Chapter 5 – Magic

There were other people out hunting mushrooms. Wondering whether she should overcome her aversion to partying with strangers (for those of you who don’t play video games, ‘partying’ refers to joining a group of players and sharing loot and experience from kills, rather than getting drunk and dancing to loud music. Fey saw no reason to overcome her aversion to the second kind), Fey quickly rejected the idea when she heard the raucous laughter. Ugh. Somebody probably just made a lewd joke. Not that it’s likely they would know what ‘lewd’ (or raucous) means. Why do people have to be so stupid? Staying away from the unconscionable amount of noise the group was making, she found a clearing full of blue mushrooms. (This scene is supposed to convey Arwyn’s dislike of people in general.)

The mushrooms were roughly the size of soccer balls. Other than that (and the cartoonish eyes), they looked like ordinary mushrooms with vivid blue caps. Rather cute, but not unbearably so. Fey’s main worry was how she was going to carry more than four or five of them at a time to trade for gold. Snorting at a mental image of herself with a string of mushrooms hung over her shoulders and dragging along the ground, she decided to worry about that later, after she had a nice pile of (dead) mushrooms to transport.

Again blatantly disregarding normal behaviour during combat, Fey picked up a mushroom (it had no mouth, so she wasn’t afraid of being bitten) for examination. It was about the weight of a soccer ball, and was of a spongy consistency (*squishsquish*). I don’t think these things can hurt Amethyst… Putting the slime on the ground, she dropped the wriggling mushroom on top. They bounced off of each other looking none the worse for wear.

“Okay, Amethyst, attack!” The slime and the mushroom charged at each other (if you could call bouncing along at top speed ‘charging’) only to bounce off each other again and go flying. Determinedly, they rolled upright and charged again.

With iron self-control, Fey refrained from dropping to the ground with helpless laughter. Okay. Focus… Damn it, I really need a video camera. Remembering one of the game functions, she quickly recorded one charge and collision, and then left the two to it, turning to the other mushrooms.

Drawing her dagger, she slashed at a mushroom. As expected of a fungus, it didn’t bleed. Less expected was the way it launched itself at her with bruising force. “Ow!” Mad now, Fey threw it to the ground and stomped on it several times without giving it the chance to harm her noble personage (i.e. weak, pain-sensitive body) again. It stopped moving (*dead*). It also dried up, shrinking to a small size convenient for being stowed away into a pouch. This revealed the coins that must have been contained within the mushroom’s body. Well, that worked out nicely, Fey thought dryly, tucking coins and mushroom away, and then zeroing in on another target.

Sixteen mushrooms and several bruises later, Fey had reached level seven (woot) and discovered the secret to killing the mushroom effectively. Since they did not bleed, one had to hit them in their vital spot, which was in the centre of the stem. With this discovery came the intense satisfaction of the one-hit KO, to put it in Pokemon terms (*moment of silence for those deprived of Pokemon in their childhoods*). Glancing over, Fey saw that both Amethyst and her mushroom adversary appeared to be unconscious from exhaustion. She picked them up and placed them against a tree, sure that they’d be back at it as soon as they woke up. Aww, they’re so cute together.

Fey then sat down to take a break before starting the battle for level eight. Owowowow, these bruises really hurt. Checking her health, she was quite alarmed to see how low it was: 66/88. Then she remembered that to increase the realism of the game, not all health points were created equal. Just as in real life where it would be rather hard to die from soccer balls being kicked at you, if Fey continued fighting without healing, her health probably would not go down much further. Without bleeding, characters and monsters alike could not die without being hit in a vital spot. Still, the bruises hurt, so Fey decided to test the healing balm. Taking it out, she felt better just scooping some onto her finger. Woah, this stuff is powerful. Or maybe it’s just the placebo effect[i]. Any doubts as to its effectiveness were put to rest (put down!) when she dabbed the balm onto a bruise on her arm; the bruise disappeared at first contact, as did the rest of her bruises. This stuff really is powerful. With the guilty, sinking feeling she always got when she felt she was wasting money (even virtual money), Fey scraped the rest of the balm back into the container, resolving not to use it again until she gained a few levels (let’s say, fifty or so) or she was dying, whichever one came first (she vehemently hoped for the first). Determined to make the most out of her balm usage (wastage), she attacked the blue mushrooms with renewed vigour.

Another thirty mushrooms later, Fey was at level eight and her pouch was pretty full. She decided to get another three to round off her total number to fifty, and then go and drop off the load before either coming back or finding something else to do. She pounced (*stab*stab*stab*), then went to collect Amethyst.

