Wraithwood Botanist

Chapter 9: The Return

Here’s the deal. If you take a spoonful of store-bought plain yogurt, put it into a jar, fill the rest with milk, put it in a cooler of hot water—and go to sleep—the next morning, you’ll have a new jar of yogurt. That’s all it takes.

Yogurt is bacteria—and bacteria grow if there’s food.

The same is true of mycelium. You shred it into thousands of little pieces, mix it into sterilized water, and you get what’s known as a slurry. Then, you add it onto a sterile substrate—usually a type of wood or grain—and each one of those pieces of shredded mycelium starts growing and connecting.

That’s what I was supposed to do to complete this quest.

I was certain of it.

The Trial of Worth wanted me to prove that I was worth my class by using plants and mushrooms to fight back. To do that, it gave me a bag of perfectly sterile water, a bag, and a massive parasitic fungus that killed wandering reapers. Using that knowledge, I knew for a fact that I could create a slurry and inoculate the reaper, killing it. That was a showcase of my skills.

It made sense, but it was nerve-wracking. Making a slurry meant giving up the water that kept me alive, and I didn’t want to do that.

Before you get some funny strategies on how to maximize my time with the water, like sprinkling water on the mycelium to keep it alive, let’s make something clear. It was hot out, and air killed the mycelium. I’d have a better chance sprinkling water on a dying fish in the summer heat.

Diktyo River water was special, sure. But I didn’t know how special it was. It could be that it was keeping the mycelium alive. Or, it could just be that the mycelium could last a few hours above air. It wasn’t clear unless I wanted to use a fourth information request to figure out that detail.

Here was what I did know:

I needed a cure for Wisteris poisoning, and the Guide said that it required skills I didn’t have and recommended that I complete the quest.

There was an unknown "Quest Reward" for completing the quest.

I needed my equipment to survive.

If I got my equipment back in 24 hours, I’d gain a magical barrier and a weapon.

The Guide was helping me get my stuff back.

The Guide sent me to a fungus that strangles the roots of the wandering reaper.

It provided me with everything I needed to make a slurry, ruling out a dried mycopesticide.

The fungus dies under prolonged exposure to air.

It was under prolonged exposure to air for the last hour.

Sprinkling water on it probably wasn’t an option—and this was my only shot.

No matter how I looked at this, I needed to complete the quest and that required the slurry. So I took a deep breath, took another drink, gave some to Kline, and then added shredded treskirita into the water. Then I knotted it, sloshed it around vigorously, untied it, pushed out the air, knotted it again, and put it in my jacket’s pocket. It was time to complete this quest.

I looked at my map. Due to my third information request it told me a safe path to the wandering reaper. It was twice as long, but it’d take me there safely, and I wouldn’t get stuck. If I got injured and couldn’t walk again—it was game over.

"You ready?" I asked Kline.

He meowed.

"Okay, let’s go." We set off with a brisk pace, determined to get my stuff back. Our lives depended upon it.

That enthusiasm didn’t last long. We barely made it thirty minutes before the water wore off, and my jacket turned into a sweat-dumping death trap. It didn’t help that I was going uphill this time. I didn’t think about the direction when I was running from the reapers, but now that I had a location in mind, it felt like a hike—a steep one. Combined with the constant itching on my neck, I was doing everything in my power not to resort to histrionic melodrama, stumbling around panting and heaving as I used random trees to hold myself up. That was in the first hour—I hiked for two.

Did I remind you in the last five minutes that I didn’t have a boot? I was stepping around ground cover, trying to hop from rock to rock, but my callus-free feet kept stubbing themselves on everything.

It was the pits.

Still, I trudged on, ignoring my rumbling stomach, identifying berry bushes to find sustenance, weaving between brush and thicket, hopping over rocks, listening to birds and bugs, feeling like things were too easy and the forest might actually be safe.

Then, I learned just how valuable the Guide was.

It happened when I saw a near 90-degree curve on the map—despite seeing a perfectly good path in front of me. It was eerie, as if I were in a car, and Google Maps told me to veer right off a clear highway and into an empty field.

Kline didn’t see it. I think he could see the map, but he relied more on his natural senses and instincts—which failed him. I immediately grabbed him and pulled back. When I looked up again, I realized that the brown "bark" on the tree was actually a dense layer of bugs.

They were dead silent and didn’t move. But once we got close, one buzzed off the tree—and then they exploded in all directions like a puffball mushroom releasing spores.

I immediately panicked and started running with Kline in my arms, getting followed by hundreds of them. They were slow and didn’t seem like they were trying to attack me. They just swarmed around the area, searing for stimuli.

Suddenly, my map shifted, forcing me to turn into this shady red location. A pop-up followed.

—---

The danger levels have changed. The map has been updated.

