The fungal small folk – which I decided to mentally shorten to fungal folk – led us over a wardline and into a small fungal village.

Rather than being clustered around a pool, like the bwbatch and pixie village had been, the fungal folk’s village was centered around a single giant mushroom that came up to my chest and shed a blue and yellow light. It had been hollowed out, and seemed to be used as some sort of community center.

Ringing it was a series of smaller mushrooms, each one coming up to my knee, which had also been hollowed out. The smaller fungal folk moved throughout the village, seemingly with a nearly hivemind level of organization.

“Come in, come in,” he said, waving to us. “We need to talk.”

We both took seats next to the giant mushroom – well, Kene and I did. Dusk scampered off to go talk to the other Fungal Folk.

“Sorry about her,” I said. “She’s excitable.”

“Oh, she’s young, don’t worry,” the fungal folk leader said. “We were all her age once.”

“What did you want to talk about?” Kene asked. “I don’t know if I can really help with getting rid of the monster. It was… durable. We exhausted ourselves just to take it down, and it was putting itself back together when we left.”

“Yes,” the fungal folk leader said, looking down sadly. “And worse, it will process the mana you used to strike it down, and the lingering power left to strengthen itself. Abyssal Shamblers always do that. It's been testing itself against our wards, and I worry it may be able to smash through them soon.”

“Then what do you want our help with?” I asked. “If we can’t take it on now, we definitely can’t take it on if it’s gotten stronger. We’re out of mana, it will have recovered by the time that we’ve regenerated enough for another go.”

“I’m not out of mana,” Kene said. “I’ve still got almost all of my life mana, and a good bit of solar. But even if I could somehow donate it to you, it wouldn’t be enough.”

“Yes,” the fungal folk leader said sadly.

I scoured my spirit to look for some sort of tool that would be helpful, and I felt like smacking myself.

I drew my staff out from my spirit, and the air began to hum with a gentle power. The trickle of mana that was sliding into my spirit doubled, and the intensity of my magic increased.

The pressure on my spirit from an imperfect staff redoubled too. I needed more components for it, a death and space component chief among them, as well as to trim my spells and form the spell formula out of those trimmings.

Imperfect, but using the staff still did make me stronger, even with said imperfections.

“If I’d been using this,” I said, “the fight might have gone better.”

“Oh, you made a staff?” Kene said. “Nice. I didn’t know.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” I said. “I’m still not used to carrying it around and removing it when I need it.”

“There’s one other advantage we would have, facing it again,” Kene said. “It’s an ambush predator. It’s big and strong, and absurdly tough, but it’s not an overwhelming threat on its own. I’m nowhere near mastering my Bestow Flame Rune spell, so I was slowed down by sketching.”

Dusk, who’d waddled back over to us during the conversation, peeped up, saying that she hadn’t had to ask the small folk for their help.

I tapped my chin, thinking. It was actually true that Dusk had yet to call upon the smallfolk. Even as a mana source, it was something, and they were competent spellcasters in their own right.

Meadow had suggested that Dusk may eventually be able to call upon their spells directly, but there was also an indirect way of achieving that effect.

“You said you’re worried about it breaking through your wards, right?” I asked. “Well, could a Bwbatch help?”

The leader bristled, his ruffled tiny mustache crinkling.

“We’re quite competent wardcrafters. Mushroom circles are renowned for their abilities, after all.”

“So no help?” I asked.

“Well I… Didn’t say that. Let’s not be hasty now,” he said. “I suppose they could look over our work.”

A plan was starting to come together in my mind…

“What can you tell me about those behemoths?”

“The Abyssal Shamblers? Well, their second gate is devoted entirely to repairing their mycelial network, and its first gate is largely about stealing mana from anything and everything it touches. Its third gate armor does something similar, letting it process power from attacks once it’s recovered and grow stronger.

Then it’s ranged capacity was limited… I waved and opened a portal to Dusk’s realm.

“Sweet sclerotium!” the leader nearly shouted, staring at me. “What did you do, boy? Have you advanced to Arcanist just by visiting our village?”

“It’s an item,” Kene said smoothly. “Like a dimensional bag, but supersized.”

