Mycelium

Mycelium [[Start->mostly-forgotten dream]] [[Acknowledgements]]

... ... [[...?->alice's room]]

You wake up feeling vaguely confused and groggy. Your alarm clock is spewing nigh-incomprehensible and astonishingly //loud// static that occasionally reorganizes itself into a bar of //Blue Collar Man//, or maybe //You Give Love a Bad Name//. It's impossible to tell. You blearily switch the alarm clock off and consider adjusting the tuning, or at least turning the volume down. Eh. that can wait until [[breakfast]].

Well, time for homework, you suppose. Pretty run-of-the mill stuff. A reading, some short-answer questions, stuff like that. Nothing terrribly interesting, unless you suppose you dedicated your life to studying the composition and permability of soils or whatever. [[Rest of the day goes pretty smoothly.]]

Oh hey! On the way to the campus dining hall you encounter your friend, (link: "Carol")[who's majoring in medicine. She's not decided what field yet]. "Hey Carol!" "Good morning Alice! You feeling OK? Sinuses clear, throat not bothering you?" "Yeah, I've felt worse." "Great, great. And, " she says, her voice taking on a conspiratorial tone, "What about your little guest?" [[what?]]

*an unknown horizon* *confusing sights, smells, sounds.* *a growing sense of panic.* [[And then a piercing burst of static.->alice's room, day 2]]

*Oh.* The radio. You trudge over to the alarm and fumble with it for a bit, eventually switching it off in the middle of a group of children singing about wal-mart. You have classes today. Bah. Alabaster seems to have woken at the alarm, and seems kinda startled. You pet him a bit and he seems to calm down, but he's pretty clearly still on edge. You slip him some celery by way of apology and he starts chewing nervously. Welp off to [[breakfast.-> breakfast again]]

You've got a few spare moments before your presence is required elsewhere. Time to cuddle a small fluffy animal. Alabaster seems to have taken to the rabbit-proofing well, and is chewing on a toy carrot when you enter. He doesn't acknowledge you otherwise, but allows you to pick him up. You lay down for a bit and look him over for any injuries. You didn't see any yesteray, but [[another look]] couldn't hurt.

You grab some food and head off to geology. Today's class is about... Huh. Apparenly melting rocks with acid. You have a jolly time messing around with identifying rocks via a liquid with dangerously low pH (except for the part where you burn yourself a bit, but hey it's minor and with any luck should look really cool when it heals) until the class ends and your professor reminds you that due in one week you have an assignment where you need to go outside and identify rocks. With acid. [[That's fine.]]

*A sudden weight. Immobility. A flash of white, orange, red, obscuring everything. Blood, agony, terror. A lucky strike, a crack, bittersweet victory. A desprate lurch to cover. Fatigue. cold. darkness.* [[And then you jolt awake.-> alice's room, day 3]]

*All right brain what the heck was that* You seem to have just awoken from a... rather vivid dream... you were a rabbit and... you think you died? My *word* that was terrifying... You rub your shoulder apprehensively. [[It's aching a bit.]]

So! Funny story. Remember how you have a boring book to finish and do a paper on by next week? Well now you have *more* unenjoyable things to read, this time about the psychology of trench warfare and the effects of nuclear fallout upon the human body and how we should all try very very hard to never let it happen to anyone ever again under any circumstances ever. Ha. Ha. And you get to *lead a discussion* about it too! Next week. Because of course. Oh, and you've started coughing a bit. Wonderful. You're still not too hungry but you eat as a matter of principle. You arrive back at your dorm to see that [[Carol has responded]]

*Oh. Oh dear. Something is wrong... Perhaps one could assist? Yes, surely, but how? Oh, clever... that might work...* [[You eventually drift back into consciousness.->Alice's room. fourth day.]]

You are woken up not by a burst of static and garbled lyrics, but by the sudden weight of a rabbit leaping upon your chest. You look at him blearily. Seeing you're awake, he hops off the bed and makes his way to his empty food dish before continuing to stare at you. Ugh... Surprise surprise. it's morning, and you do not feel better. wait actually [[what time is it?]]

