Mycelius pressed the pouch of spores against his chest and felt them shift, still alive after months on the road. He had carried them from his dying underground home, past forests and empty valleys, looking for one patch of ground good enough to start his people again. His feet told him the truth of every soil he crossed. This ground told him nothing but death. Dry. Cracked. It would eat his spores like ash. He crouched and dug his fingers into the dirt anyway. It crumbled to gray dust. If he planted here, the spores would wither before they rooted. He had one pouch. There would be no second chance if he chose wrong. Then his feet caught something. A pulse in the earth, faint and warm, coming from a rise ahead. He followed it, and the dust gave way to darker soil, damp between his toes. He looked up. A great fungus tree stood there. Its trunk was wide as a house, crowned with layered brown caps, and smaller mushrooms grew along its bark like steps. But the roots were the thing. They spread out and dove into the ground, and where they touched, the dry land turned rich and black. Threads of light ran through the roots, blue and gold and green, feeding the soil. Mycelius laughed out loud. Spores drifted from his shoulders. His feet drank in the wet, living earth around the roots, the most fertile ground he had ever stood on. This was it. This was what he had walked half a year to find. He knelt at the base of the tree, loosened the pouch, and paused. His hands shook. He had not opened it since he left. Opening it meant the old home was truly gone. He thought of the elders who had stayed behind in the failing tunnels, who had waved him off and refused to come. He pressed his thumb against the cord. Then he pulled it loose. Pale spores tumbled into his palm. He worked them into the damp soil, one small handful, spreading them among the glowing roots. He covered them and waited, breath held. Within moments the ground stirred. Tiny white threads pushed up through the dark earth, reaching, taking hold. They had rooted. They were alive. Mycelius sat back and let himself breathe. His people had a place now. But the tree could feed only so much ground, and a colony needed more than soft soil. It needed shelter. Walls. A place to gather and plan. He rose and walked the rich ground, mapping it with his feet. Near the tree stood a hollow shape he had missed before, an old mushroom grown tall and firm, its cap a broad orange roof, its stalk hollow enough to hold a room. Someone had shaped it once, long ago, then left it. Dust filled the doorway. He stepped inside and set down his empty pouch. The colony would begin here.

Morning light spilled through the doorway of the hollow mushroom. Mycelius stood inside and looked at the dusty walls. The spores were planted. The soil was rich. Now his people needed a place to live. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work. First he cleared the doorway. He hauled out old dust and dried husks by the armful. Then he pressed his palms to the inner stalk. The wood felt firm but empty, a shell waiting to be filled. He needed it to grow, not just stand still. He walked back to the great fungus tree. Its roots glowed under the earth, blue and gold, turning dead dirt to black soil. Mycelius knelt and dug his fingers near a root. He remembered how his old home had grown its walls. Fungolians did not cut stone. They fed the fungus and shaped it as it swelled. He scooped rich soil from the tree's roots and carried it back, load after load. His arms ached. He packed the dark earth around the base of the hollow mushroom. Then he sat, pressed his hands to the stalk, and waited. Nothing happened. The mushroom stayed the same size. Mycelius frowned. Spores drifted from his shoulders. The soil was rich, but the mushroom did not drink it. Something was missing, some thread to link the two. Then he understood. In his homeland, the buildings had never stood alone. They grew from the same web that fed the whole colony. This mushroom was cut off. Its roots reached nothing. He ran back to the great tree and traced a glowing root with his finger. He dug a shallow trench in the black soil, straight toward the hollow mushroom. Sweat ran down his bark-like skin. He pulled a thin living root free and guided it along the trench, laying it against the mushroom's base. For a moment the root lay still. Then light crept along it, blue and green, sinking into the stalk. The hollow mushroom shuddered. Mycelius stepped back and watched. The stalk thickened. It rose higher, wall by wall. The cap spread wide into a broad orange roof. New growths clustered along the base like small round stones. Ledges pushed out from the sides. Inside, the single room split into levels, room enough to plan and gather. His people would have a home base at last. Mycelius laughed and pressed his hand to the warm wall. The building lived now. It drank from the tree, and it would keep growing. But as he watched, the tree's glow dimmed. The root he had pulled toward the mushroom now fed two mouths. The soil near the trench turned paler, thinner. The great tree could feed the ground, or it could feed the building, but not both at full strength. His colony had a home. Now it needed more than one tree to keep it alive.

