After the Urchin killings, a large bonfire was set and everyone gathered around, chatting and laughing and feasting, all in high spirits. Half the Foresters now spoke with croaky voices from over enthusiastic cheering. But Kactus remedied this by picking several silverstems from his medicinal patch and brewing a tea to soothe any sore throats.

Caruso listened to Kumiko breaking down Ferris’s duel, beat by beat, explaining to everyone who had gathered around why it was a thing of beauty. He knew it had been a fine showcase of skill, but Kumiko’s detailed explanation of every technique put it on another level entirely. She spoke with such awe and reverence—her audience hung off every word.

It was when Kumiko began her third retelling of Ferris’s duel that Caruso suddenly felt weary and slipped away for an early night. On the way he stopped to watch an eclipse of shroommoths flapping about the purpleveils. He saw a moth climbing the stalk of one. It was the moth with a single tattered wing—still struggling, still fighting. He set it onto a nice looking purpleveil and smiled as it enthusiastically fed on the shroom. Caruso didn’t expect to see it alive again.

Next morning, Caruso woke to the sound of pained retching coming through the walls. It was already light outside so he got up to investigate. He followed the sound to a room a couple doors down. Who’s room it was, he wasn’t quite sure. Normally, he’d never knock on a random Forester’s door, but whoever it was, was in a lot of pain.

He tapped on the door. ‘Hello? Are you okay?’

A pitiful moan answered him. Caruso cautiously stepped inside to find Blue sprawled on the ground with her face buried in her chamber pot. The acidic smell of vomit struck Caruso like one of Ferris’s whips. She gave another dry heave, and looked to Caruso with bile dribbling off her chin.

‘Why did I drink… that fucking tea…’ Blue managed, before turning back to her pot.

Caruso knew the symptoms. ‘Hold on, Blue. Let me go and get you something.’

He ran to Kactus’s room which doubled as the apothecary. The door was already open. Inside, Kactus was busy sorting through his jars of dried shrooms.

‘Uh hello, Kactus?’

‘You too?’

‘What?’

‘You’re not sick are ya? Everyone who drank that damn silverstem tea has been puking their guts out all night.’

‘Oh, I didn’t have any. But Blue must’ve, she’s in a bad way. Vomiting, groaning—’

‘Aye, spare me the details.’

‘Why would the tea make everyone sick?’

‘The vomiter parasite,’ Kactus said, screwing the lid on a jar. ‘It infects shrooms without you knowing they’re infected.’

‘I’ve heard of the vomiter,’ Caruso said. ‘But doesn’t it only infect unhealthy shrooms? I thought the silverstems came from your own garden.’

Kactus scowled, ‘Aye, they did. What’re you tryin’ to say?’

‘No, I didn’t mean…I’m just curious what was wrong with the silverstems. There’s normally a reason for an infestation.’

‘Don’t presume to tell me about my business, boy. Been in this game a lot longer than you. A healthy shroom is just as like to get infected.’

That went against everything Caruso knew. But Kactus was probably right. The man was a Forester after-all. He shrugged it away, ‘Okay, well Blue is going to need some bittergill.’

‘She’s shit outta luck there,’ Kactus pointed to the empty container on his desk. ‘She shoulda got in before the rush.’

‘There’s no fresh ones in your garden? Even a premature one would do the trick.’

‘Well, if you knew anything, you’d know bittergill can’t be cultivated.’ Kactus stored his jar away onto a high shelf.

Caruso was about to argue that fact but stopped himself. The man looked to be in no mood for a discussion. I’m probably just not remembering correctly.

‘What about pennylace?’ Caruso asked. ‘That should at least ease the worst of her stomach pains.’

Kactus frowned then gave a thoughtful ‘Hmmmm’ and found the right jar on his desk.

Caruso took the dried shroom to Blue, wincing at the smell of her room. While she chewed on the pennylace he took her vomit filled pot and rinsed it out in the brook. By the time he returned he was glad to see she had stomached the entire shroom and had drifted off to sleep. He left her door ajar to allow some fresh air in, then went for a stroll through the gardens.

As he walked around the stone path, his mind returned to his interaction with Kactus. Something wasn’t sitting right. He remembered reading an entire section about the vomiter in Duskydale’s Zone 2 Compendium. All gatherers knew that Duskydale’s knowledge was unparallelled. And Caruso had read his books more times than any. The vomiter didn’t just infect healthy shrooms, Caruso was now sure of it. There was always something wrong with the crop, something that could be fixed.

