No prompts used. This is a continuation to FFM 2024 15: Degradation and adds the miasma gem’s storyline into Unar and Ria’s storyline in the Lot in Starlight world.
The magic in the Harmony Blade thrummed with unease. Even Ria was queasy as we walked through the rotten forest filled with smoke-like miasma. I could not help but doubt our ability to deal with this job. “Is this a bad idea? I feel like we’re out of our league here.”
“The magic feels so strong because it’s been here for such a long time it’s rooted itself into the soil,” Ria told, keeping her voice down. “If the intel is right and it originates from a gem, dealing with the source should be relatively easy.”
“Assuming the mayor wants this to stop.”
“And is capable of acting on that want.”
~~~
The town was almost literally a ghost town. The people were gaunt, only barely alive, as they trudged from place to place, still trying to live their lives — or whatever resembled it now. No one paid any mind to us as we headed towards the epicenter of the miasma, the mayor’s office.
“Will the people be all right?” I wondered.
“Probably not,” Ria murmured. “This should’ve been addressed ten years ago at the latest. It’s rooted too deep now…” Her voice trailed off and I did not ask her to continue.
~~~
The mayor’s office was decrepit to say the least. Structure-wise, it appeared to be easy to get inside. However, the miasma coming from every opening was bound to make it difficult to get inside. We took our weapons to our hands and proceeded, feeling how the miasma tried to eat at us slowly but surely. We had to be quick and conserve our magic; the earlier we made use of it, the more attention and resistance we would face.
It was like walking in knee-high sand. The shriveled secretary asked us if we had an appointment. Ria, who was less affected by the miasma, smiled and answered positively. The secretary did not seem to believe us but she let us pass anyway. Perhaps she had just enough awareness left to realize we were here to stop this nightmare.
The mayor’s office looked even worse, even without considering the miasma oozing from the gem the mayor — or what was left of him — held. The poor man looked up at us and gurgled something unintelligible. We approached, carefully, carefully. The man did not show any signs of resistance. Then again, up close we could see that he was rotting like the trees in the surrounding forest, so he probably could not move even if he wanted. He would be a goner as soon as the gem was destroyed.
Ria turned her head towards me. I nodded. We only had one chance.
Without even propping her violin against her shoulder, Ria played a brief tune that created a shield bubble around us, trapping the gem and an intensifying cloud of miasma with us. I moved the gem out of the mayor’s hands with the Harmony Blade and swung down, pouring magic into the blow.
The gem cracked. Ria pulled me aside and played another tune, creating a shield bubble only around the gem.
The gem exploded, filling the bubble with so much miasma that the it broke. I pulled Ria down behind the desk while she created a new shield to protect us and the mayor.
In hindsight, the mayor was probably already dead before I had hit the gem, so protecting him was probably unnecessary.
~~~
The dark magic released from the gem raged behind us for a good while. All we could do was sit, wait and make sure our shield was secure. The way the Harmony Blade’s magic was calming down indicated that the situation was getting better already.
And so we waited.
When we saw sunlight, we stood up. The miasma was mostly gone, with only a bunch of broken shards left of the gem on the floor. There was no magic in it anymore. Ria stashed them to her pocket so Inky Academy could research it and what the gem had done to the area.
The mayor had collapsed. The smell of rot was finally starting to register in my nose. As we headed outside, the smell only got worse; the secretary was dead and so were all the people on the streets. We looked from house to house, but we found no one alive.
“Too much exposure to that miasma,” Ria murmured. “Poor people.”
“Can the nature even heal from this?” I wondered.
“…I don’t know.” Ria turned away. “Let’s see if we can go around the forest. It’s bound to be dangerous now that the spell has broken and everything can finish breaking down naturally.”
I had a bad feeling that the damage had been too great to ever heal the land, judging from her response. I followed her nevertheless; restorable or not, we had brought harmony back to the area, bringing me one step closer to mastering the Harmony Blade.
I could only hope there would be something left of my village to protect by the time I was done with my training.
WindySilver 
Wow! That gem sure was very powerful.
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Yup! Things sure got way out of hand too!
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