By the next morning, the great fungus tree looked sick. Its glow had faded to a dull flicker. The soil near the trench felt thin and cold under Mycelius's feet. He knelt and pressed his palm to the bark. The tree pulsed weakly, like a tired heart. It fed the ground and the colony both, and it could not do both for long. Mycelius needed another tree. He had none. He stood and looked out past the colony. Dead dirt stretched in every direction, gray and cracked. One tree had made this small patch of black soil. But a single tree would starve his people. He remembered his old home, where many trees had shared one great web of roots. No tree stood alone there. That was the answer. He did not need to find another tree. He needed to grow one. Mycelius reached into his belt and drew out his spore pouch. He had planted from it once already. He did not know how much life was left inside. He loosened the string and looked. A thin layer of pale dust clung to the bottom. Enough for a handful, maybe less. He closed his hand around the pouch and made his choice. He walked to the weakened tree and traced a root to its far edge, where the black soil met the dead ground. There he dug a deep hole. He worked fast, his arms shaking. When the hole was ready, he tipped the pouch and let the last spores fall. Then he cut a thin sliver from a glowing root and laid it against the spores, so the young growth could drink from the old tree while it took hold. He packed the soil down and waited. Spores drifted from his shoulders. For a long moment nothing moved. The old tree's glow dimmed further, feeding this new mouth too. Mycelius held his breath. If the old tree died before the new one grew, he would lose both. Then a green thread of light rose through the dirt. A pale shoot pushed up, no taller than his hand. Small caps unfolded along its stem. Roots spread out beneath it, faint but bright. The shoot did not drink from the old tree now. It fed itself. Its own light crept back through the soil toward the trench. Mycelius laughed and dropped to his knees. He had made a second tree. In time it would grow tall, with a wide root network to feed the ground and the colony beside the first. His people would not starve on one tree alone. But the pouch in his hand was empty now. He turned it over and shook it. No dust fell. The spores from his homeland were spent. Every tree he grew from here on would have to come from these two. And two young trees could not fill a dead land fast enough for a whole colony to arrive. He needed to find more of these trees in the wild and gather there seeds.

The two young trees fed the colony, but the dead land still stretched wide and gray. Mycelius needed more trees to fill it. He had no spores left. So he decided to search the wild for other fungus trees and take their seeds. He tied on his belt, wrapped an empty pouch at his side, and walked out past the black soil onto the cracked ground. He walked all morning. His feet knew fertile soil by feel, and here he felt nothing. The dirt was cold and dead under every step. Twice he stopped and pressed his palm flat to the ground, hoping for warmth. None came. Spores drifted from his shoulders. If he wandered too far, he might not find his way back before his people arrived. By midday he reached a ridge of broken stone. He almost turned around. Then his foot came down on soft, warm earth. He froze. The soil pulsed under him, alive. He dropped to his knees and dug with both hands until his fingers found a root that glowed faint blue. He followed the root over the ridge. On the far side stood a giant fungus tree. Its trunk rose thick and dark, crowned with many wide caps. Roots spread across a mound of rich black soil, and light ran through them in bright veins of purple, orange, and blue. The tree had made its own patch of living ground, just as his did. He pressed his hand to the bark and felt it hum, strong and healthy. Mycelius searched the ground beneath the caps. Small pods hung low on the outer stems, swollen and dark. He cupped one and it split open in his palm. Fine spores poured out, thick and warm, far more than his old homeland pouch had ever held. He opened his empty pouch and filled it. He picked pod after pod until the pouch bulged. He did not strip the tree bare. He left half the pods to fall on their own. Then he cut a short length of a glowing root, wrapped it in wet soil, and tucked it away. With this he could feel his path home, following warm ground back to his colony. Mycelius stood and looked at the full pouch in his hand. It was heavy now, not empty. He had found what he came for. Every pod could grow into a new tree, and every new tree could feed the ground for his people. He turned back toward the ridge and started the long walk home. But the discovery raised a hard question. This tree was not his. Living ground meant life, and life meant something had made it. Someone, or something, may have grown this tree and would want its seeds back. Mycelius did not know who. He only knew he now carried spores that were not his own, and he would have to plant them before anyone came looking.

Mycelius planted the stolen spores before dawn, in a line near the second young tree's roots. By the third day, small caps pushed up from the black soil. On the sixth day, the ground itself began to shift. Not the trees. The soil. It bulged and cracked, and pale shapes rose out of it. Mycelius stood still and watched the first of his people climb into the light. They came up as full-grown Fungolians, not children. Their caps were soft and damp, their skin new and pale. The first one stood on shaking legs and stared at him. Then a second rose, and a third. Soon a dozen stood in the dirt, blinking their amber eyes, silent. They knew nothing. Not their own hands, not the trees, not why they were here. Spores drifted from Mycelius's shoulders. He had brought them out of the ground, and now he had to teach them everything. He started with the simplest thing. He pressed his palm flat to the warm soil and held it there. The nearest colonist copied him. Her fingers spread in the dirt, and she flinched at the heat, then smiled. Mycelius nodded. One by one, the others knelt and touched the ground. He showed them the trees. He showed them the trench that fed the colony. He walked them to the tall mushroom home at the center, its wide red cap curved over clustered growths, its stone steps leading into a dark doorway. "This is where we plan," he said. He did not know if they understood words yet. But they followed his voice into the spire and looked up at the high hollow cap. He taught them by doing. He split a pod and let them watch the spores pour out. He guided their hands to plant a cap in fresh soil. When one colonist pulled a growth too hard and tore it, Mycelius did not scold. He showed her how to pull gently, and she tried again. By evening, some spoke their first words. By the next day, three of them could feed the young trees without help. But a new weight settled on him. He counted the colonists inside the spire. Twelve now stood. Twelve mouths, twelve bodies, and only two young trees and one weakened great tree to feed them. He remembered how the first tree had sickened from carrying the colony alone. Two young trees could not carry twelve grown Fungolians for long. Mycelius climbed to the top of the spire and looked out over the dead gray land. His people were awake. They had learned to touch soil and plant a cap. But the trees he had were already stretched thin. The colonists would eat, and the ground would not hold. He needed far more living trees, and soon, or the people he had just raised would starve in the home he built for them. He names his new colonists.

