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001 | Eelshrooms

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“You know what I’m gonna do to that old man when we get back?” Zen asked, picking himself up from the muck surrounding one of the thousands of unmarked trees in Gale Swamp. He flicked several globs of mud free from his hands, grimaced, and drew his belt knife. “I’m gonna finally thank him. I’m gonna hug that balding, wrinkled fool ‘til his bones break. Show him just how much I appreciate his guidance.”

Lawrence, Zen’s companion in misery, nodded along. A mosquito buzzed in his ear, and the older boy shifted his weight to the side to get out of its way, ever-cognizant of the heavy bucket of water in his left hand, the bundle of banana squashes beneath his right arm, and Fresco—the tabby kitten—sleeping on his shoulder.

Zen carved an ‘X’ into the tree and stomped forward. His amber eyes scanned the tangled roots and spongy moss for hints, clues, and secrets. Lawrence followed behind, holding back a sneeze as Fresco’s tail twitched beneath his nose.

“I’ve found three eelshrooms in the past three months,” Zen said, crouching beside a fallen log overgrown with the sickly, skeletal tendrils of wander root. The short, scrappy, black-haired boy grunted as he dug into the mud with a broken branch, searching for his prey’s telltale lime-green caps, or its worming yellow stalks.

Finding nothing—again—he stood up and glared at Lawrence. “I dream of them while I sleep, Law. I used to dream of gold coins and soft pillows and the smell of sizzling steak.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever seen a sizzling steak,” Lawrence said.

“You’ve at least got some variety,” Zen continued, ignoring his friend. He was on the move again, boots squelching as he tromped further down the trail. He mimicked Regis’s high-pitched, wobbly, excited voice, “Today, you’re assignment is to carry a basket of potatoes, a bearskin rug, a frying pan from my kitchen, and little Cressida’s favorite book. Where does he even find half of the things he comes up with?”

“You’re getting pretty good at his accent.”

“That’s because the old man lives in my head. Do this, do that. I’d kill for a change of pace, or at least a break. I feel like I’m one of those knights of old, questing to defeat a dragon and earn the hand of some exotic princess. Except my princess is a mushroom.”

“And your dragon..?” Lawrence asked.

“It’s also a mushroom,” Zen grumbled. He stopped to mark another tree, carving deep into is bark, then scowled at Lawrence, who was holding back another sneeze. “Yet, here you are. The pinnacle of purpose.”

This time, the large, muscular teenager failed to keep it in. He sneezed, stumbled, and nearly lost his balance. He cursed as the water in his bucket tried to slosh over its sides, but somehow rallied—even without using his Skills—as his boots slipped in opposite directions in the mud.

“Close one,” Zen snickered, leaping over a suspicious puddle of bubbling liquid blocking the path. “Still, no complaints?”

“None,” Lawrence said, collecting himself and readjusting his grip on the bucket’s handle. Fresco, now awake, preened on his shoulder, tail held out to one side for balance, as she stared down a pair of frogs taking shelter beneath a fern.

Zen raised an eyebrow.

Ever-so-slowly, Lawrence turned his body to the side to obstruct the cat’s line of sight. He whispered to the deadly predator, who’s hackles were rising as she prepared to pounce. “Easy, girl. No hunting in the swamp, okay? We’ll find some mice, maybe some tasty fish, when we get back to the cabin.”

Fresco snorted, as if to say that the frogs weren’t worth her time, anyway. The tough little kitten curled back up into a ball and started to purr. Lawrence let out a long, heavy sigh. High above in the swamp’s gnarled canopy, a woodpecker wracked its beak against the trunk of a dead tree.

“You know why I don’t complain, Zen. No matter what Regis has us doing, it isn’t worse than trying to survive in Palladia’s slums. Whatever his reason is—even if it’s just to mess with us—he’s given us food and shelter. And if he really is a [Guide]…”

“Then what?” Zen asked, guarding his expression as he watched his friend tiptoe around the puddle blocking the trail.

“Maybe,” Lawrence grunted, focusing on each footfall and trying not to slip, “we can find a way to actually do something with our lives.”

