*(mood song: "Chris Avantgarde - Inside")

A couple of days passed and as expected, with proper feeding the older mutants started feeling better and being able to stand up.

It would be a long journey from that place to the royal palace, so Erik made sure to gather a couple dozen food jellyfish in containers to eat on the way, while the rest would eat blind crab man meat.

Once again the mutant leader led in front, but this time she wasn't alone, as several of the older mutants were checking the way with her. The entire tribe had come this time, with even the kids stuck to Erik's back and the rest either in front or around Erick's group, checking the way for them. They were coming in part as thanks for the meat, but also 'cause they had no more food back at the base and they would be safer with Erik's group's weapons to hunt any dangers.

The same as last time, they arrived at a big metallic door with the carving of a big octoperson's solemn face, the face of the empress, but it had a hole with the shape of a gear where its left eye should have been.

After checking the walls they found a secret side room to the left of the door.

Similar to the last time, the room had some deteriorated weapons and armors, and a gear key on a pedestal in the middle. The mutant leader was the one who took it carefully like last time and put it in the metallic door from earlier, in the space of the empress's left eye.

The door rumbled and shook, and after some time it opened slowly, as a brown plume of water came from inside. The mutant octopeople quickly covered the breathing tubes on their necks, while the octopeople put on their neck chemical filters.

Erik turned to Megan, that was behind him to his back: "Does it smell so bad?"

Megan: "the filters erase the smell, but for a moment I felt like puking..."

Shana: "It... did smell disgusting..."

Erik: "like what? it could be important"

Shana: "...I would say... like something rotting?"

Erik turned to Rose.

Rose frowned: "I have my taste sense deactivated and they say it's disgusting, why do you want me to taste that?"

Erik shrugged: "well, you can just turn them off later right?"

Rose: "...fine..." she then took a deep gulp of water... and instantly spit it out.

Erik: "well?"

Rose: "...well? one that was disgusting, and second you owe me a favor"

Erik: "that's fine, did you detect anything?"

Rose: "yes... as Shana said there are lots of dead things inside, and... some fungal spores of an unknown kind, I suggest not touching anything inside for those not wearing power armor or at least gloves..."

Erik looked at the kids cowering from the smell on his back "...maybe we should leave them back at the base? we can always come back for them..."

Rose shrugged: "maybe, or maybe not... I don't know, and you don't know either... so it's your call Erik"

Erik: "...I... I will go in first and check"

Rose face palmed: "I have bots for that! the problem is the exposure to parasites or other kinds of biological risks!"

Erik observed the mutants and observed them tying a strip of leather full of something to their necks, even the mutant leader came to him and ordered the kids to enter a leather backpack she had apparently already prepared. The kids slowly slid off his back and into the backpack, after which she closed it, only leaving a leather sleeve to one side with tiny holes.

Erik examined the sleeve and it was full of algae pastes and thin leather layers.

Erik: "interesting, they made primitive gas... I mean water masks... reminds me of the beak masks from plague doctors during the XVI century..."

Rose: "...plague doctors... hmmm... interesting memories, so the first appeared during the year 11619? they sure had a hard time..."

Erik: "I think this should be enough, send the bot Rose"

Rose nodded: "Alright, I will share the video feed, close your eyes"

Erik did as told and he now saw through the eyes of a bot that was on the back, but it quickly moved forward, reaching the doors and crossing them.

The other side was still a bit cloudy with floating debris, but the bots headlight revealed what was in the tunnel, a forest... thick mushroom trunks covered the wide tunnel as a blue glow emerged from their blue caps and tentacles fell from them.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/2/24/TESV_Blackreach_2.png/

[https://i.ibb.co/w4bCtjH/Fungus-Mushrooms-chapter-148.png]

The entire room was illuminated by their slight blue glow as the mud was finally setting in the at least meter deep mud floor, the bot's feet sunk in it as it advanced forward.

But then Erik noticed something: "wait a second! look at the base of the trunks!"

Rose moved the bot that way, and what was revealed didn't make them feel any better, the mushrooms weren't emerging from just anywhere..., at the base of the thick trunks there were the mummified remains of corpses, it wasn't easy to see due to the mud, but was one of those things that once seen can't be unseen.

Erik: "...what are... what are those corpses?"

Rose: "give me a moment..."

