H above the chasm, Auranta see the horde of mushroom ied Gemma verging on their location. They number ihousands already, with that number increasing every sed. For the moment, her two panions are holding out remarkably well. But, that won’t st forever.

  Using her vantage, she flicks her staff and casts her favorite spell Wind Cutter. With her exceptional mana trol and the avaible wind currents produced from her wings, the spell forms, denses, and releases near instantly. The bde slices through several of the monsters with disible ease. This creates a lull in the fighting.

  She quickly flies closer to them.

  “I will desd to the bottom of the chasm and create a cushion of air for both of you to jump down to in a minute.” She quickly expins.

  Quasi growls in aowledgement and theurns his focus on the horde.

  With the p, she desds down to the bottom of the chasm where this radiation is quite potent. So far, her body is ued, but external mana is more difficult to manipute.

  O the bottom, she raises her staff and uses Materialization to extend mana outside her body. She then starts usiru to yer dozens of runes of air pression. Finally, she uses Transfiguration to rapidly spin in pce.

  Within a minute, a localized twister forms fully under her trol and creates a stant upward current.

  Ohe minute she asks for is up, she watches as both hes and Quasi hop off the cliff. She shifts the vortex uhem, catg the two and slowing their fall. Unfortunately, she doesn't take into at the weight of them both as they hit the ground with a noticeable crack.

  Thankfully, both stand back up after a moment. hes has cracks all across her armor and Quasi’s left arm hangs limp. With a growl, he lifts the arm and pushes it bato the socket. At the same time, hes produces a coaguting liquid from her mouth and smothers it over her cracks before turning to her.

  “Auranta, your cushion is ie. I request you to produce a more effective solution iure.”

  “I did not expect both of you to weigh so much.” She aruthfully. The twister could easily support twice her weight, but both Quasi ahes are signifitly heavier than expected.

  “A miscalcution of your allies' structural iy is uandable and fiven. You are a fy that I have purposely kept my capability hidden away from you until such time the Matriarch fully trusts you.” hes expins.

  Auranta blinks underh her hood in surprise.

  Quasi growls to get their attention. He points at the seipe and then points at where the fming tornado anomaly was located. Already, she tell that the anomaly is starting to reform.

  With the warning made, they rush into the seipe a minute before the anomaly fully reforms. A good thing for it will keep the ied Gemma from following them inside.

  Once safely inside, Quasi transforms bato a cat.

  He stops, turns around, and then sits down. “Auranta, mind sharing what you are?”

  It takes a moment for Auranta to realize the question, and then sigh. She’d hoped the question would be asked much much ter. Regardless, she’d shown far too much. Using her arms, she unlocks the tches on her mask. Then, slowly, she removes the mask, allowing her antehten a foot above her head. Immediately, she feels a better e to her ability to sense mana.

  “I am an Ioid princess of Queen Tinea.”

  Quasi nods, seemingly unbothered by the revetiohes though, the Phytonid stares adamantly at her face.

  “Why do you have hair that mimics humans? Is it for warmth? No- your structural body has signifit human qualities that evolution would not normally support.” hes tilts her head to the side. “You are either created or ged to have such a physical bodily structure.”

  “You assess that from a single look at my face?” Auranta asks, surprised.

  “Yes. Ever since I was first birthed by the great tree, I have traio manipute the fabriy body and ote any irregurities in your form. You have a weight that is much heavier than would normally be expressed by a human with your body structure. You also do not smell perfectly human and do not move with inefficies on in the human species.”

  “What hes is trying to say is that we already figured you’re not of any species we’d met. Maybe a Buxon, but I hear the females are just as burly as the men.” Quasi adds.

  Auranta steps bad tilts her staff forward. “Why call me out noait? What do you want from me?”

  Quasi rolls his eyes at the woman. “Really? Your first rea against us telling you we knew you were most likely from the Ioid race is to get defensive? Like e on, we just saw you h with i wings and then you went to try and save us. I figured that at that point you trust us knowing your secret.”

  She rexes with her guard still up. “That seems logical.”

  “I’m gd you uand. Now, would you be willing to share why exactly you are so ied iowers?”

  Auranta frowns. Her mother spoke to her to keep suformation hidden, but it may be best to reveal it now.

