Trying to remain inconspicuous, Abe made laps around the strange town, circling near the giant tree at its center.

The closer he got to it, the more mushroom-men marching two abreast and armed with spears he spotted. The standard mushroom spearmen gave off weak energy signals, but the way they marched gave off an impression of strict training and discipline.

Even though none had seemed particularly suspicious of him, at least not enough to warrant concern, Abe made sure not to linger too long around the tree since it clearly seemed to be the center of the guards’ attention.

However, he did get close enough to see the giant arching doorways that ran around the huge tree. He counted six in total and guessed that they had to be at least twenty or so feet high. At each of them, several guards stood.

Peering through the corner of his eyes as he walked past, he noticed sporelings coming and going through the doors. While the security didn’t appear to be super strict, he wasn’t ready to test it himself just yet, at least not until he learned more about this place.

He decided to see what else the town had to offer and walked by taverns, weapon shops with all kinds of mostly wooden weapons, potions, fruit and vegetable grocers, and many other establishments. But nothing proved to be of much interest besides the living armor. And except for the flimsy-looking spears, other weapons looked like twisted branches designed for wizards or druids, and Abe wasn’t sure what he could do with such weapons besides using them as clubs.

Finally, after he had finished sightseeing, he brought himself to the Slayer outpost. It was just a narrow, two-story thatched house sandwiched within a street of similar buildings and not a fraction as impressive as the Reaver headquarters in Lantern. Then again, Abe doubted this entire domain had as many souls as the individual suburbs of Lantern.

I guess this is it, Abe exhaled as he stepped toward the shabby building. The sporelings might not have been able to recognize that he was anything other than one of his own, but this was a place designed to hire adventurers that set out into the unknown of the Vale. He worried that even in such a small branch, they might possess someone capable of recognizing him beneath his disguise.

Oh well, here goes nothing. I either take risks or accept living with freaking mushrooms for the rest of my life.

With a stubborn shake of his head, Abe pushed through the door.

A frizzy-haired woman with pointed ears looked up at Abe from large tome as he entered. If it wasn’t for her sharp eyes that gave a sense of wisdom, Abe would have assumed she was barely an adult.

“Ah, hello?” She glanced up momentarily before returning her gaze to the tome. “Looking for something?”

“Perhaps,” Abe said without thinking, and her eyes immediately darted up from the book.

“My apologies, Master Sporeking,” she said, demeanor changing as a smile perked her cheeks and she tilted her head. “Are you new or looking to register for work with the guild?”

“New,” Abe nodded with a curiously raised brow. He remembered back to what the beast had said about vocal cords. Speaking seemed to indicate that he was a more powerful mushroom. “And I’m looking for work.”

“Yes, yes,” she nodded enthusiastically. “Sorry, things might seem a little disorganized. It’s just that we don’t get a lot of recruits here.”

“No problem. Does that mean you don’t have work?”

“No, no, no,” she hurriedly said. “We have work. Paying work. Please, don’t go,” she continued, her words almost tripping over themselves.

“It’s fine, I’m not going anywhere.”

Exhaling, she slumped, “The branch manager is going to be in a good mood this week.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“That’s good, I suppose,” Abe nodded. “And the work?”

“Oh, yes,” she grinned, shuffling papers together. “Work, gotcha. We have got a few jobs, just let me…” she mumbled, flicking through papers. “No, no, no.”

“Why no? What have you got?” Abe said, craning forward.

“Well, it’s just that…”

“What?”

“The ships. It’s kind of a secret,” she said, eyeing Abe up and down, her gaze lingering on the sword and pistol fastened to his belts. “Oh, fine,” she said, gesturing with a jerk of her head for him to come closer.

After hesitating a moment, Abe stepped up to the counter, and she leaned into the side of his mushroom head.

