The Hollow Moth: Reincarnated as a Caterpillar

The voice cuts through the stillness like a thread pulled tight.

"Oi. Took you long enough."

It's Vex—no doubt about it. That dry, venom-laced tone? Unmistakable. But it's muffled like he's speaking through a wall.

I turn to the ball of cocoon that used to be my brother and… stare. "Vex?"

"Yeah. Who else sounds this charming?"

Tessa perks up beside me. "Whoa, you can talk like that? Even when you're all wrapped up?"

The cocoon twitches. Not violently, just enough to show he's alive in there. "It's called psychic transmission, genius. You think I'm gonna let a little thing like being immobilized stop me from yelling at idiots?"

Goldy lets out a snort of laughter through the cocoon across from him. "Ha! That's my brother."

Victor, ever composed, gives a polite nod. "A most reassuring sign. Though I must admit, it is... impressive, dear brother, that your acerbic wit survives even the bonds of metamorphosis."

Vex lets out a grunt. "Yeah, well, someone's gotta keep the bar high. Or low. Depends on your standards."

I step a little closer to the cocoon and lower my voice. "So... how're you feeling? I mean, aside from sounding like your usual self."

A long pause. Then: "Weird. I can't move. I can't see. But I can feel everything. Like the whole cave is breathing around me. Like the silk's not just wrapping me—it's listening to me."

Tessa tilts her head. "That sounds… creepy. But also kinda cool?"

"You get used to it," Goldy mutters, her cocoon bobbing slightly. "Sort of. Just wait 'til the cravings hit."

"Cravings?" I ask.

"For food," she clarifies. "You'll know when you get hungry even for glowing rocks."

I'm about to ask more when Sairn steps forward again, gaze drifting between the two cocoons. "They will need time. A lot of it. Their evolution is a delicate process now. Both the body and soul are reshaping themselves."

Victor adjusts the strap of the makeshift satchel he still carries. "Then we must secure their tranquility. No disturbances shall be permitted."

"We'll guard them," I say, quiet but firm. "Both of them. They deserve that much."

I glance at the two cocoons—Vex and Goldy—nestled in the soft mushroom bedding, eerily still but somehow very much alive.

"Wait," I say, turning to Victor. "If they can't eat… how are they supposed to survive until they hatch? I mean, we're not exactly known for our fat reserves."

Victor tilts his head, antennae flicking in that calm, ever-graceful manner of his. "Ah, dearest sister, fret not. Sustenance is scarcely of concern once one ascends into the Soft Cocoon form."

He gestures lightly with a forelimb, as though conducting an invisible orchestra. "In truth, it is the very act of consuming enough—of amassing the required sustenance and energy—that enables one to begin the cocoon stage. One cannot simply will themselves into it. The body must be primed, the soul dense with potential. A threshold must be crossed."

Goldy chimes in, voice buzzing lazily from her cocoon. "Yeah, it's like… stuffing yourself so hard your body goes, 'Okay, I guess it's time to hibernate and upgrade.' Real cozy."

Victor nods. "Indeed. And once within, all external necessitates are rendered moot. The energy enshrined therein is judiciously allocated, sustaining the grand endeavor of transformation."

I tilt my head slightly, then look at Vex's cocoon. "So basically… they're in a long, magical food coma?"

Goldy snickers. "A gourmet coma."

Victor sighs. "If one must put it so crudely… then yes. A noble, transformative slumber woven of excess, potential, and will."

I glance back at the cocoons again. "Man. You two really ate yourselves into enlightenment."

Vex, muffled and dry: "That's the dream, isn't it?"

Everyone laughs. Even me. A little too hard, maybe.

But damn if it doesn't feel like we've earned the right to laugh today.

Tessa suddenly perks up, tail swishing with renewed energy. "Ahhh, all this talk makes me hungry!" she whines dramatically, pawing at her stomach. "I swear I can hear my own echo in there!"

Sairn, who's been quietly sitting beside Vex's cocoon, lifts his gaze with a knowing glimmer in his spores. "Well, I knew one of you would eventually say that," he says dryly, gesturing with one broad, spongy arm.

We follow his motion—and there it is.

A section of the chamber has been transformed into what can only be described as a… mushroom banquet. Thick, colorful caps steamed and stacked on mossy platters. Plump, glistening fungi, others served raw with soft glowing spores like seasoning. It's all arranged on what looks like a naturally grown mushroom table, big enough to seat a whole brood.

Sairn stands up and gives a slight bow. "Ypal instructed me to prepare nourishment for you all. I took the liberty of arranging it in a more… palatable manner."

