CHAPTER 68: THE GLIMMERING FIELD (1)

The last oak tree stood like a sentinel at the edge of the forest, its gnarled branches marking the boundary between the familiar and something altogether unexpected. Apollo stepped past it, boots sinking slightly into softer ground, and stopped so abruptly that Nik collided with his back.

"By all the gods," Apollo whispered, the gold in his veins stirring with sudden interest.

Before them stretched a vast field of mushrooms, not the small caps that dotted forest floors, but towering behemoths that rivaled houses in height.

Their massive stalks rose from the earth like pillars of some bizarre temple, supporting caps that shimmered with colors Apollo had never seen in fungus before: deep purples that shifted to midnight blue, luminescent greens edged with gold, reds that pulsed like heartbeats against the afternoon sky.

"What in the seven hells?" Thorin muttered, one hand instinctively tightening on his axe handle. "This isn’t right. Plants shouldn’t grow like this. It’s unnatural."

Nik pushed past Apollo, his earlier exhaustion forgotten as he spun in a circle of pure delight. "Unnatural? It’s magnificent! Look at them! Have you ever seen anything so magical in your entire life?"

The air hung heavy with the scent of damp earth and an underlying sweetness that reminded Apollo of honey left too long in the sun, pleasant but with something not quite wholesome beneath it.

He inhaled deeply, tasting the strange atmosphere on his tongue. The ground beneath his feet seemed to respond to his weight, a subtle pulse like standing on something that breathed.

’There’s aether here,’ he realized, feeling the familiar resonance with the gold in his veins. ’More concentrated than I’ve felt since...’ He couldn’t finish the thought, the memory of Olympus still too painful to acknowledge directly.

Renna moved cautiously to the edge of the mushroom field, her brow furrowed as she knelt to examine the ground. "No tracks," she said, fingers tracing the bare earth. "No bird droppings, no insect paths. Nothing lives here." She straightened, scanning the bizarre landscape with growing unease. "Or at least, nothing we’re familiar with."

"The mushrooms are conduits," Apollo said, the knowledge rising from somewhere deep within him. "They’re drawing the ambient aether from the soil, concentrating it." He stepped forward, placing his hand against the nearest stalk. It felt surprisingly warm, almost like flesh, and he could sense the energy flowing through it like sap through a tree.

Lyra appeared at his side, her green eyes narrowed as she studied the towering fungi. "Is it dangerous?"

Apollo hesitated. "Not inherently. But it’s... potent. We should be careful."

"Careful is my middle name," Nik declared, already striding between two massive stalks. "Actually, it’s Bartholomew, but I never tell anyone that because it sounds like someone’s elderly uncle who collects decorative spoons and talks too much about his digestive ailments."

"Nik, wait—" Lyra called, but he had already disappeared into the mushroom forest, his voice floating back to them.

"Come on! We can’t go around it, it stretches for miles in either direction. And we certainly can’t go back the way we came. Forward is the only option!"

Thorin sighed heavily, the sound carrying his deep skepticism. "I don’t trust anything that grows this big without proper sunlight and soil. In the mountains, things that grow in darkness are usually poisonous."

Nevertheless, he adjusted his pack and followed Nik’s path, muttering under his breath about "foolhardy humans" and "death by fungus."

They moved between the towering mushrooms in single file, the caps overhead creating a strange, shifting canopy that filtered the sunlight into dappled patterns of unusual colors. The stalks grew closer together as they progressed, forcing them to squeeze through narrow passages where the fungal flesh yielded slightly to pressure, then sprang back once they passed.

Apollo felt the gold in his veins responding to the concentrated aether, warming pleasantly as if in recognition of something kindred. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant, but it left him hyperaware, his senses sharpening until he could almost taste the magic in the air.

"Do you see that?" Renna asked suddenly, pointing to a space between two distant stalks.

Apollo squinted, catching a brief flicker of light that vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "Probably just sunlight reflecting off the caps," he suggested, though something about the movement had seemed too deliberate.

"There’s another!" Nik exclaimed, turning in a complete circle as more lights appeared and disappeared in their periphery. "And another! They’re all around us!"

"Fireflies?" Lyra suggested, though her hand had already moved to the hilt of her knife, a gesture Apollo had learned meant she didn’t believe her own explanation.

The lights grew more numerous, their movements no longer random but coordinated, circling the group in patterns too precise to be natural insects. They darted closer with each pass, leaving trails of luminescence that lingered briefly in the air like signatures.

Apollo felt something brush against his cheek, a touch so light it might have been imagination, except for the tinkling sound of laughter that accompanied it. The gold in his veins flared in response, a brief warmth that spread through his chest.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, turning to find his companions equally bewildered.

Before anyone could answer, the air around them erupted with movement. The lights coalesced into distinct forms, tiny winged creatures no larger than a human hand, their bodies glowing in various hues that pulsed with their movements. They had vaguely humanoid forms, with delicate limbs and translucent wings that beat too rapidly to see clearly.

"Fairies," Thorin breathed, his usual gruffness momentarily suspended in genuine surprise. "I thought they were just miners’ tales."

One of the creatures, its body emanating a soft blue glow, darted directly in front of Apollo’s face, hovering at eye level.

It had the appearance of a minute woman, her features delicate but unmistakably feminine, with hair that floated around her head as if underwater. She studied him with eyes that contained no pupils, just pools of deeper blue light.