Chương 21: Black Mould - Sixteen - Faithless Prayers for Resolution

"I can't believe it," my dad muttered. He was glaring at the wall and occasionally taking a sip from a bottle of beer. I was pretty sure that he didn't need that for the pain. Not the physical pain, at least. Mom was out to work. She had a shift that wouldn't finish for a few hours. She was talking of changing shifts, to take something that would mean that her shift and dad's would overlap some more.

That meant that they were thinking of leaving me at home alone, but I was nearly four, and more than capable of taking care of myself. At least when compared to a normal child of my age. I sat on my parents' bed, mostly because it was the most comfortable spot in the house, so long as you arranged the lumps just right. I had a notebook next to me, a birthday gift from Mom. It had the logo of the Goldwin Paper Company stamped on every page in the centre, but I could write around that easily enough.

So, I had four types of mushrooms I was growing reliably, two of which I had magical variations of: brown chanterelle, horse head, dead man's fingers, and bug agaric. My entire collection of usable mushrooms. Now came the fun part. I could combine them, graft them together to make something entirely new. I wrote down a list of the possible combinations, going in roughly alphabetical order. Brown chanterelle and bug agaric. Brown chanterelle and dead man's fingers. Brown chanterelle and horse head.

Bug agaric and dead man's fingers. Bug agaric and horse head Dead man's fingers and horse head. Six entire combinations. I crossed out brown chanterelle and horse head. Those two had given me the [Fungal Grafter] skill and were already growing along nicely in one of my racks back at the farm. I had high hopes for the combination. That left five more mushroom strands to combine and hopefully get something good from. I had high hopes for a couple of the possibilities, less so for others.

Not for the first time, I wished I had access to the internet and the wealth of knowledge on there. So many sites, so many databases… so many distractions.

"I can't believe it," Dad said, with a lot more emphasis this time.

"Is it bad?" I asked as I picked up my needles and started to knit mycelium strands together. I'd stuff the completed ones between the pages of my notebook so that they'd stay dry until tomorrow. Dad sighed.

"It's not great, my little mushroom, it's not great."

"Larry, right?" I asked. He'd mentioned it a few times. I think he didn't want to talk about it, but he also really needed to rant.

"They fired him," he said.

"Didn't even just give him a slip either. Couple of busters came in and beat him black and blue, right there at the factory gate."

"What are busters?" I asked. He cursed.

"Like Bullies, but worse. They break up union-talk. Put the fear of the gods into anyone that thinks about leaving on a sour note. Bunch of jumped-up thugs is what they are."

"They sound awful," I said. A mafia group? Or literally just a gang that was easy to hire for the factory-owners? Either option sounded possible. Dad nodded.

"Left Larry for dead. Gave the stink eye to anyone that tried to help. Few of us helped him back home anyway. There were just a few of them. I think if they tried anything, the lot of us would have jumped them, and the foremen besides. Poor Larry."

"Will he be alright?" I asked. A sigh.

"He'll be alright. Just some bruising, I think. Finding work's not going to be easy though. If it goes around that he was spreading union talk, and that was why he got the slip… no one's going to hire him. Good man. Good worker. Saved my life and… and he had a family too. Boy and a girl, both about your age. Used to hang out with him and his lady, back when I was a little younger, before I met your mom and… and when things were nicer."

"Things weren't always like this?" I asked, looking up.

"No, not always. In my dad's time, lots of the work was done by honest craftsfolk still. In his dad's time, factories weren't all that common. A few here and there, but nothing big. Whole place was still nice. No fogs like we have today." He took a long pull of his beer. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. I could imagine. My own world, in my own time, hadn't been all rosey.

Most rivers weren't drinkable, the weather was turning sour, people were dying from all sorts of preventable stuff all the time because someone's spreadsheet was worth more than someone else's life. But this place… it was a lot worse off. I could see why Feronie wanted change. What I couldn't see was why she picked me. I don't think I had the temperament to try and make big changes. For that matter, I wasn't exactly born in the right circumstances to do much.

Maybe if I was born the child of someone really important, one of those big-wigs, then my choices and actions would have an impact on the world. As it was, the best I could do was scrabble at the dirt and try to keep a little garden alive. It wasn't enough to help any. Although… I supposed that some fungi were good at pulling heavy metals out of the earth. Maybe I could breed a decontaminating mushroom? But then what would I do with the remains of it?

I set aside my strange knitting and made a note in my little book. My pencil needed sharpening, I noticed. It was more of a stub, really.

"What're you writing?" my dad asked. I jumped, then looked at the page. There were lots of scribbles, scribbles in English.

"Uh, just practising," I said.

"Mmm," he said. I still needed to learn how to read and write the local language. I had the basics down, but I needed more practise, especially with the written grammar, which didn't quite match the way the language was spoken. I finished braiding my grafted fungal bodies, then I went through all of them and pushed a bit of mana into each. A moment of panic passed when I was afraid that I'd mislabelled two of them, but [Druid Sight] came in clutch and saved me. [Congratulations! Your [Druid Sight {Uncommon}] Skill has reached level Twenty!] [You have unlocked a Sub-Skill!] Oh! That was handy. Kind of unexpected too. [Druid Sight] was taking forever to level. I guess I wasn't using it often enough. [Congratulations! Your [Druid Sight {Uncommon}] Skill has unlocked the [Druid's Sense] Subskill!] Sense? That wasn't related to sight at all. I thought that skills would gain subskills tightly related to their main… skill-ness.

[Druid Sense] You have gained a heightened sense of an area's attunement, or lack of attunement, to nature. Hmm. Attunement? That… actually gave me an idea. I was a cleric, wasn't I? I was able to do the whole naming thing. What about other abilities related to that? Could I make an area be more attuned towards nature stuff? Could I bless a space? This had to be tested. I picked everything up, made sure all my samples were in order, then ran over to my dad to give him a quick hug.

"I'm heading out," I said.

"Where are you going?"

"To my farm! I've got to test something. For science… and nature or something." I ran out before he could protest, then ran even harder, sprinting across the slums we lived in on a path to my farm. The whole attunement thing was pretty obvious the moment I was outside. The world around me felt wrong. It was like an itch under my skin that I couldn't get rid of. I waved to Debra as I darted by, then unlocked and slipped into my farm. I tossed my notepad onto my worktable, then took in a deep breath.

"Right… Now, how does one bless a place?" Maybe I'd been a little hasty, acting without much of a plan at all. I stepped back out.

"Hey, Debra," I asked.

"Did you ever see a, uh, blessing?" Debra blinked.

"Like a naming-day ceremony blessing?"

"Yeah, sure," I said.

"What do the clerics do?"

"Usually just lots of chanting and begging and all that kind of stuff. Why're you asking?" I nodded and stepped back.

"Thanks, Debra, I owe you one." Shutting the door, I turned back to my farm. Just chanting and begging, huh? I could manage that. Though I wasn't about to chant… nor was I about to beg. Maybe Feronie was a nice goddess who possibly wanted me to murder everyone, and she would appreciate a nice, civil bit of prayer?