Spore Subject

it would have been good to say that they spent the day working to figure out each others communication issues and figure out a solution. But as everybody has been told at some point in the past, it isn’t nice to lie.

What they did figure out is that their little guest (and they were little, about the size of a middle-sized dog) did not much like the sunshine and became quite distressed when in that situation. So they let them go, at which point they dashed off to the nearest of the massive mushrooms, leaned against it, and vanished into the stalk.

At this, Sir, Leeroy seemed to figure out something more. “They’re some kind of local variant of Dryad, fungus-based Dryads; this is so cool.” (There was something unnerving about seeing a guy usually so stoic going full fanboy over something apart from battle, it was so out of character and put everybody to the thought of an overexcited St Bernard, and with that mop of hair, he absolutely refused to cut in any other way than hacking it shorter with his dagger he really looked the part.)

“Dryads, don’t they usually keep to themselves? What could have them so worked up?” Errol pondered.

“No idea, a build-up of evil energy, dark magic, the undead, somebody dumping a vengeful body in the soil that came back as a living incarnation of the forest that punishes all intruders. Wizards dumping their magical creatures manure in the area.”

“Magic manure, really? What a load of crap,” Errol snickered, earning himself a warning glare from Elvira.

“Happens more than you’d think, but given the feeling round here, I’d say the likely culprit is undead.”

“Undead again? Mibbet groaned, trying her best to suppress her hosts run like hell and never look back instinct. She had figured out during this trip that leaving a mess uncleaned tends to bite you on the backside later.

“It’s OK, I won’t run, not this time, let’s stay as long as we can... I mean as it takes to solve this and bring peace back to the forest.” Rosalind said (not out loud though, so only Mibbet and Addy really heard.)

“Alright, you volunteering to face undead, that’s new, what’s going on?” Mibbet asked her, with all the delicacy and tact of a sledgehammer to the funny bone with explain embossed into it in broad capital letters.

“I’ll explain later; for now, we need to talk to the Dryad again, so we’ll need to make the fire further away and station people to watch the thing she fused with,” Rosalind muttered back. After some thought, Mibbet realised this was Rosalind; in a contest of stubbornness between her, a grass stain, and a herd of mules, she would take home the gold medal. So whatever was going on? Well, they’d burn that bridge when they got to it. She could, of course, try asking the others why all the rush and why Rosalind was so out of sorts. But the only one she could ask without basically declaring, “I’m an unknown entity steering your Princess would be Addy, who probably didn’t know anything about it, really, given that she was even more of a newcomer than Mibbet herself.

So it was decided that they would encircle the mushroom (Mibbet was not happy with this, a friend was napping in that stem, and she felt like a stalker.) A fire was set up a good distance away, and they lay in wait.

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*&$* (who had gained the nickname Shroomy, though they didn’t know it as if you translated that into spore, it ended up coming out as “they who get blocked in by leafy elephants, or maybe Steve. Spore is a complex language.) Was nervous; they were surrounded. But they still needed help, so in the absence of any other source, these weird creatures would have to do. *&$* had to do this, they needed to talk before the others caught up, and the confusing mess started all over again.

Others of her kind were often the jab with a spear and ask questions later type when it came to intruders, and given the communication barriers to asking questions.... plan b wasn’t really on the cards. Now *&$* may not understand a lot, but they did get that when asking somebody for a favour jabbing them with a spear was a big no-no, especially if the individual you are asking has a pet made of your greatest weakness. That tended to end rather poorly, at best with them refusing to help, and at worst.... well, they looked like a species with an inclination towards roast mushroom, one wrong move, and they were well and truly stuffed. So *&$* needed to somehow open up channels of communication before things got worse.

They had figured out that the intruders were not exactly fluent in Spore and that that weird barking noise was how they communicated. But figuring out the pattern wasn’t exactly going to work out (advanced montage magic was not a skill-set Sporelings possessed, so it wasn’t like they could flash through a few scenes of flashcards and a few basic words and suddenly speak broken intruder, and even if they could montage magic is an advanced form of drama spell. It usually causes a love triangle, a case of amnesia, or a plucky underdog defeating the established champion afterwards as a side effect. Montage magic was more trouble, specifically, drama, than it was worth.)

Eventually, once night fell *&$* slipped out again and tried to communicate.

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The creature was out again and started gesturing wildly at the group.

“Is it a play?” Errol asked, “how many words?”

The creature kept gesturing, getting increasingly frustrated as they guessed things like “angry puppy” and “baby shark.” (None of which they could understand anyway as human isn’t a language Sporelings understand, and spore isn’t magic either, so Addy faced the same issue.

Eventually, after many multicoloured (and probably quite sweary) spore clouds, they picked up a rock and started to draw. They drew what looked rather a lot like a zombie, and some kind of great stone gateway, then eventually a bunch of other versions of themselves.

“You mean you aren’t alone?” Mibbet asked, wishing a moment later she hadn’t as suddenly almost every mushroom out of firelight bristled with spears.