From Nuishe's journal:

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How do I even begin to describe Cyathus?

I suppose I should start from, well, the start (for us, at least): his arrival at Sporefall Hollow.

Really, it was Rhizopus who found him. Due to an oversight early on in our clan's life, we were running out of food (specifically, out of meat), and the Fae was out searching the Scarred Wasteland for something, anything, that might fetch a good price so we could buy enough for all of us to eat. As he scanned the area, he happened upon an abundance of glittering golden gemstones embedded in a pebbly red hill. As he tried to pry a stone off the face of the hill, however, he discovered to his horror that it was indeed a face, but not a hill. It was the largest dragon he'd ever seen - a blood-red Ridgeback covered in wickedly sharp spines, with teeth like ice picks and deep red eyes larger than Rhizopus's entire head. The fae nearly panicked as he realized what he had just woken up.

Fortunately for Rhizopus, the dragon he'd found was more interested in talking to him than eating him, and agreed to follow him back to the lair. From what Cyathus told us, he originally had no home, no relatives, and no one to talk to. He'd been wandering aimlessly for months, stopping to rest when he could and fighting for his life at every turn, and he was very lonely. The thought of a cozy lair full of welcoming dragons must have enticed him. If only he had known what would be in store for him here.

As he is right now, the red man (as we sometimes call him) is an old and wise drake, and his long life wandering has left him with many stories to tell. He enjoys telling them, too - he can often be found sitting on a ledge he bored out of the main cavern's wall, entertaining crowds of his clanmates with tales of his travels. He sees all of the other Ridgebacks of the lair as his hatchlings, and while some of them take less kindly to his fatherly advice than others, none can bring themselves to outright reject him.

He is well-respected, and rightly so, for he is generally calm and kind to all the dragons of the Hollow. I imagine we could have been good friends, had the Blight not ruined everything for both of us.

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That is not the end of what I have to say about this dragon.

Here is where the story really begins.

A very short time into his life in this lair, the red man became the Blight's favorite. I'm still not sure why, and I don't think that I ever will be. He has never been the most vicious, or even the most impressive, of the dragons in Sporefall Hollow.

Unclear motives aside, it was plain to see that the red man was the fungus's favored servant--he was controlled more often than any other dragon, and while under the Blight's spell, the tasks he carried out seemed…more important, somehow, than the grunt work the rest of the clan was being made to do. He seemed to be leading the lair, coordinating and directing the other dragons, which I thought was strange. The Blight controlled all of them directly; why did the hive need a lead dragon?

I thought of it as a curiosity at the most…



That was when I knew we had a problem.

While all the dragons of Sporefall Hollow act as the Blight's eyes, ears, and claws, the Mold King seems to act as its voice. He is the fungus's draconic avatar, exactly as unfeeling and unpredictable as the Blight itself. His eyes are empty black pits, and his grin is wide and alien.

On a good day, I will venture from my alcove to listen to what gentle Cyathus has to say.

But I beware the bone crown.

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He is planning something, deep in the Chamberheart. I hear them. I hear the thumping in the core.

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Something is under my skin.

My organs are itching.

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They're breathing.

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