After the clearing of the glade, with no more trace of the stone Tower, Mortigus stood there on the flattened grass, afraid to even face the sky. He knew Arbero for very little time, so why did it hurt so much to see them leave in an incomprehensible manner? He could barely believe the scene that unfolded—shock and paranoia making him doubt his eye. Was this just another nightmare from during his hibernation? How did things end like this? Danger was still surrounding him, and only his body stood out in the lonely glade. Mortigus looked around, coming back to his senses, as the mycelium messages spiked in a row. The human hunting party was not far away, and he had to move.

 An hour later, in the penumbra of the forest’s edge, Mortigus found himself walking in a daze. Behind him, fire was still biting from the old oaks and shooing away the last signs of darkness of the night. He could feel the humans scattering and getting further and further, though his sense through the mycelium was weakened. The forest was growing silent, muffled by burning and shouts. Thankfully, most animals had survived, now nervously hiding around the edges of the forest and beyond. A small group of people seemed to head in Mortigus’ direction; perhaps they managed to track him. Mortigus could’ve gotten much further away, but he faltered. Headaches overcame him, as he attempted to pick up the pace and run. He knew he needed the darkness to move through the field to the nearest forest before the sunrise. “Would it be wiser to hide?“ he thought. “No, a few of them might have roughly figured out the direction I took; I could be cornered again. I don’t understand that loud weapon properly yet, and they may even have magic of their own, a confrontation is suicide,“ he panicked in his thoughts. “I’ll continue moving straight, and once I reach foliage, I will walk in a zigzag pattern. I will get away; I have to.“ 

   Using all the energy he had left, he marched forward for a few hours, and right as the sun came into full view, he entered a patch of trees that could be hardly called a forest. He didn’t manage to shake off the small group of humans that separated from the hoard, but he did gain some distance from them. They were probably getting exhausted as well as unsure of whether they were following the right tracks. The good thing about the light legs of a mycolian was how few visible marks they would leave on the ground. Mortigus slowed down, opening his satchel to eat while walking. These provisions prepared in advance were a godsend in this chase. A life of running—was this what was awaiting him? Would it be impossible to reach Arcut? Was it even worth doing so, given the reality of everything Mortigus was and did? Mortigus just didn’t have the luxury of an empty mind at that moment. He was staying alive and accepted he didn’t need a clear reason for it. He was staying alive to find that reason. Maybe finding Arbero again could be it, but their betrayal started to sting anew. “It was a betrayal after all, was it not? At least these wild berries taste good,“ he murmured while stuffing his mouth, breaking his line of thought. Mortigus took a second to observe his surroundings; between the elms and beeches, the animals that escaped the fire were now looking for a new home, bartering with the residents of this spot of forest. Mortigus was starting to calm down again, though he felt uneasy just for allowing himself a moment to dissociate. He started walking faster again, reaching a new field of dense Pampas grass, taller than even Mortigus. In the distance, the presence of humans was no longer felt. Mortigus decided to step through the field and hide in the grass, at least to rest for a few hours and continue moving afterwards. After placing some signals within the mycelium as Arbero taught him, Mortigus finally took a moment to sit down between the dancing grass in the breeze, lanky yet elegant, to the sonnettes of crickets and starlings. The calm of nature was almost unsettling; life could be so noisy and quiet at the same time, to which Mortigus thought he was used by now. His nerves were, however, tired, pulsating weakly but persistently at every little rustling and chirp that seemed out of place. It was going to be a long night.

 For a couple days, Mortigus repeated the cycle, making progress towards the north-east of the county, or what was assumed to be the north-east. Despite his exhausting strategies, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being followed. And it was no hallucination, as at the dawn of day at least one human presence could be pinpointed just a half-day walk away from Mortigus. With his food reserves dwindling, he knew he would soon need to forage around. His energy was also low, and his Essence weaker, barely able to connect to the ground. He decided to stop near a glistening brook with a rather steep valley around its unsteady bench. Weeping willows and young river birches were of a vibrant green, their lush canopies perfect for hiding. Mortigus drank from the brook and cleaned the fruits and legumes he foraged. If he managed to be fast enough, he could recuperate and continue his walk. If he wasn't... Maybe it was the time to confront his pursuer. 

