B1 Chapter 3: Beetles

They stepped into a marsh of sucking mud, biting insects, and rancid air, and it was exactly what they were looking for.

The ground shifted under every step, wet earth pulling greedily at their boots, making obscene, wet sounds each time they tried to move. Clouds of insects hung thick in the air, crawling along skin, buzzing in ears, and biting whenever they found something soft enough to sink into.

Three-eyed mushrooms.

They grew in knotted tree hollows and half-rotten trunks, pale and swollen, their flesh slick with moisture. Each cap was marked by three dark pits that oozed a sweet, rotten stench. The smell was overwhelming up close, cloying and foul all at once, like spoiled fruit left too long in the sun.

That smell drove the beetles wild.

Great plumes of them swarmed the hollows, their shells clicking softly against one another as they crawled and hovered in a constant, frantic motion. The mushrooms’ scent pushed them into a frenzy, dulling whatever instincts they had left until they could barely tell friend from foe.

Three-eyed mushrooms had to be harvested carefully. Picked improperly, they released toxins that could be absorbed straight through the skin. Enough exposure could leave a person delirious, paralyzed, or dead, depending on how careless they had been.

Modivar took a slow breath and cast Mage Hand. One spectral hand appeared, then another, pale and translucent, hovering delicately near the hollow. He positioned them with care, testing their reach, their angle. Making sure he could pluck the mushrooms without disturbing the surrounding bark.

The woman beside him shifted her weight, her nose wrinkling as a beetle crawled too close to her cheek. “All right,” she said. “What do you need me to do?”

Modivar turned to her and sighed. “Well. This is where it gets complicated.”

She folded her arms and waited.

“You’re going to take a stick,” he said, pointing toward the hollow, “and you’re going to poke that mushroom.” He indicated one in particular, tucked low and half-collapsed. “That one right there. The rotten-looking one. The sweetest smelling one. The one that smells like hot garbage and ripe ass.”

She snorted despite herself, then eyed the beetles again.

“The moment you touch it,” Modivar continued, “those beetles are going to come at you. Every single one of them. They’ll abandon the rest of the hollow and focus entirely on whatever disturbed the ripest mushroom.”

“And then?” she asked.

“And then you’re going to run like your life depends on it,” he said.

“Run where?”

“Toward my shop,” he replied. “As fast as you can. I’ll finish gathering these while they’re distracted and meet you there after.”

She stared at him for a long moment, eyes narrowing, then shook her head. “That’s going to be a problem.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“This little hex I cast just now,” she said, tapping her wrist, “it repels them. They won’t even really notice me. To them, I’ll just be another lump of mud.”

Modivar winced. “Yeah. That is a problem. Damn it.” He rubbed his face and glanced at the beetles, watching them crawl over one another in thick layers. “I really didn’t want to get bitten by these bastards.”

“Neither did I,” she said, glaring at him.

“Hey,” Modivar said defensively, “you want an Elis potion, I’ll make you an Elis potion. I just don’t want to be the one getting chewed on for it.”

She tilted her head slightly. “So now we’re stuck.”

“Exactly,” he said. “If they won’t follow you, I don’t know how we’re supposed to pull them off the mushrooms long enough for me to do this safely.”

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She considered that, then brightened. “We could just kill them all. You’re a wizard. You’ve probably got some fire magic, or something.”

Modivar stared at her in horror. “Absolutely not. I’m not going to kill something that doesn’t deserve it.”

“They’re just beetles,” she said incredulously. “They’re going to bite the shit out of you.”

“Yes,” Modivar replied calmly, “because I’m stealing their food source. I’d bite me, too, if I could.”

She squinted at him, studying his face. “Do you really care about beetles?”

“I care about a lot of things,” he said. “My only friend in this whole place is a horse. Don’t question me, lady.”

He laughed, one eye twitching. “I’m most probably a bit insane at the moment.”

She stared at him for another moment, then huffed a quiet breath. “So, what do we do now?”

Modivar didn’t answer immediately. He watched the beetles crawl and hover, watched the way they clustered thickest around the hollow, and slowly brought a hand up to his face. He rubbed at his eyes, then dragged his fingers down his cheeks. He braced himself for something he already knew was coming.

She gestured back toward the marsh, toward the hollow, toward the restless clouds of insects. “I need that potion,” she said. “You need a customer, and you need a new roof. Without that potion, you are not getting one.”