Another thing Kactus said stood out to Caruso. He’d claimed that bittergill couldn’t be cultivated. But Duskydale had managed it. Even the termites in Zone 2 managed to cultivate bitergill in their mounds. All bittergill needed was a bit of dead ash wood, and if that didn’t work, some crushed up termite’s nest would give the shrooms everything they required. But surely Kactus knows this? He’s the Forester’s shroom medic…

Caruso did not suspect Kactus of being dishonest. The man might be arrogant, but behind that arrogance was pride for being the Forester’s medicinal grower. He wouldn’t intentionally sabotage his own garden. The most plausible explanation was that Kactus was simply not as skilled as Caruso assumed he was. He decided to walk past Kactus’s medicinal garden, just to check.

It was not a pretty garden like that which decorated most of the compound. It favoured functionality over aesthetics. And just the briefest glance made it clear to Caruso that Kactus was well versed in the basics of shroomlore.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Bluethumbs grew in rows beside trenches of water, all displaying the characteristic kink. Dog’s vomit was kept in the shade and correctly grew on a dead log of pine—the fungus wasn’t as green or as lumpy as it could be, but nothing too abnormal. The purplepuffs were in full sunlight, away from the other shrooms, and looked vibrant and healthy. There were piles of decaying willow leaves which Caruso guessed had the penny lace growing beneath.

Everything was by the book.

Then he saw the empty patch where the silverstems grew from. He didn’t notice an immediate problem. There were plenty of damp pine needles, they weren’t in full shade, nor full sun; everything they needed to be healthy. So why did they get infected?

He picked up a bunch of the pine, checking it for moisture. Something about it smelt off. The normal sharp scent of pine wasn’t quite there, instead it was replaced with the smell of earthy mildew.

Caruso frowned. It was definitely pine. It just didn’t smell like pine. He looked back at the dog’s vomit on the pine log. His eyes were drawn to the log’s exposed edge and the thick cord of dead mycelium running through it’s centre. Then it clicked. Of course! This is Zone 3 pine. The trees out here were different; they have been merged with the mycelium network. The difference wasn’t huge. But mushrooms were sensitive to even slight changes in their surroundings. Simply put, Zone 2 shrooms grew best around Zone 2 trees.

But why wouldn’t the Foresters know this? They live here. Was it possible they had simply overlooked the importance of the trees?

If Kactus could make this mistake with Zone 2 shrooms, then what about Zone 1 shrooms? In this area, Caruso actually had more experience than mere book study. During his brief stint as a Zone 2 gatherer he had developed a small shroom garden, hidden off the main trail, where he practised growing edibles as well as some Zone 2 medicinals. Most gatherers made do with the community gardens that kept the Zone 2 gatherers fed and fueled; but they were never good enough for Caruso.

He walked around the much larger edible gardens. Again, everything looked like it was set up by capable and knowledgeable hands. Every shroom had the right substrate, the right amount of light, and were even grouped correctly to take advantage of natural insecticides.

But what about the fussier shrooms that relied on specific trees and animals?

Both the honeyfungus and pinkcaps were correctly growing from elm tree mulch. He couldn’t say for certain if it were made from Zone 1 elm, however, the shrooms weren’t as large as they could’ve been. Caruso even sampled one of the berryshrooms—it was average. It would sell fine in the mushroom markets but wasn’t nearly as sweet as the berryshrooms Caruso had grown in his patch. I would bet that mulch was made from a Zone 3 elm.

He looked around for the firetongues. They were the toughest edible to cultivate, as they only produced their spiciness when specific conditions were met. But he couldn’t find any firetongues in the garden, and coming to think of it, Caruso didn’t remember ever seeing or eating a firetongue while staying with the Foresters.

Am I missing something? He briefly considered that there must be something about the Zone 3 spores that accounted for all these discrepancies. But he knew that wasn’t the case. All the other shrooms grew normally. And Duskydale himself believed that any shroom could be cultivated.

Back in Jamala, whenever Caruso needed to know something, he would have the great Jamalan library at his disposal, filled with books and scrolls and tomes. With the mushroom forest so close, and Duskydale’s knowledge at his fingertips, studying the mushroom forest had been a joy. At the compound, it was different. He didn’t dare venture out alone beyond the walls for fear of Urchins or shroombeasts. There was much he wanted to know, yet there didn’t seem to be any books or any written records of the shroom forest beyond Zone 2.

