3.05

“This surgery business is highly suspect, you mean to tell me one can cure a stab wound by stabbing them again? Bah. Mortal injuries are nothing that prayer and faith can’t fix.” High Bishop Jackov’s of the Church of Light.

 

I glared at the neat paper receipt that appeared in my wallet. Several items were listed on it, however, what had my eye twitching was who it was made out to. A certain ‘Yellow’ and ‘Greenie’, ‘familiars of Traveller Dustin’. It was rather obvious who they were, even when I haven’t named them yet.

 

“Matt,” I extended my arm, receipt in hand. “Where did the mushrooms I give you go?”

 

He took the receipt from me and began reading, chuckling slightly as he passed over the names, before quickly interrupting it with a cough, “Well you see,” he paused as if considering what to say.

 

“I lost them,” he conceded.

 

I felt the corner of my eye twitch again. Anger, frustration, those weren’t productive, so I took a deep breath and packed away whatever I was feeling. I raised an eyebrow, “Ok then.”

 

Noam smiled, “It’s only a minor setback isn’t it?”

 

“It is,” I readily replied.

 

Peps glanced at me, then towards Noam, lips pursed as if unsure, then seemed to just drop whatever he was wondering.

 

“That reminds me,” I continued, looking at Peps, “I haven’t paid you back yet.”

 

“Oh it’s fine,” Peps replied, shaking his head, “it’s just healing, all it took was some mana.”

 

“No, no,” I cheerfully replied as I circled next to Noam and slung an arm around his shoulder, “I insist.”

 

I smiled, “We’ll pay you back Peps, we both will wouldn’t we?” I directed to Noam more so than Peps.

 

“Umm…” he hesitated for a moment, before I quietly kicked his leg, “Ow- I mean, yeah!”

 

“Errmm…” Peps hesitated a moment as well. “Not to sound rude, but didn’t you just go broke?”

 

I smiled, cheerfully reassuring him, “Oh, don’t worry about that, money is easy to make, we’ll need your help for a bit longer though.”

 

Noam raised an eyebrow, and I continued, “Think Noam, how many healers did you see at that brawl?”

 

His eyes brightened in realisation, “Oh!”

 

“I’m a bit lost…” Peps hesitantly admitted.

 

“It’s simple,” Noam started as I let go of him.

 

“How many people do you suppose escaped in the same condition as us?” I casually finished.

 

Realisation dawned on his face, “Ohhh.”

---

‘Fucking crazy, all of them,’ Murphy thought to himself as he limped away. He munched on a potato and felt his flesh regrowing itself, potatoes, however, were a poor cure for stab wounds.

 

Some part of him registered that he should be in much more pain than he was, but the better part of him was just thankful that whatever pain limiter this realm had was working, or maybe it was his weird race, said to be extremely hardy in all conditions. Whatever the case, he was grateful he made it out of that shitshow relatively ungrazed. Murphy wasn’t sure what had taken over the people at spawn, but they were madly killing everyone they could see for no discernible reason.

 

Murphy shuddered as he remembered a blue devil person yelling in glee as they sunk a spear thing into his shoulder. ‘Fucking crazy,’ he mentally repeated. The moment he stepped into Gaia, he had met nothing but crazy people. Murphy turned a corner and slowly made up his mind. He was going to quit, it didn’t matter how realistic Eve sold her world to be if said world was full of crazy psychopaths-

 

“Hello!” Murphy heard a cheery voice say. “You look like you’re umm… Injured?” the voice hesitantly pointed out.

 

Murphy looked up, to see a tall, lanky dude completely made of wood, with an afro of leaves, and a walking mushroom about his height with weird bark growths on his cap and the most horrific looking facial expression.

 

The source of the cheery voice, the mushroom, continued, “Well if you need healing, this guy,” he gestured towards his companion, “is a druid with some good healing spells.”

 

The druid smiled amicably and gave him a slight wave. “For the small price of… let’s say three gold, we’ll get you all fixed up!” the mushroom continued.

 

Murphy stood completely still, then angrily muttered, “What is this, highway robbery?”

 

The mushroom seemed taken aback for a moment, before quickly shaking his head, “No no, I assure you that we are completely legitimate and would’ve already robbed you if we wanted to.”

 

Murphy felt the corner of his eye twitch, as pure rage began to build up within him, “You little shits…” he angrily muttered, “You know what I just went through?”

 

“I just got fucking electrocuted, stabbed several times, almost got roasted alive!” Murphy said indignantly, his voice slowly rising in volume. “And this! This is what I meet immediately after I finally managed to get out!?”