The slime was jumping up and down on the blue mushroom’s head. “Go, Amethyst!” Fey cheered, seeing her pet finally getting the upper hand in the fight. As she approached, however, it became clear that Amethyst was not pounding the mushroom into the ground; both creatures were smiling (cutely), and Amethyst’s aerial activities appeared to be a group effort (Amethyst just then performed a backflip). “What are you doing, Amethyst?” Fey groaned. Here she was with a pet who would drag one of its own kind to certain death, and then start using a mushroom as a trampoline… It’s not normal. I feel kinda like it’s a failed mutation that should be put out of its misery for the good of the species…[ii]

At the sound of Fey’s voice, mushroom and slime broke apart to ‘stand’ (*affectionate* the footless creatures) side-by-side in front of her, looking expectantly at her. Fey stared at them for a long moment. She scooped up Amethyst and held her at face level. “You’re screwed up, you.” Amethyst just blinked (cutely). Sighing, Fey put the slime on her shoulder and then turned to the mushroom. Other than turning its head (body?) to watch the exchange, it hadn’t moved. Bowing to the inevitable, Fey picked it up.

Okay, so I don’t even necessarily have to do anything to tame a monster? Fey thought, bouncing the mushroom up and down on her hand in thought (it looked delighted). Okay, so what do I name it? Fey was careful to not think aloud lest the system pick another stupid name out of her words. As mentioned before, Fey was bad at naming things. Without one pre-established, it usually took at least fifteen minutes of research on the Internet for her to come up with a satisfactorily witty or cool-sounding name. Hmm. Mushroom, ‘shroom. She could not think of any normal names that started with ‘mush’ or ‘shroo’ (probably because there weren’t any), so that path was out. Then her mind flitted to the Drugs and Medicine unit of high school chemistry class (yes, she is that random). “Magic,” she said triumphantly. (For the poor unrandom souls who could not follow that thought progression, ‘magic mushrooms’ are the common name for psilocybin mushrooms, which contain the psychoactive compounds psilocybin and psilocin, and are taken for their hallucinogenic effects.)

Ooh, cool, it came with a skill.

That is a very informative description. “Random effect” indeed. Fey tried to guess at what possible effects the spores could do. From Pokemon, she could remember the moves Cotton Spore, Poisonpowder, Sleep Powder, Stun Spore, and Sweet Scent (the moves aren’t in alphabetical order because the author just looked them up; Fey has a very organized mind…) that seemed like they might be disseminated from spores. Okay, so lower speed, poison, sedate, paralyse, and attract/ lower evasion (that was again for the benefit of aforementioned deprived souls). Fey was sure that the programmers of Fantasia had created other effects, just for randomness’ sake. In any case, all the effects were harmful to opponents, so she supposed it did not particularly matter which one was invoked. Hell, I could just yell “Spore!” fifty times and get all the effects.

“Time to go,” she said to her pets. Fey set off towards the designated mushroom drop-off site, Amethyst on her shoulder and Magic bouncing merrily behind.

When Fey arrived at the forest clearing she intended to arrive at (isn’t it amazing how she doesn’t get lost? Fey-dar[iii] actually works), she felt that there was something odd about the human waiting for her. Dressed in a grey-green cloak that concealed most of his features, what she could make out the most clearly were the nerdy-looking glasses that made him look bug-eyed. Who wears glasses in a fantasy video game? The man (boy? Let’s just call him a ‘guy’) was sitting down against a tree, writing madly in a book.

“Are you the one who put out a notice for mushroom caps?” Fey called out.

“Oh, ahem, ye-yes it was,” he said, stumbling over his words and his own feet as he hastily stood up.

“Well, I have fifty blue mushroom caps here,” she said when the guy added nothing further (*awkward pause*).

“Oh, okay,” he said, producing a sack from somewhere in his cloak and holding it open, abruptly opening a trade dome.

Okay… Fey dropped her mushrooms (except for the live one, of course) into the sack.

“Here you go.” He thrust two 100-gold pieces at her. “Do you accept two hundred gold for fifty blue mushroom caps?”

“Yes…” Fey said, rather taken aback at this person’s social awkwardness, far greater than even her own.

“So… What are you using these mushroom caps for?” Fey asked, making one last attempt at normal social interaction.

The guy’s eyes darted sideways (*shifty eyes*). “I, uh, can’t tell you.”

“Okay… I’ll be going now,” Fey said, backing away kind of sideways so it did not look like she was backing away (*abandon attempt*). She had intended on going back to kill more blue mushrooms or even going after some poison mushrooms, but that did not seem like such a good idea anymore. As suspicious as the guy looked, Fey did not want to be responsible for anything he would do with blue, let alone poison mushrooms. I hope he doesn’t do anything illegal (*frazzled*). Are there laws in Fantasia? She tried to shake off her worry. I mean, what could he do with fifty measly blue mushroom caps? (Fey would not be so nonchalant if she had then known the unique effects of the Spore skill). She headed back to Moonwood village.

Footnotes:

[i] placebo effect: improvement of a patient’s condition in response to treatment, but not directly due to the treatment (they think they’re getting better, so they do)

[ii] natural selection: the process by which life forms with characteristics favourable to the environment tend to succeed in surviving and reproducing better than others of their species, ensuring the perpetuation of those characteristics in future generations

[iii] Pun on the word "radar". There is a navigation system in the game similar to a mini-map that lets you know which direction is North and the direction of places you've already been.