“It’s my garden,” I explained.

The fungal folk leader walked through, humming and hawwing. Dusk whistled, asking if she’d like to be eaten into her space.

“E-eaten?!” the mushroom cried.

“Not eaten,” I said. “She’s the spirit of this place, as I’m sure you can tell. She means to live in here.”

“Ah, well, there are a fair few plants in here… I suspect a few of our inhabitants, and maybe my son, Amernital. He’s the secondary leader.”

Ah, nepotism. Not even in the depths of the forest could it be escaped from.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

As the leader went to go get his son, I went to speak to the Bwbatches. Three of them were good with wards, one of which was third gate, so they went to meet with the fungal folk wardcrafters.

The remainder of the bwbatch confirmed they could lay a shielding spell over myself and Dusk, and from there, we all went to speak to the others.

The brownie collection inside the cottage didn’t have much magic that could help directly, but they were able to cast some spells on Dusk and myself to help regenerate our mana a bit faster. Rather than wait, all three of us had those spells cast on us now.

The naiads had several small water spells, and were sure by four of them working together, they would be able to layer Aquatic Armor and Healing Springs Mist on myself and Dusk.

The pixies were willing to cast Illusory Double on myself and Dusk, layering them so we each had two duplicates, alongside a bunch of spells to mess with our scent.

So in the end, Kene and I wound up resting in the gardens, chatting, watching the new Fungal Folk move in, and drinking some mana recovery elixirs that Kene had.

My mana reserves were no longer so small that I was able to recover in just an hour, but between my staff enhancing my regeneration, the potions, and the brownie’s spells, we were well recovered within two hours, then revisited the small folk in order to ask them to actually layer the spells on us.

Kene sketched out the Bestow Flame Rune spell, overcharging it and wrapping us in runes until he was out of solar mana, though he kept his life mana intact, just in case he needed to heal us again.

Without access to the mana of the plants, I practiced sketching out one of my new spells, just in case we’d need it in the fight.

So, wrapped in layers of power, both our own and others, and clutching my staff, we crossed over the wardlines, and back into the realm of what I’d called a Fungal Behemoth, and what the Fungal Folk leader had called an Abyssal Shambler.

It didn’t emerge right away – it was still an ambush predator, after all – but I kept my guard up.

The Abyssal Shambler burst from the ground a moment later, its huge fist reaching out to grab my face, while the other went for the copy to my left.

My Briarthreads, Shield, Defensive Aura, and Aquatic Armor all flexed together, and unlike the first time, where it had thrown me back, this time the Shambler’s fist slowed and came to a stop.

I skirted back, casting Lesser Image Recall to leave an echo of me in front of the monster to help further confuse the battle.

Dusk leapt into the air, jumping nearly to the thing’s torso despite her tiny size, then punched out with her tiny fist.

Fire runes wrapped around her, then blasted out in an explosion of one of her overcharged shockwave spells.

I spun my staff, focusing all of my energy on a single spell, calling seven shards of bone from my spirit with overcharged mana, and wrapping each one in their own overcharged fire runes.

Normally, seven would have been well beyond what I was able to handle, but with the fact I was sending them all to the same target, it was easy enough. I’d done five while mildly concussed, after all.

I slammed my staff down, and seven bright red comets of power smashed into the Abyssal Shambler. Each one exploded into flame, tearing holes in the monster’s mycelial hide.

It was putting itself back together though, so Dusk drew back a tiny fist, drained her mana empty, and unleashed another massive shockwave with what was left of her runes, just like how she’d ended the fight the first time.

It was less effective, both because she had less power to put into it, and because the Shambler had indeed grown in power, just as warned, and the shambler brought its fists down on the multiple images of Dusk. She barely managed to shed the blow with her Earthen Armor spell, and without the duplicate taking the brunt of the attack, she would have been seriously injured.

Fear shot through me but I was no longer concussed. Instead of staring at her attacks like an idiot, I’d been sketching.

The power of Burn Future tore through me, refueling my mana and breaking through my limits. I leapt forwards as Dusk fell back, taking a blow effortlessly with my layers of defense by overcharging Briarthreads.

