Bulleta followed the trail into the labyrinth.
It wasn't hard—the two she was tracking had left signs everywhere. Massive footprints in the fungal carpet. Scrape marks on narrow walls where something big had squeezed through. And the smell... sweat, blood, ogre musk, and something else. Something feminine. Floral, almost, beneath the grime.
Two of them. One huge, one small. Interesting.
She moved through the twisting corridors with practiced ease, her red cloak brushing against the mushroom-covered walls. The symbols carved into the stone didn't interest her—she wasn't a scholar, wasn't a mage. She was a hunter. And hunters followed prey.
The trail led her deeper.
And then she found the chamber.
"Well, well, well."
Bulleta stood at the entrance, taking in the devastation with an appreciative whistle.
The place was wrecked.
Scorch marks covered everything—the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The fungal carpet had been reduced to ash and cinders in a wide radius. Charred remains of what looked like hundreds of small mushroom creatures littered the ground, their tiny bodies twisted and blackened.
And in the center of it all...
The Spore Lord.
Or what was left of it.
Bulleta approached slowly, her boots crunching on carbonite fungi. The massive fly agaric had been utterly destroyed—its cap torn away, its stalk splintered, its horrible face caved in by what looked like repeated blunt force trauma. Phosphorescent ichor pooled beneath the corpse, still faintly glowing.
"Someone had fun," she murmured.
She crouched beside the remains, examining the damage with a professional eye. The burns came first—widespread, hot, clearly magical in origin. Then the physical trauma. Constriction marks around what remained of the throat. And the head...
"Bludgeoned. Over and over." Bulleta traced a gloved finger along one of the impact craters. "Personal. Whoever did this was angry."
She stood and circled the corpse, piecing together the battle from the evidence. Two combatants—the small one mobile, using fire and some kind of binding attack. The big one providing raw muscle. They'd worked together seamlessly, covering each other's weaknesses.
Impressive. Whoever these two are, they know how to fight.
Bulleta found their exit trail easily enough—footprints leading toward the far corridor, one set massive, one set small and feminine. Fresh. Maybe twenty minutes old.
She could catch them if she hurried.
But she didn't move. Not yet.
Instead, she turned back to the Spore Lord's corpse.
A certain guilty thrill emanated from her heart. A devious thought crossed her mind.
"Right fine one you were," she said, addressing the ruined face. "Getting your head bashed through was too good for you."
She thought about what the aristocrat had told her. The Red Spores. The corruption. The years of driving innocent creatures mad for Farquat's entertainment.
This thing had been complicit in all of it. Had profited from it. Had grown fat and powerful on the suffering of others.
Bulleta smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
She walked onto the towering remains of the mushroom lord, her boots squelching in phosphorescent gore. She climbed up what remained of the stalk, navigating the ruined flesh until she stood directly over the bashed-in face and cap.
Then she turned around.
Pulled up her red cloak.
Pulled down her white breeches.
And squatted.
The sound echoed through the chamber—a hot, steaming stream splashing against fungal flesh. Bulleta sighed with relief as the pressure in her bladder finally released.
She'd been holding it for hours. Ever since she'd started tracking the aristocrat through the swamp. Hadn't wanted to stop, hadn't wanted to lose the trail. But now...
Ahhhhh.
She was there a long time.
The stream went on and on, splashing into the Spore Lord's ruined eye socket, pooling in the crater where its mouth had been. Steam rose where hot liquid met cold flesh.
Finally, it began to sputter. A few last drops.
Done.
Bulleta stood, pulling up her breeches and smoothing down her cloak. She looked down at her handiwork with satisfaction.
"Well bless my tits," she announced to the empty chamber. "That was a long hot piss." She hocked up a luggi and spit it into the face of the spore lord before she turned and hopped down from the corpse, landing lightly on the scorched ground.
"Consider that my opinion of your business arrangement with Farquat, you overgrown toadstool." She adjusted her hood. "Now then. Let's see who did me the favor of killing you."
She turned toward the exit trail, her earlier playfulness fading into focused intensity.
The footprints were fresh. The quarry was close.
Bulleta drew her bowie knife and began to follow.
"Time to make some new friends.'