UE Rewrite: B5 — 16. Games in the Canopy (Patreon)

PoV:

Lieutenant Morek (The Great Polsan (Grasslands) Clan Officer!)

Azalea (Our Newest Spooder Girl!)

Undying Empire Index

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Morek’s consciousness crawled back like something dredged from a swamp.

Not light. Not shapes. Sounds.

A soft drip somewhere above, too regular to be rain.

A creak—not wood, not stone, but fibers pulled tight, sighing with strain.

Breath that was not his own, muffled through…layers.

He tried to swallow; his throat sac shuddered against air that was thick, wet, wrong. The effort filled his ears with the faintest crackle—thread tightening, answering him.

“Lieutenant?”

Grask’s voice. Except—it wasn’t.

The cadence was off, the tone smothered, as though spoken through cloth. Even stranger, the sound didn’t travel the way it should; it didn’t ripple through ground or canopy like honest vibrations. It slid sideways, hollow, reaching him from everywhere at once.

My mind… So fuzzy. Maybe? Where was I? A mission… A fiend, from the Pits?

A rasping cough rattled his frame. The noise bounced back too fast, too close, as if walls of woven stone had leaned in to listen.

Morek forced his limbs to shift. The silk whispered in answer, a living sound that made his chest constrict.

Why is it hot?

White Veil ridges should echo with wind, the snap of frost, wings in the dark.

Here—no wind. No frost. Only breath and threads and muffled voices.

His eyes adjusted by degrees, pried open against a twilight that did not belong to mountains. Colossal trees loomed upward into forever, their trunks so vast a dozen ri’bot could not have ringed one with linked arms. Each creaked as though it bore the weight of centuries, a sound like old bones grinding in the canopy.

The ground squelched beneath him, spongy with leaf mold and fungal rot, exhaling the sweet reek of things that had been dead so long they had forgotten they were corpses.

The jungle. We’re in the valley jungle. But how?

Memory seeped back in fragments: the mountain, the blizzard, a blue-haired human. Eyes—unnatural, terrible—fractured pink sapphires that sliced his vision into shards. And beneath them, a smile too wide, carrying more than six teeth, each one promising games with no end.

“Grask?” Morek pushed himself up on unsteady arms, the world tilting sickeningly. “Where are we? How long—the toxin…”

“I don’t know, sir. What toxin?” His sergeant materialized from the gloom, moving wrong—too careful, struggling, like someone navigating unfamiliar territory. “I woke up maybe a minute ago. Found you unconscious near that cluster of trees. No sign of the others.”

The others. My warriors… What is a human?

Morek’s webbed hands pressed into the spongy ground as he forced himself upright, throat sac burning as though scraped raw from the inside. Every breath was drowning in reverse, air thick and syrupy, pouring into lungs that rejected it.

“Toxin. No, there was a toxin… I’m sure of it.”

The jungle pressed in from every direction, not just foliage but walls of green. In his peripheral vision, they seemed to flex and pulse in time with his ragged breaths. Vines dangled like nooses, swaying even in the absence of wind. Broad leaves the size of battle-shields leaned close enough to brush his shoulders with each tremor of movement—whispering as they touched, as if answering him.

This is wrong. Everything about this is wrong.

“Sir?” Grask stepped closer, concern flickering in his eyes. “You look…unsteady. The last thing I recall is being sent down the mountain—the white veil?”

“The mission,” Morek croaked, his voice echoing strangely in the thick air. “We came for…for the Death Empress. The prisoners we took—Chiefs! Why does my head feel like it’s swimming in honey?”

“I feel it, as well, sir. Ack! Mmm. My throat… You mentioned toxin?”

“Yes. Fur. Moving fur…” Memories snapped into place, his vision widening. “The Creeping Shadow. She took them. Everyone—”

“Gone, sir,” Grask’s throat sac pumped visibly as he spoke, his suspicious gaze fixed on the scenery. “I remember… Everything’s gone. Weapons, supplies, the heat crystals… She wore their skins…their skins…”

His sergeant’s wide eyes drifted to him, Morek taking a steadying breath as he returned the stare, tension rising between them. There was a taste on his tongue, dulled, metallic.

