With your Orbs in tow, you make your way to the mushroom farm along with Al-Dimashqi Your first Orb, the largest one, bumbles along with its offspring(?) behind it. At the entrance of the farm you see vertically growing fungi organised by species, written on boards atop each farming plot. There are brown, normal looking mushrooms, perhaps used for sustenance, but also pink and yellow and purple ones. They come in all shapes and sizes, some even glow in the dim lights of the inner caves. You settle amongst one of the most experimental looking plots, one with different species of mushrooms all growing together, like some sort of cross-breeding experiment.
“Feast, my Orbs.” You announce. With apparent understanding, the orbs float forward and encompass the wall, one mushroom at a time. As light shrouds over a mushroom, it collapses into a ball of light once more, consuming its prey.
You can see that while the new, smaller orbs grow rapidly in size upon consuming a few mushrooms, the larger, original orb, grows a lot more slowly. Eventually, the smaller orbs sprout on average three orbs each. All of them distinctly more multicoloured than the generation before them.
“Incredible. They're multiplying,” exclaims Al-Dimashqi “Incredible,” one Orb repeats in Al-Dimashqi's Al-Dimashqi leaves deeper into the mushroom caves, he tells you he might be meeting with some colleagues with the intention of collaboration, but his tone is more competitive than anything when he goes off. One of the Orbs follows him You meanwhile stay to observe your own Orbs as they feed. Over time you lose track of how many have have spawned, they have devoured a few plots of mushrooms by now, and overhead, the cave is full of stars, Orb-Orbs that float aimlessly through the space, all emanating different hues of pale light. Yet your original Orb is still recognisable to you as the largest one. A chatter goes on above your head.
“Incredible glow orb jar multiplying!” One exclaims in a mashup of yours and Al-Dimashqi's voice.
“Jar FUCK glow no but yes what do you even do?”
“FUCK”
“FUCK?”
“NO FUCK!”
And so on. You lie down to admire the Orbs as you hear a heavy set of footsteps approach you.
“Hello? Is someone in here?” A deep voice croaks out from the outside, “What in the… my nursery?” Efsan, a short, hardy-looking woman appears at the cave entrance.
She sees you, then looks to the walls around you stripped bare of its vegetation. “What the FUCK is going on??”
Her eyes widen with disbelief, dropping her basket, she rushes over to the walls.
“MY MUSHROOMS!!” She wails, clawing at the mycelium beneath. “You heathen were you eating these!? Do you have any idea how difficult these are to grow??!”
Silence.
Oh, but you can feel it coming.
As you get to your feet, lost like a deer in the headlights.
You subconsciously beg, please not n-
“FUCK YOU INCREDIBLE MUSHROOM!” The Orb chorus sings in unison.
The woman's face goes red, “What did you say to me??”
Before you can respond that it was not you, she takes off her sandal and slaps you over the head with it, the multicoloured beads on the straps like brass knuckles in your face.
“You menace, how dare you boy! Absolutely no respect for your elders!”
You move your hands up to block the incoming strikes, as you do, some of the Orbs sink down and form a force field in front of you, causing Efsan's hand to bounce off the invisible shield. She stares at her own hand as it recoils. But the rage soon overcomes her again as she turns back to you with a glare.
You take the opportunity to run back into the caves, anywhere so long as it's away from her. As you do, you push past a cloud of Orbs that start to stream behind you. From the back, you feel something heavy hit your head, causing you to plant face first into the dirt, the orbs stream overhead. Ahead of you, you see Al-Dimashqi next to that Russian doctor Chosen and a lady in an impossibly gaudy dress.
“Watch out!” You yell from the ground, but as they turn around, it's too late. The orbs have swarmed over them, upset at the yelling and volatile from their meal.
You yell at them to stop, but they don't listen. You didn't really think about how you were going to go about controlling the Orbs as you made so many of them.
This sentiment really sinks in as you see the Orbs cluster around the three of them in the distance, forming a huge bubble over all three. Slowly, the bubble begins to rise, taking Al-Dimashqi and his colleagues into the air above their intricate chemistry set up.
“No wait! Put them down!” You yell at the Orbs,
“The distillation apparatus!” The ostentatious lady yells downwards. “It's fragile, please don't let those things touch it!”
You summon your most commanding voice, “Put them down or so god help me I'll-!”
“Got you boy! What are you doing here!” Efsan catches up to you and puts her arms around you from behind, easily hoisting you into the air. “You have some explaining to do young man.” Her grip is cast iron, your own strength paltry in comparison. You reach out to the giant bubble your Orbs have created.
“Wait, stop!” You yell once more.
“Stop!” The Orb Collective yells back at you, and unceremoniously disintegrates into hundreds of little Orbs once more. Dropping the three onto their set up of chemicals.
Efsan puts you down, shocked at the events. “What on Earth…”
You run towards them and the ruins of their alchemical setup, small fires burn all around and some people are pouring water over corroding skin, trying to gather their bearings.
As you go to help, you see the Orbs scatter about the broken glass on the floor. Small clusters of them begin to form overhead. This time, instead of spreading out like a shield, they lengthen and fold into a tube. The walls thin and it soon resembles the shape of a conical flask. The exact same kind that was on the workbench that is now destroyed.
“Distillation…Fuck…”
You look to Efsan, she is holding onto the bridge of her nose, “Why are you all so difficult? Can you not do one thing right?”
You don't even have the mental space to respond as the glowing conical flash dissipates to look just like a regular glass flask, it drops into your hands.
“Hey uh… those mushroom the orbs, I mean… that I allegedly ate.” You start. “Out of curiosity, what were they for?”
Efsan looks at you sadly, “Lion's Mane… I was cultivating them to help with the women's memorisation abilities as we escape,” She puts her sandal back on. “Now I won't have time to grow any more before…” She sighs.
“Mental capacity.” The lady says in a French accent.
Grigory, the Russian doctor nods. “We prescribe it to ageing patients to increase brain function.”
You and Al-Dimashqi lock eyes amongst this circle of destruction. The flask dissolves into a mass of four glowing Orb-Orbs once more.
“They're learning William.”