The mutated stalker shrieked, a sound like grinding stone and splitting timber. Its six-jointed limbs, distended and oozing emerald fluid, clawed the dirt, leaving gouges of rot in the damp loam. Its yellow orbs locked onto the incandescent shoot before it lunged. “Phalanx! Now!” Syran shouted. From the terrace vapor, a dozen laborers materialized with leveled pitchforks and iron shovels, locking shoulders beneath broad straw hats into a tight semicircular wall. Shambling husks trailing bog rot slammed against the tines. Iron met wet chitin with blunt impacts. Syran cleaved through the flanking tendrils with twin hand-axes, severing limbs in clean arcs that spattered blackened bile across the tilled furrows. The lead horror ignored the skirmish, slithering low toward the glowing bulb. As its bulk reared up to engulf the shoot, six black-scaled arms caught it by the collar and torso. Kravos, stepping off the farmhouse porch, let his porcelain macchiato cup drop into the mud. “Honestly, can’t a fiend enjoy a roast without an incursion?” Kravos grumbled. He diverted the stalker's momentum with an open-palm parry, spinning the beast off-balance toward the drainage trough. Schloop surged over the cedar rim with a delighted wet gurgle. Kravos locked the creature's upper joints while Schloop lashed thick gelatin around its lower ankles. With a synchronized pivot, fiend and slime hauled backward, hurling the thrashing beast in a high, arcing suplex clean through the pine siding of the coffee roasting shed. Cedar slats shattered, showering dark umber beans into the soil alongside a dense cloud of chicory steam. Inside the shed, the beast thrashed among copper drums, screeching as red-hot embers and scalding bean oils scorched its corrupted hide. At the plot's center, the shoot swelled with a series of wet, percussive snaps. Broad leaves unfurled, emerald turning to scorching gold along each fibrous ridge until a massive head expanded to the girth of a cider cask, baking the surrounding mist into dry air. Rellian dropped to his knees in the hot dirt. He reached forward, blister heat singing the hair on his forearms, his focus narrowed entirely to the blazing crop. Skin sizzled as his bare fingers dug under the outer leaves. He locked his elbows against the upward thermal push, jaw set tight. Overhead, the *Loom of Gloom* dripped fragmented syllables of grief. [Warning: Soul-stabilization threshold rapidly approaching. Harvesting risk: Extreme. Sustained contact will result in severe cellular degradation.] The smell of scorched palms mixed with sweet, roasted chlorophyll. Beneath his raw fingers, the dense head throbbed like an engine. He planted his boots against the furrow. With a sharp yell, Rellian hauled upward. The terrace floor cracked along the taproot channel. Taproots snapped with deep subterranean twangs, and the Sun-Core head tore free in a burst of gold spores. He cradled the dense, blinding weight against his leather apron, soot clinging to his peeling knuckles. Syran sprinted across the churned plot toward him, while behind her the roasting shed rattled with wet thumps as Schloop smothered the intruder. Rellian lurched toward the threshold, his boots dragging in the dirt. He kicked open the cedar plank door, flooding the dark front room with gold glare. Barris lay on the canvas cot, pale and rigid, a thin blue sheen pulsing beneath his collarbone. Rellian fell onto both knees beside the frame, pressing the radiant harvest toward his friend's sternum. “Barris,” he rasped. Before the leaves touched cloth, Barris’s ribs gave a final shudder. A wisp of blue mist slipped past his lips, and the glow under his skin went dark.

The Final Harvest