Chương 33: Side Story: What if? (Fungi Fun-guy)

"What in the abyss is that?" exclaimed Si'janrii, peering at the naked humanoid walking towards the checkpoint. It looked kinda like a proper person, but the ears and tail were missing, not to mention the clothes. The lack of any sort of scarring gave away that this was something pretending to be one of them, rather than someone who had suffered disfiguring injuries, causing every guard present to sharpen their attention and keep a tight grip on their weapons.

"It's not any sort of chilopoda, and frankly, that's all I care about," opined Si'chieen.

"If I never see another chilopoda in my life, it'll be too soon." The other guards simply watched the odd creature, waiting for the order to kill or ignore, but neither came, because at that point the monster stopped walking. It simply stood and stared in their direction.

"Hey, the wall is talking to me!" it exclaimed after a few seconds of silence, before giggling and falling over.

"And again I ask, what in the abyss is that?" repeated Si'janrii, watching the odd creature attempting to pull itself upright against the side of the passage. It didn't appear to be having much success.

"Who tipped the floor over?" complained the monster, failing its fourth attempt at standing up.

"Should we... put it out of its misery?" asked one of the other guards.

"We might be able to sell it?" suggested Si'chieen.

"It doesn't exactly look dangerous, and I'm pretty darn sure Ja'yakril doesn't have one of... whatever it is."

"If you must," sighed So'layn.

"I wish you wouldn't indulge him, but for a third of the profit, I'll give you two permission to leave your posts early. But please check it bleeds first. I don't want you bringing a shifter through the checkpoint. Even if it's not a particularly intelligent one."

"Of course," agreed Si'chieen.

"Come on brother, you help too."

"Bah, I think we should just blast it. It could be pretending. But if you insist, let's get this over with." The fortress gate ponderously swung open, and the two of them stepped out, spears at the ready. The monster looked up at them from its position on the floor.

"People? I thought this place was all bugs? You're not bugs in disguise, are you? Like, you're not going to split down the middle and a giant beetle is going to pop out? If you do, I'm totally going to freak." Si'chieen and Si'janrii peered at each other.

"This was your idea," pointed out Si'janrii.

"You deal with it." Si'chieen shrugged and turned back to the vertically challenged monster.

"If you can understand me, hold out a hand. Or hold up a hand. Or something. I just need to give you a little prick, and then we'll take you somewhere safe, okay?" The monster paused its struggles to return to its feet, and burst into laughter.

"But we've only just met!" it exclaimed once its insane giggling had died down.

"Still, I wouldn't say no," it continued.

"Good," said Si'chieen, completely missing the way in which the monster had parsed his comment in a very different manner than intended. He grabbed a flailing hand while Si'janrii kept his spear ready, and pricked a finger with his knife.

"Ouch!" exclaimed the monster.

"What was that for?!"

"Yup, it bleeds red," said Si'janrii, but Si'chieen didn't hear him, staring at the droplet of blood on his knife with dilated pupils.

"Hey, Si'chieen?" said Si'janrii, with slightly more urgency.

"What's up?"

"Oh, sorry," answered Si'chieen, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it.

"Got distracted for a moment." The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Well, focus! We're on the wrong side of the wall, in front of a... thing. How are we going to transport it? It doesn't seem capable of walking under its own power."

"Get one of the long spears, tie it by arms and legs, and carry one end each?"

"Yeah, that's probably safest." Another guard brought out a two metre long spear and some rope, and Si'chieen started tying up the thing's wrists while Si'janrii worked on the ankles.

"Huh? Are we playing some sort of game?" it asked, before its eyes settled on Si'chieen's ears, now perfectly visible thanks to him stooping to reach for its wrists. The eyes opened wide, and it pulled away a hand before Si'chieen could react, reaching for his ears.

"Fluffy!" it exclaimed before grabbing one. Si'chieen froze, then lots of things happened at once. Most notably, Si'janrii cut off the offending hand.

"Oww!" exclaimed the monster.

