There are many peoples throughout Sordane. From the skies, to the lands, and oceans below them. Deeper still in the warrens and fractures running throughout the bedrock of the underearth. Let me tell you the tale of how my crew and I went from trading partners to family in the eyes of the fungarii several seasons back. We’re a colony.

-Captain ‘Rusty’ Lod, Captain of the Eartheater

 

The imposing form of the anoran was low, lumbering, and toad-like. He tottered forward, lit by a healthy region of bioluminescent fungi. He weaved through the forest of bloated mushrooms, some as large as the surface trees far above.

He turned to his human female companion, who wore a pair of goggles with red glowing lenses, similar to the metal fixture which had replaced his own damaged right eye. She walked in his tracks as best she could. His right foot pressed a three-inch-deep pockmark into the spongy ground, while his left foot left an outline of his large three-toed foot.

He located his quarry and smiled proudly. His yellow eye bulged as he kneeled down to examine the milky, violet, glowing stems of a group of mushrooms. Their caps however were wrinkled and as black as the dark corners of the underearth.

“An Inky,” he said gruffly. “I mean, Pomigothun mycrondris, hm?” He placed his nostrils next to them and inhaled their licorice-like fragrance, getting within inches of the glowing mushrooms, then took a step back. “That should fetch a fair price. Let our guides harvest it. Inkys explode if any pressure is applied to the cap. Won’t wash out either. About four years ago, Drekka and I were foraging with the fungarii when she stepped on a cluster. She never had to polish those boots again.”

“Captain? Ah, Rusty?” the woman whispered.

Rusty felt a tug at the side of his vest, and she asked, “Why are they setting their gathering baskets down?”

He turned to his human navigator and asked, “Kedara, what is it?”

She pointed further down the path of the fungal forest. He turned to get a more advantageous view of their guides.

Ten yards away, a pair of fungarii, or ‘mushroom folk’ as many of the surface peoples referred to them, geared for foraging, but were standing stock-still in a fighting stance. 

Both fungarii were approaching seven feet tall, pale, and had caps which extended farther from their heads than any typical piece of surface headgear.

Rusty watched as their fungarii guides slipped their sordalite spears off their backs and removed the wooden shields, which served as lids for the large baskets each carried.

He knew from experience when Outwa and Injatu set down their rootweed gathering baskets, it was a bad sign. Unslinging their spears was usually reserved as a last resort.

Kedara drew her hand crossbow, followed a moment later by Rusty unholstering his ornate blaster gun.

Outwa peered back at them and said, “Stop walking,” in a calm but firm tone.

The guards held their ground and began pointing their spears at Rusty and Kedara, whispering among themselves.

Rusty and Kedara froze in place and began looking from the tall, cream-colored, corpulent shapes of pudge trunk grove of fungal trees, their dark brown caps soaring thirty feet above the two of them.

Rusty and Kedara kept their weapons trained on either side of the nearby trees, ready for any potential threat.

Outwa asked, “What are you looking for?”

“Same thing as you, I suppose. Trying to see something hiding among the pudge trunks,” said Rusty.

“What is it that you search for there?” Injatu asked in a deeper, wiser tone than his companion.

Rusty continued to stare into the depths of the mushroom forest and replied, “From the way you are acting, danger.”

Injatu bobbed his head up and down and said, “Good. Good. My people have a saying ‘Gatherers must trust one another, hunters must trust one another even more.’”

Rusty peered at Kedara, who shrugged back at him in confusion.

Kedara asked, “Mind filling us in?”

Outwa blinked his eyes at Rusty, “Can’t you smell it?”

Rusty drew a deep breath in through his large amphibious nostrils. He could smell the mushroom forest, a variety of scents combining musty notes with hints of licorice and hazel. He could even smell the stone walls of the great cavern they stood within. He grimaced and said, “No, I don’t smell anything unusual.”

“Me either,” said Kedara.

Outwa said, “That is why you and your companion find yourself in danger.” 

“What kind of danger?” asked Rusty.

Injatu shook his head, “You will not be able to defeat the beast alone, and as our honored guests, we must protect you as we would any member of our colony.”

Outwa pointed his spear at Rusty’s leg “You cannot make it, it will hear you.”

Kedara peered into the trees and asked, “But where is it? What is it?”

Emotionless, Injatu said, “It is an earth rumbler, and it is buried a few feet below where you stand.”

She froze completely for a moment, then asked, “The giant rock-diggy, scale-backed, mole-like creatures the size of ore carts that can carve their way through solid stone?”

Outwa bobbed his cap in agreement, “Bigger in many cases, but yes.”

“Where?” she asked.

Injatu pointed with his spear at the ground and waved his spear over the open terrain all around them and the cluster of inkys. “There, below the both of you.”

“Yes,” said Outwa, “any step may trigger the beast.”

The older fungarii nodded and said, “It is listening to us speak, even now, through our feet. You are fortunate it prefers moving prey.”

