"There are many beneficial plants. We can eat them, their leaves can flavor food, and blossoms sweeten our homes. We use wood to make tools, and vines can bind things together. The weaver knows what is safe and what is foul and shows the band the uses of what grows from the ground."
--Fable of the Weavers.
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She'd Changed shortly after the nightmare. Rae now had a personal interest in finding treatments for the plague, not just an academic one. The disturbing dream of the disease destroying the Edomere pride made her pour over her experiment notes to find anything she might have missed. She felt she owed it to the felids to make some progress. A few weeks later, her sentry drones reported an uptick in the aerial spore counts near the dig. She did a search looking for a new source and found it.
Under a few trees downstream of the dig, she found a broad patch of the mushrooms, some with the purple caps inverted to release their spores. It was where she had skinned and butchered the saber-fanged ursoid. She shook her head as she experienced another 'eureka!' moment. While she had taken the pelt away to tan and cleaned up the meat, bone, and viscera from the site, she hadn't thought to deal with the gallons of blood that had soaked into the soil. Right here, where the mushrooms now grew in a profusion she hadn't seen anywhere else. Putting up walls of telekinetic force, she sterilized the spot with fire, sending the heat deep under the surface of the ground to cook any blood that might lurk there to germinate more spores.
She hunted down a digger mole and brought it back to the distant shelter where she did her pathology experiments. She drained it of blood and prepared three experiments. The first had half of the blood pooled in an empty, sterile container. In the second, she put in a matting of low-quality boltan fiber to absorb the remaining blood and provide a base to root in. In the last one, she put in the bloodless carcass. She added an identical amount of spores to each mini-lab. Her new operating theory was that the triggering mechanism was animal blood. It made sense, now that she thought about it. The wilderbeast was anemic, with very little real blood in it. Instead, it had a milky liquid faintly stained with pink. The spores traveling through the circulatory system would allow them access to every part of the body.
A blood-borne pathogen opened up several treatment paths, such as antibiotics, blood cleaners, and transfusions. Finding an antifungal would also be helpful. Rae picked up a container containing some of the ursoid's raw flesh and fat that she'd used as a control for an experiment where she'd tried germinating mushroom spores with a similar sample and failed. She queued the control sample to the molecular sequencer in light of her new theory. Maybe she'd learn something from it, as the wilderbeast had been in proximity to its lair. She had previously smoked some of the ursoid meat for bait in the camera blind. She went through her stores, queued some of the cured meat to be likewise examined, and put the rest in a stasis box. It would take a while for these tests to complete, so she'd check them later.
Washing up, she went inside to work on her journals, updating her scientific log first. She jotted down the running experiments, as well ones she planned after these were done, such as an intact dead animal exposed to the spores and then a live one. Her training log marked down improvements in her stats, and now theorized on things she could do to exceed her current limits. Then she opened her therapy journal, looking at a page she'd put down previously.
> Qard stories said the Light was the sole witness of the Universe's beginning, but it existed even before that. As the Big Bang was the expulsion of untold amounts of matter and energy from a great singularity, the Big Crunch was the eventual collapse of all existence back into a single point. One followed the next, and the one after that, like a glassblower making an infinite chain of bubbles blown in a glass tube.
>
> Only one thing could transition from one Universe to the next, a powerful lifeform shedding its impurities to become pure energy: the Light. With every subsequent Universe, a new Survivor was striving to keep the forming reality expanding and growing as long as possible until the increasing weight of entropy led to the next collapse. Those aiding the Light in this were called Exergists, while those opposed were Entropists.
>
> One of the first of the Qard was named Chief, who later retired in favor of one of the next generation, and so on. Each generation created a circle in the Catacombs around the central shrine, growing outwards like the layers of an onion. From the founding of Qardos to Rae's birth, a span of billions of years, there were only a total of five circles. When Rae left home, her paternal parent, Danel, kept the round remnant of what was left of the Crysfire Gem in a dusty box.
>
> In her travels, she found something odd in an eddy at the verges of the Universe. Made of a form of matter she'd never seen before, something extraordinary happened when she brought it back into real space. Cracking open like a chrysalis, a being of lesser light came into existence. It was like the stories she'd been told, but it wasn't just a story after all, as the Light itself came to see what or who she found. They knew each other from the Universe before. Kruegar, the lesser light, found a way to preserve its essence and resume their companionship.
>
> As a reward for Rae's discovery, the Light restored the Gem to its original kite-shape rhombus form and offered it to her. She declined. She wasn't the Chief, and it hadn't been appropriately passed to her. Danel, her paternal parent, was summoned and presented with the restored Gem at her insistence. He said, 'After all this time, why now?' When the situation was explained to him, he shrugged. 'It was Rae that earned it, not me.' He told her to take it because he never wanted it anyway, and what did it matter with just the few of them?
>
> Rae protested she was too young as she wasn't a full adult yet. He said if she was old enough to swear fealty to the Light, she was old enough to bear the responsibility of rule. Of just the three of them. Or four, actually, but Jon didn't really count. Except it was actually five. It wasn't long after she met Jon that she discovered a living grandparent. Thane, Danel's paternal parent, hadn't been in contact with her folks since they were young. He had been the Chief before Danel and the last before her to wear the full Gem.
