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It's been six months since Howard Plunkett was rehospitalized. Fortunately for him, the recovery was a great success! The man can now walk with the support of crutches, and can take care of himself now. At least that is what he insisted.
"Nah, I'm all healed! No need to worry." Plunkett clicked his tongue and leaned against the wall.
He still complains about the pain though, such a pride.
Phillip, however, thought the opposite. As he watched his dear friend wave off any questions with a smile here and a lie there, he felt dread crawling up his back.
It's there. In his head, and deep in his brain. A vessel, a cage.
He is not fully aware of the situation, and he hates it. Howard won't open up, he would immediately change the subject at the slightest mention of what happened after he brought down the Great Old One.
Such is Howard, always thinking he could handle everything by himself. Was he like so when his mother passed?
Phillip is stuck in a dead end.
Or is he?
.
.
.
The evening lights penetrated the glass panes and into Angelique's labs. The researchers sat across each other, both occupied by their own thoughts. He had told her about Howard's unusual signs, and his own conclusion; she too, is aware of the situation.
"Angelique," Phillip took a shallow breath, "I need to go back to Greatmaw."
"...what?"
The dark skinned woman frowned, her fingers on the unsorted reports tightened for a moment. "That is absurd! Why would you want to be there afrer all...that?" Her tone carried concern.
"I need to know what really happened, and how to fix it, fix HIM." Maude gripped the helm of his jacket. "Please, I'd never asked for anything, but please, PLEASE, take care of him when I'm gone."
"Because I might not come back."
There were tears brimming in his eyes now, losing Katie was enough to send him into unspeakable crimes, he cannot bear to have another ripped from his embrace again.
The King's monolith should hold something... A clue, a sign, anything. I will accept it.
Even if it drives me mad. It's what I deserve anyway.
"Alright." Angelique sighed in defeat, and rubbed her temples. "But I want you to write me back once you arrive, so I could be sure that you are safe. Howard would be reassured that way too, or he would steal someone's boat again and come looking for you." She rolled her eyes, clearly talking about Montgomery.
"I promise." Phillip let out a light-hearted chuckle, still, his heart stayed heavy.
.
The ravenous waves lapped restlessly again the docks. Phillip Maude stood, and gazed into the mainland, where the abominable labs once were. The cops had raided it, and discovered the atrocities. Most of which must have been confiscated for investigation by now, but not all. And he knows where to find the remains.
"Here we are..." He fixed his scarf, and took out an envelope. Nothing much, just enough to let those back there on the mainland know that he'd arrived safely. The man in blue sent it away, before ultimately taking a step into where he once worked.
The abandoned labs smelt of death and rot. The bearded man was certain that a few things were not upkept after the whole situation was brought to light.
The chilled specimens must have caused this smell, He thought, Who knows what else was left behind.
Maybe even the surviving beasts. Hope they aren't too hungry.
Phillip went straight to the elevator, a small part of him wished it was still functional, yet another wanted it to be otherwise. It's understandable, nobody would want to go back to hell.
The triangular symbol on the metallic door splitted apart with a smooth click. Oh good riddance, it's still working. He grumbled low under his breath, before stepping in.
And so, he descended, to the deepest pit of hell on earth.
The underground labs looked far worse than he had anticipated. Broken vials, shattered tubes,...everything must have escaped., thought Phillip. No specimens in sight, at least.
The majority of the interior was overtaken by the healing flora of the island. A good sign, indeed. He looked to the left, where an obnoxiously misplaced pillar once stood, now taken over by moss. The shade of green somewhat reminded him of a past colleague, a botanist, who ran away after the Doctor first lay his hands, or tentacles, on his own crew.
It's a shame, he must have been dead by now.
The corridors seemed to stretch endlessly as Maude wandered. If he had to be honest, he never really wanted to return here, out of all places. It's just...
For Howard. Yes, he must save his dear friend.
But will the King's monolith inflict its influence on me? Because of my desire? The man in blue shuddered, unease creeping up his spine at the thought. I might even become just like him.
"no, no, snap out of it, Phil." The man reassured himself, "that is ridiculous. The stone must have been destroyed by now."