  After regaining most of his strength, Mortigus began preparations for a conflict. There was a chance his opponent was capable of using magic, and his cautious side didn’t want to gamble. The magic was likely not overwhelmingly powerful; otherwise, the humans wouldn’t have come in such high numbers to hunt for him and Arbero. Mortigus felt a human presence, heading towards him, so he made the decisive call to go through with the ambush. By leaving some Essence into the ground in advance, he could create large mushroom structures much faster and even from the top of a tree. Given the area around the brook, he should be able to spot the human in advance from underneath the foliage. Arbero taught him how to harden the textures on his arms, but there was little chance of winning a fistfight. Rather, disarming and trapping the pursuer under dense mushrooms was the least dangerous option. The human presence grew closer, though he could now confirm it was truly a single human, the only stubborn one enough to continue the chase. 

  As Mortigus was steeling his resolve, a figure materialised from between the shrubs and tree trunks. Clad in a black jacket reaching past his knees, with a vermillion accent visible on the inside of his clothes, covering his tall and sturdy body, a quite imposing man was approaching, his appearance akin to the person that was leading the human hoard before. He was lifting one of his hands, a faint glow coming from a piece of jewellery, a ring with details hard to spot from that distance. Connected to the ring was a faint aura extending to a bizarre floating shape that was moving in front of the hunter. Upon a closer look, the shape started resembling a hunting dog, a bloodhound of some sort, or more accurately, half of one, with only the head, torso, and front legs manifested from the magic of the ring. Its snout was viciously sniffing the soil, slowly pulling the hunter along. It was too soon to set off the trap, yet it was unnerving to see the hunter coming right towards Mortigus. That tracking magic was rather slow but precise, and the hunter was on high alert, clearly watching his steps and resting his other hand on his belt near what could be the noisy weapon from before. With only twenty meters between them, Mortigus’s hands were glowing with growing intensity as the Essence was swelling up, all the while the hunter’s hound stared ahead, lifting one of its legs like an arrow. The hunter retracted the hound and, in a quick motion, pulled a flintlock gun and pointed it forward. The hunter’s eyes were focused but calm, experienced compared to the hesitant twitch plaguing Mortigus. “Too late to call this off,“ thought Mortigus, sending a pulse of Essence through the birch he was hiding it in and travelling down into the ground. The million tiny mycelium fibres began firing like a net of neurones, giving life to multiple mushroom fruits rising and enveloping the hunter in the blink of an eye, restraining his legs. A bullet was fired like thunder from between greyish clouds of smoke, splitting the mushrooms and the ground with it. The hunter rolled to the side, clutching the gun with both hands, his head frantically scanning the forest. Another flurry of Essence cracked the ground, letting new mushrooms rise in an attempt to cage in the hunter, but a brief flash, the same colour as black smoke, followed by sparks and another gunshot broke through the giant mushrooms. The hunter escaped again, running towards a willow for cover. 

   “This will turn into an endurance contest," thought Mortigus. He knew he should remain hidden for as long as possible, and thankfully his strategy left almost no clue of his location. The drooping, rich branches of the willow were obscuring most of the hunter’s body, but Mortigus could still tell where he was. If the hunter were to climb the tree, things would get difficult for the mycolian, but the hunter probably wouldn’t risk putting his gun aside even a second. A fly agaric, able to tower over a person, erupted from the ground and turned its cap towards the hunter, then explosively slammed itself towards him. The hunter shot through its cap but barely grazed the stem; however, the bullet ended up into the bark of Mortigus’ birch. One step slower and the hunter would have been squashed between the barrelling agaric and the willow, but he was only pushed away and onto the ground. Before the hunter could stand up, Mortigus commanded another wave of mushrooms to smother him and pin him down, yet one of his hands was still free and seemingly empty. The hunter grasped around his waist and pulled a short sword, cutting between the fungi and letting himself roll away in Mortigus’ direction, be it by pure luck or intuition. 

