In the deep crevasses of the spaces where none dare look, there was a grove.
Great mushrooms towered in place of trees, and small ones littered the floor in beautiful patterns, swirls and symbols hidden in secret.
Amidst this beautiful tapestry, there laid a small, green mushroom not like it’s peers.
They didn’t have a name, but only because they knew not what a name was, for even nameless, they were.
They were, and they were lost.
It all started quite simply, in the small patch to the east of the purple lined mushroom tree with three hats, there laid a small community of green Foldicap mushrooms.
All these little green Foldicaps laid quite still, and content. Their mycelium network flourishing. All was well, until a small earthquake struck, and struck it did, struck one of the mushrooms out of the network.
The first thing that this mushroom felt was loneliness, it’s whole existence was connected to everyone else since it’s birth. Never had they ever experienced the uncaring nature of the world.
Their feelings shook and so did they, and sprout from the earth they did. They looked around to their old friends and family, and yet none even noticed their existence. They lost something dear to them, and they were empty.
But they knew that they couldn’t just sit there and just expect everything to come back to normal, and so they took their little legs and went to find a way to be connected once more. Maybe a magical leaf would heal them back into the collective?
The world, however, cared none for the feelings of a lonely little mushroom person. No magical leaf was found, no new friends, and now they were lost as well. Their way home forever barred by a lack of sense of direction.
If there was one good thing to be taken out of this whole situation- were the two little yellow mushroom caps that they found to use as socks. Well, apparently one mushroom cap, they seemed to have lost a sock as well.
They wandered, for how long they knew not. They wandered until the light waned and started to give way to night. They wandered until they found a glowing little bottle stuck inside a long mushroom.
The issue was just that said mushroom was on the side of a big, dark and scary hole. But little Foldicap was no coward, and onward they went, to the future.
They maneuvered themselves carefully around the scary drop, inching ever closer to their prize that, maybe would make everything not so scary anymore. It was glowy after all, all the best things were glowy.
Yellow, purple and blue swirled and danced inside the bottle, its light showering the face of the little mushroom person. And when they finally grabbed it… nothing, nothing happened, they were completely fine.
They slowly took the bottle out of the scary hole, and with a giggle looked back at the silly darkness, blerped at it and did a little dance, they did it!
And that’s when the ground fell from under them.
As they found themselves in the air, falling, everything went still but the swirling lights in their new prize. The moon was high in the sky, but the sun was yet to set.
Moonlight.
Sunlight.
And a drop of dew from their magic bottle, all coalesced in the free falling green Foldicap.
And then, silence.
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[This story is only available at RoyalRoad by DrySolace]
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In the forests of Karthos there were two states of matter that were most prominent.
Stillness, and chaos.
And today was clearly a day of chaos.
“You are late!” Screamed a white bunny with brown tail and ears.
“I know!” They answered to themselves.
“Then why are you late!”
“Because SOMEONE wanted five more minutes! Shut up!”
“You wanted five more minutes!”
“EXACTLY!”
So enthralled were they with their conversation partner that they completely missed the small, green projectile ETA 2 seconds to their forehead, until,
PWOMP
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“Ah!” Target eliminated, slightly.
“What… happened?” Said a dizzy bunny, with a hurt on her forehead.
“I am not… feeling so good,” the hurt, thankfully, started to go away. But the dizziness only got worse, until they had to sit down.
“What… is happening,” when they brought their front legs to their forehead, all they could feel was a mushy thing, and a wet feeling. Bringing their feet in front of their eyes they were colored yellow, purple, blue… and green.
The little bunny had no idea that a green mushroom took root on their forehead, and sprouted deeper, and deeper. Slowly, the bunny fell asleep, and in their slumber they changed in ways no being was supposed to. Not only the bunny, but the mushroom as well.
Soft, silky fur slowly disintegrated, followed by skin and meat, and bones. Everything was unmade.
But something not often understood is that rot is not only decay, rot is the precursor of growth.
Thick, dark roots burst from within the bunny’s corpse with a vengeance. Their tips reaching for the sky, only to curve and sink back down inside their vessel, over and over until nothing but roots could be seen, and then they compressed. Such strength was at play that the end result was no bigger than a peanut.
That small dark shape sank into the earth, and extended feelers towards the root systems nearby. They used these connections to spread further and further until thirty seven thousand and two hundred and twenty six trees were in their grasp. All these trees had something that the dark seed wanted, needed, was starved for. Life.
