The forest was alive. Not in the way of trees and animals, but in the way of lungs and blood. Everything pulsed, breathed, and shifted in its own rhythm. Spores drifted in curtains, glowing faintly, turning the dimness into a haze of light that seemed to breathe with them. Spirecaps towered overhead, fungal giants rising like cathedral pillars, some straight and perfect, others bent like broken columns reclaiming their form. Their fronds dangled in coils that shimmered blue, violet, or white, changing hue with the thickness of spores in the air. When the wind shifted, the entire canopy shimmered like a sea of light rippling in unseen currents, filling the space with a soundless chorus.

Beneath them, the forest hunted itself with casual brutality and bizarre elegance. Puff-creatures waddled on stubby caps, gnawing at slick mats of ooze-fungus that dribbled from fallen stalks. A Stalkstalker unfolded beside them, snapping forward like a root come to life, piercing one clean through and dragging it back into the darkness. The sound was wet, patient, accompanied by a faint hiss of spores released. A Glimmermaw chimed nearby, its filaments glowing as it lured another puff-creature closer, then snapped shut with a sudden crack, swallowing the thing whole as a cloud of golden spores burst into the air. Everywhere something ate something else, predator and prey locked in an endless fungal cycle. None of it noticed the three intruders threading their way between the violence.

Nanuk kept his spear close, eyes flicking to every twitch of movement. A Crested Sporespike flexed its coral fronds toward him, ready to fire barbed spores, then subsided as if reconsidering. He shifted his stance uneasily. "This place is wrong," he muttered, his voice low, as though anything louder might awaken the whole forest against them.

Cassian, walking beside him, tilted his head back to watch the canopy shimmer. Spores collected in his hair until he looked dusted white, like ash made luminous. "Not wrong," he said. "Just… uninterested in us." His tone was calm, almost reverent, more fascinated than afraid, like a scholar cataloguing wonders instead of someone trespassing in a death-trap forest. He made a note in the air with a finger, as though recording it in some invisible ledger.

Ahead, Grix moved with her usual feral ease, the grin never leaving her face. "Wrong?" she called back, laughter bubbling in her voice. "Looks like home to me." Her boots crushed smaller growths that hissed faintly, and even the predators gave her space. The fungal creatures twitched away when her boots drew near. Puff-creatures darted aside rather than blunder into her stride. The place seemed to know her, or maybe just respect her the way it did other apex things. Even here, in the strangest place they'd yet seen, Grix looked like she belonged, lit by sporelight as if the forest had claimed her.

The canopy above chimed when the air shifted, fronds scraping glass against glass. The sound rolled down through the glowing haze, uncanny and delicate, like music not meant for human ears. Nanuk shivered. "Sounds like it's waiting for something."

Grix crouched suddenly, pressing a hand to the thick mat underfoot. The ground was warm, pulsing faintly beneath her palm as though it carried blood. She closed her eyes. "It's beating," she murmured, almost in wonder, her grin softening.

Nanuk tightened his grip on the spear. "The Heart?" His voice cracked at the edges, uncertain.

Cassian frowned, brow furrowed. "How would we even know? We've never seen it. We don't even know if it exists." His voice carried more frustration than fear.

They traded uneasy looks. Warren had sent them here with no map, no markers, no description, just find the Heart. None of them had the faintest idea what that meant. For all they knew, it could be a lump of stone, a living creature, or the whole damned forest itself watching them breathe.

The ground thrummed again, stronger. For a heartbeat, the fungal forest froze. Puff-creatures halted mid-step, frozen as though carved from stone. Glimmermaws stilled their fronds. Spores hung unmoving in the air like dust trapped in amber. The silence was suffocating. Then it passed, and everything resumed, as if nothing at all had happened.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

They moved on in silence, the sound of their breathing loud against the muffled hush of the place. Nanuk's grip on his spear whitened. Cassian muttered soft observations, more to himself than the others. Grix walked with her head high, shoulders loose, as though daring the forest to challenge her.