At least he assumed there wasn’t.

He decided to pay Niko a visit. As the eldest of the Foresters, if anyone knew of some Forester library, it would be her.

He was about to tap on her door when he heard a frustrated sigh coming from within. He stood there awkwardly deciding whether or not he was intruding, but his hunger for knowledge won out and he followed through with his knock.

‘Come in.’

Inside Niko was sitting at her desk massaging her temples.

‘Hi, Niko… Is it a bad time?’

‘Caruso. No not at all, come in. I was just responding to a letter. Politics stress me out to no end. I’m glad for the interruption.’ She moved her letter and ink pot to one side and gestured to an armchair beside her desk. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

Caruso sat. ‘I was just curious. Are there any books written by the Foresters about the shroom forest?’

‘The library in Jamala has an extensive collection. If you like, I can order for some to be delivered.’

‘I’ve read them already, I want to learn more. Beyond Zone 2.’

‘You’ve read them? All of them?’ Niko raised a disbelieving brow. ‘Last I checked there were quite a few.’

‘Well, many are poorly written, some by authors who I doubt have ever stepped into Zone 1. Those I didn’t finish. But all the books and scrolls penned by intelligent researchers, I read. I read until I committed them to memory.’

Niko regarded Caruso curiously. The silence built as she studied him. ‘You’re being sincere, aren’t you?’

Caruso nodded.

‘Interesting…And did it take you long? To learn all this information?’

‘It took me several years to learn it all.’

‘All that study just to become a gatherer?’

‘A Zone 2 gatherer,’ Caruso corrected. ‘I guess I don’t like doing things without knowing it first.’

‘No, I guess you don’t.’ Niko kept looking thoughtfully at Caruso, as if reassessing him. ‘In my experience, gatherers don’t tend to be the most learned bunch. If you had committed all those books to memory, that must’ve set you apart from your peers. DId your employers take advantage of your skillset?’

‘My employer, Bozi, knew I had worked and studied hard, so he got me to teach his son all about the shroom forest.’

‘Hmmmm, I see... What of the university? It seems to me you might’ve been well suited for a more academic career.’

Caruso shrugged, ‘It was always the forest I was interested in. I could never afford the tuition anyway.’

‘I suspect that was their loss, and our gain,’ Niko smiled. ‘As for your question about books, anything that gets written down invariably gets lost to time…For this reason we Foresters have little use for writing.’

Caruso frowned at the mysterious answer, then guessed at the real reason. ‘Is it because I’m not a full Forester yet? I’m aware there are things you cannot tell me, but I just wanted to learn more about Zone 3 for now. About the mushrooms and the trees.’

‘I’m being honest with you, Caruso. It is true there are things I cannot share with you, but this is not one of them. We do have a brilliant Forester named Mang who spends her time filling journals with her knowledge and research. But she has since dedicated herself to the animashroom.’

‘She doesn’t have anything on Zone 3 shrooms?’

‘The Urchins recently destroyed the research station where she kept much of her work. But next time I send a patrol out Mang's way, I will get them to double check what survived. Believe me when I say I have no desire to inhibit your learning in this area. Quite the opposite. I am wondering how I have overlooked this side of you…’ Niko tapped her lip ponderously. ‘In the meantime, I propose you start accompanying Kumiko on her trips up to the caves. I send her twice a week to gather truth buttons. I’ve noticed you have already developed a friendship with her, and such a pairing makes sense to me now. Hers is a sharp mind that likes to soak in knowledge of her surroundings. She will be more than willing, i'm sure, to share with you all she knows.'

‘I would like that, thank you.’

Niko waved it away, ‘For better or for worse, my area of expertise has since drifted away from the mushroom forest. It’s a failing on my part that I have nothing more for you at this time. Might I ask what spurred this sudden desire?’

‘I got in an argument with Kactus about his shrooms. It made me wonder about the differences in cultivating in Zone 3 compared with Zone 2.’

‘He can be a proud man. And I’ve always found it’s best not to let him get away with it. If he discovers this scholarly side of you, it might help to spark his competitive side and pull him from this rut he's been in lately.’

‘Okay.’

‘I for one am very interested in what you are capable of, Caruso. I’ve been wondering exactly where you will fit in among us. And I’m starting to get a better idea. I dare say, if you turn out to be half as clever as I suspect, then I’ll have an important task for you in the future.’

‘Whatever it is, I’ll be happy to do it.’

‘I like your enthusiasm.’