*need to keep working so much to do nowhere near enough time to do it this looks wrong better now, but still wrong everything is wrong everything is wrong everything is wrong everything is wrong why why why why is it all wrong no it will work it has to work * [[*there's not enough time-*->Alice's room day 5]]

(link: "...you feel terrible.")[You feel fine.] (link: "head aches")[Your head is fine.] (link: "arms numb")[Your arms are fine.] ...what time is it... oh. six am. on sunday. (link: "that's too late")[That's fine.] you aren't certain when you last ate. or slept. you look up. you are typing at your computer. oh right. (link: "your literature essay")[Your Literature essay. [[you should finish that. ->your computer]]]

*...oh Oh no. you think you may have done something very wrong...* (end of part one)

The fungus wakes up in bob's room to find him panicking. okay okay their best friend is dead and turning into a rabbit and this wAS NOT COVERED YET WHAT IS THIS He looks at her and gladly notices she's awake. He keeps his distance and goes all "oh thank goodness you're not dead what's going on" This line of questioning is met with Alice bounding through the door and outside. (also Cool Design Note: As Alice's heart has stopped beating by this point her blood, at least the parts of her that still have blood, will be blue. this might show through her skin, considering her relative deadness and probably related paleness) [[Bob's room, continued]]

The protagonist is now bob. Bob is having a bad day, for obviously explained reasons. I suppose from here it could become a bit more open-ended as you could go Outside and look for Alice and/or poke around in her room. If we do the whole "You can be infected" thing you could pick up some spores from investigating her room. On the bright side there's a fluffy bunny. also mushrooms. Also mybe mushrooms growing on the bunny. Investigations happen in those things that you click and more text shows up on the page. Maybe increases infection if there's an infection variable? Anyway after the investigations are done bob goes [[after her!]]

Alice is clearly in no state to be running around outside. Heck she was dead not ten minutes ago. SO bob chases her. Possibly have some people start to notice the weird stuff. They direct him towards that one wooded part of the campus they found the rabbit at initially. [[Alice is sleeping there]]

She wakes up and tenses up when she sees bob. he tries to comfort her and asks what the heck's going on. He's not expectiong to get a lot but is pleasantly surprised. Well, aside from the part where Alice says [[she's not Alice.]]

Not-Alice explains what happened to bob, at least to the best of their abiity. The whole thing about wanting to help and it going wrong and now Alice is... like this... and kinda dead... Their dialouge is terse and uses only the 1000 most comon words. A language can't be coompletely learned in a day, even when taught over weird mental link, it seems. In any case, the question eventually arises regarding [[Alice's current state of being]]

Perspective switch to Macie because why not Macie(The fungus) is pretty sure that Alice still exists. However finding her will be... difficult. She is not quite dead, living, woke, or asleep. In any case Macie might be able to find her (Or alice manages to find her way out on her own) but it's a bit of a longshot. Bob suggests they go back to the dorms to figure stuff out and Macie agrees, hesitantly. On the way back they find [[something wrong]]

Specifically someone else is infected. the symptoms aren't as advanced as Alice's but it's definitely the same thing. Only Bob grasps the problems with this as Alice didn't feel the need to tell Macie what an epidemic was. Time for Bob to explain a difficult concept: the idea of an apocalypse. They run back to [[the dorms]]. alice attracts some weird looks but that's not really important right now.

