What Grows in Silence
- The Gamebreakers
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
Astira's forests do not waste anything. Not flesh, not bone, not even the fallen. Where other forces raise armies through training or faith, the Bloodthorne simply plant their dead and wait. From rot and root, new servants grow - silent, patient, and utterly loyal to the will of the forest.
Today, we are excited to introduce a new unit for the Bloodthorne: the Sporebound Thralls. Twisted remnants of fallen warriors, animated by fungal growth and Bloodthorne spores, these shambling husks serve as expendable frontline troops, spreading corruption and tying down enemies while the true horrors of the forest close in.
To understand the Thralls, however, one must first understand a terrible truth: They are not truly dead...
What Grows in Silence
The laboratory lay far beneath the streets, carved into old stone long before the Umbral Veil had claimed it. Moisture ran down the walls in slow, black lines, and the air smelled of fungus, chemicals, and something metallic beneath it all. Green Essence lamps burned in iron cages along the ceiling, casting a dim glow over operating tables, restraints, and instruments arranged with deliberate care.
The Thrall was strapped upright to a reinforced chair at the center of the chamber. Leather belts held its arms and chest in place, while iron clamps secured its head. Behind the chair stood a hulking monstrosity: A stitched brute with a metal jaw and a breathing apparatus that hissed softly with every slow inhale. One massive hand rested on the Thrall’s shoulder, ready to hold it still if it began to thrash.
Magister Edmund adjusted his gloves and stepped closer, examining the subject with quiet fascination.
“Subject recovered two days after termination,” he said. “Observed walking with Bloodthorne forces. Engaged and neutralized. Body was left behind during retreat and later recovered. At time of retrieval, fungal growth had already reached the spine.”
One of the assistants wrote quickly. Another prepared syringes filled with distilled Essence dust and a tray of thin metal probes.
The Thrall did not move. Its head hung slightly forward, pale fungal plates pushing through the skin along its neck and jaw like layered bark. Thin filaments moved beneath the surface, slowly, constantly, like roots searching through soil. Every so often, a faint cloud of spores escaped its mouth and drifted through the green light.
“Pulse?” Edmund asked.
“None.”
“Breathing?”
“None.”
“Brain activity?”
“Minimal. Almost nonexistent.”
Edmund nodded slowly. “And yet it walks. It fights. It follows commands when the Bloodthorne drives it forward. Fascinating.”
He gestured, and an assistant injected a measure of Essence dust into the Thrall’s neck. The body reacted immediately - fingers twitching, spine stiffening, head lifting slightly as if pulled upward by invisible strings. The monstrosity behind the chair tightened its grip automatically, iron fingers creaking against fungal flesh.
Edmund stepped closer and shone a bright Essence lamp directly into the Thrall’s eyes.
The reaction was immediate. The Thrall recoiled — not much, just a small movement — but deliberate. Its head turned away from the light as far as the clamps allowed, jaw tightening slightly, fingers curling inward.
The assistants exchanged glances. Edmund slowly moved the light to the other side of its face. Again, the Thrall turned away from it.
“Interesting,” he murmured. “Aversion to light. Not random movement. Directed response.”
He lowered the lamp and placed a rusted dagger on the table in front of the Thrall. A simple weapon, recovered with the body when they found it.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the Thrall’s fingers began to move. Not wildly, not randomly - they twitched, then curled, then extended slightly toward the dagger. The leather restraints stopped the movement long before it could reach the table, but the intent was unmistakable.
One assistant swallowed. “Does it… remember?”
Edmund did not answer immediately. He watched the slow, deliberate movement of the fingers, the way the Thrall’s head tilted slightly toward the weapon, the way the fungal filaments beneath the skin shifted and tightened as if responding to some distant command.
“Not memory,” he said quietly. “Not in the human sense.”
He carefully lifted the dagger and held it closer to the Thrall’s hand. The fingers moved again, trying to close around something that was not there.
“Muscle memory, perhaps. Or the fungus learning how the body used to move. It studies the corpse it inhabits. Learns how to use it.”
He placed the dagger back on the table and stepped away.
“The Bloodthorne does not simply kill its enemies,” Edmund continued. “It studies them. Then it wears them.”
Behind him, another table held the remains of earlier experiments — opened Thralls, exposed fungal masses, Essence tubes running into bone and root alike. The Umbral Veil had been cutting into them for weeks, trying to understand how an army could grow from corpses and forest rot.
Edmund removed his gloves slowly, still watching the restrained figure.
“Record this,” he said. “The individual is gone. But the body remembers how to fight. And the fungus learns from what it inherits.”
He turned away from the chair, already thinking ahead to the next experiment.
“Next time,” he said, “bring me one that still carries a weapon when you capture it.”
Behind him, the Thrall’s fingers continued to move slowly against the leather restraints, opening and closing, opening and closing, as if still trying to grasp a blade that was no longer there.
