"I've got him!"

Dr. Duran and Samantha turned to see Sidney triumphantly raising her arms in the air while stomping her feet. The stack of coffee cups next to her swayed ominously.

"Our little hacker isn't getting away from me. I figured out how he got a restricted race, and what it is."

Steven was very curious. "Well, don't leave us guessing."

Sidney got a fresh cup of coffee, making the other two wince as she poured sugar into the cup for far too long. "He had criteria he was looking for. He wanted a tail, and to be shorter. Now you think that would narrow it down, but with so many rare evolutions to animal hybrid characters, demonic hybrids, even aquatic hybrids, it took a while to figure it out. But there was one more clue: cheese sauce!"

Samantha was confused. "Cheese sauce?!"

Sidney kept rolling. "Yep. Cheese sauce. I tried to bait him into having breakfast with me and talking. He didn't go for the hickory smoked bacon at first. He grabbed a bowl of hot cheese sauce for the eggs Benedict and starting eating it by itself. He was in heaven, and only left once he had licked the last bit out of the bowl."

Samantha was still confused. "That helps how?"

"Ha! Knew you were going to ask that. There is one race that is playable by characters, shows on the list as yellow if you meet the requirements, is short, has a tail, and....the ultimate clue...has a problem with cheese addiction."

Steven clapped. "Well done. Your right. Our little hacker is a were-rat."

"And I know his class too. The quest that lets you become a were-rat is quite specific. You also take the special scout class for their race. The player is meant to be on the edge of society. A bit of a roguish outcast, doing work for the rat-kin as well as the rougher parts of society like the thieves and assassins guilds. If we offered it for starting characters, I bet half of them would take it."

Steven had brought up the race and class combo. "Oh, maybe more than that. Look at the Core Skills. A were-rat scout can pick up an inventory skill cheaply with his CSP. That's one of the big bonuses for the class. Also, why it has some major downsides."

Samantha looked over Steven's shoulder, then paced around the room. "So, a group of hackers, who can get hundreds of people illegally into the game also have a way to generate all the smugglers they need to move around whatever it is they don't want us to know about."

=*=

Digging out of the mushroom caves turned out to be easier that Milo had expected. No huge rockfalls had occurred and he was able to greatly increase the narrow area he had to slide through. He grabbed the bags of shrooms and trudged back to Harry's home in the underground.

"Yo! Harry, I have your stuff."

The large man shambled out of his lab area. "I'm quite happy to see you succeeded. If you had died it would have been ages before someone else took the job. Silly, since it's such an easy one."

Milo collapsed and leaned against a wall. "Oh, piece of cake. No complications at all. You neglected to mention the myconians."

Harry waved him off. "Tsk Tsk. The only way a myconian would come threaten you is if you stepped on a stemling, and then you would have plenty of time to run. They are quite slow. But, are you saying you did see some? They had grown quite rare. A natural thing, I suppose, with the rarity of mushroom groves."

Milo didn't know if Harry was joking or not. "Rare? There are huge caves full of them. I got chased by over a dozen, and one as big as a house. Not to mention the one as big as six houses."

"Six houses? If you are joking, I'm going to be very upset with you."

Milo felt a bit of danger from the rotund man. He was serious." I swear. A mushroom that stretched upwards for several stories. It's in a massive cavern, covered in yellow flowers, and has a lot of nasty slaves it has hooked to vines."

Harry sat down in the dirt. "Oh my. That's going to make things difficult. Describe things for me. Leave out no detail."

Milo did, Harry staying silent and shaking his head for most of the story. "That's quite amazing. I haven't gone into the caverns for decades. I had no idea those caves had regrown that way. The biggest must have migrated in and then re-rooted. Something that big doesn't grow in just a hundred years. But the yellow flowers are bad news. They do indeed enslave people. Luckily, they can't leave the flower colony."

"By the way, just curious, but when you killed the big one, Cronk, did you bother to search the body at all? A heartshroom from such a creature would be quite valuable."

"Really? Maybe I'll go back and look. How valuable are we talking?"

Harry reached into a pocket and pulled out some fish bones, some shiny rocks, and an old crumple pair of muddy socks. "Hurmmm...one moment, it's here somewhere. Ah!" At the third pocket he found a small cloth sack. Opening it, he dumped out a wrapped bundle. "Open it up. I'll think you'll like what's inside."

Milo opened the bag carefully. "It's full of dead worms Harry."

"Oh, is that where those went. Wait, try this bag." The second bag had a rather plain copper ring in it without a stone or other ornamentation. "The interesting thing about some really powerful items is they look like common trash. It's why I kept that one. I love common trash."

At Harry's urging, he tried on the ring. He immediately knew what it was.

Ring of the Swiss Army.

Made by the Archmagi Elsener and given to each member of the mage corps of Swissleland. This ring can cast the following spells without need for mana. Each spell may be cast 1 time each day.

Darn Socks (2 pairs)

Water Breathing (self, 1 Hour)

Summon Nut Cracker (Lasts until no more nuts present in 10'.)

Protection from biting and stinging insects (Keeps them at bay for 1 hour.)

Heat Fondue (Creates a small flame that will heat oil or other things in a fondue pot. Duration 4 hours.)

Sharpen Tool. (4 sharpening per day.)

Karl's Handy Tent Helper (Sets up a large tent or packs it up. Usable twice a day.)

Summon Guard Lizard (Brings a Guard Lizard from the Feenokioki swamp to guard your camp for 8 hours.)

Deflect Blame (Something bad happened, can't be your fault, must be someone else! ).

Dog Bite Fixer (Takes the edge off of nasty hangovers.)

Summon Wine (1 Quart, quality varies.)

"Ha! Knew you'd be impressed. Now let’s talk trade. An item like that doesn't come along every day."

Milo thought about it. He had no clue what the heartshroom might do, and was a bit leery of the warning about side effects. And while the ring was odd, it might be quite useful, or he could trade it off to someone else. Mostly, he knew Harry really wanted the weird item, and Harry was one of the few people Milo knew. He lived down where Milo wanted to explore, and had offered to teach him stuff and give him jobs. Even if the ring was worthless, it might still be worth making the trade.

"You talked me into it Harry." Milo got his pack and pulled out the Earthen Heartshroom. Harry looked at the strange thing in awe.

"Oh yes. Thank you, Milo. This should do nicely." And with that, Harry opened his mouth extremely wide, and pushed the whole thing in. He made joyful chewing sounds for a full minute wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Oh, thank god. I feel so much better after that."

Milo had backed away while Harry was eating. He wasn't sure what was going to happen. When nothing happened, he was a little disappointed. "So, what happens now."

"What happens now..." Harry said. “Is that I get to take my first bath in 50 years. Luckily, I have a good scrub brush and some sulfuric acid. That should help. You might want to head upstairs for a day or two until the stench clears out." Harry tossed him a bag that clinked. "Here's your pay. Go have some fun. Then if you still want to help an old troll with his jobs, come find me again."

Milo didn't have to be told twice. He grabbed his odd belongings and started to climb back up towards Shadowport.

Congratulations! You have completed the quest: Shrooms in the Dark

-Havested 20 pounds of the correct mushrooms.

-Actually returned, a first.

-Completed a bonus objective of curing Harry of his Earthen Mana Deficiency.

Rewards: 100 copper pennies, instruction in basic mycology, Dr. Harry Earthtongue considers you a friend.