“They’ve halted all ships in and out of the domain. Apparently, an intruder hitched a ride on one and killed one of the weaker ancient beasts that roam the forests. A tragedy, really. But since it was one of those living dead, and its energy signal disappeared weeks ago, everyone knows it’s dead. But still, they want confirmation before ships start traveling again. So, all these jobs are on hold until someone finds the ghastly thing’s corpse.”

“And why exactly is this a secret?”

“Well, they have already announced that the invader is dead. The higher-ups wanted everything to return to normal, so they announced it dead when the monster’s energy signal disappeared. And now they’re claiming that the harbor is closed for repairs. But everyone knows the real reason,” she sighed.

Great, so as long as I’m alive, I’m stuck here?

“Well,” she said, tapping her chin. “I do have a contract to find the corpse. It pays 500 ducats if you want.”

“Why not,” Abe sighed.

After filling out several forms, Abe wrote down whatever came to his head as he worked his way through them—hoping they had no way to fact-check him in this medieval-looking town. After he was finished, the woman at the counter handed him a scroll with the mission details.

Okay, so now all I have to do is hand in my corpse to leave this place, he sighed as he stepped out of the Slayer’s guildhouse.

500 ducats would be helpful after losing all his money during the Reaver mission, but it wasn’t enough that he really cared about it. He just wanted to get out of this place, and the mission seemed to be the only way.

After walking around for a while and searching his brain for any ideas, Abe decided to leave town again.

If they got tired of searching for his corpse and decided to open the harbor again, then that would be great, but he couldn’t see any point in hanging around here for now.

“What am I going to do? It’s not like I can kill myself,” he muttered to himself after finding a secluded patch of forest nearby and lowered himself onto the ground, crossing his legs as he began to meditate.

Abe had never been good at being introspective, but slowly, that was changing. Even though he had no idea what he was looking for, something told him that the answer was within.

He felt something when he had channeled his two opposing energy sources into something new to hide himself from the sporelings that inhabited this place. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew this energy was more than a means to hide his true presence.

Delving into his inner mind, he sensed the essence of the mushrooms he consumed, drawing their power out through his mycelium networks and condensing it into a pure form of energy he could harness when needed.

He sensed the forms that had once been the worms, twisted and drawn into him; their consciousness was gone, but their power wasn’t. Replaced by tendrils humming with energy, he could see them as countless limbs that could extend from his body at command.

And then there was him, or at least the body that contained him. He was still a wight at heart; it was the foundation that everything else stood atop. It was what his old human self had turned into; now, it was as much him as the flesh and bones his mother gave birth to.

His inner eye wrapped around these forms and how they were connected through energy. Even though he seemed to be able to circulate and transform both deathly and dreamer energy at will now, they were both part of what allowed him to exist in his mutated form and, in doing so, giving birth to something entirely new.

That realization awoke something. These forms, these powers, they were not separate. All of them were a part of him now, and they were in harmony.

With his eyes closed, Abe stretched out a hand and channeled the essence of hundreds of mushrooms.

He would need to search for more afterward, but if this worked, he would have a means to escape this place.

Using a combination of the transformation mushrooms, the Ninth Stalks, and several others to form the body, Abe used his energy to twist them into himself.

A lifeless, perfect manikin of himself lay naked beneath his hand. He then twisted a ball of his energy in his palm until it gave off a deathly signal and funneled it into the fake corpse.

Within minutes, neither his energy sense smell nor living sense could tell the fake corpse apart from a real ghoul. Still, there was only so much he could do, and if someone took a scalpel to the corpse, cut it apart, and inspected it, he was sure they would discover it to be a ruse.

“Well, they’ve been pretty trusting up until now,” Abe muttered beneath his breath as he looked down at his creation, confident that if they couldn’t see through his disguise, they wouldn’t be able to see through his creation.

“Time to go collect a bounty, I suppose.”

It was a little strange grabbing his own corpse and throwing it over his shoulders as he turned back toward town, but at least he had some hope now. Besides, how hard could it be to deceive people who were already convinced he was dead anyway?