Mushrooms are weird. They also cannot survive boiling, or at least manashrooms can't.
The Mushrooms have this spongy net of stuff apparently called mycelium that holds them in place and it seems to make up most of the mushroom... This is probably so if something kills the top part the rest of it won’t die...
Unless you place them in the center of a volcanic hot spring. Then the manashrooms immediately die including the mycelium. The spring now has a bunch of dead mushroom bits floating around and a bunch of that spongy stuff flaked off and ended up swept into cracks in the rock. The bits are a sort of bleached off-white and leaked some sort of liquid that glows a gentle blue and got mixed into the rest of the water.
I now have five less mana, and some extremely thin mushroom soup.
Let's try this again- the mushrooms died because it was too hot right? Either that or because they were underwater. I seem to be under the impression that quite a few living things cannot survive being underwater. Also that there are even more things that need to be in water to live.
This said, I don't know anything about mushrooms so let's figure out the heat bit first. The water in the lower chamber is hot because it is close to the magma, or at least closer. The big pocket filled with water is boiling and forcing hot water up through the two crevices into my spring. From that I know that the cracks are probably the hottest places in the spring, easily seen by the oblong mass of roiling white water and bubbles in those places. Parts further away from those are less bubbly and probably not as hot, so let's try placing some mushrooms farther away. The furthest point from the two cracks is about twelve meters away since the pool is a rough twenty-six meter circle and the cracks are off center.
Hopefully it's cool enough for the mushrooms.
Manashroom (5 MP) A common species of mushroom found growing anywhere warm with mana, and water. These glowing mushrooms are a common ingredient in mana potions. Costs 5MP for a patch of manashrooms, grow slowly.
White tendrils sprout from nothing on the shallowest stones, spreading in an instant as each stem grows upwards and opens up their little grey-is caps each maybe the size of a thumb at the water’s surface.
Flora:
Moss, herbs, mushrooms- as the basis of an ecosystem or just decorations Flora can provide concealment for monsters or traps while adding flavor to an environment. Certain flora is highly sought after and can be used to entice adventurers into entering your dungeon.
Flora is a living part of the dungeon and increases mana regeneration.
Awesome- I get more mana for living things in my Dungeon! I still have 650MP too so I should place more manashrooms!
Not really sure what 'Adventurers' are, and I have no idea why I would want them in my Dungeon.
Time to plop down mushrooms!
Plop more in the shallows! <-45MP>
Plop a mushroom on the side of that rocky stalag-thingy hanging down! It’s actually dripping water! <-5MP>
Plop a bunch on the shore! <-10MP>
Plop them on the walls! <-15MP>
Plop some on the ceiling! <-25MP>
…
Most of the ceiling mushrooms fell into the water and immediately boiled to death.
A few are still up there though.
Some of the ones on the walls fell off too, and a few in the pool got tossed around by the swirling water.
The ones placed on decorative cracks in the rock are fine but the rest are kinda dead…
I may have overdone it...
I used a hundred mana and I lost at least forty mana’s worth of mushrooms… The mushroom soup in the spring is slightly less thin now.
The surviving mushrooms are tiny off-white things with light blue tops that glow faintly, apparently uncaring of my terrible gardening skills.
At least I hope they don’t care- I have no idea how to take care of mushrooms so if they require some sort of special care they are going to die.
The Manashrooms did bump up my mana-regen by a whole 9 mana a day! A sudden wave of mana rushes into me- it tastes and feels fantastic. The mana I have been getting up till now had no taste at all.
The mana from the manashrooms is different, moist and slightly spicy with a strong slightly sour meaty feeling.
Delicious!
I didn’t realize mana was food! It has texture, and taste and I didn’t realize I missed being able to touch and taste things until now!
Now I get why not having living things felt wrong! Life is delicious. The rush of food after so much work is making me tired, I think I will sit and rest for a bit.
The manashrooms are interesting to watch as I slowly eat up their mana. The currents in the shifting water form little eddies under the tops of the mushrooms I planted in the water as they grow upwards, then the mushrooms started to change. It started with only one of them- an oddity, but quickly spread to every mushroom that touched it's roots. Is this a disease of some kind? It seems isolated to only one part of the pool, a mid-sized patch close to the corridor to my own cave. Should I try to stop it? I watch as the mushrooms white stalks become thin, and slightly translucent. The mushroom's tiny round tops become smaller and smaller seeming to disappear into the glowing hair-like fungus entirely. The gentle glow of the swaying strands in the dark water the only indication the mushroom caps were ever there in the new patch of alien life.
New Flora Added through Evolution!
Wisp Thread (4575MP)
An unusual descendant of the common Manashroom, Wisp Thread is an unusual hair-like fungus that has adapted to life in mana-rich hot springs. A rare potion ingredient only found in springs with little other life to compete against, these glowing threads are highly sought-after for use in potion manufacturing. Wisp Thread requires a great deal of mana to grow, and will die if the original stalk is taken. Costs 4575MP per original stalk.
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Care must be taken when placing Whisp Thread as it is very valuable and can easily lead to a rush of fortune-seeking adventurers assailing any dungeon discovered to contain it.
This Wisp Thread stuff is dangerous. I mean look at that price tag! 4575MP?! That’s literally more then four times my maximum mana! Just for one stalk! It’s my first new life since I got the manashrooms and it’s this stuff?! This is seriously dangerous, I don't want my dungeon to be attacked!
