SNEAKY SHADOWS

Mibbet and Rosalind had volunteered for guard duty; after what they saw earlier, it was hard as if they were going to be doing much peaceful sleep anyway, so they may as well make themselves useful, right? Besides, Addy had also volunteered, which did not help Rosalind with her nerves. She really needed to give their newfound companion some alone time to unwind, as she didn’t want the newly liberated constructs feeling overworked or like they were taken for granted.

To make sure that didn’t happen, she had drafted up a contract for Addy that had a set wage, a job description (network and communications specialist) and most important of all, defined working hours. Addy, of course, kept trying to volunteer herself, but the line between volunteer and voluntold is a fine one that really should not be blurred in this case. (We all know there are two types of “volunteer”, the one who steps forward and the one who doesn’t in most circumstances, and we also all know which of those will be assigned the mucky job. Here’s a hint it isn’t the one grinning smugly from one pace ahead.)

So Mibbet was sat around a carefully contained purring fire (it would have been a roaring fire if anybody pissed Rascal off, but they were curled up in a contented ball in the improvised grate snoozing contentedly, so the only rule that applied here was do not poke the fire.)

Every once in a while, she could have sworn she saw a shadowy figure in the fires glow, but they were never there long enough to be sure. So she stayed awake, with Choppy at the ready, just in case. She carefully kept thoughts such as “what’s that? Better go see,” from her head, as going to investigate sounded like a cautionary tale waiting to happen. Instead, she gently added more fuel to the fire (carefully, if anything got too close to Rascals napping spot, it tended to get bapped, and bapping from a burning thing is not an experience one wishes for even if said bapper does it soft pawed.)

“Well, they seem to be keeping their distance, so that’s a good sign.” She said to herself softly before deciding that she had to test. She rummaged in her pockets, careful not to lower her vision (you look away creepy thing gets closer, fire goes out, ditto, it is a rule.) Fishing out one of Madam Monchies finest chocolate-dipped biscuit balls (she could have used something cheaper, but if you’re going to use bait, she figured Sir Leeroy’s home cooking wouldn’t do the trick, now if she wanted to poison whatever was out there that had real possibilities, but she wasn’t that cruel. After all, Sir Leeroy’s school of cooking could be summed up in the phrase “needs more salt”, a line he told himself with every bite, then followed through on. To eat that stuff was to turn into a living jerky on the spot.) Then turned to look in a slightly different direction, not in the least reassured by the eating noises that transpired until she looked back to find the bait gone.

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Now that was confusing; she really hoped it wasn’t one of those creatures from earlier; she had absolutely no desire for a special guest appearance by another of them. But all there was round here was monsters and mushrooms (so very many mushrooms.)

She did her best to try to figure it out, but a grumbly tummy is not a recipe for your best thinking. She hadn’t eaten all day because taking off the fungicide treated masks in order to eat sounded like a pretty bad idea, all things considered. None of them were in a hurry to take up farming fungus from within. According to what she’d heard from Sir Leeroy, that was a particular issue round here due to the presence of a local strain known as Cordyceps Obuggerus, which had a unique method of spreading spores, step 1. find host, step 2. get spores into the host, step 3. Get the host to leave the forest. Step 4 kablooey. None of those stages sounded particularly fun, and she was especially not fond of the idea of step 4. For the mushroom in question, that might be a growth industry, but it did not seem to be a plan which resulted in long term prospects for the host (at least none they’d really care about.) So there was going to be no food until they got through here for her.

Instead, she rolled a sweet treat free of the fires inviting glow (almost.) All that time playing marbles was finally paying off as it rolled to a stop right on the fringes of the light. Then quick as a flash, something darted forward, in and out so fast as to be impossible to identify. This didn’t reassure Mibbet in the least (she had a really good sense for fast movement, she had to catch the best flies. Have you ever tried figuring out where in the hell the annoying buzz buzz of a bluebottle is coming from? Mibbet could do that; hard for a frog to catch a bite without that particular skill after all.)

What Mibbet did see was not in the least bit reassuring, but she had to confirm it. Waiting a little while, she rolled another treat out, just a little further into the light this time. But it was ignored, so Mibbet ran over what she knew so far in her head, carefully assessing the threat. 1. fast, (not good there) 2. good at blending in (definitely not good) 3. intelligent enough to not want to be seen and alert the guards (most certainly not good,) and last but not least (though definitely Mibbet’s least favourite on the list.) 4. HUNGRY.

Mibbet decided she needed more information, but before that, she carefully took a stick and scattered some embers around herself first. It didn’t seem to like fire, so better to err on the side of caution. Then finally, she rolled out one more treat, watching carefully and finally figuring out what had felt so off before. Whatever it was, it was mushroom-shaped. Now that was definitely not good.