Death Cap - Twenty-One - On the Importance of Names and Companionship

The next couple of months sort of just... flew by. I split my focus three ways. One part of that went to preparing for a busy spring of selling mushroom skewers. Another part was focused hard on practising. And the last bit was focused on my new badger friend.

As winter started to approach its end I started to focus my farm on food crops once more. I needed money, and that year was going to be a huge one for me, I could feel it. I used some of the money I’d set aside to buy oil for my burner and a shiny new plate for my table. I was considering commissioning a new one, but... well, it was expensive, and the table I had was made by Dada. It had its own worth.

That was mostly an idle activity. Growing, ensuring that the mushrooms I was tending to were in good health, a bit of pruning and some careful breeding.

Mushrooms weren’t plants. The methods used to breed them, though, were roughly similar, at least the broad strokes. I was using those same techniques to try and get... not new specimen of mushrooms, but healthier ones with properties that I found more desirable.

That was a pretty time-consuming task, but it made my main source of income and my primary weapons better by tiny increments. They might pay dividends later too. If I had a healthier strand of a mushroom and tried to make it a hybrid with something else, then some of those good genes might carry over.

Other than that, I spent a lot of time with my badger.

Nearly a month after having him, I let him out of his cage.

The badger stayed inside the open cage for a long while and I let it. When it snuck out, of course, it immediately zipped across the room and bit my ankle.

“Ow! You shit!” I shrieked as the panbadger darted around my farm. I chased after it, which proved somewhat difficult when the thing was small enough to pass under my workbench and mushroom racks.

Still, it had spent a long time in that cage, it wasn’t in the greatest of shape.

I caught it eventually, grabbing it by the scruff, which was great until it spun around on itself and started to claw and nip at my hand.

“Stop it!” I shouted. “You stupid thing! I should have left you in the cage! Do you want to go back in there?”

The badger paused and stared at me with angry, beady eyes. It didn’t like that idea.

“I swear on Feronie, I will shove you back in that box and drop you off at the seediest pet shop I find if you don’t behave,” I warned.

The badger went loose, but it still looked at me with suspicion. So I placed it on my workbench and watched it scurry to the far end. It hissed at me, but didn’t seem quite as hostile.

“Look, I want to work with you here. I’ve been lugging around your cage since forever now, I’ve been feeding you, and I’ve picked up your own weight in excrement already.” The last had served as fertiliser, but it was still a bit gross. “I can’t go on doing that if this whole thing will be one-sided. So, I’m going to open the door. If you want out, leave. If you want to stick around, then that’s cool too. No more cages. Just me and you.”

The badger glared at me even as I crossed the room and opened the door of the farm and gestured outside.

Then, in a few quick bounces, it jumped down from the workbench and out the door.

I was honestly floored.

The little shit, I’d fed it for over a month!

I spun around, lips pursed and cheeks puffed out. “Fine then,” I said.

The badger stared at me from the middle of the road.

“Don’t get run over,” I warned him.

He continued to stare at me, then looked around, at the expanse of the city. Then, slowly and somewhat reluctantly, he walked back over and slunked back into the farm.

I blinked. Were badgers like cats, or was this something else?

We looked at each other for a while, then I sighed and squatted down in front of the panbadger. I let him sniff my hand for a bit, a little wet nose poked at my knuckles. “Alright then,” I said. “If you’re not going to leave, then you don’t have a choice. You’re going to have to deal with being my friend. I don’t have a lot of those, and I’m warning you, I’m pretty high-maintenance.”

The badger allowed me to carefully pet him on the head, but only a little before backing up.

I closed the door, then backed up a smidge, giving him some space. “Alright. If you’re going to become my friend then I’m going to name you,” I said, ignoring any amount of hypocrisy in those words. “Uh... you’re a bit of an ass, so names like Fluffy and Snuggles are right out.”

He hissed at me.

“Hissy?”

He hissed harder.

“Alright, not that,” I surrendered. “What about... I don’t know, something easy? Bob? No? Alright, well... Anklebiter?”

He considered that one.

“No, that’s too long. Nibbles? Yeah? Too easy? How about something a bit edgier then, like Eyenibbler? Make you sound real tough for all the lady panbadgers out there.”

He seemed to like that name.

“Okay. I hereby dub thee, Sir Eyenibbler the Terrible.”

I wasn’t expecting to feel anything from that, but there was still a spark and the air in the room suddenly felt tight in a way that was hard to describe. It only lasted a second, and it seemed almost entirely centred around the badger.

We stared at each other when the effect ended. “I’m still calling you Nibbles,” I told Nibbles.

He grumbled about it, but didn’t bite me so I figured it was fair.

Nibbles and I entered an uneasy relationship after that. I shoved the cage away, which made him pretty happy, and then... that was it. He allowed me to pet him, but only a little, and only on occasion, usually when he’d just eaten enough that his little tummy was distended and he couldn’t be bothered to fight off my questing hands.

I learned a lot about applying bandages to fingers, because the little bastard liked to live up to his nickname.

At night, he’d follow behind me on the way home, never straying more than a pace or two and occasionally hissing at the alley cats and rats who darted away at the sight of him. I think he liked that.

The rest of my free time was spent on training. I ate mildly-poisonous mushrooms and learned that the best way to handle those was to tie myself to a chair first. It prevented some of the vertigo and when I vomited it was only in one corner of my farm instead of all over.

Poisons were more fun when used on others.

Other than that, I practised with my aura, with my blight skill, and more passively with all of my other mushroom-growing skills. That resulted in a few improvements and a few important milestones.

[Congratulations! Your [Blight {Epic}] Skill has unlocked the [Persistent Death] Subskill!]

[Persistent Death]

Your Blight’s magical effects sink deep into living matter and remain there, active until the living passes away or endures through the Blight.

That made my [Blight] skill last longer against living things without me using mana on it. Basically, if I hit something with [Blight] it would do an amount of damage equivalent to the amount of mana I poured into it, but over time, and without the mana cost. That was kind of nuts, but the duration was very long. Hours long. So it wasn’t spectacular at killing anything quickly, just at making the pain last longer without me spending mana on it.

Still, a nice effect, and I bet it would stack well with future things.

[Congratulations! Your [Druid Sight {Uncommon}] Skill has unlocked the [Druid’s Sense] Subskill!]

[Druid’s Sense]

You have gained a heightened sense for an area’s attunement, or lack of attunement, to nature.

That was the same as the last time I’d gotten [Druid Sight] above level twenty.

[Congratulations! Your [Mushroom Magic {Rare}] Skill has unlocked the [Super Shroom Zoom] Subskill!]

Now this one was different, and a godsend.

[Super Shroom Zoom]

All fungal bodies will grow at an increased speed as long as you are directly applying magic to them.

I could grow a fungus from mycelium to mushroom in an hour or two with this one. Faster if the mushroom in question was a fast-grower already and the conditions were decent.

That meant that if I went for a long dungeon dive, all I’d need to do was keep some spores on me or some starter growth and I could replenish my stock in an hour or two.

The rest of my growth was all in my general skills, which didn’t make it any less interesting.

***