His footsteps finally halted at a grand gate, where the Doctor himself used to work.
"Here we are..."
Pushing open the entrance, Phillip abruptly froze. The whole place was filled with...fungus? Of various sizes and species, they take up the walls. Some slimy, some had stalks, well, some of them were purely floof. The bearded man coughed violently, pulling his scarf up to cover his face.
Gosh, look at all these spores!, He glanced at the thin layer of pale, almost invisible particles gathering on his sleeve, They're going to burn my lungs!
Quickly retreating, Maude seeked the storage first. "There should still be some safety gears." He mumbled. "It's only been a few months, they can't all be...
.
...ruined."
Phillip stared in disbelief at the storage room. Everything was in shambles, deep scratches could be seen etched into the walls, the wet specimens all knocked over, the floorboards reeked of formaldehyde. Various small samples were gone, and the big ones were...half eaten?
"What the hell happened here?" He exclaimed loudly, but immediately silenced himself. The thing that had eaten these specimens must still be nearby, judging from the unmistakably strong scent of fresh formol in the room and the wetness of the spilted jars.
"Just grab something useful and leave..."
Maude averted his gaze to the line of safety gears in the corner. Everything was damanged on a certain degree: hazmat suits torn, gloves purposefully bitten, even the boots were unusable. "Ugh...I just need something to cover my face..." He grumbled in annoyance, and dug into the equipments. It was nothing but pure chance now, a game of gamble, where he's most likely to lose.
But fate had other plans.
In the bottom of a dusty box, below piles of broken equipments, laid a miraculously untouched gas mask.
"Yes!" The bearded man exclaimed in relief, quickly checking the object before ultimately fitting it onto his face. Just to make sure the thing is safe.
The journey back to Morose's past office was anything but peaceful. The man in blue had to constantly look around for fear of being watched. "Relax, Phillip Maude... Every living thing here should be gone by now..." He tried to reassured himself.
But he couldn't shake off the feeling of having eyes glued to him.
.
"This is so gross..."
Phillip tumbled through the mass of fungi on the floor, his voice muffled behind the mask. He had to constantly wiping the particles gathering on the lenses, but anything would do if he didn't have to inhale all that mold.
After a devastatingly long time (but was actually minutes), he ultimately made his way to the center. In front of him laid an empty tube, the glass shattered and the once evident slime was entirely consumed by a pitch black mold, smelling the putrid of death.
The bearded man gulped, he knew this, it was the thing that held Samantha's body. Morose had preserved his beloved wife here after the tragedy. She was here, her limp form, and even her ring-bearing arm that the Doctor severed. Now they are gone. Everything. He was sure that the cops didn't move her. If they had, he would know.
"Where is she?"
He erratically looked around, hoping to see just one smallest clue. Something must have happened, but what? Did Morose perhaps succeeded in resurrecting her? Then he should have said something instead of chasing them.
SllloooOORP–!
A horribly wet sound was heard, quiet enough to be lost amist thought, but loud enough to echo in a decaying room.
"Um...hello?" Phillip spoke up, his eyes scanning the area for any signs of life.
Nothing answered. There shouldn't be.
The man awkwardly stood for a few more minutes, before digging through whatever was left of Thomas's remaining files. There should be something useful about the entities, they can't all be gone. He can't just write all that and diminish them.
"Doctor Phillip Maude..."
The curly haired man froze in place, cold sweat beading on his forehead. A voice, gritting through one's teeth until his name trailed off and into a hiss. The tone was laced with emotions, half of which he could interpret as hatred and confusion, something part of all that, at once.
I know that voice.
His eyes widened as memories came flooding back, to the early days under the stone's influence, when he was willing to do just about anything Morose asked for. The Doctor only let him stand aside and assist then.
He had to feed a subject that day. One plate of questionable flesh, stuffed full with god know how much amount of sedatives. 'The thing was too aggressive', said Thomas, 'we won't be able to do anything while it is awake.' his tone was clinical, and Phillip almost thought that the subject was a feral animal then.
