Chương 33: Black Mould - Twenty-Seven - Experiments with the Result of a Long Winter

The next few months moved quietly along. Winter hit, and I found myself huddled in our little home, hiding from the cold by staying as close to our coal stove as I could. At some point I turned five, though my birthday that year was a subdued and quiet affair. I was growing a bit old for big celebrations, maybe. It was a frustrating time of year. Usually the snowfall was weak enough and the chill not so bad, but this year seemed to be something of an exception.

Dad and Mom stayed home from work for a few days since the factories they worked at closed down. Roads were blocked by snow and when things settled down, we started hearing stories of homes whose roofs caved in. Spring started late that year. When the snow cleared out at last and I was able to return to my farm, I found that there were way fewer beggars and homeless on the way over. I was worried about Stew and Debra for a bit, but eventually Debra showed up at her usual spot.

She bragged about only losing one toe to the cold. She even showed me. It was kind of fascinating, in a weird way. My experiments from before the winter had been put on hold. The first week back was spent trying to breathe life back into my farm. Magic did the trick, for the most part. Still, it took a bit to get everything growing, and I lost entire racks to the cold. My fungi were grown in conditions that were pretty good for them, but they might not have had the time to prepare for the cold.

Also, some of the fungal bodies were growing in very humid conditions. Next autumn I'd have to dry things out a little, cut back on the more wet compost near the end of the season. Maybe I could find a way to introduce more sugar-rich compost to the mix? I vaguely remembered that being a way that some mushroom farms in more northern climates managed to survive the winter back on Earth. A problem for later. My other growing locations had endured nearly as well. The cemetery had been cleaned out at some point.

I suspect that the acolytes of Dearil did a sort of spring-cleaning, because a lot of the graves were scrubbed clean. A loss, but not anything too bad. The home that had burned down still had plenty of mushrooms growing in it. Someone had broken in, but by the looks of it, they'd just come for the loose wood that was laying around. It was burnt already, so likely great material for a fire. The sewers were fine. I think their location underground had prevented them from ever freezing entirely.

The smell wasn't as bad as I remembered, but I suspected that was going to change. Back at the farm, I cleaned out the ruined racks, then tended to what had survived. The good news was that about seventy percent of my farm was still very much usable, and my previous year's experimental growths had all flourished and then died over the course of the winter. I had dead, likely unusable, mushrooms that I could inspect. That would still give me an idea of which mixture was worth regrowing to experiment with further.

My combinations had used four samples: - Dead Man's Fingers - Bug Agaric - Dead Man's Agaric - Dead Horse Head Those four had all been combined with [Beige Puffballs] [Dead Man's Fingers] and [Beige Puffballs] created a strange mushroom that was long and narrow. It looked a bit like a desiccated beige banana, with some gill-like openings around it in random spots. I used Druid Sight on it. [Beige Puff Finger] - Common A fragrant mushroom with a pleasant, earthy scent.

Attracts insects, especially wood-burrowing insects. No burst effect, no poison, and it helped insects instead of harming them? That was none of the things I wanted. Well, that was how experimenting went. I made note of it and moved on. The next mushroom was the combination of [Bug Agaric] and [Beige Puffball]. The mushroom itself was really quite small, a perfect ball with a narrow stem below and a star-shaped hole atop it. I figured a good squeeze and the spores within would squirt right out.

It was mostly beige, with a few red-orange splotches on it. [Bugball] - Common A small, puffball-like mushroom whose spores attract insects. The spores contain a neurotoxin too weak to kill most mammals, though it remains effective against insects. The spores cause mild hallucinations in mammals. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Well, well… That was somewhat more useful. If I wanted to become an exterminator, then this would be a handy tool for me.

Next was the combined [Dead Man's Agaric] and [Beige Puffball]. I was keen on seeing what this one was like. It was my first time combining a hybrid species with something naturally-occuring. The mushroom was big and red, with a few beige circles on it. It was kind of cute, really. About as big as both of my fists put together, it looked like it was straining at the seams not to burst apart. [Dead Man's Cough] - Rare A mushroom filled with highly toxic spores.

Inhalation of these spores will cause immediate inflammation in the inhaler's lungs, followed by trance-like hallucinations and internal haemorrhaging, possibly leading to death. I swallowed. Well… yeah, that's what I was looking for. I carefully wrapped the mushroom in some cloth, then brought it outside and set it next to the farm's door. Debra eyed me, and I pointed to the cloth.

"Don't touch that," I said.

"It's poison." She nodded slowly. Okay. so I had the weapon I was looking for. I just couldn't extract the spores from it without killing myself. I wasn't sure how good my [Poison Resistance] skill was. I didn't want to test it against something my [Druid Sight] said was highly toxic. The last sample, the combined [Dead Horse Head] and [Beige Puffball] had already burst. It looked like it had been an orange, oblong shape before that.

[Horse Pop] - Uncommon A slow-growing mushroom which fills with spores and methane. It will grow until it pops, releasing spores which will dizzy most mammals who consume it. Mildly poisonous to consume or to inhale. Oh, that wasn't nearly as lethal. The slow-growing part was annoying, but maybe I could work around that. I had plenty of speed-boosts stacking up already. The methane-based explosion was interesting. From this experiment, I'd keep the [Bugball] and the [Dead Man's Cough].

They were both too useful to ignore. And part of me wanted to know what a mana-infused version of the [Dead Man's Cough] would do. I imagined it wasn't anything kind. The [Horse Pop]… where was it getting the methane from? It had to be storing it as methanol, or was it storing it as gas the entire time? Methane could be produced by fungi, or at least, the fungi could break things down to produce methane. I recalled there being some enzymes and fungi working together in the stomach of cows and the like.

I scratched my chin, but organic chemistry 101 was a decade ago, and I had never been too diligent about the class. Could I combine that with something else to make an even more explosive mushroom? Would magic make it better or worse? Was that line of research even remotely a good idea? No, no it was not. Was I going to do it anyway? I started to extract spores and stored them in jars to grow some new samples. Once everything was packed away and set in its place, I stepped out and locked up the farm.

I still had some tidying up to do, and the early regrowing process would require more attention than usual. I'd be back in a bit. In the meantime, I had a highly toxic mushroom to extract spores from… somehow. I made sure to carry a satchel with some spare jars with me, and one of my smog masks which I put on, just in case. Was it good enough to stop particulates as small as spores? I didn't know, but it was better than nothing.

"I'm heading out," I said to Debra. She nodded to me, then snuggled into her blankets some more.

"Be safe out there, kid," she said.

"Don't worry," I said. If she knew what I was carrying then she'd probably be worrying a lot, actually.

"See you around," I said before heading out. First, extract the spores, then… then check out the dungeon. I'd been putting it off for long enough, I think. I needed to find a few ways to raise some money, and I had to start researching mushrooms that could heal too. Maybe once I had a bit of money to my name I could go out and buy some medicinal stuff. There had to be someone out there that sold that kind of thing, right? Maybe I could ask Eight-Three-Eleven about it. It felt like something she'd know about.

So many things to do! For a five-and-a-bit-year-old, I was pretty damned busy, wasn't I?