Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Day 1

For the first time, we spend the night of our arrival still airborne.

Lup is eager to explore the land below us, a world covered in vast glowing forests of fungi. Even now, when the single sun is on the far side of the planet, it glows as though it were daytime (At least, if daytime were characterized by an ever-shifting pattern of neon hues). The air is filled with clouds of spores which diffuse the light, concealing the edges of individual mushrooms so the entire world looks like a great ocean of light.

Tomorrow we head for one of the dark spots we can make out on the horizon in search of a clear landing ground. Captain Davenport has ordered that no one is to leave the ship until we can verify that the environment is inhabitable. Thus far, we have had the good fortune to only visit worlds on which we can walk and breathe, but there is no guarantee that every set of Planes will be so hospitable.

Magnus offered to go down to the surface by himself. “It’s the quickest way to see if we can survive!” he said.

Taako scoffed. “Oh, right, check it out by dying, that’s a brilliant idea. Idiot.”

“Yeah, Maggie,” said Lup. “You only just got back! Is the company really that bad?”

He didn’t push the matter, but offered to man the helm for part of the night so Captain Davenport could get some sleep.

We’ve seen no signs of inhabitants so far. Perhaps there are none, or perhaps they’re just hidden by the lights and the wide caps of the mushrooms. My lenses are of limited use from this distance.

The world appears to be of medium size, similar to that of Cycle 4 and to our home. It has only one sun and no moons. Our course is high enough that despite the light from below and the dense clouds we’ve been passing through it is easy to make out the unfamiliar stars that fill the sky.

(The next page spread is taken up by a painstakingly drawn star map, with notations on brightness and hue. Later annotations have been made in lighter ink connecting certain stars into constellations: The Mask, the Spider, the Pipes, the Bear.)

Three hours into his watch, Magnus called out and pointed to the forest below. I caught the briefest glimpse of what had startled him—movement, as if there was a creature passing through the mushrooms. Neither of us got a good enough look to describe what we saw, but it would appear that the life on this world is not, after all, limited to the vegetal.

Day 2

Throughout the night and the early hours of the morning we continued to make out shambling figures moving through the forests below, though we haven’t been able to identify them. Lup offered to burn a path through the mushrooms so we could have a better view, but she was overruled.

In the afternoon we finally discovered a settlement. It was easy to make out from a distance—one of the only dark patches in the glowing forest. The village is small and circular, with low, squat buildings clustered in the center. The outskirts are guarded by bonfires—dozens of them in three staggered rings—and the earth inside the village is charred. The inhabitants are in a constant battle against the encroaching forest, and fire is the only weapon they have. I suspect that Lup will get along well with them.

When we landed at the edge of the village, the inhabitants ran out from their dwellings to meet us. There was barely room for the Starblaster to touch down between the buildings and the flames, but Captain Davenport has always been a deft hand at the controls and only becomes more skilled the longer we spend on this mission.

At first we were unsure what race these citizens are. They are small in stature, no taller than Davenport or Merle, and are clad in long garments made of a heavy, dark material. But their most notable feature is the masks they wear. Everyone has some type of face covering, although there appears to be no standard type. I saw some with fine white veils wrapped around their heads and faces, revealing only their eyes. Others wear large masks with bulging glass eyes and long protrusions in the front like a bird’s beak. Still others have masks that seem to be made of the same material as their clothes sewn into a bulbous shape that covers their mouths and noses.

When the ship first landed, some of the people raised weapons—long tubes attached to packs that rest on their shoulders—but when we emerged they lowered them immediately. For a moment they stared at us, their eyes wide above their masks.

“Hail and well met!” said Merle, waving at them.

There was a brief shuffling as they spoke among themselves, and then one of them stepped forward. They wore one of the beaked masks and were short even by the standards of their companions. When they spoke, their voice was deep and strangely resonant—perhaps by nature, perhaps due to the acoustics of the mask.

“Where did you . . . come from?” they said.

After seven years on seven different worlds, we’ve become used to questions like these, and everyone knows that explaining our situation requires a certain delicacy of phrasing. So, of course, Taako said, “We came from fucking space, my man!” and then high-fived his sister.

“. . . Not a man, but okay,” the speaker muttered. Then they seemed to pull themselves together and said, “Listen, you’re in grave danger. We’re sheltered here . . . a little. As much as . . . Listen, you need masks or you’re all going to die.”

Perhaps not the most positive welcome we’ve received, but honestly not the worst either. We stepped down into their village and let them fit us with masks as they explained that the spores produced by the mushroom forest are deadly poisonous if inhaled. The constant bonfires around the village provide something of a buffer, but not enough to protect them completely.

The person who originally spoke, a dwarf who introduced themself as Mico, invited us into their dwelling for a meal and to learn more about us. We accepted, though we soon found that the building was too small for all of us to enter. I had hoped that I could at least remain at the door and record the conversation but Captain Davenport insisted that would be impolite. While Merle and Davenport went inside, the villagers built us a sort of crude tent out of the same white material they used for their veils.

