A horrific noise rang across the clearing… Lung shuddered at the sound, it was as if an asthmatic whale had just taken its final breaths, before violently and spontaneously combusting.

“What the fuck was that!?” one of his party members yelled, shakily standing up and drawing his blade. His name escaped Lung at the current moment, though it was unlikely to be worth remembering.

Steadily, Lung too stood up and faced towards the location where the noise had come from. The noise wasn’t human but sounded far too.... unsettling to be a natural animal. “Who is there?” he calmly, but loudly asked.

“Ah sorry bout that!” A cheery voice yelled back. His eyes focused on a patch of grass that seemed to be glowing softly. “We’re players so don’t shoot us or something by the way.”

Behind him, a sigh of relief came from one of his party, “Holy shit man you scared-”

“Show yourself,” Lung interrupted.

The grass rustled, and a glowing figure rose. Some kind of humanoid mushroom, with a face carved out like a jack o’ lantern on its stalk. A soft, light bluish glow emanated from it. “Sorry about that, just remembered my race has a weird natural laugh,”

A player then.

“Damn, you look creepy as hell,” someone from behind him said, almost approvingly. ‘Darkblade’ Lung remembered. Likely because the name seemed to combine the worst parts of edge and genericness.

The mushroom seemed to grin, “I’d like to think it’s creepy and cool,” it replied as it took a step forward.

“Stay,” Lung commanded.

The mushroom paused, then seemed to shrug helplessly, “Why are you so paranoid dude?”

“Why were you sneaking around?” He simply rebutted.

“I heard that there was a wild boss around this area, so I’m trying to hide from it,” it replied in a casual, matter of fact tone.

“Where did you hear this?”

“I met a few players who respawned after fighting it, apparently it’s really strong so I want to avoid it.”

“Then why come here at all?”

The mushroom's face seemed to turn blank for a moment, before it sighed, “Ah fuck it, I’m bad at this improv thing anyways,” and with that, it threw something.

Lung’s reaction was instant, his body already tensed, swayed to the right. The thrown object narrowly missed his head.

Before it exploded.

Some sort of yellow dust filled the air around his head, and an unbearable itching sensation erupted on his nose.

“ARRRGH-CHOOOO!”

The sneeze forced Lung’s eyes closed, however, due to a quirk of his race having transparent eyelids, he briefly caught a glimpse of the mushroom reeling back, as if belching-

“Harden Hide!” Lung yelled out before the glob of purple struck him. The thing landed on his chest, burning through cloth before barely getting stopped by his reinforced skin.

Lung stomped a foot down and pushed off it. Dashing towards the mushroom with explosive speed.

“Poison Sp-” Lung grabbed the mushroom in the neck, interrupting the spell, and swiftly punched it in the face. The blow felt odd, elastic almost-

The mushroom grabbed the arm lifting itself up, “Fucking hate monks,” it muttered as one of its fingertips burst.

A heaviness seemed to set in, his body seemed to slow. Lung grit his teeth, stomping his foot down, he twisted his body, throwing the enemy to the side.

Through heavy eyelids, he saw the mushroom fly far, colliding with a tree. ‘A mistake’ Lung realised too late. He just created more range between them.

Lung staggered forward, “Ability Boost,” he muttered, feeling the heaviness alleviate somewhat. He needed to close in again, where the fuck was his healer?

“I, THE GREAT VALHORN HAVE CLAIMED FIRST BLOOD!” Lung heard a voice yell out from the camp. He swiftly turned, seeing some sort of midget pulling out a sword from the already dissipating corpse of his healer.

“What the hell, Peps…” He heard the mushroom mutter, turning again, he saw a cat with an afro sitting on the fallen mushroom. Light emanating from its paws.

Lung quickly evaluated his options, behind him Darkblade and his other party member were exchanging blows with the gnome, forcing it on the defensive. The mushroom was unoccupied, probably a mage class. If allowed like that it’ll leverage its superior range. Not only that, the cat seemed to be their healer.

Making his decision, Lung dashed towards the mushroom and cat, hands stretched out just in time to grab the mushroom as it stood back up. He tried to grab the cat as well, but it dashed off.

Instead, he began punching the mushroom in the stomach, fists leaving indents in the soft white flesh. It gasped, letting out a breath as it was winded. Lung prepared for the finishing blow when a scream of pain came from behind him.