“Grask,” Morek said carefully, watching his sergeant’s tight face as he took a careful step to the side, precise footsteps, testing the ground for quick action. “Your children… Tell me their names.”

A pause. Too long. Just a heartbeat too long before Grask answered, “Thrik and Melanis, sir. You remember—Thrik just molted into his third form last season.”

Correct. But the hesitation… Specifics, though.

“And our second training mission together?”

This time, the pause was more prolonged. Grask’s eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment, as if he were searching through someone else’s memories.

No! Get out of your head. This is her game… This isn’t a stranger I once called a friend. This is Grask! Relax. Clear your mind.

“The desert, sir. The Violet Sands—our skel’wing was killed by a vaspit, and we had to survive for…” A frown crossed his face, a contortion? No, a trick of the light. “For six days? Seven? The details are…fuzzy. The toxin?”

A week. It was a week. And we drank from balstret water glands that tasted like swamp water. He threw up the first time.

“Likely…”

“The balstret water,” Morek prompted, his hand moving instinctively to where his weapon should have been… It was still there? A quake ran through his frame, Graskk’s focus flicking to the motion, muscles loosening, ready for quick action.

“Balstret?” Grask blinked, confusion flickering across his features. “Sir, I…the memories are unclear. What about you? Where did we first meet?”

“In a fist brawl on your first day at the Flight Academy…over some girl, who played us against each other for her entertainment.”

“Hah… Yeah,” he grinned before his left leg gave out. “Grrar! Blah, this dryness in my throat. How, when it’s so…wet here? It’s you, though, sir. I think I twisted my ankle. That creature—whatever she injected us with—”

A rustle in the undergrowth cut him off. Both ri’bot spun toward the sound, muscles tensing as Morek tossed his extra dagger to the sergeant. He snatched it without hesitation, flipping it around with a flourish.

Lowering their center of gravity, they waited.

Movement. Organized. Multiple contacts.

The undergrowth thrashed again, closer this time, and a ri’bot warrior lurched into view—uniform torn, one arm hanging limp. His throat sac convulsed as he shrieked, eyes rolling wildly.

“Lieutenant! Sergeant! She—she’s inside the canopy! She’s—aaagh!”

His hand clawed at his face. For an instant, in the moon-fractured light, Morek saw it: a strip of his cheek peeling like damp cloth, beneath it threads of white silk glistening with blood—then, it slithered into the dark.

He blinked, and there was no damage.

Great Chiefs!

The jungle whispered the exact words he had just screamed, softer, delighted: She’s going to skin us alive…alive…alive.

“S-Sir!”

Grask tightened his grip on the dagger, his throat sac fluttering with agitation. “Hey, Korik! Stop… Belth,” he warned, making the second almost fall over the other when clawing his way through the undergrowth. “Sir…is that—them?”

Morek’s tongue tasted iron and honey. He dropped lower, trying to anchor himself against the ground, against something real. “Calm down. Breathe… Grask, get my back.”

“Sir!”

Slowly, Morek moved forward, two of his soldiers trembling as if children, hearing stories about the White God.

They paused as a childlike giggle dripped through the canopy, like falling dew.

“Transformation. You changed within. Stop looking for monsters behind the trees…”

Her voice thinned, stretched, and then curled up against his ear, intimate and playful. “You are the monster.”

Morek’s throat sac spasmed, a vibration running through him that wasn’t his own. He sensed the change. Something wiggling within him. To his horror, the world tinted blue, tilted, then snapped back into place, the same words pricking the back of his mind, his body parroting her accusation in a softer tone.

Stop looking for monsters behind the trees…

Morek’s pulse hammered. For a flash, he saw his reflection—his own eyes caught in Korik’s terrified gaze in the moonlight—but they weren’t his eyes. They gleamed too bright, fractured like pink sapphires, and a smile with too many teeth curved beneath them.

I am the monster…

The two soldiers froze, eyes wide. One whispered hoarsely, “You…are the monster…” as though the phrase had crawled into his skull and forced itself out.

“You are the monster,” Belth repeated in that same hollow tone, his eyes glazing over as the words spilled from his lips like something regurgitated.

Korik’s head tilted at an unnatural angle—their heads didn’t move; they couldn’t! Nonexistent joints popped softly. His imagination? “The monster behind the trees…”

No. No, this is wrong. They’re my warriors. I know these men.