They are all both curious and shy. They haven’t asked many questions yet, but they stare at us openly, especially Magnus. He’s as big as three of them put together.

Davenport and Merle returned and let us know that this village is known as Fungston and we are welcome to stay as long as we like provided we help with protecting the town. The mushroom forest is always advancing, and it has been as long as any of them can remember, although there are stories of a time before the mushrooms came. I hope I have the chance to record some of them.

There are other villages like theirs scattered around, the closest a ten days’ march through the forest, but as far as the people of Fungston know there are no elves or humans left on this world. None except us.

Day 3

Magnus and Davenport have spent the day on the Starblaster, in hope that they will be able to track the Light of Creation as it falls. It has given the rest of us the opportunity to explore the village.

(The rest of the page is taken up with a map detailing the locations of the two dozen buildings that make up the village of Fungston)

They have a regular pattern to the day. When they wake up, everyone checks the inside of their own buildings and then the common areas for any mushrooms that have sprung up overnight. It they find any, they burn them and the ground around where they sprouted with the flame cannons that are their primary form of weaponry.

Then they breakfast, usually in their own small family groups. There are one or two buildings covered in extra layers of the veil fabric that are devoted to the growth of herbs for cooking and medicine, but their primary diet is insects and the non-luminous mushrooms that grow on the floor of the forest. Boiling neutralizes the effects of the spores, but it still feels like tempting fate. Food is a necessity, not a pleasure, although from the meaningful glances that Taako and Lup share over mealtimes I suspect the village may have some cooking lessons in store if we remain here for any length of time.

Most of the villagers spend the day working on the incredibly fine white fabric which, along with fire, is their primary protection from the spores. The weave is finer than any cloth from home. Air can pass through it, but nothing else. Barry is fascinated by it and had taken some samples to study.

Their secret is the colony of fist-sized spiders that live in the forest directly outside of town. It would be wrong to call these creatures domesticated, but they are farmed. The villagers provide them with food and then use a large spindle powered by magic to gather their silk for weaving. Nearly everyone has a loom in their home, but they will sometimes take them outside and sit together under an awning at the center of the village, working steadily with only the clicks of their shuttles and the sound of the everpresent rain disturbing the silence.

Those who do not weave or have their own specific duties tend to the bonfires, making sure they continue to burn high. They are fueled by dried sections from the stems of mushrooms and by the oil well which caused the early villagers to settle in this place.

A little before sunset they prepare the main meal of the day. Even when eating, they wear spider-silk veils over their mouths, and usually use the opportunity to check that their masks are in good repair.

As night falls, the scorch teams head out to the North and South, burning the forest back as far as they can before their flame cannons run dry. It is only when they return, with no spores for several hundred feet around, that anyone dares to take off their masks. Still, this is something that is done only within their homes. Seeing another person’s face is considered a moment of rare intimacy. They barely know how to react to knowing what the seven of us look like.

I thought at first that it was just their shyness, but these people are exhausted. Every night they send out scorch teams to burn as many mushrooms as they can, and every day the forest grows back. It reminds me of our own mission, these seemingly endless loops of struggling to find the Light and protect a world from the Hunger only to be thrown back into another cycle.

A gnome child ran up to us this morning and demanded, “Have you come to save us?” None of us knew how to answer, and finally Lup said, “. . . In a way . . .” The child could tell it wasn’t the answer she needed, and the bright spark of hope in her eyes faded away. Even if we do prevent the destruction of this planar system there is nothing we can do about the great mushrooms amidst which these people eke out a living.

Deadly as they are, the mushrooms are beautiful. I’ve been able to make out at least ten different species without passing beyond the ring of bonfires. They vary so much in structure and color: there are ones with stalks like smooth treetrunks and domed orange caps with deep pink gills, ones that jut out of the ground like green dripping fingers, tall ridged ones and orbs that sit low on the ground. All of them glow and all of them release sprays of the deadly spores.

I asked Nita, a Halfling with bright, deep-set brown eyes who walks with two canes carved from the tough caps of the shelflike purple mushrooms, if it would be safe for me to leave the village to make more notes and sketches of the forest provided I wore my mask at all times.

She looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “You can’t go out alone,” she said. “The Keepers will find you!”

Apparently the strange moving shapes we’d seen on the forest floor were no trick; there are ambulatory mushroom creatures as tall as a human that tend to the forest. None of these Keepers have ventured within the circle of bonfires in living memory, but there are still stories of them sneaking up to remove the masks from incautious travelers.

Day 4

The Light of Creation fell early this morning before the sun had risen. Magnus, Davenport, and Barry had been taking turns watching for it, and it was Barry’s watch when it fell. We heard him cry out and followed his pointing finger, but by the time we looked the trail it left in the sky had already faded.

“I barely saw it,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s somewhere to the South, but that’s half the world to search . . . I don’t know if we’ll be able to get it this time.”

Magnus clapped him on the shoulder. “Of course we will!” he said. “You and Lup just need to do your whole science magic thing! You’re great at it!”