“No one’s going to die today,” growled Rusty, “at least not without a fight.” He smiled so big Kedara could see his toothless grin. “You’re up.” He nodded to Kedara as he unconsciously wiped the barbels above either corner of his mouth.

Kedara stowed the crossbow tethered to her hip. “If the earth rumbler wants to dance, let’s give it something to hear.” She reached over her shoulder and pulled a fine Keshtinite lute off her back and softly played a chord to see if the instrument remained in tune. It did.

She deftly muted the strings, cutting off the sound, and paused to appreciate the long seconds the sound took to stop echoing throughout the cavern. Immediately, she boldly played a jaunty melody which echoed off the cavern walls. As she did so, she pointed her lute at a patch of dirt some thirty feet away. 

Her companions understood her gesture. Two spears and a zap gun were brought to bear on the spot she’d indicated. 

The sound of phantom dancing came not from the lute but rather it seemed to emanate from her target, the small patch of ground she pointed her lute at. Even more impressive and distinct was the sound of a pair of heeled boots striking the top of a wooden table.

Rusty blinked at the rush of movement and heard the beast’s warbling screech as it shot out of the fresh black dirt some twenty feet from him in an explosion of stone, soil, and hunger. 

Its maw empty, the earth rumbler fell to one of its knees as it tried to spin to face them. It roared at Rusty and Kedara and charged without regard for its own safety, its eyes glowing bright blue and fixated on Kedara.

Rusty pulled the trigger of his Bellweather 19 zap gun. A thunderous boom shook the forest. The shot completely removed off a patch of the earth rumbler’s thick scales on the shoulder nearest him. Both guards hurled their spears and dashed forward. 

The spears pierced the beast and loosely stuck out of its left flank as it charged towards Kedara. 

The guides ran after the earth rumbler, Outwa in the lead.

“IZZASCAPE” Kedara exclaimed, and the lute in her hands transformed, changing into a silk cape which she held open to her side, hoping its movement would bait the beast.

Lured by the movement of the cape, the earth rumbler chose to collide with it rather than Kedara. The piece of silk covered its eyes, its writhing mole-like mouth ringed with tentacles. 

Kedara let go of the cloth as the creature awkwardly stumbled to a halt, trying in vain to shake the cloth free from its face. The earth rumbler blared a shrieking bray as it realized its predicament. Kedara could see the blue glow coming from the beast’s eyes underneath the scarf, despite it covering the creature’s head, but she was certain it could not see her.

Outwa charged up the back of the beast, he reached into the bloody tear caused by Rusty’s zap gun, plunging both hands up to his wrists. The creature winced and fell to its knees as a filmy blue liquid began to drain out of the wound, mixing with the trail of blood already leaking from the damaged portion of its carapace. Poison from the touch of the fungarii.

Indagu sprinted next to the beast’s flank, grabbed a spear in each hand, twisted, and pulled the weapons free.

Seeing her opportunity to recover her transformed lute, Kedara ran around in front of the earth rumbler and pulled the silk cape cloth free with one hand while she raised her crossbow and fired.

 Her shot was on target and stapled a few of the wriggling fleshy facial tentacles together, eliciting another horrid cry of misery from the beast.

The commotion gave Rusty enough cover to twist the barrel of his zap gun and chose the sordalite blast setting. The Bellweather 19 was capable of firing a sordalite blast only once before it needed to recharge.

The lamentations of the beast were drowned out by a single brilliant discharge from Rusty’s gun. Having been placed firmly against its hindquarters, the rear third of the beast erupted in a blossom of blood. 

The earth rumbler bleated weakly, tried to stand, and fell back to the ground, its belly sinking half a dozen inches deep into the loam beneath it that reminded Rusty of an airship making landfall.

Kedara watched as life leeched from the beast’s eyes, like hate draining away from a sated mob. Suddenly, a blue flicker of light sparked once more in the earth rumbler’s eyes as it made one last desperate attempt to savage her. 

Kedara heard the snapping of bones an instant before she felt the unadulterated anguish of sudden trauma, inundated by seething pain. 

Screams flowed out from her like a rising tide of agony.

The beast snorted its last breath and died, its jaws still clamped shut on her arm. Tentacles hung limply. The creature’s maw was closed around Kedara’s arm as she continued issuing her aria of pain.

In a rush, Rusty stood directly in front of the sandstone-colored scaled corpse of the earth rumbler and an immobilized Kedara. Halfway up her bicep and halfway down her forearm, the beast’s teeth had all but come to rest on one another, as if her arm wasn’t there in the least. 

Rusty pulled his metal-clawed right hand back and began to slash first at the right, then the left jaw muscles. He felt the tension give way, but not the weight.

Outwa rushed to the open spot next to the right of the beast’s head. Both he and Rusty lifted with all their might, and it opened with a wet, sickening suddenness.

Kedara screamed anew as her crushed right arm sagged and slipped free of the earth rumbler’s wicked, snaggled teeth.