>
> Thane was a grumpy curmudgeon who valued his solitude and had no wish to answer his grandchild's endless questions about the history of their people and long-ago times that he'd put behind him. She let him fade into his obscurity and resigned herself to not seeing much of him. Then she went to the Catacombs and walked the five circles, making sure there wasn't anyone else she needed to know about. There were only four open biers and Jon's name on the wall. Her own bier had the Chief's insignia now, underscoring the weight of responsibility on her. All her other ancestors were in perfect condition and lying in rest as if they could simply wake up and resume their lives.
Rae shut her eyes and leaned against the stone wall behind her bedroll. That was a sad day. There were only a few hundred of the Passed and the five of them on this side of oblivion. Those too young to swear when their parents 'Embraced the Wind' Passed with them. They didn't have a bier of their own and instead lay with one of their parents. She'd been in small nightclubs that had more people.
...Nightclubs. Her eyes opened as that last thought pricked another pocket of pain she could drain away onto a page.
> In her life, she'd taken many roles and many identities. After she and Jon collaborated to make Chayse, she and her faithful companion went on the road on Tellus, where she presented herself in male form as Ian McLaine, a musician. Writing songs wasn't her strong suit; she was better at arranging and was a competent musician. Luckily she knew a great deal of Terran popular music and merely needed to adjust for the language drifts and new instruments. The peoples of the two worlds shared a common stock and history until a few thousand years ago. She had an ear for what would play well locally, so she started with small gigs and worked her way up.
This one was going to be a mess, pronoun-wise. The self Rae was writing about was in male phase, so she was simultaneously putting down what her male self did in masculine pronouns while writing the thoughts that editorialized on those actions in the feminine pronouns she was currently using.
> He collected roadies and bandmates as his act grew, and one of them was Josana. She was a singer and played keyboards, tenor strings, and flute, with a potential to master even more. Rae knew Jo was quietly in love with her… or rather Ian, but he neither encouraged nor rejected her. That was a mistake, really, because the girl became close at a time when Rae was self-medicating her pain with mind-altering substances. She'd brewed something intoxicating to the Qard and was performing shows in a pleasant drunken haze. Ian was never obviously impaired or out of control, but he was never entirely sober either.
>
> If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
>
> One night they were working on an original song called 'Apple Brandy Wine' about Rae's new favorite drink when something clicked between them. The girl's empathy and willingness dragged his loneliness and hopelessness to the forefront, and they kissed. In a storm of discarded clothing and unleashed passions, he forgot all the reasons why it had gone so badly with Raliyard and made love to Josana. When Rae woke, she’d thanked the Light she hadn't Changed, and hadn't hurt the girl, but she swore it wouldn't happen again. Until it did, several times.
>
> Jo didn't say anything at first about how Ian snuck out of her bed when they were finished, but she soon said she felt like his dirty secret. Ian knew he was using her as a salve for his weakness, but he justified it to himself as something she desperately wanted. Then came the day he was sitting with some fellows from the tour, and Jo came up to him and told him she was pregnant. Happy for her, he asked sincerely who the father was. She gave him a full-handed slap to his face and stormed off. One of his security guys got up to shout at her, but Ian waved him down and went after her, snagging a glass tumbler on the way.
>
> He let himself into her dressing room, where she sat crying, and told her that he couldn't be the father because he was sterile. She said he'd been her first and only lover. Deciding he owed her the truth, he explained he wasn't human, and they weren't genetically compatible. She gave him a dead, disbelieving stare. He breathed into the empty glass, carefully heating it and assuming his natural form. It soon glowed hot enough he could pull on it like taffy, then ate it. Cooling the room, he offered his hands, and she touched the extra fingers and the points of his ears.
>
> She asked him how the pregnancy happened, but he didn't know. Chayse knocked and said there was a visitor they needed to see. The man had long silver hair, a salt and pepper beard, and a ready smile. Ian could see it was the Light in human form. He introduced himself as Jonathan and explained he'd given them something they each dearly desired. Josana received a child of the man she loved when Jonathan translated Rae's essence into something human-compatible. While Rae learned that even when things seemed hopeless, a miracle could change the nature of her supposed fate.
Rae wasn't planning on living as McLaine permanently, so she set up Josana and Mira financially, establishing a generous college fund for both of them. Then, she created a new record label supported by Ian's royalties and appointed Jo and her family to the Board of Directors. The two of them refused her offers of Immortality and were dust long ago. Jo's daughter, their miracle, took a good deal after Rae. Tall and graceful, with dark hair and gray eyes, Mira had strong psionic latencies that were still reverberating in the Tellusian population among her descendants.
Rae swore off drinking after the incident, which was just as well, or she'd have spent much of her time on this planet blackout drunk. Shutting down her tablet, she walked outside where Gryphon waited for her. Keen blue eyes locked on her as she sat down next to him. "Why won't you tell me what's going on?"
He cocked his head. 'Before I do, tell me, why did you go to Qardos before you came here, and what happened?'
