text: <Foreign contaminant detected,> my mindscreen chirped inside. <Contaminant is a Chaos-based creature designed to mutate and infest other life forms, most likely engineered from similar life forms found on the planet Earth. Such an invasion suggests the formation of a Trial or Tumult.>
  
  <Found on Earth?> I thought, confused. <Is my system telling me that viruses or cancer can only be found on Earth?>
  
  It was a problem I would have to solve for another day, because as I stared at it, the tree slowly began to shift, a bloody branch pointing in my direction.
  
  "Is this the only bloody plant your people have discovered?" I asked calmly, keeping my eyes on the corrupted tree. The Gaelguard nodded, also remaining calm.
  
  "We've just now noticed this one, but if there are any more then they're much farther out. I think this creature is alone."
  
  "Well, let's kill it and have Breena look at it," I decided, walking closer to it. Since my mindscreen had identified the life form as a threat, and one linked to a Trial at that, there was absolutely no mistaking the bloody tumor as anything but hostile. The only reason not to kill it was to see if it could provide information on its own, and that was easy to check.
  
  "Hey, giant clump of Lyme disease! Can you talk?"
  
  The tree pulled up a giant mass of roots and moved towards me, but other than that it remained silent.
  
  So far I had confirmed that the monster was mobile and hostile. That level of research would have to do for now. Breena probably knew more anyway.
  
  I saw no more of the bloody plants behind the slowly advancing tree, and looking at everything around it failed to trigger any new warnings from my mindscreen. I withdrew my axe, and cast a new Air spell I had learned upon reaching the Journeyman rank. The magic would help guide any missile weapon I used to the proper target and even add a bit of force to the impact. I hurled the giant tomahawk, once again rewarded with the angry whistling in its wake. The blade impacted the tumor on the walking tree in a gory explosion, and then the weapon flew back toward me, the splattered tumor impaled on it.
  
  "Gross," I said out loud, and fired a scorching ray of Fire magic into the thing to make sure it was dead.
  
  <Hey Breena,> I sent through the mindlink. <I think I found something you need to look at.>
  
  <Aw, Wes,> she sent back, still in a cheerful mood from earlier. <Did you find me a present?>
  
  <Um,> I replied, not sure how to handle that question. <Does making a giant bloody mess count as a present?>
  
  <If I have to help clean it up, definitely not,> she sent back. <Hold on, I'll be right there.>
  
  I looked at the tumor more closely, not really having anything else better to do right now. I reached back into my Blood magic, feeling that there was a spell that would let me examine it better. As I concentrated, pieces of the spell came to mind, but it wasn't enough to make a complete formula for incantation. I grew frustrated, because it felt like I was trying to do this without half my brain.
  
  <Remember me?> Teeth offered. <Let me scoop around in my genetic memories. Got it. Here's the other half.>
  
  The rest of the gestures and syllables poured into my mind.
  
  <It's a little weird that you can sometimes do stuff like that,> I told the new guy.
  
  <It's a little weird that there are two of us stuck in here to begin with,> he shot back. <We should probably ask our girlfriend to help us figure this out.>
  
  <She's not our girlfriend until we at least save this world,> I answered. <And she has the opposite problem: one personality, multiple bodies. Let's talk about this after I cast the spell.>
  
  Teeth agreed, and I carefully performed the incantation while I kept the bloody blob on the far end of my axe.
  
  <The Challenger has discovered the Blood Magic Spell Know thy Scent. The Challenger will be able to gain awareness of a particular blood sample's properties. The degree of information will depend on the Challenger's Blood Magic Rank, the size of the sample, and the time spent concentrating on the spell.>
  
  I spent at least thirty seconds examining the angry cancer mass, the magic able to understand it despite the fact that I had cauterized the tissue. I could now tell that it wasn't exactly a parasite, but a symbiote. It took vitality and matter from its host, but it also awakened the host's vital guard, mana, and stamina pools, allowing it to access abilities it normally couldn't. But the tissue didn't change the host enough to be able to use those abilities without hurting the tree. It also projected its influence upon the host, making it desire to use those new powers, but not able to recognize the damage its new gifts would cause to itself. So in terms of overall benefit, maybe parasite was a better word to describe it after all. Fortunately, though, it was dead right now, so it couldn't try to do the same thing to me.
  