Classes and Skills were randomly assigned during birth. That was it—you were stuck with what you got. Lawrence was destined to remain a [Laborer], just as Zen was bound to stay a [Gardener]. His two skills, [Identify Plant] and [Steady Hand], would never change.

Yet, the old man—Regis—had promised that there was another way. He’d dared to get their hopes up, and Zen had been stupid enough to let himself be convinced.

Lawrence’s words weren’t anything new. They’d talked about all this before. Talked about it so much that Zen had started to think the same exact thing.

Maybe we can actually do something with our lives.

Hope was dangerous, and he knew that better than most. You had a tendency to cling to it, far longer than you should, until it was finally taken away and you were nothing—the same as you’d always been—just a small, broken, beaten, bloody boy.

“Zen?”

Hope wasn’t worth it.

“We’ve still got time left before we need to head back. I’m good to keep going if you are.”

Blinking, Zen shook his head and refocused. Lawrence looked down at him, concerned, while Fresco peered out, ever-curious, from behind her tail.

“Never been better,” Zen said, putting on a fake smile and holding up his mud-encrusted hands. “In fact, I’m feeling lucky. I think today’s the day I’ll finally find that fourth eelshroom.”

* * * * * *

For the next hour, the two teenagers tripped and stumbled their way through Gale Swamp.

Whenever they’d spot a potential eelshroom breeding ground, they’d deviate from the trail. Zen would crane his neck, crouch down into the sticky mud, and lift up rocks or brush aside ferns. However, the mystical mushroom continued to elude him.

Over time, Fresco grew more and more restless on Lawrence’s shoulder, as any kitten was wont to do. When she decided to try to eat his earlobe, he decided it was time for a break.

After finding a wide, exposed stump covered in hairy blue-green moss—which Zen helpfully used [Identify Plant] to name as Pearlglow Moss—Lawrence sat down and adjusted his belongings. He placed the bucket of water between his knees, the bundle of banana squashes into his lap, and curled the cantankerous cat into a teasing swaddle.

Disgusted, she meowed at him and clawed at his poking, playful fingers—but even Zen could tell that Fresco was actually quite pleased with the change of pace.

“You know, I never asked you how it felt to use your Skills outside Palladia,” Lawrence said. His cold, blue eyes flicked between the kitten and his friend, splitting his attention.

“There aren’t a lot of plants to identify in the slums,” Zen mumbled, not exactly in the mood to engage in conversation. Circling the large stump, he poked at cracks and crevices with a stick, pretending they were the eyeballs of the rich and foppish. “Just roots and weeds. Anything’s better than that.”

“Makes sense.” Lawrence tapped Fresco on her nose. Somewhere in the depths of the swamp, an owl cried, and they listened to it hoot and call in rhythmic sequences. When it was quiet again, the [Laborer] asked, “You ever think about where we’d be, if Regis didn’t find us?”

“No,” Zen grumbled.

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Lawrence glanced over his shoulder at his friend and gave him a look.

“Fine. Yes, sometimes. You’re not going to stop, are you? Why do you always want to talk when I just want to…I don’t know. Brood.”

Laughing, Lawrence reached down and tore off a palm-sized leaf from a plant near his ankles. He dangled it in front of Fresco like a red cape before a bull. “Because if I let you brood, it usually ends with you storming off somewhere and breaking your hand.”

“That was one time.”

“And?” Lawrence said, still laughing. “What’s your answer? Where would we be, without Regis?”

“I’m not falling into your little trap, Law. I’m not going to go about saying that he saved us.” Zen peered into the foot of a Kelling’s bush, brushed aside a spiderweb, and frowned at the lack of mushrooms. “When I think about the old man, it’s either about how I want to tear the two caterpillars he calls eyebrows off his face, or why he decided to choose us in the first place. It’s not like we’re special.”

“Speak for yourself,” Lawrence replied, a hint of amusement in his eyes—only to yelp as Fresco’s claws sliced through his taunting leaf and into his thumb. “Gah! That was too much. Bad kitty.”

Zen scoffed. He finished his circle of the stump, slumped down onto a wet boulder, and tossed his stick aside. Then, he targeted the dried mud caking his fingernails and started picking at it in short staccato bursts. “He wants to turn us into tools.”

