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24. Gardening for Ants
🕑 Added 2021-07-24 20:00:03 +0000 UTCTunnels curled deeper and deeper into the earth. A few rays of sunshine filtered down here and there at first, but as they walked on, the sunlight grew dimmer and dimmer until Rowan had to fumble along the wall. He tripped over an ant, and the creature hissed and spat flame at him in anger.
“Dammit,” Rowan muttered.
“Studio Lighting,” Kaidu whispered.
A ring of light appeared behind him, almost a halo. It lit the tunnel evenly, in a very aesthetically pleasing way that brought out the warm, earthy tones of the dirt and the shiny glow of the ant’s keratin without turning it so brilliant that it reflected into their eyes.
“So you have useless skills, too,” Rowan laughed.
Kaidu glared at him. “All skills have their—”
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, it makes a very nice flashlight.”
The ant stopped. It turned and chittered at them, waving its antennae ahead.
Ants rushed throughout a massive cavern, delivering leaves and entire branches into the floor of the cavern. Other ants pushed the leaves and branches into place, tucking them neatly around the edges or into a pile in the room’s center.
Shelves of mushrooms protruded from the piles. As wide as Rowan was tall and easily half a foot thick, they stretched over massive sections of the piled leaves and branches. In a corner, fat white grubs lounged atop harvested mushrooms, hungrily gnawing at the pale flesh.
“Do… do fungi count as fauna?” Rowan muttered to Kaidu.
“I’m not an intellectual class,” Kaidu replied haughtily.
Rowan snorted. So he doesn’t understand it either.
The large ant nudged them again, so firmly that Rowan staggered forward. He looked at it. “What?”
“You rubbed that ant on us so we smelled like ant, right? You did too good of a job, and now it wants us to do that ant’s job,” Kaidu replied.
“What, tend the mushrooms?" Rowan frowned. I didn't enter the Tower to play Gardener. If I wanted to do that, I would have stayed outside! He started toward the exit tunnel, following an ant without any leaves clasped in its mandibles. “We need to get out of the anthill, not play worker ant.”
The large ant knocked him to the ground and stood over him, mandibles clicking. Rowan stood up and tried to walk past again. It slammed into him a second time, harder this time, and clicked its mandibles louder.
Kaidu snorted. “Try again, that’ll work.”
Rowan glared at him. “What, do you want to sit here and play with mushrooms?”
“This is your idea,” Kaidu replied.
“Didn’t you want to fight it earlier?” Rowan snapped.
Kaidu gestured around them. “The conditions have changed.”
Rowan turned. All the ants in the room stood frozen, eyes locked on him. Behind him, smaller ants slunk close, mandibles ready to bite. He stepped toward the large ant again, and the other ants moved closer. A low hiss echoed through the room.
Putting his hands up, Rowan backed away. The ants quieted. The busiest ones turned back to their work, while the others gave him room but kept watching, wary.
“Right, I got it. Alright. We’ll play along until big boy leaves, and then we’ll hurry out of here,” Rowan replied. He clapped his hands and rolled his shoulders out, ready to work.
Kaidu smirked. “Looks like you finally get to use your class, Gardener.”
Rowan scowled at him. “Shut up.”
Keeping an eye on the big ant, Rowan approached the mushroom. It twitched its antennae neutrally and stood back, watching him go. He knelt and looked at the plate of fungus. “Plant Identification.”
Oyster Mushrooms. Nutritious and edible. Grown by the Hybrid Ant Colony in Megafauna Forest.
Yeah, I know. Rowan prodded at the bottom of the display. Details.
Grows naturally on logs and wood, but also grows well on wheat, coffee grounds, and paddy straw. Oyster mushrooms love moisture, but watch out for competitor molds!
Rowan sighed and shook his head. He picked up a pile of sticks and leaves and added them to the nearest mushroom pile, copying the other ants.
To the side, Kaidu joined in, dutifully carrying a pile of sticks to his mushroom mound.
Rowan carried another pile of sticks over, then paused. His mushroom mound only produced a few thin bunches of mushrooms. Most of the mound laid empty, colonized by the thin white threads that stretched from one bunch of mushrooms to the next and coated the sticks and leaves into one lump of white, but no mushrooms sprouted.
He pressed his lips together and glanced at Kaidu. The Hairdresser grabbed another armload of sticks from the pile and carried it to a different sector in the mound. The second he turned his back, Rowan narrowed his eyes at the pile. “Plant Affinity.”
The room around him faded to gray. Only the mushrooms retained color, glowing either red or green. The ones in front of him glowed red, a sickly, awful red. Rowan turned, taking in the room. On closer inspection, many of the other poorly performing mounds’ mushrooms glowed faintly red. The center mound of mushrooms glowed green, as did the left-hand side mounds.
The System said mushrooms love moisture. He touched the mound before him. Mostly dry, only a hint of damp existed on the mound. Rowan pointed at the mound. “Watering Can.”
Water sprinkled over the mound of mushrooms. He moved from left to right, evenly watering the mound. The red glow faded a bit on his mushrooms, but remained firmly red.
That’s not it, then. He frowned, then glanced at his skill tree. Under Plant Care, Fertilizer awaited him. Should I try…?
What else am I going to use the skill point on? Rowan clicked the skill.
Learned the spell Fertilizer!
He pointed his finger at the mound. “Fertilizer.”
A thick, dark goo squeezed out of his palms and through his fingers. Rowan opened his hands, but too late. They were already stained. A suspicious smell tickled his nose, and he nearly gagged. Oh no. Oh fuck no. This better not be what I think it is.
Across the cavern, Kaidu snickered.
Killing the mana flow, Rowan bent and wiped his hands on the leaves and sticks in the mushroom mound. “Gross.”
With the application of fertilizer, the mushrooms in front of him glowed a paler red, but stubbornly remained red. No mushrooms sprouted from the mass, nor did it appear any healthier for his efforts. Bound in white, the leaf mound broke down slowly under the mushrooms' mycelium.
Rowan frowned at the mound. How do I make you happy?
