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Jacob drops the mushroom he picked into a small container, safe for him to pick apart later. He looks towards what used to be the grass, now fully infested with mycelium. He combs through it with a gloved hand, revealing the grass underneath, and staring at the effect. It’s completely purple now, but also… strange. He starts digging up a patch of it up, definitely something to pick apart later.
Halfway through, he hears footsteps, feels a quivering in the air. Jacob looks up to see a thing, a very human looking thing.
It stares at him and the guards assigned to go with him. He questioned why, and why this is apparently dangerous at the start. Jacob thinks he knows now, something is off about this thing.
Whatever it is looks human in form but is covered in mushrooms and a cloud of spores surround it. Jacob stares at it with a frown, it seems familiar, but he can’t place where from.
One of the guards step forwards, “what are you?”
It’s faintly glowing eyes narrow on him, looking confident, “I am the Father Spore. Now, what are you doing here?”
“Father Spore?” Another guard splutters, bewildered.
‘Father Spore’s’ eyes flick to her, “of course. For I am the father of this mycelium now and to my sporelings as well.”
The first guard narrows his eyes, “you’re the one who’s causing these disappearances then?”
It blinks at him, “disappearances? No one is disappearing, they are where they belong now. Connected with us. It is freeing, living a mortal life without us is boring.” He gestures out a hand, spores trailing after it, “join me, connect to us, be whole.”
“You’re crazy,” he near exclaims.
It frowns, lightly sighing and approaching their group more. The guard raises his sword, the creature barely blinking at it. It grabs it, pushing it to the side, “you don’t want to do that.”
Not caring about the threat, he pulls the sword away, swinging it again. The creature catches it with one hand and grabs his face with the other. It’s grip is just under his nose and covering part of his mouth. The spores surrounding Father Spore suddenly grow in amount, the cloud around it becoming denser. He starts coughing, most likely from breathing in the spores. Much to their horror, he drops his sword and falls limply against the creature’s hand. It gently lowers his unconscious form to the ground, the mycelium seeming to curl around him, clutching him.
Father Spore stares at his injured hand, purple blood dripping down it, with a frown.
“We need to go,” the third guard mutters under their breath. Very much agreeing, Jacob just rips the patch off the rest of the way, hurrying to secure it in his bag.
The being winces, head snapping towards him, gaze boring into him. He stills, feeling fear as its eyes glow.
It looks over at the second guard when her hand hovers over her sword. “This will be easier if you just join us, everything will feel better.”
“What does that even mean?!”
Father Spore approaches her, “let yourself become one with the mycelium.”
The guard pulls out her sword take a step away from it, “stay back.”
It doesn’t seem phased, “I suppose I’ll just have to show you how great it is.” It closes the distance between them, blocking her swing with its arm and holding her still while she breaths in the spores. Once she loses consciousness as well, it lowers her safely to the ground.
Jacob scrambles to his feet, quickly backing away from the creature with the remaining guard. When it turns to face him, he turns and sprints back into town.
Once he’s sure he’s safe, he turns around, looking towards the quarantined area. He’s completely alone now.
What the hell was that thing!?
~[Scar POV]~
Scar frowns at where the fourth person disappeared to. By now he’s probably back in the city and surrounded by people. He’s not ready to make that much of a public appearance yet. It doesn’t matter if people know of him, it won’t change anything. He’ll get everyone to join him one way or another.
Come help our newest sporelings, Father Spore directs into the hivemind, walking around the three unconscious figures. Some type of guards, he presumes, looking down at his hand again. The bleeding has stopped and the wound has darkened, the mycelium already helping patch him up. Scar opens and closes his hand a few times, it feels almost fine now.
He looks up when he feels a few of his sporelings exit the forest. “Let’s take them back home with us,” he directs out loud. They nod, following his orders and picking them up before heading back home.
Father Spore follows them, a slight pep to his step, they have some new sporelings to join them. The mycelium purrs happily into the hivemind.