The Hollow Bloom

Part 2 – The Bloom Within

The first hour inside the bloom was quiet.

Too quiet.

The kind of quiet that made every footstep feel like an accusation, every breath like a secret exposed. Mushrooms stretched high above them, swaying though there was no wind. Some had caps like shields. Others like bowls. One resembled a screaming face until you stared long enough—and then it didn’t.

The air was thick with floating spores—pale lavender flecks that drifted like ash and didn’t settle.

Trashcore was the first to break the silence.

“I think the mushrooms are staring at me.”

“They don’t have eyes,” Hanh replied.

“Yeah, but they’re still doing it.”

Frog Prince hovered a few feet off the ground, orb spinning slowly beside him. “This entire forest is enchanted. Possibly sentient. Possibly ill-mannered. Definitely moist.”

He paused.

“Also, one of the caps told me to marry it. Politely.”

Shroomer Monk chuckled from up ahead, humming to himself as he danced between stalks with the grace of a hallucinating squirrel. “You mustn’t judge the bloom. It’s not meant to be seen. Only felt. It is a question, not an answer.”

“You’re high as hell, aren’t you?” Trashcore asked.

“Yes,” Shroomer said, smiling beatifically. “And I took nothing.”

Hanh pressed onward, his staff glowing faintly with a rhythmic pulse—three beats, pause, two beats. It wasn’t reacting to external magic. It was echoing something deeper.

“We’re getting close,” he said.

“To what?” Scorpion Warlock asked. He hadn’t spoken since entering the bloom. His tail swayed behind him like a pendulum of poison.

“Something old,” Hanh said. “Possibly hungry.”

Scorpion nodded once. “Good.”

They found the village shortly after.

Or what was left of it.

Half-swallowed cottages lay tilted in the muck, rooftops overgrown with fungal webbing. Faint shapes moved beneath the surface—bodies, maybe. Or something pretending to be. A well at the center had been overtaken entirely, now crowned with a ring of glowing mushrooms that pulsed with slow, blue light.

Trashcore sniffed. “Smells like cheese and regret.”

Frog Prince flicked his wrist, and a shimmer spread out across the clearing. “No illusions. No traps. But time feels… strange here.”

Hanh stepped into the middle of the village, raising a hand.

“Something happened here. Something that twisted the natural cycle.”

“The mycelium remembers,” Shroomer whispered, kneeling beside a patch of glowing caps. He pressed his palm to the dirt.

His eyes rolled back.

For a second, nothing.

Then—

He screamed.

It was short—just a burst of sound and panic. He fell backward, clutching his chest. Lyra was on him in a second, spectral fur bristling, fangs inches from his throat.

“I saw it,” Shroomer gasped. “Underneath.”

“Underneath what?” Hanh asked, pulling her back.

“The bloom. The earth. There’s a core. A thing… dreaming. And every time it exhales, reality bends.”

He shuddered.

“It doesn’t want to be awake. But it’s waking anyway.”

Scorpion Warlock finally stepped forward. “We need to burn this place.”

“No,” Hanh said, standing. “Not yet.”

“That thing is manipulating the spores,” Scorpion said. “Feeding. Feeding on our minds.”

“I know,” Hanh replied. “I’m already hearing it.”

A crack echoed through the trees.

Then another.

Not natural. Not wind. Something moving toward them.

Something large.

Trashcore gripped his burger-blade. “Okay. That’s not normal forest ambience.”

The ground beneath their feet began to ripple. Not shake—ripple, like stone had become water. The mushrooms leaned inward, all at once, as if bracing.

Then the trees began to bleed.

Thin trails of black sap oozed from the bark, sizzling when it hit the ground. One of the cottages folded in on itself like paper. Something rose from the crater left behind.

It had no face.

It had antlers made of bone.

And it smelled like endings.

Lyra roared.

The Bastards scattered, spells flaring, weapons drawn.

Hanh raised his staff—and the bloom shrank away from him in all directions.

But it wasn’t enough.

The thing stepped forward, its body shifting between wood, muscle, and memory. Every footstep made the village blink out for a second—then come back wrong. The well was now a hole. The cottage was a cage.

“This is not the source,” Hanh shouted.

“No,” Frog Prince snarled. “It’s the gatekeeper.”

Scorpion Warlock flung a burst of venomfire. It hit. Sizzled. Did nothing.

Trashcore charged, screaming something incoherent. His burger-blade struck the creature’s shin with a wet clang. It staggered.

Shroomer moved forward, spores erupting from his sleeves in a bright halo.

“I remember your name,” he whispered, voice deepened by something not entirely his own. “And you are not welcome here.”

The creature paused.

Just long enough for Lyra to strike.

Her jaws clamped down on its throat—or where its throat should’ve been—and it crumbled.

Into dust. Into ash.

Into memory.

The village was still again.

The mushrooms no longer swayed.

Hanh stood in the center, breathing hard, sweat cold on his brow.

“That wasn’t real,” he muttered. “Not fully.”

“But it wanted to be,” Frog Prince said, eyes narrow. “The longer we stay, the more real it becomes.”

“So we go deeper,” Scorpion said.

Everyone looked at him.

“You’re enjoying this,” Trashcore said.

Scorpion smiled. It wasn’t comforting.

“We need to find the core,” Hanh said. “Before the bloom becomes a forest. Before it remembers how to spread.”

He turned to the rest.

“No more distractions. No more spores. From here on out, every step could be a lie.”

Trashcore grinned. “Finally. A real Bastard quest.”

The five of them turned toward the heart of the bloom—toward the pulsing light just barely visible through the stalks.

And the air behind them whispered their names.

[To be continued…]