the bed until it was needed again.

Giving his naked body a quick inspection, Haledon gently palmed at the place where his hip flesh had been replaced. He rubbed at the off-coloured organic material reconstructed into the muscle and bone destroyed in the last Mecharrion raid. Touching the surface, he noticed the skin had not yet begun to regrow and felt more akin to the bark of paper birch.

He sat there momentarily, observing his leg and thinking of the other pieces that had been replaced. Since Seed Fall, with the first anniversary having already come and passed, Haledon had found himself in the remediation bed over two dozen times. The worst had laid him out for what felt like a full mensis—a Mecharrion Cycle—when he had lost the better part of his pith. He instinctively rubbed at the half of his bark-protected torso that had been destroyed, thinking back to how both his SOIL and Gazeas’s quick thinking had saved him.

Haledon looked up in time to watch the wall before him restructure into a mycelial arch, giving way to an approaching figure. Standing tall and heavily obscured in foliar armour, Seral Druid Annath entered the room carrying an oversized toadstool pulsing with dull red bioluminescence.

“Oh, Haledon,” She replied with a smile as she slowly approached the bed. “You’re already done. I guess we won’t need this top-up.”

“Annath,” Haledon replied, surprised to see the Druid. “I thought Gazeas was on remediation duty this mensis?”

“She, um, she didn’t show up today,” Annath answered shyly as she looked down at Haledon, her visage flashing a worried look. “She’s…ummm—”

“It’s okay.” He said reassuringly, adjusting his posture to stand. “I’ll check on her, so just leave the fungus with me.”

Birthing himself from the bed, Haledon tapped at his SOIL breastplate. The roots and vines erupted from pale white wood, constricting his limbs and forming their protective layer. Piece by piece, the bark came together, filling with sap and locking into place. As it finished, Haledon gave himself two heavy thuds on the chest plate, listening as a hollow tone echoed from within the armour.

“Thank you, Annath.” Haledon said as he marched over, taking the fungus from her hands and nodded politely before leaving the room without receiving a response.

Haledon stepped through the archway and entered the cold, barren hall. Shaped from the bedrock using mushrooms, the labyrinth of pathways had been grown to resemble a semi-organic maze. The network made it difficult for Mecharrion to infiltrate the Astralaceae’s core while still allowing effortless navigation for the Druids.

Placing a hand on the wall, the Druid reached out to the fungal network. As he did, his mind flooded with information, and in an instant, he knew the movements of everyone and everything across the entire root system. Dozens of bodies milled around select maze areas, some closer to the surface, others deep underground, each performing tasks necessary to maintain the Astralaceae and developing biosphere. On top of this, Haledon also detected a dozen Mecharrion as they moved into the geomagnetic west of the labyrinth.

“Birchbark?” Haledon spoke as he followed the quickest route to Gazeas.

“The Mecharrion are infiltrator generation.” Birchbark’s cooling voice spoke in the Druid’s subconscious. “They are following the route used by Mecharrion from the assault on Mensis-one-dash-two-dash-one. Engaging active defences.”

Haledon felt in his core as the western tunnels came alive and began to shift. The mycelium in the walls groaned in response as stone collapsed, forming a dead end along the route the machines travelled. Feeling the Mecharrion adjust their course in a new direction, the labyrinth responded in kind. Before long, the game of predator and prey ended, and the metallic beasts found themselves trapped in a tunnel of digestive fluids. The Druid relished in the shrill, metallic cries that echoed through the halls as the metal of their bodies corroded and the cavern that had become their tomb began to digest them.

“Haledon,” Birchbark’s voice appeared once more. “I have noticed increased Mecharrion activity this mensis.”

“I have as well,” The Druid muttered as he felt at his hip. “They’re getting bolder.”

“I believe it may be more than that, and I am concerned that they are pushing the limits of our defences.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Initial assaults shortly after seeding were sporadic and ill-considered. In the last two mensibus, the invasions have felt more calculated, just as roots learn to move around the rock before breaking through its core.”

Haledon allowed the thoughts to sink in as Birchbark shared various sensory information from the recent assaults. Stopping in the hallway beyond Gazeas’ den, he quickly processed everything Birchbark had provided.

“I’m not as good at understanding these things as Sparrow and Witch-Hazel. Let’s chat with them after I talk with Gaz.”

“Sublime.” Birchbark chirped. “Would you investigate why Gazeas has chosen to disconnect herself from my nutrient flow? Her ecosystem appears quite erratic, something I can assist her with using appropriate remediation.”

Fighting back thoughts of frustration and disappointment, Haledon nodded in agreement as he touched the fungal mat blocking the way into Gazeas’ room. As he waited for her to respond, the Druid stared at the unresponsive fungi before him. With a willful flex of his fingers, the barrier rippled like the waves of a pebble across a pond. Waiting a moment longer, the mat of white fibres remained unmoved, frozen into place by a nutrient lock.

