The symphony of Spirehold was a memory, replaced by the raw, screaming chorus of the untamed Weep.
Kaelen ran until the organic glow of his home was nothing but a faint, sickly-green bruise on the horizon, until the breath sawed in his raw throat and his legs buckled beneath him. He collapsed into the hollow formed by the vast, gnarled roots of a grandfather cap, a mushroom so large its shadow was a small kingdom of darkness. He pressed his back against the rough, bark-like texture, trying to make himself small, trying to silence the frantic drumbeat of his heart.
It was no use. The world here was deafening. The air thrummed with the low, psychic hum of the mycelium underfoot, a constant pressure against his mind. Bioluminescent fungi pulsed in discordant rhythms—soft blues, anxious yellows, threatening reds—casting shifting, monstrous shadows that danced at the edge of his vision. Strange, clicking calls echoed in the canopy high above, and the very leaves seemed to whisper his name, his new name: Outcast. Weep-Touched.
He stared at his left hand, now bare and exposed in the eerie half-light. The glove was a tattered ruin in his pocket. The crystalline structure seemed more pronounced than just hours before, the geometric lines of embedded mineral crawling like frost over a windowpane, inching past his wrist. A fresh, throbbing heat pulsed within it, a dreadful rhythm that was entirely his own, a fault line of power and decay splitting his body in two. He curled his right hand into a fist, the normal, familiar flesh a stark contrast to the nightmare of his left. What am I becoming? The question was a loop of pure terror in his mind.
A sharp crack of a breaking branch, too close and too deliberate, shattered his spiraling thoughts.
Kaelen froze, pressing himself deeper into the roots. He held his breath, the Weep's chorus suddenly feeling like a audience holding its breath with him.
Through a thicket of phosphorescent ferns, a figure emerged. It was not Mycelian. This creature was a thing of hardened leather, stained canvas, and dull, non-reflective metal. A sealed hood and a pair of multi-lensed goggles obscured its face, giving it the appearance of a giant, predatory insect. In its hands was a heavy, complex weapon—a crossbow, but augmented with coiled springs and a chamber for what looked like glass projectiles filled with murky liquid. A Gleaner. His blood ran cold. Of all the fates he'd imagined, a quick death at the hands of a scavenger felt both terrifying and perversely merciful.
The figure stopped ten paces away, the weapon rising to point at Kaelen's chest. The voice that emerged from the respirator was a distorted, metallic rasp.
"Identify. Slowly."
Before Kaelen could force a word through his paralyzed throat, a second voice, sharper and laced with authority, cut from the darkness to his left.
"Stand down, Jax. Use your eyes, not just your trigger finger."
A second Rustwalker stepped into the clearing. This one was shorter, their movements economical and precise. They wore a long, rust-red duster coat over their protective gear, scarred and patched with a dozen different materials. They pushed their goggles up onto their forehead, revealing a face that was all sharp angles and calculating intelligence. A series of intricate, ritualistic tattoos—gears, cogs, and lightning bolts—were etched in dark grease-paint across their cheekbones and brow. Their eyes, a flinty gray, scanned Kaelen in a single, sweeping assessment that felt more invasive than the weapon pointed at him.
"He's no Scrap-Taker. Look at his boots. City-soft. That tunic hasn't seen a day of hard labor. He's a runner from the mushroom folk." The newcomer, a woman, spat the words 'mushroom folk' like a curse. Her gaze locked onto Kaelen's face. "So. What's your story, spore-breather? What sin did you commit that was worth throwing you to the teeth of the Weep?"
Hope, fragile and desperate, flickered in Kaelen's chest. They didn't know. They saw an exile, not a monster.
"My name is Kaelen," he said, his voice cracking. He slowly got to his feet, keeping his hands visible. The right one, at least. His left he kept half-tucked behind his leg, the tell-tale white light muted against the dark fabric of his trousers. "I… I questioned the Root. They said my connection was unstable." It was a half-truth, the most believable kind.
The one called Jax didn't lower his weapon. "Unstable? They exile for heresy now? Sounds convenient."
The woman, Elara—her name came to him as Jax said it—took a step closer. She was the Captain, then. Her eyes, those flinty chips of gray, missed nothing. They darted from his fearful eyes to the way he held his body, asymmetrically, protectively.
"Everyone has a price for exile," Elara stated, her voice flat. "Theft? Betrayal?" Her eyes narrowed, homing in on the subtle, shifting glow emanating from behind his leg. "Or did you just pocket something that wasn't yours? What are you hiding, city-soft?"
Panic flared, hot and sharp. "It's nothing. An injury. It… it glows."
"Everything glows out here," Jax snarled. "Show us, or I'll consider you hostile salvage."