 

“Umm…”

 

“I don’t want your excuses!” Murphy yelled.

 

He began walking forward towards them, his rage building up to immeasurable proportions, “To think that I would meet such an amateurish attempt at profiteering! What are you!? Some fifth-graders opening their first lemonade stand!?”

 

“Uhh, what?”

---

I watched, utterly dumbfounded as the short, stumpy potato man thing kicked a bench.

 

“First off! Location!” he angrily yelled, “We’re in an entire empty mall and the first place you pick is location backwater! What are you!? Blind!?”

 

I glanced at Peps, who appeared as utterly dumbfounded as I was.

 

“Secondly! Presentation!” he walked up to me and slapped me, “get that damned horrific look off your face! You’ll only scare off potential customers!”

 

Did he just? He just slapped me. I knew my face was odd but that really warrant getting slapped?

 

Not even caring of my indignation, the potato thing was already walking away, he pointed three stubby fingers into the air, “Thirdly!”

 

The potato man continued to mercilessly scream flaws at us like a drill sergeant. Somewhere along the line, I felt a pop inside my cap as the small mushrooms returned, but remained speechless as the potato just kept chewing us out for failing to scam him.

 

What felt like an eternity later, the potato finally paused for breath, “Did you get all that!?” he demanded.

 

At that point, I was long past shock, so I numbly nodded. Funnily enough, the two mushrooms on my shoulder mimicked the action. 

 

“Very well!” the potato yelled, he enthusiastically pumped his fist into the air and began walking away. “Hurry up! There are idiots to be scammed!”

 

Peps lightly tapped my arm, “Did he just…” he whispered questioningly.

 

“Yes,” I drily replied, “our first customer has taken over the business and has employed himself to a managerial position.”

 

Step one, create a mass demand for healing services. Step two, offering healing services for gold and clout. Step three, get taken over by our first customer?

 

Not that I minded that much. I sucked at a leadership position and given how brazen that guy is I could use him as a scapegoat if all went south. Yes… that potato was an unorthodox piece but a piece nonetheless.

 

I just had to make sure he wasn’t handling the money, leaving someone red-handed with the bag of cash was overrated.

 

The potato ended up being very useful. Once he had found a suitable spot, several eyes -the root-like things potatoes grew not actual eyes, that would’ve been disturbing- began sprouting from his body. Quickly growing into almost perfectly rectangular planks of mostly white and red potatoes. Though he deflated a bit, he still began prompting us to start slotting the planks into each other like puzzle pieces.

 

“How are you able to make these so perfectly?” I asked as I slotted in two planks that formed a red cross. The potato glanced at me with a face that looked like someone just took a glob of play-dough and poked a pair of eyes into it, “I do a bit of woodworking I.R.L. as a hobby, mostly self-taught, it’s nothing special, but I’m used to imagining how these things will end up,” he shrugged, before barking out something at Peps about fitting two pieces incorrectly.

 

Oh. How rare. I looked back on the red cross I had, ‘used to it’ seemed like an understatement. The two planks were like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, with shapes and ‘teeth’ that allowed them to slide perfectly into each other. I tried pulling them apart, only for it to be made clear to me that the only way to separate them was by sliding them out through the opposite direction as I had slotted them in. Given the diagonal nature of the sliding, it was unlikely for it to fall out by itself as well.

 

This was very well designed and doesn’t seem like something a normal person could make on a whim. A mental mod perhaps? Seems a bit extravagant for ‘just a hobby’. Before I could ask more, the human-shaped potato pried the cross out of my hands, “Alright, we are ready!” he declared as he inserted the piece.

 

I took a step back to admire the final product. Most of it was the potatoes handy-work, having literally grown half of it and directed its assembly. Without him, it would’ve went as well as most home DIY attempts. We had pretty much repaired an entire store in the span of an evening using only potatoes. It was pretty clean too since they were directly grown out of- I forgot to ask his name. Oh well.

 

The one problem is…

 

“It’s a bit bland looking isn’t it?” Peps voiced my thoughts aloud.

 

The potato nodded, putting his hand under his chin, “Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of options with my skills so the material would look a bit flat...”

 

Yep, clearly, the potato planned to imitate the classic clean white sterilised hospital with the big red cross but since everything was literally made from potatoes there was just a rough, yellow undertone to everything about it. Though it was a jump towards civilisation as compared to the derelict overgrown store we first stepped into, it was a very small step and on the outside. Despite all the meticulous work and clean edges, it looked like a kindergartener just sloppily covered the storefront in white playdough.

 

It was just… that look about perfectly squared and clean potatoes that made it look weird.

