The Cave

The Shaman collapsed backwards into the grass panting desperately to catch his breath from the major spiritual exertion he put himself through. Striking Bear likewise did the same though his exertion was his physical, from the extreme electrocution he suffered at the hands of the Cave Dweller in his first charge. Flake wanted to do the same yet he felt like he couldn't, nobody knew how long the Cave Dweller may be unconscious or even alive from a hit like that. Flake knew this battle would just be a waste if he didn't act now, if he didn't use this opportunity to invade the cave dweller's mind. So Flake slowly and clumsily stumbled towards the cave dweller's unconscious body, both Striking Bear and The Shaman looked at Flake in surprise that he could still move yet neither moved to stop him.

Flake aired on the side of caution, before he was even within striking distance Flake sent forth dense webs of mycelium sprouting from the earth to completely envelope the cave dweller's arms and legs in their entirety, like white furred snakes coiling around his limbs. Flake then approached and knelt down before the cave dweller's head, there he pressed his palm against the cave dweller's head and closed his eyes. There once again the mycelium network of Flake's expanded mind shot forth from his hand and across the cave dweller's face into his eyes and shattered nose in a grizzly invasive process. There the fuzzy white tendrils wormed their way through his skull and into his brain. Connecting their two minds Flake was flooded with a slew of information, the entirety of the Cave Dweller's life. His fireside birth inside a gargantuan cave complex, a weird childhood spent in the dark of said cave, and most grizzly of all, his killing and cannibalization of one of his elders.

That memory specifically seemed the most vivid to Flake. Inside the same colossal cave complex where all that can be heard is the dripping of condensation on rock or small puddles, the crackle of a small fire, and the groans of a dying old man. All that can be seen is from the light of a small fire, beyond cold stone and hot embers is a pile of furs and an emaciated gray haired cave dweller. Another elder walks up to this cave dweller and hands him a hand axe, no words are said for this cave dweller already knows what's expected of him. So with measured steps and shaking hands the cave dweller walks up to and kneels before his dying elder. The cave dweller mutters something under his breath, yet between the dying groans of his catatonic elder and the crackling of the fire before them the words can't be understood. With shaking hands the cave dweller raises the axe high in the air before plunging it deep down into the old man's chest just below his ribs. The elder attempted to reach out to the cave dweller, a minute spark of electricity weakly crackling between his fingers.

Yet the cave dweller kept slicing into his elder as blood shot forth from the wound and began to pool underneath the elder. The elder quickly went into shock from the wound and finally passed out, the only mercy he'd be receiving this day. After the stone hand axe had sliced the elder’s heart the cave dweller pulled the bloody blade back and then made a long cut down the elder’s thigh before removing the muscle in its entirety. With hands still shaky from the initial killing, the cave dweller took the muscle he butchered from his elder and bit into it while it was still raw and warm. The meat was like that of a boar's except for the rippling of energy that came from each shredded and mashed muscle fiber and spread through his body like lightning spread through the wood of a tree. The cave dweller’s body practically exploded with energy as lightning rippled around his arms. This, this was how the cave dwellers gathered so many strange powers, through a never ending loop of cannibalism.

“They eat each other for their powers Flake signalled out in desperate bursts through the natural mycelium network around them to Striking Bear and The Shaman between flashes of information. The both of them look on in horror, though not because of this news about their enemy. Instead their horror stemmed from the cave dweller whose mind was being invaded by Flake. For the force of the mind invasion and memory reading snapped him from his stupor and now all the man could do was scream and struggle in vain between attempts to electrocute the mycelium holding his arms down or trying to bite at Flake's hand that rested on his forehead. Flake hadn't noticed the cave dweller's reaction however as his mind was still being flooded by the cave dweller's memories. Hunts, raids, matings, and everything the cave dweller had done with its life poured into Flake's expanded mind. There he learned one crucial fact, after every raid and hunt the cave dwellers didn't walk into an open cave, they walked through the mountain itself. The opening of their caves were invisible, and only they and now Flake knew where they were and how to enter.

Flake finally pulled his mycelium network out of the cave dweller's brain and nerves, yet he didn't retract his hand. “One of the cave dwellers has strange powers to make the entrance of their cave look like the side of a mountain. That's why you never found them.” Flake signalled to Striking Bear and the Shaman who just nodded and looked at each other in realization. Flake then knelt there and thought of what to do with this cave dweller. This was the man who killed Loving Water by running her own spear through her chest, and he needed to suffer for it. Flake just grinned and wicked toothy grin as sent streams of mycelium that slowly began to coat the entirety of the cave dweller's body. The cave dweller tried to scream only for his mouth to be filled with white webs of my mycelium in turn. Eventually the cave dweller was completely cocooned in mycelium like a fly in a slider’s web. There mycelium of the grasslands around them sprouted forth from the ground and into mycelium cocoon. That's when the silent process of the cave dweller being devoured alive by carnivorous fungi as used to feed the land began.