…
There is a lot more then one stalk in my pool isn’t there...
The glowing threads have spread further through the pool, their spongy roots creeping across the bottom wherever they can find purchase on the rocks, becoming shorter and more brilliant in color as they creep closer to the boiling center. There are almost no regular manashrooms left in the water anymore. Just seven very large ones in the shallows...
The mana coming off of the Wisp Threads is different from the mana of the manashrooms- it lacks the spiciness, the meaty-ness but somehow feels raw, like it could become anything. Is this what the blue boxes meant by purified mana? The waves of invisible energy swirl and form a small, rapidly spinning ball under the spike from the roof.
I don't know what that is, but I like it a lot. Something tells me this is very good.
At least the Wisp Thread is pretty. Thousands of swaying threads light the dark cavern with a pale blue glow...
I guess my hot-spring is mana-rich because I pull mana towards me and it's so close? If that's the case does mana make stuff evolve? I glance up from the swirling water at the button-like mushrooms on the shore and walls. I look at the small, invisible-yet-nearly-opaque ball of swirling purified mana forming over the pool. Only about the size of a small pebble yet I can feel it's power.
Hey... Blue boxes? Can you define the terms for Evolution?
...
Not feeling very talkative eh? That's fine. I have time. I will just sit here with my mushrooms, bombard them with different kinds of mana. It feels like there are different sorts anyway, so that might change the results.
The first one I change is the mushroom hanging down from the side of the stalag-thingy. It's stem is long, pulled down by gravity, thin and strangely twisted. It sways slightly in the rising steam of the boiling water below it. The top isnarrow, and slightly pointed. I can feel the heat around it, fire mana, the flow of air, and water as steam. The large ceiling-spike is threaded through in two places by long thin white roots eating up minerals from the rock. The minerals have their own mana, different depending on the particular substance. Interesting. I file this discovery away for later consideration as I focus on pulling the fiery mana from the air and focusing it on the mushroom's top.
To my surprise, the ethereal energy heads my call- flowing into the orb at the center of the cavern, and then shooting out in a thick reddish-orange thread latching onto the manashroom- I can feel the strange simple organism, the mycelium, the feather like gills on it's cap. I can feel the possibility inherent in it. I reach out towards one such possibility and pull.
Magic pulls and life twists away from my form as the stem becomes stronger, longer, and rope-like. Spongy Mycelium splits and spirals along the rock as it explodes into growth, rapidly overtaking the side of the rocky spike with threads. The threads are hard, black and unyielding where they face away from the rock, yet spongy, soft and pale white where they embrace it. The tip of the mushroom is strange looking, a single large orb of flesh about the size of my own orb glowing brilliant blue-green.
A blue box informs me of what I have unknowingly created.
Wytches Lantern (100MP)
A strange species of fungus found growing only in the deepest of caverns, Wytches Lantern gathers mana in it's single large glowing fruit. Oddly, the fruit does not contain spores or seeds, but rather a sticky honey-like substance often called Lantern's Oil that serves little to no apparent purpose besides the further collection of mana. The fungus reproduces by spreading it's black tendrils along the rock and growing new stems. Wytches Lantern costs 100MP per stalk to create, and requires mana to survive.
Wytches Lantern is an unusual yet effective light source for a dungeon
I have created a lamp... It's a very nice, if expensive lamp...
I turn my attention to the mushrooms growing on the walls- squat much like the ones on the shore below, but also curved upwards slightly. I can feel the warmth they feed on, as well as the great number of minerals in the rock they have anchored themselves to. The stalks sag slightly under the weight of their broad, almost fist-sized caps. I reach out again with mana, the process feeling more natural, intuitive. I extend the roots further into the rock, pulling at lighter metals and using them to strengthen the mushroom's base. The pale white stalk thickens fades to a light grey, becoming darker towards the base while the thread like roots are now the same color as the surrounding rock. The cap has lost much of former thickness, and it wants to droop down. I let it, the mushroom's top becoming thinner and translucent, a pale grey shroud for the thick stem.
It's gills pulsate softly through the transparent flesh, giving off a strange, invisible light in an impossible shade of violet.
Slag Stalk (20MP)
Often found by miners in the deepest, and warmest reaches of the earth, Slag Stalk shines with a strange harsh Ultraviolet light that other Fungus love. Named for the mushroom's tendency to collect metals in it's stalk to strengthen itself the dense mushroom is avoided by herbivores due to a high chance of containing toxic heavy metals absorbed from the surrounding rock. Slag Stalk was originally named by dwarves as it is most commonly found around solidified deposits of molten metals. Slag Stalk costs 20MP per mushroom cluster. Requires high-grade ore/slag to grow.
While not very valuable, Slag Stalk can be used by Dungeons, and Adventurers alike to increase the growth rate of nearby fungus.
The other mushrooms seem to love the strange 'ultraviolet' light. Their own glowing becoming far more noticable. Water seems to block it's effect though. It's not really much of a problem- this could be a major boon for me. Plus, Slag Stalk is interesting- it's my first poisonous mushroom. I seem to remember this being a fairly common trait for mushrooms.
New Dungeon Trait Acquired! Unnatural Selection: Through the concentration of available mana, and manipulation of the environment it is possible to influence the evolution of an organism in the dungeon. This process becomes more difficult the more complex an organism is, and may kill the subject if handled poorly. Grants basic insight into traits of possible evolutions.
Huh... That seems useful.