Chương 106: Penicillium - Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen I didn't realise how tired I was until we reached the 'break room.' The space was wide and open, with a few old benches and broken pillars set around a small pit in the middle of the room. There were chunks of wood stacked nearby, and off to the side the wall was split open, allowing a trickle of water to flow through and across a space that was filled with dirt and a few plants.

More plants clung to the walls, and if it wasn't for the semi-darkness all around us, I could imagine this place being part of a public park of some sort. Phillipe checked the room, then nodded and declared it safe. On reaching the middle of the space, I pulled myself up onto one of the benches--short legs swaying beneath--and just slumped there for a bit. Tyro knelt by the firepit and tossed the nearby wood in, then he started to stack it up and broke some pieces off into smaller kindling with a knife.

Soon, we had a small fire going, the smoke climbing up and away and the warmth pushing out and pressing through my clothes. My overalls were still a little damp to the touch, but the fire was taking care of that for me.

"This is nice," I said.

"Mhm. We can stay for an hour or two. The water's safe to drink as well, so don't forget to refill your canteen," Phillipe said. I nodded, then ran my hand through my hair while Sir Nibbles climbed off from around my neck and settled on a stone next to the fire. All I wanted to do was stay there, stare at the flames, and allow the warmth to burn off my worries and the accumulated stress. But that would have been stupid and irresponsible. I needed to set things up first.

Groaning as if I was thirty years older than I was, I jumped off the bench and headed towards where the water was coming through the wall.

"Don't piss upstream," Tyro called. He didn't see the gesture I made his way, but Phillipe did, and the older man shook his head. I knelt down next to the wall and touched it. It was nice and moist, the stone was porous and weather-worn, with plenty of little cracks where mycelium could grab on. It was nearly perfect for what I needed. Setting my bags down nearby, I got to work. First, setting down the tiny sample tubes I had. This part would be tricky.

I needed to encourage rapid growth, reduce competition between the samples, and provide them all with the right nutrition. So I went back to the firepit and pulled a few logs out from the bottom of the pile. The older, more rotten-looking ones. A bit of [Blight] accelerated the rotting and gave me a few good spots to transfer the mycelium to. I wasn't going too fancy with my mushrooms here. I was going to grow a large batch of [Dead Man's Cough], a few samples of [Purple Starballs].

Both were basically my best offensive tools when it came to mushroom-based weaponry. Then, on another log, I set out to grow a few other mushrooms. [Purple Ghoul Watcher]s, which I wasn't planning on having many of. Those would come in handy. [Purple Ghoul Watcher] - Rare This rare mushroom is only found in areas with predatory undead. While very mildly poisonous, this mushroom allows those who eat it to see the life essence of those around them.

The life-vision ability they granted lasted a decently long time, and the poison's effect was little more than stomach cramping. I also set out to grow some [Brownbottle] as a way to carry water. [Healing Bottle] mushrooms too. We'd need them. In fact, I planned on sharing some sooner rather than later, since I suspected that the healing properties of the potion took a while to start having any effect, but that effect also lasted a while. It could be used as a sort of preventative healing measure.

Finally, a couple more [Blackbottle Night Watcher] because while I brought some, we'd need more if we wanted to continue having low-light vision. I had a few left in my backpack, but they'd been squished a little. For that matter, so had my tiny supply of healing mushrooms and my snacks. I returned to the fire to see that Phillipe had brought a rock closer to the edge and he placed a few cans atop it with the tops partially opened. The enticing scent of boiling beans wafted off of them.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Opening up my bag, I pulled out some skewers and a small stick of wax-paper-wrapped butter as well as some minced garlic and I went through the familiar motions of preparing skewers. I laid them down close enough to the fire for them to warm up.

"We should all eat one of these," I said.

"I'm not super fond of mushrooms," Tyro said.

"He's a picky eater," Phillipe said.

"Must be nice," I replied.

"These are [Healing Bottle] mushrooms. Cooked, so their effects won't be as pronounced, not that they're terribly potent to begin with, but... yeah, they'll heal you from some minor ailments over a decently long time. The other mushroom's the same one that gave you low-light vision. By the way, how did that work out?"

"Very well," Phillipe said as he eyed my skewers.

"I'm used to having to deal with the darkness of the dungeon, it was nice to see into the shadows a little more. I can attest that your mushrooms work. They're not as potent as a potion with the same effect though."

"I'm not an alchemist," I said. Though I wouldn't mind learning the craft. With what I knew from the before about biology... well, I wasn't sure they'd discovered germ theory yet.

"Take it at your own risk, but I'll be sampling my own goods for what it's worth."

"At least it smells alright," Tyro said.

"How long will it take for your mushrooms back there to grow?" Phillipe asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," I said.

"Back on my farm this would take three to five hours if I was pumping my mushrooms full of mana the entire time."

"Another spell you know?" Tyro asked.

"I guess? It's less a spell and more a sort of active effect," I said.

"Things grow faster when I'm messing with them. This place though... there's a lot of mana in the air here. It might shorten things considerably. Plus I don't need to be as worried about being wasteful with my own mana reserves when they're replenishing so quickly." It was true. I'd spent a good chunk of my mana earlier fighting that one large slime, and it was already halfway back. Usually I regained mana at about a point every minute or two. Down here it was closer to two points a minute, maybe three.

"The deeper you go, the faster your mana will restore itself," Phillipe said.

"On rare occasions you'll have a group of mages take over one of the floors near the dungeon's entrance to practise their arcane arts." I remembered years ago when I first visited the Ditz Dungeon. There had been a mage in one of the delver teams. He'd cast a spell on some dungeon workers who were protesting. He seemed powerful, the sort of person I was very much not ready to mess with.

"Good to know," I said, finally. My skewers were done.

"I hope you guys don't mind the extra wait?"

"No, it's fine," Phillipe said.

"If anything, it's to our advantage here. If there are any teams going deeper than the fourth floor, then they'll have to pass through this room on the way down. We can let them through." I nodded along. Letting someone else clear some of the path for us sounded like a grand idea. We ate beans and lentils and a few tiny tins of some sort of salty meat paste that Phillipe shared with mildly soggy crackers.

He claimed they were good for people who wanted to build their muscles, and I didn't say no because it tasted better than most of the stuff I ate. Everyone ate their skewer, then I went to check on my mushrooms. Even without my [Aura of Growth] pushing into them for a while, the mycelium had spread across the surface of the firewood logs. I started to push my aura around, going relatively slowly for the moment.

The environment was just right for my mushrooms to grow, so I didn't want to waste mana when I didn't need to.

"Hey, Ginger," Tyro asked from the other end of the room.

"Do you know anything about these?" He was pointing to something in a darker corner of the room. I abandoned my miniature farm to see what he was talking about, then blinked as I discovered a corner of the room filled with greenery and, to my surprise, a number of dungeon-wild mushrooms.

"Well, well," I said.