It tried to grab at me, and its first few swipes were easy to dodge, because it went for the illusion, but it caught on quickly.

I tried to dodge again, but it was too fast. Faster than I was.

So I called on Burn Future and drew out physical strength and speed that I might have. The power flowed through my life energy, and I slipped out of the way of its draining touch. Briarthreads and shards of bone, infused with the remainder of the power in the fire runes Kene had cast on me.

With me spending power like water, it tore through the shambler’s body. It reached for me with one half destroyed hand, and with me already repaying my body’s price, it latched onto my wrist. Its grip was crushing, since the generic shield spell didn’t protect my wrist, but I still had my aura pin and the water-based armor the naiads had given me.

And their healing spell, too.

The pressure built, but my body was healing from it.

I lashed out with my staff, opening a portal to Dusk’s realm and casting one of my oldest spells.

Enhance Plant Life.

Temporary Blademoss burst from the portal, slicing into the Shambler and freeing my arm. Scratches had burst all over my skin, but the healing was starting to take care of them, though its power was almost out.

Then Dusk struck. She drew out mana from my spatial gates, converted it, and blasted its chest with a shockwave. She shouted, sounding like the whipping gale force winds of a typhoon, demanding it leave and never return.

The Abyssal Shambler turned and began to flee. I watched for a moment, holding my staff, then cut off Burn Future. I slumped, sending everything I had left into the void of debt I had in me, and redirecting my regeneration to flow there instead of my mana

My body felt exhausted, and my mana felt scorched and burnt. I walked back over to the fungal folk village, then flopped down.

Kene winced.

“You okay?”

“Physically I’m fine,” I said. “I just don’t think I should be taking on third gate monsters yet. My mana is wrung dry, and I’m not gonna be casting anything tomorrow. And with the potions and brownie magic, I’m pretty sure I’m at the limits of mana toxicity.”

“Well,” the leader said. “I can’t say I entirely approve of just driving it back into the deep forests, but at least it’ll leave us alone from now on. I’d love to give you all something, though. The meteor shower was a while ago, in the middle of summer, so we’ve already used up our gifts from that, but I’m sure we can find something.”

I didn’t know what he meant about the meteor shower, but I was too tired to talk, and my mind was focused on something else.

“Dott’s Draught?” I asked. “I’m looking for some.”

Kene glanced curiously at me, but they didn’t say anything.

“Hmm, well,” the fungus man said as several smaller fungal folk came out, bearing tiny treasure chests. They handed one to Kene, and three to Dusk, and then two to me. “I don’t think we’ve any of that. We don’t really need any elixirs of that sort. But I hope you still find use for them.”

Dusk received some mushrooms that grew large enough to be housing for the fungal folk in her, a lichen that was rich with a variety of mana aspects she could eat to expand her second gate mana, and a spell that the fungal folk had learned from a Genius Loci years ago, a second gate spell that generated a resistive aura that could slow and push things away. It reminded me of my pin a bit, but used the mix of Dusk’s mana to allow it to affect everything, at least a little.

Kene was given a copy of the recipes that the fungal folk’s alchemists used. None of them were anything crazy, but they were something unique and interesting that could help him advance his own alchemy.

I flipped open the chest and saw several dried mushrooms that gave off the sense of life and death.

“Those should help expand your second gate mana, if you eat them,” the leader said happily.

The second gift, however, was more interesting. It was a twisted spiritual knot, based around the same power that created growth items. The same power that linked me to Dusk. They were used in the building of growth items.

“Where did you even get this?” I asked.

“Our enchanters produce them whenever we can. We have connections not unlike these, and the leaders of our villages take several to strengthen their ability to assist the village. In a way, we are all bonded.”

I turned the knot over in my hand. I could use it to strengthen the bond between me and Dusk. It could enhance that, make my ability to call items from her realm stronger, and who knew what else, and it would compound with binding to her at Spellbinder, if I chose to do that.

Or, if Kene and Dusk agreed, I could give it to Kene. They had a good garden, but they were constrained by weather conditions, and they were far away. This would let us meet easier, and they could use some of my Healer’s Heart without spending a fortune on cultivating a cutting of their own.