But even as the thought formed, Morek watched Korik’s face in the broken moonlight. The features were right—the scar above his left eye from a training accident years ago, the distinctive ridge pattern along his throat sac—but something fundamental was off. The way he held himself—the timing of his breathing.

When did he scar his eye? What accident?

The memory felt slippery, like trying to grasp water. Had there been an accident? Or was that detail something else, something planted?

“Sir,” Grask whispered, his voice cutting through the humid air, back pressed against his, warm—very warm. “They’re not moving right.”

Morek felt prickles run along his skin as he slowly shifted away, focusing between the three, but more on his armed sergeant—the one he had armed. Why had he done that?

Grask’s posture was tense, ready, but his eyes…his eyes were tracking movement that wasn’t there. At least, he couldn’t see them. Following invisible threads through the air above the other soldiers’ heads.

He can see them. Can he see her silk?

“Grask,” Morek said carefully, as the other two remained stock-still, “what do you see?”

“Strings, sir. Korik, Belth, I’ve already confirmed the lieutenant is the real deal. But you two… You move like kids’ puppets, on a string, but…” His voice trailed off as understanding dawned across his features. “But they’re not controlling them. T-They’re in them. What are we dealing with…”

“No! No, I’m not!” Korik gagged, tears streaming down his face as he ran his fingers over his skin, trying to tear away invisible threads. “I’m not a human! I’m not wearing my flesh!”

Belth took a step forward, his movement too smooth, too coordinated. When his foot touched the spongy ground, it made no sound—no squelch of disturbed earth, no whisper of displaced leaves.

Then, Korik stilled, pupils dilating to an unnatural degree.

“Sir, we should go back,” he mumbled in a voice that carried too many harmonics. “Back to the mountain. It’s too hot here.”

“Yes,” Belth agreed, body bobbing with mechanical precision. “The mountain is safe. No shadows.”

They want us to run.

“Sir,” Grask’s hand tightened on the dagger. “I-I don't think those are our men.”

But even as he spoke, Morek caught something in his sergeant's tone—a note of satisfaction that didn’t belong. A smile? An eye shift to him, only for a moment, then back on the two in front of him. It was…the same odd pleasure he’d heard in the soldiers’ voices when they repeated Azalea’s words.

“We…can’t trust our senses. Steel yourselves! Ack… Back up. No sudden movements.”

A giggle drifted down from the canopy, followed by the sound of something heavy moving through the branches above. Not the rustle of leaves or the creak of wood, but the whisper of silk sliding against bark.

“Sir!”

“She’s here—”

“I need a weapon!”

“Oh, this is much better!” Azalea’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere, delighted and breathless within his foggy mind. “You’re learning to see! Most species never get this far—they just accept what their senses tell them until it’s far too late. You’re trained…like some of the other races I played with when I was alive…”

Korik’s head snapped up toward the canopy, his neck extending in Morek’s mind’s eye. “She wants to teach us,” he said in that terrible harmonic voice, colors spinning around his frame, drawing his attention like insects to fire. “She wants to show us the truth…”

She’s manipulating us. Only one of them can be her… Maybe none of them. I need to—the neck… It’s not him?

The realization hit like ice water in his veins. How long had he been talking to constructs? A silk-like clone.

“What truth?” he mumbled, his forearm now showing rash-like bumps.

“What am I teaching?” Azalea's voice grew closer, more intimate next to his ear. “Only a few species ever undergo rapid change. The others become extinct… A new order of intelligence will most certainly replace Ri’bot… Humans.”

“Sir, she’s getting in my head,” Grask choked, moving closer, his voice dropping to barely a whisper. “They aren’t real. How long? How long have they been…puppets? If those aren’t our men, then where—what have they become?”

Shapes began moving through the jungle—pale figures with skin that seemed to glow in the filtered moonlight. They spread out with eerie coordination, moving to encircle their position.

“Contact,” Grask whispered, raising his dagger with dancer's precision. Too graceful. Too practiced.

When did Grask become this skilled?

The first pale figure reached them—a female with features that flickered between human and ri’bot characteristics. She tilted her head at an impossible angle.

“Are you real, lieutenant?” she asked in perfect ri’bot common.

