Cytotoxicity, Errant Stigma, Dispersal Method Resulting in Necrosis of Host

config.style.page.font: "Iowan Old Style/Constantia/Georgia/serif 18" config.style.page.color: "#f8f4bf on #999767" config.style.page.link.font: "" config.style.page.link.color: "#f8f4bf" config.style.page.link.lineColor: "#693744" config.style.page.link.active.color: "#493652 on #849874" config.style.page.header.font: "16" config.style.page.header.link.font: "small caps" config.style.page.footer.font: "16" config.style.page.footer.link.font: "small caps" observes: 0 exploits: 0 retreats: 0 -- THE WALLS PEEL YOU: [[LISTEN]] [[TAKE FROM THE ENDOLAYER]] [[FLEE]]

Before you have gone far enough that your former dwelling is no longer visible in the organic smog, there is a tremendous groaning from behind you. You look back over your shoulder just as it sinks into the ground. All manner of things come boiling out from its poor old walls. Remarkable. That looks to be a true isopod. Now you are decidedly houseless. Freeing, certainly, but without cover you won't last the night. There are a few feral houses around, but you're not quite foolhardy enough to try one of them on, as you are not keen on the idea of being dissolved in a scruffy, louse-filled parlor. So where to? [[SPORING RAMBLE]] [[ARCHAETA]] [[HELMINTH WATERWAYS]]

retreats: retreats + 1 timeSporingRamble: 0 -- A safe choice. The aforementioned spores keep away larger predators, and the avenues of fruiting bodies are quite picturesque in most seasons. As long as you bring a gas mask, or a strip of gills, or some ragged cloth to tie around your face, you should be good to go. Hope you're not allergic. You hitch a ride on one member of a travelling flock of mites. It's slow, but peaceful. Soon the ground becomes webbed with mycelia and odd, lumpish shapes rise from the cliffs. You are now in [[CENTER OF SPORING RAMBLE]]

observes: observes + 1 timeArchaeta: 0 -- A wise choice. The warm shallow pools where ancient lifeforms float bubbling would not exactly make for a stunning painting, but they contain long-lost secrets, or something, you're pretty sure. Maybe just long-lost diseases. Hopefully a bite to eat. And if not, well, you'll have learned a valuable lesson. Lessons are your least favorite valuable. Your walk is a long one. Fortunately, your shoes are comfortable. You made them yourself, out of house-leather, and you're still proud of the work. Along the way, you pay keen attention to the changes in your surroundings: the loam underfoot becoming muddy and rich, spires of sharp black rock rising from the flatlands, and eventually, on the horizon, a great placid sea. You have found your way to [[CENTER OF ARCHAETA]]

exploits: exploits + 1 timeHelminthWaterways: 0 -- A daring choice. The helminth waterways are raucous, slippery, and truly nasty. But you won't be alone. And you hear they have a delightful bar scene. You might perhaps want to bring some kind of filtration device, if you're going to be drinking anything there. But you might get a really cute worm! That could be worth it. You haven't had a pet in a while. You haven't walked far when you come to a little canal, dug in the crust of the barrens and surrounded by rippling cilia. Squinting upstream, you see a barge floating your way. It is crewed by a fantastical gang of musicians, equipped with horns and drums and pipes. They beckon you aboard without hesitation. [[CENTER OF HELMINTH WATERWAYS]]

observes: observes + 1 -- Clicking and groaning. The house shudders, as it does every night. The cell wall creaks under the weight of itself and its accumulated parasites, carcinomas, decay, detritus. You are familiar with these dangers and comforts. It will hold for some time. You need not fear-- although, come to think of it, your finely tuned ears pick out some truly alarming noises. Perhaps some caution would do you well. You are out the door, though not with haste. Sauntering, rather. The windows bend as you depart. [[GOODBYE]]

exploits: exploits + 1 -- The meat of this ailing cell will feed you yet. There is fresh spongy fatty tissue in the house, underneath its desiccated layers, and you dig for it with your fingernails. Its acidic juices prickle your tongue. As you are going for yet more, you retrieve an unfortunate segment of worm. Perhaps you should leave, strengthened by your delightful meal, before the old house finally collapses in on you. [[GOODBYE]]

retreats: retreats + 1 -- It is too much, too much, too fast, too fast. Surely some new worm will breach the phospholipid shingles one night and where will you be? Lysed? Eaten? No, no, not for you no thanks. Quickly. Scramble past shedding curtains and out the warped doorframe. A new home awaits, somewhere out in the barrens. [[GOODBYE]]

