Over (I)

After climbing back up with the mace she had forgotten on the ground, Alice carefully surveyed her surroundings; the large mushroom tree she was currently standing on wasn’t the tallest or largest by far, its siblings growing in height the further into the forest she looked, and she had a lot of reasons to keep looking.

All around her, the fungal caps varied wildly in shape, size and color, offering a safe haven for the development of yet another ecosystem, mostly separated from the one thriving below, between the stalks.

From her elevated position, the young woman could see the blue hue of giant, coral-like mushrooms, their many branches riddled with holes excavated by the industrious hives of many different social insects that buzzed around, fighting with each other for food and territory while, just beside them, funnel shaped toadstools acted as natural water containers, filled to the brim with the clear water that continuously dripped from the short limestone stalactites that grew from the ceiling, where the humid air condensed into countless water droplets.

The thicker and flatter tops had instead become a fertile ground for smaller kinds of mycelia which, after probably landing there as spores, had started taking root on the spongy flesh of their bigger brethren.

In some of the taller and particularly well-positioned specimens, Alice’s enhanced sight could even spot small patches of deep green moss, growing wherever there seemed to be a bit more sunlight available for it.

That living carpet was then the perfect breeding spot for countless small insects, continuously crawling all over the colorful growths and getting eaten by small hunting groups of palm-sized treefrogs.

Whenever full, the colorful and no-doubt-poisonous amphibians then promptly returned to their own hideouts in the overlapping, fan-shaped caps of massive oyster mushrooms, enjoying the relative safety of the grey fungi’s waterlogged nooks and crannies, some of them even forming small puddles where large clusters of small, slimy eggs matured in peace.

Smattered between all the other growths, Alice could spot a few mushrooms that housed small colonies of the multi-legged worms she had seen skillfully hunt the bats swooping in the air just a few minutes before.

The pale and plump creatures lived in small groups on some of the more rounded caps, coating them in their sticky slime over which they themselves seemed to be able to move unimpeded, rushing towards anything unlucky enough to instead get stuck on it and fighting between themselves to get to the trapped prey first. Whenever that happened, the lucky worm would proceed to spew its entire digestive tract out of its mouth, covering the creature and slowly dissolving it into mush before swallowing everything back.

She really would have preferred remaining unaware of that specific behavior.

The further into the forest she looked, the more the free space between the different mycelia seemed to disappear, replaced by ochre protrusions that reminded her of the enoki mushrooms she had once eaten in a bowl of ramen in a small restaurant in Milan, their small, button-shaped caps supported only by a thin and tall stalk that seemed to be ready to break even without any external help.

In the air floated streams and clouds of colorful spores, mingling with each other whenever the currents suspending them were stirred by the droning insects flying through the air.

A bit overwhelmed by the sight, Alice swayed on her feet and briefly closed her eyes, instead focusing on the equally oppressing hum they produced, her nostrils filled with the earthy smell of mushrooms along with that of freshwater and rot.

She only centered herself with a small dose of endorphins, slowing her heartbeat as she reopened her eyes and started tackling all her tasks in small but determined steps.

The young woman proceeded to clean herself up, using the Lumen to remove the remains of her ‘excavation’ from her clothes and hair and then proceeding to repeatedly slap her forehead when she realized she could have used the shining particles to dig the divots from the start.

Dammit. At the very least I’m on top now, I just need to jump from one to the other. She thought to herself as she coiled back the silken rope, her eyes scanning the various fungal trees and slowly mapping a possible route through the sprouts.

Some of them are going to be impossible to climb, namely the oddly shaped ones and the giant enoki, while, at the same time, others could be dangerous on account of the creatures living on them. I’m surely not stepping on sticky worm territory.

That leaves the ones filled with insects, the few normal ones like this and the funnel ones if I’m sure they are not housing some nightmarish mistake of nature beneath the water.

I’ll also need to get a good vantage point. The cavern is not huge but I might still get lost if I can’t see the other side, even if…

She briefly stopped and focused her enhanced hearing, slowly tuning out the buzzing drone and mating calls of the creatures around her as she searched for the unmistakable noise of running water, finally finding it after a few minutes of intense concentration, a smile blooming on her lips when it happened.

She had managed to discover a secondary way to reach the other side of the forest if her sight was somehow impaired.

After that, Alice finally spotted a good route towards the larger growths further.

Her objective was a flat mushroom growing just a bit more than two and a half meters away from the one she was standing on, with a slightly smaller brown cap and an almost direct access to the ones further in.

Judging the distance to be somewhat problematic, the girl carefully removed the silken sack filled with all of her possessions from her shoulders, placed the heavy silvery mace inside of it and then tied close the opening with the long silver rope she had been gifted by Chillushrith.

That surly girl really knew what I would need she chuckled, slowly lowering the sack on the ground below after making sure there were no strange predator lurking nearby.

When everything was ready, Alice carefully jumped a couple of times on the slightly springy surface of the mushroom before moving to the opposite edge, as far away from the drop.

Okay now. It’s only a few meters. You used to be good at long jump at school. You can do it.

