Chapter 54

Having confirmed the possibility didn’t suddenly make me enthusiastic about all this. Still I knew it was in my best interest to do so.

And if I was seriously doing this I had to think about which of my mushrooms, mycelium, and appendages were on the metaphorical chopping block.

The rest of the log obviously. I consumed merely a portion of my mycelium in there to prove that it could be done and it still had a bit left in there.

Several of the pathway mycelium could be trimmed down a bit. The pathway to buttons, in particular, was originally meant to contact a tree far away from me but I ended up ditching that plan and meandered a bit before finally contacting Buttons.

Point is, I can trim that mycelium way down. Obviously buttons was still hella far away from most of myself but I figure I could get perhaps a several mushroom’s worth of nutrients.

i could also target the pathway to that foreign mushroom… well more like foreign mycelium since thats all it is right now. That whole pathway could be cannibalized. Well mostly I still wanted to reattach to it in the future and in particular I wanted to leave that assimilated foreign bit of myself alone.

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Which was frustrating because that assimilated bit still ‘violently’ didn’t want anything to do with me. I kept it in under control, but the act was a conscious one. My fear was that once I disconnected from it, it would overrun whatever mycelium I have left there to control it.

I suppose I could always just completely write it off and decide to assimilate more of it once the fire was dealt with. Not exactly ideal but hey none of this shit was.

I also grew that sensory network around there which was now mostly ash but the mycelium leading up to it was still viable. I also explored and meandered a bit before finding the foreign mushroom so that should net in some added nutrients as well.

The experimental chem mushrooms were a prime targets too.

So four targets for cannibalization… not a lot to work with. The way the fire is affecting just the edge of my territory is indicative of its size. I needed more nutrients.

The hub offers but a fraction of what it used to, but there is some. Even with that I was predicting I would still find myself short.

Could I encourage the fire to enter the area within my territory and entrap it that way?

The thinking here being that it’ll allow me to not expend as much nutrients.

Several problems with that idea though. The fire would burn away my expansive sensory mycelium and the various mushroom I have laying around including the ones releasing the mist spores. Though I suppose I could cannibalize them before the fire reaches them…

The more I though about it the more the idea had merit, but there was one last glaring flaw with this plan.

Jade would be killed if I went through with it.

The little bastard has completely given up and will not move. That didn’t mean I was inclined to give up on it though… I just didn’t know what I could do.

Whatever I ended up doing I would need nutrients, so I went ahead and got started on the self cannibalization targets.