Flake finally removed his hand and stood up looking at Striking Bear and The Shaman. The Shaman looked at the mycelium cocoon in a wide eyed look of horror, while Striking Bear just chuckled cruelly. “Let's douse the fires and rest, their cave is near and I know how to enter. We need our full strength to take them on. The time for vengeance is soon at hand.” Flake signalled to the both of them before he started walking back to the camp with stiff and exhausted muscles. Striking Bear likewise did the same, following soon after Flake. The Shaman stared in horror at the mycelium execution cocoon for a moment before finally standing up and following as well. It took him a moment but he decided not to mercy kill the cave dweller, this was a moment of great spiritual importance to Flake and he couldn't be an interloper in it.

By the time The Shaman had reached camp Flake and Striking were kicking out the last of the fires. After that the trio would make a new camp in the next valley over without a fire, they didn't want to risk discovery by another scouting cave dweller. Over the next few days it took for everyone to recover. They ate meals of mushrooms, fish, raspberries, and fish speared from the river. After the second night Flake began to experiment, he was able to copy both Striking Bear's and The Shaman's abilities in his own way, he wondered if he could copy the powers of the cave dweller as well. The first thought process was simple, mycelium produces signals just like how the brain does. That's the basis for most of his abilities, it's how he can read minds, communicate, and experience the memories of others. So the natural conclusion was just to use his own mycelium network to concentrate those signals and generate a greater electrical shock that way. Yet after a day of trying to concentrate his thoughts and stimulate his mycelium network into action the only thing he succeeded in was giving himself a full body headache. So Flake returned to the stolen memories of the Cave Dweller, of how that lightning he held felt, not how it felt on his skin, but how it felt in his spirit, how it felt inside his body, how it felt on the very cellular level.

Using that feeling as a reference Flake felt inwards with the aid of his mycelium network he focused on how his brain generated signals on the cellular level, on a level of perception a normal human could never do alone. There Flake saw how nutrients were passed into and alongside the cell, this caused the cells to open and the sudden change inside the cell generates a tiny electrical charge. Using wild yeast and white rot fungi and sugar instead of potassium and sodium along the cell. The two fungi create a charge which generates electricity. The first attempts were nothing but slight internal jolts, not any different from standard brain activity. Yet on the third day after Flake had thought to once again connect to the mycelium network of the grasslands around him. There like he did in the forest so long ago he tricked the various plants of the ecosystem to give him as much of their sugars as they could. With that excess of plant sugar Flake channeled them into fungal constructs sprouted from his hand and he shot force a loud and violently blue spark of electricity that made him jump in surprise. Flake looked at his fungus coated hands in glee, for there was nothing his power couldn't mimic. Sure it wasn't a quarter as powerful as the cave dweller's lightning, yet it would surely be powerful enough to stun momentarily. In the meantime Striking focused on recovering from his shock and The Shaman spent his time painting as elaborate of cave lions as he possibly could on the flat of a large boulder.

The sun fell behind the mountain and stars danced to life before a full moon, all on their third and final night of rest. “My friends, as we have planned, tomorrow we will make our way to the cave of the cave dwellers. The time of vengeance is soon at hand, we will right the spiritual and moral wrongs of their kind. They are responsible for the death of all three of our tribes, yet this tribe of three cannot stand upon rotted roots. If there are any grievances, any changes of plan one wishes to implement, or any last confessions, do say them now my friends. For one or all of us may perish in the hunt for the cave dwellers tomorrow, and unfinished deeds are a blight upon the spirit.” The Shaman signalled to Flake and spoke aloud to Striking Bear at the same time.

“My only words are that I intend to kill them all, they left no survivors of our tribes beyond us, and I intend to leave no survivors of them in turn.” Striking Bear signalled and spoke back in response as he smacked his large bicep with an equally large hand. Flake in turn thought deeply for a moment, in earnest he wanted to tell Striking Bear the truth of his dreams, and his own interference in them. But what if gets angry, what if leaves and returns to that tribe of mountain dwellers, and The Shaman goes with him? Or worse, what if they get so angry they want to fight him instead? Then he'd be killed and the cave dwellers would go free. No, he couldn't tell them, not yet. After the cave dwellers are hunted to the last man, then he'll tell them. If they chose to kill him, then so be it, at least he'll have avenged Loving Water and the old life of the Fungal God. Besides these last few months have been the happiest he's been since that damn storm blew him to this land and away from his family. If he dies then it's a small price to pay to be made a human again.