There it was, splattered all over the floor, was a vaguely-shaped humanoid. It immediately shrieked once he spotted the bearded man, form shifting between men and grotesque. Fungi, of different sizes and shades, spreaded across the floor, rapidly consuming anything organic in its wake.
"Subject 143." Phillip called out, his tone clinical. He simply did not wait for the writhing figure to properly perceive him, before placing a plate of whatever could be defined as 'food' in front of it.
"Eat."
"I won't repeat myself," the man scoffed, impatience brimming in his tone.
"WarrenMycelium."
It refused to eat, as he had anticipated. It's understandable, it was recorded to have eaten a failed subject earlier. He rolled his eyes, "fine, then starve.", and turned away, not aware of the creature's single bloodshot eye glued to his back.
Maude stood frozen, as crimson dripped from the ceiling and splattered onto the floor. Looking up, his heart skipped a beat.
Meat.
Or at least it's what he could recognize. The texture was minced, almost to a paste. It landed on the floor piece by piece, until it piled up; and from that same flesh, something began to twitch.
As if he was witnessing a complete decomposing cycle, the flesh rapidly molded over, rising up and down as if breathing. Until ultimately becoming a man. White haired, tattered clothing, and an unmistakably rotting hole on the left side of his face, spreading from the empty eyes socket.
"Mycelium...?"
The mold man's pupil dilated to an unnatural degree, while a wide grin slowly spreaded on his features. "My, you remembered." His eyelid curved upward like a crescent, tiny mycelium strands squirming underneath his decaying skin.
"How are you not dead?!" Phillip blurted out.
Mycelium frowned, seemingly displeased. "Tch...so rude. Don't you agree?" He looked at the empty space besides him, as if somebody were there. A chill ran down Phillip's spine when a soft huff was heard beside the figure.
"What brought you back here, doctor?" He tilted his head. "People normally don't come to a private lab, much less to look for a missing person." The fungus cackled at the last words as he pointed at himself.
"I'm here to save my friend, Howard. He's...troubled."
Maude gave a vague explain. Well yes, why would he go into detail? Who would believe 'my friend who defeated god accidentally imprisoned it in his head'?
He scoffed at the thought.
The white haired figure froze for a moment, before immediately yelled out like a lunatic. "Howard? As in HOWARD PLUNKETT???"
"u-um... Yeah...?"
"Oh he's an ADORABLE lad!" He exclaimed, clashing his arms - well, one is just fungal roots - together. "I was going to lure him to the crocodile, but the rhyming was so oh charming."
"You...what?" The ex researcher stampered, eyes widening in disbelief.
"I was starving, doctor. I had to make do with any resource, even whatever is preserved and cherished." He looked away, unable to stare into Mycelium's abyssmal sockets. It's uncomfortable, he must say, to be discovered by your own test subject after you ran away.
"I remember your hands."
Y-yeah...?
"Holding me down to that metal table..."
"Forcing every chunk of that anesthesia down my throat as I begged and wept."
Phillip tensed up when he noticed the creature's voice quieting down. He swore he had braced himself right there, awaiting the inevitable jaws of death to ensnare around him. But Mycelium only turned away and melted into the rotting fungi in the room.
"Farewell, doctor Maude."
For a moment, he simply stood there. He looked down at his hands, which were shaking from instinctual fear...? Guilt? He's not sure anymore.
These hands are soaked in blood...
It took a few minutes before Maude could finally gather his composure. He barely made his way to Morose's work desk, fumbling with the papers scattered all over the drawers. Reports, scrapped projects, subject files,.. most were retrieved for investigation when the truth about the island came to light.
There's little to no hope that he would find anything of his goal.
He could scavenge something in the underground city, if only Howard hadn't destroy it when he put Slor-keedth back to sleep. Phillip didn't complain, he was grateful that it happened. Anything else could be worse.
"Ugh...not even a single scrap..." He grumbled under his breath and kicked the drawers shut. Why didn't he research the abomination when he had the chance? Surely the Doctor would have let him join...
But then again, he would be too far gone if he do so.
"I can just start researching anew.", He nodded to himself, "the thing's trapped in Howard's head, it can't possibly influence others, right?"