“Real enough,” Grask replied. “Don’t take another step.”

The pale figure smiled, and for a moment her face seemed to flicker until she looked exactly like Grask himself.

“Prove it,” the maybe-human said.

Then she attacked.

The creature moved with inhuman speed, her limbs extending far beyond anatomical possibility. Grask met her charge with fluid precision, his blade work too perfect, too choreographed.

He’s fighting like he knows her moves. Like they’ve danced this dance before. It’s not raw. It’s…perfect. Every move, executed with inri’bot precision… I couldn’t compete at that speed.

More pale figures rushed forward. Morek found himself grappling with something wearing his dead clutch-brother’s face, its skin unnaturally warm and yielding. But underneath the flesh, he could feel something else—a framework that bent and flexed like woven fiber.

Silk. She’s wrapped silk in stolen flesh! No, silk in…wood, branches?

“Sir!” Belth’s voice, terrified and real, cut through the chaos. “T-These aren’t humans! Not like we captured. T-They’re—they’re hollow!”

Morek risked a glance toward his warrior. Belth was backing away from one of the pale figures; his movements panicked but genuinely his own. The mechanical precision was gone, replaced by authentic fear. Had it been him the whole time? What had he been seeing?

It’s breaking! The toxin. Grask was right.

“Belth! Form up! Increase your heart rate; sweat it out!” Morek called, using the distraction to drive his elbow into the face of the Hax-thing. The impact felt wrong—too soft, like punching wet clay.

But Korik remained motionless, staring at the battle with those dilated eyes.

“Sir,” Grask’s voice carried strain as he fended off multiple attackers with impossible skill. “We need to move! There are too many!”

Too many, and he’s handling them all. How is he handling them all? 

The pale figures pressed closer, their movements growing more erratic and desperate. One wearing Threnk’s face reached for Morek with arms that stretched like rubber, fingers extending into needle-point claws.

Morek ducked, grabbed the creature by what should have been its wrist, and pulled.

The arm came away in his hands—not torn flesh and bone, but unraveling silk that dissolved into gossamer threads. The Threnk-thing stumbled backward, its remaining arm flailing as its form began to collapse.

“Silk,” Morek breathed, falling to his knees. “All of them? They’re all…silk?”

Around him, the other pale figures began to show similar signs of structural failure. Limbs unraveling, faces sagging, their coordinated movements devolving into spastic twitching.

“Well done!” the energetic girl’s voice rang out from the canopy above, filled with delighted applause. “Oh, that was wonderful! You figured it out much faster than last time!”

The silk constructs collapsed one by one, dissolving into bluish threads that scattered in an unfelt breeze. Within moments, nothing remained but gossamer wisps clinging to the jungle floor.

He waited, primed for another attack.

Yet, all that met him was the clicking chatter of the jungle.

Too easy. That was far too easy.

“Excellent work, sir,” Grask said, breathing hard but not as hard as he should have been for how fast he’d been moving. “Quick thinking. It looks like she’s not interested in killing us, but these games… If we can avoid the silk—”

He was smiling. Not the relieved grin of a warrior who’d survived an impossible fight, but something else.

“Grask,” Morek repeated slowly, his throat sac beginning to constrict as he posed the same question he’d asked earlier. “How…do you know so much about her? Those humans only told us to release them…”

His sergeant turned toward him, and in the broken moonlight filtering through the canopy, his face seemed to shift and blur just as the constructs’ had.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Grask replied in a voice that was suddenly too high, too melodious, too delighted. “Because they were far too polished to be real ri’bot.”

The thing wearing his sergeant’s face giggled—a sound like crystal breaking that had never come from Grask’s throat in all their years of service.

“Surprise!” she chimed, spreading her arms out in mock celebration. “Game number five, Morek! Did you like my little puppet show? Better than having you kill your buddy. You were so close on the third play. You’ve got a real solid head on you!”

Morek’s vision swam as the truth crashed over him. Around them, vines descended from impossible heights, carrying shapes wrapped in silk cocoons. His warriors—his real warriors—suspended like ornaments throughout the canopy, conscious eyes staring down with expressions of terror amidst their camouflaged silk.

Fifth? This has happened…five times? And they’ve been watching—the whole time.