Slime mold-covered cobbles, enormous deathcaps, ruddy and mustard and sparrow-brown and amethyst bodies rising up through the fell air. A ripe, fruity odor of fermentation. This was once a proud city built of damp stone. Now the fungi and their cousins rule it. They are most equitable. What will you do here? [if timeSporingRamble < 2] [[SEEK OUT CORDYCEPS HOSTS]] [[SEEK OUT CHITIN ARMOR]] [[DETERMINE EDIBLE FLESHES]] [[FIND A WEFT-LODGING]] [else] [[AN ENCOUNTER IN SPORING RAMBLE]]

Old, old brine and organic sludge and rich, dark soil full of innumerable squirming things. Black rock forms cliffs and hollows, making the ground treacherous. Placid seawater glitters in the fierce white sunlight. The horizon is nothing but light green-blue. Far down the coast, something wobbly crawls from the foam. What will you do here? [if timeArchaeta < 2] [[CONTEMPLATE THE PRIMORDIAL SEA]] [[BURST SWIMMING CELLS]] [[MUSE ON SHAPE-MYSTERIES]] [[SEEK A SHADOWED PLACE]] [else] [[AN ENCOUNTER IN ARCHAETA]]

Under the dim red sky of this place, worms thrash in the canals, luciferin lamps glow, shouts and curses and laughter fill the humid air. A couple of drunks stagger down the slippery walk, and shriek when they almost fall into the water. Far below them, pale and shadowy forms undulate. What will you do here? [if timeHelminthWaterways < 2] [[DANCE WITH THE REVELERS]] [[DRINK HEMOLYMPH LIQUORS]] [[CONTEMPLATE A HOLE IN THE WALL]] [[WITNESS A TRIAL BY WORM]] [else] [[AN ENCOUNTER IN HELMINTH WATERWAYS]]

timeArchaeta: timeArchaeta + 1 exploits: exploits + 1 -- In a shallow divot lined with waving hydras, something bloated ambles in circles. You crouch to watch it, prod carefully at its quivering membrane, and then tear it asunder with wanton glee. Its contents float greasily on the surface of the pool. What fun! You pick up a jagged rock to throw, in case you find another. [[CENTER OF ARCHAETA]]

Halfway along a narrow path stretching along the sea, you startle: something is rising up before you. It pulses, slowly. It is translucid and gelatinous; its insides are a fetid green. The water glints on either side, and below its surface you can see bristling dark spines. You could... [if observes >= 3] [[OBSERVE THE SWELLING MASS]] [if exploits >= 3] [[EXPLOIT THE SWELLING MASS]] [if retreats >= 3] [[RETREAT FROM THE SWELLING MASS]] [if observes < 3 && exploits < 3 && retreats < 3] [[BE ENMIRED IN THE SWELLING MASS]]

timeArchaeta: timeArchaeta + 1 retreats: retreats + 1 -- The sun beats down. The sky is pure and raw. Greenish tinge, smell of murk and old old things. It haunts you, this desolate place. If only there was somewhere to flee to. Oh. There is. A stark cliff some distance off is riddled with holes, as though maggots have tunneled through its black surface. You make for it with haste. Any shelter is welcome. It's shadier inside, though regrettably not drier. Strings of organic who-knows-what trail from the ceiling and adorn the walls. You catch your breath sitting against the cool rock wall. Something oozes up from the floor, a slow-bubbling brackish mud. It stains your shoes. From deeper in the tunnels, there is a pulsing vibration. You think you'll be leaving now. [[CENTER OF ARCHAETA]]

timeArchaeta: timeArchaeta + 1 observes: observes + 1 -- Its tides are slow, pondering, and subtle. It laps at the black beach, drooling out puffs of yellowed foam that deliquesce in the heat. Tiny crystalline salps lie scattered at the edge of the waves. Lift your eyes: mounds, sandbars, and little islands complicate the coast, wet with clinging algae. Eventually they give way to unbroken ocean. Do you see something, far out, pulsing like a grown star between the waves? A trick of the light. [[CENTER OF ARCHAETA]]

