"Like I was saying, real nasty place. Aren't you soo glad that we don't live here?" The fur of Skritch's head was spiked and sticky, with smears of the same gummy goo across his pelt.

"Yet, I explicitly told you not to stand under the giant mushroom as I sliced off the sample," Shenzi muttered back weakly. "Why did you even want to come with me, again?"

The black tsabhua had traveled here to meet Van Callis, an expert on the rare species of mushroom found in L'hatzif. She had greatly anticipated getting away from the deep ocean–the pressure on her body, the blue tint to all colors–but with Skritch here, she was hardly on vacation.

"Because," Skritch argued back, "I heard some of those mushrooms can be super expensive!" He tried to fix his hair but only slicked it down more, and withdrew his paw to gack at the sticky sap stuck to his palm. "Yuck!" He stuck out his tongue in disgust.

"There you are!" Came a bright, charismatic voice from the mushroom woods. A male belemoid revealed himself from the tan bushes, white in pelt aside from his tabby-striped tail and face.

Van Callis–the L'Hatzif native–lowered his face timidly. His long, fluffy striped tail curled more tightly around his body. "Ah, you brought–a friend?" He gave a timid smile.

"Not a friend," Shenzi grumbled, hardly wanting to be associated with her compulsory leader. I'm here to learn about mushrooms and caving, and get away from this dumbass! She thought regretfully.

But Skritch stepped up and puffed out his chest, bearing the attitude of a small king. "Greetings," he called, in a voice far too loud, "Creature of the forest, I ask that you most humbly bring me to your rarest mushrooms, at once! Post haste!"

Van Callis' smile fell."Yes, right," he deferred weakly back to Shenzi. "Let's… Head on, then." he slunk back towards the fungi wood, keeping his body low.

His ears drooped back against his head–not a friend? He was stuck on those words. He felt mournful that their personal lesson had been intruded upon–who was this white tsabhua to Shenzi? Had she–perhaps, already found a lover?

What does she see in him? He thought grimly, aghast that such an intelligent-seeming woman would bind herself to this screaming runt.

The forest of L'Hatzif was wild and overgrown–with tall savannah grasses and massive mushrooms as thick as trees. Some were tall with small tan caps, others were fat and topped with red-and-white spotted caps.

"These are the most similar to what you know as fly agaric," Van Callis explained, feeling the shadows of the two much larger tsabhua behind him.

They approached a massive old husk of a dead mushroom, split down the middle by a black strike. Directly underneath it was a hollowed out den that revealed a series of dark-specked dirt tunnels.

"The roots have decomposed," Van Callis explained, trailing a bit of the carbon-laden substrate through his fingers, "But they've left behind where they've been. If we follow them down–"

Skritch cut off Van Callis. "So, the big money is beneath big shrooms?" He widened a blinking eye and flexed his fingers mischievously.

The white belemoid sent Shenzi an anxious look, but then merely lowered his head and padded into the tunnels. "Usually I'd say ladies first, but…" He mumbled, leading a sharp path through the cramped tunnel. Shenzi forced her muscular body through, feeling a touch more anxious than she'd admit.

The carbon-heavy dirt dropped away into stone, and the room widened into a natural cavern of rough-sided stone. The three fit easily into it.

Speckles of light caught Shenzi's attention, reflecting in her awe-struck orange eyes. "What are–Those?" She gasped. But before she had the opportunity, Skritch rushed onto them, pulling down the glowing green mushrooms from the cracked rock wall with a fast flurry of claws.

Van Callis gave a light cough. "Those are–Poisonous," he gently corrected, ushering the white tsabhua to drop his hoard. "What about these?" Shenzi instead turned her attention to a slate wall speckled with faint white glimmers. There, growing between cracks were white, almost transparent mushrooms.

"Ah, those," Van Callis appeared much more at ease when he could explain his passion to a genuine, curious mind. "We call them ghost caps, they come from salt. The mushrooms tend to take from the land themselves—taking on the qualities of the minerals around them."

"And they're–?" Shenzi held one carefully by the stem, planning to pick it. "Quite non-poisonous," Van Callis giggled, "Salty, as you can imagine. Used for cooking."

Skritch gave a loud–and dramatic–open mouth yawn. Not only did the belemoid keep ignoring him outright, but all of the travel to L'Hatzif and he hadn't made any profit! He threw down the luminescent mushrooms he'd gathered in a furious fit.

"Well, while you two reminisce about cooking, I'm venturing into the depths!" He stood up triumphantly and then stalked past Van Callis and Shenzi, giving them stink-eye over his shoulder so they'd know they should feel bad.

"Oh?" The belemoid, who had been giving a lecture on the glowing mycelium, stopped suddenly and his face went pale. Shenzi shot up an annoyed look far sharper than Skritch's own–she looked like she might skin him then and there. "Eech," the Captain complained, cringing at the hard look.

"You really don't want to travel much deeper–" Van Callis' tail flicked, indicating inner conflict. Telling a colony captain or other contracted members of DPIP what to do had historically led to disastrous results for the natives. "Why? What is down there?" Shenzi asked, reassuring him back into a conversation with her.

"Some of the fungi can… Have dangerous spores," Van Callis admitted, glancing weakly between the black tsabhua and the white. "The deeper you go, the higher the chance they could be leth–" And with that, Skritch's white form bolted away.

"Ugh, damn it," Shenzi facepalmed. "C'mon, Van Callis! Let's go after him!" The L'Hatzif native bit on his claws timidly, but gave the faintest nod. "I suppose we can't let him die…" He imagined DPIP launching a full investigation if a colony captain was discovered to be missing.