Chapter 84

My hatred against all grass kind aside I do have say it’s great camouflage for my mycelium network. I grow each mycelium tendril small enough that they shouldn’t be visible above the grass and vegetation.

The fire forced me to cannibalized most of my network but now that the danger was gone I could rebuild it.

In fact i could …. No I won’t. I was going to say I could use the nutrients from the second hub to reconstruct my network but those nutrients are need for … hmmm I never gave it a name did I? How about project … project harmony?

Nah sounds kinda hippie. How about project repair the clearing? Ehhhh too on the nose. Project fantastic name. That’s just dumb.

Wait why am I obsessing over a name anyway? I truly have too much time on my hands … uhhhh right! The mycelium networks. I’m gunna need nutrients for those and while my hub has stabilized somewhat, taking nutrients when the ecology is a little fragile right now feels wrong.

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Ugh these damn morals of mine will really be the death of me. And that is not an exaggeration. I can’t always be held back by my ethics. There will come a point where I’ll have to make a really cruel decision for the sake of my survival, it’s almost guaranteed living in the forest.

For now though I’ll have to put those wrong feelings aside. My survival comes first. And building a network gives me vital information about what’s loitering around in my territory.

I check the hub and find much the same as I remember from the last time I checked in on it, much better than when the fire was here but still fluctuating. The water I’m transferring is still being sucked down like a glass of ice cold lemonade in summer but that actually makes me feel a bit better about taking some nutrients from here.

I rummage a bit and find enough nutrients to grow a small patch of mycelium. This won’t be nearly enough, I need more nutrients.

It’s still dark out so neither the proto lichen mushrooms nor the lichen are producing any nutrients.

If only there was another rotting log. My birthing place was a finite resource but it finding one now would have been at least something I could use to move things along.

All I could do was wait till morning, alone with my thoughts all the while… that second hub was looking real tempting honestly…

Wait, hold that greedy thought, I should be growing some mini mushrooms and measure the time it takes for the sun to rise.

Maybe I could actually calculate how long I’ve been on this miserable planet as a mushroom!