timeArchaeta: timeArchaeta + 1 observes: observes + 1 -- In this pile of shale, ghostly impressions are sedimented. You reach down through it, pulling out slabs and shells and bits of what once was. The farther down you go, the more alien the organisms trapped in the stone become. Above, there are whorls and skeletons and bilateral symmetry and eyes. Below... something like a star, or five cups conjoined. A swirling mass of two strands. A segmented body with grabbing appendages. A form that curls in and in and in on itself, globular fractals bulging into chaos. Your eyes hurt, squinting in the sun. Your hands are stained with something grey. [[CENTER OF ARCHAETA]]

timeHelminthWaterways: timeHelminthWaterways + 1 exploits: exploits + 1 -- In a little square, a crowd dances and sways. They sport shimmering fabric, rough muddy cloth, braided flagellae, clicking bones, bells, and nothing at all. They are accompanied by the beat of house-leather drums, flutes, raucous voices. You are pulled into the frenzy with them, stumbling at first. Someone whoops and pulls hard on your arm. You spin and whirl and stomp. Eventually, you are left behind, out of breath. [[CENTER OF HELMINTH WATERWAYS]]

timeHelminthWaterways: timeHelminthWaterways + 1 observes: observes + 1 -- On a waxy bridge over a canal, several revellers have surrounded one ragged, wild-eyed person. They are screaming invectives: _"murderer"_, _"self-eater"_, _"bloated and diseased"_. Despite the cornered wrongdoer's struggling, the mob succeeds in binding their limbs with eelskin. Then they are thrown into the canal. There is a boiling in the water. Worms thrash to the surface, forming a knot around that which was offered to them. An oily stain spreads. [[CENTER OF HELMINTH WATERWAYS]]

Your foot slips on the wet stone by the edge of a canal. Something has grabbed it. You startle and trip. Looking down, panicked, you see a pale and rubbery tube winding around your leg. It rasps your skin with many tiny teeth. Behind it, the dark water seethes. You could... [if observes >= 3] [[OBSERVE THE WRITHING COIL]] [if exploits >= 3] [[EXPLOIT THE WRITHING COIL]] [if retreats >= 3] [[RETREAT FROM THE WRITHING COIL]] [if observes < 3 && exploits < 3 && retreats < 3] [[FALL PREY TO THE WRITHING COIL]]

timeHelminthWaterways: timeHelminthWaterways + 1 exploits: exploits + 1 -- One stall hung with dried flatworms is handing out tankards of a pale greenish brew. You grasp for one, and your hands close around a dry shell full of sloshing alcohol. Someone else jostles you, though nobody tries to take your prize. After all, there's plenty to go around. You lift it to your lips: it's fizzy, salty and sour, somehow acrid in the back of the mouth. You cough. Certainly a fortifying taste. [[CENTER OF HELMINTH WATERWAYS]]

timeHelminthWaterways: timeHelminthWaterways + 1 retreats: retreats + 1 -- It is all so very much. The sounds the sights the smells. Here, here is a nook you can retreat into, up a short flight of uneven stairs and into a crumbling hole in the brickwork. Quiet in here. Dim, though not dark. Someone else has left something here, you realize: a sputtering slick of lamp enzymes, just enough to illuminate a half-full bottle of something. How fortunate: a calming retreat from the crowds, just for you. [[CENTER OF HELMINTH WATERWAYS]]

timeSporingRamble: timeSporingRamble + 1 observes: observes + 1 -- Here is a swarm of waist-tall aphid-things, moored by drifts of hyphae. Their dry shells bristle with spikes, globules, delicate curls. You step between them with care, quite pleased not to be an insect. What a fascinating sight; certainly you have learned something about the place, its peaceful musty air bringing a slow and clotted death to unlucky wanderers. [[CENTER OF SPORING RAMBLE]]

timeSporingRamble: timeSporingRamble + 1 retreats: retreats + 1 -- Amid the dust of spores and shreds, you dig into the ground and pull out pieces of light exoskeleton. Some of it flakes away in your hands, but some is still resilient. A few segments are curved to adequately fit the contours of your body. You strap them over your most vulnerable pieces. It will do something to assuage your fears. [[CENTER OF SPORING RAMBLE]]

timeSporingRamble: timeSporingRamble + 1 exploits: exploits + 1 -- There must be something good to eat in all this... miasma and odd rubbery shapes, mustn't there? Yes. You know, vaguely, which rubbery shapes will not harm your precious insides. You find flaps of something bone-colored; it tastes of foamy earth and spices. Orange branching sprigs. A creamy, dark lattice. You can name none of them, but the growling within your belly-chamber ceases. [[CENTER OF SPORING RAMBLE]]

timeSporingRamble: timeSporingRamble + 1 retreats: retreats + 1 -- Here, a cluster of upright little caps make a niche. You clamber in, bruising the long pale stems. It's almost a little room, shielded from the outside world, though it's sort of clammy. You curl up and take a nap, assured of your safety. When you wake the strands of stem have grown together; no more room for you. You manage to squeeze back out. [[CENTER OF SPORING RAMBLE]]

