The Marsh had teeth now.

  It gnawed at her with every step, the ground softening underfoot until even the high ground felt like a trap. The gauntlets were already corroding—acid spots etched white against the hardened crust. The chitin mask filtered the worst of the spores, but breathing through it felt like sucking air through a wet towel. Every few minutes, she had to stop and scrape the gunk off, or risk clogging up entirely.

  Muffet moved with purpose, but the environment closed in. The whey pools had thickened, now viscous enough to hold the memory of each ripple for minutes at a time. Above, the canopy had died off completely, leaving only a sky painted gray and the slow spiral of spores that fell without end.

  She navigated by instinct. The spiral on her wrist tingled with a low, constant ache—she followed it, trusting the overlay more than her own sense of direction. The fear gauge hovered in the orange, inching higher as she pressed into a narrowing corridor lined with mounds of curd. The mounds pulsed, alive with the movement of things she couldn’t see.

  It was here, in the half-light, that she found the tuffet husk.

  It hunched on a low ridge, clutching its own knees to its chest. The body was a disaster—a ruin of off-white fiber, twisted over a frame that had once been something else. It wore the memory of upholstery: strips of blue and yellow, mottled with patches of fur and plastic. Along the spine, a seam of black fungus had erupted, fusing two halves that never should have met.

  The head was worst. It was half-collapsed, mouth stuck open in a rictus that exposed two rows of stitched-together teeth. The eyes, bulbous and clouded, tracked her as she approached.

  She stopped, one hand on the sampler rod, the other steadying the mask. The husk shivered, then spoke—voice mangled, but still unmistakably human.

  “Please... end...”

  The words were thick with phlegm, but clear enough to cut through the noise in her skull. The fear gauge surged to red, then settled, as if the system itself was watching to see what she’d do next.

  Stewart was silent at first. Then, with clinical detachment: “That’s a partial conversion. Might still be conscious. Your call. Resources are limited. Survival is the priority.”

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  Muffet hesitated. The last vial of antidote rested in her pack, a single dose brewed from weeks of trial and error. It was worth more than gold, and might not even work on something this far gone.

  But the alternative was simple: a mercy kill, quick and efficient. A waste, but not a sin.

  She crouched, keeping her distance, and spoke through the mask. “Do you remember me?”

  The husk coughed, a spray of black and white fluid dribbling down its chin. Its head bobbed. “Hurts... always hurts. Make it stop.”

  She opened her pack, fingers trembling despite the “Steady Nerves.” The antidote was in a glass ampule, the seal still intact. She weighed it in her hand, considering.

  Stewart whispered: “You can use the golem’s marrow as substrate. Or the husk’s own tissue. Either way, you harvest after.”

  She ignored him, just for a second.

  The eyes followed her. They were more animal than human now, but something inside them begged.

  Muffet broke the seal on the ampule, drew up the liquid in a micro-pipette, and approached. The husk recoiled at first, then held still, lips trembling.

  She found a vein under the fungus—barely visible, but there—and injected. The liquid vanished in an instant, sucked up by a thirst she hadn’t expected.

  For a moment, nothing.

  Then the body convulsed. The spine arched, mouth opening in a soundless scream. The eyes rolled back, then forward, tracking her with sudden clarity.

  “Cold,” it gasped. “So cold.”

  The veins along the arms and neck turned blue, then black. The fungus at the spine fizzed, releasing a cloud of spores so thick it hid the body from view.

  Muffet stepped back, eyes stinging. She waited, counting down the seconds.

  The cloud cleared.

  The husk had collapsed, arms wrapped around its chest. The fungus was gone, burned away by the reaction. The skin was raw, the seams where it had split now fused into ugly scars. The eyes were open, clear and blue, staring at the sky.

  She checked for breathing. There was a heartbeat—slow, ragged, but there.

  The tuffet husk looked up at her, lips twitching into a grin.

  “Thank you,” it said, voice soft. “I think... I remember.”

  Then the light faded from its eyes, and it went limp.

  Muffet exhaled. The fear gauge dropped to yellow.

  She harvested what she could—chunks of cured fiber, a sample of the blood, and a fragment of the blackened seam. She worked with respect, closing the eyes when she was done.

  Stewart spoke up, less clinical now. “You could have saved the dose.”

  She shrugged. “Didn’t want to.”

  He didn’t argue.

  She stood, wiped her hands, and checked the minimap. The spiral overlay pulsed—brighter now, as if this act had unlocked a new route.

  She moved on, the weight in her pack heavier but her steps lighter.

  The Marsh closed behind her, but the memory of the tuffet’s eyes lingered.

  She would not forget it.