Tessa's eyes sparkled as if she had just found paradise. "Sairn, you legend."

Victor hums in approval. "Exquisite presentation. As expected from Myconid hospitality."

Goldy's voice buzzes from her cocoon, full of longing. "Ugh… I can smell it and I still can't eat… this is torture."

I snort. "Yeah well, that's what you get for being so eager to evolve."

Goldy groans dramatically. "I regret nothing!"

I look at the table again.

…Well, guess we're eating.

Back to eating mushrooms again.

But this time… it's different.

Victor and I are seated near the edge of the mushroom table, chewing in quiet appreciation. The textures are soft, earthy, and just faintly sweet from the glowing spores that cling to each cap. We eat in slow, polite mouthfuls.

And then there's Tessa.

She's not just eating—she's cooking.

Somehow, somewhere, she managed to build a tiny setup using hot stones, twigs, and a piece of flat bark she's treating like a pan. She's tossing thin mushroom slices over it with a stick, her tail wagging as she hums. I think she might be improvising a sauce from crushed glowing fungus and one of the spongier caps.

Victor watches her with a mixture of confusion and admiration. "Is she… searing them?"

"She is," I mutter, stuffing a grilled stem in my mouth. "And I hate to say it but… it smells really good."

Tessa beams at us from her cooking corner. "You guys are missing out! These lil' white ones get all crispy on the outside and gooey in the middle! C'mon Nur, try this!"

She lifts a piece toward me like it's a sacred offering.

I glance at Victor. "Should we be concerned?"

Victor answers, deadpan, "I believe she is attempting to invent cuisine."

Goldy, muffled from her cocoon: "Save me a bite, you traitors!"

"Nope," Tessa grins, biting into her masterpiece. "You snooze, you cocoon."

Well… it's been a while since I had grilled mushrooms. I shuffle over beside her and sit, my silver bristles twitching as the warmth of the cooking stones reaches me. Tessa's already turning another batch, nose wrinkled in concentration like she's solving world peace with char marks.

I grab one of the grilled caps she sets aside and take a bite.

Still no salt, still no pepper, and definitely no butter. But… yeah. It's better. The crisp edges crackle slightly, and the center melts like steamed tofu soaked in faintly earthy sweetness. There's even a faint smokiness from the twigs she's using.

"Not bad," I admit with a soft grunt. "Still lacks, you know, actual seasoning, but… edible."

Tessa lights up like I just crowned her with a chef's hat. "Right?! I told you it's better when it's got that sizzle!"

"Sure, if that sizzle doesn't poison us," I mumble, chewing again. "What twigs did you even use?"

She shrugs, holding up a random charred branch. "I dunno. The crunchy kind. Victor checked it wasn't venomous."

"Victor, you should join us," I say, nudging a half-charred cap his way. "You oughta know what actual cooking tastes like

"My dear sister," he says with deliberate weight, "I am partaking. This infusion," he raises his improvised mushroom teacup, "is a delicately steeped broth of three cap varieties, simmered at a precisely sustained ambient warmth. A subtle dance of bitterness and depth."

Tessa snorts. "It's tea, Victor. Just tea."

"A gentleman's meal," he replies with zero shame, flicking one bristle like a raised pinky.

I shove a skewer toward him. "No more excuses. Come on. Eat the char. It builds character."

He hesitates like I've just invited him to join a street brawl, but then—gracefully, dramatically—he lowers himself beside us and plucks the skewer from my grip.

"If I perish," he mutters, "inform the Queen I died in the pursuit of culinary understanding."

"You'll die full," Tessa quips.

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And just like that, the three of us share our first meal as a weird, dysfunctional, char-loving little brood.

Meanwhile, Goldy and Vex—still very much in cocoon form—sit off to the side like silent, judging deities.

"I can feel them staring," I mutter, glancing toward the golden cocoon pulsing faintly with irritation.

Tessa waves her paw dismissively. "Don't mind them. They're just mad they can't chew anything right now."

From Goldy's cocoon, a psychic grumble slips through the air. "Unfair. Smells good. Everything tastes like silk and regret in here."

Then from Vex's cocoon: "…if I had a mouth, I'd bite you just out of spite."

Victor pats the satchel containing the scroll with the same serenity as someone sipping wine beside a war crime. "Do not fret, siblings. When you awaken, you too shall partake in burnt fungi."

Goldy emits another long groan. "This is suffering. I evolve and immediately miss lunch. This is what betrayal feels like."