“Isn’t that what a [Guide]’s job is?” Lawrence stuck his thumb into his mouth to stop it from dripping blood onto his tunic, then added, “A [Guide] puts people onto better paths, shapes them into stronger versions of themselves. What’s wrong with that?”

“Yeah, in the stories, sure. The wizened [Guide] shows the lost [Hero] the way. He never asks for something in return.”

“That’s what worries you? We’ve been out here for three months. He hasn’t asked us for a single thing. You still doubt his intentions?”

“You don’t?” Zen questioned.

Lawrence frowned, but didn’t answer. He didn’t need to—they both knew, from their time in Palladia, that nothing was freely given.

“Everyone wants something, Law, and I can’t think of a single good reason for some swamp hermit to sweep in and play savior to two useless kids on Skull Street.”

A breeze rustled through the small clearing. A frog croaked from far off in the swamp. In the still, humid silence that followed, Lawrence lifted his head and met Zen’s eyes in a cold, heartless glare—void of his previous good humor. “I’m not useless.”

Fresco, who’d continued to claw and meow playfully, stilled. Her hackles rose at Lawrence’s sudden shift, sending her orange hair prickling into his skin.

Lawrence ignored her. Every tense muscle fiber in his body, every fabric of his being, was focused on Zen, like a deathclaw bear staring down an interloper in its cave. “You know better than to say that word around me. No one calls me useless. Not even you.”

A part of Zen wanted a fight. He was annoyed and sick of spending hours—every cursed day—hiking through the swamp and digging in the mud. But as he held Lawrence’s gaze, he recalled the aftermath of the older boy’s anger: broken noses, broken faces, broken teeth bouncing on cobblestone streets. It was enough to chill his own rage, to temper his own disappointment, to pull him back from the ledge he’d instinctively stepped toward.

There were better targets—better places—for him to vent his frustration. Besides, Lawrence was his friend.

The old Zen—the one that scrapped and fought in Palladia’s slums—wouldn’t back down. He couldn’t afford to show that kind of weakness. But things were different out here in the swamp, and the new Zen was slowly learning how to lose.

After another uneasy minute, Zen forced himself to exhale, forced himself to unclench his fists, forced himself to remember all that he and Lawrence had gone through and survived. He was the one to hit a nerve—and that meant it was his responsibility to ease the tension between them.

Dropping his gaze, Zen stared down at his mud-caked boots. He'd need to scrub them later. Maybe he'd take some of his anger out on them.

“I’m sorry.” It came out as a whisper, but Zen knew it wasn’t enough. He bit his lip and tried again. “I’m sorry, Law.”

Zen risked a glance back up at his friend. He was just in time to see the older boy’s expression change, just in time to see a soft, gentle smile—Lawrence’s attempt at one, at least—slide onto his face, as if the ruthless storm cloud that’d ruled there a moment before had never been.

“It’s alright,” Lawrence picked Fresco up and plopped her back onto his shoulder. “You didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I'm just tired of looking for these stupid mushrooms, that's all.”

Lawrence nodded. He lifted his chin in the direction of the trail, “Back to the old man’s cabin?”

“Yeah. Let’s head back.”

This time, Zen didn’t bother with the fake grin. He just picked up a different dead stick, flicked a hanging branch out of the way of his face, and started walking.

* * * * * *

Ten minutes from Regis’s cabin, Zen spotted a flash of lime-green poking out from between two rocks, wearing blood-red lichen like bad haircuts.

He threw away any sense of dignity he had and sprinted down the muddy trail, leaping over logs and stagnant pools of water. Lawrence trudged along behind him, arms shaking, finally starting to flag beneath the weight of his strange burdens.

“You’re kidding me,” Zen said in a hushed, almost-reverent voice. He slid down onto his hands and knees, uncaring of the mud—he was 90% mud at this point, anyway—to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.

Reaching out toward the tiny speck of color, Zen examined every millimeter of his suspect as if it were the first spark of life in the universe and he was some storied metaphysical detective.