"Woah..." exclaimed Si'janrii, backing away in alarm at his sudden light-headedness, as he breathed in the fumes from the large amount of the monster's blood, losing balance and falling over only a few steps away. Si'chieen was less coherent, having got a good amount of the blood over his face.

"I... I think..." he attempted, before forgetting how mouths worked and managing only incoherent mumbles.

"That's... That's good stuff," muttered the monster.

"The... wassit called? psycho... psycho... Umm... The psycho-something blood skill."

"Oh... Hey, this feels good," exclaimed Si'janrii, still swaying somewhat, but having managed to successfully stand back up. Behind the barricade, So'layn facepalmed.

"Get that door shut, and leave those two idiots out there," he ordered.

"Then someone go and fetch a healer."

"Hey, wanna go try something even better?" said the monster to one of its new friends, completely ignoring its missing hand.

"Got some shrooms. Big shrooms. Great for bringing out the artist in anyone." Si'janrii twitched.

"Better than this?" he asked.

"Lead the way!"

"Arlbbb," drooled Si'chieen, in full agreement.

"Oi, you two, stop right there. That's an order!"

"Who's 'right there', and how do we stop him?" asked Si'janrii, before bursting into laughter at his own terrible joke, skipping happily up the corridor. Si'chieen crawled after him, along with the monster, which had finally managed to pull itself back upright. A few hours later, a search party located the trio in a medium-sized cavern, largely taken up by the deadly pool of an angelica vorax, massively complicating the rescue efforts.

If not for the fact that they knew the monster's blood was dangerous, and hence were all already wearing masks to counteract it, they may well have lost a number of guards to the manipulative plant. Thankfully, whatever drugs the two missing guards were high on seemed to offer them some protection from the hypnotic scent of the pool. All three of the targets were lying on their backs, staring at the cavern ceiling, alive but completely unresponsive. Half eaten fragments of mushroom were scattered all around.

The priestess Do'myrith, added to the party for the purposes of healing, sighed and began the magic required to purge the drugs from their systems. Ja'yakril, who had jumped at the chance of joining the rescue squad after hearing about the unique monster, set about fitting a pet collar around its neck. A few minutes later, all three came around.

"Whu?" asked Si'chieen groggily, through the mask that had been strapped to his face.

"My arm hurts," complained the unknown monster.

"I need more mushroom..."

"I'm sorry, but I can't heal a severed hand," said the priestess.

"And I think you've had quite enough of that mushroom already."

"You can never have too much mushroom!" disagreed the monster.

"But it's okay. I can heal my own hand. Just gimme a sec. Or an hour." For a few seconds, nothing at all happened.

"Umm... I seem to have forgotten how to move. Can someone remind me?"

"Can you really heal your hand?" asked Ja'yakril incredulously. What had been a mere curiosity only a minute ago had suddenly become a lot more interesting.

"I can heal anything!" exclaimed the monster proudly. Ja'yakril released the block on the monster's movements, permitting it to stand. It climbed to its feet, turned, and ran straight towards the carnivorous tree.

"Hey, wait!" he exclaimed, ordering the suicidal monster to stop. Its legs locked up and it went sprawling forwards, sliding across the stone ground and coming to a stop just in front of the pool. Seconds later, a root shot out and grabbed it around the neck, dragging it in.

"Damn it!" exclaimed Ja'yakril.

"At least we rescued the missing guards," said Do'myrith, completely missing the look Si'janrii was giving the mushrooms. Despite healing up fully as promised one hour later, the strange monster never came down to the checkpoint again, deciding that everything it ever wanted was there in the one little cavern. The two guards, however, always on the lookout for a quick buck, snuck up to visit it regularly. They could only sell the monster to Ja'yakril once, after all, while they could sell its mushrooms forever.

Better to keep their friendship than betray it by telling him that it was still alive. It wasn't long until an epidemic of drug addiction took hold of the vulpes sagax settlement, the crippled guard failing to hold back a monster attack a few months later, resulting in the complete destruction of the town. The monster formerly known as Katie didn't even notice, content in its perpetual haze of bliss.