She fell back, and into the waiting arms of Injatu. He lifted her gently and turned in the direction they had come from, walking towards Sporehaven.

Rusty checked her breathing. “She’s out, I think.”

“The pain has taken her,” agreed Outwa.

Indagu nodded, and asked Rusty, “The human’s arm, will she ever play her lute again?”

“With that arm?” Asked Rusty gruffly. “I don’t see how. Not her flesh in that state, her limb won’t live long enough to be healed back at Sporehaven.” 

He tapped his bionic eye with his rusted claw, “I know a band of tinkers that may be able to help her, they may even be able to replace a few of her digits.”

Kedara wheezed and opened her eyes. “What if I…keep my…arm instead?” Sweat beaded on her face.

“Obviously delirious,”said Injatu as he strode towards the village.

“Rusty,” she whispered.”My bag. Grab the…pine box.” she said through gritted teeth.

Rusty nodded and reached into her pack, Quickly finding what she asked for. When his long amphibian fingers pulled out a small tooled pine box.

While Rusty attended to her, Outwa wrapped her arm in the section of silk she had been clutching in her good hand.

“Give it…” she gasped. Injatu continued to walk in the direction of the fungarii village.

Rusty opened the box, revealing a corked bottle nestled in a recess cut into a downwater sponge. He removed a label-less bottle which glowed green and black. It wasn’t a true fluid as much as a liquid that slid between hundreds of small air bubbles. 

“Give-” she said, veins still on fire.

Rusty popped the cork with a hollow ‘pung’ sound and poured it into her mouth.

She gasped for breath and then held out her torn and twisted arm, wrapped in the now bloody silk cape, and began to whimper. She pushed the bandage back and all four companions were focused on her devastated limb. The flesh on her left arm began to quiver before their eyes, rippling like rain hitting a pond.

Slowly, the flesh around the wounds closed, followed suddenly by four sharp-bone popping sounds. Her task complete, she let out an unsteady breath, tears streaming down her face.

“What was that? Healing? Regeneration?” Rusty asked, amazed.

She shook her head, her face still twisted in pain. “No such luck,” she said her voice quivering, “Potion…alter self…big performances. Hour…wears off…arm returns to..mush. Find healing…or…”, she trailed off. “My arm…still shattered…Pain…awful pain.” she winced as she pulled the bandage back in place.

Unphased, Injatu marched steadily towards the village and announced, “We will take you to see our colonies’ nobles. They have a collection of rare poultices, a few have healing properties. But they are very challenging for even a master to grow.”

Kedara rocked back and forth in Injatu’s arms and asked weakly, “Will he share them with me?”

Injatu said, “You are our guest. He will share. Do not worry hunter, we will reach the village before the effects of the potion fade. We are less than a half an hour’s walk away at this pace.”

She asked, “Did you see…its eyes? Blue glow…like azure flames.”

“I did not see its eyes while it lived,” said Injatu. “We can ask the nobles of Sporehaven once we return.”

Rusty interjected, “Lets save your arm first. We can worry about the critter’s burning eyes later.”

Kedara’s eyes remained half-open as she slipped into meditation, praying not to lose consciousness and lose control of the potion’s effects. She focused all her attention on staying awake and keeping her arm intact, aided slightly by the silk bandage stabilizing it.

“Soon, bold one,” Injatu reassured her as he walked, each step causing her agony. “You will be revered in Sporehaven as a hunter, both you and Captain Rusty.”

 “This will become a memory of strength and bravery for you and for the colony. You are a hunter now. We shall see you play your lute once again,” he announced in his low bassy voice reverberating from his chest, comforting her. She wanted to believe him, she really did. 

With sheer willpower, she held her arm in place in her mind. The pain was less intense now, as long as she could concentrate. She focused on keeping her wounds closed, fusing the bones together again after each step Injatu took knocked them loose. It was a constant struggle to prevent them from breaking anew should she lose consciousness and lose control of the arcane energies coursing through her veins. She knew that without control, her wounds would reopen.

Injatu held her closer as he picked up the pace, doing his best to protect her.

Outwa scouted ahead while Rusty, hobbling as fast as he could on his peg leg, struggled to keep pace with the long strides of the fungarii. Rusty cursed all the way to the safety of Sporehaven, where they had left as guests and now returned as hunters. They had become part of the colony.

 

Days later, Kedara played her Keshtinite lute once more. She played the last song in her set at a concert for the colony who had saved her, and in particular, her arm.

 Many who had gathered for the concert, including the fungarii of Sporehaven and the crew of the Eartheater, noticed her instrument was now stained red where she had bled on the silk makeshift bandage. 

She closed her eyes and played—for herself, her crew, and her captain. But most of all, she played for the colony who had chosen to save her and nursed her back to health.

She and her captain had been looking for marketable fungi, but instead found a family that had looked beyond her flesh and had adopted her as one of their own. They were all a colony.