He put his palm to the earth, what did he see? Rivers flowing into the sea. He begged the spirits, what did they say? Nothing to fear in the coming fray. Nothing to fear, nothing to fear. Their Overworld's reborn light washed them with lies and truth, balanced on the scales. Morning. Meanwhile, the Underworld sank for the day's burgeoning truth, but it, too, lied (in equal measure). Together, the light and dark pooled and wrapped into nature's perfect symmetry, each dotting the other with their seed. Do Mugu felt the warmth of love, and pressed kindness against its opposite: apathy, not hate.

Impassive, the stolid shaman smudged the dry tip of his index finger across a mushroom's crimson cap. The tender, cracked, bloody, receptive skin of his sullen lips felt the psychoactive toxin first. Then, slowly, his pink tongue sweltered from his mouth and lounged atop the thin cushion of his lower lip. His wet mouth muscle felt the cooling breeze, more so than his dry skin. And so, Gum ran his poison-smeared finger across his tongue's taste buds. Saliva, mirroring Shinsou's, slipped down the shaman's throat with a silent gulp.

The shaman's conduit to the spirits had been broadened.

A roar grew from a whisper, a message the shaman took from every blade of grass and every droplet of river spray. The spirits of all creation, he heard, were calling to justice their enemies' imbalance. The Imperials, the Brotherhood, and the conniving complex of interlaced power-grabbers would all buckle under the life-giving planet's infallible righteousness. Gum do Mugu, wired to the unified hive of raging spirits, would be nature's prime general in the war to come.

Do Mugu's flesh tingled, transformation magic bubbled in his flesh.