  <And yet,> I thought to myself, examining the dead creature further. <There is still power in this thing's blood.>
  
  "Okay, Wes!" Breena said as she zipped over. "I'm here! What did you want to show—OH MY FAIRY SPACE-BALLS WES WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET THAT! QUIT WAVING IT AROUND!"
  
  I didn't know how to comply with her, because even though the thing was gross and probably a health hazard, it seemed like an even worse idea to just leave it lying around. I settled for just holding my weapon hand a little steadier.
  
  Breena had apparently gotten over her shock, and she began to zip carefully around the dead tissue, casting some kind of detection magic and angrily muttering something about not being able to leave me alone for five minutes, and how therapy for fairy guides still really needed to be a thing.
  
  "Okay," she said after another moment, taking a deep breath. "First of all, you were smart enough to use fire to make sure it stayed dead, so good job."
  
  "Thanks," I replied. "Do they regenerate if they're not burned?"
  
  "More or less. They have high vital guard pools for their size, and they can regenerate extremely quickly if they're not destroyed completely. Fire isn't the only way, but it's usually the cheapest, fastest way to make sure you've destroyed enough of the thing to keep it down."
  
  "What are they supposed to be called?" I asked. "The mindscreen didn't give me an official name this time."
  
  "That's because you're not able to see the whole organism yet," Breena replied. "But this is a piece of a Chaos Wound. It's the leftover matter of a powerful Chaos-type creature that was slain but not completely destroyed. So the tissue itself is desperately trying to survive without the rest of its body."
  
  "So it tries to take over other creatures to make a new body or something?" I asked, to make sure I was following.
  
  "Not creatures, plants," Breena shook her head. "It can't mutate enough to infect animal life. But if it starts spreading across enough plants and terrain, it will form a body of its own. Then it will be able to create its own animal guardians, that will work like giant white blood cells. At that point—" she took another breath—"the Woadlands will have moved from a Trial to a full-blown Tumult, and Stell will usually have needed to have a Challenger handy to help the locals overcome the threat."
  
  "Which is my job anyway," I answered, looking at the dead mass of tissue. "What happens if the Woadlands fail the Tumult?"
  
  "All or most of it turns into a giant mass of Chaos matter, that either sustains itself indefinitely to try and infest other worlds, or will burn itself out and die, taking all or most of the planet with it in the process."
  
  "That's terrifying," I replied.
  
  "Yeah." The little fairy nodded. "It's another reason why we take the 'kill it with fire' approach. Where did you find this piece of it?"
  
  "It came from that tree over there." I pointed to the twisted plant behind me. "Alum noticed it after they finished scouting the area. Should there be any more of this around?" I asked, looking about and trying not to be too worried about this place turning into a giant cancer planet. But Breena shook her head.
  
  "No, the Chaos Wound spreads across a wide distance when it arrives on a planet. The center mass lands at one location while all of the other tiny globs—" she looked down in disgust—"serve as scouts, or a vanguard. They help the Chaos Wound determine where the best nutrients are to grow. There shouldn't be another one within dozens of miles. The fact that you found one of these means we caught this Trial in its early stages. Which is good, because the Woadlands are probably the worst place for this kind of Trial to form."
  
  "Noted," I replied. "This threat will probably go near the top of our to-do list. Do we need to burn the tree I found this thing on?" I looked back at the twisted plant, and realized it was still bleeding.
  
  "No no," Breena said quickly. "It's not that powerful. The giant clumps are resilient, but once they're removed from the host the danger has passed. The infection needs the main body of the parasite to continue reproducing itself. At the very worst case, the remains of it will kill the tree after the plant expends itself by driving out the contaminants. But usually the host can throw off the lingering effects on its own, though any immune system it has will be taxed for a while. Sorry," Breena suddenly said. "Forgot you were from Earth. Infections there are super scary."
  