I smirk and tap my skewer against her cocoon. "Rest up, Highness. By the time you're out, maybe Tessa will figure out what seasoning is."

"I heard that," Tessa growls.

Victor sips his tea broth again. "Frankly, I admire the bitterness. It complements the emotional tension delightfully."

As we dig into our little makeshift mushroom feast, the chamber's quiet hum is broken by shuffling steps and a familiar voice.

"Phew," Spiky says, antennae twitching as he drags in something wrapped in silk and moss. Two of our broodmates follow behind, faces dim with grief. "Took a while, but we found him. He was buried under debris in the central tunnel."

Then he pauses—antennae perk, head tilting as the scent hits him. "Wait… what are you guys doing? Are you… are you burning mushrooms? And—hold on, Nur? Goldy? Vex?! You guys evolved?"

I look at him mid-bite. "Welcome back to civilization, I guess?"

Tessa grins proudly, her paw still flipping a chunk of grilled cap. "We're cooking. Like proper people. You want some?"

Victor, ever poised, gestures with a silk-wrapped skewer. "A most enriching activity, brother. One you ought to try."

Spiky ignores the offer, staring between me and the large cocoon in the corner. "Wow. So… you went all moonbeam, and Vex is now… a ball."

"He's a very venomous ball," I say. "And yes, I glowed. There was sparkle. Probably a few dramatic poses."

Spiky lowers his head, finally settling the preserved corpse down with care near Vex and Goldy's cocoons. The air dims with a quiet weight. "We brought him back. The one who protected Goldy… figured he deserves to rest with the others."

Goldy's psychic voice is soft this time, barely a whisper: "Thank you, Spiky."

Tessa crouches, brushing a paw over the silk-wrapped form. "We'll remember him."

For a few moments, no one speaks. Just the soft sizzle of mushrooms cooking and the low breath of spores in the air.

Me, Victor, Spiky, and the others walk slowly toward where we've laid the fallen one. The warmth of the meal fades behind us, replaced by something heavier. Familiar. Unsettling.

Yep. It's time for that again.

I'd already done it once, earlier. Said yes to Goldy and swallowed whatever hesitation I had left. I don't know if that made it easier now, or if it just made the weight sit deeper in my gut.

Victor stops beside me, his voice low, formal, but not cold. "It is our way. To preserve the strength of the brood. To carry them forward. Let us do this with dignity."

No one says anything more. We bow our heads—not a ritual, not really. Just instinct. Just the quiet acknowledgment that this one died so the rest of us could live. That their last act was to shield one of our own.

I lower myself first, mandibles working. The flesh is cold. Still spiced faintly with rot and moss, but preserved cleanly. I chew slowly. Methodical. Not looking at anyone else.

Spiky follows next. He doesn't say a word. His bristles twitch slightly, his head bowed.

Victor joins in. Regal even in mourning.

Tessa hesitates, but she watches us—not with revulsion, but something else. A quiet, curious respect. She doesn't join. She doesn't need to.

We all take turns. Small bites. No one overeats. This isn't about hunger. It's about memory.

The fallen Spiky Caterpillar vanishes piece by piece, not into the soil, but into us. The brood. The future.

It's not pretty.

But it's sacred.

Goldy's voice cuts through the silence, as casual as ever despite what we've just done.
"Alright," she says, with a faint rasp of silk from within her cocoon, "we've pretty much done with our business here."

I stare. That's it? No moment of reflection, no breath to let the weight settle?

Victor gives a small nod, brushing away residual silk from his mandibles. "Indeed. Our objective has been fulfilled. Sporehaven is secure. The contract reaffirmed."

Goldy hums. "Then it's time we start thinking about our next move."

I don't answer right away. My gaze lingers on the empty space where the corpse had been—now nothing left but traces in the moss.

"…Yeah," I murmur. "Guess it is."

I exhale through my mandibles and stretch, already dreading what Goldy's about to suggest. "Do we have to?" I mutter. "We've got two cocoons now. We're not exactly travel-ready. And I'm definitely not going to be the one lugging Vex around."

Victor lets out a breathy, amused sound. "I daresay our dear brother is not the lightest of burdens."

"Oh come on," Goldy replies, her voice muffled inside the cocoon but still annoyingly smug. "You're the one who said, 'Peace is restored and all.' Which means it's time to move."

I glance at her cocoon. "You don't even have legs right now."

"I have authority. You carry authority," she quips back.

I groan. "That's not how that works."

Tessa laughs from her spot near the cooling grill. "Guess we're having a royal expedition, huh? With royal baggage."

