A small, whimpering sound broke the silence. The Siyawesi, who had fled from them moments before, were cautiously emerging from the withered stalks, their tiny, glowing forms flickering with a mixture of fear and a fragile, desperate hope. They approached the children slowly, hesitant, but drawn by the uncorrupted energy of Leonotis's magic.
"They're not evil," Leonotis whispered, a profound sense of shame and anger welling up inside him. His plant magic, which had felt so weak and distant before, now surged with a new, furious energy, a righteous indignation at the pain the earth was enduring.
A Siyawesi, braver than the others, stepped forward. It was no taller than Zombiel's knee, its body a soft, green-gold light. It extended a translucent, three-fingered hand and gestured toward the ground. The creature's silent communication was a stream of images, a wordless story of greed and betrayal. They showed the children images of the villagers, their faces contorted with avarice, spreading a shimmering, silvery powder over the soil. The plants, at first, had responded with a miraculous burst of growth, towering stalks and plump ears of corn appearing overnight. But this forced growth was a cheat. It was too fast, too unnatural, and it drained the life from the plants in a single, explosive burst. The crops had then crumbled to dust, leaving behind the glowing mushrooms, which were a byproduct of the dark magic, a parasitic manifestation of the corrupted life force.
The Siyawesi showed them how they had tried to intervene, to pull out the tainted plants and heal the soil. But the villagers, fueled by a panicked fear of starvation, had blamed them and, with the help of a powerful shaman, had erected the ward to keep the Siyawesi from the core of the infection. The elder, Gashirai, had dismissed their pleas, his ears deaf to their silent warnings.
This wasn't a war of defense. It was a war of aggression, and the villagers, who had promised them gold, were the ones wielding the weapon. The Siyawesi were not the villains. They were the victims. And the children, who had come to save the village, had walked right into a lie.
The children stood frozen in the moonlit field, the truth settling over them like a cold, suffocating shroud. They had been lied to. The promise of heroism and reward now felt like a bitter trap. The Siyawesi, far from being the malicious destroyers Gashirai had described, were the true victims, fighting a losing battle against a poison they couldn't control.
Low felt a familiar, hot rage bubbling up from deep within her chest. The anger of her werebear curse, normally a quiet presence, now roared to life. This wasn't just a simple deception; it was a cruel betrayal of the land itself. The villagers had not just endangered themselves; they had wounded the very earth that sustained them, and then tried to blame the innocent. Her knuckles whitened around the rock in her hand. This wasn't a mission to save people; it was a mission to seek justice.
Jacqueline's eyes widened as she connected the pieces. The glowing powder, the unnatural growth, the acrid water, the parasitic mushrooms—it all made sense. The villagers weren't just poisoning their crops; they were poisoning the entire region. The ward was a powerful barrier, but it was also a magical battery, siphoning life from the Siyawesi and the struggling plants to fuel the growth of the parasitic mushrooms.
"This is a total lie," Zombiel said, his small face scrunched up in a rare moment of serious fury. The memories of his own past, of being a thing that others feared and hated for what he was, bubbled to the surface. He understood the Siyawesi's plight perfectly. They were being blamed for something that wasn't their fault.
Leonotis felt the raw, unadulterated pain of the earth, a grief so profound it brought tears to his eyes. The suffering of the individual plants was one thing, but the slow, agonizing death of the entire land was a monstrous act. It was a violation. He looked at the Siyawesi, their glowing forms huddled together, trembling with fear and exhaustion. They were the land's defenders, and they were losing.
His mind was made up. The gold, the praise from the villagers, it all meant nothing now. There was no reward worth a lie of this magnitude. "We're not helping the villagers," he declared, his voice firm and unwavering. "We're helping the Siyawesi. We'll fix this."
The little Siyawesi that had approached them chirped with a flicker of hope. More of them began to emerge from the darkness, their movements still cautious, but their terror replaced by a cautious curiosity.
"We have to get rid of that rock," Low said, her voice a low growl, her hand now clutching two stones. "It's the heart of the whole lie. We can throw my rocks at the ward and smash it."
"No, that's too dangerous," Jacqueline said, shaking her head. "A magical ward that powerful will have a backlash. It could incinerate you." Her eyes darted from the rock to the glowing mushrooms and back. "We need to find a way to dismantle it, not destroy it. We need to cut off its power source."
Zombiel, having listened to it all, stepped forward. His small fists were balled. "What about my fire?" he asked, a determined glint in his eyes. "The fire here... it wants to go to the ground. Maybe it's not hungry for my flame, maybe it wants to eat something. Like the magic from those mushrooms."
Leonotis looked at his friends. He saw the fire of vengeance in Low's eyes, the thoughtful determination in Jacqueline's, the innocent but fierce loyalty in Zombiel's. They had been deceived, but in this betrayal, they had found a new, and more noble, purpose. They wouldn't be the villagers' heroes. They would be the land's.