So Macie was literally born yesterday and only comprehends contagions in their ability to spread from one being to another due to her nature. She doesn't quite get their exponential nature. Bob may or may not use plague inc as a visual aid. Or Iunno Pandemic Corp if we don't feel like using the real game. Anyway this obviously disturbs Macie. Given her origins I imagine she, at least, is somewhat of a pacifist, coming from a healing potion and also a rabbit that knows what its like to almost be killed. The idea that she may have just accidentally caused a lot of death probably doesn't sit well with her. Heck the whole "puppeting Alice's corpse" thing is already kind of disturbing to her... So disturbing in fact that she decides to just stay in her room for a while. And then from here I guess introduce the Apologetic Wizard? From here there's a few things you can do, I suppose... 1) [[Go with Macie]] to get Alice back 2) [[work with Bob]]to help nullify the spore-producing aspects of Macie's physiology so it can't spread further and make more mushrooms to infect animals 3) Figure out how to contain existing infections, probably [[with the wizard]]. Hope no one went to greenland. 4)After these are done: handle existing infections to make sure people don't faint or whatever.

You are now Macie. Let's see if you can do this... Macie may or may not have been contacted by Alice in the forest but did manage to at least pick up common english. it was pretty one sided though, and Macie couldn't really communicate. In any case Macie gets in a comfortable position. [[You close your eyes...->...and open them somewhere else.]]

Macie wakes up in some mental world. possibly a reflection of the college campus but overgrown or something. In any case the goal of this segment is to find Alice and figure out how to get out again, with Alice. i suppose this could be kinda free roam? Not terribly complex though. Just stuff like "you find Alice, but she seems distracted." And then you need to find the thing that you can use to break her back to reality. Or something.

Not sure how Bob's thing will work... I mean obviously they'll need samples... Anyway. There'll be some from Alice's body, and the rabbit... Maybe other infected as well? But then what would bob do to synthesize an antifungal agent... it's not like they have a major in vaccination... Wizard help? Probably wizard help.

So Magic man's gotta figure out how to make sure animals and fungi infected aren't just gonna keep making more fungus people. You can pretty easily go through the forest and pluck every mushroom but how will you go around herding every lost hare or fox or whatever that found one? [[with magic of course!]]

The Wizard can get a sample of alabaster's fur or alice's fungus or whatever and use it to trakc animals... but how do they get them all there? A summoning spell! teleport all of the things to a certain place baring the same magical signature. I mean it beats hunting for rabbits and birds and spores and whatnot. There may be problems once everything happens but that can be covered up later. Probably. Problem: it's an industrial spell. Not tested for use on people or animals. More used to summon a bunch of defective products at once in case something goes horribly wrong. But what would they need for it... access to the spell would have to be limited to manufacturing. I mean you don't want just anyone stealing every single novaBrite wand do you? Also it leaves a note informing people why it was recalled. [["So how do we get it?"]]

S'pose there could be wizard manufacturing on campus. Like wizards can sell stuff if they finish their manufacturing early but still need stuff done in opther subjects. So it's just a matter of sneaking into the offices of the place and getting whatever it is they use to recall everything and use it. There's probably unknown security systems in place to stop people from breaking in and stealing the merch though. So probably have riddle locks or passwords or something. First two are solvable and getting them wrong has no real penalty. The last one ahs no answer and gets bypassed. Anyway eventually they get through and do the summoning and get everyone in a small room. The summoning notifies someone with POWER and they contact people that can actually do something. [[Epilogue]]

Double-click this passage to edit it.

You have completely forgotten about the alarm clock. You return to your dorm and are greeted by the sight of an open cage. Blast. You close the door just before a certain houseguest has time to make a daring escape. Now, where could that wascally wabbit be... Oh, there he is. next to a conspicuously chewed part of your desk. You sigh and scoop up the rabbit. [[He seems to tolerate this.]]

"Er, sorry, who?" "You know who!" Carol whispers. "The rabbit." Oh, thats right. [[The rabbit.]]

You and Carol found it last night in a wooded area a little ways away from the campus. In addition to providing some nice scenery, the woods are home to a variety of wildlife like foxes, squirrels, the occsional owl, and yes, rabbits. However, this rabbit was pretty obviously lost. With its white coat of fur and floppy ears, it was lear that this one was domesticated and wouldn't last long in the wild. Carol had been hesitant to take it ("Who knows what it might have? Are you caught up on your rabies shots?"), but you eventually [[convinced her]] ("Lookit its little face and floopy ears... And yes.")