The mask covers most of Barry’s face that isn’t already covered by glasses, but the blush reached his ears.

After a brief discussion we decided that we would stay here in Fungston for the time being, at least until we had a better sense of how to navigate this world. In a month or so we would discuss organizing an away mission.

Magnus has spent most of his time since our arrival waiting on the ship, so this was his first day spent out among the villagers. They all stare when they think he isn’t looking. They also stare at me and Barry and the twins, but Magnus is both taller and broader than the rest of us. One of the children asked how he could be so tall, and he laughed and said, “Like this!” and swung her up onto his shoulders. She screamed for a moment, but then it turned into laughter as he helped her balance and she got to look down on all of us, even the rest of the crew.

It attracted quite the crowd: other children begging for a turn while their parents looked on in shock and muted horror which slowly abated as they saw how careful he was not to let anyone fall.

Vetch, the first child he picked up, is a small dwarf girl who looks younger than her nine years. She wears her hair in small braids that stick out all over her head. One of her mothers, Frelya, leads a scorch teams and Jarrus, the other, spends most of her time tending the spiders. Befriending the “giant” has made her very popular among the other children.

Frelya has agreed to take me out into the forest tomorrow, although I don’t think any of them really understand my work. I tried to explain it, but they insist they simply remember everything important and have no need for writing.

Day 5

The forest is even more astonishing up close! I will have to return with my paints to see if I can capture something of the colors of these mushrooms! There is so much variation in the form and texture! Some of them do remind me of fungi I’ve seen on previous worlds, but so much about them is utterly alien.

And the insects! These spores may be deadly to mammals like ourselves, but the forest is still teeming with life. I saw butterflies as big as my head and worms that glow the same shade as the mushrooms they feed on and tiny flies with delicate, lacy wings and bugs with armored carapaces that burrow through the leaf-mold. There are even frogs that live in the cup-shaped caps of some of the smaller mushrooms where the water collects.

(The rest of this entry consists of pen-and-ink drawings of the fungi and creatures of the mushroom forest. On one page the drawings are somewhat smudged with tidelines, as if it had gotten wet. There is a note next to it: “Better ink! Also: umbrella!”)

Day 6

I had hoped to spend another day in the forest, but Nita found me after breakfast.

“Come give Frelya a break and take a look at the gardens!” she said. We are all growing more accustomed to reading expressions without being able to see people’s mouths, but there was a genuine sparkle in her eyes.

She led me to the herb-filled huts, which she and a gnome named Gully are the chief tenders of. “You like listening to people talk, right? Well lucky for you, I can talk all day!”

And she was right! She explained how the gardens were constructed differently from the other buildings, lined with stones and spider-silk so the mushrooms couldn’t creep up from underneath. She led me through descriptions of every herb they grew—which would relieve pain, which could be turned into a salve for burns, which ones would stop you from getting sick if you added them to your meals.

“This is the most important,” she said, pointing to a plant with purple-gray, arrow-shaped leaves. “There’s nothing that will save you if you breathe in the spores, but this slows them down. Before we found it, people had days at most. Sometimes just hours. But chewing on these leaves or making them into tea every day, we’ve had people survive for months. It grows wild in the forest and it’s one of the first things to sprout from ground that’s been burned. We call it Sparkweed.”

She made me explain everything I was writing; a few of the elder citizens of the town still know how to write, but most of them never learned.

(Several pages are filled with drawings of plants, along with their uses and notes on how to identify them.)

Lup and Taako volunteered to “help” with cooking tonight. It involved perhaps slightly more striking poses than was strictly necessary, but no one complained. The Starblaster’s larder is well-stocked, and when Davenport asked if they were afraid they’d run out of something important Taako just laughed and transmuted his spoon into a pile of white peppercorns.

It was a much more satisfying meal than the others we’ve had so far, and more importantly the villagers seemed to love it too. The brought out a barrel of beer brewed from mushrooms as a thanks and shared it with us. It was very . . . heady. And dark. Taako took pity on my and transmuted my second cup into wine.

Vetch, still proud of her favor with the “giant,” has taken to climbing into Magnus’s lap or across his shoulders during meals. He encourages it, of course, although sometimes he tickles her in retaliation.

Day 7

The Hunger has found us.

It’s not a surprise by now, but it’s still horrible to behold. For a few minutes the colors seemed to drain from the world and hundreds upon hundreds of eyes opened in the sky and stared down at us. The villagers pointed their flame cannons at the sky. Vetch and the other children ran and clung to Magnus’s legs. The rest of us simply . . . waited. And as it always has done before, the darkness passed.

And now we have a year. A year of waiting for the Hunger to arrive. A year to find the Light and save this world. A year to learn all I can about this reality before we leave it forever.

Mico strode up to us as the eyes winked out.

“What is going on?” they demanded. “What the hell was that thing? You weren’t even surprised!”

