Issue 43 CHAMPS Show Magazine March 2023

An Excerpt from The Dankman’s Tales Based on Illustrations by Sean Dietrich

I usually only tell tales of our team's actual adventures in the post-Mars Migration. It's awild world full of new dangers. Swamp mutants, pelican-sized mosquitos, and many moremutated species are ready Tobe discovered. This particular tale was told to me late atnight in the Utah mountains.

"It was a very humid spring in a very damp place. It rained a bit, but it felt wet in the air all the time. I swear I once saw the rain go up from the ground to the sky.

Deep in the old forests lived a beautiful race of humans. They had survived through the hardest of times, including chemical exposures and air so moist that the skin on their bodies had its own sheen and texture. The freckles seemed alive when you looked at them.

The fissures in the ground in the PNW are tremendous, some as wide as 300 feet. Finding your way through the crevasses to the rocky outcropping covered in the dense forest was insurmountable to most. It took an adventurous soul to take a deadly trip like that.

Ja Red lived there, in the forest, his whole life, and when it all went down, he stayed safe out to sea, but after a few years… He had to know what was out there and if his sister and her family had survived.

Makeshift bridges, ladders, even pendulum rope swings… That's what you would have to manage to make it deep into the old mountains. Instead, he searched for the hidden peak of wonder, something so astounding that he could share with the world. A discovery that might change the world! He found many mutated bugs and plants, even a healing sap from the oddly shaped octiburious dimeosas, so named for their yellow 8-sided tuberous petals the size of a dime.

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He explained, "Once the sap was in contact with an open sore, it became an instant bandage. The skin beneath seemed to thrive and heal in hours rather than days. Some research had to be done, but it looked promising. It did leave the area dry until a thin layer peeled off in the wind. It almost flew away as if it had created its own wings." (note from the writer: this is not my story, but I wanted to speculate that the thin flying layer might be a seed carrying DNA and assimilating it into itself)

The funny thing about looking for something, you only find it once you stop looking. Ja Red had traveled far and wide and found himself preparing to return to civilization. He had seeds, samples, and even some sprouts to share with others. It had been a trip to remember, and many new innovations would stem from this.

He told me specifically that the next part changed the world. Ja Red was passing from one of the tallest peaks he had found when the bridge he was on gave way. He thought for sure he had fallen to his death through the dense fog below.

He landed softly as if a bed cushion caught him while it floated on a cloud. But unfortunately, it was very foggy, and he felt almost incapacitated and decided to lay there and rest.

When he woke, he felt lost. He knew he had been moved as he seemed to be inside a damp structure or cave. He walked a few feet towards the soft light glow of a glowtifirous moth. They were oft put in bottles as lights. Their glow was part magic and part science. Scientifically, they were tiny radioactive moths that lived on the energy given out by the glowing radioactive isotope. The magic was they lived without eating for around forever, or about Fifty Thousand years if my math was correct.

He emerged from the cave to realize it was one of the largest fungi systems he had ever seen or heard of. It was as if Mushrooms were growing mushroom homes for beings like me. Maybe even just for me.

It was greeted kindly by a beautiful short being with flowing red hair. Her eyes were the color of fall leaves. She moved as if she was gliding across the canopy of mushrooms below.

This was Mushroom Red…

Part woman, part fungus, and 100 percent a walking piece of art.

It was as if she was her own ecosystem. She had different fungi spores blooming about her as if they were jewelry or snacks for later. I had to ask if I myself was the victim of a mushroom trip.

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She spoke English as clearly as day, had perfect sentence structure, she was educated. We exchanged our names and explained my purpose here. I had come to find out if my sister and her family had survived.

She quickly escorted me off through winding trails of mushrooms and plant life until we reached another mass of fungus larger than the last, Bigger than a city block. We entered the giant mushroom and passed many halls before walking into what must only be the great hall. It was full of intelligent beings all working and discussing the work they had before them.

I was brought to the boss, Not as beautiful as Red but as impressively decorated and adorned. His freckles were definitely alive. They scuttled about from area to area spreading his own tears like droplets of water to each fungus.

In a very deep-toned voice, the boss said, "everything here is me, everything you see, smell, or walk on… Is me. I am the spore that created this whole ecosystem. Over time I have found ways to separate myself and start anew. Red is the most exceptional of me. A direct spore that fell into the tube of the octiburious flower and spawned as the beauty she is."

"Now to your request… I can speak directly to every organism made or consumed by me. But, alas, your DNA is singular to me. Nothing similar has touched a spore of my kind. " His voice seemed to vibrate in everything you could see.

"I will have Red accompany you to the safety of one of two places. The human camps to the east or the Waters edge to the west. "

He had not found his family, so there was no reason to go home to the ocean. So, instead, he would travel east to the human encampment.

As he walked with Red, they talked, and she explained all she could about interacting with the surrounding fungus. Red had the energy of a robot. She could walk for hours on end with no noticeable change in pace. It was at least 6 hours in when I finally asked if we could stop and camp.

We started to set up our gear, and I pulled out the grill and some tinder to get a fire going.

"NO Fire!", She yelled. Just in time too! I was moments from igniting it.

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Red explained, "The fire's smoke will damage the fungi around us, and the heat will harm the ones below." She explained to him that the living things around us would keep them living. He wasn't so sure.

He said, "I wasn't one of them. I had my own temperature and my own cellular ecosystem. But for some reason, I trusted Red. Maybe it was the eyes. They drew you in like a lover before bed. So big and bright she could seduce you from a thousand feet away."

She taught him much in the short time they interacted "I still carry a piece of her with me to this day. She blessed me with herself. As gross as it sounds, I now have three fungi species that grow on my body in symbiosis. " he explained.

He then showed me his mushroom body modifications.

First were tiny inconspicuous mushrooms the size of freckles patched around his armpits. Second were these long tendril-shaped ones about the thickness of three hairs right behind his ear, indistinguishable from his dreaded hair. He didn't explain what they did, but you could tell by the look in his eyes that it was special.

Last was his pride and joy. He explained, "this one saves my life every day."

He showed me the tiniest red hairs around his belly button. "They are rooted in my stomach and purify anything I eat or drink. I can take nasty dirty stagnant water and drink it. The fungi clean it and turn it into energy. They are direct spores from Red herself." Ja Red said. "Once a spore turns yellow, you just pluck it and drop it wherever. It will become the next generation of Redifungus Speciosum. They don't develop into whole new Reds. More a unique culture that must age for thousands of years before it can separate from its roots. Most do not survive the journey, but tales tell of many Reds from the early years. Then, they moved off to another colony.

It would have been unbelievable if he hadn't shown me these powerful things that proved his story.

I asked him if he had found his family, "that's a story we'll have to finish another time."

We were out of time and had to get moving to stay safe. I hope to meet him again or hear the tale finished in the mutterings of others on the road.

Maybe someday, we might hear what happened to Ja Reds' family back east. But for now, we have really interesting mushroom cultures to grow. Medicine that grows in symbiosis with the host. The new exciting world of mycology.