I approached the little glade of mushrooms carefully. First, because I didn't want to harm them, and second, because I didn't want them to harm me. Any mycologist worth their salt would avoid poking at an unknown mushroom until they were certain it wouldn't poison them. Fortunately I had magic and skills to help me here, because otherwise things would get tricky fast. "Thanks," I said to Tyro. "You might want to set back a bit, I'm going to study what's here." "Uh, alright," he said before backing off. The little glade was filled with vines and a few fern-like plants that seemed to capture the local humidity. The air in this corner was practically wet with dew, which was fantastic for any fungal body that wanted to grow here. The first mushroom I found was the most common in this little corner. Squat stalks with a large-brimmed cap, deep purple on top with a beige-white belly and plenty of silver-grey warts on top that were definitely glowing in the darkened corner. [Purple Capped Night Watcher] - Rare This rare mushroom is only found in areas with a particular kind of predatory animal, notably creatures who stalk and predate on others using magical means in unlit environments. While very mildly poisonous, this mushroom allows those who eat it to see in the dark, amplifying natural night vision. Used in several alchemical concoctions. So, this is where these were gathered from? The first sample of a [Purple Capped Night Watcher] I ever got was stolen from a cart-full near the entrance. I imagined that a team had come all the way down here and harvested them. This little corner alone had a few dozen, and I imagined that if they were growing here, they'd be found elsewhere on the floor too. I left those mushrooms alone. The hybrids I'd made from them were more potent and lacked the mild poisons that these had. Besides, there were more interesting mushrooms to look at. One caught my eye immediately. At first, I didn't even think it was a mushroom at all. The stalk was about as big around as my closed fist, and the mushroom itself rose up and up until it almost touched the ceiling. I'd never, in all of my life, seen a mushroom this long. [Lumbershroom] - Common A thick, wood-like mushroom which grows into a long stalk which captures and disperses water out of the air to spread its water-borne spores. Inedible except by wood-inhabiting mites and insects. I touched the [Lumbershroom]'s stalk. It felt like birch bark. The colouration wasn't too far off either. Knocking against it with my knuckle produced a hollow sound, and the entire mushroom shook along its length. "Nothing for it," I said as I pulled out a knife. Chopping near the base of the mushroom, I cut open a decent-sized chunk out of it, but grew tired after a few strikes. It was harder than any mushroom I'd ever worked with before. Fortunately, the centre was a lot mushier than any tree I'd ever seen, and soon enough the mushroom started to crack and tip to one side. "Timber!" I called out. The mushroom came rushing down and crashed into the ground with a whump. "What was that for?" Tyro asked. "Well, I wasn't going to climb all the way to the top, was I?" I asked as I walked along the length of the mushroom to its end. "It's fine," Phillipe said. "Those can be burned." I glanced up to him. "Really? Any negative effects from that?" "Wouldn't you be the expert there?" he asked. "I know you can't eat this, that it's not poisonous, and that it's not nutritious, but that doesn't tell me anything about the smoke produced on burning it. Plenty of things are inert in their natural form and entirely lethal when boiled and burnt." He nodded along. "That's fair. In any case, I don't think it's any danger. People have been burning those for a while. Not enough of them in the dungeon to make a business of collecting it for fires though, and the smoke stinks a little and it's not as hot as a proper log." Interesting. I made note of that, then checked on the mushroom's head. For as long of a stalk as this had, the cap was a bit of a disappointment. It was one of those longer, bullet-shaped caps with a skirt around the lip, but that was about it. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I grabbed a vial to collect some samples of its spores and found that they grew in little liquid-filled sacs under the cap. Neat. I wasn't sure what this thing would lead to once hybridised with my other mushrooms, but whatever came out of it would be interesting. That might take a while to discover though. While mushrooms could grow impressively quickly--I think they were some of the fastest-growing things on Earth--something this big would still take some time to grow. It was going to take some more room than I had in my farm too. Oh well, a problem for the future. I stored my samples and then returned to the glade, looking for anything else that might be interesting. I almost missed it. The mushroom was fairly small, with a wide, flat cap coloured in a pale green that camouflaged it well against the greenery. I lifted the cap with the tip of my knife to reveal out-sized gills beneath which discharged a tiny rain of spores at the movement. Turning my [Druid Sight] skill onto the mushroom, I let it tell me what it could. [Magebane] - Uncommon A mushroom that requires elevated levels of ambient mana to grow. This mushroom's spores are attracted to mana and will absorb the mana of anything touching or consuming them in order to fuel their eventual growth. The mushroom itself, if eaten, will disrupt the consumer's magical channelling abilities for a time. "Who's a pretty little disaster in the making? It's you, yes it's you," I whispered to the mushroom while tugging my mask on one-handed. This little guy was perfect. I cut the stem and carefully examined it. The underside was filled with spore-bearing gills, more than I'd ever seen on a mushroom of this relatively small size. The description was fantastic too. A mushroom tailor-made to mess with people--and things--using magic. I started to move some spores into a vial when I noticed a few of them speckled across my skin. Even within the vial, the spores seemed to naturally move towards spots where my fingers were on the other side of the glass. I checked my mana and kept an eye on it for nearly a whole minute. It wasn't moving. Which was actually concerning. In the dungeon, my mana was usually refilling at an impressive rate. "Oh, you are fantastic," I muttered. I finished collecting some samples, then walked over to the stream and washed my hands off vigorously. I had a tiny stub of soap in my pack, something I'd brought along just in case, and I washed myself as best I could. The good news was that it seemed to be enough to wash off the spores and break any mana-stealing effect they had. That was also bad news for the future, if I ever wanted to weaponize those same spores. Being negated by a bar of soap and a bit of water wasn't ideal, but maybe that wouldn't be much of a problem. I decided to wash off my clothes too. We had a fire, and the change of clothes I had in my backpack was mostly dry already. I changed quickly, then washed off my things in that little stream while pushing my [Aura of Growth] towards the mushrooms that I was growing. Then I placed things next to the fire to let it all dry off and returned to clean up my mask. The glass on the goggles had gotten dirty and the filters were getting clogged up by spores and needed rinsing off. "Another hour?" Phillipe asked as I returned. "Yeah, just about. Sorry for the added delay." "It's fine," he said. "I suspect the next team to show up will be passing soon, if there are any. By this time the second floor should be entirely cleared out and they should be working on the third." I nodded along. I trusted him to know people's timetables when it came to that kind of thing. "So, anything we should be worried about if no one comes to do the work for us?" I asked. He chuckled. "Not on this floor, no. The next one's tricky, but we'll see that once we get there." "Alright then," I said. I sat down with my knees up to my chest and stared into the fire. A few minutes of cooling down, pushing my worries aside, and just doing nothing more stressful than running my hand through Sir Nibble's fur would do me good, I figured. Then we could see about continuing on down. *** New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novel※fire.net