The false Grask’s face began to shift and change—not his flesh, but Korik’s—features flowing like wax until blue hair and electric pink eyes looked back at him.

Silk. She uses her thread to manipulate the mask… Toxin to make it real to our perception.

“You’re getting predictable, though, Morek,” Azalea said, her child-like form skipping closer without warning—practically a blur. “How much longer can you entertain me? Maybe I should start playing with your birdies.”

Darkness crept in around the edges of his vision as his legs gave out. The jungle floor felt soft, too soft, like falling into a web that would never let him go.

“Shh. My big sister is coming—it seems my time is up.” Azalea’s voice was gentle now, almost motherly. “Just rest. I have so many more experiments planned…if I can convince Cami.”

S-Sister? There are more of them?!

Darkness swept over him like silk, and the last thing he saw was her genuine, delighted smile—a child who’d just discovered a new toy and couldn’t wait to take it apart.

Krava was right. These humans are our greatest threat…

✧⸻✧⸻✧

Mmm! This is fascinating! Who knew being able to talk to your prey could make things so much more fun!

Azalea perched in her true form fifty meters above the jungle floor, monitoring her subjects through the silk network. The lieutenant’s neural patterns were gorgeous—stress responses spiking and falling as his mind tried to process false memories.

Her thread wove into his neural system, electrical pulses triggering responses that she analyzed and refined her understanding—something she’d been trying to copy from their youngest sister.

How does Violet make it look so simple without documenting it at all? I bet she has a specialized brain that maps it all out… Could I adapt one of those? Maybe. But look at me! Mother would be so proud.

“Azalea.”

Hello, Cami, she called down through the Nexus without looking. You’re early! I told you I’d be done by dawn. I was just experimenting!

Heavy footsteps moved through the undergrowth. Camellia emerged, her human form radiating controlled lethality that was far more confident than the big sister she’d known.

The Empress had done wonders for her development.

“What did I tell you about playing too much with these particular ri’bot?” Camellia asked. “The Empress needs them for information. What would Mother say?”

That I should chew thoroughly? Azalea suggested, lowering herself on silk with a giggle. But this one was getting interesting! His stress responses are entirely different from the others. He has a special gene. Mom would be thrilled! The little treasures you find.

“The Empress wants them functional, not traumatized beyond usefulness. And the big gathering is happening. We shouldn’t miss it.”

Fair. Fair. Oh, did you notice I’m not cutting you off! I’m letting you speak. Morphing into her petite, human form, she puffed up her chest. Haha! Aren’t I an amazing little sister? But you know trauma is where the real flavor happens! C’mon! Say it with me…

Her big sister’s crossed arms and her frown tilted sideways as Azalea nudged her with her elbow, wearing a big grin.

“Okay. Okay… Yes, it does make the meal sweeter and has that hopping kick.”

Mmm! Mmm! Azalea bounced on her toes, spinning in a circle as she cupped a sleeping ri’bot’s puggy cheeks. Plus, I haven’t broken them! Well, not permanently. I’m so close to discovering which brain sections to stimulate to elicit the exact response…

Her big sister sighed and sat on a cocoon, crossing her legs and wearing a fond smile while watching her flit around, checking on each tiny electrode zap she made.

“Azalea… It’s nice having you back, and…not mad at me.”

Mmm? Are we back to that, Cami? Azalea’s shoulders slumped. You’re far too hard on yourself. If you keep acting like that, you’ll never have any fun with me! C’mon, one last play? I’ll let you be the terrifying bad guy? Stir their amygdala. Not that you can’t trigger it all on your own!

The redhead tilted her head with a low groan, but Azalea could see the walls breaking down as her lips gradually lifted into a smile.

“One more game. But we’ll make it fast! We need to get back for the Empress’ speech.”

Yay!

The jungle around them writhed with her camouflage, a silken network she’d dragged with her from the snowy mountain. Her bright pink eyes spun with glee as a dozen giant birds and dozens more ri’bot soldiers were drawn out of their special seats.

She ran a finger over one female warrior’s brow, slick with delicious sweat that she popped into her sticky mouth.

Mmm… You know, Cami, if their leaders won’t come to us, maybe the Empress and I can go to them! Her teeth flashed in the fractured moonlight as she looked over at the redhead. Wouldn’t that be fun?

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