Goldy huffs. "I heard that!"

I glance over at the two glowing lumps—Goldy and Vex—lying like prized vegetables in a royal produce cart. "Hey, Victor," I ask, "how long is this going to take anyway? Them being like this?"

Victor, ever the gentleman, turns his antennae slightly as if pondering a formal manuscript before replying, "The cocoon process, dear sister, is not one measured in precise hours but in the ebb and swell of growth. However, I surmise that during this Soft Cocoon stage, they are merely cultivating within—developing both body and psyche. In time, they shall progress into the Royal Cocoon or Venom Cocoon, depending on one's path. It is at that next stage where their psychic faculties shall flourish, and with it, the ability to maneuver once more."

"So we're stuck doing the heavy lifting until they start floating?" I mutter.

"Indeed," he says with a solemn nod. "Until they may lift themselves through will and essence, we remain their most humble porters."

"Well… I guess that's not too bad," I say, eyeing Goldy and Vex like a pair of oversized eggs waiting to hatch. "How far are we from the 4th Zone anyway?"

Tessa perks up, tail flicking, "Not far! I came from that way before, remember?" She points with her nose toward the deeper tunnel. "You'll know when you start seeing less light. The glow kind fades into this dim, moody vibe. Very dramatic. Kinda like your face when you almost died."

"Thanks for the reminder," I mumble, already imagining the damp gloom ahead.

She grins. "Anytime."

Goldy huffs through her cocoon, voice faint but still smug. "So we're going then?"

I sigh, dragging myself upright and adjusting the silk satchel Victor wove around my side. "Yes, yes. Let us walk into the dark and gloomy cave of death."

Tessa lets out a sharp laugh, already bounding ahead with a bounce in her step. "Ooh, I love dramatic entrances!"

Victor, as composed as always, follows behind with an air of grim nobility. "Indeed. May the shadows of the Fourth Zone find us ready, and not too unkempt."

"And preferably not rotting this time," I mutter, glancing one last time at the glowing fungi.

As we head toward the Fourth Zone, our path winds back through the ritual site—where everything had gone to hell not long ago. But now… it's quiet. Too quiet.

The battlefield is pristine. There were no signs of bloodshed, no shattered mushrooms, and no shattered bodies. No rot, no corpses, not even a hint of the chaos we fought through.

It's like nothing ever happened.

I pause, brushing my bristles against the ground as if something might still be there, hidden. But there's only soft mycelium, undisturbed. Even the scent in the air is clean—sweet and earthy, like a forest after rain.

"Creepy," Tessa whispers beside me. "It's like the place cleaned itself."

Victor nods solemnly. "This is the work of Ypal's final gift. Restoration through harmony. It is not just the wounded that were healed."

Goldy lets out a muffled hum from the satchel. "Still feels like we walked out of a dream. Or back into one."

I say nothing. Just keep walking, eyes forward, but the silence behind us feels too heavy to ignore. A quiet that remembers. A quiet that forgets.

A Myconid brushes past us—nothing unusual at first. Just another quiet stalker headed in the opposite direction, arms full of spores and tools like the others helping restore the zone.

But then it hits me.

That feeling again.

Heavy. Distant. Aching, like old grief buried under my skin.

Just like the first time I laid eyes on Orbed's artifact.

I stop walking.

The others don't notice at first—Victor's humming something under his breath, Tessa's chatting about cave humidity, and Goldy is probably grumbling silently in the satchel. But I don't hear any of that anymore.

I turn slowly.

The Myconid is crouched down now, just a few paces back. One hand stretches toward the ground—toward a jagged, twisted shard of stone, half-buried in the moss.

Wait.

No.

That's not just a stone.

I know that shape. That crooked edge. That shimmer of ghostlight clinging to its surface.

That's the artifact.

The same one Orbed used.

The same one that pulsed with rot, old power and almost killed me.

It shouldn't be here. It should've vanished with him. It was burning out. It was—

My voice catches in my throat.

No, it's still here.

And someone's about to touch it.

"Wait—stop! Don't touch that!"

Too late.

The Myconid's spindly fingers curl around the jagged stone—no hesitation, no understanding. Just a curious grip.

Then it begins.

The shard pulses. Not with light, but rot—a sickly, vibrant green energy blooming out like infected veins. It doesn't explode. It doesn't scream. It just seeps. Slow and deliberate. The way mold crawls over warm bread. The way sickness takes root before you realize you're sick.

The Myconid stiffens.

