Anya moved through the alien forest with a purpose that bordered on predatory. She became Elias's first and most important lesson in survival: to match the rhythm of the Verse. She didn't push through fungal stalks; she weaved between them. Her feet didn't crunch on the pale, woody debris; they found the silent purchase of the moss. Elias, a quick study from years of moving through hostile territory, followed her example, mimicking her stride and her silence.
"Rule one," Anya murmured, her voice a low conspirator's whisper that was somehow absorbed by the damp air. "Light and sound are currency. Spend them wisely. The light you made? That was like setting off a signal flare. We were lucky only I was close enough to see it."
"It's a component of my Resonance," Elias replied, his voice equally hushed. "I can't always control the visual effect."
"Learn to," she stated flatly. It wasn't a suggestion. "Or you'll draw more than just scavengers. You'll draw Stalkers."
"Stalkers?"
"Big things. Six legs, skin like chitinous bark. They blend in with the big mushroom stems. They're blind, but they hunt by sound and what they call 'light-fall'—sudden changes in ambient light. They're why the Gloomwood is so quiet. Everything that survives here learns to be."
They walked in silence for a time, the only sounds the rhythmic dripping and the soft hum of the Verse. Elias absorbed the information, filing it away. Anya's rules were simple, brutal, and entirely practical. They were the ethics of pure survival, a philosophy stripped of all sentiment. He found he didn't disagree with them, but he wondered what space they left for the principles he held dear.
His thoughts were interrupted when Anya froze, holding up a single, sharp gesture for him to halt. She pointed with her chin towards a clearing ahead. In the centre of the open space, a large, deer-like creature with pale, glowing fur was peacefully grazing on a patch of luminous moss. It was a beautiful, serene sight in the otherwise oppressive landscape.
"Glimmer-pelt," Anya breathed, her eyes narrowed. "Good meat. Thick hide."
"It seems peaceful," Elias observed.
"Everything's peaceful until it's not," she retorted. "Watch."
From the shadows at the edge of the clearing, something detached itself from the gloom. It was long and serpentine, with a segmented, insectoid body that flowed over the ground with an unnatural fluidity. A Centipede Crawler. Its head was a nightmarish cluster of grasping appendages and a dripping maw. It moved with lethal silence, stalking the oblivious Glimmer-pelt.
Elias instinctively tensed, a desire to warn the tranquil creature rising in him. Before he could make a sound, Anya's hand shot out and gripped his arm with surprising strength. "Rule two," she whispered, her voice like ice. "Never interfere in a hunt that isn't yours. You don't know who the real predator is."
As the Crawler coiled to strike, something impossible happened. A heavy, melon-sized fungal pod from a high stalk directly above the creature detached and fell. But it didn't fall straight. It seemed to shift in mid-air, curving with an unnatural trajectory to smash directly onto the Crawler's head with a sickening crunch. The creature convulsed, its legs twitching, before falling still.
The Glimmer-pelt, startled by the sound, looked up, blinked its large, dark eyes, and trotted away into the fungal forest, unharmed.
Elias turned to look at Anya. She was already lowering her crossbow, which she had raised slightly, though not aimed. There was a look of intense concentration on her face, and he thought he saw a flicker of the same subtle, reality-warping energy he'd felt from the artifact that brought him here.
"Did you do that?" he asked quietly.
Anya didn't answer immediately, her eyes still scanning the clearing for other threats. "Resonance isn't just about light shows," she said, finally relaxing. "My mother used to say some people are good at throwing rocks. I'm just… better. The Verse likes things that move. I just give it suggestions."
Her Resonance of Kinetics. It wasn't flashy. It was subtle, efficient, and utterly lethal. A quiet manipulation of the world to suit her needs. The polar opposite of his own restorative power.
"Let's go," she said, already moving towards the dead Crawler. "Rule three: Never waste a kill, even if it wasn't yours to begin with. The venom sacs on these things are worth a lot if we make it to a settlement."
As she expertly began to harvest parts of the creature with a sharp skinning knife, Elias stood guard, his gaze sweeping their surroundings. He watched her work, her movements practiced and sure. She was a product of this place, her morality shaped by its unforgiving laws. He had healed her arm, an act of pure restoration. In return, she was teaching him how to survive in a world where a falling seed could be a weapon, and where a beautiful, peaceful creature was just a potential meal.
Their transaction was becoming more complex. He had offered a trade of skill for knowledge, but what he was receiving was a lesson in philosophy.
After Anya had packed the venom sacs and some of the creature's meatier segments, they moved on. The terrain began to slope upwards, the air growing slightly less humid.
"There's a waystation not far from here," Anya said, pointing towards a ridge of dark rock that broke the fungal canopy. "It's just a cave, really. But it's defensible. We can rest there."
Reaching the cave felt like reaching a port in a storm. It was a deep fissure in the rock, narrow at the entrance and opening into a larger chamber. Anya immediately set about securing it, placing a series of simple but clever tripwires with sharp chimes made from creature claws near the entrance.
As she worked, Elias looked back out at the Gloomwood. It was a world of profound and terrible beauty. A place that demanded adaptation or death. His principles, forged in a world of different rules, felt both foreign and more essential than ever. They were what made him him. But would they be a shield, or would they be a crushing weight that would drag him down into the all-consuming darkness of the Verse?