“It’s . . . a force,” said Lup at length. “A really fucking nasty one, not gonna lie. It will be here in a year, but if we find the Light that landed here a few days ago we can lead it off and your reality will survive.”

“Our . . . reality?” Mico said. “What about us?”

“Um,” said Lup. “Well. That . . . depends . . .”

We explained, as best we could, what we’re up against. What it does to worlds and why it’s so important that we find the Light. What it can do to worlds even if we do. There’s no good way to spin it.

Dinner was quiet. Some of the villagers stared at us distrustfully. Others looked vacant, their shoulders slumped beneath their heavy coats.

They’d had so little hope anyway, and when we arrived for a moment we’d given them more. Hope that there were other people still out there, other worlds where the inhabitants could breathe free. And then we’d told them that they had another enemy, worse and more inevitable than the mushrooms.

As the sun set and the scorch team began to prepare for their nightly work, we heard a voice cry out.

“Wait! Brothers and sisters, if I may, I’d just like to offer up a little prayer to Pan to bless your work tonight and every night and to give you hope and joy through these dark times!”

It was Merle. He did pray, and the villagers listened in puzzlement. None of them have mentioned any gods. And then, as the scorch team filed out into the forest, Merle began to sing. It was one of those old hymnal tunes with a set of words for almost every god. The rest of us hummed along even though we didn’t know the words about Pan.

When the song ended, Merle looked around nervously. The scorch team had paused at the final ring of bonfires. The other villagers were staring out from the doors of their houses.

“What . . . what was that?” said Mico. They looked flabbergasted.

Merle shrugged.

“Hope,” he said.

Chapter Text

Day 8

Merle has set himself up in the town center, telling all who will listen about the word of Pan. To our surprise, ‘all who will listen’ seems to be most of the town. It may just be the novelty that makes them stop and ask him questions about his faith, but it may be something deeper. He prayed and sang the scorch teams on their way again tonight, and this time there were more than a few hesitant voices that joined in.

“Some of them really don’t believe that we can just breathe the air where we come from,” he told us after dinner.

Taako looked at him askance. “We came here without masks on. What do they think we were doing?”

“Dunno.” Merle shrugged. “I mean, they know we were on the ship. It’s not that weird we could breathe there. It’s the thought that there’s whole worlds without poison death spores in the air that throws ‘em. And where nobody needs to wear masks! You know how weird they think it is that we’ve all seen each other’s faces?” He paused and waggled his eyebrows. “Probably assume there’s some really kinky—”

“Gross.” Lup threw her spoon at his head.

“Speaking of which.” Magnus glared at him. “I know you’ve got your whole weird plant thing but please for the sake of everyone’s sanity and eyeballs, no flirting with the death mushrooms.”

“Hmph,” said Merle. “Here I am, trying to give these poor people the first taste of hope they’ve ever felt in their lives and all you can focus on is whether or not I wanna fuck the death mushrooms.”

To no one’s surprise, the conversation ended quite abruptly after that.

Day 9

I was able to go out into the forest again today. Frelya grumbled about it—she hates the mushrooms and doesn’t understand why I find them so fascinating—but she agreed anyway. I think perhaps Nita talked her into it. I brought my paints with me this time, and a tarp of oiled cloth for protection.

I’ve never found this set of pigments lacking before, but no matter how hard I try to capture the hues of the mushrooms around me my drawings end up looking pale and lifeless in comparison. There’s a vibrancy to them that I find myself simply unable to portray.

Although it’s been only a few days since my last visit to the forest and Frelya took me along the same path, the landscape looks completely different. When we do set out on our mission to recover the Light, navigation will be challenging; it’s hard to find any landmarks that won’t be overgrown within a few weeks. Some of the smaller specimens that I had sketched now tower far above my head, and there are new growths—tall red fungi bursting out of their veils that look like tentacles unfurling, stands of delicate lacy orange mushrooms that a species of large spotted insects use as hives, and light blue tendrils that dangle like strands of rope from the caps and stems of other mushrooms.

(Three pages are filled with detailed watercolor sketches. Next to some of them are faintly glowing dots of color, and next to one is a black stain that has eaten through the paper. The note next to it reads “Orange lace mushrooms highly acidic! Beware!”)

I noticed some of the herbs that Nita had introduced me to. They grow larger in her greenhouses, and they are so small and easily hidden out here in the shadows of the giant mushrooms. I picked a sprig of Sparkweed and could smell the peppery scent of its bruised leaves through the layers of my mask.

Frelya sat silently for most of the day, but as we were heading back to the village she said, “Those colors . . . they don’t hurt you?”

“Well,” I said, “They would make you sick if you ate them, but the paint is safe to use, yes.”

It hadn’t truly occurred to me before, but nearly everything in the village is brown or white or gray. Colorful things are associated with the mushrooms and death. It must be so strange to see the seven of us in our bright red uniforms. They look like new now, as they do at the beginning of every cycle. Mine has already acquired some stains and tears, but the others are clean and bright and crisp. It’s no wonder it was so easy for the villagers to accept that we come from another world.