He turned again, seeing one of his party members with something sticking out of their leg-

The mushroom grabbed his shoulder, “Poison Spores,”

Green dust exploded from the hand, enveloping Lung’s head. Lung staggered back as a stinging pain overtook his orifices.

“Cure wounds,” he heard something say. Half blindly, Lung jumped forward and grabbed the small white thing healing his enemy, before lobbing it as far away as possible.

The mushroom’s reaction came a second later, in the form of a sharp pain striking Lung in the abdomen. “Throwing a cat? Dick move dude.”

Lung growled at him, the noise coming out more like a hiss. Reaching out, he grabbed the staff with both hands, his opponent reacting a second too late, he lifted up the surprisingly light creature, before violently swinging staff and wielder towards a tree.

Halfway through the swing, he felt the staff lighten.

“Poison-”

Lung let go of the staff, rapidly turning towards the fallen mushroom, fist already in motion.

“-Spores,”

Green dust once again enveloped Lung, however, his fist was already in motion. The pain barely slowed him as he landed a direct hit on his opponent's face.

The squishy mushroom hit the ground, grunting in pain as it did so. Lung tried to follow up with a kick, but instead, he screamed in pain as the spores settled on him. A stinging sensation enveloped his entire body.

“HARDEN HIDE!” Lung yelled, reapplying his defensive skill.

Two rough hands grabbed his shoulders, Lung blearily saw the mushroom’s face staring directly back at him. “Acid Spit,” The shot landed on his face, burning his eyes and nostrils.

Lung screamed in pain again as he was shoved back.

“That skill doesn’t protect your orifices does it?” The bastard shroom commented.

Lung rolled over, getting on all fours. Then lunged at-

An arrow struck Lung on the back, altering his course and allowing the myconid to easily dodge him.

Lung fell flat-faced onto the ground. “For my brethren!” he heard as a blade went through his abdomen.

“For the rats, yay,” the mushroom added unenthusiastically, staff striking Lung’s snout. "Poison Spores,"

‘What rats...’ Lung asked as his mind faded to black.

You have died.

Ouch.

That lizard dude was tough for a guy wearing no armour. Probably had a high constitution like me. He tanked like five poison spores and shook off my CC spells like nothing.

Fast, strong and durable, not only that, did he have transparent eyelids or something? Frick, if it wasn’t a one versus three I might’ve lost. Speaking of which… “You alright Peps?” I yelled in the general direction where he was thrown.

A long, stick-like arm poked out of a bush with a thumbs up, “Fine!”

I glanced to the side where Valhorn was wiping off some blood off his blade. The fight was pretty much won the moment their healer died. Even if the lizard dude had me outclassed in close combat, Peps’ healing and my own constitution allowed me to hold him off until Boba and Valhorn finished the other two.

Peps came out from the bushes, wiping off leaves that may or may not have been from his afro bush thing. “Are you guys alright as well?”

“I’m fine,” I answered.

Valhorn grunted, “Could use some recovery.” he said, gesturing to a bleeding arm.

Peps nodded and cast Cure Wounds on him.

“Did they drop any stuff?”

Valhorn shook his head, “No, tis seems that their equipment went with them, including their baggage at the camp.”

I heard some bushes rustling, Boba. She came in looking slightly pale.

“Are thou fine?” Valhorn asked her, voice concerned.

Boba wordlessly nodded.

Huh.

I turned to Peps, “Didn’t you say you couldn’t cast spells as an animal?”

“Uh, yeah,” he nervously chuckled, “I remembered that my trainer said the main reason my animal forms can’t cast spells is because the animal I am is incapable of casting spells, however, I remembered I formed a bond with this cat that could cast spells and I didn’t want to sit back so… sorry about that.”

Did he feel bad about coming in? I slapped him on the back, having to stand on my toes(?) due to the absurd difference in height, “Would’ve died if you didn’t jump in,” in a more mumbled tone I added, “Don’t want to test the respawn system first hand either.”

Peps chuckled.

I clapped my hands, “Well for a PUG group we did pretty well,” Valhorn and Boba turned to me, “Oh yeah sorry,” in a more theatrical tone I said, “For comrades brought by chance our execution of vengeance was well done.”

Valhorn nodded, apparently satisfied. Boba managed a smile and Peps ruffled his afro.

“Well, let’s get our loot then.”

“Here it is,” Peps translated as Sardines led us down a dark alley- well it was night so everywhere was dark.