She breathed in and out a few more times before breaking into a quick run, her hand gripping the other end of the silken wire as the balls of her feet pushed her forward, propelling her in the air and right onto her target which, however, was far slicker than she expected, causing the somewhat smooth chitin soles of her footwear to immediately slide on its slimy skin.

Alice fell on her face with a yelp and only by a miracle managed to stop herself from dropping off of the swaying platform, her fingers digging into the flesh of the mushroom while her feet dangled outside of the edge.

“Oof. That was almost very bad.” She whispered as she righted herself with a soft groan and started reeling in her sack.

After that experience, the young woman elected to go barefoot, hoping for an increased traction on the slimy surfaces.

After a brief check to make sure that she hadn’t lost anything and to place her shoes in her only container, the young woman turned around and kept moving towards the jump that separated her from the next platform, one of the flatter and insect-filled ones, which, to her relief, was much closer than the previous one.

She kept moving like that for a number of hours, occasionally stopping to take a breather or to plan her next set of movements, her mind constantly trying to find the safest route in that mushroomy version of a platformer game.

Alice was getting ready to jump onto yet another toadstool when a sudden flash of iridescent colors in the rapidly dwindling rays of sunlight caught her attention.

She had just started turning around, trying to spot the source of the disturbance when the monotonous drone of the swarms around her was suddenly stirred into action once again, turning into a buzzing cacophony as she finally saw the reason for the agitation.

Like a wing of jet fighters, five large dragonflies soared through the air with a loud thrum of chitinous wings, forming swirling ripples in the spores on their path as they rushed towards a lone bat that had just finished swooping after a small cloud of fat mosquitoes.

The moment the surprised creature spotted the hunting pod, it frantically tried to evade the insects which, however, seemed able to easily keep up with its maneuvers, catching the hapless animal after a couple more seconds of aerial dogfighting.

The pod worked together to hold aloft their weakly-struggling prey, carving into it with their short mandibles and then using their two pairs of wings to hover in the air for a few seconds as they dropped the few mangled remains, giving her the chance to actually inspect them from afar.

Each one of the insects was absolutely massive when compared to the ones she had seen on Earth, with a wingspan of over a meter that was easily capable of supporting its large head, short thorax and elongated abdomen.

The dragonflies were most likely a huge threat for most of the cave’s inhabitants with their fast and controlled movements in the air, the two pairs of wings somehow interacting with each other in different ways whether the animal hovered or moved quickly.

The head of the creatures was particularly horrifying to Alice, with its two bulbous, compound eyes and short antennae that reminded her of horns. Its mandibles, still covered in a thin layer of red blood, kept opening and closing as they swept over the fungal expanse in search of prey.

It didn’t take them long to spot the human girl trying to avoid their notice. Despite her being much larger than one of them, the five predators didn’t seem daunted by the task and immediately pushed in to attack, their buzzing sending shivers down the young woman’s spine as she prepared to take them head on.

Alice had already drawn her knife and hurriedly extracted the mace from the rucksack, holding it with her right hand, ready to strike the first attacker to enter the weapon’s range.

The monsters initiated their aerial assault just as she used an Aestus to push a wave of her magical warmth into her adrenal glands, flooding her brain and body with pure unbridled energy.

Her mind seemed to speed up, matching the quick movement of the creatures as her pupils swelled in size, able to pinpoint every movement of the horrid beings.

The first one entered her range and she swung, trying to smash it away quickly to remove one of her foes at the start of the fight.

Almost in slow-motion, the mace whistled through the air, a perfect trajectory towards the being which, in less than a heartbeat, decided to fly backwards at the same speed, avoiding the attack that would have killed it and then pushing forward through the opening, latching onto her shoulder with its spiky and prehensile limbs as its mandibles dug into the silk sleeve covering her arm.

The young biomancer cried out in pain as her skin was pinched with the cloth, opening up even if the silk over it remained intact, soon drenched with warm red blood. The adrenaline, however, took care of the rest, her knife plunging deep into the multi-faceted eye of the horror and moving down the length of its body, bisecting it lengthwise in a shower of blue ichor and malformed guts.

She shouted and swung her mace anew, discovering that, while she was occupied with the first one, the remaining four monsters had moved to surround her, forcing her to continuously turn around to keep them at bay as they tried to find an opening in her defenses.

She stalled them for two entire minutes, frantically swinging and swiping her two weapons and, sometimes, even connecting a glancing blow. The problem, however, was that she was getting tired, her movements sloppier and slower with each moment that passed. It would soon be quite easy for the creatures to start whittling her away piece by piece.

She started frantically thinking of a solution, her eyes suddenly catching sight of what was possibly the only one.

Without a moment to wait, Alice thrust her mace forward, aiming for the dragonfly in front of her, which, as expected, fell back to avoid it, giving her enough space to jump the first gap between the mushroom caps as she started quickly skipping from fungus to fungus, sometimes feeling them tremble or start breaking under her feet as she moved to the next one.