I attempted to express as much to Frelya. She shrugged and said, “It’s all right. You don’t glow.”

I listened more closely to Merle’s hymn when the scorch teams headed out. Like so many hymns, it sings praises of the light. I may need to have a word with him about symbolism. On this world, unexpected light can easily be an omen of death. They have so little darkness that they’ve learned to covet it, to love ashes and the dark spaces left after the passage of flames.

Day 11

Magnus is already impatient to leave. I caught him arguing with Davenport this morning.

“We don’t know how long it will take!” he was saying. “We have the whole Southern half of the planet to search; we can’t just sit around waiting or this world could die!”

Davenport is less than half of Magnus’s height, but he has an aura of command about him that can make even the biggest human take a step back.

“We’re not going to charge in blindly!” he said. “We need to prepare or the whole mission could be doomed! We know almost nothing about this world and it’s up to me to make sure we make it to the end of the year at all! Oh, ah . . . hello, Lucretia.”

I haven’t been able to convince any of my crewmates that they should ignore my presence and continue with their conversations; it’s my job to chronicle, not to interfere in other people’s arguments. But the sound of my quills does tend to put people off despite my best efforts, and so that was where the conversation ended for today.

The interest in Merle’s evangelizing is still growing. He leads them in song at every meal now, not just when the scorch teams head out in the evening. They didn’t sing much before he arrived. As far as I can tell, they didn’t really have music at all.

“We sing to babies,” Nita said when I went to find her in the greenhouse. “But no, it’s not something we ever gave much thought to. Always too many other things to do.”

“And now?”

She laughed. “Well, there’s still too many other things to do! But it’s . . . nice. It’s like your stories.” She raised one of her canes and tapped my journals. “You don’t need it to live, but it makes being alive feel more important.”

Mico seems especially taken by the word of Pan. Whenever I walk past they’re sitting with Merle, plying him with questions. If Pan is a god of nature, why would he allow a world like this to happen? Was it a punishment? Why should they believe?

Strangely enough, it isn’t the great theological queries that are the sticking point. It’s the pipes.

Merle doesn’t play them much, but he carries a set with him, and he uses them to gesture sometimes when he’s praying. Mico simply can’t grasp the idea of them.

“But you couldn’t play them with a mask,” they said over and over.

“I know, kid,” said Merle. “That’s what I’m telling you. When you sit at the arm of Pan you won’t need a mask. You can breathe free!”

Mico laughed and shook their head, like that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.

Day 12

Never mind Pan. Fungston is going to start worshiping Lup.

She and Taako have mostly been keeping to themselves and working on new cooking techniques that the residents can use to spice things up, but apparently Lup’s been getting bored.

She volunteered to go out with one of the scorch teams.

They were reluctant to let her at first; it’s a very important job and they’re more cautious about letting outsiders assist with that than with anything else, but with some cajoling and a frankly over-the-top blessing from Merle they agreed.

It’s important to remember that while magic is important to the Fungston life, they mostly use cantrips and they mostly use them for crafting. I’m not sure why higher-level spells are so uncommon, if it has something to do with the mushrooms or if they just never developed them, but regardless of the reason these people have never seen a truly powerful magic-user before.

Usually the scorch teams can burn the mushrooms back for a few hundred feet. When Lup sauntered back into town blowing dramatically on her fingertips, a full quarter-mile of forest to the South of the village had been reduced to smoking rubble.

It was chaos. She stood in the center of town and used Prestidigitation to cast sparks for everyone who wanted to see, and between the people drawing away and the people who wanted to get closer (Vetch used her influence with Magnus to make him carry her over so she could hold Lup’s hand) it was a mob scene. Lup loved it, of course. There are vague plans for her to tutor the townsfolk on Evocation magic, but for now she’s content to bask in her glory.

Day 13

For the first morning since we’ve been here, the first morning in a long time, the mushroom forest hadn’t reached the first ring of sentry fires by dawn. The villagers stood and stared out at the cleared earth.

Most of them were silent, but Nita actually laughed.

“There’s so much of it!” she said. “The biggest open space I’ve ever seen!”

Merle met my eyes, and I could tell it broke his heart as much as it did mine. He nodded slowly to himself, and then looked up at the assembled villagers.

“Oh yeah?” he said with a wink. “Well I can show you something better.”

He strode out to the center of the blasted ground and raised his pipes in one hand and his holy book in the other. He closed his eyes and muttered a prayer under his breath, then stamped his foot on the ground.

The villagers muttered and drew back as the earth around him cracked and shoots began to emerge. Soon they realized that none of the things that were sprouting glowed at all—they were just brown and grey and soft, fresh green, and the murmurs of fear turned to wonder.

I had seen no grass in the forest. Only a few herbs. Hardly any flowers.

It was like watching the whole world turn green. Grass sprang up, and wood sorrel and thyme and clover. Bushes of blueberries and lingonberries grew and flowered and fruited before our eyes.

“Show-off,” muttered Lup. I could tell that she was grinning under her mask.