Something large is coming. You squint, rubbing spores from your eyes. It's a shambling shaggy mound, unidentifiable beneath the layers and aged layers of fungus. Immense. Heavy. Rather too near for comfort. You could... [if observes >= 3] [[OBSERVE THE SHAMBLING MOUND]] [if exploits >= 3] [[EXPLOIT THE SHAMBLING MOUND]] [if retreats >= 3] [[RETREAT FROM THE SHAMBLING MOUND]] [if observes < 3 && exploits < 3 && retreats < 3] [[STAND IN HORROR BEFORE THE SHAMBLING MOUND]]

You turn, snarling, and attempt to pry the leech-thing from you. It flaps and slides on your skin; you are unable to get a grip. Undaunted, you push off the edge of the street and dive into the canal. Murky, meaty water fills your face. You grasp, jaws open, like another one of the worms. You strike flesh, bite down, and surface with a fresh, glossy helminth. Water streams from your head. Swimming things nip at your skin. Little flies tangle in your hair. You care about nothing but the food in your mouth. This will sustain you, in the dark places under the city where the water flows and the parasites breed. You will grow strong. [[END]]

The eelyworm that has grabbed your leg is thick with mucosal shreds. Its mouth and gills gape. Within them are deft strands of smaller worms, leeches, water ticks. Upon those are smaller clusters of bodies. There is no place where parasitism is a sin, a wrong, a crime. Not in the red city of worms, not in the clotted city of fungi, not in the old city of microbia. Not in the wastes between or the far-off places. Dwelling-in is possible and unprohibited. All things must live. Many live on others. The pressure on you vanishes. The worm does too, into a writhing knot of its fellows. They grasp at it and tear it to pieces. Who can say why? You continue into the mists, alone. There is a tent strung up close by, and the sounds of a gleeful argument. Company. Warmth. A place to stay. Cautiously, you enter. [[END]]

You scramble from the edge of the canal, fear powering your movements, and kick the waterworm against the slippery bricks until it untangles itself from your leg. You move by impulse, not reason or aggression. And you keep running: up a wide walkway, past dripping lamps and darkly clothed strangers. You keep running until your chest burns and your limbs tremble. You keep running until you make it to... where? A smoky pavilion lit by puddles of tallow candles. Beyond the stonehewn edges of it, you can see the red city spread out before you. Light and rippling shadow. You settle onto one of the woven mats on the floor. Dry. Wormless. What more can you ask for? [[END]]

It looms ahead, pulsating and blistered, and you step back. Then you turn and run light-footed over the scraped black rock. The path back twists. You slide, and crash against a cliff, and a hole, and you are scuttering into the tunnels without a second thought. It's dark and close within, and you climb and climb until your limbs are scraped and the rock on all sides is no longer slick with sea-slime. You find yourself kneeling in a smooth passageway. You are not alone. On the walls, small shelled things move. You reach for one, bring it to your mouth, and bite down. The meat is fresh and sweet. You recline against the wall, safe from the searing light and the glistening world outside. [[END]]

It is large, but not aggressive. You get a foothold on the chitin plates and clamber up. Then you kick its back open. Spores rush up in a musty cloud. Brushing away chunks of mold, you see-- why, this is a surprise! It's a house. Not yet fully grown, but inhabitable. Housenymphs this old aren't typically mobile. It must have torn loose from its roots. You wait until it has ceased its throes, then drop inside. Its windows are pierced with spikes of fungus; consequently, the light inside is feeble. The furniture is warped and smoggy, but usable. A cute little place. You might like to do some renovations. [[END]]

Ah. This overgrown cell possesses enzyme-filled sacs which could easily render you into a nutritious sludge; it would be wise to employ some caution. You squint closer, mindful of its grasping cilia. The interior churns and boils, slowly, like weather. An idea takes shape. You sink your hand into the cell. It grasps you, pulling you deeper. Your skin burns: the burn of metamorphosis, just beginning. Your fingers appear distorted in the refracted light. No. No, that's not just the light. It takes many hours to shape you; the sun has simmered to a red splash on the horizon, by the end of it. And the dusk sea is yours to slip into. You're made for it. You move like a sinuous comet into deeper waters, feeling the currents and tasting the minerals and sensing the slow churn of buried metabolisms. You'll know this sea, soon enough. You'll know much more than you could ever have dreamed. [[END]]