Behind her, Alice could feel the displaced air of the approaching dragonflies; faster and more mobile than her, it didn’t take long for the first one to reach her exposed back, latching onto the silk with its spiky feet and ineffectually slamming its disgusting mandibles on the set of chitinous plates protecting her shoulder blades and dorsal spine, she didn’t have much more time as the insect would probably latch onto her exposed neck next.

The desperate woman, in the meanwhile, had reached her destination and jumped on the mushroom closest to one of the sticky worm colonies, causing the territorial creatures to immediately react to the appearance of five delicious snacks by launching a shower of slimy and sticky goop that covered both her and, more importantly, the remaining dragonflies, sticking to their wings and causing them to careen to the side and drop onto the ground.

Alice also felt the goopy substance trying to bind her to her spot but she, however, was not only much stronger than a damned dragonfly, but also had a much improved solution to the issue, which she displayed after ripping away from herself the squirming and biting insect and launching it in the middle of the approaching pale worms, briefly satiating their hunger while the thick tendril of Lumen sprouting from her mouth took care of the disgusting slime on her feet, cleaning them up just enough for her to get the heck out of dodge.

Fifteen minutes later, Alice had found herself a hidden position within the confines of a rounded, fleshy mushroom riddled with holes, some of them large enough for a person to crawl into and emanating a sweet smell in their surroundings.

Once there, she proceeded to clean herself up once more, the glowing Lumen gently removing the grime, blood, goop and viscera coating her while her Regeneration took care of the gnarly wound on her shoulder.

I’ll need to plan around those flying bastards, but at least I’ve found a temporary solution… she yawned, her eyes closing as a sudden sleepiness took to her tired mind, a pleasant warmth rising from her legs and up to the rest of her body.

She was just feeling herself drifting off into her silent mind room when she realized with a frown that the warmth on her legs had started turning into an uncomfortable heat, forcing her to turn around in an effort to find a more comfortable position; the warmth turned normal and she started drifting off once more.

Only for the painful feeling to return after a couple of minutes, now particularly focused on the soles of her feet, pressing on the soft and flexible wall that had covered the mushroom’s entrance.

What.

An alarm bell started ringing in Alice’s slightly dazed mind, growing more frantic as the first hot droplets fell down on her face from the ceiling, stinging her cheeks and forehead.

She opened her eyes in confusion, only to see that the nook she had crawled into had turned into an enclosed pocket, rapidly filling with a sweet-smelling and quite acidic syrup that was definitely trying to digest her as she slept.

“Oh fuck you!” she shouted as she kicked against the fleshy wall, feeling it strain but not break under her efforts. An instant later she had unsheathed her knife once more and carved a path out of the carnivorous morel, inhaling fresh air as she flopped onto the flat mushroom cup beside it.

“Can’t have good things.” She muttered as she inspected her body and clothes, more worried about the latter when a simple infusion of her powers solved even the most grievous of wounds.

Thankfully, the digestive fluids hadn’t been particularly potent, only starting to burn away her skin and barely touching the resilient silk, which she quickly cleaned one more time to prevent a prolonged effect on the precious material.

After that, she approached the deadly trap once again and placed a hand on its smooth exterior, flooding it with her powers as she carefully inspected it’s body.

The fungus’ system was much different than all the other beings that she had previously investigated, much simpler in both structure and survival methods but also incredibly extensive when compared to any other animal or monster.

The main part of the fungus, to her surprise, was hidden underground, consisting of a mass of threadlike roots that burrowed into the soft and thin layer of dirt, mixing with countless more tendrils as they fed on the rotting remnants of the forest and its inhabitants, feasting on the detritus that was constantly added by the inexorable passing of time.

The visible body of the morel, instead, was a spongy structure filled with a reticule of pathways crisscrossing its flesh, continuously transporting the precious water and nutrients in the form of the sweet and syrupy acid it had also used to start digesting her, working both as stomach acid and lymph for the toadstool, which had apparently decided to become more proactive than the rest in the acquirement of food.

Just as she was reeling her consciousness back to her body, Alice also felt the subtle but unmistakable sensation of magical energy flowing through the being, coursing along its structure and collecting all around the edges of the countless holes it was riddled of before gradually disappearing from it.

She opened her eyes just in time to spot a new cloud of golden spores leaving the hidden gills that covered the edges of each orifice, floating in the air and, when she inhaled them, giving her a weak hunger for the honeyed syrup that was pooling in some of the smaller openings.

Keeping the desire at bay, the girl then watched as entire streams of insects dived into the honeyed pools, happily drowning in them until, once a pool was filled to the brim with dead arthropods, the flesh slowly grew over, sealing it in just as a new opening opened somewhere else.

Absolutely devious. I would love it if it hadn’t tried to kill me. she thought as she moved away from it, searching for a safer and less hungry spot to rest in, finding it under a particularly large colony of grey oyster mushrooms, tucking into the deepest and most hidden recess and finally succumbing to the need for sleep.

Alice was already in her mind room when the final rays of light disappeared from the expanse, the silence growing with the darkness until the frantic shuffling of the night dwellers was the only noise one could hear.

*****

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