By morning, the twelve slept where they had fallen. They filled the spire's floor shoulder to shoulder. When one turned, three others woke. Mycelius watched a colonist rub a stiff neck and try to stand without stepping on a neighbor. There was no room to work here, no room to rest. Spores drifted from his cap. He had raised his people, and now they had nowhere to spread out. He called four names he had given the night before. Brakka, the broad one with a helmet-shaped cap, cracked his thick knuckles and stepped forward first. "Point me at the ground," Brakka said. "I'll dig us a real home." Tallow came next, tall and shaggy, already muttering about walls and joints. Luma glowed faintly in the dim spire. Morga arrived last, brushing crumbs from her fluffy fronds. Mycelius led them outside. Near the young trees rested a huge, curved tortoise shell, wide as a house, half sunk in the gray soil. He pressed his palm to it. The shell was hollow and warm. "We grow rooms in this," he said. "Like we grew the spire." Brakka slammed a fist against the shell. It rang like stone. "Solid. Good bones." He drove his hands into the dirt and began scooping a trench toward the great tree's root. Mycelius knelt beside him and guided a living root strand into the trench, then pressed it against the shell's base. Tallow ran his long fingers over the curved surface. He talked fast, mapping where beds and shelves could hang. "Support the weight here, vent the caps there, or the whole shell sweats and rots." He drove wooden pegs into the shell to mark each spot. Morga eyed the carved-out side, already open like a mouth. "That's a kitchen if I ever smelled one," she said. "Give me a fire and I'll feed all twelve at once." The root took hold. By afternoon, mushrooms pushed up across the shell's back. They swelled into walls and cross-beams, following Tallow's pegs. Rooms hollowed out inside. Luma moved through each one, testing the air, checking for damp. "Dry," she said softly. "They can heal here. They can sleep." By dusk the shell held rooms enough for all twelve. Morga lit a fire in the carved side and the smell of cooking drifted out. Colonists filed in from the crowded spire and found their own beds for the first time. Brakka dropped onto one and grinned. Mycelius stood in the doorway and felt the ground through his feet. Then he felt something wrong. The new root, feeding the shell, had gone thin and cold. He pressed harder and traced it back. The great tree was giving again, and the two young trees with it. He had made room for his people to rest. But the shell drank from the same three trees that were already starving. More space meant more growth, and more growth meant the trees would die faster.

The starving trees kept Mycelius awake. He walked the roots at dawn, feeling for strength through his feet, and found only cold thread. Then he smelled it. Rot on the wind, coming from the ridge. He climbed the rise and looked down at the great tree beyond the dead land, the one he had robbed. Someone stood among its roots. A tall figure moved slow through the trunks, touching each pod, counting. The owner was checking the harvest. Mycelius froze. If that figure followed the trail of stripped pods, it led here, to twelve colonists grown from stolen spores. He would lose all of them. He hurried back. Fenn met him at the shell-home, the young shepherd who spoke to animals like neighbors. Fenn wrestled with a huge creature, arms locked around its neck. It was a squirrel the size of a hound, its bushy tail crowded with small mushrooms of red and blue. "Meet Nutcap!" Fenn said, grinning as the beast dragged him a step. "Found her sniffing our saplings. She smells fungus trees from a mile off. Isn't she wonderful?" Mycelius stared at the squirrel, then at the ridge. An idea took shape. "She smells trees," he said. "Can she carry weight? Climb fast?" "Fast as falling," Fenn said. "She ran me up a trunk before I could blink." Mycelius pressed his palm to the squirrel's flank and felt her heat, her strength. The owner would trace the stolen pods. He could not hide the theft. But he could bury it. "We plant every spore we have left tonight," he said. "And we spread the empty pods far. If the trail scatters, it points nowhere." They worked through the dark. Fenn rode the squirrel with a sack of hollow pods, and she leapt the dead land in long bounds. She dropped pods in gullies, on far slopes, wherever her nose found old fungus scent. The trail that once ran straight to the colony now split into a dozen dead ends. Mycelius knelt at the saplings and pushed the last gathered spores into the warm soil, hiding the evidence in new roots. At first light the figure came over the ridge. Mycelius met it in the open, spores drifting from his cap. The owner walked the dead land, nose lifted, and stopped where a false trail scattered into nothing. It circled. It found another. The scent led everywhere and home to no one. The tall figure studied Mycelius a long moment, then turned back toward its own tree, unsure, empty-handed. Mycelius let out a breath. The owner was gone, and the twelve were safe. But the squirrel had proven something worse and better at once. She had smelled a dozen buried fungus scents across the dead land in a single night. His trees were dying. Yet out there, more trees waited, and now he had a mount that could find them and carry their spores home before anyone else claimed them.