The villagers froze for a moment. Then Vetch, brave girl, took one step onto the grass, then two, and then ran laughing into Merle’s arms. The rest of them followed, stepping as if in a trance beyond the outer ring of bonfires. They knelt on the grass, ran their hands through the soft leaves, picked the berries and held them in their hands as if they were unsure what to do with them.

“You can eat ‘em,” Merle explained. “Gotta take them back to camp and clean them off, but I bet our favorite chefs here could whip up something—”

“It’ll be divine. Don’t even worry about it.” Taako had pulled his boots off and was digging his toes into the grass. Hesitantly, some of the villagers followed suit.

I felt a tug at my arm.

“I need these plants,” Nita gasped. She was crying and laughing at the same time. “I need—help me get them to the greenhouse, please!”

She and Gully and I dug up samples and carried them inside. There was barely room in the soil for them, but we made do—“The sageweed can keep in water, nettles were getting overgrown anyway . . .” Nita muttered, frantically digging.

When we finally sat back I had green stains on my robe and my fingernails. Gully was staring hungrily at the blueberries.

“Here,” I said, pulling a handful I’d picked outside from my pocket and quickly casting Prestidigitation to clean them. The other two removed their outer masks and loosened their veils, and they each took six berries.

Gully savored hers, eating them one at a times as slowly as she could. Nita put all six into her mouth at once. Her eyes shone with joy and tears, and after she swallowed she threw her arms around Gully and then, after a moment of hesitation, around me.

Day 14

Not much time to write. Have been drafted by Nita to keep moving samples of the plants Merle creates indoors. Village in joyful chaos; talk of expanding borders for the first time in living memory. Lup and the scorch teams working to burn the forest even further back. Everyone knows the green sward can’t be permanent, but for now it exists. The children are grass-stained from head to foot, and though everyone’s faces are still covered the villagers walk like they’re smiling.

Chapter Text

Day 15

Went into the forest again today. This time Barry and Nita both came with us, with Nita levitating over the mushrooms. Barry has been examining the forest from the village, but this is his first time out into it. It was good to have him there and to confirm my own suspicions: while many of these mushrooms superficially resemble flora from home, every biological and magical test he subjected them to confirmed that they were different from the native fungi of our own reality—and of this one.

Nita and Frelya merely shrugged when we asked them how the mushrooms had arrived on this world. It is past living memory, even for the longest-lived of the surviving races. There are only the vaguest legends. Some say it was a great spell gone wrong. Some say it was a comet of ill-omen that streaked across the sky and brought the first Keepers with it. Some say that the Keepers were already living in stone prisons deep below the Earth, and it was only a matter of time before they awoke.

"Doesn't matter," Frelya said, and grunted.

Nita shook her head and smiled at me. "Of course it does!"

She told us the names that the villagers use for the mushrooms. Most of them don't care much; all of the forest is deadly, so it doesn't matter if you call the blue parts and the red parts something different. But the herbalists care.

(The next several pages are filled with exactingly labelled pen-and-ink drawings with small color swatches next to them. Some of the drawings also have additional notes in a different, heavier hand.)

Dangerous as the forest is, the people of Fungston are forced to rely upon it for many things. Nita explained which mushrooms can be dried, cleaned of spores, and used as material for anything from the canes she uses to the walls of their houses. The universal veils can be washed and hardened and turned into the tough, thick fabric that the villagers wear. Certain species can be cut into thin strips and spun together to make a sturdy rope that is then cured on racks above the bonfires.

"You're extremely resourceful out here," Barry said admiringly.

Nita shrugged. "We do what we have to. If we weren't resourceful we'd all be dead."

It's true, although I don't think we're used to hearing it so bluntly.

Barry took samples from several of the mushrooms and was discouraged from taking them from others. There's one pale species that produces beads of ruby-red sap that burn like acid, which ate through his container almost before Nita could warn him away.

"Be careful of that one," she said, speaking to Barry but looking at me. "We call it Miser's Blood. It can burn through your mask before you realize anything's wrong."

Barry backed carefully away, apologized to the mushroom for disturbing it, blushed, and then tripped over his own feet. Fortunately he didn't land in anything dangerous, but we did take it as a sign that we had probably done enough exploring for the day.

Day 16

We have all been recruited into assisting with the movement of the bonfires. It is a gradual process: first the inner ring is put out and new fires are built around the outer periphery. The plan is to maintain those for a few days to ensure that the scorch teams can keep the forest back around a wider perimeter even without Lup's evocation magic assisting them.

It means that we have to burn some of Merle's green sward, which the villagers were upset by at first. But today Merle was up uncharacteristically early, sitting in the center of town. He said it was too early for singing, but he poured out two portions of his breakfast tea—one for himself and one on the ground for Pan.

Merle knows all the traditional services. I've seen him use them more than once, but more often when he talks to his god he goes off on rambles that sound more as if they were directed at a beloved but ornery relative.

