Myconid Meddling - Sessions 1 & 2 Report

General Summary

Introduction

Having spent the better part of a year acclimating to life in Synoro, the party is recruited by one of the Synoro Councillors, Helgan Cor'Synoro, to assist with a problem that the wider Council has deemed too trivial to devote official resources towards.  

The Suffocating Corespindle

Helgan leads the party into one of the Trian residential districts where they enter a small, A-frame structure into the foyer of a corespindle: a type of Trian building reminiscent of an inverted skyscraper with numerous floors of apartments that descend deep into the earth. Taking an elevator down a dozen floors, the party steps out into a building facilities level where the air is noticably polluted by floating teal-grey spores. Helgan explains that during construction of the corespindle this basement level had breached a naturally occuring tunnel network. The tunnel entrance was patched closed during construction but, even so, over the last month these airborne spores have managed to somehow filter in from the tunnels. Updating the patch job hasn't seemed to help and the spores are quickly clogging the air circulators and filtration units and forcing system shutdowns which has led to two evacuations of the corespindle so far and the near asphyxiation of one of the residents. The party is tasked with exploring the tunnel network to determine the source of the spores and finding a solution to the root cause of the issue.  

Exploring the Tunnels

As the maintenance techs remove the patch from the tunnel entrance, an approaching clicking noise can be heard and several grubs race into the lighted space and attack those closest to the tunnel. The party quickly steps in to protect the councillor and the techs and easily splatters the cohort of grubs. Threat dealth with, the party heads off with their torches and glowing orbs to begin their investigations of the tunnels.   Not too far from the corespindle, the party locates some cracks in the tunnel floor through which superheated air is flowing and with it clouds of the teal-grey spores. With the cracks too hot to approach the party decides to further explore the tunnels which may wind their way towards a lower level and the source of the heat and spores. With Davin and Bliqtaz's intuition and a spore detection device whipped up by Fulgur, the group feels confident in their direction as they navigate the twists, turns, and forks of the tunnel network. One encounter with a violently heat-sapping mold forced them to turn back once after Fulgur was nearly flash frozen but not before seeing a small mushroom standing near the edge of the mold, also apparently frozen solid and with a strange, spindly arm-like appendage holding a tiny unknown object. Taking an alternate route, the party fought off a cave fisher ambush as they navigated strands of lichen hanging from the ceiling. Fulgur's sensor readings led them to a subterranean ravine which seemed to have spores floating around it but it seemed unlikely that the tunnel on the other side of the ravine coule be their source.  

The Fungal Caverns

Re-routing once more, the party noticed a purple glow emanating from around a bend in the tunnel. Carefully rounding the corner they could see luminescent fungus attached to the walls and ceilings and, more remarkably, saw a pair of tiny mushrooms scuttling across the floor between the wall fungus. The tiny mushrooms used various tools and containers to harvest some kind of sap-like substance from the fungal organisms on the walls.   Before Davin could restrain them, Häxan collectively stalked towards the tiny creatures and the lead feline took a solid bit out of the unsuspecting mushroom's red cap. With a fountainous burst of bright orange spores, the tiny mushrooms leapt away from Häxan and fled deeper into the glowing purple cave as Häxan reflexively threw up the poisonous fungal material they had ingested. As the orange spores contacted other fungus in the tunnel, they triggered a cascade of new alert spores that rapidly filled the cavern. Moments later, half a dozen shelf fungi could be seen rolling in on their sides like wheels and then taking up defensive positions throughout the cavern. Folding into a shape reminiscent of a taco, the shelf fungi began pulsing with electric blue light and firing small metallic pellets at the party as they advanced into the cavern.   Slowly but surely taking out these aggressive fungi, the party inadvertently wreaked havoc on various shroom structures in the cavern as they burned, blasted, and trod over them. Tiny, mobile mushroom folk began to detach and flee from the structures as other fungi began to scuttle in from various parts of the cavern releasing moisture-laden spores to attempt to put out the fires.   Two larger mushrooms, between 4'-5' tall rounded a corner and expelled a cloud of deep maroon spores towards the party. Fulgur and Davin were able to avoid ingesting the spores, however as Häxan and Bliqtaz inhaled the particles, they felt a clarity of mind wash over them and heard low, slow voices in their heads imploring them to stand down. While the cats and the lizard were still processing this, Fulgur attempted to grapple the nearest large mushroom but was stunned as it released a cloud of spores that exploded with bangs into brilliantly bright flashes of light. To prevent further aggression, the leading myconid grappled the stunned human and they both reiterated their warning even as Häxan and Bliqtaz began urging the party to cease fire.   As both sides settled into an uneasy truce, the myconids endeavoured to discover why this group had intruded on their home. Davin attempted to explain and tried to gain answers for the group as well but the two sentient fungi were reluctant to answer with anything useful. In the end, the myconids escorted the party through the caverns to consult with the Grand Mycol in its seat of power. The discussion with the Grand Mycol revealed that the mushroom-folk have recently been fending off waves of attacks by various bug-like creatures. The need to process the remains of so many fallen intruders has spiked the spore density within the caverns and resulted in excess heat that has needed to be vented away. As this situation seems perfectly acceptable to the myconid civilization, the Grand Mycol sees no reason to change anything to prevent the excess heat and spores from contaminating the surface dwellers' structures. However, it agrees that if the party is willing to stamp out the incursion of bugs at the source, the myconids would be able and willing to scale down their processing of "excess fuel" which would solve the spore problem in the higher tunnels.   The party diplomatically agrees to root out the source of the bugs and even negotiates the use of a myconid bio-tech healing device that can convert organic matter fuel into rapid healing (i.e. convert HP from some source into 5x as much temporary HP). The party decides to return to the surface to relay this information to Helgan and rest up before they attempt to kill a swarm of violent insects. The Grand Mycol provides them with a light-based signal to use to re-enter the fungal caverns without triggering another defense response.

Character(s) interacted with

Helgan Cor'Synoro
The Grand Mycol