"That reminds me of something completely unrelated I need to check on," you say before dashing back to your room and tossing a "be right back!" over your shoulder. The rabbit is snoozing in the corner of its cage. There's decidedly less straw and water in there, which you suppose is a good sign. Yep, everything loooks good on the rabbit front. You refill the food and water dishes and head [[back to Carol.]]

"The totally unrelated thing is faring fine. [[Let's get food.->breakfast for real]]"

"...that brings us to now, when the skycode song Sheut hid in the Patiti map turned out to be a password we used to break into a hydroelectricity plant in Cairo and expose a corrupt corporate executive." You and Carol are in the dining hall. Breakfast is being had. You're currently explaining the latest developments in the Sheut ARG, a months-long series of puzzles that foreshadows a new character in a game called Underhear. She shakes her head in bemusement. "I have no idea how anyone figures any of this stuff out." "Mostly on accident. There's just so many people working that they're bound to find something new eventually." [["So she'll be coming out soon then?"]]

The rest of breakfast is largely uneventful, and before long you're back in [[your room.->alice's room 2]]

You eat breakfast, in this case some eggs. What? Not like your life is always interesting. After you finish you stop back at the dorm to [[check on Alabaster ->rabbit care]]

That's odd. You've been up for an hour or so and your alarm's just now going off? Granted you don't feel like possibly exposing yourself to your apparently demented subconscious for now... may as well make use of the extra time. You do a bit more geology before your class, classifying another few samples by hardness and cleaning up the resulting residue. However, as you're doing so you notice (link: "something a bit worrying.")[a few off-white splotches on your hand where your acid burn used to be.] Huh. that's (link: "mildly concerning")[probably just how chemical burns heal. You're no chemist, but it wouldn't surprise you.] Oh look at the time you have your [[early class->more classes]] soon. You leave, making absolutely sure Alabaster can't follow. Don't want your dream to become reality.

All right, according to Carol if his only symptom is "a bit of blood in the fur" and he's eating, drinking, sleeping, and so on all right, he should be fine for now. She does suggest bringing him to a vet at the first possible moment, of course, and sooner if anything goes wrong. (link: "...wonder if disturbingly vivid nightmares count...")[] Can't really argue with that. Weekend's coming up in a couple days. Although your parents miiiight be a bit confused as to why you suddenly have a rabbit... may as well bite the bullet and [[do some explaining]].

It takes a bit of waiting for your dad to respond, a few familial in-jokes to get the conversation started, and one thuroughly derailed conversation about (link: "your physical and mental health")[nothing in particular] but in the end he agrees to come by Sunday afternoon, assuming you can handle him that long, of course. And hey, you can totally do that. What's a few more days? You text Carol, telling her the good news Your hand itches(link: " and goes numb")[, eager to start turning some pages apparently. You spend the rest of the evening finishing [[The Looming Dawn]]].

*"Oh what a fool I was!" Ignoramus the Ignorant cried. "Surely there is no light in the world." And, for the first and last time in his miserable, pathetic life, he was right.* ...Wow that was even worse than you expected. You slam the book shut dramatically, sending a poof of dust into the air, break into a mild coughing fit, and sigh. Your throat's been getting worse. That's gonna suck for the next few days. On the bright side the essay prompt you were given was vague enough that you can subtley disguise a tirade against the author and their agressively cynical worldview as fulfilling the prompt, something you fuly intend to do. In the morning, once you've gotten some good sleep. [[Heck maybe you'll feel better in the morning.->a dream of activity]].

wait no you're wrong. it's not morning. It's three in the afternoon. Oh dear. Wait, today's thursday right? You don't have any classes today save for an online class with a lecture you had the good sense to complete last week, the instant an opportunity presented itself. Good going past you. You sit up, wincing as your vision swims and your head begins to ache. Ugh. (link: "You're not feeling well.")[[[You feel fine ->feeding Alabaster]]].

