#3 Finding a Truffle Finding Pig

Professor Egon Ward was a horrid little man in literally every possible sense. By halfling standards, he was short. Coming in at a Napoleonic 2’ nothing, he was the smallest member of the Imaginarium by height and weight. He was also, and reader this is important, a massive dick. Sitting at the ticket stand just outside camp, Egon took in the scene with weary eye – his left was a solid gold orb which seemed to crackle with malevolence. See the world, they said. It’ll be fun, they said; though in actuality there was little to Poset worth seeing outside of Verayi, there was little to Verayi worth seeing outside of Blaegrity – and he hadn’t been back there for quite some time. It was no longer permitted.

When the Imaginarium was fully unpacked it really was something to see, Egon could give them that. High top tents, little miniature stages, and the merchant wagons were rolled out in little columns behind the whole thing. A fortune would be made and lost as the swarms of people came from near and far to see the wonders of this traveling carnival. “Thank you for coming, please enjoy your stay.” Egon hissed through his northern accent as he rolled out three tickets to a chubby Lamalonian family. They all looked oafish, piglike, ferrous and lumpy to him as their pink cheeks grew pinker, their sweaty faces oozed, and their lumbering feet pounded the crisp earth like an ant to the fist of god. The line was thin but still got in the way, much like Egon’s hairline; and as he dispensed another clump of tickets to another conjoined bristle of flesh which called itself a family he murmured. “Thank you for coming to Madam Carpenter’s Imaginarium, here on the banks of the historic Beqq River which –“

They had walked away. He was an expert in world history – an expertise hard won and fought for in the halls of Blaegrity, denoted by a little pip attached to his lapel like a third eye shining his supremacy to the masses, but they just walked away. Egon was done for the day, leaving a dozen or so confused patrons standing in front of the stand. One scratched his head, muttering “maybe he’s on a break…” as they were left impotently alone. Dear reader, Egon was not on a break. He was not coming back.

Going into the merchant’s area, Egon decided he would find something to do that warranted his massive intellect – perhaps there was a task which could be achieved that called for a historian. Perhaps he could do it, and then seize ensuing riches and power etcetera etcetera. Walking along the row, there were a few options. The Stromppish Artificer, Agnes Nuttbrune, was doing her best not to do anything useful at all. Even at a glance, Egon could tell there was a secret to her skills beyond the mundane acquisition of talent over a lifetime. The pair were kindreds in that, but Egon also just didn’t feel like talking to her. Even in passing the “Oh hello, dear professor. Having a lovely break, are we?” was enough to convince him of that. Her annoying sing-songy accent wafted above the discordant carnival din and penetrated the palace of his mind. Being incredibly short, Egon was not equipped to quickly walk past people and pretend he didn’t hear them. The longer it took for him to respond the more awkward it became, and Egon was paralyzed with mortified humiliation.

Next on the row was August, very boring. Clarice Von Malbrecht leading a little goblin welp in prayers and, Egon shuddered, flagellation. “Ah, Master Weighs.” Egon said, spying the most interesting of the merchants – not a high bar, but there was one thing which set Gulliver out. Two things which set Gulliver out. A few things which set Gulliver out, but the main one was that he had magic.

Gulliver looked up, his silver eyes peeping through blue skinned face hooded by a dirty hood. “Oh Egon, just the man. I’ve been running into a bit of a problem and I was wondering if you could help. You see I’ve decided that I’m going to make us all sunscreen, side note; sorry should’ve led with this, but you know that the Imaginarium is heading south into Lyzarin’ja. Of course you know that, but maybe like you forgot? Anyway, because we’re going to the desert I decided to spend some time figuring out potions I could make to help us, and because the main feature of a desert is the sun, and the heat, and heat stroke, and death I figured I could make us all magic sunscreen. With a bit of trial and error I came up with a potion which works as sunscreen – easy to make using mostly common ingredients, but there’s one rare thing which is the extract of Beqq Truffles. Because we’re on the Beqq now, and will be on the Beqq for a few weeks there’s probably going to be enough truffles between here and Shadiq, but the thing about the truffles are that they’re pretty hard to find. Which makes them expensive. Now I considered buying a lot of truffles, but the thing is that I don’t have much money because I spent all my money on that sign over there. Also I know that we’re going to need to make more sunscreen again, and also the uses for truffles go beyond just sunscreen anyway so I should probably stop just acting like this is a sunscreen issue when it’s really an issue issue, so my thought was that we could spend a little more money and buy a truffle finding pig which is basically like a pig that’s good at finding truffles which we could use to find truffles. That way, we would always have enough truffles, and also maybe even end up having a cool pig which would be cool and I think make life better so what do you say?” He said.

Egon Ward blinked. “Would you mind running that by me again?” Generally speaking, Gulliver fit all of his thoughts into one breath – speaking faster to compensate. That little speech had taken about five to ten seconds, and Egon was still only on his first cup of coffee for the morning.

“Sun causes cancer, sun is blocked by screen, screen needs magic truffle, truffle is found by pig.” Gulliver repeated, though incidentally he did it at the same breakneck speed. It was like he was being charged for every second he talked.

Egon Ward blinked for a second time. “Alright then.” He considered. Surely, the massive weight of his unwieldy intellect was too vast and important to devote to such a tiny mission, such a triviality as to look for ‘an pig.’ That said, a little glint on Gulliver’s desk (he didn’t even have his pip on his lapel) reminded Egon all too well who he was talking to. Gulliver was blue, and therefore unlike almost any other life form Egon had ever seen (more on that in a minute). Owing to the enigma of Gulliver’s race, it was difficult to guess how old he was but from his face and body, probably around late adolescence. Despite that, in fact one might say ‘flying in the face of that’ he had a ‘Master of Wizardry” pip from Blaegrity. In all of Poset, only sixty-seven people living today held that rank, and Gulliver got his before he could look over the top of a bar. In the interest of fairness, Egon also could not look over the top of the bar but had achieved the lesser expert rank, and while that may not track to you it certainly tracked for him.

Intent on completing this task, more for the sake of sucking up to a Master of Wizardry than because he agreed with the weird and confusing explanation given for sunscreen, Egon walked into camp past the aforementioned sign. He sneered. It was a little piece of wood which had the word “Potions” neatly engraved in what seemed to be glistening magic ink. Right next to it “and poisons” was scrawled in regular ink. Next to that was the word “and…” followed by a difficult to decipher list in shrinking, spiralling letters far to the edge of the sign and, it would seem, onto the back. According to the list, Gulliver provided a prodigious catalogue of sundries up to and including panini, though another glance at the grubby wizard made Egon decide to pass.

If he was going to acquire a pig of the truffle hunting variety, Egon would need information. No doubt, a nearby town would be able to tender such an animal, but the Imaginarium was traveling along the Cadfaelik bank of the Beqq – therefore, the towns would be Cadfaelik, therefore; the towns would be more than a little bonkers. He would need a navigator, a shrewd negotiator, and one or two meat shields for good measure.

Spying his first candidate for meat shield, Egon Ward approached the disturbingly tall Clarice Von Malbrecht as she brought her ‘vhip’ down on that little goblin for the umpteenth time. “Please! Magic woman, Splugg is frightened and confused!” He cried as she hit him again.

“Zen allow my vhip to be your teacher.” Though it was beneath Egon to gossip about a woman of the cloth, he was almost certain this was sexual.

Swallowing hard, Egon decided that this would have to do. “Good Morning, Madam Pontifex.” Egon was not sure if Clarice was a Pontifex of the Order Ex Quo or just a cleric from the Church of Lamalon, but figured it was a compliment if she wasn’t. Her ears pricked at the word, a good sign, so he continued; “And what has this unworthy swine done to deserve such a thorough… castigation?”