It's laughable to think that such a thing could pose a threat to you, even if it does look rather daunting. You've been waiting for this moment. You grip the shard of black, angular rock in your hand, wind up, and hurl it into the monstrous cell. With an audible pop, it punctures the membrane and sinks into the thing's curdled depths. Phlegmy gel weeps from the hole left behind as the cell slowly deflates. You step over the remains, now leaking into the shallow sea, and continue along the narrow path. The spiny forms in the water catch your eye. You kneel and reach into the bodywarm sea. Despite their fearsome appearance, the spikes snap off easily in your grip, if you angle the force a certain way. You collect handfuls of them; in the distance, a flat peninsula of drier land beckons. You imagine a frame of black coral. A spire. A monument to your ferocity. [[END]]

Fine plumes of spores billow after it. You step aside, cover your mouth and nose. It doesn't seem to be moving with purpose, but nevertheless... it's no great expense of energy to follow it. And you do, watching from a short distance through the mists and across fields of shockingly orange mushrooms. After enough time tracking it, you can determine what it is, under all the mold: it's a house. A young one, driven to aimless wandering by its infection. You don't want to get too near, even if it's inhabitable. Bad for the lungs. Eventually, it stops to rest-- in the shade of a towering bolete. Some type of larvae have drilled holes through the fungus' dessicated trunk, but it still stands. In fact, you could fit in there. Easily. You think it will make an excellent tower for your dwelling in. From here, you'd be able to see most everything. [[END]]

You don't like this! You spring nimbly away, nearly slipping on the slick ground, and put the thing well behind you. You cross sticky mires of rotten syrup, dark honeycombed shapes, clouds of flies. You keep running, and running, until you trip and land in a crater. The palms of your hands slam hard against the myceliated soil. You sit upright and look for any danger. There is none. This hole in the ground must be what the mound emerged from. It's the right size, and it trails ripped strings of earthy-smelling flesh. It goes fairly deep; if you squint, you can see the dark end of it. Above, the gray sky undulates, but here you are protected in your burrow. It's dry, and safe, and you like it already. Time to get some furnishings for your new home. [[END]]

You should probably, at the least, get out of its way. Shouldn't you? Why can't you get out of its way? The ghoulish lump plows into you, knocking you off your feet. You are tossed onto the broken, slimy stones underfoot and bruised thoroughly. As it departs, you take stock of your immobile self. Hair tangled with hyphae. Spores clogging your facial holes. Your fingernails-- you squint-- are clouded with something organic. At least you'll be safe here, you think, as you begin to dissolve into noxious sludge. [[END]]

The sky burns overhead. Its unrelenting pallor stains the ancient seas, the rock and crust and slow-moving oceanic forms. Your skin is blistered from its light. The horror of what you have seen foams in your mind. Is it you? This place-- every place-- was always blasted. The worms and rot rule it. In every form, in every niche of twisted flesh, parasites are clustered. No cleanliness. No place for things like you, prideful artisans and prodding scholars. Your time will end like the time of summer flies. In comparison to what dwells here, you are nothing more than a wretched speck. The surface of the swollen cell presses forward, patiently. Its cilia wrap around you, pulling you through its barrier into the thick and stifling interior. A lysosome. It burns. You are undone. [[END]]

You scrabble at the edge of the street, unable to get a grip; your fingernails scrape against the wet stone. The worm tightens its grasp on its leg, pulling you inexorably down. You feel another mouth latch onto your skin, then another. You slide into the water. You scream. It's lukewarm, brackish, and metallic, filling your mouth and silencing you. You see thrashing forms in the murk, a frenzy of leeches and helminths darkening the waters. Too many to count. They tug you deeper, deeper, to the bottom of the canal. They don't wait for you to drown. [[END]]

Either you have found the home you were searching for (in which case, congratulations), or you have come to a horrible fate (in which case, sorry). Perhaps if you had acted differently, you would have been wiser or stronger or faster. You could try. {restart link, label: 'ANOTHER SPAWN, WRETCHED HOMUNCULUS?'} This story was formulated by Henry Cecchini. They hope you enjoyed it, despite everything.