It leeched until the trees started to fall apart.
It leeched until the grass and flowers were nothing more than dust.
It leeched until the earth was barren.
And then all the roots traveled back inside their source.
Two months and two weeks, that’s all that it took for the middle of the Karthos forest to turn into a desert. A very little amount of desert in comparison to the whole, but for something so unnatural and out of place- even that was too much.
And the result?
A twitching snout buried in sand.
And as the hidden, furry form rested within the earth, they dreamed dreams not their own. A vast void, empty of all but coldness. A city within that endless darkness, shining with splendor and color. A name, Emberglow.
Six roots gently exited the sleeper’s back and slowly brought them to the surface.
Within Emberglow, blurs of all shapes and colors moved about their daily lives, but that was not where the focus of this vision lied. Deeper, within the heart of the city was a majestic tree, and clinging to its highest branch was a small, lonely, blue berry.
The vision darkened at the edges, flashes of a berry stabbed by a knife, screams, deep laughter, and the rumbling of buildings coming undone.
On the floor of the now desolated forest, the sleeper tossed and turned, their agitation not only fueled by what they had seen, but also by the light in their eyes.
The sun revealed… a bunny. With soft black fur made of mycelium and white tipped ears and tail. A small, green crown adorning the in-between their ears.
“Ahmn… jus… five more… minutes…” the bunny muttered.
“What exactly is a minute?” A soft voice responded from the top of their head.
“A minute… five…”
“Well, you do have five toes in your back feet. Are toes minutes? You wish for more toes?”
“My… Toes?… No…” finally realizing something was amiss, the bunny jolted awake “You can’t have my toes! I am not that late!”
“Late for what?”
“ Wait! where are you?! You can’t get me. I am the fastest in the… forest?” Deep dread filled the small furry creature as they realized that there was, in fact, no forest.
“Forest? But I don’t see any mushrooms anywhere close by, besides you of course”
“Why would a forest be made of mushrooms? I am not a mushroom! Where are you? What are you?!” At this point, she was over-ventilating, and looking every which way, only to be met with nothing at all but the gray, dusty and barren landscape.
“Why, I am right here. I haven’t moved from my spot, you are the one who keeps moving me.”
“Me? Moving you? No, nonono, I am only moving me. Wait, where are you?”
“On your head.” That made the bunny go still. On her head? If they were on her head she should have been already dead! But she wasn’t. She was very much not dead. The nottiest of deads, she was sure. She thought. Maybe.
“How are you in my head? Are you me? Hello.”
“No, I am not this “me” you speak of. But hi, nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too.”
They both stood still, and quiet for a while. The bunny’s heart slowly going back to a normal rhythm.
“So, if you aren’t me, and you aren’t trying to kill me, what brings you to my head today?” She asked with a curious tilt.
“Well, I didn’t really plan to be here, but I suppose it is rather cozy.” The mushroom crown wobbled.
“Oh, why thank you. Could you get off my head?”
“I don’t think I am able to, no. Do you happen to know how to help me join my collective?”
“No. I am hungry,” she said, as her stomach rumbled.
“Me too, this place seems rather… lacking”
“Yeah, I have never been here. At least I am not late, like usual.”
“Late for what?”
“To survive.”
And with that, they both started moving through the ruined wastes they found themselves in. It was a silent journey. The hunger truly made itself known after they started walking, and soon after they could do little else.
It wasn’t until one and a half hours had gone by that they started to see green in the horizon, and as they got closer they realized how stark the change in scenery was. Lush, verdant grass and trees bordered the uncanny deadlands. It was as if someone had drawn a line on the floor and decided that past that point no life was allowed.
“I don’t think I have ever seen a mushroom like this, are they upside down? How weird.” The little mushroom crown intoned.
“Mushrooms? We can’t see them from here, they are too small. We can only see the trees.”
“Trees?”
“Yeah, Sturdy things, good to scratch against. Sometimes there is food around them, and they are great to make holes under!”
“I don’t think I quite understand, but that sounds nice.”
As they got closer, everything looked so peaceful on the other side that the bunny was immediately on edge. But they didn’t slow down, anything was better than being in the open.
So preoccupied were they with going back to the forest and pondering about great, green upside down mushrooms, that neither noticed the wide eyes following them from the canopy, and the trail of dead grass that the bunny left behind.
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[Embwerglow's lost heir/mushi x bunny adventures unchained is only available at RoyalRoad by DrySolace]