"Now Pan, I know this is a tough situation, but can you help a brother out here? You saw how much these people loved those little plants you helped me grow, so I'm thinking maybe we can get you a congregation going here. What do you think? Got a problem being the god of a weird mushroom world? Yeah, I didn't think so."

As he talks, plants and flowers grow around his feet.

It's certainly not traditional, but I feel that the people of Fungston could do far worse when it comes to spiritual leaders.

The villagers began to emerge from their houses—some with curiosity, some with frightened squeaks. They're still (I say still and betray my own prejudices. There’s no way that a few days would make a difference after a lifetime) unused to wild plants that aren't somehow sinister, so when the shoots emerge through the ground their first instinct is to draw away. But soon they see that what Merle grows will not hurt them.

The entire circle between the first circle of bonfires is green.

It made it easier to move the first circle outward. We worked all day. Lup helped to rekindle the new bonfires, since she's agreed not to go out with the scorch teams for a few days so they can test their efficacy against these new borders. Magnus enjoyed excavating the new fire pits—it gave him an excuse to show off his strength, and of course the villagers were duly impressed. Taako decided to take advantage of the Starblaster's larder and surprised everyone after dinner with trays of tiny star-shaped cookies. There were enough that all the villagers could eat their fill. They're amazed at the concept of flour, which they’ve never seen before—who knows how long it's been since this world could grow wheat?

Day 17

We've begun to make plans for the expedition. Captain Davenport called a meeting, moderated by Merle, to discuss what we need to do to prepare. The biggest problem is how much world we have to explore. Lup and Barry have been trying to find ways to track the Light, but so far they have no definite answers. We know that if a civilization takes in the Light of Creation it tends to spur them to new heights of science and creativity, and sometimes we can use that knowledge to determine its location. But on this world, the chances of it landing somewhere where people can find it are slim. We'll be looking for a needle in a deadly, glowing haystack.

It could well take our entire time on this planet to locate the light, if we do so at all. Mico tells us that the forest outside the borders of the town is actually quite sparse compared to the deeper groves that lie to the South. The Starblaster will take us part of the way, but most of the journey will have to be done on foot.

We have left the final determination of who will be going on the mission for a later date. Magnus intends to lead it, and Davenport will go along and stay with the ship. I have volunteered to go as well. We won't be leaving for at least several more weeks. It's not long enough to gather all the stories I want to tell from this village--it never is--but I should be able to talk to more of the citizens. Those who were shy at first have begun warming up to us. Their eyes are brighter now, and I think they are smiling below their masks. Merle and Lup together have given them hope.

And this mission--it is a story, too. All stories deserve to be told but my first duty is always to the mission and the crew. I hope that, eventually, someone else will read what I have written and remember us. I hope that, eventually, this is a story of a mission that was completed. Of a world that was truly saved. But until then, all I can do is write.

Mico tells us that the "rainy season" is coming, and we would do well to delay our departure until afterwards. As it has been raining nearly non-stop since our arrival, I hesitate to think what sort of weather is approaching that would be so much worse. Mico shook their head when they spoke of it. It's a dangerous time, they said, the time of year when the village is most likely to lose people. Most likely to be lost itself.

"We won't let that happen," said Magnus, and the rest of us nodded.

Day 18

I spent today among the weavers, trying to get them to explain their processes or other stories of the town, but came away with very little. They're extremely polite and not what I would call tight-lipped, but they want to hear stories, not tell them. I suppose it's understandable; to them this way of life is everything they know, but our crew descended from the stars. They want to know about our home. It pains me to tell them. It's been seven years since we left. Seven years since we lost our home.

I don't have a journal about that world. Rather, I had many. The biographies I wrote or ghost-wrote. The piles of blue leather volumes I bound and filled with the stories of other people's lives. But those remained planetside. There was no reason to bring them--no reason to suspect that the seven of us would be the last survivors of our reality.

But I still have notes. Stories. Songs. When we have time, I still ask the others. Magnus is the most eager to talk. He's younger even than I am, and than I was. He should be twenty-eight years old by now, but every time we enter a new set of Planes he returns to the round, boyish face of a man barely out of adolescence. I wonder if the pride he takes in his sideburns is at least in part because they make him look older. It was important at the beginning because he really was so young, and it's important now because he isn't.

I brought a pile of my books out from the Starblaster. They are the right-handed copies, with writing that is slightly less smooth. The backups. If something happens to them, the first copies will still be safe on the ship. So I brought them out and read from them. Showed the villagers the sketches I'd done of our lilac sky with the two suns, of our trees and our clothes and our cities.

They muttered and nudged each other at the images of people going about their daily lives with no masks on, stared at the drawings of trees in disbelief.

"You just . . ." Jarrus asked. "You can just breathe?"

I nodded, and the look on her face broke my heart.

"Do you remember?" I asked. "Do any of you know stories about what it was like before the mushrooms came?"