  “Yes. My mothe-”

  “Later!” Quasi interrupts. “I asked if you are willing, not if you will do so now. We’re still iower with more ehat need killing. When we’re safe, tell me the whole story. For now, don’t be afraid to use those wings in my presenow let's go.”

  He stands back up and begins walking deeper inside. hes follht behind.

  After a moment, Auranta puts her mask ba and catches up to the two.

  When she does, she creates a ball of fire, illuminating the dark tuhey are walking through.

  “ you see in the dark?” Quasi asks.

  “I ot.”

  “How is your mana looking?”

  “It is slightly below half.”

  “Too low. I’ll provide the light.”

  Quasi raises his tail above his head. Theail burst into fmes, illuminating the tunnel signifitly.

  Auranta blinks, surprised at the fmes. “I thought you ’t use Materialization.”

  “This is just Destru at the very tip of my fur.

  “Impossible. You 't learru without Materialization.”

  “What do you mean? You’re the ohat mentioned monks specializing iru without Materialization.”

  “Yes, but they must learru after Materialization. If they try to ma runes within their body without training, they’d most likely be causing their flesh to explode.”

  “Ohhhh. Yea, that would expin a lot. A hell of a lot. Wait, if they use Materialization, why the fuck arent they just throwing spells?”

  “Internal formation of runes are signifitly more potent and effit pared to external ones.” She expins, and then remembers that Quasi ’t do Materialization.

  “How did you learn to form runes without hurting yourself?” She probes.

  Quasi grimaces. “It’s… plicated. I’ll expin ter. For now, let's pick up the pace.

  _________________________________________________________

  Plumbing is something even more advanced civilizatiole with. The gemma though, they’ve got the plumbing system down perfectly. Exiting the long pipe, the group arrives in a far more open space, this one filled with not only mushrooms, but glowing mushrooms. Yes, radioactive glowing mushrooms.

  “The poison here is trated.” hes says. A hand plucks a glowing mushroom and then she es it. Then she frowns. “Neural es are signifitly stronger and faster.”

  A nearby gargle attracts everyone's attention. They turn to the sound and watch as a car-sized snake covered in mushrooms slithers out of a pipe. The snake, g eyes, turns towards the three. Then its mouth opens to release a high pitched squeal.

  “Fuck me. Fight it and rush towards the tower. The sooner we get there, the sooner we leave.”

  Quasi is the first to move. He transforms into a Fenrimorph as himself at the she so his surprise, dodges- something none of the zombies above have even attempted to do. It attempts to bite him immediately after, but Quasi dodges to the side and punch the snake. Mushrooms, stone, and flesh shatter from the snake's side to reveal several Gejan bodies smooshed together. The snake, uerred by the attack, moves to around Quasi, only for hes to rip ahe snake's body apart.

  Even severed into multiple pieces, the body still attempts to move- even tries to rejoin together. All up until a jet of fire from Auranta sets the thing afme.

  As it burns, the sound of more movement sends a warning to the group. Realizing they’re on a time-limit, they leave the burning corpse and rush in the dire of the tower. More joined monstrosities of Gemma flesh bar their paths, but the three take as little time to deal with them before tinuing on their way.

  Eventually, they arrive at what looks like a tral chamber to the city's sewer system: A massive cavernous area filled with pipes of various sizes, including ones rge enough to fit vehicles through. The pce is smothered in glowing mushrooms that cover nearly every inch of the cavern except for the tral tower in the ter. The tower is remarkably absent of mushrooms, none daring to g to its bck metal.

  Wary, the group looks around for enemies, but finds nothing out of the ordinary. The pce is retively silent until they hear the rustling sound behind them. The mohey’d rush past are now catg up.

  Auranta gnces behind her. “Should we move?”

  Quasi growls and makes his way to the tower. The two follow closely behind. Somehow, they arrive at the tower ued. Then they find the tower's closed entrah a singur keyhole.

  “It's locked,” Auranta excims. “Where is the key?”

  A proper question that is answered by the rumbling of the cavernous area. All eyes shift up as the entire ceiling shifts to reveal thousands of Gemma mushroomed bodies pressed together. It is here where the group realizes that the cavern is far more vertical than expected.

  From above, the mass of bodies shifts and moves, turning into pears to be a Millipede hydra mushroom. The monstrosity walks across the wall on thousands of legs with numerous toothed snakelike mushroom appendages rising from where its head should be at.

