“Go for it.”

  Auranta raises her palm. An orb of fme forms above. She then aims her hand towards a distant gravitational anomaly.

  The ball accelerates towards the anomaly, exploding upon impact. The moment tact is made, the ball of gravity verges towards the ter before rapidly expanding, sending debris flying away from it at high speeds. None reach the group for they are a distance away, but several sbs of stone are now embedded into nearby buildings.

  “Yea, probably best to stay away from those. Lets try the fissures ” Quasi says.

  Auranta does the same to both the electrid fme fissures rising up off the ground. A single fireball nears it, and the fissure goes up, exploding with lightning and fire. Then quickly going dormant again.

  She retracts her hand. “It seems these anomalies react violently to mana and then go dormant for some time.”

  “Try the others.”

  She does and nearly every anomaly reacts the same way- though the rger ones require a stronger spell.

  For the several hours, the group makes a path towards where the anomaly tration is stro. They activate anomaly after anomaly, passing eae during dormancy.

  “I find this test unchallenging.”

  Quasi turns to gre at the Phytonid. “I hope you realize you’ve just cursed us all.”

  “I sense no curse spell.” Auranta adds.

  “I'm beiaphorical! hes just tempted fate and fate is going to shove danger down our throats.”

  “I accept the challenge.” hes excims.

  “No- you - ughhh. Lets just keep going. Keep your eyes out for anything odd.”

  Auranta raises an arm to point. “Like those mushrooms?”

  Quasi follows her fio the sight of mushrooms. Literal giant mushrooms that seem to start where the greenery disappears.

  “Um… maybe?”

  The group approaches the odd mushrooms. Most are small, but there are rger ones pointing near anomalies.

  Before Quasi says anything, hes rips a mushroom from a wall and immediately es it.

  Quasi pouts. “You have no fear. What if it is poisonous?”

  “It is,” hes answers, “but with this radiation.” She pauses for a moment. “Curious, it is attempting to parasitize my body.”

  “Shouldn’t you spit it out?”

  “Attempting, but not succeeding. I am thwarting its attempts while suppressing and analysing its geic structure. Please give me a moment.”

  Both Quasi and Auranta watch as hes just stands there with a bnk look. After several minutes she blinks. “These mushrooms have high neural-like activity and a rapid ability to repair cellur structure. They also possess an anelle capable of abs radiation and produg an energy rich product to fuel growth.”

  She grabs several more mushrooms and starts ing them.

  “Should you be doing that?”

  “These anelles be impnted into my own cellur structure to produergy from the enviro. This will reduce the physiological cost of stant cellur repair from radiation.”

  Quasi rolls his eyes. When he g Auranta, the woman isn’t even paying attention. Instead, her head is swiveled deeper in.

  Following her sight, Quasi finds something humanoid. It has two arms, legs, and even what should be a head. The oddest thing is that the humanoid is smothered in mushrooms. The mushroom moakes an odd step towards them.

  The cat sighs. “I’m calling it now. We’re dealing with a se mushroom boss at the tower.”

  From nearby buildings, several more mushroom ied humanoids strut out slowly. All seem to instinctively walk around anomalous areas towards them.

  “Matriarch, shall I engage?” hes uhes her scythes and takes a ready stance.

  “Not yet. Let's see how they react first. Auranta, mind hitting them with one of your fireballs?”

  The [Air Mage] raises her hand diagonally. As she does, the wind pickles up around her hand, honing to a visual edge. She then sshes her hand as one would a sword. The bde of wind rips forwards, slig pavement, mushrooms, and finally one of the mushroom monsters in half.

  As the mushroom splits in two, you see the visual outline of flesh and mushroom intermiogether. At the same time, all other mushrooms stop moving.

  “Should I cast another Wind Cutter?” Auranta asks.

  Before Quasi even deign to answer, every monster's mouth opens to reveal hundreds of bonelike teeth followed by an ear-pierg scream. Then all hell breaks loose as they full-sprint towards them.

  “Take them out and try to not get bit.” Quasi orders. He transforms into a Fenrimorph and rushes to engage.

  __________________________________________________________

  Pung forward, I feel the impact of shattering stone followed by the ripping of flesh.

  That felt like pung a statue.

  Two more punches and awo dead, I’m left with the same sensation of stone and flesh.

  Like statues with meat inside.

  Another six die by my fists before I’m met with a disturbing realization.

  These are Gemma! Zombie Gemma!

  Another dozen corpses only enhahat idea. The smaller humanoid monsters, who are most likely younger, have thiony exoskeletons than those that are rger and most likely older.

  “Matriarch! They outnumber us!”

  I g hes to find her dealing with signifitly more than me. Like a reaper, she cuts and slices several with each swing of her scythe-like cws- but the numbers keep increasing.

  Gng at Auranta, I find her someho a nearby roof and slinging spells at those attempting to get to her. Funnily enough, they 't climb. Instead, they seem to naturally create a growing pile of bodies.

  How did she eve up there? Actually, that doesn’t matter. That’s a great idea.

  I roar to get hes attention. Then I take a moment to point at Auranta.

  Uanding my pn, we fight our way to Auranta until we reach the base of the building. hes walks up the wall like a spider while I jump oo the roof.