They all shook their heads, and Riki, a halfling with pale eyes and a particularly long trunk-like mask, said, "I reckon there never was a before. They say there was, but some of 'em also say there'll be an after. And that's just mad. 'Slike you people coming in here, all mad with hope. It's not going to get better. Don't think it ever was."

"That's not true," Jarrus said. "My grandmother's mother was part of the first generation born in the village. And she told my grandmother, and she told me, that things used to be different. You used to be able to see the stars. You used to breathe free. But you know what? When they first came, the prophets said that the mushrooms and the Keepers would end the world, that it was the end of everything and no one would survive. But we did. We don't have much but we're still here, and I don't know about the rest of you but I'm going to hope that some day my daughter or her children or their children will be able to look back and say, 'We survived. We survived and we won and those damn Keepers still haven't beaten us.' Maybe they won't need these masks. Maybe they'll see the stars again."

Such speeches are uncharacteristic—for any of the villagers, but especially for the usually taciturn Jarrus. Riki refused to meet her eyes and went back to his weaving.

Soon afterwards, Vetch ran over to tell us it was time for dinner. Jarrus caught her up and pressed their foreheads together. It's a common greeting here among loved ones, perhaps an alternative to kissing since the lower halves of their faces are always covered by their masks.

The hymn to send off the scorch teams gets fuller every night. The entire village knows the song by heart and sings along. Tonight, Magnus and Barry attempted the baritone harmony. Their voices are enthusiastic if not always in tune, but I heard gasps from around me. Vetch watched the teams roll out from her favorite perch on Magnus’s shoulders, and when she ran back to her mother afterwards I saw that Jarrus was crying.

Day 19

(The first several pages of this entry consist of watercolor paintings of mushrooms. They are more brightly colored than the previous paintings. Notes to the side of the images read, ‘Pigment help from Barry and Lup. Red and yellow magically derived, others adapted from the distilled juice of the mushrooms’)

The new town border remains stable. The center of town remains green. To Captain Davenport’s chagrin, there are vines growing around the Starblaster, but none of them go near the engines so he can’t yet claim that they’re a safety hazard.

Spent another day in the forest with Frelya. My sketches are now nearly true to color, thanks to the scientific expertise of my crewmates.

As we were walking back, Frelya stopped shortly outside the first set of bonfires.

“I . . . haven’t asked for anything in exchange for taking you out here,” she said.

“I know,” I replied.

She turned and thrust an extra mask into my hands. One of the bulbous ones, made from the cured and waterproofed universal veils.

“Use your paints,” she said. “Make it . . . brighter.”

It make take more consultation before I can find a medium that will adhere to the mask’s material, but I know how I will be spending tomorrow.

Day 20

Have spent the day in painting and experimentation with Barry. The slick surface of the veil-cloth resists my standard preparations. If I knew less about the material I would be tempted to sand it to give quill and brush more tooth, but even though the process of curing it kills the spores I know better than to risk it.

It is refreshing to work on the ship and be able, at least for a while, to remove our own masks. It’s air-tight inside—as something designed to travel between realities should be—and we’ve established a system of knocks and small blockades to make sure no one opens the door to the outside when we aren’t expecting it.

It is strange how quickly we adapt. For our first few days in Fungston the constant presence of the mask was almost intolerable, but I find that I’ve become so used to it that going without makes me feel strange and vulnerable. Despite how little sunlight makes it through the clouds, Barry has a line running across the bridge of his nose with paler, sun-starved skin beneath it.

(The rest of the page is a careful experimental table of substrates and additives. Glued in next to it are narrow strips of thick, waxy cloth. All of them have been painted green. Most of the paint is chipped and flaking; some is translucent and uneven; some is discolored and has bit into the cloth. On the final strip, the paint is vibrant and flexes with the cloth when you move it. Around it are scribbled words in a circle: “Huzzah!” and its synonyms in Elvish, Dwarfish, and Draconic, as well as words in several other languages you don’t recognize but assume from context are further exclamations of excitement.)

Day 21

It took most of the day and most of the night before we found a medium that would work. Lup brought us coffee and laughed about how silly it is that humans need to sleep. It reminded me of our time back at the Institute. I still hope to find something readily available on this planet, but for now we rely on transmutation magic and egg-yolk tempera.

I suspect Lup of casting Sleep on the two of us shortly thereafter. She refuses to admit to it, but doesn’t deny it either. Bolstered by the excitement of our discovery, I had planned to stay awake through the remainder of the night and make some progress with the painting, but the next thing I knew Barry and I were both raising our heads from the table, having missed breakfast and made a spirited effort at missing lunch.

The twins were in the kitchen, and as soon as they saw us stirring they grinned and descended on us with two massive omelets, doubtless made from some of the unused experimental eggs.

I spent the rest of the day painting. I finished in time to meet Frelya as she returned from scorch team duty. She took the mask, now covered in images of delicate flowers and intertwining vines worked over a field of tiny truesilver stars, and turned it over and over in her hands. She was silent for a full minute.

“Thank you,” she said at last. “You’re . . . a real weirdo, but I don’t mind taking you to look at mushrooms.”