'Okay, next up I need a better way to distribute my spores than the wind and dumb luck. The Goblins did a great job spreading my spores unintentionally though, I should use that.'

Focusing inwards on [Create Spores] Ethan imagined that when the Goblins saw new spores on his head, they would take a handful and force nearby Goblins to take the spores in.

The all-terrible itching began and after a few minutes of itch torture it was over again and his head was covered in a slightly pink white fuzz.

This time however none of the Goblins seemed interested as they had a mission to complete, a single focus and drive, their reason for existing- find more meat!

Ethan waited for another strong breeze to come along and one did, but there were no Goblins in the room at the time, so half of his spores seemed to be completely wasted thinking so he decided to wait and see if it would spread on it's own like the last time a miraculous breeze came by.

---

 

What Ethan didn't know was that the spores carried by the Breeze didn't go down through the building as they had done before, no, instead they went upwards through a newly opened rooftop access door where the survivors of the apartment building were cautiously looking around at the destruction being wrought in New York City, with great streams of black smoke rising to the sky and one skyscraper in the process of falling over, mixed with the powerful sight of large creatures flying in the air and fighting to tear each other apart over territory was scaring them all into a frozen terror induced stupor as they continued to look around without really taking in what they were seeing.

On the streets below they saw creatures walking about and fighting, mostly Ethan's Goblins but also some unrelated Goblins, they didn't think about why the Goblins were dragging bodies around and none of them were paying attention to the ones going in and out of their building.

As most of the group were taking in the sights whilst thoroughly numb and shocked, the guy responsible for holding the door open for everyone else caught a strange scent on the wind, an earthy smell mixed with something sweet and noticed bits of random pink fluff floating around him like little dust fairies. 

He breathed in deeply in preparation and spoke, sealing his fate.

"What the heck is that?"

The man's eyes glazed over for a few long moments and his body began to jerk and spasm every other second until the light came back into his eyes, but this time he had a purpose.

God had spoken to him again. He had a mission. His existence was duty bound to spread the holy message to all living creatures so that they might understand His word and become one with Him. He would ensure Unity or he would die trying.

With his mind firmly resolved to the sudden revelation the man left his place by the door and headed back down the stairs away from the roof. The man was responsible for keeping the roof door open left and the door shut due to the airflow, trapping a number of people, mostly men, on the roof.

The man kept walking downwards first past the room with the were hiding in on the sixth floor then through the fifth floor and followed the feeling he felt inside him, as if it was calling him home to a warm bed, until he reached the fourth floor.

After a few minutes of walking through the building he stood at the door to Ethan's apartment. He would soon be in the presence of God.

Or rather, he would've been if the Goblins coming up the stairs with their latest haul of meat hadn't seen him and thought about adding him to the growing meat mountain inside Ethan's apartment as wicked grins spread across their faces, joy evident in their eyes.

The man was surprised and felt a strange kindred feeling towards the Goblins however they did not feel the same and proceeded to charge the man. They hacked, beat and bit the man to death right there not at all caring about any pain the man might have felt they just kept swinging and biting until he stopped moving.

---

 

From his apartment, Ethan watched from his rooted position as a pair of Human legs wearing jeans and sneakers came and stopped in front of the hole in his door. The person attempted to turn the door handle and open the door which was locked from the inside then Ethan heard a couple Goblin screams as several Goblins ran towards the legs and smashed whoever it was off their feet before turning them into a meaty pulp. The person didn't even fight back or scream which was incredibly unsettling to Ethan.

'Whatever, some psycho walking around has nothing to do with me at all, he clearly wasn't right in the head and it's his own fault if he doesn't even try to fight back.'

Shrugging it off, well, doing whatever mushrooms do when they shrug, a sort of side to side wiggle and a slight curl upwards of his cap. Ethan watched his Goblins drag the newest corpse to his ever-growing pile whilst hoping the wind would pick up and spread his spores before the room was emptied out again.

His silent prayers were answered and this batch of Goblins had been successfully infected. Two of the five immediately convulsed and died but the other three were absolutely fine and seemed to take on a glint of something in their eyes. Ethan couldn't place the glint in their eyes but if he could have read their minds he would've known that he had just inadvertently become their religious icon. They would from that day forth endeavour to spread Unity to the minds and hearts of all, by shroom or claw.

