Subvert, assimilate, become stronger than the sum of your parts.

Enter the living flesh and become one.

>>1088309
Keep the pattern swaying rhythmically with its motions and gently slither a mycelium strand towards it.
Find purchase and grow.
Show it you are, indeed, not a normal mushroom.
Show it how to become patt of one too.

Subvert. Do it from a location where it can't bite at your main body.

Mush 2024/04/15(Mon)00:49 No. 1088824 ID: ef2056
File 171316735896.png - (12.96KB , 585x485 , MuSHROOM9.png )

It is shockingly easy to infiltrate the beast's body with mycelium, and while it is slow work, to pull yourself onto the back of its... onto the back of the organ that seems to function as its head. It is bizarrely protean, the shape, arrangement, and even number of eyes constantly fluctuating, as is the position and shape of its mouth - as well as whether it even has one.

The whole mass seems to be governed at its center by a series of organs and nerves, sealed behind layers of much denser mass. Positioned as you are, however, it doesn't seem capable of modifying itself to the extent that it can actually attack you. Even when the hypnosis ends, all it can do is buck in futility. It seems that its usual defense mechanisms have been defeated thanks to a combination of your positioning and your method of attack - you can sense, buried here, dozens of lesser organisms, choked to death but preserved within the black mass.

Very well preserved, in fact. Almost perfectly.

It roars, howling with anger as your mycelium robs it of more of the black mass, stretching deeper towards its core. Options rise, opportunities. Directions.

You are not a normal mushroom.

>Completely subvert it, mass and mind, turning it into a total puppet. While brutish, this would effectively make the beast into your new de facto body with a backup 'core' that was the creature's nerves and organs.

>Partially subvert it, preserving EITHER its mass or its mind - but controlling with totality whatever you do not preserve, stealing away either the core or the mass itself. This may have problematic results, but could have amazing beneficial outcomes, such as an independent servant OR a new, much larger body to do with as you please - free of the restrictions that the creature's core has placed on itself...

>Subvert the dead creatures in its flesh, rescue them, and flee, resulting in several independent servants, assuming you can escape...

>Convert all the mass into Mycelium, resulting in much more body mass but losing the special qualities of the creature itself. At best, you might be able to salvage the unique shielding of the core, if you're willing to accept the limitations of having it...

>>1088824
Convert all, then go take over the human(?) corpse lying over there.

Take its body for your own, no need for its mind

>>1088824
The phrase "all eggs in one basket" comes to mind.

Subvert some of its mind first.
Motor functions and higher processes.
Leave enough for the creature to function but your web of mycellium in its brain will adjust those priorities to favor your needs.
A fungal puppet master.

Then infest the dead creatures and induce whatever passes for vomiting to get them out there.
They will make excellent, attractive bait for others like your host.
Then they can erupt and infest whatever scavenges them.

You are not a normal mushroom but if you keep everything that is you wrapped in one thing you are only ever one bad mistake away from oblivion.

To propagate is to survive.

Ii side with subverting the creature's mind. Enslave the mass, and turn it to your extraordinary purposes.

1/2 Mush 2024/04/16(Tue)17:18 No. 1088970 ID: a4d918
File 171331308645.png - (32.38KB , 653x564 , MUSHROOM10.png )

>>1088832
>>1088927
>>1088859

I subvert the mind and leave the body as it is. Fearful that the body may reject the new mind for a moment, I am relieved when a segment sloughs off and releases the bodies within. One is too far gone to be of any use and is made into more mycelium for me to work with later - the other two, however, are of far more interest - working neural mass and musculature is converted, rebuilt, remodeled into things similar to - but not as intelligent as - myself. A connection without a connection is made. A command structure - Just me and my three new servants. The large, crustacean thing with tacky, suffocating goo, and the two... things within. Whatever they might have been before, now, they are my loyal servants. Extensions of myself.

One is nimble, with four limbs and a tail, the other, rotund and clumsy. At some point it may have had a use for the thin, sharp bones in its body, but now, they simply stick out like spikes.

They will obey me without question. In order to order my extensions efficiently, I will need to segment my thoughts to the purpose. Feel free to double post to make suggestions to the minions specifically, or to Mush alone.

I am not a normal mushroom.

2/2 Mush 2024/04/16(Tue)17:18 No. 1088971 ID: a4d918
File 171331309828.png - (9.02KB , 522x775 , MUSHROOMtree2.png )

Growth surges within me again as I feel the neural matter I directly subverted into myself shift and alter into making me more of what I am. A choice rises again.
I could funnel this growth into limbs for my main body - arms and legs to better move on my own, which I might empower later, which could grant me more dexterity and strength.
Or I could enhance my abilities as a fungal entity, my subversion and rebuilding capabilities, to more quickly and efficiently repurpose living and dead flesh.

>GAIN LIMBS

>GAIN FUNGAL TRAIT

push your infesting ability
you don't need limbs when you can just ride one of your servants.

>>1088971
Fungal trait for now.

Movement can come soon, but the ability to propegate is paramount.

You are not a normal mushroom, but a mushroom you remain. Double down on the fungus.

In the meantime, send your nimble servant out to investigate. The clumsy one, we'll need to experiment with to find a use for. Can it burrow?

Mush 2024/04/22(Mon)01:58 No. 1089386 ID: e1a09b
File 171377630371.png - (9.25KB , 522x775 , MUSHROOMtree2.png )

>>1089019
>>1088994
>>1088992 Interpreting as Fungus


Knowledge and understanding shifts, warps, grows, and interlocks. My mycelium is me, but it is also a network of connections and tissues open to my manipulations and information. It has many uses, and a new one blossoms in my mind.

