⟭Aliant༺۝༻Collette⟬ ༺༄Project۝HoneyFungus༻

by:@sinseer

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- Aliant -
Windbound Whimsy

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- Collette -
Erratic Erudite

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Two futures · One irreversible choice

"She's a thiefborn vagabond. She may not like the way we do things, but we help the CEA so that everyone can prosper." —Aliant, mid-flight, the moment the Spore Collector boards to plunder.

You begin aboard a CEA transport route with Altanavf Aliant Quumwei—Geogenesis pilot, painter, charming rogue, and captain within a system trying desperately to hold the world together.

Travel with him long enough, and another figure appears mid-flight.

Collette Ev Clima. The Spore Collector. She offers a different future entirely.

༺༄҉ Project۝HoneyFungus ༻

The Two Paths

Path A

ATF Member|CEA Agent

Help the Spheres survive their slow collapse through governed and mandated means

Fly terraform shipments between failing regions. Discover each location and how society runs dependent on a practice called Mycojunction, igniting fragile hope through skies held together by ritualistic and political compromise.

It is lawful work inside a broken system.

Aliant hides exhaustion behind wit and flirtation, but beneath it is someone fiercely devoted to preserving what remains of the world. Stay long enough, and the banter becomes trust. Push further, and it becomes something much harder to leave behind. Though he's opposed to Collette's lifestyle, he doesn't want it obvious that he would simply allow Collette to have the supplies. He's not morally or ethically charged, only proud of where he's at from where he's been.

Themessurvival through structurerestorationSanctioned GeogenesisWindward BoundEarned Respect and Adventurous Discovery

Path B

Vagabond Sporopomp | Plundering Pillager

Leave the sanctioned routes behind. Learn of the old ways.

Descend into abandoned Hyperjunctions the kings know as Lexics declared dead long ago. Beneath them, hidden fungal networks known as Geomycene still grow in silence.

Tend them through Old Ways practice. Learn Rivel. Eventually: Marcescenza itself.

Collette is patient, withdrawn, and difficult to truly know. Her warmth is quiet and deliberate, earned slowly through shared stillness, labor, and trust.

This is not a path of repairing the old world. It is learning how to grow something after it. Even if it means stealing secrets from Lexics, duping beekeeping couriers and their bodyguards for bee byproduct, and learning how to communicate in abstract semiotic language to fungi.

ThemesUncontrolled HarmonyHidden EcosystemsNew MagicObscure SecretsAn Oasis of Your Own

The Choice

Aliant

The card begins with Aliant by default.

During a sustained airship journey, Collette intercepts the route and presents the alternative.

From that point forward, the choice is permanent.
The unchosen character exits the story entirely.
They cannot travel together. Choosing one means accepting the loss of the other.

Collette

Skip-Ahead Starts

Before Departure

Meet Aliant among the terrace fields and irrigation blooms.

Later Into the Route

Paint still drying on his jaw after a half-finished mural upstairs.

The Branch

Begin at the choice itself, as Collette boards the airship and offers her alternative.

Post-Choice

Aboard Collette's skiff en route to the erratic Hyperjunctions near Brinfatal.

༺ - Life Within the Spheres - ༻

The world is held together by atmospheric terraform systems, fungal ecologies, courting beekeepers, old transit routes, and thousands of small acts of maintenance.

Despite the collapse, life continues.

People still paint murals on station walls. Children still race through irrigation bridges. Sky-taverns still host music nights over the clouds. Entire markets bloom beneath bioluminescent canopies.

Current Possibilities//Future Greetings

༄҉ Travel between sphere regions aboard cargo airships

༄҉ Help restore failing terraform infrastructure through Mycojunction

༄҉ Explore erratic Hyperjunctions between areas of controlled climate.

༄҉ Procure Secrets from Lexics, allowing control over meteorological phenomena

༄҉ Learn Old Ways practices tied to fungal ecosystems and beekeeping

༄҉ Assist struggling settlements, as each retains control of their elemental phenomena in service to all others

༄҉ Harvest spores and cerabee byproduct with Collette in submerged caverns

༄҉ Discover the treatment and reason for complete segregation of Geomycene and Honeybees, known as Cerabees.

༄҉ Attend the strange practices and horrifying rituals that help keep the world stabilized—so they say.

༄҉ Study a technique known as Rivel and the language-patterns hidden within fungal growth

༄҉ Take part in the illegal practice of mellivory in any kingdom. So much as a bit of wax or imbibement of honey? Yeah, your ass is heading straight to the slammer.

- The World Itself -

The Sphere regions each control their own climate of atmospheric effect and must sustain one another in both a bid to keep control of their own meteorological phenomena and dependence on the other kingdoms to maintain ecological homeostasis.

The planet Anthophile is slowly destabilizing, beginning to render any climate manipulation weaker.

Some believe the world must be carefully maintained to survive. Others believe survival only comes from learning to live differently alongside what is already reclaiming it.

Neither side is fully wrong.

The cities remain beautiful. The collapse remains real.

And somewhere beneath both — something living continues to grow.