Locking her jaw in a mock indignance, Clarice straddled the floorbound goblin with three-inch heels. “Zis Goblin vas involved in a vicked plot to subvert ze vill of innocence through ze use of dark magic.” It was like she was in an erotic novel, every word smouldered and burned as though absent their actual meaning. Egon shuddered, beastly woman. “I have been tasked vith setting him on ze straight and narrow.”

Tasked by who? Egon wondered. Doubtless not Madam Carpenter, and aside from her (perhaps aside from Goodman who would never sanction this either) nobody commanded the authority to ‘task’ Clarice Von Malbrecht. Self-assigned, then. Self-assigned through boredom and self-aggrandizing small minded narcissism. Egon could relate to that. “Then perhaps, you would allow me to borrow him for a while. There is a function I’ve been commissioned to perform and –”

“And who are you?” Egon stiffened at those words. She sized him up from titanic six foot frame, her eyes blue pinpricks of cold lightning - ready to freeze and burn without a moment’s hesitation.

Swallowing his pride, no small task for his diminutive throat, Egon introduced himself. “Where are my manners? I am Professor Egon Ward, Expert of History from Blaegrity.” Judging from her south Verayian accent, the name Blaegrity would either awe or insult her, but Egon’s pride made it impossible not to mention. “Gulliver requires ingredients for a potion which is of the upmost importance to Madam Carpenter, the acquisition of which necessitates the traversal of some into the Mushroom Forest. I would be ill advised to go without an escort, and so –”

“If zis task is so important zen vhy vas I not considered?”

Egon blinked. She was so narcissistic that being left out of a scum crawl through the musky forest of boredom seemed like a sleight. Clearly, he had some catching up to do. “Because,” Egon mused dangerously. “I have never once considered you.”

“Thanks for saving Splugg!” The little Goblin pepped up, though he was somehow still taller than Egon. Egon nursed a welt on the side of his face, no matter. It was worth seeing her go off the handle, that and he’d blasted her into the swamp with a wall of magical power. To those who were uneducated it may seem like a sword in the right hand is just as potent as the arcane arts, but such thoughts were unworthy of an ascended mind. Clarice was strong, she was fast, she could conjure divine light to make her sword blaze and burn – nothing in the face of a Blaegrity trained spellmaster. She’d gotten a lucky shot in which Egon was nursing with his satin handkerchief, but now she had a busted shoulder and would have to dredge the swamp for missing armour pieces. Fool.

“It was nothing.” He said. “She was nothing, and now my dear little creature; you will be something.”

Splugg seemed to like that, as he pepped up a little. Egon was beginning to suspect that the creature wasn’t stupid per say – rather, he didn’t speak common very well. When Splugg said “Splugg thinks we need cat woman.” It sounded like a childish, asinine babble for a moment… but then Egon followed his line of sight to see Ediniira Skye, walking on the palms of her hands, across the camp to her adoptive brother who manned the all but abandoned dunk tank. She performed an acrobatic vault and landed on the table in front of him – casually chatting. She had a pair of small, difficult to spot animal ears – maybe not a cat, as Splugg had guessed, then again; he might have lacked the word ‘fox.’ She was another simple-minded buffoon who’d gladly go running into a horde of the undead while Egon kept a safe distance, a perfect compliment to his collection of meat shields.

“C’mon Farid…” She cooed to her brother in a childish tone. “If I teach you to fight then we can fight each other! It’ll be so much fun!” Clearly, she was not his biological sibling. The foxlike characteristics which set her apart from what would otherwise be a normal human were absent from Farid, just as Farid’s blue skin was absent from her. One with an untrained eye might mistake Farid for the same race as Gulliver – their blue skin being a defining characteristic, but there were subtleties not to be missed. Farid’s eyes were a soft glowing blue and his hair a human looking black (thick and kinky, like those from Lyzarin’ja). Gulliver’s was straight and silver. Farid was both younger than Gulliver in years but more developed in body (Egon knew for a fact he’d just turned 18, as Rushan had thrown a rather awkward party to celebrate his son’s closening death). He was at a respectable adult height of around 5’9, with broad shoulders and the narrow hips a young man could effortlessly carry off. Egon was starting to get a little hot and bothered, shaking his head as he began to approach.

“Hail, friends.” He said to the boy and his sister. “How goes the day?”

Ediniira cocked her head quizzically, before flipping over her hands and landing upright. “It’s going the same speed it always does.” She lived up to a lot of blonde stereotypes. “Hey, you look really tough.” She grinned at the Splugg, who did a double take before checking behind to make sure someone else hadn’t just walked up. “We should fight!”

“Alas, another time.” Egon had so little patience for this bullshit, it was uncanny. “Although if it’s a fight you’re after, I might have just the ticket.”

She scratched her head. “I guess you were working the ticket stand…”

The anger boiled up inside Egon’s heart like a seething brew of hot tea. Under normal circumstances, said tea would spill through gritted teeth to scold the imbecilic, but he needed her. Taking no small amount of effort to swallow that, he turned his head to Farid. “Splendid. Simply splendid. And what about you, Genasi?” The technical term for a half genie – a rare, but by no means unknowable, race that Farid happened to be a member of. “I assume you are versed in… magic.” He said the word with reverence, indeed; magic was the only thing Egon had reverence for.

“I’m… not.” Farid muttered, his luminescent eyes dimming in shame. Egon couldn’t tell if that was a lie, but either way the idea of this potent magical being having no training was unconscionable. Like leaving a fine wine out to spoil. Those naturally gifted in magic who opt not to practice were sickening, spitting in the face of those who had to beg hand over fist for the smallest scrap of power, but he had forgotten himself and was starting to stare. “Anyway, my dad wants me to man the dunk tank.” He continued, sheepishly hooking a thumb at the odd contraption behind him. A massive glass tank filled with melted butter, astride which sat a cross looking lizardman – Ba’Tok. Unsurprisingly, nobody had dared unseat him.

“I do not understand the reason for my sitting here.” He put in, unhelpfully.

“It’s part of the game. It’s fun.” Farid tried to explain, though he was cut off.

“I have no concept of fun.”

Apparently, Egon thought; though was wise enough not to say aloud. “Hang on a second –“ Ediniira cut back in, apparently having just picked up the thread of the conversation. “You guys are going on a quest!”

“Oh pish.” Egon swept her enthusiasm away like a bothersome insect. “It is merely a trip down to the shops.”

From the look on his face, Farid really wanted to come. Ediniira cottoned onto this as well, adding “C’mon Farid. It’ll be fun. Your dad won’t mind us heading down to the shops!” Your dad, Egon clocked it though decided the implications were too boring to invest in and subsequently discarded it. “We can fight loads of cool monsters on the way, try some yummy food! It’ll be a blast!”

The blue skinned dunk tank manager pondered long and hard, but it was clear even from the outside that his inner monologue was made up of his father’s voice and also his father’s voice with a higher pitch. Shaking his head, he asserted. “I’ll be fine.” Then he continued. “Do you know…” He swallowed hard and his skin took on a purple flush. “Do you know which town you’re headed to?”

The question was leading, but Egon decided perhaps to allow this boy to lead. He was probably magical, and therefore; worthy of respect. “I haven’t the foggiest. I assumed one Cadfaelik hellhole to be much like another.”

“Right, well…” He reached into his pocket and drew a letter. “I wrote this for a boy in a town called –” He tapped his noggin playfully as he recalled the name. “I think it was Ainderu.” He sighed before presenting the paper to Egon. “Can you please see that he gets it?”

Taking the letter, Egon gave it the once over. The sealed envelope had the name ‘Levi’ neatly embroidered – too neatly for carny trash, but that just showed the boy’s innate supremacy. Egon’s enchanted eye could read the contents just by holding the paper and within was a truly insipid love poem. Oh to be young again, Egon thought. He didn’t have the heart to say no, having almost no heart at all. “It will be safe in my hands.”

