Though it had been a long while since I’d worked on Lesser Psychometry, it was still a useful spell. Ikki had alluded to it having some future uses, but most of the time, my mana senses were more than enough to solve whatever sort of magical information gathering problems I faced.

  Still, there were exceptions. I’d used it in the cave to figure out some of what had happened, and now was another. I might have slacked in my practice, though…

  I reached down and pressed my finger to the turkey tail mushrooms and cast the spell.

  I saw images then, a cat skeleton absolutely infested with mushrooms, pouring from the sockets in the skull, the mycelial networks mimicking muscle tissue and letting it move, albeit jerkily.

  There was a moment of violence – a territory dispute between this thing and a phantom-forestcat – and some of the shoulder joint fell to the log, where it grew into the current mushrooms, explaining their odd angles.

  “Wait…”

  I’d been able to combine Lesser Psychometry with my Internal Pocketwatch. Could I do the same with my other spells?

  I tapped the mushroom, and this time, joined Lesser Image Recall into the spell.

  A flickering illusion of the battle filled the area around the log. Kene jerked back, blue aura flaring around them. There was a painful spearing sensation, and for a moment, I was afraid that the mushroom-zombie-skeleton was somehow able to attack me through the image.

  But no, it was just lesser psychometry finally digging its roots into the ground. As it did, I felt its power flowing out, joining with Material Echo and Lesser Image Recall, enhancing my abilities with spells that pulled things forward from the past.

  Kene let out a sigh and relaxed.

  “I didn’t realize you could do that,” they said.

  “Neither did I… Maybe I was underusing this spell,” I admitted. “What’s that weird zombie thing?”

  “Animation-fungus,” Kene said, watching the illusion replay with a look of contemplation. It wasn’t concern, but they were clearly thinking.

  “I can assume that it makes things animate when they’re dead?”

  “It infests decomposing bodies, reanimates them, and wanders around, looking for other things that are dead to infest. But there are some really nasty strains that kill things to keep spreading. Those are more common in unclaimed lands, though.”

  “Is this the ‘fine but creepy’ variety, or the ‘murder things’ variety?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. We’re nearing the limits of my fungal knowledge – I know a lot of the big ones, but not their minutiae.”

  “What are the odds this is the evil murder type?” I asked.

  “Quite low. Then again, the odds of a war root being here were quite low. What’s the odds that the mad mage who unleashed them during the rebellion a few hundred years back got his hands on some nasty spores?”

  “Too high for my liking,” I said with a sigh. “Well, shall we get going? I’ll keep my mana senses peeled.”

  The naturally forming locus of mushroom magic in the forest grew increasingly obvious as we approached, in large part due to the giant mushrooms. Most of them weren’t altogether that magical, simply… very, very big.

  Despite the mild tension, Kene eyed one of them and pointed it out to me. It was large, with a conical shape that broadened out near the bottom, and glowed a soft blue color.

  “Think you could wear that one as a hat?” they asked. “Really complete the look of a beast and plant mage by having a fox’s tail and a mushroom hat.”

  “No,” I said. “Too heavy. Also, wouldn’t I also need some sort of… Ivy cloak?”

  “Hmm… I’ll keep an eye out then,” Kene laughed.

  We trooped on, with me casting my mana senses around us. In particular, I focused on the ingrained effects of Analyze Life and Death, since they would be the ones most likely to yield actual magical fungi, or forewarn us of danger.

  It took us quite a bit of wandering before I spotted something that interested me. Annoyingly, it wasn’t actually my mana senses that spotted it first, but rather, my eyes. Not even due to the enhancements from Surveyor’s Eye!

  A plain looking sassafras tree was mixed in with the giant mushrooms, drawing my eye to it.

  Naturally there were other, non-fungal plants around the locus. The thick concentration of life and death energy meant that the soil was rich, and ferns were mixed in alongside the caps. Blueberry shrubs and blackberry brambles wrapped through the area, their berries still a few months too unripe for us to pick them.

  But ordinary trees?

  There weren’t exactly many.

  The powerful death energy in the area meant that shades wove through the underbrush, the ghosts of animals feasted on roots, and death crows winged overhead. Choruks scampered from spot to spot, eating just about anything that they could get their little racoon-like hands on.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  A sassafras tree made prime snacking food for a variety of animals. The roots and bark were normally eaten by rabbits, while deer and bears would happily consume their branches, twigs, and leaves. The ghosts and shades absolutely should have continued this behavior out of habit, even if not necessity, the same way that a restaurant’s head chef would sometimes keep coming in to work, even after they died.

  Despite that, there it stood, looking almost entirely unharmed. There were a few spots where the choruks had taken some nibbles, and death crows were perched in the branches, but nowhere near what I would have expected.

  I pointed it out to Kene, and we wandered in closer. I pulled my mana senses in, focusing them on the seemingly-mundane sassafras tree. I ran my senses along the branches, the roots, deep into the center of the trunk, looking for whatever hidden property allowed it to hide from the ghosts, while remaining completely visible to mundane creatures.

  In the end, that turned out to be my undoing, as Kene let out a little gasp and tapped a spot of lichen on the tree.

  It looked like any ordinary bit of greenish-gray lichen on a tree to my eyes, which was why I hadn’t paid it any attention. Perhaps as a budding fungal mage, I should have paid more attention – after all, lichen was a type of fungus, and we were in a nexus of fungal powers.