The bot got close to one of the corpses and cleared the mud using its hand as a racket, moving it from side to side and letting the water waves generated clear the mud. After some minutes... a corpse was revealed, it wasn't what they had expected though, as the corpse belonged to a spiderfish, a truck sized spiderfish with mushrooms coming out of every orifice on his skull, and even through it...

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Erik: "parasitic mushrooms... this is really bad..."

Rose: "yeah... I guess this explains why this area is free of bugs..."

Erik: "can't we redirect the steam and kill them somehow?"

Rose: "we could break the pipes but there are a few problems to that tactic..., in the first place the... cave is too big, it might take days for the room to heat up enough, and second... that would destroy the pipes to doors in other area's, making them way harder to open, and lastly... the spores could expand through the pipe system... taking over the entire area over time..."

Erik: "...alright..., try cutting down one"

Rose: "okay..."

The bot's forearm split slightly as a small chainsaw knife came out, it then advanced forward, getting closer to a trunk thirty centimeters deep that was growing out of the corpse's skull, and very slowly put the chainsaw close to it and started cutting.

It seemed like nothing was happening in the beginning, but then... the entire mushroom forest started to rattle, their trunks trembled while their tentacles moved around, and the color of their caps brightened.

Erik: "interesting... looks like a superorganism..."

Rose: "that's actually bad, as the bigger the organism, the better its defenses... and they seem to be in pain..."

They then saw the mushroom's tentacles circling the bot, trying to sting it while also releasing more spores, but nothing worked on the machine as finally, it cut through the mushroom. The rattling of the surrounding mushrooms quickly intensified, as a glowing liquid floated out of the cut stalk.

The bot quickly collected and scanned a sample.

Erik: "what is it?"

Rose: "it's a strange liquid..., it contains proteins, minerals and small amounts of fats along with really strong addictive additives..., like a superior version of nicotine"

Erik: "what the f-"

Rose: "wait! I'm sensing something!"

A black shadow then emerged in front of the bot, holding the bot's bladed arm with a claw, as more shadows emerged around it, holding it in place, while another shadow emerged next to the cut stalk.

They then saw it clearly, it was a big blind crab man the size of an elephant, it quickly drank the glowing milky sap and approached other nearby mushrooms, the mushroom's tentacles extended and touched the crab's mouth, pumping it full of more sap.

Erik: "so they are like trained guard dogs... interesting..."

Rose: "it also explains what those crabs usually eat..."

The huge crab then looked back at the bot, menacingly lifting a huge claw.

Erik: "time to blow it..."

Rose: "agreed... 3...2...1... boom~"

*Boom!!!* The bot along with all the ammunition and explosives it was carrying all exploded in a big explosion full of bubbles, along with a shock wave that ripped to shreds both the crab men and dozens of surrounding mushrooms, making the surviving mushrooms shake way faster.

Erik: "let's try some more explosions!"

Erik and the others pointed their guns at the other side of the door and all opened fire.

*BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!!* dozens of explosions rocketed the mushroom forest, blowing up the crab men and an entire stretch of the mushroom forest, leaving only a cloud of bubbles along with mushroom and corpse chunks.

Erik: "hold your fire! lets-"

*RUMBLE!* but a deep rumble interrupted him, seemingly coming from far away.

Rose: "big lifeforms approaching!"

The tunnel started shaking *SKREEE!* as a screech resonated the tunnels, and they soon saw the origin of the noise quickly approaching, dozens of spiderfish covered in glowing fungus.

Erik: "OPEN FIRE!!"

*BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!!* the explosions rocketed the tunnel again as the shells maimed or destroyed the rotting walking corpses, but... the beasts felt no fear, no pain... grabbing to the walls and ceilings as they advanced.

Rose: "CLOSE THE DOOR!"

Shana quickly grabbed the gear key from the mutant leader and swam to the lock, quickly twisting it and making the doors slowly start to close.

Amanda: "they won't close on time teacher!"

Rose: "I know!"

Another two bots then charged through the doors, unloading all of their ammunition and finally running between the charging beasts and past them, causing those in front to collapse as they tried to turn around on the spot, and becoming obstacles that other creatures stumbled down on, other creatures caught up to the bots all around and piled up over them, trying to infect them but being unable to do so.

