Elara stood, arm dangling limply at her side. It still hadn’t healed, even with so much time spent in range of the Guardian Statues. She was starting to think that it never would. Healing didn’t seem to work; it didn’t fix the fact that her arm still felt impossibly dense, bits of undead flesh and broken crystal turned to ash and superimposed with her own flesh.

Which apparently wasn’t recognized as an injury by the Guardian Statues. Not something to be healed. It just was.

Depressing.

Still, the blade that she carried, now held at her side by a makeshift sheathe more suited for its new form, at least cheered her up a little. After Elara recovered from her near-death, while the others were cleaning up what they could and ensuring that all of the undead monsters were entirely dead, she had walked around the cavern and gathered as many broken crystal shards as she could. Most of them were ruined, but the Core’s defender had been formed of so many of them that it wasn’t too difficult to find bits and pieces that were still infused with death mana.

Elara had gathered them all, phasing them into her crystal-laced blade piece by piece. The strange thing was heavier now, so filled with death-infused crystal that Elara was beginning to hope that her arm would recover just so that she could more easily carry it.

Finally, after a much more relaxed journey than the one that had brought them to the Death Core’s lair, the group had made it back to Verdant Grove. The Little Guardian had spent much of the time resting on Valera’s shoulder or being adored by the children of the city, all while the spore-infected forest grew further, its canopy reaching new heights. Sometimes they whipped and writhed about, leaves and vines twisting in the air as if in a coordinated dance, batting down any flying monsters that happened to approach the city - something that members of Verdant Grove’s Guard used to handle, back when they still kept the city safe.

Now, there wasn’t even any need for them. The city defended itself. And the defenses had only grown further, vines and branches flecked in blue and gold stretching out from the boundaries of the forest that the Little Guardian had created. Some of the more brave individuals had even taken it upon themselves to start building against the largest of the forest’s trees, forming lean-tos that had signs of eventually aiming for something more, with rope bridges cast between them, suspended above the heads of those walking below.

They likely felt safer there, in the midst of the Little Guardian’s forest. It had been their salvation when all hope seemed lost, after all. Elara didn’t blame them. She understood.

After all was said and done, Elara’s ruined city looked like something entirely new; gone were the great soaring crop-towers of before, where the vegetation grown by the Nature Core was kept isolated from the city itself. Now, Verdant Grove’s name was more fitting than ever, the city itself becoming a colorful grove.

One that, eventually, the Seekers had to leave. Elara had gone with them, eager to see what came next. With the city saved and the Little Guardian returned, it would soon be time to begin dealing with the problem of Virtun.

Unfortunately, that was a problem of politics, and politics was among the slowest of beasts.

I hissed lightly, the scent-taste of a new many-nest on my tongue. Or an old one.

“So you fed it not only one, but two different Cores?” the widest of the Coreless asked, indecipherable noises slipping free from heavyset lips. His jowls stretched ever downward, flopping about as his mouth opened and closed. I found myself staring at the repetitive movement, fascinated. It was hypnotic.

“Who’s that again?” The Grateful One hissed, the quiet sound slipping over my head-scales.

“That’s Councilman Port,” the-female-who-was-not-Needle hissed back at her, the noises as garbled and unserpentlike as they always were. “He’s one of the more…outspoken of the council members, you’ll find. Especially when speaking up leads to making him more wealthy. A merchant through and through. Still, he’s not all bad. Sometimes.”

The wide Coreless had continued to make noises while the two female disciples hissed quietly at one another, gesturing with equally wide sweeps of his arm at the other Coreless that were gathered in the nest’s cavern. Like the wide Coreless himself, many of their fingers were wrapped in circles of golden ore-flesh, and they all looked remarkably healthy and well-fed. More than most of the Coreless in the many-nest; things had gotten a little better since we left, but many of the Coreless in the nest - particularly the littlest ones - were [hungry].

I had a solution for that, but it would have to wait until later. I still needed to find a place for it.

“...all due respect, from the reports that I’ve been given, we have gained far more than we’ve lost,” I heard another voice say, the Coreless’ [Little Guardian’s Totem] resonating with mild [annoyance].

“Then go on, Captain Wren. Tell us what your son and his group have gained by losing two valuable Cores. Need I remind you that we currently only have access to one? We could have tripled our Cores all at once, had they been brought back,” the widest of the Coreless replied again, just as [annoyed]. I also caught hints of more behind it, complicated bits of emotion that were harder to understand. If I had to make a guess, it felt like the [displeasure] of a lost opportunity for growth, like the times when I found myself too small to devour the bad-things that I defeated.

For a moment, The Staring One, a Coreless that I hadn’t seen for quite a while now, did what he did best - he stared. Menacingly. The wide Coreless quailed under the assault, averting his eyes.