“Now typically when we handle acquisitions its important to investigate the market price before heading to allocate funds, but as this is so vitally important to the success of our business in the desert I feel discretion is the better part of frugality.” Goodman butchered the appropriated saying through trembling jowls as he walked abreast with Egon Ward toward the mushroom forest. For once in his life, Egon was happy walking with someone – not because he liked Goodman, per se; but the man’s substantial frame slowed his gate to a bounding wobble which Egon had no trouble keeping pace with. “If we all die of sunstroke, we aren’t going to make very much money.” He shuddered, a reflex that rippled across his entire frame. “Or worse, break even.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Egon nodded, meaning to say I would not have said it at all. Unlike the rest of Poset which had a generally terrestrial terrain, Cadfael was overgrown with towering mushrooms the size of trees. On closer examination, what seemed to be grass were actually little yellowgreen shoots – any step would send a cloud of mycelium spores into the air, offering an earthy, terd-like aroma. The ground seemed to trap moisture, adding a nauseating squelch to every step. Egon hated Poset, but specifically he decided that he hated Cadfael. “You really didn’t have to come along.” He offered to his employer (by technicality only).

“And let you get swindled? Never.” Owing to his rounded head shape, Goodman seemed to always be smiling – though when he actually did offer a grin it took on a sinister, conniving look. “May I be frank with you, Professor Ward, I do not know how one such as yourself came to be employed by my Imaginarium.”

“Well, that seems like a you sort of problem.” Egon looked dead ahead. Ediniira and Splugg were doing there best to jump at shadows – anything that could be a vampire, a living skeleton, or maybe a cool tree was treated with scrutiny and suspicion. They were here to do this, but that didn’t make it less annoying. “You were passing through Clayonne and I was looking for new work, nothing much to tell.”

“And yet, you are still here.” Egon blinked, he tried not to meet Goodman’s gaze, those beady little eyes were impenetrable – they may as well be black marbles for what they told him. Perhaps Egon had underestimated the businessman, a mistake which could cost him if he didn’t take care. “You have an expertise in history, you could teach anywhere but you choose to sell tickets at our little fun fair.”

“I’ll admit it doesn’t make much sense.” Egon wandered with his words, looking for a way to push Goodman off footing. “Then again, it also doesn’t make much sense for a Trost businessman to run a third-rate fun fair.”

That got him, as Goodman flushed somewhat. “Well, I don’t mean to pry.” A lucky guess, Egon fumed. Goodman’s accent was faint – it could’ve been Trost or just a speech impediment. His suit was Trost style, admittedly, but it was shabby. Could’ve easily been second hand, but Egon decided to count his blessings and progress. “I just mean to say I find you to be a singularly interesting individual.” He continued, producing a bottle from somewhere within the suit – Trost Red. He produced a pair of glasses, also from seemingly nowhere; and tipped one to Egon.

“Thank you.” He took it and sipped. Egon had no need to eat or drink, his digestive system was decorative and so would not metabolize the liquid as it passed through his lips – still, refusing would be rude. “To singularly interesting things.”

“To the start of a singularly profitable relationship.” Goodman swallowed and poured another glass – the bottle seemed to still be full somehow. Could this enigmatic man have magic?

From ahead, Ediniira let out a cry. “There you are!” And let loose a swift rain of punches at… something? Squinting, Egon’s good eye told him it was a skeleton? Maybe a ghoul? Whatever, it was one of the shambling dead which haunted these lands. Good, he thought. This meant they were getting close.

In total, the group had to dispatch around a dozen skeletons, ghouls, and ghasts on the road to Ainderu. Ediniira didn’t care that she was getting slime all over her skin with every punch, a detail that disgusted Egon. The closer they got to the city, the more there were. No doubt the castoffs from a much larger undead horde led by a vampire warlord. While the precise mechanisms of their control escaped Egon, he knew that the vampiric thralls were not absolute slaves. Rather, they were semi-autonomous drones – like ants or bees. If they got too far from their master, they tended to grow independent. Attacking any and all who came into range.

It was night by the time they reached the city. Ainderu was a small settlement, surrounded by marshy swamps and what appeared to be towering black stone walls; they were actually a finely entwined fungal growth. It formed irregular little stalks at the top which may have been mistaken for turrets, winding down towards an intricately toothed gate – green and black banners hung from the parapets with a little mushroom emblazoned in silver. A mushroom, or was it a frog? Say what you will about vampires, they aren’t graphic designers.

Under the flags was a single woman (meaning a lone woman, Egon had no information on her marital status). She was human or human looking, with matted auburn hair, leather armour, and a substantial glaive crooked over one shoulder. She tipped her head at the approaching travellers. “Hold, approaching travellers.” She said to the approaching travellers. “Ainderu is closed. Plague.”

“Welp, there you have it.” Goodman said, turning on his heel as he began to walk back the opposite direction.

“Hold on a moment…” Egon considered, stopping the Trost in his tracks. It had taken a day to get here, the Imaginarium would move on in three, so he only had a couple days to find the pig, get back, and suck up to Gulliver. That, and the last thing he wanted was to fish around this hellscape for another town, so he wasn’t about to let Ainderu go. “What sort of plague?” A selfish question, as Egon would be unaffected by almost any disease – the exception being those which cause necrosis.

The scary lady with the scary spear tipped her head in a scary way. “Plague not enough for you?”

“We are on a mission of the upmost importance.”

“Weren’t we just gonna buy a pig?” Ediniira murmured, but was silenced by a withering stare.

Egon continued. “It would be most inconvenient for us to be waylaid in this endeavour, and so please I ask you…” Lightning crackled around him. “Get the fuck out of our way.”

She flinched. “Fine, your funeral.” She stepped aside, allowing them to pass. “If you wanna get flesh eating parasites knock yourself out.”

Shit. Egon thought as he passed through the interwoven gate of black stalks, leading a nervous trio of adventurers – duo of adventurers and Goodman – into the unknown. If Egon had even an ounce of self-awareness, he might have spotted the irony in this: how his willingness to risk the safety of others but not his own was a pinnacle of hypocrisy, but reader (and this is important) he did not. Egon scanned the dark with his good eye, the golden orb rotating in his skull at a violent, mesmerizing pace. With it his gaze could pierce rock, wood, and mushroom – a convenient addendum as many of the structures of Cadfael were carved from living shoots, that or cultivated into intentional regular shapes. Like a lot of things in the region, from a distance they looked like regular houses – with thatched rooves and strong dark wood crossbeams holding up weaker painted wood, but as the group drew closer it became clear they were actually just detailed facsimiles of normalcy. A collection of mushrooms, lifeforms which grow by feeding on death, masquerading as life.

“You wanna tell me what that was all about?” Goodman turned a puzzled gaze on Egon.

He sighed. “There is little enough time to complete this task, and I am sure there is less to this plague than she claimed.”

“And what exactly do you base that on?”

“Intuition.” Egon shrugged, opening the door to a tavern – also the only building which contained a concentration of people. Surely, Egon thought, if the plague were that serious people wouldn’t congregate in such close proximity like that. That would be really stupid.

The tavern was packed, though it would be dishonest to say ‘with people from all walks of life’ as the literal opposite was true. Almost everyone here wore the typical uniform for a miner (goggles, helmets, leather overalls), they had pickaxes and mining tools at their sides, their faces smudged with soot from digging, one or two coughed – no doubt black lung. Using his shrewd intellect, Egon intuited that this was a mining town. There were two exceptions to the rule – the first was who the group approached. A living skeleton stood behind the bar, and though she had no meat on her bones she seemed to have fashioned fake tits out of wadded up cloth. “Hey, I’m Lynda!” Lynda the busty skeleton said. “You guys look new in town, didn’t Gal tell you there was a plague on?”

“You all don’t seem too worried about it.” Goodman said, finely balancing his tone between friendly joviality and shrewdness. Interesting, he made himself non-threatening but also not one to be trifled with.

Lynda shrugged – Lynda did her best at shrugging, a gesture mostly lost without the accompanying muscles. “I’m a talking skeleton, they’re vampire thralls. We all gotta die some time.” She mused for a moment. “But you don’t wanna talk about that, let me get you a drink!”