“Gazeas,” Haledon muttered, his voice targeting the Druid directly. “Gaz, I’m coming in.”

Tracing the runes of an Overbeck jet bleeding into a root fractal, Haledon found his hand sinking into the fungal door. After finding the primary branch of the threshold, he reattached the nutrient streamline to the organics. As the Druid withdrew his hand, waving fingers again before the barrier, the mycelial web fled into an ornate archway.

“Gaz?” Haledon spoke as he entered the dimly lit den.

The den was a structured chaos. Scattered across the floor were leaves tossed from the bed late into the night, not yet decomposed. In the far corner, a small grove grew under the pale purple glow of dangling trumpet-shaped flowers. Nearby basins carved into the wall held decayed fruits and vegetables, with runic notes transcribed on the stone behind them.

A gentle cough from the opposite corner caught Haledon’s attention as leaves stirred.

Touching the nearest wall, Haledon reached out to the Astralaceaes, drawing its nutrients to the den. The flora at the edges of the space responded to the sudden surge, transforming from their once-withered state back to life. The dim glow of the room was banished as a bright light filled the den, revealing Gazeas’ naked body in a dishevelled bed of leaves.

Haledon observed the Druid from afar, her body as still as death, the shallow breath barely able to lift the SOIL breastplate. Gazeas’ body looked withered compared to what it once was, her skin lightly jaundiced and her extremities purpled with bruises. Even as she slept, she looked tense and ready to erupt into action. Still, the bags under her eyes revealed another reality.

“Hey, Gazeas,” Haledon said louder as he approached the bed, where he touched her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake before continuing. “Gaz, hey, wake up.”

Still unable to stir the Druid from her slumber, Haledon took the fungi in hand and gently set it into position on her gooseskin thigh. Touching the most significant bruise he could find, he allowed the fungi to connect and bind itself to her through a thin mycelial webbing.

With a start, Gazeas awoke gasping. Instinctively, her armour bloomed into a vibrant and thorny existence. Whipping her hand at Haledon, her vines lashed out to wrap around his throat. Flicking his hand up in time, the bark of his armour caught the assault. There, as the weapon wrapped around the branch, Haledon felt them constricting tighter before injecting a potent venom into the bark.

“Gaz, enough!” Haledon bellowed as he gripped the vines and looked into her wild eyes. “Gaz, it’s me. Snap out of it.”

“Haledon?” She grumbled groggily as her expression changed and her vines went limp. “I’m sorry, I was…I thought you were a Mecharrion.”

“Is that why you used this?” He asked, still holding firmly onto the plants. “These are dense and lined with what exactly?”

“Copper,” Gazeas muttered. “Mixed with an organic gel so I can transfer a disabling charge.”

“Copper is toxic to us Druids in high quantities, Gaz. You know this!”

Without a moment to spare, Haledon drew a series of runes into Gazeas’s chest, locking his fingers into the bark breastplate. With a surge of energy, he felt the toxic levels of metals transferring into his armour.

“Stop!” Gazeas yelled, trying to halt the transfer. “Those are mine, Haledon!”

“Enough! The metals are killing you, and I can process them. Gaz, there will be other ways to kill Mecharrion.”

“We’re both bound by the same genetic marker, Haledon!” She hissed, reaching up and weakly grabbing at his wrist. “If you can process metals, so can I!”

“We’re different. I worked directly with the Astralaceae nutrient flows. The regular exposure made it easier for me than you to process. Accept my feedback. Small and slow solutions, Gaz. Now, you should visit Annath for a check—”

“I’m fine.”

As the last of copper was drawn from her body into Haledon’s, he released his grip and watched as she swiped her hand away from him. Without a moment to spare, the Druid reached up to her neck and began to rub at a bruise. A moment passed before vines began to crawl out from the spot, reaching down her shoulder and crawling up the side of her face. Taking a deep breath, her body relaxed before weakly standing.

“No,” Haledon replied, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Gaz, rest. Annath has this cycle, take the time you need to—”

But the Druid slapped away Haledon’s hand before turning to him with a pained glare.

“You are not the master of my ecosystem, Haledon. We are both Seral, or have you forgotten?”

“Gaz, I—”

“Hey, rise and shine, buckwheat.” Witch-Hazel’s voice spoke into the back of Haledon’s mind. “Where are you? Our patrol is beginning.”

With a sigh, Haledon looked into Gazeas’s eyes. She met his stare, waiting for him to speak, only to eventually roll her gaze away.

“Go,” She hissed, making her way to the basin of rotting fruit and examining the poisons she had been creating. “Go play Carnyx.”

Tightly closing his eyes, Haledon debated what to say before turning and marching from the room.

“Witch-Hazel, Haledon here, meet me in Root Apple-Persimmon-Damselfly-Three.”