The Staring One motioned towards me, and the eyes of the gathered Coreless followed the movement. I preened under the attention, shifting slightly to make sure that my scale-flesh glimmered in the light. A few bursts of [admiration] later, I settled down again.

I might have used [Illusion Spark] to enhance the effect - just a little bit. These Coreless hadn’t seen me in a while, and I wanted to make sure that they hadn’t forgotten their appreciation for the Great Core. It shouldn’t have been possible to forget something so Great, but the Coreless continually surprised me. It didn’t hurt to make sure.

“Empowering a proven ally - one that, as you well know, is now planned to be an integral part of Orken’s economic growth, is worth the loss of two Cores. Two extremely dangerous Cores, let me remind you. You’ve seen the refugees from Verdant Grove; can you be sure that the same couldn’t happen here?” The Staring One said, eyes panning across the gathered Coreless. A few of them opened their mouths to speak up, but The Staring One raised a hand to stop them. “Yes, yes. I know. We’ve known ever since Rowan returned to make his report that the fall of Verdant Grove wasn’t a natural occurrence. It was sabotage. Yet the fact remains that it did happen. Natural or not, it could happen again. And, I’ve been told, we may have a sort of replacement. One that could solve some of my more recent concerns about the city’s defenses at the same time. Erik, if you would?”

Suddenly, Will stepped forward, lugging a large skin-mouth behind him. It was a giant thing, created by the formerly ruined many-nest’s Coreless as an offering to the Great Core’s continued greatness. My mind easily latched onto it, the combination of [Verdure Parasite] and [Spore Puppeteer] making its contents impossible to ignore. I hissed with excitement as the skin-mouth was emptied over a nearby slab of darkwood, eager to see the Coreless’ reaction.

Seed after seed, each one lined by bits of gold and blue, stretched across the slab’s surface. I idly let one twitch, amusing myself with the sight of the plant-flesh seed bouncing up and down.

“Are those…moving?” one of the Coreless asked, a female this time. Her voice was tinged with [uneasiness], clearly discomfited by the blessings that the Great Core had allowed me to provide its Coreless. She probably felt unworthy of the gift, like she hadn’t done enough to earn it.

“They are,” Will said, the disciple quickly acting to reassure her. Even if they had done little to earn it, the disciples had. I would have struggled to defeat the Lesser Cores without them. And besides, the Coreless that I helped now would be better able to serve the Great Core in the future, growing stronger on the backs of what they were gifted. “Technically, they’re monsters. Ones that the Little Guardian has learned to grow quite quickly.”

My disciple’s reassurance did not go over well; at his words, even more of the gathered Coreless gave off feelings of [uneasiness], overcome by their unworthiness in the face of the Great Core’s gifts.

The Staring One suddenly stepped in, catching the idly bouncing seed of plant-flesh and running a hand across its surface. I let the spore-roots controlling it fall still, bored of watching the thing rise and fall.

“At the same time, these small seeds could lead to -”

I decided to slither my way into the conversation as best I could. Not that I actually moved at all, but I did join it. I might not have understood every word - or any, really - of what was being said, but I could still taste the Coreless’ emotions and watch what was going on - and it was clear that they needed to be reassured that the Great Core would willingly watch over those that it had claimed, even if they felt unworthy of the honor.

I gathered all of the light that I could, topping off the reservoirs that [Illusion Spark] placed in my scale-flesh, and began to show them an illusion of the Great Core’s other many-nest. Hopefully, seeing that another many-nest of Coreless had received the same gift would help to speed things along.

They gasped in [amazement] as the plant-flesh forest of the once-ruined many-nest appeared. Unfortunately, it was less detailed than I’d have liked. Even with my growing practice, [Illusion Spark] wasn’t strong enough to sustain such a massive illusion with both enough detail and for a long enough time to matter. I could have used some of the extra Trait Points I still hadn’t used to increase it, but it wasn’t worth the cost when other things might come along. Regardless of that, their mouths flapped in even more [amazement] when I created - basic and low detailed - illusions of the Coreless eating from the plant-flesh’s fruit and flesh. Of building nests that draped against its surface, leaves and vines and more carefully moving out of the way any time they might cause the Coreless harm, following my command to avoid injuring the Great Core’s Coreless. Of the spore-puppet forest wiping out a cluster of bad-things that foolishly tried to fly in the direction of a group of vulnerable Coreless, their wings ripped to shreds by whipping vines.

By the time absorbing the light given off by my disciples’ ore-flesh was no longer enough to let me keep up the increasingly complicated illusion, that [amazement] had grown to new heights.

The [uneasiness] was gone, though.

Mostly.

Deciding that my part was done, I allowed my disciples to handle the rest, my attention turning instead towards the brushing of fingers against my scale-flesh until the boredom of unending jabbering lulled me to sleep.