Chapter Text
The ruins groaned.
What had once been polished sandstone arches were now spongy and split—softened into mulch by something green and growing too fast to name. Beneath the stone, the forest whispered. Spores clung to every surface, as if the jungle had decided to unbuild history from the inside out.
Bunveh stood amid the collapse, fur bristling, ears flattened.
“They’re dissolving, Haitham!” he gasped, voice high and hoarse. “The vaults! The mosaics! This was pre-Kshahrewar spiralwork and now it’s— it’s wet.”
The snow leopard beside him barely flicked his tail.
“It’s fungus, Bunveh,” Haitham said. “It dissolves things.”
“It’s erasing heritage!”
“It’s recycling.”
Bunveh—lean, elegant, and utterly distraught—paced in a tight circle, leaving pawprints in the moss-slick dust. Behind them, a statue’s snout sagged, stone sloughing into paste.
“This is sacrilege. This is biological vandalism!”
“It’s decay,” Haitham replied evenly. “Natural entropy, accelerated by an unstable spore complex.”
“You say that like it’s normal.”
Haitham turned then, finally meeting Bunveh’s eyes. “It isn’t.”
The wind shifted.
Every branch stilled. Vines recoiled. Even the spores seemed to hesitate.
From beyond the treeline came a sound—mechanical shrieking wrapped in wet, bubbling pulses. Something enormous tore through the canopy. Leaves burst into motes of green light. Trees fell without a sound.
Then it emerged.
A mecha—fungal, rusted, alive. Four-legged like some colossal forest crab, half built from pre-Cataclysm steel and half grown from coiling mycelium. Bioluminescent sacs glowed along its back like clustered eyes. Tubes pulsed. Joints hissed spores.
Atop it, enclosed in a pod of root-woven glass, stood a fennec fox in a shredded lab coat and cracked goggles.
“BUNVEH!” he screeched. “AT LAST!”
“Oh no—no no no—” the rabbit squeaked, already hopping backward.
A glistening pseudolimb shot forward and scooped him up, sealing him inside a capsule lined in damp velvet.
“THIS IS NOT CONSENSUAL—AND IS THAT CARPETED?!”
“Organic textile fusion!” the fox crowed. “YOU’RE WELCOME!”
Haitham did not move.
“Tighnari,” he said slowly.
“I AM DOCTOR MLEM NOW,” the fox roared, ears flaring as spores twinkled through his fur. “VANGUARD OF THE MYCOTIC EPOCH. DEFENDER OF NATURAL FORMS. THE ARCHONS TREMBLE AT MY TOADSTOOL!”
Cyno’s dry voice drifted down from the ruined roof above.
“I don't believe that man's ever been to medical school”
Mlem froze. His eyes twitched.
“HOW DARE— I AUDITED THREE SEMINARS ON SPORE-MIND BIOLOGY! I MUTATED MY OWN KIDNEYS!”
“That explains a lot,” Haitham murmured.
Inside the capsule, Bunveh flailed. “Why me?! You hate buildings!”
“EXACTLY!” Mlem shouted. “But you understand them. You made them sing. You’ll help me design the first anti-architectural commune that tastes like destiny.”
“You’re insane.”
“And you’re employed.”
The capsule snapped shut. The mecha turned and lumbered back toward the trees, fungal feelers dragging behind it like tails. Bunveh’s fading screams echoed through the undergrowth.
“You can’t just kidnap people who disagree with you slightly! That’s design by hostage situation!”
“We’ll brainstorm later!” Mlem called.
Then everything went quiet.
Too quiet.
Haitham turned as every leaf around them twitched.
A wet hiss bled out of every terminal, every moss-embedded slate, every floating panel across Sumeru.
Doctor Mlem’s voice filled the nation.
“CITIZENS OF TEYVAT. YOUR WALLS ARE LIES.
THE ROOTS CALL TO YOU.
THE SPORES HAVE SPOKEN.
ARCHITECTURE IS A FUNGAL SCAB.
I AM THE SCALPEL.
SURRENDER YOUR CONCRETE. SUBMIT TO MY SPORELIGHT.
OR BE… RESTRUCTURED.”
Cyno’s ear twitched.
“How do you restructure a population?”
“He’s about to demonstrate,” Haitham said grimly.
“BEHOLD— THE MLEM BEAM!”
A deep, impossible hum rippled through the canopy.
Then—
PHWAOOOOOOOM.
Sickly green light tore through the forest, harmonic and wrong, woven with ancient spore-etched runes. The signal washed over the land.
And people… began to mlem.
Tails stiffened. Eyes crossed. Tongues slipped free.
A sparrow licked a branch.
A fox licked their cousin.
Someone licked their own feet and apologized while doing it.
Cyno blinked.
“…I am mleming.”
“Don’t,” Haitham said.
“I can’t not. The air tastes like ink and moss grief.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“But it’s very a thing.”
Haitham swatted Cyno’s face with his tail. Cyno toppled backward, limbs twitching.
Below them, an ancient statue leaned forward and gently licked its own plinth.
The beam faded.
The damage did not.
From deep within the forest, Mlem’s voice echoed, distant and delighted:
“THE NEW ERA IS DAMP!”
—
In the underbrush, green eyes flashed.
A small forest cat crouched low, tail flicking.
Collei watched the glow die out. Her ears trembled. Something tight twisted in her chest—fear, guilt, love.
“Master…”
Then she turned and sprinted into the deep woods.
The fight had begun.