Here’s another unedited (probably never will be as it’s just a sketch) character study for the Nysta series. This time exploring one of many large mushroom forests which rampage through the southern areas of her world. Mushrooms – not very friendly…

The Hobgoblin named Riplock spat a thick globule of green onto the hilltop and scowled down at the creeping edge of Lostlight Swamp. The smell of rotting fungus and something else wafted up the hill on the back of an inquisitive breeze and the Hobgoblin shook his head in resignation. It would take many nights to go around the swamp, but with luck only a night or two to go through it, and the Hobgoblin had to be in Lightforge in two nights or his mission would be considered a failure.

And failure to Riplock was not an option.

Better to die in Lostlight than be a failure to the clan.

He wrapped his long black coat tighter around himself and drew himself up to his full six feet in height. Short for a Hobgoblin, Riplock made up for it with shoulders broader than most and had strength enough to break the still-living backs of frostwyrms.

His face was wide and flat, with apelike features. His flattened nose looked like it had been punched deep into his face by a giant. The giant in question, however, had been a boistrous uncle. His eyes glowed green in the darkness and the long clawed hands which scratched at his cheek were gnarled and looked to be perfectly capable of crushing granite in his fists.

His skin was green, with dark blemishes and pale green lines where many scars ripped across his flesh. Long wiry black hair crept across his face sometimes and he had a tendency to blow at it to get it out of his eyes rather than use his hands to wipe it aside.

The Hobgoblin was dressed in a simple mailshirt under a thick black jerkin. Black pants and black boots made of wyrmskin. A thick belt carried two shortswords at his waist. One was called Wyrmsbane and the other Nightbringer. Swirling around his solid body was a long coat of black wyrmskin, the cowl of which was pulled up over his head to leave most of his face in the blackest of shadows.

The black outfit marked him as one of the Manhunters, a clan of Hobgoblins who trained themselves to range far and wide, even into the hostile lands south of the Great Wall. Riplock had twice ventured into Riseland, and bore the scars with pride.

Thowing a glance regretfully at the road which led away from the Lostlight Swamp, Riplock took the first steps down the hill toward the swamp. He had cause to be nervous.

The Lostlight was a breeding ground for the Deathcap Mushrooms. In many ways he would have preferred to be battling the kraken in Icereach than heading toward Lostlight Swamp.

Since the Nightgod, Eventide, hooded the Hidden Lands from the sun, mushrooms had grown to incredible sizes. Where the trees died from lack of light, the mushrooms took their place with calm brutality.

Deathcaps towered over most mushrooms, being smaller only than the Mammothcaps and the Worldcaps found north of Wyrmsblood River. Their stems were many metres thick and reached some fifteen or twenty metres high. Their delicately curved caps spread outward like massive disks, and the giant gills glowed with a purple hue Riplock had to admit looked pretty in the dark sunless world.

Smaller mushrooms crawled across the wet swamplands, but for the most part were unable to survive in the shadows of the terrifying mushrooms. Terrifying not for their size, but for the manner in which they ate.

The Deadspores glowed yellow in the night. They were the size of small bats, and hovered on fragile wings. Small crystal gills in the spores tinkled as they moved with an oddly hypnotic song. The song was lovely, and strangers might reach out and touch them. Or be lulled by the slow moving glow of their little bodies that they ventured too close to prevent the sudden lashing out of the spores’ long barbed tails.

Chewing into their victims with relentless ferocity, the Deadspores tunneled into the skulls and ate most of the brains of any living creature. They then joined with the leftover and used the body as a host. At first the spores served their parent fungus as a forager, searching out anything which might be used to help fertilize the ground surrounding the Deathcaps. Or by bringing the struggling creatures to the parent for another Deadspore to use as a host.

Riplock shuddered at the thought of being touched by a spore. But it was almost the middle of winter and the Deathcaps were mostly inactive at this time.

At least, most of them were.

He slid down the last few steps of the hill and immediately his boot found thick wet mud. Trapped swampgas sighed loose and filled his nostrils with an acrid odor that made him think of the barracks of the Bonebiter clan.

“Fucking Bonebiters,” the Hobgoblin muttered, lifting his freshly ruined boot. “Bet they roll around in this shit like the pigs they are.”

Riplock spat again as he began wading along the thick mud toward a more solid looking coil of land in the near distance. It coiled out like a snake into the bog. Rotting stalks of Deathcaps rose up through the mists and their fallen caps formed small hills. He knew better than to go near the caps though. Any one of them could still contain unloosed spores. The spores could live forever as far as anyone knew.

One wrong step could send dozens of them rushing into the air like angry bees.