 

“Maybe we’re trying to take this in the wrong direction,” Peps mused.

 

I cocked my head in his direction, gesturing for him to continue.

 

“This thing sticks out like a sore thumb as compared to the rest of the shopping centre,” he elaborated.

 

“Don’t try to stand out but blend in?” I suggested.

 

Peps hesitantly shook his head, “No… but yeah. It’s not so much blending in as taking advantage of the environment.”

 

“We need to smooth it out then,” the potato muttered thoughtfully, “can someone try grabbing some of that glowing moss?”

 

“I can grow some,” Peps offered.

 

“I can grow different coloured mushrooms,” I added as I grew a light sporage.

 

“Yeah...” the potato slowly nodded, “Great! Start over!”

---

Meanwhile…

 

A bloodied hand clawed the ground as its owner, an elven ranger tried desperately to drag himself away. A “tsk” came from behind him, as a halberd tip buried itself in his hand, causing a pained scream.

 

“No, no, you have to run in fear that way,” Noam chastised as the elf continued to scream in agony, his free hand pointing in the opposite direction.

 

“Goddamnit, why is this so hard, it’s like herding cats with you people-” Noam began, before stopping as he realised that the screaming had abruptly stopped. He looked down, and saw in place of a body were instead light particles.

 

“Fucking hell they died again!”

---

“Hmmmm…”

 

“Too much moss?” the potato asked.

 

“Definitely too much,” I agreed.

 

“Maybe add more coloured mushrooms to break apart the monotony?” Peps suggested.

 

“Perhaps…” I said as I grew some light, poison, sneezing and balm sporages on the wall. Creating white, green, yellow and light green bulb mushrooms respectively.

 

Peps pointed at one of the poison sporages, “The darker green ones will definitely get lost in there,”

 

I glanced at it and agreed. The poison sporages had a very similar colour to the non-glowing moss, whereas the sneezing and balm sporage shrooms popped out to a degree.

 

The potato examined the mushrooms thoughtfully as Peps voiced another question, “Are these the only colours you can grow?”

 

“I can grow some brown shrooms,” I answered as I grew a Mushroom Meal on my hand, “These can be eaten, it’s a bit bland for taste but also kinda juicy.”

 

“Can you make these mushrooms glow?” The potato suddenly asked as he picked a sneezing mushroom.

 

‘That… Can I?’

 

I grew a normal Light Spores sporage in one hand, then a Sneezing Spores mushroom on the other hand, and tried to squeeze in a Light Spores spell into it.

 

I found that it was impossible and gave a blocked feeling, like trying to stuff something into an already full container. Disappointed, I shook my head.

 

“Could you grow mushrooms on top of each other?” Peps interjected, seeing what we were trying to do.

 

I tried that, placing a finger on the light shroom I just grew and cast a sporage, a similarly sized yellow mushroom began growing from its head. What was most notable, was the fact that the new mushroom was slightly transparent and tinged the white glow of the original mushroom, leaving it to cast a more yellowed light.

 

Interested, I tried covering the glowing mushroom with more mushrooms. Creating a bundle of yellow mushrooms that let out a faint, neon yellow light.

 

“That does look better,” the potato observed.

 

I set the mini lantern down, “That cost a lot of mana…” I said, rubbing the dull headache that formed, “I can probably manage one more unless either of you have mana regen buffs?”

 

Both Peps and the potato shook their heads and I sighed in disappointment, “Anyways, that should only last three hours, it won’t be that useful,”

 

“No, it could be very useful,” Peps encouraged, “It’s not a good light source but it’s pretty colourful, like a lava lamp-” Peps said before getting interrupted by something smacking his face.

 

I watched the slimy, rainbow-coloured object slowly slide off Peps’ face.

 

Someone let out a faint cry of shock, probably Peps. I couldn’t really notice as it took me a second for my brain to start working again. It was at that point that I noticed some faint chattering behind me.

 

“You didn’t need to do that!”

 

“I got their attention didn’t I!”

 

Turning around, I found Greenie and Yellow arguing, with a rainbow coloured gecko between them.

 

“Boss!” Yellow squeaked out to me, “First customer!” it proudly proclaimed, presenting the gecko to me.

 

The gecko turned to me and made a chirping sound, which I only understood because the small mushrooms understood it, “Are you the manager?”

 

I shook my head, then pointed at the potato, “He’s the manager.” The moment I finished that sentence, the potato had a look of pure terror, his eyes drifting somewhere far away before he fell to the ground unconscious.

 

“Umm.”

“I heard you can reattach my tail?” the gecko chirped.