“All I have to say is that none of you are allowed to die, not until this is done.” Flake signalled in return which got a laugh from both Striking Bear and The Shaman. “Well I have no intention of going in that cave and clawing my own heart out in front of them.” Striking Bear signalled as he laughed. “Like, neither of us have any intention of dying yet fate is ours to decide.” The Shaman signalled as he stifled a chuckle of his own. After the laughter everyone just sat and enjoyed the sounds of the night for a moment before they went about to their own sleeping areas. Flake meanwhile climbed a tree and stared at the moon, his thoughts dwelling upon old memories of his family and homeland, his journey at sea, and the tribe that kindly took him in. He felt like a monster for how he manipulated Striking Bear into helping him, and for once that internal voice never telling him otherwise didn't appear. Maybe it's because Flake knew what's done is done already, he can't change the past, he can only right the future.

The next morning the Tribe of the Three gathered and ate the last of their berries and mushrooms before following Flake's lead into the mountains where he followed the routes laid out in memories that weren't his own. Up grassy hills and down stony dells, through the shadow of the valley, and up the mountain in the light of the high noon sun. Before them it lay, what to anyone and everyone appears to be nothing more than the side of the mountain. It doesn't stick out, it doesn't cave in, it has no uncanny qualities, it simply is the side of the mountain with its rocks, grass, and even bugs all in the right order. Yet it lined up exactly with the cave dweller's memories of false entrance to his people’s cave. The Shaman just stood back, his two elaborately painted lion constructs at his side and Striking Bear in his bear form just scratched his head with a massive paw.

Flake in his usual humanoid form stepped forward and onto the side of this slope. Flake panicked for a moment, surely the memories didn't lie to him. Flake paced up and down the slope as he replayed the cave dweller's memories inside his mind. He didn't understand, the Cave Dweller could walk through the very spot he was standing with ease. In fact he's walked right through it hundreds of times. Could there be more to the strange power than what Flake assumed? Could it be some sort of mystic species barrier? Flake panicked more as he stepped down from the mountain, clutching at his spear out of frustration as he played the memories over and over again in his mind. Only by luck, or perhaps fate did the panicking Flake finally notice that in the cave dweller's memories he didn't simply step onto the precipice of the slope, he shuffled his feet in, every single time. Flake then stepped down from the slope and likewise shuffled and slid his feet into the slope, to where it disappeared behind the illusory dirt in an instant. One simply couldn't walk upon the dirt as if they still expected the slope to be there, they had to force their feet into the real ground beneath the illusion as if they were trying to dig a hole with their feet. They force their own reality to surpass this illusion.

Flake quickly through the natural mycelium networks of their grassy surroundings explained that fact to Striking Bear and The Shaman who joined Flake in their ridiculous shuffle into the cave. Once their heads passed the illusion they finally saw the reality of the cave around them. It was a massive and ancient thing, whose limestone ceiling was nearly eighty feet high and whose floor at least what of it was exposed to sunlight was coated in an old and deep layer of moss. Rock formations abound as the trio strode forth into the cave, stalagmites, stalactites, and even great pillars dotted this ancient and unyielding stone biome. Bones along with stone fragments littered the cave floor as the walked, Flake morphed into his fungal Death Jaw form, Striking Bear took up a stalking posture in his bear form, as did The Shaman and his twin lion constructs.

The plan was simple, sneak through the cave and kill as many cave dwellers as they could before alerting the wider tribe. Eventually the trio slipped into the darkness past the sun's light at the entrance, there the three of them slowly and silently stalked through the darkness towards a dim distant fire. Striking Bear navigated the darkness with his bear forms better nocturnal vision and keen sense of smell. The Shaman navigated through the darkness with the aid of his lion constructs that weren't bothered by the light. Flake meanwhile navigated with the aid of a long yet thin mycelium tendril he had connected to Striking Bear and The Shaman so they could silently communicate while they were together.

The tiny fire ahead showed two cave dweller women and a few children beside them. They all huddled about the fire not for warmth so much as for vision, likely they returned to the cave to avoid the worst effects of the midday sun before they'd return to berry picking. None of the trio hesitated to stalk forward, for they all remember the women and children of their tribes, the cave dwellers so callously slaughtered in cold blood. Striking Bear lunged for a woman as did Flake, while The Shaman's twin lions went for two children and he himself speared another through the throat. In an instant all the cave dwellers present were dead and Striking Bear stamped out the tiny fire with a massive paw. Onwards they stalked through the cave once again, picking off group after isolated group in total silence be they sleeping, huddled around fires, eating, or even relieving themselves in some far off and smelly corner of the cave. No mercy was given to their enemies for none they have shown themselves.

On they stalked until they heard a series of ear piercing screams back the entrance of the cave followed by a series of shouts. No doubt some returning party saw the massacre they committed near the cave entrance. Soon shouts echoed throughout the other side of the gargantuan cave in the cave dweller's unknown language. Onwards came a blinding light from the far end of the cave, not of fire, but of a bright white orb illuminating a group of different Cave Dweller men, all of whom no doubt had their own strange powers and rushed through the cave in defense of their women and home.