  When I focused my mana senses on it, I felt what Kene had. The lichen had formed a sort of natural veil with hints of death and abnegation magic, not entirely unlike some of the veiling artifacts that I’d noticed. It had gently nudged my mana senses aside, but I wasn’t the primary target – no, its natural veiling technique had been tuned to protect from spiritual entities like ghosts or shades.

  The lichen had entered a symbiotic relationship with the tree, extending the veil into the energies of the sassafras, which was why it wasn’t being targeted by any of the spirits, but was still being eaten by the ordinary animals like choruks. It was also extending some spiritual power into the tree, but the tree seemed poorly suited to the power it was extending, and that part of the energetic link seemed to be doing very little.

  “Spiritshield lichen!” I said. “My first magical fungus. Other than soultoad’s seat, but I’ve had that one so long that it doesn’t count. Or the ninelight morels, but those are kind of mushrooms and rocks? I don’t know, they’re deeply strange. Heh. Deeply.”

  “I don’t think that’s how that works,” Kene said. “If someone stabs you, then you heal, then they stab you again, it doesn’t make that your first stab. It’s the second.”

  “Why did your example involve me getting stabbed?” I asked warily.

  “It’s an occupational hazard for you.”

  “Hmph,” I said. “What’s the secondary property of the moss? I can sense the defensive shield against predators, but there’s something else.”

  Kene screwed up their eyes, clearly trying to remember.

  “Like I said, I’m not as well versed in fungal lore as I am with plants…” they said, trailing off, then shaking their head. “I remember reading about it in grandmother’s book, but I don’t remember what it said.”

  “Well, I can tell it’s some sort of energetic bond. Transferring power?”

  “That sounds vaguely right?” Kene said, then snapped. “I’ve got it. Spiritshield lichen can grow up to about fifth gate energy density, and they’re a symbiote. When added to moss, they can help bolster it past the normal density limits for the moss.”

  “That’s awesome!” I said. “My pointer moss has lagged a lot in mana production, since it taps out at second gate, so if this can bolster that. Plus, blademoss is nearing its limits…”

  Kene and I carefully scraped samples from the sassafras tree, then I used Enhance Plant Life and Fungal Entwinement to grow the sample into both blademoss and my pointermoss. The bond established, but weakly – it would need a bit more time before I could begin actually empowering them with its veiling, spiritual properties, and higher energy density.

  We left Dusk’s realm then and continued to plunge deeper into the fungal loci, when the lunar moth tattoo on my shoulder started to pulse. I grabbed Kene’s hand and pulled them, and in moments, we were stepping over the ward of the fungal folk and into their little village. I focused, slowly opening a portal to my own fungal village, and watched as a susurration went through the village.

  “Ah, hello again!” a cheerful voice rang out, and I turned to see the leader of this village calling out to me. I waved to him, but we were both interrupted.

  “Dad! Great to see you! You’re looking good!”

  The leader of my own fungal village emerged from the portal.

  “And you’re looking good as well!” the father cried. “My goodness, is that a ninelight!? Your village really must be blessed by the stars. Come here, we simply must catch up.”

  I gave the pair some time to speak, and several other small folk emerged from the portal, talking to the ones who lived here in the forest.

  Eventually, though, things settled down, and the leader of this village strode forwards.

  “By the constellations, boy, I hardly recognized you. You look so different. Are humans supposed to have a tail?”

  He turned to look at Kene.

  “Why don’t you have a tail? Is it because you’re only kind of a human?”

  I coughed, and the old fungal folk nodded his cap.

  “Right, right. Sorry, we got a bit off track. But my, you have grown!”

  “Thank you! I wanted to check on you – how’s the village faring? How are the wards? We spotted some remnants of an animation-fungi around, and I wanted to check in.”

  “You came at a good time, my boy,” the old man said. “We’re not doing too terribly well, I’m afraid to say, though it’s a different sort of threat. The abyssal shambler tried to eat us to power itself, but the very same fungi of which you spoke about? Well, it’s broken containment.”

  “Containment?” Kene asked.

  “We grow a very particular breed of mushroom in our village, one that makes for perfect wardlines,” the old man explained.

  “I recall you took pride in your wards,” I said.

  “Indeed! Well, the reason we grow it is that long ago, when my grandfather was still budding, a great devastation roamed this land. Skeleton hordes and monsters made of hay and straw and roaring fires. Moving plants and furious beasts and more!”

  Kene and I exchanged looks, thinking the same thing – this had to be the rebellion that had unleashed the war root.

  “We needed them for our village, to protect it,” he continued. “But as things settled, we also took care to grow mushroom circles around certain threats, to stop them from breaking free. But over the past few years, they’ve been breaking free. First it was no problem – the straw men had run down on power, the skeleton’s cores had faded away, and the beastfury potions had decayed away. But the fungus can lie dormant for many years, much as we did, and now the animation-fungi has been unleashed. I fear too that the chained war roots might perhaps do the same… We have some skill with combat, but we are not fighters.”

  “I killed a war root once,” I said. “Nasty business. Why don’t you show me these chained roots, and I’ll see about putting them down too? Then, while I hunt for the spells of the Abyssal Shambler, I can clear out the animation-fungi.”

  “At least this time you’re equipped,” Kene said, raising their hand. One of their flickering orbs appeared, then zipped over to me. “Still, pull out if things go poorly.”

  “I will,” I said, kissing them on the cheek and turning back to the leader. “Shall we?

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