Warning: You are entering an area with poisonous plants. Please follow the path closely and watch your steps.

—---

I listened, jumping into the area—moving over the dirt with Kline. Suddenly, there was a sharp horizontal horseshoe where the map was definitely telling me that there was something in the path.

I turned sharply, running left and around this innocuous looking clearing and then kept running. Suddenly, the swarming bugs started screaming. I stopped and turned for a split second.

The bugs flew into something similar to a web—but it wasn’t a web. It was a translucent sheet that looked like cling wrap with dozens of bugs bunched into it. Then, something terrifying happened. There was a stick on the top of the sheet, and when it dropped, the sheet folded in half and dropped—right into the mouth of a Venus flytrap-type plant.

Simply by thinking, What is that? I got the popup.

—---

Name: Gluttony’s Guillotine

Summary: What do you get when you mix cling wrap, a guillotine, and a Venus flytrap together? A reason to follow your map! Ha ha. I’m so funny. Seriously, you should keep running and review this later.

—---

My eyes widened when I saw more bugs coming from the distance. I turned and ran, weaving between brush and ground cover. The map kept shifting, and I followed it cautiously, keeping Kline in my arms and trusting in the Guide for the first time.

I eventually lost the bugs and relaxed. In fact, I almost made it back to the original path until there was a ten-yard patch of pink and purple flowers that I couldn’t avoid stepping on.

I identified the alien patch of plants and grimaced.

—---

Name: Faux Seliax

Summary: In case you’re wondering if that’s poisonous—yes. It is poisonous. Mimicking the appearance of the pink and purple seliax flower, this succulent lures beasts to enjoy the plants’ famous nectar—only to poison them and use the body as fertilizer. But don’t worry, it’s not lethal unless you eat it—but prepare for one hell of a rash. It’s advised to limit contact. Trust me, a little will be uncomfortable, but it can get a lot worse.

…

—---

"It’s poisonous," I said to Kline, skimming through the rest of the information.

Kline meowed and strutted up to it.

"I said it was poison—"

Kline swiped his paw, and his blades cut through the patch, exploding in a rain of pink and purple.

"I keep forgetting you’re a god amongst cats," I said.

He turned, meowed, and then set to work clearing the plants like a farmer reaping grain with a scythe. I followed behind, using a stick to brush away plants like a broom. Once it was complete, I picked up Kline and started walking horizontally, using my right boot to push plant matter out of the way as I carefully tip-toed with my right foot. One foot step after the other, I made it through—getting through with only a few scratches.

Yeah, it poked me. But look—I made it thirty feet through animal-destroying plants with only a few scratches. I did great!

That didn’t change how bad it sucked. It instantly started itching as bad as my neck.

"I wonder if I can use some of this…" I looked at the treskirita slurry, thinking back to how I used the water to release the barbs stuck to Kline’s mouth. It worked, so wasn’t it possible to use it as a topical ointment? I wasn’t sure, and the Guide wouldn’t give me more information on Faux Seliax poisoning other than plants that could heal it—plants it wouldn’t give me a description about.

I was screwed.

That said, slurries were designed to inoculate the mycelium on a substrate—and I was this fungi’s food! I had a soul. So, purifying or not, I doubt it would help me. It was likely had to keep the slurry away from wounds at all costs.

I chose not to do it, limping on, trying to avoid the discomfort. It was only about a mile left until I reached reaper territory, outlined in an ominous red circle—I could make it.

—---

The sun was setting as I got to the reaper’s network. Sunlight cast an ambient glow on the colorful foliage and ground cover everywhere, and the symphony bugs created a lulling melody. It would be dark soon—and the darkness would bring cold and death.

A chime went off in my head.

—---

Neophyte Mira Hill has completed a hidden mission for Mandatory Quest: "Trial of Worth."

Hidden Mission: Confront Your Trauma

Summary: A huge part of surviving is learning when you should give up—which is never. The moment you get your ass handed to you, make sure to return to the scene of the crime just to prove that you’re a strong, independent woman who can face their fears and overcome them—even if that fear is Jack the Ripper.

Value: There is nothing that leaves people more undefended than trauma. Face your fears so you can rise up and grow.

Requirement(s):

Return to the wandering reaper.

Reward(s):

Quest Reward

—---

I found it interesting how the value of the quest was extremely reasonable, but Lithco’s interpretation—the one tailored to me—was callous and pessimistic. I wonder how I would feel about reading the value without the summary. I’d probably be extremely critical of it. Perhaps that’s what the Oracle meant when she said that Lithco would validate my beliefs and contradict them.

Whatever it was, it worked. It eased my mind. Cruel, irrational world or not, this was my new life—and taking time to complain about it would get me killed.

It was adapt or die—and I wanted to live. So, I read through the notification and willed it away. Then, I got another notification.