No matter how you may or may not be feeling, Alabaster's feeling hungry. Should probably take care of that. Alabaster's eager to get fresh food and water, but keeps looking at you between bites. His nose twitches as he turns towards you, and then scrunches up before he turns back towards his breakfast. huh. That's not happened before. As you stand up after giving him one last scratch behind the ears, your foot slips on a loose wire, twisting your ankle. You stumble forwards and fall facedown on your bed, hitting your head on the wall on the way down. [[Ow. Owowowowow.]]

"...I feel I dont need any more evidence to show this biik is a vad biik wirth a dwonright miserable outlooik ojn lifje." (link: "that doesn't look right")[Try again.] "...I feel I dont need any more evidence to show tjkat tjis boolkj ios a bveiuy bajh biopookl. (link: "that looks worse...")[Again.] "...I feel I dont need any more evidence to show tjhaoip thuyus biiok siuyvckjs" ...what is going on. [[you look at the keyboard]]

Oh. your hand is (link: "...not right...")[[[fine.->no it's not]]]

your hand is (link: "wrong")[[[OK.->nope]]]

it's (link: "abnormal")[[[perfectly normal.->still no]]]

[[...it's a paw.]]

(link: "You are fine")[you are not fine. you are so incredibly not fine *this is not something that is allowed to happen what is going on* ...Carol. Carol might know what to do. she knows about darn near every horrible thing someone can be afflicted with she can probably help. she does usually get up fairly early... you painstakingly type out the text "feeling bad. can't explain. can u pls look?" and send it to Carol, who responds "Yeah sure come over". [[Oh right. walking]].]

You are now Carol. Apparently your good friend Alice isn't feeling well and wanted you to see her. granted you're not exactly a liscensed practicioner, but have taken enough medical classes (three) to be able to diagnose the common stuff, at least, and some of the more uncommon ones as well. You've also got what is in al likelihood too much over the counter medicine and knowledge about fifty million horribly deadly but incredibly rare possibilities from the internet but frankly you don't trust yourselfand/or that information enough to diagnose any of those. Flu's been going around lately, so in all likelihood she's just caught a fairly unpleasant strain. [[Probably. Hopefully]].

...Alice does not have the flu. You're not sure *what* she has. I mean, first off, about a third of her head is covered in some thick, off-white fuzz. There's an empty socket where her right eye should be, and her left one's got a few similarly-colored strands probing across it. a good chunk of her hair is just... gone, replaced by what looks like a floppy rabbit ear. The rest of her hair seems shorter than it usually is. her right arm is basically just a giant rabbit's. Her left arm looks to be going the same direction. Her legs... one of them looks normal. the other one does... not... but frankly [[her skin]] looks worse.

"I... I don't..." she rasps. And then her eyes roll back in her head and she falls to the floor. You check her pulse out of reflex. You can't find it. [[You can no longer be Carol because Carol is too busy panicking.->Daydream]]

Thanks to my sister for helping me plan this and supporting this game's development!. More to come. Later. [[back->Mycelium]]

Carol had gotten some supplies from... (actually where did she get the supplies there's not a pet shop anywhere near here and pets aren't even allowed on campus) ...somewhere and you'd spent the better part of last night setting up an enclousure in your room and looking up stuff about rabbit care. [[Actually yeah you should probably check on it before going out]]

"I wish. Actually wait no I'm glad she's not. I'd spend the next two weeks grinding loot and frankly I have too much work to do." "Ah, right..." Carol winces. "I feel your pain. Got some large exams coming up... you?" "Well, nothing too ridiculous yet, but my various syllabuses fortell a grim future. By which I mean [['next two weeks']]."