“You’re right.” Egon mused, “What we actually want to talk about is animal husbandry.”

“And drinks!” Splugg pepped up.

“And drinks.” Goodman confirmed.

As she poured a few flasks of brown fluid (from the smell a type of mushroom ale) Lynda said: “Animal husbandry is a bit of a hard pivot, but I can dig it. You looking to buy –”

“A pig.” Egon said, with every ounce of menace he could muster – no small quantity between his frightening gold eye and equally intimidating foreign accent. “A truffle finding pig.”

“Well…” Lynda thought. “The Todestool Court are putting on a market tomorrow. The Vamps are immune to the plague, and well…” For a moment she stood perfectly still, and it took a moment for Egon to realize that she was trying to shudder. “With the mine closed down they wanna make some income. Ainderu is the closest trading post for a lot of the ranches, so it seemed like the play.”

“Ranches!” With the word, Ediniira’s face lit up. She was, perhaps it is unnecessary to mention, not especially bright. For the bulk of the conversation her blue eyes had faded to a murky grey, but the second she heard something she understood the light was back. “Why don’t we go! I’ll bet we could see all kinds of cool things! Pigs, horses, cows, chickens –”

“No no, my dear.” Goodman murmured into his drink. “Not that kind of ranch.”

She didn’t understand. Looking around the bar, she tipped her head quizzically. “What kind of ranch is it?”

Thinking carefully, Goodman didn’t want to shatter her girlish illusions, but also; she needed to know what was going on here. “Well… think about it.” He said with a great deal of care. “People eat pigs, cows, chickens… what d’you think vampires eat?”

She thought for a moment, then her face went white. “Oh.” She spat out her drink.

“No, that’s fine!” Lynda put in quickly. “Just kombucha – basically mushroom beer.” She shook her head, letting the thin main of surviving hairs ripple. “And they do regular animals too. Truffles are big business here, sure you can find what you need. Say… does that mean you’ll be needing a room for the night?”

“If you would be so kind.” Goodman put in. “We are just humble travellers and as such have little in the way of coin to compensate you for your services.”

She waved a boney hand – literally boney. “We thralls don’t have much use for coin anyway. Now a good story, that will get you a room.”

“Great!” Ediniira pepped up. “So I woke up in the desert with no memory, and –”

“Actually…” Lynda tipped her head, her version of a friendly smile. “I was going to ask about the halfling’s shiner.” She gestured to the revolving globe which had seemed to be smashed into Egon’s skull – the second she pointed it out, the spinning stopped and what passed for an iris (more an intricate arcane sigil than a dot) locked squarely on her. Even though it was done some time ago, thin vain-like welts sprouted from it as roots of a dying weed.

“You want to know how I got this eye.” Egon paused, Lynda nodded. No one knew, no one was allowed to know, about his eye. It was his secret shame, ironically slammed into his skull for all and sundry to see. A hanging question mark, they were supposed to look but never touch at the eldritch truths within. He smiled, a thin dangerous smile. “Honestly, there isn’t as much of a story as you would expect.” He lied. “When I was a young boy, a time not so long ago as you might expect.” The middle-aged college professor continued to lie. “I was running in the fields of my native Verayi with a group of the other kids. I tripped, landed on a rock, and as they say ‘That’s curtains.’” He continued, his forked tongue flickering through teeth of fiction. “The original implant was porcelain, actually; but when I became a professor at Blaegrity I was able to acquire this little trinket. It’s fun, I can see through it, but if you were looking for a legendary magical artifact of untold power than I’m sorry to say you will have to be disappointed.” He concluded his lie. Now it would be easier to say what was true in that story than what was not, as the only truth in the entire cavalcade of bullshit was that Egon had acquired the eye during his tenure as a professor. Everything else, even the fact that he had friends as a child, was a fiction. Fabricated like some of Egon’s hairline, but reader; Egon was a master weaver of deception. He spoke with such an honest, inoffensive verisimilitude that it was impossible not to believe, and pity, this wretched little creature.

The skeleton bar maid with fake mammaries sunk her head a little, clearly disappointed by the dull explanation but none the less convinced. “Well, there you have it. What were you saying about being lost in the desert again?”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The night went on, and during that time the group were able to ascertain a few key details. For one, Ainderu had been built by the Todestool court (yes, it was spelled that way) a few centuries ago to mine the mineral wealth below. Upon opening deeper tunnels the previous year, many of the miners had been struck ill with a deadly flesh eating plague. As said plague had no effect on the vampires, mining continued until turnover became so high that it was affecting productivity. Now closed down, the people of Ainderu were basically ‘catching their breath’ until the source of the plague could be determined, apparently by a traveling Cleric who’d shown up in town a few weeks ago to treat the sick and dying. This ‘Sister Lenore’ was in the workhouse at all hours, no doubt learning all the murky secrets of the plague though reportedly made little progress in stopping it. Sitting and sipping his original mug of ale (all liquid he’d have to regurgitate later) Egon took in the room. His eye could do more than see, and as he observed he also had the ability to tune into the pointless little conversations of his companions.

Across the room, little Splugg has built up the courage to speak with the second ‘outsider’ in the tavern. A figure wearing a heavy black coat and fedora over his eyes, though even that did little to mask the octopus like tendrils coming from his face. “Hello, Me Splugg! Who are you?”

“Would you keep it down!” The creature flicked it’s head nervously, the tendrils spewing from under that wide brimmed hat. “I am trying to retain a low profile.”

“Splugg can help!” He said in a voice which indicated he had no idea what the phrase ‘low profile’ meant. “Splugg is really low all the time!”

The creature sighed. “Well fine, just sit here next to me and do your best not to cause a scene.” Flicking his head back and forth to make sure no one was watching, the creature seemed to relax a little. Not very perceptive, Egon noted, as he hadn’t been noticed. Then again, Egon was able to observe them through the back of his own head so perhaps that wasn’t a fair expectation to lay on this entity.

“What you doing?”

Thinking for a moment, the creature decided honesty was the best policy and began “My name is Damascus Moldark. I am a traveling novelist seeking inspiration for my next –” And gone. Egon’s eye whirled away from that conversation faster than he could blink (not to imply he had an eyelid).

Ediniira seemed to have overheard something and was approaching a table full of young, unusually handsome miners. The most handsome of which was a jockish half-orc. “Did you say his name was Levi!?” Ediniira screeched, also loud enough for Egon to hear with his actual ears. “I’ve been looking for a guy named Levi, are you friends with Farid?”

There was a silence. The half-orc, apparently, Levi scanned the other occupants of the table. “Who wants to know?”

“I do!” She responded helpfully. While Splugg wasn’t fluent in common and seemed not to understand some words (especially when it came to idioms), Ediniira was just dense. That was Egon’s take, at any rate. He was unwilling to give two creatures the benefit of the doubt today, and unfortunately for little Edi; Splugg got to it first.

Levi, for that was who this jockish half-orc was, squinted. He got to his feet, his full height of 5’11 with glistening muscles screaming to escape what must have been a painted on tank top. “Fine, I’m Levi.” The young man confirmed, his gravelly voice guttural and simplistic. He probably wasn’t even literate, Egon thought, and reader; that really pushed the nightmarish little man into a lustful frenzy. You see, the libido of Egon Ward was tittering on a balance between two things – the first was his supreme and singular belief in the sovereignty of magic above all else (and therefore, the inferiority of nonmagical, uneducated, simple people who work with their hands), and the second part; his desire to be absolutely dominated by them. Just seeing that brutish half orc bristle at Ediniira, not a handful of syllables between them, caused Egon’s heart to palpitate – well, a figure of speech. Egon lacked a heartbeat as well, though oddly still had a pulse.