  "Not really," I began defensively. "As long as you wash your hands frequently, and go to the doctor regularly, and eat the proper foods, that are cooked the proper way, and vaccinate yourself and your children with appropriately tiny portions of the most dangerous diseases so that their bodies know how to fight them at the earliest age possible, and pay attention whenever a new strain of disease suddenly springs out of nowhere, and don't have too much unprotected sex or get bitten or cut, you're probably not going to die. Well, usually," I clarified. "Sometimes you just have bad luck and get struck with a terminal disease no one's ever heard of. And cancer strikes all kinds of good and decent people. Are you saying this doesn't happen on other planets, though?"
  
  "No, Wes," Breena said sadly. "None of the other planets have to really deal with any of that. Nonmagical diseases just aren't anywhere near that aggressive, and even then, magic and vital guards take care of all but the worst ones pretty thoroughly. And those always qualify as Trials or Tumults. Like the Chaos Wound." She pointed to the dead flesh-blob. "Which still can't infect people or animals. Sorry, Wes," she added sympathetically, seeing my incredulous, angry expression. "If it makes you feel better, all of the doctor-type Challengers Stell summoned in the past were just as frustrated with how easy we apparently had it. They were also really quick about thwarting our plague-based Challenges."
  
  "Good for you guys," I said dryly, trying not be annoyed about just how unfair my world had it compared to everyone else. "I'm going to check on the tree anyway.
  
  "Free magic," I muttered under my breath as I walked. "Free power, cookies, and punch for everyone when they beat one of life's challenges. Bodies that can heal or grow stronger on their own, without going to the doctor or the gym. Even their cancer's on easy mode."
  
  I told myself to snap out of it and began checking the tree, still refusing to believe that my job was as easy as lopping off the messy part and throwing a bit of magic around. The tree had stopped moving as soon as I ripped the Chaos Wound off of it, probably because it was no longer receiving commands to protect the monster fragment and had gone back to just being a tree. But it was still bleeding from the patches I had noticed earlier. I cast Know thy Scent again, examining the dwindling red streams with my new magical sense.
  
  I found the stream to be full of mostly dead cells. Breena was right. The blood itself could probably attract other germs but the infection from the Chaos Wound itself was inert, like Breena said. If I was on Earth I'd probably still insist on sterilizing the entire tree or get slapped by a health expert for not having done so yet, but right now something else was catching my attention.
  
  The magic in the blood had not faded yet. In fact, it was even stronger than the magic I felt from the Chaos Wound itself.
  
  That reminded me about what I noticed earlier. The damage caused to the tree wasn't so much by the change the Chaos Wound had brought, it was that the change was incomplete. I had seen mobile trees back in the Woadfather grove on Avalon. Those giant plants did all kinds of things that trees weren't supposed to be able to do, and it didn't seem to harm them one bit. In fact, people accepted them as normal. The powers somehow fit the tree. It gave me an idea.
  
  I looked for a barkless, bloody patch on a limb of the tree instead of the actual trunk. I managed to find one on a thin branch, where the blood actually trailed sideways along the limb like veins in an animal. Instead of dripping off, the blood seemed to be staining the limb.
  
  <Hey Karim, Weylin, Eadric,> I sent. <Can you guys keep a secret?>
  
  <You mean like we do about your feelings for farm animals?> Eadric drawled. <Sure. Why?>
  
  <Har-har,> I thought. <I've got an idea, but I need to send you an update on what Breena and I discovered.>
  
  Our mindlink had strengthened to the point where a basic info dump was easy.
  
  <Holy shit,> Eadric said next. <Tree cancer?>
  
  <Chaos Wounds,> Karim corrected. <They are rare even for Trials and Tumults, but there are records for them.>
  
  <Yeah, Alum was the first to notice it,> I replied. <I'm not sure he recognized what it was, though. I'll have to sit down and talk with everyone tonight.>
  
  I still hadn't been able to add any of the Gaelguard to the mindlink, and it was frustrating. But there were probably still advantages to vocal conversation. <But I had an idea for the remains of the tree that involved the magic you guys taught me, and I was hoping I could run it by you three.>
  
  <Why not involve Breena?> Weylin asked.
  