  “They are endless. My mana will run out quickly at this rate.” Auranta warns.

  Gng at the horde, I 't help but notice that they do indeed seem endless and are all rushing towards our location.

  Fuck. They’re not that strong, but we ’t take out aire city of them. We o push forward.

  Growling at the two, I point towards where the tration of shrooms is ever greater.

  “You want to go deeper?” Auranta asks.

  I nod.

  She g the growing zombie horde for a moment before deg something. “I take the rear.”

  With a roll of my eyes and a growl, I start leading the two from building to building. The growing horde follows below, but we are left ued. After my ninth building, I gnce behio make sure those two are keeping up. hes is right behih only Auranta gging slightly behind her. hes get a great deal of horizontal air with her jump, but Auranta seems to glide from building to building. When she does, it seems like the back of her cloak flutters.

  Ohey catch up, I tinue leading the team closer and close to highly anomalous tration. As we do, the number and size of the mushrooms increases expoially. With some of the ones he fming tornado anomalies growing to the size of houses.

  Regardless, we tinue deeper and deeper, avoiding more and more anomalies on the way until we finally find the tower.

  Shit

  The tower, more specifically the very top of the tower is jutting out of the ground. Which means that the entrao the tower is somewhere underground.

  Fuck!

  I look around my surroundings to see if I find anything else, but all I see are buildings, anomalies, and the ground swarming with mushroom zombies.

  I need a better vantage.

  Bending my legs, I jump as high as I , asding several dozeers into the sky. It is when I reach the peak that I notice a massive circur molten fissure with a fming tornado in the ter.

  That’s probably the entrance.

  With my mi a locatioed, I’m finally remihat gravity exists and that I’ve never actually tried to jump as high as possible.

  I really should think this through more.

  Realizing that I’m probably not going to walk away unscathed if I crash through a building, I take the unfortunate risk of transf into a bird g any radiatioance.

  When I do, I’m met with a blinding number of sights and colors. Every anomaly is a potent densation of mana, as is every zombie mushroom. It is also here that I see a massive tration of energy directly underground where the tower's entrance is supposed to be.

  And there's the boss.

  Flying down, I transform into a cat.

  “There's a massive fissure,” I raise a paw, “down that way where the fming tornado is. I’m betting there's arance dowo get to the tower. We will probably o deal with the anomaly though.”

  I walk to the edge of the building and look down at the verging horde. “By the way, Auranta, would you say these things used to be Gemma?”

  Auranta kneels o me and her head tilts down. She does not look at the horde, but more so the enviro.

  “I 't tell from their forms, but the building architecture is simir to ones created by Gemma.”

  “But different, right?” I ask.

  “Yes. It looks old, dated, and g in any runiscriptions. Do you know something?”

  I move away from the edge. The horde is nearing a density that will soon reach the roof.

  “My p was tested to find champions for the god games. I believe this city is the result of a failed test.”

  I walk to hes and hop up atop her. “e o's head to the fissure.”

  ___________________________________________

  It takes hours for the three to reach the chasm on at of the numerous anomalies and the multitude of destroyed buildings making a direct route impossible. But, eventually the group arrives atop a building leaning over the circur chasm with a fming tornado pulsing in the ter.

  Leaning over the edge, Quasi stares down into the chasm with a grimace.

  “That’s a pretty long drop.” He says after a moment. “Though I see a massive sewage hole pointing directly towards the underground tower. I’m willing to bet that’s where we o enter.”

  The tornado pulses brightly this moment, heating the metal pipe till it is glowing bright red.

  “Well, once we deal with the anomaly.” Quasi turns to Auranta, “You’re up. Disrupt the fire and we’ll make our way down.”

  She nods and steps forward. She raises her staff and points it forward. Air starts to whistle and dense above the staff's tip, f into a pulsating orb of pressed air. Oned, she takes aim, and the orb accelerates. It ehe tornado and explodes. For a moment, it looks like the tornado is about to go out as it denses smaller and smaller.

  Then it expands.

  “Shit! Take cover.” he orders and transforms into a Fenrimorph. At the same time, Auranta reacts by waviaff and creating a barrier of wiween herself and the tornado.

  Theornado explodes in fme, sending a wave of fire all around it to the exact dimensions of the fissure.

  And just as fast as it hits, the wave disappears, leaving everything singed, including all of Quasi’s furr. Quickly putting out the fire on his body, he turns to his allies. hes bark-skin looks singed but undamaged and Auranta is pletely unharmed on at of her barrier.

  Before he release a sigh of relief, the building they are standing on starts to shake and tilt towards the chasm. Whatever little bit was keeping the building from falling in is now giving way.

  Growling a warning, Quasi rushes to get off the building. Both hes and Auranta follow suit. The first to get off the crumbling buildihes. The Phytonid nds upon a swarm of mushroom zombies that she quickly begins dealing with. Not a moment ter and quasi nds o her and quickly joins the fray.

  As he puhrough Zombie chests, he takes a moment to gnce behind him. What he finds is that the building is crumbling down into the chasm.

  Then he grins when he looks up a little.

  Auranta hovers above the chasm with four chitinous wings protruding out of her back.