  Most notable of all is that iween all those heads is a key embedded into its flesh.

  Quasi raises a cw towards the key and growls.

  In reply, the monstrosity opens all its mouth and screeches- starting the boss fight in ear.

  The first to engage is Auranta. The Ioid takes to the sky and calls up her mana. With a single swing of her staff, a bde of air accelerates at the mohe monster reacts quickly by having a single head intercept. Instead of severing through the Gemma mushroom bodies as before, the attack explodes on impact, revealing that the heads are mostly prised of dozens of yers of Gemma stony skin.

  A single spell that should have severed a dozen heads is halted by one.

  Not to be outdone by the [Air Mage], hes and Quasi rush into the fray. The heads rea the same way, sending a single appe each. Seeing how the spell affected a head, both cled batants choose not to hold back. Quasi punches by adding the force of his hips while hes yers her scythes. One head shatters into stone and gore while another is cut through the middle.

  Seeing the threat, the monstrosity stops holding bad sends out multiple heads. It is here where the two are forced to dodge. They swerve, block, and attack as much as they , but the attacks are far too numerous. hes takes a hit to her hardened bark armor, causing more and more crack to form while gng strikes rip flesh from Quasi’s body.

  They are losing, albeit slowly if it was only the two of them. But it’s not, for there is a mage.

  H he ceiling with staff extended, Auranta pours more and more mana into a far more difficult spell- one of the highest yered wind spells she cast. A swirling orb with dozens of Wind Cutters rapidly cirg, twisting and turning within the enclosed space. The thing about Wind Cutter is that the spell rapidly reduces in potency the farther it travels. To maximize its effect, one o be dangerously close or have a way to transport the spell.

  Auranta prefers the tter.

  “Get away!” She yells in warning. She then applies Transfiguration to the orb. The moment she does, she already feel the orb struggling to tain the Wind Cutters housed within. The orb only has seds before the boundaries shatter- seds enough for the payload to reach the destination. Quasi ahes react to the warning by retreating away just in time for the orb to make tact against an intercepting head.

  Upon tact, the head explodes, followed by the rapid stream and rain of numerous Wind Cutters bsting onto the monster's form. For the hree seds, the sound of shattering stone and squelg flesh resound through the cavern.

  Eventually, the spell finishes, revealing the remains of the monster. Every head is crushed and its body lies unmoving. Atop the body is the key, undamaged by the maelstrom of attack.

  It is also at this point where things get expoially dangerous. From every hole around the cavern, numerous monsters emerge and stream towards the group.

  Quasi points at the tower and growls an order. He then rushes to the monster's corpse and rips out the key while hes and Auranta make their way to the tower's entrance.

  The moment he grabs the key, the first swarm of monsters reach him. He dodges away, only to have ao intercept his patch. Like a swarm, they verge on his location, grappling at his flesh like leeches. R, he mao throw the key towards the tower before the monsters pile over his body.

  Auranta catches the key midair and rushes to the door, is, and twists. hes arrives to push the door open. The two quickly enter inside.

  “Close it!” Auranta warns.

  “The Matriarch!”

  “We ’t save him. There are too many.”

  “I am no coward!” hes moves to leave the tower, but Auranta stops her. “He threw the key to make sure we escape alive.”

  hes pauses, staring at the growing pile where Quasi’s body is at. Indeed, what she actually do? Maybe another of Aurantas spells? But those ime to prepare, something they do not have.

  Auranta pces a hand ohes. “Don’t let his sacrifice be in vai-.”

  Her words are interrupted by a fiery explosion that sends numerous monsters flying away. In the ter of the explosion stands Quasi Eludo. His skin is pletely gone, revealing only burning flesh that coats his entire body. Unbound by the bodies restrig his movement, Quasi bends his legs, leans forward, and shatters the stoh his feet as he yeets himself towards the tower.

  Not to be outdohe more intelligent and rger monsters jump into the air to intercept his path. The moment before he is intercepted, his form ges into a bird where-in he fps and weaves between monsters.

  As he nears the tower, what he finds is the door closed and monsters swarming at the entrance.

  Realizing he may o fight further, Quasi prepares to transform bato a Fenrimorph.

  Only for the door to rapidly open, followed by an explosion of wind that sends the monsters flying. With the path clear, Quasi dives into the tower where hes quickly shuts the door.