I glanced around, not much here other than piles of what seemed to be plastic trash, “Mostly trash it seems,” I muttered as I poked through the piles with my staff.

Sardines shook his head, before jumping into the pile, pulling out a crystal and a roll of ancient-looking paper.

“What’s this?” Valhorn asked. The rat squeaked out a reply, which Peps promptly translated, “A map of the surrounding area, and a spell left by a previous Traveler.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Pass?” I asked, gesturing to the crystal. Sardines stood up, passing the crystal to me. I gingerly took it. It looked like the way shard Hendrix had, the only difference was that there are these weird green glowing lines on it and… it felt weird. Like it was calling me. ‘Bark Skin’ it was whispering.

Valhorn took the map, “Hmm… seems accurate,” he muttered as he examined it.

I shook my head and passed the crystal to Peps, who curiously looked over it. Peps squeaked something to the rat. “He says Travelers use crystals like these to gain new spells,” Peps translated the rat's reply.

Something like a skill book then. “Any idea what’s in this one?” Boba asked from the side.

“Bark Skin,” “Apparently a spell called Bark Skin,” Peps and I replied at the same time.

I raised an eyebrow, “You feel the same calling feeling too?” I asked.

Peps nodded, “It’s odd, I didn’t feel it until I touched it, what about you two?” he asked as he passed the crystal to Boba, who shook her head, “Nada. Nothing.” she said as she passed it to Valhorn.

Valhorn passed the map to me, I glanced over it, mentally comparing it to a map I saw in the real world.

“I do not feel a call, likely because I do not have the mind for it,”

So class-based then, only Peps and I were mages- or magic users at the very least.

“How should we split this?” I asked.

Valhorn shrugged, “Neither Boba or I have the learning to obtain spells.” he said as he passed the crystal back to me.

I translated that to, they had no spell slots. “You want it Peps?” I asked, “I already have like six spells so I don’t really need it.”

Peps shook his head, “I’m fine,”

“Well, I owe you one then,” I replied, “How do I use it though…” I glanced questioningly at the rat, who just shook its head. “Oh well, I’ll figure it out later,” I muttered, placing the crystal in my bag.

“The map?”

“We have long traversed this realm’s parallel, so we know the routes,” Valhorn answered for himself and I’m assuming Boba, “However, I must draw your attention to this,” he pointed to a blank spot on the map. That was… the nearby Asian market? “Any idea why this spot is blank?” I asked.

The rat squeaked something. “He said that there’s a great monster there, so many Travelers avoided that area,” Peps translated.

“Sounds like a wild boss,” I muttered.

Wait, did that rat just…

I put down the map, “Did you just understand me?”

The rat’s eyes went wide, an oddly human expression on a rat, before it jumped into the piles of trash.

I stared at the empty spot where the rat was.

“After it!” Valhorn yelled, breaking me out of my trance.

He was already kicking away the trash. However, this alleyway was a dead end there was no way for the rat to-

“There’s a hole!” He exclaimed.

A literal mousehole.

Name: Dustin

Classes: Fungalmancer Level 2

Body

Strength: 8 (Enough to throw a rotten tomato)

Agility: 7

Dexterity: 6

Constitution: 18

Stamina: 10

Vitality: 12

Mind

Intelligence: 13 (Enough to know that tomato is a fruit)

Wisdom: 17 (Enough to know that tomato doesn't belong in a fruit salad)

Charisma: 6 (Not enough to sell a tomato based fruit salad)

Soul

Will: 10

Aura: 10

Perception: 10

Racials:

Superior Darkvision, Fungal Body, Sun Sickness, Mana Dependency, Pacifying Spores, Innate Magic

Class Skills:

Fungalmancer: Grow Sporage

Spells:

T0: Balm Spores, Spore Lights, Sneezing Spores, Acid Spit

T1: Mushroom Meal, Poison Spores

Available Spell Slots:

T2: 1

Equipment:

Leather Armour (Damaged) - One HP Potion - One MP Potion - Basic Wooden Staff - Two Basic Daggers - Herbalism Kit

Backpack - Tinder Box - Mess Kit - 50 days worth of rations - Spell Stone (Bark Skin)

8 Gold Coins

Quests:

Murder the Murderhobos! (Complete)

4/4 Murderhobos killed

Fleeing Morals (Active)

Impact Points: 5

- 1 point for assisting the 'rats'.