  Mortigus had almost run out of traps, but a risky option came to mind. He quickly descended the tree, sliding down while Essence flowed vibrantly through his torso. The mushrooms obeyed his command again, covering the ground in a soft veil of fleshy texture. The hunter tried to look for the gun, now buried between mushrooms. He gritted his thief and charged towards Mortigus with his blade drawn, but his steps were wonky and uneven on the spongy carpet. Mortigus moved forward and raised his hand open, one giant torch of Essence within it forming down from his fingertips to his palm. The hunter took an early swing, but his feet were pushed astray by the mushrooms on the ground, the sword missing Mortigus just barely, as the hand of the mycolian now brushed the hunter’s face. Suddenly, a new mass of mushrooms took fruit, this time directly over the whole head of the hunter. Those were the spores that were spread by Mortigus throughout the whole fight, now blinding the hunter. However, the hunter’s boots planted themselves firmly into the ground, rotating his hip and his shoulder and raising the sword with the speed of a cricket. A slice flashed before Mortigus' eye as the blade nearly split his face but only bit into the cap on his head. Mortigus moved a few steps away, heavily breathing, as the human screamed and tried to rip away the mass of fungi on his face. Mortigus attempted to push the hunter with another mushroom, but the hunter felt the ground tremor and dashed backwards. The hunter fell on one knee and carefully took a slice out of the mushroom of his face, letting some light reach his left eye. He tried to look around and jumped towards where he remembered his gun to be. Lucky was his fate as he rummaged through the mushroom carpet, quickly hearing a metallic thunk. He grabbed it and turned around to face... nothing. He couldn’t see Mortigus. In the blind spot of the hunter’s right eye. Mortigus charged his Essence again, forming a snag at the hunter’s feet. The hunter panicked and tried to look for his target, only for a giant champagne fungus to slam into his side, hurling him towards the valley of the brook. His body tumbled downwards and, with a loud strike, hit the trunk and the rocks near the water’s flow. Another wave of mushrooms enveloped the hunter, incapacitating him. The brook’s blue stream was inked with blood, low groans of pain mudding the water’s melody. 

  Mortigus stared at the immobile hunter, not feeling victorious but rather relieved. The defenceless human was breathing slowly and was likely to remain knocked out for a good while. Mortigus contemplated for a moment the risk of other hunters pursuing him and the choice of killing an incapacitated human. It didn’t matter whether he was human or mycolian now; the thought still unnerved him to his core. He stalled the decision, pickpocketing the hunter and collecting his weapons. A shortsword that was heavy in Mortigus’ palm, a gun for which the hunter carried multiple bullets, but very little actual gun powder. The cock, frizzen, and pan of the flintlock had bizarre signs, akin to what he remembered seeing on Nostra’s staff. Perhaps enchantments for ammo and reloading that made for a truly terrifying weapon. From the man’s bag, Mortgius procured a pair of spare pants, which somewhat fit him, though he needed to cut them above the knee. He fit a belt around his waist and the bag around his shoulder. Inside the bag, besides some salty dried rations, a peculiar book stood out: an old cover barely keeping itself and its crispy pages together. Mortigus opened it, the first two pages filled with just names and signatures of strange names, though the family names kept repeating themselves. The next pages were filled with notes, the handwriting, and even the languages switching between each page. He fortunately recognised the alphabet and even his own language among the scribbles, but it did not offer enough context. A few drawings of various regions popped up, coupled with wild beasts and weapons. A journal across generations of hunters, documenting the tools of the trade, would explain its erratic structure. The next page flipped, revealing the drawings of a cyclop, the position of organs, and even skull structure, with notes all around it. Bipedal cats, wolves, and bats, and even insects, weird stocky creatures, a humanoid tree, and even a chapter for mycolians. Fire and swords were pictured near the cut limbs of a mushroom-folk, words morbidly surrounding the diagrams. These were hunting instructions to teach new generations of the monsters of old, even in eras where humans could live their whole lives not even hearing of other sentient species than humans. The tattered journal emanated a foul aura, yet Mortigus slipped it into his bag with little hesitation. If he could decipher it, he could learn what to expect.

Hunter's Flintlock