When Seymore had first told the colony what he'd found they were all pretty stunned. Nothing had happened to the tree-like mushrooms in the fungal forest before, not that they had heard of. Most colonists were pretty interested- many offering to go up there to try and find out the cause. At the end of the day, Bloo decided that [[Koi]] and[[ Empress]] would be the one to go and poke around. [[Crimson Crown]] had proudly proclaimed that she'd have to come along too, since he knew where the withered mushrooms were- which Bloo supposed he couldn't really argue with. It didn't take long until the trio arrived with the withered shrooms- Crown a lot more cautious now, not knowing Koi nor Empress well enough to really mess around with them as much as she did with Seymore. They eventually found Litmus, foraging for mushrooms around the place where Crown had met her, and Koi and Empress kindly introduced themselves. "Heya. My name's Koi- you asked a friend of our with help figuring out what's up with the mushrooms." Koi smiled, nudging Empress to urge her to introduce herself "Oh- uhm, my name's Empress. Same here, I suppose." Litmus nodded,

before gesturing around not unkindly, "well, they're all around here. You know as much as I do, so by all means." Empress frowned, narrowing her eyes a little "Well since you live here you must know *something*, right?" the other Tsabhua shook her head "Not really, I'm afraid. One moment you're just wandering around, giant mushrooms aplenty and the next you hear some strange noises" Empress gave Koi a Look at that "and one after the other plummets down." "Right." Empress started "Tell me more about those noises then." Empress listened to the inhabitant of the forests as Koi refocused her attention to Crown, who was digging at the root of a not-too-bad looking mushroom. "What're you doing there, Crown?" Koi quizzed, as the whelp started to disappear into the hole she was digging. Koi was honestly getting worried at how fast, and deep, the whelp could dig. "I'm looking for bugs!" Crown proudly exclaimed, confusing Koi even more. "Bugs?" she asked, unsure. "Why are you looking for bugs." Crown poked up from her hole "Because you're constantly complaining about bugs eating the plants in the greenhouse. Duh." Koi raised an eyebrow "You're digging to find bugs because you think

that they might be eating the roots, like some bugs in my greenhouse do, and you think that might be causing the plants here to wither, too, like the ones in my greenhouse." Crown nodded, back to digging her hole and Koi was left- a little perplexed. The conclusion that Crown had come too wasn't- that unusual? She looked back at Empress, who was still having an annoyed conversation with Litmus. When her sister noticed her looking she explained "Litmus just told me she has been hearing strange noises from the mushrooms. All this time. And she just- wasn't going to mention it because it 'didn't seem important'." Koi could hear the annoyance in Empress' voice, but a stranger probably wouldn't have. Which was a good thing, considering that Litmus was still standing right there. Koi nodded "Crown thinks it might be bugs." at which Empress rolled her eyes "I mean, to be frank, I don't really care what Crown thinks. No offence." Koi figured that this was not the time or place to discuss that "no offence" didn't make the statement any less rude, and instead just started at the beginning "Well, when there's bugs in my greenhouse the

plants sometimes end up withering.". Empress connected the dots instantly "Ah, so she's trying to see if there's bugs near the trees? Must be big bugs then. These mushrooms are giant- I doubt the bugs from your greenhouse could do damage to them." Koi shrugged "you'd be surprised, really." she looked at the semi-withering mushroom in front of them "I suppose we could gather some samples? Take them home, do some genuine investigating instead of just- tossing ideas around." Empress seemed to agree with that, at least, and the two got to work cutting into the mushroom, taking small bits and pieces of various places and various mushrooms with them. Crown happily supplied bits of root and such, making Koi wonder why the whelp had such an affinity with dirt to begin with.