Since the first connection between the Shining Cooperative and the Lower Realms Alliance, it had been well over a decade. For the most part, their exchanges had been small in scope. A handful of people here, a few dozen there. Trading of goods was an exception, but even then it only took place directly with Poriza and In’istra, and only really began in the past few years.

Even so, the relation between the two groups was more than cordial, and given time they could easily grow to trust each other with larger things. Anton thought that perhaps in a century, they might be comfortable with him visiting some of their planets.

But then something happened. It wasn’t something that was supposed to come to Anton’s attention. Indeed, Anton had to do some digging to actually get any details at all. But when he did, he found himself drawn to it.

A planet on their eastern border had run into trouble with their crops. Specifically, with a plague. One bad enough to quarantine the planet.

If they were a member of the Lower Realms Alliance, or even anywhere Anton had previously had positive interactions with, he could have simply declared he was going. Or just gone, really. But given this particular situation, he offered his aid. It was quite similar to requesting to be involved, merely a step more removed. There was less pressure on them that way.

Anton expected the response to require much deliberation. However, with a total turnaround time for the message that spanned half a year, he actually determined that the proper debates must have been quite expedient. Furthermore, it came with a positive response instead of asking him to wait or saying they could handle it themselves.

It also came with a warning. Though it was a plague primarily on the crops, it also seemed able to infect humans somehow- and it was extremely difficult to be rid of. Instead, it led to a slow but inevitable demise. If it was a truly virulent plague, the entire incident might have been over already.

Anton set out immediately- the sooner he could arrive, the better. However, he also knew his own limitations. If it only affected crops he might have a good understanding of its origins, but something more complicated he might be unfamiliar with. The Shining Cooperative and Lower Realms Alliance were already coordinating teams of scientists- though the Shining Cooperative might not use that name- but they would take longer to arrive. Especially the ones coming from the Lower Realms Alliance, since the majority of people were concentrated hundreds of lightyears away near Ceretos and its neighbors.

-----

In hopeful anticipation of a positive request, Anton had made his way to Poriza. From there, the system in question was only a few dozen lightyears away. It seemed that the colony was actually established on the moon of one of the planets. The moon was known as Mazlerth, while the planet itself was Koldryn. According to the information Anton had, Koldryn had been seeded with plants for eventual settling, but the moon already had a nearly breathable atmosphere when they’d first found it somewhere around a century prior. They’d worked on a sort of terraforming since not long after that.

It was still more than another month of travel for Anton to arrive, and he hoped the situation would not worsen too much since he received his response and the latest information. It was a bit troublesome, as they were supposed to be coming upon the harvest time in one of their hemispheres- but obviously things weren’t going as smoothly as they should have been.

-----

When Anton arrived, he was not shy about scanning the surface of Mazlerth. It was a small enough planet that he could take in a vague feeling of it all at once, or at least of one side. What Anton saw was basically what he had feared. Sickness and death, along with struggling people. He saw the signs of defeat within their postures. But while that was the general feel of the moon, it wasn’t universal.

“Please, mother!” he heard the plea from a distance. “You’ll get sick!”

“Get sick, will I?” the mother in question responded as she hefted a hoe over her shoulder. “Like your little brother? And who is going to feed him if I should not? Who will provide him medicine?” The mother shook her head at her daughter.

“The neighbors-”

“Will not have enough for themselves and us for much longer. And who knows if their fields will catch it too? Something must be done. And this is what I know how to do.”

Not everyone had given up. In various places, there were those who still struggled and toiled against the state of things. But their numbers were unfortunately fewer than Anton might have hoped.

His initial instincts were to fly down and grab some of the diseased plants. These were not cultivation instincts, but merely that of a curious individual. His wisdom and experience told him to take a more cautious approach. His cultivation could only protect him so much. He knew of plants and creatures that could bypass natural energy- why not some sort of sickness?

Indeed, it would be foolish to act until he knew more. And while the world was in a state of emergency, it wasn’t an urgent disaster but one unfolding over time.

First, Anton took in what sorts of crops were being grown. Some particular varieties were unfamiliar, but as he circled around the planet he determined that most of what was being grown were common foods. As for the plague itself, its presence was evident by thin filaments growing out of the crops. A mold of some kind, perhaps. As for the humans who were sick, not all of them showed any external issues. However, he found the same substance growing inside of them.

The white mold was powerful. Full of a vibrant natural energy, and in its own way Anton would have considered it healthy.

But despite the power within it, it was easily destructible- Anton saw many people burning fields full of infected plants, and while it didn’t catch alight as easily as one might expect for something with thin filaments, it did indeed get consumed like everything else.

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Anton got a little bit closer. He needed to feel it on a smaller scale. How did it grow? How did it spread? The most obvious answer would be spores, if it was indeed a mold like it appeared. But he had to investigate to make certain.