“You’re kidding me,” he repeated. His heart thumped in his chest. He was breathing heavily, breathing like he’d just run five miles around Gale Swamp’s lakes. A crazy, manic grin spread across his face. Filling his lungs with more air than they could hold, Zen tilted his head back and shouted to every thin patch of still-blue sky he could see beneath the swamp’s messy canopy.

“I’ve finally found it. Number four! NUMBER FOUR!”

He could hear his echo making its way back through the fog and mist, hear birds rustling as they fled from their perches amongst the trees, hear Lawrence chuckling somewhere at his back.

For a short second, Zen reveled in the luxury of raising his voice above a whisper—let alone a shout—without feeling the crippling fear of discovery. No enforcers lurked in the darkness. No rival thieves stabbed out from the shadows. It was just a raw, unchained taste of freedom—one he was starting to grow dangerously familiar with. Then, the second passed.

Zen locked his sense of freedom away, shut out all distractions.

It’s almost like I’m back in Marion’s shop, trying to crack his safe. All that’s missing is the knife pressed against the side of my neck.

It was time to focus.

Eelshroom’s weren’t easy to harvest, even for expert foragers. [Gatherer]’s had distinct advantages, through Skills like Zen’s [Steady Hand]—but Regis had explicitly forbade him from using it. As he fought his instinct to flip that familiar mental switch in his mind, Zen cursed the old man. Narrowing his concentration, he zeroed in his shaking hands, twitching fingers, and unsteady breath.

Regis’s words, unbidden and unwanted—but still so damn useful—flitted through his head.

Be still.

Be quiet.

Be the breeze high, high above.

Let it out, for a moment.

Let it flow.

Become nothing.

Zen exhaled, watching as his nervous hands stilled. Pushing away his thoughts of failure, he envisioned each step he needed to take to steal the eelshroom from the earth.

Then, Zen acted.

Bracing the rightward rock with one hand, he slowly lifted its left twin away, exposing the eelshroom’s fragile yellow stalk—stipe—from where it’d lay hidden.

He spotted the mushroom’s thin, vile veil lurking beneath its gills, but his eyes slid past it, toward its foot. Careful to continue supporting the rightward rock—he couldn’t remove it, as it was where the eelshroom rested its weight—Zen withdrew a jar of Earlgrave preservative paste and a clean, rectangular collection container from his belt pouch.

He uncorked the jar’s wide stopper, set it aside, and drew his knife.

You couldn’t pluck an eelshroom from the ground. If you did, it’d wriggle in your hand, spreading its toxins and spores against the backs of your fingers as it shriveled and died. Instead, you had to trick it into thinking it was still alive after you'd stolen its life.

Repeating the shortened variation of Regis’s mantra in his head—be still, be quiet, be nothing—Zen coated the blade of his knife in brown Earlgrave paste. The smell of it, harsh and fowl like Palladia’s alleyways after a night of desperate fighting, hit his nostrils and threatened to break his concentration—but Zen held firm, held steady.

Zen’s knife didn’t twitch as he pressed its still-sharp edge into the eelshroom’s stipe.

It didn’t quiver as he guided it, down and around, in a gentle crescent toward the mushroom’s foot.

It didn’t waver as he severed the eelshroom’s base and caught it, like the fragile princess it was, on the bed of Earlgrave paste coating his blade.

It did shake, however, as the first notification he’d experienced in his entire life shattered his reality into tiny bits of wonder, possibility, and hope.

Congratulations, [Gatherer].

By meeting the qualifications for a new Skill, you’ve earned your spot on the path to greatness. May your journey be wild, varied, and bold.

-= Pass the Level 20 Threshold in your Class (Hidden: [Gatherer] Level: 17 > 22).

-= Travel a Path outside the linear line of your Fate (Hidden: The Path of the Arcane Student).

-= Succeed in a task you first thought to be impossible (Harvest 4 eelshrooms [Toxicofragilis serpentinus]).

Select a new Skill from the three options available. Concentrate on a Skill if you’d like to experience its description.

-= Cultivate

-= Duplicate

-= Animate

“You’re kidding me," Zen muttered, letting his knife fall into the mud. "The old man was serious?”

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