"Would his beloved be at risk of possession?"
The risk is too big to bear.
The man in blue winced and grabbed his head as thousands of voices rang through his head. They were whispering, yet even that was too much to bear. He leaned against the mold-covered wall, trying to steady himself, but to no avail.
The King's stone
"it's still here..." He gritted his teeth, struggling to resist the pain hammering the inside of his skull. He could go insane any second.
Having taken up all his will, Phillip bolted through the hallways. He kept running and running, until the voices could no longer be heard. Only then did he stop to catch his breath.
Upon looking up, his pupils shrunk slightly at the scene. This section of Greatmaw was simply unheard of, or was it because Morose never allowed him to venture far...? The ground below him was crisp, covered in mold all over. The whole place seemed to be alive, with tall fungal growths slowly swaying overhead.
There was fungi everywhere.
"Wh...where am I?" The man looked around. Unusual, indeed. But he knows exactly what it is.
"What the fuck are you doing here."
He looked back. And standing before him was once again Mycelium, who stared at him with a deep frown. He was clearly an unwanted guess.
"What are you doing here then?"
"It's my body, where else do you think I would be, genius?" The fungus rolled his eye in annoyance. The last bit of his sentence was basically gritted out.
"Well, since you're already here," he vaguely gestured to a raised platform of moss, "care for dinner? You look sickly."
"N-no, thank you." The man tried to turn down the offer.
"You wouldn't stay in the labs, because a coward like you is too afraid of a mere stone."
Oof, that's something. He was then promptly kicked (literally) back to the seated spot.
It's over, isn't it? This must be my end.
It's either we eat something ridiculous, or I'M his dinner.
Phillip fiddled with his hands, smiling awkwardly. If he acted nice, would Mycelium let him go then?
.
.
.
Darkness quickly consumed Greatmaw Isle, as the last violent ray of twilight was consumed. Phillip Maude sat in total darkness, without a single light source available.
"I should have brought a lantern." He mumbled to himself, as he listened to the very obvious grunts of frustration. Mycelium was merely a foot away, fumbling over a mess of dried leaves. He had been trying to start a fire for an hour now, without a single success.
Can't blame the creature, fungi doesn't really need light anyway. He only make that fire for Phillip's sake.
The man snorted, and immediately sneezed violently. Gosh, spores are everywhere in the air! He had definitely inhaled some. That can't be of any good for the lungs.
Finally, ember light lit up the space. The creature had managed to start a small fire. "Took you long enough." He teased, and yelped as a scalding cobblestone was thrown at his face. "Just kidding!"
Phillip was half laughing when he noticed something. Shadows. Not one, but three. They stretched tall, their 'roots' beginning from Mycelium himself, and flickering between the fungal growths around them.
"What are you looking at? Something on my face?" The white haired figure seemed genuinely confused.
He gulped harshly, throat dried. And to his horror, all of the shadows averted their gaze to him. Their eyes was all but the same shade of crimson, almost reminded him of a kind of diving bird. One was cloaked, directly leaning against Mycelium's shoulder and stared at him with a mix of cautious and curiosity.
The other two were...well, familiar, if he was to admit. They were a couple, Phillip assumed. The feminine one stayed at a distance, quietly watching; while another cloaked one with a visibly glowing triangle on its chest stood next to it.
They almost remind me of Morose and Samantha...
"Dinner's ready, doctor." Mycelium tossed a woven sack into his hands. Berries, wild, indeed, of various sizes, but edible at least, since he could tell the spieces. Surprising, it was being nice for once, instead of trying to maul him in their past encounter.
How else would he even react? He was literally imprisoned then.
The fungus sat beside him, picking at the dirt. "Eat quickly, before I eat your serving too." He half-heartedly hissed at Phillip, retrieving a piece of sharpened bone from his side.
"Where did you get that? There's barely any animals on the island." He tried to start a conversation, hoping to find something useful for his search.
"It was all thanks to you people." The figure replied, without looking up. "You dumped failed experiments outside for me. They were a lifesaver, to be honest."
"I'd eat about anything then."
.
.
.