Green tendrils snake through its arms, crawling beneath the skin. It spasms. Staggers back. Its cap quivers—then collapses inward as if melting from within.

And then—

It turns into a blob.

I don't even know how else to describe it. One second it's a Myconid—sapient, breathing, real—and the next, it's just a flesh lump, a writhing mass of fungal tissue and muscle-like slime, twitching as if caught between shapes.

No face. No spores. No identity.

Just a pulsing, grotesque thing.

Tessa lets out a sharp gasp. Victor recoils, visibly unsettled for once. Even Goldy goes dead silent inside the satchel.

"...What the hell did we just see?" I breathe.

The artifact—still pulsing—now rests beneath the blob-like a heart without a chest.

Tessa doesn't wait. She bolts.

"Get back here, you freaky meatball!" she growls, claws igniting with heat.

The blob jerks—its mass undulating in a way that should be impossible—and then it moves. Fast. Faster than it has any right to. It doesn't walk or run, it slithers, part-melted and part-fluid, a smear of flesh scrambling through the broken terrain like it knows exactly where to go.

Tessa pounces, but just as her claws slash down—

Splat.

It slips into a narrow crevice between two rocks, like a slug melting through a crack. Her claws strike the stone with a dull spark.

"Damnit!" she growls, crouched and ready to pursue. But the blob is gone. Just like that.

Silence falls. The artifact is gone too—dragged with it or dissolved into whatever the hell that was.

I stare at the empty space. That wasn't just some mutated Myconid. That was something else entirely.

Something wrong.

Ypal glides in with eerie silence, accompanied by three towering figures—each distinct and imposing. One bears the thick, plated frame of a Myconid Guardian, another drifts with luminous trails, a Sporecaster, and the last walks with the calm, commanding air of a Warden.

"What happened here?" Ypal asks, their voice is resonant with concern, echoing faintly in the cavern's stillness.

I don't waste time. "It's the artifact," I say, pointing toward the crack where the blob vanished. "The same one Orbed used. I thought it was spent after he blasted everything—like it got consumed. But it was there. A jagged green stone. One of the Myconids touched it and turned into... into that thing."

Ypal grows still. Their cap glows faintly, spirals pulsing with thought. "That artifact," they murmur, "is not of Myconid origin. It appeared out of nowhere in the deep roots, pulsing with foreign mana. Orbed took it in. Claimed it chose him."

"Chose him?" Tessa echoes, brows furrowed. "So it's sentient?"

"Not sentient," the Warden rumbles, voice thick like mulch. "But reactive. It answers desire. Craves will. The strong shape it. The weak are shaped by it."

I glance at the crevice. A shiver crawls down my bristles.

"Well," I mutter, "whatever it is... it's not done with us yet."

Ypal inclines their head slowly, their glowing cap casting soft rings of light across the now-quiet battlefield. "Fear not," they say, voice steady and calm. "I am no longer merely a Sage. As Emperor of Sporehaven, I shall ensure our vigilance. What happened here shall not repeat—not under my watch."

Their words carry weight—not just the burden of power, but responsibility. The three Myconids behind them bow slightly in silent affirmation.

"I will assign Fysteryl to cleanse the surrounding roots and seal any fissures where the artifact may have fled. We will study what remains if anything. But you…" they turn to us, their gaze softening, "you've done more than enough. Sporehaven stands today because of your courage."

I feel a strange twist in my chest—part pride, part guilt, part relief.

"Thank you," Ypal says at last. "Go now. Rest. Grow. This burden is ours to carry now."

Victor bows deeply in return, ever the courtly gentleman. "May your reign be wise and enduring, Emperor Ypal."

Goldy, still cocooned but upright in her satchel sling, lets out a muffled huff. "Can we please go now before another glowing horror blob crawls out of a crack?"

I glance at her, then at the faint green pulse that lingers in the cracks of the stone where the artifact once sat. It's fading now—barely a shimmer. Still, something about it claws at the back of my mind. The kind of itch that feels like a memory you've never had.

I shake it off. Not now.

Tessa nudges me forward with her snout. "Come on, Nur. We've got dark caves to crawl."

I manage a faint smile. "Yeah. Let's get moving before Goldy eats someone out of spite."

"She wishes," Goldy mutters, and I can practically feel her sulking through the silk.

We turn away from the ritual site, our small group heading once more into the narrowing tunnels, toward the unknown threshold of the Fourth Zone. The light thins. The air chills.

Behind us, the glowing mushrooms of Sporehaven fade into the distance.

Ahead of us: darkness.

And something waiting in it.

End of Chapter 46