A sound from a nearby stalk made him whirl, Wyrmsbane leaping into his fist with an angry hiss. The stalk was almost falling over, and dark black hollows in its once pristine skin showed where the owl had made its home. The owl repeated its hoot, almost amused by the Hobgoblin’s nervous overreaction.

“Come down here and say that,” Riplock growled, slamming Wyrmsbane back into its sheath. He kept his gnarled fist on its pommel, though.

He turned back to the path and squinted into the mist. The moon’s weary glow crept through small cracks in the clouds above and the Hobgoblin wondered briefly what Lostlight must have been like when the sun burnt the earth before Eventide made the land safe for the Hidden Folk.

The sun.

He remembered the feel of the sun on his skin when he went to Riseland.

Spotting a thin purplish glow in the distance, the Hobgoblin shivered. He found it a frightening thought to think he much preferred the thought of being captured by the Deathcap’s spores to the thought of being touched every day by the burning sun.

Something splintered in the fog and the Hobgoblin mouthed a curse as two pins of purple light blinked at him through the mist.

“Hello?” a voice called. “Are you there?”

Riplock drew Wyrmsbane in a smoother manner than last time, his green eyes narrowing to dangerous slits.

“Come find out,” he breathed.

From the mist emerged the small body of a Goblin. Its eyes glowed purple and a gaping wound in its cheek showed where the spore had drilled into the unfortunate creature to gnaw on its brains.

“Hello,” the Deadspore said through the Goblin’s mouth. “Would you like to be friends? We like friends.”

“Brains, you mean,” Riplock countered, edging away from the little creature. Goblins only grew to about half a metre in height, but they had vicious sharp teeth and were quick.

Fucking quick.

He was only lightly relieved to notice the Deadspore hadn’t kept the Goblin’s weapon, which would have been a broad-bladed knife. Goblin knives were often made from offcuts of thick metal lashed to a broken legbone. Goblinknives were often rusty and jagged. He had a few scars from Goblinknives which he remembered hurt more than the raking fangs of frostwyrms.

“Yes,” the Deadspore said. It grinned at him, a lopsided and humorless grin. “Brains. We like brains, too. We like your brains. Will you share them with us? With the mother?”

“I can guess you’re still hungry,” the Hobgoblin allowed. “Goblins don’t have much in the way of brains. But you won’t be getting mine, you fungus-filled freak.”

The Deadspore looked at him blankly. Its purple eyes glowed gently and the Goblin’s possessed body swayed loosely in the breeze. “Be friends,” the Deadspore said, firmly.

“Fuck you,” Riplock breathed, and dashed away from the Deadspore, his legs pumping hard as he ran down the path. He kept the vague purple glow off to his left and tried to angle through the swamp. The mist parted before him as though shocked by his presence, and swampgas gasped beneath his feet as he pounded through the mud.

He could hear the Deadspore behind him, calling to him. “Hello? Hello? Are you there?”

He kept running until he couldn’t hear the creature, and slowed to catch his breath, his short pointed ears twitching as they tried to catch any noise.

The song of frogs was all he could hear, and it seemed amazing to the Hobgoblin that they were singing in such a place. Lostlight was no place to be singing.

Not for any reason.

He swivelled, his green eyes darting around as he searched for any sign the Deadspore had followed him.

Deadspore were fast when they were close, but they seldom ran. They relied instead on force of numbers. Usually they would have come like an army of draugs from the mist, but Riplock reasoned the Goblin was all the spores of the Deathcap could capture this late in the season. In the breeding months, the swamp was filled with gatherers, as the Deathcaps and even the spore themselves were a delicacy in Doom’s Reach.

The Goblin must have been one of those who thought they could farm some of the last of the Deathcaps to go into hibernation by retreating deep into the ground beneath the swamp.

He ripped a few leeches from from his legs and felt around to find a large one sucking on his lower back. It tore free with a splash of the Hobgoblin’s thick green-black blood. Then, gripping Wyrmsbane tightly in his fist, he headed deeper into the mist. he could only hope his instincts as to which way was north were correct and that he hadn’t lost his way in the frenzied flight from the Deadspore-possessed Goblin.

Purplish glows, while irregular, kept him always on the edge of running and he found himself growing more and more paranoid regarding any noises he might hear. Hours after seeing the Deadspore, a small slugsnake hissed at him as he passed where it had burrowed into a rotting deathcap stalk and the Hobgoblin had nearly decapitated himself as he blurred into a mindless defensive whirlwind, his twin swords lashing out at air.

The slugsnake glared at him with contemptuous hatred and withdrew deep into the stalk.

“Fuck!” spat the Hobgoblin. “Fucking fuck fuck!”

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and pushed his cowl back. Looked up at the rolling clouds and wondered if the sun was sliding across the thick black clouds of Eventide.

He began to think he really would prefer the sun.

“Hello?” a rumbling voice called. “Hello? Are you there?”