Finally, the doors seemed about to close as the shots continued taking down those corpse puppets of the ceiling and sidewalls, when... *BOOM! BOOM!* after doing all the harm they could physically, bot bots exploded, raining chunks all over the tunnel, and making all other corpses either fall or pause.

Only five meters remained for the doors to close and monstrosities started to squeeze through the gap by the dozens.

Rose: "change to normal ammunition! Erik, Timberly, Inky, and Amanda come forward! the rest stay back and give cover fire!"

All: "UNDERSTOOD!"

All the octopeople formed a semicircle around the door, with the bots in front of them, leaving the mutants on the back while Erik, Amanda, Rose, Inky, and Timberly stepped forward in another semicircle.

Erik: "aim for the heads or at least cripple them!"

Erik swung his vibroswords as he sliced the head of a spiderfish, but... to his surprise, it continued moving sluggishly, only when he cut another two big mushrooms on its body did it fall to the ground.

Amelia on the back saw it, giving the order "aim for the mushrooms soldiers!"

Amanda used a bayonet, while Inky used a chainsword, both of them weren't good at close quarters, but Rose with her thunder mace and Timberly with her huge sharp spear completely compensated for that.

Rose easily blew up the torsos of the monsters, while Timberly's quick spear moves cut them onto pieces.

Meanwhile, the bullets from the octopeople and bots focussed fire at those at the gate, were lots of corpses accumulated, but thankfully although slow, the doors had plenty of strength as they chewed through the corpses and finally managed to close.

Without more reinforcements from the monster horde the rest of the fungus puppets were easily dealt with, and everyone could finally take a rest.

Erik: "...I think... we will need a detour..."

Everyone nodded as hits could still be heard on the door, they couldn't do anything about the spores in the water, but at least they made sure to destroy all mushrooms on the corpses that had made it through, and Erik collected some samples. They didn't even return the key as that path was better left closed.

They retreated back, turning left and choosing another tunnel pointing in the same direction, this one was luckily smaller, as they came to a door that barely fit Timberly crouched, and only allowed for two people at a time to walk as it was also quite narrow.

Erik: "this should be a service tunnel for low rank octopeople... with how narrow it is, it should be safe..."

Inky: "don't jinx us!"

Erik: "ah! sorry..."

This door didn't have a side room with a key, just a box carved on the left wall that they easily opened and took a rectangular key out of it, putting it in a hole on the door and just twisting it sideways. The door opened quickly to a surprisingly clean hallway.

Erik: "surprisingly clean..."

Timberly: "it's too early to relax yet, the tight space will make us vulnerable..., I hate tight passages, no space to swing my weapons ugh..."

Rose shrugged: "just stab forward then"

Megan: "shouldn't we let the mutants go forward? not to sound rude but... they are used to this environment..."

Erik: "...fine..." he turned back to the mutant leader and made a forward motion.

The mutant leader heavily nodded as she and five other slightly taller adults moved forward and entered the tunnel, the lights of orange glowing algae still shining from tubes on the walls, and the lights from the power armor helmets illuminating the tunnel, as only a thin layer of mud covered the floor.

---

Meanwhile, a the bottom of a large deep tunnel stood a big cavern the size of six football fields, corpses and skeletons covered the entire floors as a gigantic mushroom forest covered the entire space, and in the middle of them all, atop the skull of a monster corpse that probably occupied the entire chamber long ago... grew a mushroom as tall as a tree. The mushroom had a thick trunk of at least ten meters in diameter, with a wide cap on top that occupied almost the entire ceiling, giving a blue glow to the cavern as lush with tentacles hanging down from it.

An army of blind crab men drank liquid from its many tentacles as they brought corpses to it, some of the crab men were maimed and injured, but they drank first before even tending to their own wounds, they had sizes that went from the size of a horse, to those the size of a bus, and they further diversified in those light with sharp pincers, and those with a heavy caparace that made them living tanks.

Everything looked calm, but then... the walls slightly trembled and then all the mushrooms in the cavern started shaking in distress. The big mushroom then shook and released a dense plume of glowing spores, while a slit opened on its trunk, revealing a big red eye in the shape that crab men used to have, the look in the eye was enraged as it looked in the direction of Erik's group. Its tentacled canopy then produced a thick white glowing fluid that made the blind crab men go mad as they consumed it, and then they ferociously ran in that direction.