Looks like this guy's not entirely comfortable here. You decide to take a bit to clean up some spilled trash and do some rabbit care, wincing at a few more chewed bits of furniture. That'll be hard to explain at the end of the year.... For now you'll just cover them with some convenient junk. That's a problem for another day. The rabbit appreciates all the attention, but doesn't really wanna go back in the cage, so you let him roam the room for a while. You suppose if he got out before he could get out again, anyway. You text Carol about the situation, verify that the rabbit can't get to any wires or anything, and do some [[schoolwork]].

After a more detailed examination you've not noticed anything beyond a slightly off-white patch of fur on his otherwise pure white shoulder, and a little bit of dried blood. you also seem to have touched Alabaster slightly more than he would have liked, as he's retreated to his cage, his carrot in tow. Furious squeaking noises ensue. You toss a bit more celery in an attempt to make amends, which is hesitantly accepted. You send Carol a message about Alabaster's wound and head to [[the day's classes. And lunch.->And now classes]]

What's NOT fine, as you are reminded in your subsequent World Literature class, is that you have an essay due the following week on a particularly boring book called "The Looming Dawn", which as far as you can tell is about how everything is basically horrible, even when it seems like it isn't. Seems you were distracted due to a certain fluffy freeloader. You aren't quite finished but really aren't looking forward to the rest of it.. [[And oh look it's dinner time.]]

You stop in at the dining hall for a bit. You don't so much eat as move food into your mouth and swallow it while thinking about how unpleasant it's going to be to have to read about how the insufferably cheerful idealist side character's entire worldview is going to be crushed mercilessly, like the book's been blatantly leading up to. [[Better get on that, you guess.]]

...eh playing with acid's more fun. You spend the evening picking up some rocks and testing a few of them with acid. May as well get that out of the way so you can hole up in your room over the weekend. Before too much longer you decide to turn in for the night. Got an irritatingly early class tomorrow so [[night night.->she sleeps]] ...After a bit more buntime of course.

Anyway for some reason you're not feeling too hungry after dreaming about getting attacked by a fox so you try to calm down by doing some underhear, playing with Alabaster between respawns. He doesn't seem too interested in your game but perks up a bit whenever your team's Bulwark makes any of those little whirry beeps he makes sometimes. And you know what? Despite the fact that both games you play have attack Husbandbreakers, [[you do feel much calmer.]]

You spend a bit laying there, marveling at how good just... *not moving* feels. In fact you may have dozed off a little because the next thing you realize is that the room is considerably darker. You raise your head from the mattress to look outside and see the moon shining in through your window. Oh well. Suppose you didn't have anything big to do t-ohdear (link: "*is that fur growing on your hand*")[*you just remembered physics class it's not until the end of the day tomorrow but you have essay questions to do that you were going to [[work->final dream]] on today how could you forget it's the same thing every friday everysingleone HOW COULD YOU FORGET*].

you struggle to stand, injured leg protesting as you do so (shouldn't that have healed by now?)and scrabble wildly at where you keep your room key before accidentally knocking over your chair and limping over to the door, sending up couds of dust with every other step. you fumble with the doorknob, eventually lurching out into the hall, incredibly thankful that no college student (except for her) would be caught dead wondering around at this hour, and soon make it to [[Carol's room]].

Until you're distracted by your radio blaring to life, playing... oh joy. Maroon 5's *Animals*. ...you hate this thing. [[wait hang on is it really that early?]]

You eat lunch, play some Underhear, and at some point Carol abruptly shows up with a bunch of pet care stuff. Huh. Guess she got your message... The two of you spend some time rabbit-proofing the room properly so your little houseguest (whom you've decided to call Alabaster simply so you don't have to keep talking about "the rabbit") can be freed from his prison. Er, cage. Also she brought pizza. So all things considered a pretty ok day. [[That night...->another dream]]

There's a knock at your door. Several frantic knocks actually. Oh that's her now. You open the door and... [[oh dear]]

Her skin near the fuzz is a downright pestilent shade of purple. You really don't want to say "necrosis", buuut that is definitely not an encouraging smell... and are those *mushrooms on her back?* [["...what..."]]