The rats did not react. Not to the movements of the Gembound--not to their sounds. Not to anything. Instead they continued their lurching, empty-eyed shuffle. The black stone shone from their hides, their bones, in ragged clusters. And all the while, the chant repeated, swelling louder and louder:

"DØNᛌT LEA᳒VE ME ALØNE..."

If the Gembounds chose to stay, they would soon be within the press of ragged, starving gray bodies.

This seemed unwise.

A sensationwashed through the room. Was that... desperation? Relief? Behind it came a wave of strange whispers, emanating from the shining black rock twisted through the little space.

There was nothing coherent in them, this time; but it was filled with reassurances, pleas, demands. The rats lurched toward Verdant's serpentine little host, and though they staggered, fanged jaws parted wide and gray fur ragged.

Whatever they were planning to do, it wouldn't end well for the snake--but for the parasite? Maybe this would be... an opportunity. A dangerous one--but a chance to learn something, nonetheless.

Consumed.

There was no other word for it: the poor fleasnake was torn to violent pieces, ripped apart and swallowed down. And Verdant-... Verdant would find themselves in a new host.

However long it took them to establish that connection would teach them its own brief lesson: that the creature it was now going to be inhabiting was sick. The blood was thin, and weak. The heart pattered in fluttering desperation. There were not enough nutrients flowing through this body, not enough strength in the muscles.

It hadn't been eating, or drinking, or sleeping. Perhaps Verdant could direct it to do otherwise, by exerting enough control? But if not, they were in a doomed vessel. At the very least, they could learn something from observing its slow demise, were they detached enough, watchful enough.

For now, the rats returned, their prey devoured, into the dark. They slunk as one, crawling through the dark and narrow spaces, until they had come back to their home: a long, impossibly large, twisted length of the iridescent, dark stone. It did not feel like Corruption, if Verdant had ever tasted Corruption's magic: but it thrummed with power nonetheless. The rats clustered there, as if tending to it--and Verdant might notice then what it could not have seen before.

The rats held fragments of this stone within their bodies. Not just the clustered shards, but particles, flowing through their bloodstream, lodged in their muscles. They had been gnawing at it, consuming it, taking it into themselves.

And the vein--in the dark, the rats could see. It was so large, stretching toward Cetus like extending fingers, and it groaned, as if even now, it were growing.

How long had it been here-? Was it truly getting larger? What was it doing to these rats?

Was there any way for Verdant to find out more--and more importantly, could they do anything to stop it?

Oddly, the voice had fallen silent. Its connection to all of this was, for now, unclear.