'Yes! Finally!'

The Goblins exchanged looks excitedly feeling their new connection to one another and waited close to Ethan, their bodies tense and looking at the door like hunters waiting for prey.

It wasn't too long before another group of Goblins returned to the apartment, this time dragging almost exclusively Goblin corpses with the odd Human limb thrown in. The newly infected Goblin Zealots each took a finger and moved to Ethan wiping it along Ethan's cap, gathering up spores, stepped forward right away and before the three corpse dragging Goblins could react beyond a confused face they forced their fingers in their mouths or up their noses, causing the corpse Goblins to gag or leap back and hold their nose in pain.

'Who knew claws up the nose hurt.'

The newest Goblins seemed fine at first but then one of the three fell to the floor and died in the usual grisly fashion.

As had happened to the first infected Zealots, the new ones also took on a light of reverence in their eyes when looking at Ethan. Frankly though, Ethan was slightly creeped out by the looks he was being given, he hadn't been looked at like that before and combined with the alien looking facial features of the Goblins he couldn't place what the look meant. Whatever it was, it didn't feel normal.

'Don't tell me there have been side effects again..'

Ethan began a mental mantra as he watched the duo of converts join the other three in waiting for more Goblins to enter.

'Please don't go wrong, please don't go wrong, please don't go wrong, please don't try to hump me, please don't go wrong-'

His mantra was interrupted by a pleasant surprise.

'MY FIRST SKILL LEVEL UP! HUZZAH!'

A smile spread upon the little Mushroom's face and unconsciously Ethan was wriggling all of his roots to express his joy.

Intending to view the changes immediately he entered into his screenspace.

'Show Status'

Entering into the endless darkness with the strange other-dimensional screen with its shape changing edges, Ethan looked at the screen and went straight to the help function.

'Help [Create Spores, 1]'

'Damn the skill gets better as I use it! That's fantastic and OP as hell! I don't even have to level up to get skill ups!'

Ethan was overjoyed and with nothing else of interest quickly left the screenspace.

Outside of his screenspace the latest of the infected Goblins also stood in wait however there weren't many spores remaining on Ethan's cap so he was wondering what they might end up doing when the Spores are gone completely.

'So I wanted these spores to make them defend me and spread my spores; they seem to be doing that but I don't know what will happen when I run out of spores to spread or if they'll even defend me, I don't remember being specific about what to defend me from.. I just imagined them killing anything that comes inside.. Oh no.'

Soon more Goblins arrived carrying more meat after another round of spore spreading and his cap finally being empty Ethan actually thought the new Goblins would attack and kill the old ones since they couldn't convert them anymore, surprisingly this didn't happen what happened was the Protector Goblins as Ethan decided to name them just spent their time eyeing the Meat Goblins each time they got close to Ethan. There had been a tense moment where a rather large group came back and got too close only for one of the Meat Goblins to end up with a fist to the face from a Protector Goblin but all that happened was the Meat Goblins backed down and left, partially influenced by the Serenity spores making them less aggressive and partially the fact that the Protector Goblins seemed dangerous for some reason in their eyes.

Ethan was quite pleased that a social equilibrium seemed to have formed and felt quite happy with the state of things so far, however he still had many ideas to run and needed to further refine his spore spreading capabilities. Thinking along these lines led him to remember the Zerg from Starcraft.

'Heh, I guess this means I've achieved a real world early game economy and defense strat.'

Having his food and tentative defenses taken care of, Ethan felt like he needed to improve both before moving forward with his half-joking, half-serious plans for world domination and he began by imitating out loud his favourite catchphrase from his youth.

"What do we do now Brain? Narf."

A grin spread across his face at his dorky antics and the anticipation of what was to come.

"The same thing we do every night Pinky, we Try To TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

The Goblins however just watched him with bemused expressions, some completely ignoring him and some others even started shouting alongside Ethan thinking it was a battlecry or something; they just wanted to shout really though.

'Well then, time to-'

Suddenly there was an incredibly unsettling sound coming from beneath him, the groaning of wood.

*CREAK* 

Ethan could only think one thing before everything went to another level of hell in a handbasket.

'Oh no.'