“Nice to meet you!” She grinned and tipped her head. Ediniira also seemed illiterate to the social situation, a detail a more considerate narrator may have pressed but alas one works with what one has. “I’m Ediniira, put ‘er there!” She extended a hand in the conventional greeting for most of Poset, though notably not Cadfael (as such a gesture leaves one vulnerable to the vampire’s bite). Levi was flapped, as opposed to being ‘unflappable’, as he stared down at the hand. Interpreting this for shyness, Ediniira just kept talking. “Wow, you look kinda strong! We should fight!” And took a fighting stance.

“What?” Levi broke, luckily he seemed to have read things correctly. Realizing there was something off with the fighter, he took a more sympathetic tone. “No thanks, sis.”

“Aw man.” She slumped, but it was more in a gesture of mock depression than anything. Then she remembered. “Oh hey, this!” Reaching into her coat, she produced a badly crumpled little paper with Levi’s name on it in Farid’s unmistakable handwriting. “Farid wanted me to give you this before he left.”

That startled Levi, who seemed almost afraid of the notion. Sweet. “Where’s he going?” He snatched the letter and opened it, scanning line for line he was no doubt disappointed both by the boy’s prose as well as the famine of exposition within.

“We’re heading south to Shadiq.” She responded with a toothy grin. “Say, do you want to come!? Maybe you’ll feel like fighting later!”

At that, Levi’s gaze drifted to another one of the miner’s – arguably the second best looking, though he had a lither frame which wasn’t really Egon’s type. Snapping back to Ediniira, he blushed (a turquoiseish colour on his already forest green skin) and answered “Sorry, gotta stay here. Being vampire thralls and all, we don’t really got much of a choice.”

“No way.” She took his hands in hers, a gesture he accepted with clear apprehension. “That is so sad.”

Rolling his eye, the human one, Egon disconnected from this little drama also. It would prove of no consequence that Farid’s little boyfriend was lost to time. Lovers came and go, the only thing that mattered was growth (a term which, to Egon meant, arcane growth). He took another sip of his kombucha by instinct, for a moment forgetting that he was unobserved and had no reason to do so, but the little moment of humanness was nice. Just don’t let it become a habit, Egon. If his eye weren’t already pointed backwards, specifically towards the door for optimum eavesdropping, Egon wouldn’t have seen Goodman slip out unnoticed – surprisingly inconspicuous for one so eye grabbing. Swallowing his last mouthful, Egon decided to follow.

“Going somewhere?” He asked Goodman some three hundred paces outside the tavern. This was not for dramatic effect, per say; rather it was the soonest he could catch up to Goodman after chasing him at an undignified trot for a minute. This was despite the fact that they’d left at the same time.

Goodman did not break stride – apparently, he could move a lot faster than Egon had first assumed from the waddling gate, and the little goblin (figurative goblin, Splugg – the literal goblin – was back in the bar) had to maintain his flailing trot to keep up. If he were still able to breath and perspire he would have been sweaty and out of breath, alas; neither was true. “I am going to do a little audit of the surrounding facilities.”

“I don’t understand why – can we please slow down?” It turned his face a hot red to admit his physical limitations to Goodman, but the businessman slowed a jot. “Why do you care about this place?”

“I don’t.” Goodman said, though even Egon could sense the vague dishonesty to that. At his core, Goodman was empathetic. Ew. “But if there is a plague in this town, we have to ensure it cannot be returned home with us.”

“Fair point.” That wasn’t something Egon had even considered. If they bought a plague back to the Imaginarium and it killed Gulliver there’d be no way to learn his secrets and co-opt his mystic power. “Are you suggesting that we invest time and resources into curing this plague?”

“Like you’ve got something better to do.” Huffed Goodman. The pair had reached the workhouse. It, unlike the rest of the town, was actually made from conventional building materials – not just designed to give of the appearance of them. Iron. Smelted into large sheets and fused together by some magical means – possible a rod of flame, though the artifact (and, for Egon, interest in the structure) were both long since gone.

Stepping inside, the pair were met with what had, at one point, been a monument to enslaved efficiency. Work station, rest stations, and punishment cells were all pushed to one side; making room now for a make shift infirmary. Though it hadn’t been apparent from the tavern, this space exposed the rot at the heart of Ainderu. Literally. A hundred workers – men, women, children as young as nine – lay sprawled on cots; some stacked in bunks three high. Shrouded in moth eaten blankets, they coughed and wheezed in mostly silent agony. Glancing at the nearest bunk, Egon instantly regretted it. A young woman, maybe seventeen, had been suffering from the later stages of infection. Her face looked like a rotting gourd after the Festival of Spirits. The skin, leathery and beaded in amber sweat. Her eyes, mouth, and nostrils were thinly veined and sunken in. Despite her skin’s original umber shade, it had festered to a putrid viridian white. But when she breathed in, that soft rattle which vibrated through the air like a bat in the night – kissed by the agony just tasting the workhouse’s stale air bought her – was enough to send a shiver down even Egon’s spine.

“Disgraceful.” Goodman said, his little mouth a thick line in circular face. “Treating workers like this… it’s not economical, not even good business.”

At the voice a head poked up – she was in the far back of the workhouse, no doubt invisible to Goodman’s mortal eyes, but she was there. Her hair was a fantasy red, the scarlet you would only see as the result of dye or… dare Egon dream? Enchantment. She shrouded herself in white, a nun’s habit. She was dressed as a Pontifex of the Order Ex Quo, an emblem of St Cuthbert at her throat, but she didn’t speak like a common clergy. “Hello? May I ask who is there?”

Now noticing her in the murky dark, Goodman called – though from his scanning gaze, he hadn’t quite found her yet. “My name is Goodman Grey, proprietor of Madam Carpenter’s Imaginarium – at your service. And this –”

“I am Professor Egon Ward, Expert of History.” He didn’t need to say from where, a Pontifex would understand the weight of that word implicitly.

She approached, her cloak catching the light as she closed the distance. “I am Sister Lenore of the Order ex Quo, Cult of St Cuthbert.” All information which could be read from her uniform, which said something to Egon. This Sister Lenore was a liar – or at least, she misled, misdirected, misrepresented her nature. “It is not safe in here, the plague is contagious to the touch.”

“So we shan’t touch anything.” Egon made no effort to hide the callousness in his voice.

She sized him up (something that took almost no time at all) and offered a wry smile. “There is no profit for you to turn here, only death.”

“Yet here you are, my dear.” Goodman put in. “We are only in town seeking to make a business arrangement, but were determined to ascertain the severity and nature of this plague before departing. Afterall, it makes little business sense to die before we can reap the profits.”

Rolling her eyes, Lenore shrugged. “The sick touched something in the deep mines that made them sick, they spread it by touching each other, and then they die. So long as you haven’t made contact you will be safe.”

“Is there…” Goodman stopped himself short of saying something stupid. Rephrasing his ask, he tried again with “Has there been any effective treatment?” Instead of asking after a ‘cure.’

“Not as such.” Lenore seemed disheartened. “The infection is parasitic, and none of the usual herbs or potions have proved effective in staunching it. The strong last a few weeks, but in time; all meet their ends. I’ve enforced this quarantine in the hopes of limiting the spread, though I fear once these have all died Sir Lehgo will just push more workers into the mine and the cycle will begin again.”

Goodman sighed. “Well, I am satisfied. There is nothing I want more than to get out of this town.” He turned on his heel, stopping in the doorway. “You ready to turn in, Professor?”

“Perhaps in a moment.” Egon didn’t give a rat’s ass about this plague, but the nun was hiding something. Maybe there was a secret power or arcane rite she knew of, but whatever the case; Egon would not let it out of his grip until he was convinced it had no value. “Why don’t you go on ahead? I’ll catch up.”

Shrugging a muffled “Suit yourself.” Goodman vanished into the night.

“Now, I feel we can speak more plainly.” Egon began, doing his best to conjure an aura of menace while looking up at the woman. It almost worked, though felt like unfounded confidence. “You aren’t who you say you are.”

“I… What are you talking about?”