  <I'm worried she'll think I'm playing with powers beyond my mortal ken, and that she'll nip my idea in the bud.>
  
  <Isn't that a little hypocritical?> Weylin asked. <You were just suggesting that Earth is the only planet that takes disease seriously enough.>
  
  <I'm not messing with the disease itself,> I replied stubbornly. <I'm messing with the magic left over. And it's for a good cause. Look, here's what I want to do.> I sent the schematics of my plan over the mindlink. <Do you think that's something that could work?>
  
  <That's actually pretty safe,> Eadric acknowledged. <Safer than one of your usual ideas, anyway.>
  
  This was coming from one of the assholes that talked me into sticking my hand into a lightning trap.
  
  <Eadric's right,> Karim commented. <You won't know enough to be perfect on your first try, but your idea is solid.>
  
  That would have to be good enough, I decided. I dismissed Toirneach and drew Carnwennan, then began carefully cutting away the branch, projecting my actions to Eadric so that he could critique what I was doing. I breathed a sigh of relief when all he made was a noncommittal grunt, and then I put the branch into my storage space. I'd finish the rest of it tonight, maybe after Breena had passed out in a sugar coma or something (Guineve said I should begin packing at least one cookie per Challenge for emergency measures).
  
  "Wes, everything okay?" Breena flew over. "I got a sneaky feeling from you through the mindlink and our personal bond." She raised an eyebrow. "Everything okay?"
  
  Crap. I still hadn't gotten used to having that. Rookie mistake.
  
  "Um, yeah," I answered lamely. "I was getting hungry, and I remembered that Guineve had packed me some extra food for the trip…"
  
  "Ooh," she crooned, wincing. "Darn it. No fair, Wes. Now I'm stuck thinking about her pastries. Don't tell me what she actually packed, though, or I'll have a much harder time being an adult."
  
  "Right," I said, happy this turned out so well, and that technically, I was thinking about cookies just then. "I'm thinking, after we reconnect with some of the local population, taking care of the Chaos Wound should be our most important task."
  
  "Um..." She hesitated. "Actually, I sort of forgot what I was coming over here to tell you about when I saw you wave that thing around." She flew a little higher and pointed out to the distant sky. "You noticed that giant white wall in the skyline too, right?"
  
  "Yeah," I replied. "Alum said that thing was a serious problem. It looks like it's at least a Trial-level winter storm, from what you guys taught me earlier."
  
  "It's actually much worse," Breena confirmed. "The stormwall isn't just a freak weather pattern. It's the herald of an invasion. The Hoarfolk are coming to the Woadlands. We are in a full-on Tumult right now, one that this planet may very well fail by the end of the year."
  
  "You mean the planet-cancer isn't our biggest threat right now?" I asked intently, turning to look at the distant white sky above the tree line.
  
  "I mean the Hoarfolk will probably destroy the Chaos Wound on their own, after they've turned the rest of the Woadlands. Assuming they don't find a use for it somehow."
  
  "Great," I said sarcastically. I began walking until I could see Alum, and I waved for him to gather everyone. The three Testifiers had informed me that they were already on their way back as well. "What are the Hoarfolk?" I asked.
  
  "They're sort of my distant kin," Breena asked uncomfortably. "I mean, as a sprite-folk. Not as a Satellite. Except that they Descend instead of Rise. They're a bit like the Unseelie Fey from your Earth legends."
  
  "So, I'm dealing with some kind of winter elves, then," I clarified.
  
  "No, and people will think that you're being racist if you say that," my companion sighed. "Not that they'll have time to tell you, because they'll be spending their moments hiding from the Hoarfolk. And there is actually a race that call themselves winter elves. But only a few of the Hoarfolk look even a tiny bit like them. The common Hoarfolk look like your typical deformed monsters, just with cold skin, horns, or fur."
  
  "My apologies." I gave a sigh of my own. "I'll try to be more careful about my words. Just educate me in advance, while we figure out how to save them."
  
  We had reached the threshold of the cave. My people were all beginning to gather around. Alum nodded gravely at me.
  
  "Sorry for the wait," I said to the group. "Now, friend, please help bring us all up to speed on what we need to do to save the world."