Maude didn't even know what pursued him, but right now he's lying in a padded cave, Mycelium curled up beside him like a cat. He was grumpy, quite so, the man originally talked him into this.
"See? Much better than spending the night outside, huh?" Phillip was the first to talk, his hand subconsciously inching to the fungus.
His skin was cold, not icy, but the very obviously chill in dead body. Didn't really help when there's a patch of rotten flesh clumsily held together by mushroom. Mycelium didn't answer him, but he didn't pull away either.
They stayed like that for god knows how long, until the bearded man's eyes were heavy and he began to doze off. Rustling could be heard beside him, and then the soft moonlight outside was obscured.
"H-huh?" Phillip opened his eyes, and before he could process anything, Mycelium was above him, face just inches away from his. A deep red flushed over the man's face, flustered.
The creature's lips parted, his breath fogging the little space between them. Finally, he spoke,
"Did anyone come to save me?"
The question hang in the air, unanswered. Phillip is unsure, he doesn't really care much about that. But he did see flyers of missing people. Maybe he is one among them.
"...So that's a no."
Mycelium broke the silence, his tone carry a slight tremor. Sadness, perhaps? Nobody wants to be abandoned. His eye downcasted, the silver light bouncing on his face. An unreadable expression, but his voice gave it away.
He came off of Phillip and hugged his knees, a heavy sigh escaped his throat. "Did you find anything in your search?" He tentatively changed the subject. "What happened anyway?, No ordinary 'trouble' would bring you back to this hellish hole."
"It's nothing"
"Very well, then. I supposed you'll never find what you need."
Such a vague answer. He wanted to ask again, to be clarified, but the fungus turned away and became one with the mushrooms in a damp corner.
"...goodnight."
.
.
.
Phillip had woken up before the warm light of the sun even penetrate the cave. He stretched, not quite refreshed, but at least it counted as resting.
Huh, normally I'd freeze to death out here. He frowned, and looked down to find a rag drapped over his body. That's...how thoughtful. He huffed.
It appeared that he, in fact, wasn't the earliest lark. From a distance, Mycelium was lounging on the ground, wearing a grin on his face.
"What?" The man frowned, checking himself in case he was sabotaged.
The creature rolled onto his back, letting white hair pooling over the ground. "Not even a 'thank you' for the blanket?" He narrowed his eye.
"Uh, well...thanks. I mean it." The ex researcher sighed, "but what's with that grin? Don't tell me you-"
"I know you need every surviving documents and relics belonging to those eldritch creatures."
What?
No-
HOW?
"Sooooo sad..." He snickered, "somebody just wanted to hide the entire possessing situation from the only one who stayed for the aftermath."
"How do you know?!" Phillip didn't know he was raising his voice, "I never told you, I DON'T EVEN–"
Mycelium raised an eyebrow, unamused. "You spilled the tea yesterday. Guess someone sleeptalks his problems."
"Do not yell at me."
WHAT THE FUCK
"...oh." the man immediately deflated, his voice lowered to a whisper pathetically. "I'm sorry."
The fungus only shot him a side eye. "Anyway," he paused, "I've got an offer for you."
"Take me out of here, and I'll give you everything I managed to gather."
Seeing Maude's skepticism, he mumbled something under his breath. And before the naked eyes, his chest cavity splitted open, bloodied ribs sticking out like a beast's maw. Held in the hollowed inside was what assumed to be a stone, radiating with faint sparks of gold and green. The overall structure was that of an impossible shape, defying every law of known geometry.
Before he could properly compose himself, whispers flooded into the man's head all at once. He felt as if his brain might melt and come out through his nose. His teeth clenched tight, he was certain some had fractured right then. The crystalline burned its image into his mind, slowly, agonizingly so. And right when his eyes began to bleed...
Mycelium simply closed himself, and the voices ceased to exist, as if they'd never been there before.
"Fungi is the only thing on this planet that is close to god." He turned away, back facing the hunched man. "Only I, and I alone, can safely contain it...for now."
"I'm using my own sanity to trade for my freedom, and precious Howard's salvation..."
...
"Do we have a deal?"