"I was on Shrine Island, and… I don't remember." Rae shrugged uncomfortably. "Then, I just had to leave."
'Something traumatic happened to you, giving you holes in your memory,' Gryphon said. 'Until you process that trauma, I'm going to have to be careful with giving you information.'
"I've been working on a journal," she said softly. "Putting down the things that hurt me. Encrypted, so you-know-who can't screw with it and gaslight me. Well, hopefully, anyway."
'You're done with it for the day?' At her nod, Gryphon said, 'That's good.' Sitting upright, he summoned a ball of plasma, letting a shock of heat blow past her. 'When Qard fought against each other to practice battling with the Entropists, one of the greatest weapons was the manipulation of cold.' He let the plasma travel along his forelimbs and orbit his feathered head. 'Where everything was hot and crackling with electricity, plasma, like this is ineffectual. But here, it can be devastating.'
He sent the ball flew out over the green grass with an outstretched talon, a thin trail of smoking ash following. 'Shadow will use your love of this place against you. He will threaten to burn it all down to hurt you. You need to learn to offensively manipulate temperatures to protect the beauty of this world.' The plasma ball hovered over a flower. 'You know how to let out your heat and how to draw it back,' he said. 'You have these skills; you just have to learn to use them in different fashions.'
Controlled plasma spun above the blossom. 'Pretty, isn't it? Defend it.' The plasma rippled, and the flower stalk wilted slightly from the heat. Rae started to get up, and Gryphon's talon caught her and pulled her back down. 'You won't always have the luxury of proximity. If I can kill it from here, surely you can save it.' She used her senses to feel what he was doing to propagate the energy and tried to block the heat from destroying the plant by drawing it away. She fumbled with the forces, trying to channel them as she wished without pulling them to her to equalize. Rae lost the contest when the flower burned and gritted her teeth in frustration.
'A good first effort,' he said, 'but there are always more flowers.' The plasma dissipated, and he turned back to her. 'Here. Connect to my senses and observe.' He manifested his buried heat potential into another plasma ball before him without radiating it outward from his body. Dismissing it, he summoned a ball of hoarfrost, so cold crystals of ice grew along the rock wall and the nearby grass.
Rae could tell the heat and the cold somehow connected to his core. A direct conduit would warp the air currents in the vicinity, creating a localized wind pattern, but that wasn't happening. Gryphon formed a ball of each temperature extreme with a glare of concentration and willed them into a complicated dance around each other while the air remained still. How? She tracked the energies but could not see how he controlled them or how they were connected, yet not directly traced to him. She spotted a flash of blue and realized suddenly, "Your aura!"
He let the forces dissipate and looked at her warmly. 'Yes. It all comes back to the aura. Want to see or port to a place not visible to you? It is your aura that allows that access. My aura projected the plasma without the heat traveling in a column between the manifestation and myself. The cold was a hard-drawn point in the air, with the harvested heat conveyed by my aura. It shouldn't be difficult for you to make one or the other ball or counter one of mine, aura versus aura. Doing both at once will take you longer, but the challenging thing is moving the points while not disturbing your surroundings.'
Rae looked at a stalk of grass and touched it with her aura. When she sent out or drew in heat, it was by convection or conduction, either of which affected the matter intervening between her target and herself. Auras skirted that need for a material channel by moving the energy through a transcendent medium beyond what regular physics could describe. She felt the passive warmth imbued to the grass by the pleasant day. Blocking off all other awareness of the grass, she drew its heat to herself, freezing it. That was curious. Usually, she felt it first on her skin when she pulled in heat, but this was like a burst inside her inner core.
Having killed it, root and blade, she reversed the flow of energies, returning its heat and more. The stalk let out a burst of steam before blackening and turning to ash. Opening her eyes, she hadn't contained her efforts as neatly as she hoped. There were faint signs of frost or scorch marks on the surrounding grasses. Gryphon nodded. 'Well done. What I showed you before is essentially a weaponized party trick. You can forge weapons of heat against a temperate environment like this or cold weapons against an inferus region, like your volcano or the innermost planet in this system.'
He rubbed his beak with a talon and sighed. 'It can lead to a profoundly powerful set of techniques I was unable to grasp, and even my teacher managed only the barest glimpse. Add this to your practices and stretch yourself. Rest well and keep your mass up.' He looked weary as he flew off. She could sympathize, feeling tired herself. But she topped off her mass and tried to refine her skills before getting some well-earned rest.
Days later, she checked on the pathology experiments. The spores reacted in the blood-only sample, but they were withered puff balls inside the glass instead of fully formed mushrooms with roots. The one with the blood-soaked bolton fibers had a firm foundation for the mushroom roots, sprouting tendrils seeking out every trace of the blood, absorbing it, and using it to spur more growth. But already, the young mushrooms were wilting without additional resources available. The bloodless digger mole had small purple nodules around the body's natural openings, such as the nostrils and mouth. There were more around the incision she'd made to drain it of blood, but it lacked tendril formation in its tissues.
So far, her expectations held up, so she would continue the line of experiments she had in mind in the future.