“Clerics know clerical magic. Healing magic.” Egon used the word like a slur. For those of a religious sect, their magic was drawn from divinity – allegedly the gods, though Egon had his doubts. Whatever the case, it was the supernatural version of getting your big brother to beat up bullies. Childish, impotent, dependent. The irony that Egon’s own magic was a cousin to this, and from a mile high perspective indistinguishable, was lost on the little creep. “If you were a Pontifex this little plague would be gone with the snap of your fingers, no; you’re hiding something Sister. Mark my words.”

“The infection is also magical!” She hissed back, the sound of steam screeching out through a boiling pot – about to explode from internal pressure. “The magic required is more powerful than I can – than could be performed without resources.” Bingo. Egon had hoped to throw her off balance, get her to show some of the cards hidden behind that hand so close to the chest. ‘More powerful than I can perform’ was where that sentence had been headed, like a cart rolling down a hill it careened towards an inevitable conclusion. Lenore was not magical – that, or there was a good reason she could not use it here. Given what Egon knew of divine magic (reader, that was not a lot, but Egon was of a peculiar variety of narcissist who took a small amount of lay knowledge as expertise), Lenore’s only purpose in abstinence would be concealment. If she was too powerful using a spell would reveal her location to every vampire on the subcontinent – but Egon also knew that only a Pontifex Papus was that powerful. With only three Papus in the world, it seemed more likely that Egon’s assumption was correct: Lenore had no magic whatsoever. Ergo, the next question.

“Why are you really here?” He took a seat on a boot locker, the ersatz Pontifex began to pace.

Thinking, racking her brains, she eventually seemed to come up with an answer that gave up enough to satisfy Egon without exposing anything important. “I am on a pilgrimage. A quest, if you will. This was just a stop on the road, but as an adherent of St Cuthbert…”

“You’re bound to altruism.” Egon said, masking the edge of a cackle at the childish vow.

“I have to help these poor sick people.” The next thing she said had an odd sense of profundity to it. “Above all else.” Looking back at Egon, she sighed. “If you aren’t here to help and you aren’t here to harm, why pester me so?”

“Because my colleague and I have a difference of opinion.” Scanning up and down the room, the dying faces, the decay wrought from this unknowable plague, Egon finished. “I believe quite strongly that there is profit to be made here.”

It may come as a surprise to you, reader, but Egon Ward still did need sleep. It was different for him than it would be for almost any other lifeform, but Egon lay on his back, he closed his one eye, and remained very still for a period of hours. The difference between what Professor Egon Ward would term as ‘sleep’ with that of everyone else was night and day, his version of sleep was more like death and his version of waking more like resurrection.

It would be correct then to say that Egon Ward resurrected with a start at a sudden sound – the door had a creaky hinge, no doubt the product of being the sole metal component to an otherwise fungal construction. Despite now being fully conscious, Egon’s body was immobile save the golden eye which pivoted doorward to find the sound’s maker. He would not be able to move for another few hours yet which to most would look like an unusually deep sleep, but for Egon it was another secret shame – between the hours of sleep and revival he was totally defenceless. Able to watch as whatever menace came to bare against him.

In this case, the door was slowly being pushed open by a hand – a withered sort of hand with no clear race other than it could not have been human. Too many fingers. This thing, whatever it was, employed stealth with a mastery uncommon, moving like a whisper of mist under moonlight. Eight of its dozen or so fingers – more like writhing snakes actually – grasped the door hinge mechanism, locking it in place to hinder any further noise. When the hand withdrew it left the fingers behind, they peeled off like moss from a rock and held their shape expertly. Then the creature entered the room.

It was a myconid – Egon knew at once. Though he’d never encountered one in person, they were among the many beasts and mythical entities studied at Blaegrity, and with this revelation it all made sense. The thing was about eight feet tall, though that figure may be a little misleading as its head wasn’t always at the top of its body. It was roughly the shape of a humanoid mushroom, with a forever melting and mulching form, its four arms became eight, became six, became nine. Sometimes acting as legs, other times as hands depending on what would give the creature the best step. Whenever a limb made contact with the ground a small patch of fungus would break off, growing in its step and leaving behind a little marker of where it had been. Because all the buildings in Ainderu were made of mushrooms, such a footstep would go totally unseen by the untrained eye, but now he knew to look a quick sweep showed Egon that these things had been everywhere. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Those little patches were myconid too – a mere touch to bare skin would be enough to spread their poison. What Lenore had incorrectly termed the plague. Now in their room, Egon understood – this was an assassin. Come to infect a few more helpless fools with their creeping, rotting death. And he was powerless.

Like a shot, Ediniira sprang into action. Either she’d been pretending to sleep or she just had reflexes that fine, regardless she leaped from the bed like an angry tiger – foot first she kicked it in the head. The attack did little other than leave a foot shaped crater on the mushroom’s stalk, but she turned it into a backwards flip. Before even hitting the ground she extended her palms to launch a peppering volley of little lights.

Was this… could it be… there was no way Ediniira of all people, simple, stupid, pointless Ediniira had magic. If Egon’s face weren’t totally paralyzed he would’ve screamed into the night. Those little blasts of light did the trick – like bullets they tore through flesh, leaving nothing behind. Not even a burn mark. The second she hit the floor, Ediniira swept the leg – a fatal mistake against a creature like this which managed to keep balance by allowing its legs to disconnect entirely. Those two shoots now took on the character of angry snakes leaping and biting at the monk while the Myconid’s body hung from several strands to the ceiling.

With Ediniira pinned by the legs, the Myconid returned its attention to the sleeping party. Clearly, it only wanted to infect them all before but now they knew its true nature it could not let them live. Its tendrils extended first to Goodman, binding him by the neck it looked strong enough to snap him at the trunk. Splugg was bleary eyed, climbing to his feet in nothing but a filthy loincloth the goblin tried his best to scan this assailant. “You woke Splugg up.” He went for the ax on the floor, but was too slow – being swiftly blind sided by the thing and sent into (and subsequently through) the bedroom wall.

The momentary distraction was all Ediniira needed though, as she was able to engulf a fist with luminant mist and vaporize the two stalks. Now, more than he thought he ever would, Egon wished he hadn’t tuned out the whole ‘woke up in the desert without memory’ thing. Standing with her back to Egon, between him and the Myconid which gripped the ceiling with a little mycelium web of arms Ediniira grinned. “You’re pretty tough!”

Her first move was a leap – she scythe kicked the arm holding Gnooodman, sending him tumbling to the ground gasping for air. She ducked a volley of blows from the thing, running along the wall to maintain a distance and, Egon realized, keep the blows coming for her and not her downed allies. She traded a few blasts of glowing light with it, but they seemed a little dimmer. There were limits to her powers, clearly; and the magic light was starting to run out. Shit.

A little green hand gripped the floor where the wall had been torn away, and Splugg’s head popped up above the horizon. He seemed mildly peeved. Taking a second to scan the room with those little yellow eyes, Splugg seemed to formulate a strategy and then leaped – diving under the creature while Ediniira held it’s focus. He went for the ax.

This time grabbing it in a sweeping motion he brought it upwards – right at the centre of the creature splitting where it’s head seemed to be. The thing let out a warbling shriek before splitting open and oozing green ichor. Ediniira flipped off the wall, spinning in the air she unleashed the last of her magic light into its core. The thing lost cohesion and began to wilt – its limbs losing contact with the roof, the Myconid splattered on impact.

The following morning, over a nice cup of earl grey, the group sat and discussed the night’s revelations. Even in such a short time, Ediniira was already showing symptoms of the Myconid’s poison – and Goodman didn’t seem too much further behind. Both were on their feet, but it looked like they would have another day or so before the rapid deterioration began. “It looks as though you shall have another day or so, before the symptoms progress.” Egon explained.

“Now we know what this thing is…” Goodman put in from within his shroud of blankets, heating bottles, and scarves. “Do you know what the cure is?”