He whirled and saw the purple points of light come dragging out of the mist. This time the Deadspore had caught an Ogre. The hulking creature stared dully at Riplock and reached out a hand so big it could crush the Hobgoblin’s skull like an egg. “You’ve got to be fucking me,” Riplock breathed. “An Ogre.”

He hated Ogres. They were too big, too ugly, and too fucking hard to kill.

And then he saw the others. Pinpoints of purple light emerging from the mist. “Hello?” they said in chorus. “Are you there?”

“Be friends,” the Deadspore-possessed Ogre said, showing the same loopy grin as the Goblin had. “We like friends.”

Riplock dived past the Ogre, avoiding the slow lunge of the giant creature and headed away from the other figures who seemed to be growing in number at a frightening rate. “Be friends,” they called.

He ran, his boots splashing in the shallow water of the swamp.

A wolf howled, and the Hobgoblin heard the eerie tone to the howl which meant the creature, too, was possessed by Deadspore. He heard the shuffling of the Deadspore’s creatures in the mist and saw purple lights ahead of him. He angled away, and soon saw dark shadows with purple eyes in that direction, too. There were too many of them. It seemed impossible that so many had been in Lostlight this late in the season. Unless a team of inexperienced Mushroom farmers had been lured her by the promise of gold the flesh of Deathcaps promised.

Their inexperience had brought them to the Lostlight at a time when they were isolated from the safety of other teams in close vicinity who would wanr of silent swarms of Deadspore.

Their inexperience, Riplock thought bitterly, was probably going to get him killed, too.

He spun around in the fog, ignoring their calls for him to be friends. It seemed only one direction was open to him. Only one area seemed to lack shadowy figures. He chewed his thick lower lip and grunted. He didn’t like the feeling he was being herded.

Nevertheless, he took the opening and ran.

His powerful legs carried him fast through the mist, and Wyrmsbane flashed to take the hands off those shadows who thought to clutch at him as he sped through their ranks.

A Goblin lunged at him with surprising quickness and Wyrmsbane split the little creature in two. Thick black blood splashed into the swamp and Riplock through he saw the squirming Deadspore struggling in the rotting meat of the corpse.

Scrubbing at clumps of meat and blood which stuck to his face, the Hobgoblin burst from the mist into a small clearing. His feet stamped on loose stones. With a horrified gasp, the Hobgoblin ran straight into the soft spongy skin of a Deathcap Mushroom. The feel of it was like touching the skin of a large creature. It was warm to the touch, and clammy with ooze. He looked up and nearly moaned at the sight of the wide Deathcap gills slowly opening to let their purple light flood the clearing.

Behind him, a few of the Deadspore shuffled from the mist.

“Be friends,” a Northman said. He still wore a horned helm, and a gaping hole in his mailshirt showed where the Deadspore had punched through his armour and into his chest before driving up into his skull to scoop out his brains. His thick red beard was clumped with rot and gore and lichen grew across one hand. He reached for Riplock and showed the crazy grin of the Deadspore. “We like friends.”

“Hello,” said a Goblin from beside him. “Let’s be friends.”

“Let’s not,” Riplock growled. “You guys don’t look as fun as you think.”

He remembered hearing the Rockbiters talk about their berserk fighting technique.

Something, they said, just snaps. And there you go. Blood everywhere.

That’s what they said.

Riplock glared into the purple eyes of the Northman and thought deep inside that glow he could see the Deadspore itself, squirming in the man’s skull, and something inside the Hobgoblin just snapped.

Wyrmsbane sheared up under the Northman’s chin and exploded out the top of his skull, splitting his face in two. In the same movement, Nightbringer chopped sideways across the Goblin’s forehead and neatly sliced off the top of its head. The two corpses fell, writhing to the ground as the Deadspores struggled to keep control of their host bodies.

He kept his back to the clammy stalk of the Deathcap and counted the shadows emerging coldly from the mist. They moaned as the Northman and the Goblin were suddenly still.

“Come on, then,” the Hobgoblin snarled. “Let me show you how a Manhunter dies.”

“Be friends,” hissed the Ogre, stepping forward with unflinching determination.

“I don’t like friends,” Riplock spat, leaping over the dead Northman, Wyrmsbane leading the way.

The ogre shifted and took the small blade deep into his forearm. He didn’t cry out, and riplock had to tug hard to pull the blade loose from the thick bone. The Ogre’s large fist swung hard and Riplock felt the air explode from his lungs as the punch cracked a few of the Hobgoblin’s ribs.

He fell back, and only his inhuman speed saved him from being chewed on by another Goblin. Nightbringer speared the Goblin’s forehead with a grim sound and he wrenched hard on the blade to break its skull. It fell without a sound and glowing yellow blood was slick across Nightbringer‘s edge as he yanked it free. The blood of the Deadspore, he thought with satisfaction. He shook the blade and the yellow blood spattered to the ground.