Kaelen's mind raced, but the paths were all dead ends. With a slow, trembling motion, he brought his left hand out into the open.
The effect was instantaneous. The unshielded, piercing white light flared, a shard of pure energy in the Weep's pastel gloom. It illuminated the clearing in a stark, clinical wash, bleaching the color from the ferns and painting the Rustwalkers' faces in sharp relief.
Jax cursed violently, backpedaling so fast he nearly tripped. "By the rusted gears! Captain, it's Touched! It's corrupted! Protocol is clear!" He raised his crossbow again, his finger tightening on the trigger.
"Hold!" Elara's command was a whip-crack. She hadn't moved. Unlike Jax, she didn't recoil in horror. She stepped forward, her gaze locked on the crystalline hand with an intensity that was almost predatory. She moved with a shocking lack of fear, her own gloved hand shooting out to grab Kaelen's wrist.
Her grip was like a vice, strong and unyielding. She turned his hand over, her eyes scanning every facet of the crystalline structure, every pulse of the alien light within. Kaelen expected revulsion, but he saw only a fierce, blazing curiosity.
"Look at it, Jax," she commanded, her voice low and intense. "Look past the fear. This isn't the random, chaotic corruption of the Weep-Touched. This has pattern. Symmetry. The crystals are fused to the bone structure, not consuming it. It's… integrated." She released his wrist as if finally confirming a hypothesis. "He's not corrupted. He's mutated. There's a difference."
"A difference that gets us killed just the same!" Jax argued, his weapon still trained on Kaelen. "It's a walking hazard! It'll attract every feral beast and Chorus fanatic for miles!"
"My convoy, my protocol," Elara said, her tone leaving no room for debate. She turned her full attention back to Kaelen, who stood frozen, his heart pounding against his ribs like a trapped bird. He was a specimen under glass.
"You're a liability," she stated bluntly. "You're a danger to yourself and anyone near you. The Mycelians were right to cast you out. The bunker-bound Gleaners would strap you to a table and take you apart piece by piece to see what makes you tick. And the Weep…" She gestured to the pulsating forest around them. "…the Weep is already inside you, boy. It's just a matter of time before it decides to finish the job."
Each sentence was a hammer blow, shattering any fleeting hope. He was nothing. He was doomed.
Then she leaned in close, her voice dropping to a whisper meant only for him. The scent of oil, ozone, and dry dust filled his nostrils.
"But I deal in liabilities. I trade in dangers. Because sometimes, the greatest risk hides the most valuable prize." Her flinty eyes bore into his. "You're looking for a cure, aren't you?"
The question was so direct, so accurate, it stole his breath. He could only nod, mutely.
"I know these lands. I know the factions. I know where old-world knowledge is hidden. You help me, and I will help you. You have my word, for what it's worth."
"What do you want from me?" Kaelen whispered, the words tasting of ash.
Elara's tattooed lips curved into a thin, razor-sharp smile. She pointed a gloved finger east, towards a part of the forest that glowed with an especially dense, menacing blue light. "First, you're going to earn your keep. The quickest route to my convoy is through the Glowing Mangroves. It's a place the Weep is… particularly strong. Unstable. My people are blind in there. But you…" She glanced at his still-glowing hand. "…you can hear the song, can't you? You're going to be our guide. You're going to get us through alive."
Jax made a sound of pure disgust. "You're trusting a mutant to navigate the mangroves? This is suicide, Captain."
"It's pragmatism," Elara corrected, her eyes never leaving Kaelen's. "He has a motivation stronger than loyalty or coin: survival." She finally stepped back. "The choice is yours, Kaelen. You can stay here, let the Weep or the Chorus find you. Or you can take my hand, and walk a path that might just lead you to your cure. But understand this—the moment you become more of a burden than an asset, the moment that hand turns you into a threat to my people, Jax here will get his wish. Understood?"
There was no choice. It was a gilded leash, but it was a leash that pulled him forward, away from certain death and towards a sliver of impossible hope.
He met her gaze, a newfound, grim resolve settling in his gut. "Understood."
Elara nodded, a brisk, business-like gesture. "Good. Jax, get him a spare respirator. Can't have him getting more mutated on the way." She turned and began striding towards the treeline. "Welcome to the Rustwalkers, Kaelen. Try not to get eaten, and try not to turn into a monster before you've paid off your debt."
As Jax shoved a cold, metallic respirator into his hands with undisguised loathing, Kaelen looked from the hostile soldier to the retreating back of the pragmatic Captain. He had traded the silent, fearful judgment of Spirehold for the dangerous, transparently self-interested mercy of the Rustwalkers. He was a tool. A weapon. A mystery to be solved.
But he was alive. And for now, that was enough.