“Ethel, how strong is your connection to Frank? Do you know if they are doing okay in there?” Cal was getting worried about sending the two of them in alone.
“They are fine. Frank is having the time of his life.” She said. It wasn’t exactly an answer to the question he had asked, but it cut to the meat of what he really wanted to know, which was good enough for now.
A few minutes later Cal heard the thundering return of what could only be an excited Frank. The man was terrible at sneaking on a good day, and apparently, today wasn’t that day.
“The mighty Frank crushed the puny dragon and mushroom things. Stan and his sword stabbed, and Frank clobbered until nothing could get up again!” Frank yelled the moment he came into view.
“Uh, did he just say you killed a dragon?” Cal asked, looking at his father.
“Well, I’m pretty sure it was long dead to whatever infection tried to kill you all, but yes. We did kill or rekill a zombie dragon, depending on how you want to look at it. Turns out Excalibur is pretty good at dragon slaying.” Stan answered.
The stench coming off Frank and Stan finally reached Cal. “God, you smell awful. Jen, can you make some ice? I’ll melt it, and they can use it to clean off because god damn is this smell horrendous.” Cal held his nose as he spoke.
Two baths and a meal later, everyone was back on their feet. “Stan, you are going to need a wrestling persona. If we keep teaming up like this, and we totally should, you need a title. The kittens love the stories better that way.” Frank was surprisingly less grandiose as he explained this.
“Frank isn’t exaggerating there. The kittens really do love his wrestling stories. How about Stan, the swordsman?” While Ethel managed to keep her tone serious, her wink gave away her real thoughts.
“I’ll consider it.” Stan shook his head and sighed.
“So what happens if we hit another pocket of those creatures? Do we just go down again until Stan can stab us?” Jen had a worried look on her face.
“No, I’d rather not fight them unless we have to, but now that I know what we are looking for I can keep using relatively safe. I’ll have to keep my focus up, so don’t count on it holding up if anything happens to me.” Ethel’s answer wasn’t overly reassuring, but it was the best they had for now.
“So there’s still one more lost grove we need to pass through before we can make our way to the pool itself. Here’s hoping it’s just giant squirrels.” Cal laughed at his own words.
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“I don’t know about that; Frank has a point. Dragon slaying was surprisingly fun.” Stan clapped his son on the back as he added on his own laughter.
***
As they finally started to near the grove Cal picked up a scent on the air he didn’t like. “Ethel, should that smell be getting through your bubble? It reminds me of what Dad and Frank smelled like. I don’t like it at all.”
“Yes, it’s actually not that different than some very pungent fungus smells back on Earth. There’s nothing dangerous about the scent itself; any spores, though, those are being filtered. So far, we haven’t hit any.” She answered.
They exited the passage into the much more open space where the grove would have stood and likely did stand in the past. Instead, they were greeted by towering mushrooms and carpets of less familiar fungus across the floors. Some of the mushrooms were so large they spanned from floor to ceiling and were connected to both.
“Well, that’s different. At least I don’t see any of the mushroom monsters fought last time. See any dragons, Frank?” Stan looked around as he spoke.
The rhetorical question was lost on Frank. “The Tree Titan sees no winged lizards to crush. Only mushrooms, unmoving boring mushrooms.”
“Well, the good news is my son’s statement didn’t doom us. Frank, we’ve discussed this before. Every time you say something like that, things get much worse.” Ethel shook her head. “So, let’s just continue through here and to the pool. At some point, we will likely have to figure out what’s causing all this, but we have other things to do first.”
“Agreed. I really don’t like the fungus.” Cal said as he stepped over a mushroom on their way through the infested grove.
It was only a short walk to the pool, which likely contributed to the problem they found on arrival. The room was also covered in the strange mushrooms that had been in that last grove, including the bottom of the pool itself.
“Huh, I don’t like this, but I can still feel mana coming from that pool. I’m not even sure it’s corrupted, just very different.” Cal said as they were looking around the room.
“So I’m sure ya all figured out that the environment tends to affect the mana springs as they grow. I ain’t saying it’s safe, but there’s a pretty good chance it is. I once saw a pool in a room with so much radiation it killed anyone without specialized equipment, but one dip later, and the kid was fine, hell could even handle the room with nothing special.” Onelder pipped up
“Are you volunteering?” Ethel stared at Onelder.
“Nah, I’m not a fungus kind of guy. Sides, ain’t this supposed to be for Albert over there?” Onelder pointed to the small capybara.
“Only if he wants to. I wasn’t expecting a situation like this. What do you think, Albert? This is entirely your decision to make.” Cal said to his friend.
“Oh yeah, I come from a rainforest, I’ve seen some weird giant mushrooms before; this doesn’t scare me at all. Sure, they are different, but that doesn’t mean bad.” The capybara said before walking over to the pool and plopping himself in. “Oh nice, it’s heated. I could get used to this.” He sighed in contentment.