The deeper they went, the stranger it became. Sporelight thickened around them, clinging like mist, coating their armor in pale dust. Filaments dangled lower, brushing their shoulders, pulsing when touched. Cassian reached up once, letting one curl across his palm. It left glowing lines across his skin before slipping away, as though marking him with a language only the forest could read.

That was when Nanuk stumbled to a halt.

Something had crept up beside him, squat, pale, its body rounded like a puffball but with four stubby limbs that padded silently on the fungal mat. It blinked at him with tiny pits that glowed faintly yellow. Then it sat, perfectly still, watching him as if it had all the time in the world.

Nanuk lowered his spear. "What the hells is this thing?"

Grix turned, then burst out laughing. "Looks like it likes you."

The creature tilted its cap-like head, then leaned closer, making a soft huffing sound that sounded uncomfortably like affection.

Nanuk scowled. "No. Absolutely not."

Cassian's mouth twitched into a grin. "I think it wants to go home with you."

Nanuk took a cautious step back. The thing followed, padding along at his heel, spores puffing faintly from its sides. He sighed, shoulders sagging. "Deana's going to kill me."

Grix's grin widened. "I don't think you've got a choice. For all we know, if you leave it, it'll hunt you down anyway."

Nanuk shook his head, exasperated. "It's fungus, not a dog."

The creature huffed again, louder this time, then pawed at his shin with a damp limb. Nanuk frowned, then plucked a small shelf-fungus from a nearby root. "You want this?" he asked, holding it out.

The puff-creature opened its mouth, a round, wet pit, and snapped the fungus up, swallowing it whole. Then it leaned happily against his leg, glowing faintly brighter, spores puffing in soft bursts that shimmered like tiny stars.

Cassian chuckled. "Congratulations. You just fed it. That's a bond for life, you know."

Nanuk froze. "…Oh."

Grix barked a laugh that echoed through the haze. "Looks like you've got yourself a pet now."

"Not a pet," Nanuk grumbled, glaring down at the fungus-thing now happily glued to his shin. "Definitely not a pet." He prodded at it gently with his spear, but it refused to budge.

But the thing stayed with them, padding along at his side as if it had always belonged. When he tried to shoo it away, it ignored him completely. When he walked faster, it matched his pace, puffing little clouds of spores that glimmered in the air and left a faint trail behind them.

They walked on, down into a shallow basin where the air grew so thick it felt like breathing water. Spores clung like dew to their armor, glowing brighter with every step until their outlines seemed painted in light. The thrum underfoot grew heavier, more insistent, until it felt like walking across a living heartbeat that wasn't theirs, deep and steady and undeniable.

Cassian slowed, eyes narrowing. Ahead, in the basin's center, something glowed differently than the rest. It wasn't shifting sporelight or a frond's pulse. It was steady. Deliberate. Wrong.

"Hey," he called softly, his voice catching. "Come look at this."

They joined him at the edge of the depression. Half-buried in the mycelium lay a shape that pulsed faintly, bending light around it, throwing warped shadows that didn't line up with their own. It looked alien even here, where everything already defied understanding. The sight made Nanuk's stomach twist.

Nanuk whispered, "Is that the Heart?" His voice was thick with uncertainty.

Cassian shook his head slowly. "How the fuck would we know? We're blind here." His words were sharper than usual, edged with frustration and awe.

Grix crouched low, spores swirling around her shoulders. She tilted her head, eyes gleaming. "No. That's not the Heart." Her grin returned, sharp and eager, teeth catching the sporelight. "But I do think you're right, manmeat. This is something. Maybe this is the other thing Warren said we might be looking for."

The sporelight dimmed as if the whole forest exhaled with them. The heartbeat underfoot quickened once, then steadied again, echoing into the silence.

The fungal forest went on breathing, vast and indifferent. And whatever they had found waited, unseen and unnamed, buried in the living dark.

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