“Alas, I’m afraid to say that I do.” Egon did not seem afraid from his tone of voice, and that was because he didn’t actually care what happened to Goodman at all. Ediniira’s magic was something he could exploit, however; and so he would save her if at all possible. “There is a cure, though it may be impossible.”

“Splugg can find cure!” Splugg had not been infected, or so it seemed. “Splugg’s good at looking for stuff!”

“Not this good.” Egon shrugged. “The Myconid is a single lifeform, broken down into several bodies called a colony – the central mind, the sovereign, links them all together. The infection in your blood is also part of the colony, and so; will continue to thrive unless the sovereign is destroyed. From what that oddly proportioned skeleton suggested last night, we can conclude that it’s lair is somewhere in the depths but without a map – hell, with a map it would be impossible to find.”

Ediniira shook her head in defeat. “Aw man, this really bums me out.”

“Really? Dying. Bums you out.” Goodman shook his head, opting to dismiss her. “You’re right, of course, Professor. We can try, but I think at this time we may need to turn our thinking towards other business. There are one or two irregularities ‘bout our business that my Honey Buns isn’t privy too and –”

Speeding past the fact that Goodman had referred to Madam Carpenter as ‘Honey Buns,’ Ediniira snapped. “That’s it!? You’re just gonna give up!”

“Forgive me for being realistic, my dear girl, but we are gonna die in a slow and agonizing way. Best to accept that and identify what little we can do while still on this mortal plane. Unless you have a plan to find one specific mushroom in a sprawling network of tunnels filled with mushrooms, our books are cooked!”

She let out a defeated wail. “It feels hopeless! We just need some kind of mushroom finding friend!”

There was a silence in which a pin could be dropped and no one would hear it. And then a penny did.

“Hello sir, we are in the market for a truffle finding pig. This is of the upmost, medical importance.” Egon Ward said, to the only man in the market square not selling human beings to bloodthirsty vampires.

He squinted, unsure if Egon Ward was a bloodthirsty vampire himself and, if not, what he was doing here. “What are you doing here, halfling? We’ve no wares for the likes of you.”

Between a few spluttering coughs, Goodman muttered “Leave this to me” and then stepped up. He put on his best bargaining smile – notably different from his genuine smile, but somehow it expressed more warmth. “My good sir, I do apologize for my man’s directness, but I needed to be certain that you were prepared to do business before I invested any of my own precious time into this encounter.”

“I… I’m not prepared to do business.”

“Of course you aren’t, my good man. You are shrewd and subtle in a way that me, a simple bumpkin from up north, couldn’t begin to grasp. Nevertheless, allow me to try. You see what my here partner here said was true, we are in rather dire straights and, if the right shrewd businessman were to come along with the right product, would be vulnerable to be taken advantage of – exploited, pillaged. That said, as you say you are not interested in business and so would not dream of taking advantage of one so simple and foolhardy as myself. And for that I thank you. I am sure you have no designs of pillaging the vast amount of wealth I carry on my person, as you are a man of scruples and good character that would only offer the fairest deal – and even then, only if absolutely necessary.”

It seemed Goodman had guessed right, the merchant was a vulture – both in appearance and character. He looked to his left, he looked to his right, he looked back at Goodman with a hungry sort of desperation. “Look. I can’t sell this pig to you. You ain’t a vamp, and if my master finds out that I let product go he’d be pissed.”

“Very noble.” Goodman didn’t let him finish the sentence, instead just picking right back up with his patter. “Honestly, I am pleased to have found one such as you. Unwilling to sell, unable to take advantage of us. Truly, you sir are a diamond among the rough. It would be all too easy for you to sell us that pig at massive markup – a hundred to one what it’s worth, higher; ‘cause I’m carrying so much gold and would clearly pay any price. You could do that, tell your master you sold it at double the worth while pocketing the rest. Save your neck, impress your master, all the while taking advantage of my desperation and so sir I say ‘Thank you.’ Thank you for being the last honest man in Poset, making sure I have time to see sense – realize I do not need that pig as much as I need all this gold, so much gold I have to carry it in this enchanted sack. I realized this, I saw that I was acting desperately, and I thank you for giving me the time to correct my error before it led me irrevocably to financial ruin. Afterall, even one as wealthy as I could not afford to lose a thousand pounds of gold. Who could? Well, thank you sir. Thank you.” Goodman turned and began to walk away.

“Wait a second!”

The little pig trotted merrily into the dark tunnels below Ainderu with a friendly smile. His little sniffer pressed firmly to the ground, following a straight line deeper and darker into the depths. For the first time in his life, Egon was feeling a dichotomy. He suddenly knew what it was like to care about more than one thing. This pig, this beautiful animal, was everything to Egon.

“Are you sure he’ll find it?” Ediniira seemed worried.

“Silence, buffoon.” Egon hissed. “Can’t you see that he’s working?” What a good boy was this pig, doing his job with such professionalism.

A little worried, Goodman stopped – putting his hand on Egon’s shoulder. “You doing alright, friend?”

That wasn’t a word Egon would use to describe Goodman, before this pig Egon had never had a friend before. Likely, he never would again. “I will be much better when this foolish errand is over and we have nothing but bitter memories of this place.”

Goodman chuckled, deciding to leave the little monster to his odd fancies.

The group walked for some time, and as they did the tunnels only grew darker. With his enchanted eye, Egon could see clear as day though it was pretty clear that no one else could. That wasn’t entirely true, as Splugg seemed to traverse around obstacles, albeit slowly. The others had taken to holding the pig’s leash, a method that worked more or less perfectly – saving the odd stubbed tow.

More and more, creatures like the Myconid that had attacked them were growing out of the walls. Not dormant, tellingly; their stalk heads turned and tracked as the little party walked by but something held them out from attacking. Maybe they sensed the spores in each of their blood, mistaking them for other Myconids. That was the only explanation Egon could dream up, though to be honest; even he didn’t think it was a good one. Instead of violence, the stalk men subtly shifted position behind them – they were preventing escape. More and more, it seemed like this was planned.

Eventually the group came to a massive chamber – with great shoots of mushroom arcing high above to form supports. An intricate network of stone bridges held together over what seemed to be a festering swamp. Slime, the same green fluid that had seeped out of the Myconid they’d killed, not that it was living to begin with – pulsing with a soft emerald light. A sweep with his magic eye showed Egon that the liquid was filled with, and in many parts constituted of, the dead. No doubt late infection causes one to come down here and join the fermentation of mortality. From the darkness came a voice. “You are not prepared and yet you have come to seek what you should not.” Its source, Egon realized was the chamber. Every mushroom stalk which seemed individual, wrapping around to make up the bridges, the columns – everything, were actually one being. It pooled into a singular, almost brainlike stalk in the centre. Hanging from the ceiling by a thousand strong arms, it faced them. Easily the size of a small dragon, Egon had no doubt that this was the Myconid Sovereign. It looked just like the drawings in his textbook, except that this was bigger.

“I seek power.” Egon spoke, almost without thinking. “I will be given it by you or I shall take it from you, either way; it will be mine.”

The sovereign moved closer – the room literally rearranging itself so that the brain could advance – bridges sank, others grew, and the pillars shifted in such a way that only a trickle of sand fell into the shimmering emerald slime. “I am an ancient Myconid from a time before those of flesh and breath ever knew how to speak my name, and yet you make threats of me?” Its voice came from all around them, made up of so many distinct sounds. It didn’t occur to Egon right away, but it was the dead bodies floating in the lake. Each of them spoke in perfect unison to populate the monster’s throat. “I shall not be parlayed with, least of all by you; dead man walking.”

“I am a dead man, you’re a dead mushroom. I’d say that we’re on equal footing, except for one thing.” He met the creature with his golden eye. “You are nothing.” And a blast of dark fire took the creature full in the face.

