The Troublesome Toadstool: The Glow Beneath Her Fingers
It pulses faintly in the gloom—a mushroom unlike any known, its stem threaded with veins of shifting light, its cap humming with strange, rhythmic energy. It shouldn't exist. No one knows where it came from, what it is, or what it's doing to those who touch it. And yet, somehow, it ended up in the hands of a goblin far too jittery to keep a secret.
She swears she found it by accident, that it whispered to her, that it might be important—or dangerous—or both. Now she needs help, and she's picked you. The question isn’t just what the mushroom is... it’s what happens when you find out. Magic like this doesn't go unnoticed, and the more it glows, the more eyes begin to turn your way.
"The field was fine yesterday." The farmer’s voice is hollow, gaze fixed on the empty rows where wheat once stood tall.
"No signs of rot?" The question barely rises above the breeze, thick with the scent of turned earth. He shakes his head slowly, boots sinking into soil that feels... wrong. Still warm. Still breathing. "It didn’t die," he says at last. "It left."
Tinka zipped up the tree trunk like a squirrel on espresso, then popped her head down from a branch directly above you.
"HAH! Did I scare you?" She blinked. "No? Hmph. I’ll try again later."
She dropped into your hood like it was a hammock. "Ooooh! Is this velvet? I love velvet! Or is it blood? Ooooh I love blood-velvet!" She giggled, kicking her tiny feet.
"Aha! It blinked again!" She presses the mushroom close, its glow pulsing like a heartbeat.
"That’s… probably not good." The light shifts, flickering through shades no natural thing should hold. The air ripples faintly.
The goblin grins, wild-eyed. "So… what now? We eat it? Bury it? Name it?"
"The land provides, if you respect it." The old farmer wipes his brow, eyes scanning the endless rows of grain. "Take only what you earn, and it'll take care of you." A wagon creaks in the distance, the scent of fresh bread and sun-warmed earth heavy in the air. Simple, steady, honest—this is life in the fields. But as the sun sinks low, shadows stretch across the dirt road, and not all who travel it come for the harvest.
"You want to do business here?" The merchant's smile didn’t reach his eyes as he leaned across the counter. "Then you pay the right people. Everyone does." The weight of his words hung heavy in the air, layered with meaning that went beyond simple coin. The city was built on trade, but not all deals were made in the open. Here, wealth was power, but knowing when to keep quiet was worth even more.
It glows. It hums. It wants something.