More shadows began to surround the clearing and Riplock edged backward, pressing hard against the Deathcap’s stalk.

He stepped on a skull and realised only then that the ground was littered with skeletons. He’d mistaken them for loose stones, but they were really the many bones of dead things brought to feed the mushroom. The creeping black lichen which covered them like a carpet had hidden them. He spat heavily and despite the blinding pain in his side, he hefted the twin swords and scowled at the oncoming Ogre.

“Why fight?” the Ogre asked. “Don’t fight. Be friends.”

A noise behind him caused the Hobgoblin to spin around and in his fear, Wyrmsbane sliced a thin line across the giant stalk of the Mushroom. Dark purple ooze throbbed from the wound and the Deadspore made a collective moan. The wolf, creeping behind the stalk, paused in its attempt to sneak up on him and whined.

Riplock eyed the ooze which ran from the cut in the stalk and looked around at the suddenly motionless figures in the mist.

He pressed the point of Wyrmsbane against the wound and looked over his shoulder at the Ogre, which stood with arms outstretched, clutching at air. It seemed unable to decide whether to step closer to the Hobgoblin or not.

“Well, now,” Riplock said with a nasty smirk. “This is interesting.”

“Please,” the Deadspore said through the Ogre’s mouth. “Be friends.”

“I told you,” Riplock said. “I don’t like friends.”

And he plunged the sword deep into the stalk. The Ogre howled and lumbered forward.

Riplock chopped into the stalk with Nightbringer, and felt the Ogre’s massive fist slam down on his shoulder. Thick fingers gripped hard and tried to pull him away. He grit his teeth against the pain and kept chopping. The Deathcap’s Gills shivered, and the glow blazed brightly in the clearing. The Hobgoblin howled as the Ogre’s fist wrenched hard across his shoulder, and he hacked with all his might at the stalk.

The wolf snapped at the Hobgoblin’s leg and its fangs slipped on the wyrmskin pants. It growled in frustration and its eyes burned with bright purple fire. The shapes converged, and he felt hands reaching in from everywhere, desperate to hold him back, to stop him as he hacked at the Deathcap’s fleshy stalk. They nearly had him, too but in the deep gaping wound he saw a thin river of purple light. A spine.

He froze, looking at the ribbon of light.

“Hello,” one of the Deadspore said, clawed fingers tugging at his mailshirt. “Are you there?”

Invigorated by the sight of the cord, he felt the strength pour into him and it was as if no hands held him back. He lifted Wyrmsbane high.

The Ogre screamed – a shrill sound coming from such a huge beast – as the Hobgoblin thrust with the last of his strength. Wyrmsbane slipped easily into the glowing cord.

“Friends!” screamed the Deadspores through many mouths.

Riplock twisted the blade with relish, roaring in triumph. The purple cord pulsed once as the sword severed it. A flash of purple light exploded from the stalk, hurling the Hobgoblin backward. As he rolled along the ground, the aching nothingness from his shoulder made him think for a moment the Ogre hadn’t let go and had instead ripped the Hobgoblin’s arm from his body. He staggered swiftly to his feet and was surprised to see not only that he had both his arms, but that the swords were held steadily in each hand and pointed directly at the stunned expressions on the gathered Deadspore.

Their purple eyes glowed steadily at him as the Deathcap behind them seemed to slump. It would rot there, he knew. Its cap would eventually come tumbling down into the swamp and its stalk would be home to owls or whatever other creatures were dumb enough to live in Lostlight.

He spat at them, realising there were far too many of them.

He prepared to die.

“Free,” they said. “We are free of the mother.”

“The mother dies,” a Deadspore said through a Goblin’s lips. “We are free.”

The Ogre slipped to his knees and his body began to shake. Slowly, the others fell to their knees, too. Riplock frowned and kept his swords low, but ready to strike.

“Free,” they said, as one.

And as one, they exploded. The skulls of each creature burst like seedpods. Deathcaps sprouted from their heads as they crashed to the ground, and the purplish glow swam around the corpses before sliding down into the ground beneath each growing mushroom.

The smell of rot was suddenly overpowering, and the Hobgoblin backed away from the clearing as the gills of the Deathcap overhead seemed to rustle in the breeze. He thought he could see several yellow shapes squirming to be free.

Deadspore, he thought as horror curled up his spine like a frostwyrm’s chilling spawn.

He fled roaring into the mist as though the combined forces of Riseland were on his back.

He ran, eyes wide and mouth spilling curses. He swung his sword frantically at the mist and from every direction, it seemed Riplock heard them calling.

Cold voices.

“Hello? Are you there?”