Extra Magic Mushrooms

Erika and Cal ended up not waking up until close to noon.

"My head hurts!"

Erika’s hair was messy and she looked pale, almost like she was hung over.

"Do you remember anything from last night?" I asked.

"No not really, all I remember is having a dream where Cal and I were building a purple castle."

"Heh. Looks like I accidentally gathered the wrong mushrooms."

Cal looked like his usual unkempt self. Overall, physically he seemed unphased from last night.

"I thought you were an expert on things like mushrooms." I said.

"I am, but there's a lot of stuff here that I've never even seen before. If I could, I'd stay here longer to experiment... By the way Arno... There wasn't someone who stopped by our camp last night, right?"

"No, there wasn't. Was someone supposed to?"

"Oh... Uh, nevermind... Forget I said anything."

He suddenly got a bit quiet. I'm guessing this had something to do with the imaginary person he was speaking to last night. In all honesty, I don't really care about whatever personal issues he had. What I did want to know was about that "secret" he probably wasn't supposed to tell me.

"You said something interesting last night, do you mind elaborating?" I asked

"Ha, I'm sure I said a lot of things."

"Yes, but you mentioned something about a prince in particular."

"...oh... Ha ha... That's funny... I've never met any Princes before."

He started acting nervous.

"Weird, then I guess you just made up the part about the mafia kidnapping Prince Douglas."

"Uh..."

He paused for a second.

"Okay, you got me. Yes, they did kidnap the prince. You can't tell anybody though. If Gino were to find out I told someone, he'd have us all killed."

Erika butted in.

"I heard something about a prince. What are you guys talking about? Do one of you know a prince!?"

"Yes, I'm a prince, Erika."

"Don't even joke, Cal. There's no way someone like you could be a prince."

He did a good job of throwing her off our discussion. From personal experience I knew she definitely wasn't the type of person who could keep a secret.

"We should probably get going. We still have to get those mushrooms."

We packed up and got moving again.

✨✨✨

We walked for a while, until Cal suddenly stopped.

"Past this point I would advise you put out these on, Erika"

He handed her some leather gloves and a bandana.

"What are these for?"

"We are getting close to the extra magic mushrooms. It's best to be safe past this point."

She put on the gloves and tied the bandana around her mouth. Cal did the same.

"Alright, so you guys see that over there? They grow at the very top."

Cal pointed to a large plateau.

"Is there a path or something to get up there?" I asked.

"No, we have to climb it."

The climb was easily 200 feet up, if not more. I really wasn't so worried about myself. It was Erika I was more concerned about.

"Alright, let's get Climbing." Erika said.

"Wait a second. You won't swim in a shallow stream, but you'll climb up the side of a cliff?" I said.

"Well yeah, there's no water on that rock wall. This isn’t my first time, I climbed up that mountain to the labyrinth where I met you."

I couldn't argue with that logic. She did somehow managed to get up that mountain which was no easy feat.

"Don't worry Arno, it's actually an easy climb. I even climbed it, completely wasted, a few times." Cal said.

"How did you even find these mushrooms in the first place?"

"Extra magic mushrooms can grow outside of the Fungallands, they're just rare. They typically grow at high elevations, so using that logic I figured this would be the optimal place for them to be. And sure enough I was right."

I had to admit for a drunken fool, he knew his craft well.

✨✨✨

We began climbing up the cliff side. At first it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. It was rocky enough where there were plenty of places I could cling to. After a bit though something caught my attention.

"What's with those red things?" I asked.

"Oh, I forgot to mention those. They're a type of crab that uses mushroom caps as shells. For whatever reason they really like this particular cliff." Cal explained..

I accidentally grabbed one and it pinched down on my hand. Luckily my skeletal hand had no nerves. I shook it off and continued on.

"Is it me or are those crabs following me in particular."

Suddenly a mass of them clung to me. It wasn't painful, it just slowed me down a bit.

Erika shouted from below.

"I think they're trying to eat you, Mr. Arno."

"I think she might be right. Bone meal can be used to enrich soil for plants and mushrooms. I think they see you as a massive calcium blob." Cal shouted down to me.

As an undead, I'm not sure what would happen if I were to be eaten nor do I want to find out. I quickly gathered what mana I could and created a thin layer of fire that surrounded my body, burning the crabs off. My robe was resistant to destruction magic, so it was undamaged. I had to do that two more times until we reached the top. The top of the plateau looked like a massive blob of silver glitter.

"Whatever you do, Erika, don’t remove that bandana or gloves. The last thing you want is to inhale any spores." Cal said.

"But what if I have to itch my nose?"

"Just listen to him. These things are dangerous. Here isn't the place to screw around."

I spoke sternly with her. She nodded in understanding.

We began gathering the extra magic mushrooms and shoved them in Cal's rucksack. It was a fairly straightforward task.

"That's it? I thought this was going to be a bit more challenging." Erika said

"Nope, these are all that grow here. Once we get down, all we have to do is sneak out and not get caught on our way to the cart."

He closed up the bag tightly and we started back down.