The Mushmen

We were getting close to arriving back at the wall where we entered from. There had been something on my mind since I had spoken with Cal this morning.

"Cal, I have a hypothetical proposition for-"

"Hold that thought, Arno."

He suddenly stopped and started sniffing the ground.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Shoot! I think it's 'them'"

"Who is 'them'?"

"We should probably start running."

"From wh-."

A spear whizzed past my head. All three of us booked it instantly.

"What the heck was that?" I said.

"Honestly, I thought we were gonna get lucky this time and not run into these guys."

"I thought there weren't any people here?"

"They're the mushmen." Cal explained.

"What the heck is a mush-?"

I didn't even have time to finish my sentence. Our path was blocked.

"Aw, they're so cute!" Erika said.

"Careful, I'm not completely sure, but I think they might eat people." Cal said.

We had been surrounded by what looked like about twenty or so anthropomorphic mushrooms. They had tiny arms and legs coming from their stems and a face with beady eyes and a mouth with two tiny fangs on their bottom jaw. On top of their heads was a mushroom cap each one had varying colors and patterns. They were all probably about a foot tall and held oversized spears, which they had pointed at us.

"Mush mush mush." One of them said, in a high pitched voice.

Another one looked and pointed at us.

"Mush mush mush... Mush mush... Mush."

I whispered to Cal.

"What do they want from us?"

"For some reason, they really don't like it when we take extra magic mushrooms from that plateau. I think it's like a holy place to them or something."

"So what you're saying is that we pretty much just desiccated their sacred land."

"Yeah pretty much."

Erika spoke up,

"Um, hey guys, can't we just step over them? They don't seem that scary."

"They aren't the ones we have to worry about..." Cal replied.

Suddenly a deeper sounding voice came from behind the group.

"Moosh... moosh."

A much larger and much more... jacked mushman joined the group. It had a red cap with white spots and was about six feet tall with the physique of a bodybuilder.

"I nicknamed that one 'mushchad'. I think he's their chieftain." Cal said.

Mushchad stepped into the circle and walked directly up to us. He was unarmed and was staring us down. Cal confidently approached him.

"Don't you guys worry, I know how to take care of this guy!"

He threw some of his purple powder in its face…It didn't seem to be affected.

The Mushchad responded by punching Cal in the face.

*Whack*

He flew to the ground.

I just huffed and pulled out my staff. I proceeded to light the Mushchad on fire with a tiny flame. He went up like a match. The mushmen began panicking, running around, screaming. Mushchad began rolling around on the ground, trying to put himself out. It almost looked like he was crying a bit.

"Let's get out of here." I said.

We made our way back to the entrance. Near the stream.

"So how do we get out? Are we going to climb the wall or something?" Erika asked.

"Hold this."

I handed her a large mushroom.

"What's th-."

I shoved her into the stream. Cal and I jumped in behind her. She looked quite angry, but I didn't really care.

We floated back through the grate under the wall. From there, we retraced our steps back to the cart. Luckily this time we had no run-ins with soldiers.

"Alright let's load these bad boys up and-..."

Cal paused, he was just staring into the bag.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Well... Uh... There's only three!"