He took in large quantities of information, and was constantly trying to go through it in his head. How did it live and die? There were indeed small spores in the air and many other places. But while he considered how best to deal with it on a larger scale, he had things he needed to do immediately.

The familiar sound of a hoe in dirt was music to Anton’s ears. People working hard were one of the best things he ever interacted with. But because of that, he thought they should bear the fruits of their labor properly.

“You should be careful,” Anton said. “The ground needs to be cleansed first.”

The woman looked up with a start, not having noticed Anton’s approach. Indeed, how could she have as he flew in with the wind… and she had hardly anything like a proper cultivation in her. “Who are you?”

“A traveling cultivator, studying this plague,” Anton said. It was true, even if not complete. There was no need to burden her with unnecessary details.

“Do you have anything helpful to tell me?” she asked, leaning on her hoe for a moment.

“I can at least save you time. As it is now, your ground is infected with spores. Whatever you plant will only bring more of the plague with it.”

“Then how should I cleanse it?” the woman asked.

“How indeed. A few days of peak summer heat would do wonders, though you’d have to turn your soil to make sure the top layers are all exposed.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “And where would I get this summer heat in the early days of fall? I cannot wait a year.” She turned away, returning to her work.

“Indeed you cannot,” Anton agreed. “May I ask your name? I am Anton.”

“Stasia,” the woman said. “Now if you’d stop your yammering and let me work.”

“But I am not done yammering,” Anton said. “An old man like me has so many things to say. And I think a few minutes of time to save yourself quite a bit of frustration will be worth it.”

She turned and gave him a side-eye. “Go give your talk to someone who will listen.”

“Very well,” Anton said. “Good day.” Anton could easily win a battle of stubbornness, but he figured he should aim for more effective routes since he believed them available.

-----

A few minutes later he was on the other side of the farmhouse, speaking with the daughter- a young woman on the cusp of womanhood. She was washing clothes in a basin, then hanging them to dry in the sun. That would do, until the rain incoming the next afternoon. They would be dry… but not fully clean.

“I heard you speaking to my mother, stranger,” the young woman said. “What about?”

“I am Anton,” he introduced himself. “A traveling cultivator. And I am studying the plague.”

“Pfeh. You and everyone else, for all the good it’s done us.”

“If everyone simply stopped, we could find ourselves a mere step from a widespread solution, never to reach it. And I think you yourself have not given up. Why else would you wash clothes that already appear clean?”

“They’re not, though,” the young woman said.

“I know. But I imagine they were washed yesterday, and the day before. For the sake of your brother inside.”

“How do you know about him?” the woman stiffened.

“It’s simple,” Anton shrugged. “As I already told you, I am a cultivator. We can sense the presence of living things, and quite a bit more.” His eyes looked at the washbasin. “Have you tried boiling the water?”

“That-” the young woman shook her head. “It’s not so simple, you know. Washbasins aren’t meant to fit over the fire. And a kettle won’t fill this. And then how would I scrub, without burning my hands?”

“All good points,” Anton conceded. “But I can do it.”

“Do what?”

“Boil the water in there,” he gestured.

“And I suppose you’ll do the scrubbing and hanging yourself too?” she rolled her eyes, just like her mother.

“Certainly. These old hands aren’t calloused for nothing.”

“Hmm… fine, then. But if you burn our clothes with your fire magic, I’ll… I don’t know. I’ll do something.”

“Good to know,” Anton said, grabbing the few garments already hanging on the line. There were more sheets and various surfaces inside that were a problem as well, but those would be taken care of a bit at a time.

As he reached his energy towards the washbasin, Anton noticed something. The attached spores pulled towards the energy- until it took on the qualities of fire. Then they pulled against the surfaces they were latched on, shriveling up. How concerning. This was a much more active plague than most he’d dealt with.

Dunking his hands and the garments into boiling water while also scrubbing with soap was barely sufficient to remove most of the spores- and Anton cheated a little by directing small motes of fire energy to spores that buried themselves deep in the fibers of the cloth. He could see how much of it was unraveling, the material having been eaten away by the growth of mold, before being scrubbed down again and again.

This thing was certainly worth quarantining. Anton was very careful to watch all around himself, so that none got on him. In the worst case he could go throw himself into a nearby star, but he’d really rather not have to deal with interruptions like that. Or unapproved bindings of stars in peaceful territory.

If things were isolated to this single farm or just a small region, Anton imagined he could exterminate it and make the problem go away. But a whole planet? It might only be a moon, but it wasn’t exactly small. He didn’t have the kind of control to carefully eradicate only one sort of thing from such a large area. And while completely eliminating it would be good, figuring out where it came from to begin with also seemed important, or it could re-emerge. Perhaps somewhere with much more traffic between planets.

Even so, Anton could learn some things while protecting a few individuals. It wasn’t really fair for him to pick and choose who he prioritized, but nothing ever was. Pure randomness wouldn’t provide better results than going by his areas of passion, and he was actively working to understand this mold that was more than just a mold.