“Oh so we are fighting the giant brain!” Goodman wheezed. “This all may be a bit too rich for my blood.” He reached into his seemingly unending pocket and a wave of junk tumbled out. Wine, cheese, trinkets, tools – a single gold coin that exploded into a thousand when it hit the rock. This was, no doubt, the sort of trickery he used to originally buy the titular pig. Egon was about to be impressed until he took out an impotently small knife.

“I’ll keep ‘em back.” Ediniira put herself between him and harm’s way – quickly vanishing into a flurry of legs – deflecting oncoming limbs. The bridge they were standing on was alive, made of fungus, and it leaped at her with ferocity. Splugg did his best to guard against a few stalks, but the bridge quickly separated under him – leaving him hanging to an ever retreating fungus above a ten foot deep pool of corrosive slime.

Wise enough to stand on actual rock, Egon now found himself on an island amid the chaos. With nowhere to go as all bridges retreated – ready to attack. A few jets of cold fire met them as they exploratively struck, but he could tell this was just a test. A tease to identify what his strengths were before dealing a killing blow. His action would have to be swift and decisive, a long fight against a whole room usually goes poorly – the house always wins. The first shot, the sucker punch (though Egon would’ve used the term ‘pre-emptive strike’) had left a deep scar along the Sovereign’s left hemisphere. A soft green glow emanated from within, but now the creature was baring down he’d have no way to deliver the killing blow. “Someone! Get the hole!” He pointed, desperate for someone to see. “Take that out, the whole thing comes down!”

The first to try was Splugg – wrenching upward from his dangling doom, Splugg sprinted toward it at full pelt. Unravelling with every step, the bridge began to come apart – splitting first into two then three. Splugg vaulted across the gap and ran along an especially thick root as it recoiled further – faster. Bringing up his ax, it looked as though he was going to land a shot but at the last second the Sovereign let go. Allowing the arm to simply drop in open space. Not losing his momentum Splugg was launched at breakneck speed, across the chamber, and slammed into a stalactite.

Doing her best to shield Goodman, Ediniira back flipped past him to face the entrance. No longer fooled by their infection, the other myconid’s were getting ready to make a killing. She kicked one back, fried another with her energetic emissions, but a single one was more than a match for her. Ten? Fifteen? Egon couldn’t count them fast enough, but they soon engulfed both her and Goodman in a mass of mushroom.

Now alone, Egon shook his head. It was just him. He had gotten himself into this mess, he would have to fight his way out of it. The Myconid Sovereign was massive, to be sure; and old beyond any accounting, but it hadn’t counted on one thing. It was just a mushroom, and this was the great Professor Egon Ward – Expert of History from… it flattened him with a feint.

Now a halfling compost, Egon was totally engulfed in Myconid. If he needed to breathe, he would’ve suffocated for sure. Instead; he would simply have to wait for the creature to slowly ingest him – consuming his body, unless he could think of something. Some little scrap of lore, some potent spell – whatever it was, it would need to be decisive.

Golden eye spinning, Egon could see that Splugg was drowning, Ediniira and Goodman were being crushed, and more than a thousand smaller Myconids were closing in. That was the easy stage of the fight, if they somehow got back on their feet it’d be a hundred times harder. Then he saw something truly surprising, but it filled his heart with warmth. The Pig. The Pig was eating the mushroom. Somehow, in all the confusion, it had made its way across the tangled bridges and reached the centre – it was gnawing away at the little blast mark Egon had carved, closer and closer to the monster’s core.

“What… What are you doing?” He heard the chorus of voices that were the sovereign call out, his own voice added to the throng. “Very well, you have bested me. Please… I surrender.” Despite the thing’s pleas, the little pig just moved further and further in, closer and closer to the Sovereign’s undoing. “I beg you! You are a mighty destroyer, a great conqueror and have outwitted me, but you must consider the bigger picture! I am millennia old, I saw the nations rise and fall, I know the truth of things mortals only dream at guessing! To kill me is to destroy one of the oldest repositories of knowledge, a wealth of information, a treasure trove of wisdom wiped out and for what? Something so small and petty as revenge.” Egon felt his mouth lock open in a scream of pain, though shared in none of it himself. “Alright, I understand! I have wronged you, it would not be fair of you to simply let me go, but I beg of you lord pig – this is too high a price! My life is too high a price! Please… please… I don’t want to die… I don’t want. To.”

The creature was silent, Egon realized that he was silent. The fungal flesh around him slackened, and he felt himself slop down into the green slime below. It was rapidly draining, flushing out as the Myconid died. He felt a hand on his shoulder – Ediniira! “You alright, prof?”

“Never… call me that.” He spat out some mushroom. “But yes.”

“Looks like this place is gonna come down!?” She was scanning the ceiling with apprehension. Sure enough, one or two massive rocks crashed down, and after them a hail of granite followed.

Egon grasped her by the collar – no small task for him. “Please.” He wheezed. “Save my pig.”

Climbing out of the slime infested, rotting mine took twice as long as climbing down – go figure, but the group emerged a little after sunset. Despite their effort, the group felt better. Ediniira’s skin had lost its dull green pallor, Goodman’s cough evolved from death hacks to over exercise wheezing, and Splugg – well, Splugg didn’t seem to have changed at all. Whatever the case, when the group came out into Ainderu they weren’t even acknowledged by the townsfolk. However selfishly, meanderingly, or accidentally they had come to it; these five had stopped the plague. Perhaps its effects wouldn’t be felt for several days, but the fact that Sister Lenore seemed to have vanished indicated at least she knew. Gone on whatever quest she’d been chasing.

“That pig… he’s alright.” Goodman marvelled.

“Alright.” Egon scoffed. “This little piggy is a god. You are unworthy of him.” Though Egon spoke with absolute honesty, Goodman took that as a joke and laughed – like any adult would.

On their way out of town, Egon couldn’t help but notice Levi again. ‘Couldn’t help’ because his enchanted eye specifically knew to look for him, now; and so he spotted him three alleys over. Though Egon found the whole love and intimacy thing insipid, he wouldn’t allow another magical being to be shafted (except by himself, of course). He wouldn’t have done anything, but the boy Levi was making out with was also non-magical. Mundane. How could this shill, despite having the chance to be with a magically gifted young man, possibly have the nerve. “A moment.” He offered to his group as the only explanation, before disappearing behind a building.

Levi kissed Paul violently, slamming him against the side of the woodshed. Their breath was hot, and as Levi ripped open his shirt they were launched to the ground. When his vision unblurred, he looked up at Egon. “I thought Farid was the one writing you love letters. Hmm?” Egon tutted.

Paul, the second most handsome of the young miners, turned on Levi like a shot. “What!? Babe, who’s Farid.”

“Tell him the truth, boy.” Egon spat through a grimace. “I’ll pull out your spine through your asshole if you don’t.”

“I… Sorry, babe. I goofed.”

“You bastard.” Paul slapped him full across the face, picking up the shards of his torn shirt he was gone.

Shaking with anger and humiliation, Levi couldn’t meet Egon’s eye as he said. “That it, little man?”

Just for that. Egon’s mouth twisted into a sadistic grin. “You are nothing.”

It took another day to return to camp, and the Imaginarium was already more or less packed up. They would disembark south on the morrow – making their way along the Beqq to Shadiq. Goodman had explained something about a job there, but Egon was so beyond it all at this point.

Once Ediniira got wind that Levi was a two timer, she more or less took over the amends portion of the adventure – getting him to apologize to Farid, Farid’s father, Madam Carpenter. It was a parade of castigation which Egon would’ve found funny, if he’d had the energy.

In closing for the day, before Egon’s corpse could fall back into death for a few hours, he approached a familiar sign with too much writing, set up in front of a green wagon. Around it, a tiny blue boy sprinted around packing his odds and ends. He noticed Egon before he spoke. “Oh, Egon, you’re back! And you bought my pig! That’s really great because I was beginning to think you’d died or –”

He silenced him with a gesture. “Our pig.” Egon said. “And his name is Oliver.”