[Unlocked ability: Myceliel Construction]
[You can now convert mycelium-based biomass into dense, mostly-inert fungiwood clusters. These can carry and transmit signals like all mycelium and even (slowly) convert dead biomass passively, but otherwise is stationary and immobile. The conversion is one-way.]

You are not a normal mushroom...

Mush 2024/04/22(Mon)01:58 No. 1089387 ID: e1a09b
File 171377631562.png - (9.88KB , 653x564 , MUSHROOM11.png )

...But somehow, you cannot help but feel underwhelmed. What possible use could this have? It is solid, certainly, but... Ah, well. Surely there are better things to be doing.

>Explore
>>Underground
>>The Body
>>The Pools
>>The Grasses

>... Something else?

>>>You may also command Nimble and Clumsy, the independent mushroom servants, in posts seperate from your suggestions to Mush.

Dense fungus can be created for armor, or as a support structure. Useful!

Investigate The Body.

Make a small piece of fungwood, have clumsy dip it in the pool to see what happens.

Meanwhile, nimble can make a circuit around the body, looking for anything noteworthy.

>>1089387
Oh, you are not normal.
Not normal at all.

It may seem underwhelming at first but imagine the applications.
You could practice hardening specific patterns in dead matter or even shapes.
Imagine a corpse with a jagged, spore laden shard deep in its meat and left for some scavenger to bite and infest itself with.

If its a living host you could begin to choke and kill outer parts.
give a host layer of fungal scales on the dead skin like overlapping mushroom caps.
sharpen or bulk up extremities to easier subdue prey.

So, i say the dead body.
Explore it.
Practice your hardening ability.
Push the limits a d see how weird you can shape things.

Nimble, scout.
Range around.
Sense the world beyond and return with knowledge.
Clumsy, gather.
Bring small biomass to the core.
Do not go far.
Ready things for thegreater whole to use.

Mush 2024/04/22(Mon)22:00 No. 1089430 ID: e1a09b
File 171384840933.png - (11.36KB , 653x564 , Mushroom12.png )

>>1089390
...Nothing much seems to happen. The fluid in the pools seems to be inert, without anything special about it or worthy of comment. Perhaps something about it is beyond my understanding. Regardless, Clumsy moves back towards the body and begins piling scraps of biomass near a more central area from my new larger host body.

Mush 2024/04/22(Mon)22:00 No. 1089431 ID: e1a09b
File 171384841821.png - (14.74KB , 653x564 , MUSHROOMmap1.png )

>>1089388
>>1089390
Nimble, for its part, maps the area. to the... to the uh. Over that way is a sharp drop. Dropping off of it would be difficult to return from. Nimble circles back. They discover that there is little here of comment aside from the remains of the Body. One mass, which I earmark for later conversion, and several others, that I will target later. Nearby is a colony of fungus that isn't myself. Plant based. Contact will come later...

Mush 2024/04/22(Mon)22:00 No. 1089432 ID: e1a09b
File 171384842525.png - (25.45KB , 1041x472 , Mushroom13.png )

>>1089397
The current limits seem to be... squareish. About the size of my main body, or smaller. To make more would require subtracting from my host's mass. More advanced shapes escape me, for the time being. At least they stack well - at this point I have three bricks of it.

However, while investigating the Body, there is a mass that is absolutely not soil, nor organic. Parts of it shimmer and shine in the light, and pieces of it shift color rapidly. Sounds blare from parts of it, as if it were alive, but it absolutely is not. The sounds repeat after a moment.

You are not a normal mushroom.

>Forget this useless mass. Convert the larger part of the biomass, and work on Clumsy's findings next.
>Touch the shining part.
>Claim the interior of the strange mass for yourself!
>Make contact with the other fungus.

>>1089432
>Forget this useless mass. Convert the larger part of the biomass, and work on Clumsy's findings next.

>>1089432
I do not like the shining noisey thing.

Subvert the biomass and followup on the findings byt have clumsy see if hes strong enough to roll the noise thing away.
It might not ge a threat but it may draw in threats.

>>1089442
seconding this

Mush 2024/04/23(Tue)23:11 No. 1089579 ID: e1a09b
File 171393907897.png - (6.65KB , 414x361 , MUSHROOM14.png )

>>1089442
>>1089434
>>1089497

Clumsy inspects the strange shape for a moment, moving in a circle around it. It digs at its base at one side,and near the rounded side digs again. It returns to your side of the shape, wedges itself under it, and then with a visible effort, its mycelium bulges. Whether it took in air, or tensed, or something else is hard to tell, but the motion shoves the whole shape away, making it bounce along the terrain. The noise it makes changes - growing higher in pitch and the sounds changing from the loop it had been making - but little else changes except for the shiny part, which shifts colors. You command Clumsy to do it again as you turn to the mass.

Mush 2024/04/23(Tue)23:11 No. 1089580 ID: e1a09b
File 171393908157.png - (8.75KB , 627x552 , MUSHROOM15.png )

It is perhaps the largest amount of dead flesh you've yet encountered. Taken as part of a creature, it is intimidating in scope. Perhaps the strange shape had been a part of it, but who can know?

In any case, you get to work. It is easy stuff, the mycelial network spreading, converting, repurposing quickly. There are tissues you cannot change - the bones within the mass cannot be converted. The ones inside you, and within the findings from Clumsy, are also off-limits. The bone within your core remains of dubious use, but is kept due to the trouble of ejecting it. These ones are much larger, heavier. They, too, remain within the biomass. Probably I could shape the mass to remove them, but there may be a use for them.

Speaking of uses.

This mass is easily ten times your current size. There are many uses for it, but presently, I need to come to a decision on one. And there's the matter of the bones - two large ones in the center mass, several smaller ones in the lesser masses Clumsy found. But those can wait.

>Convert the mass into bricks of fungiwood, providing shelter from the elements and allowing construction of something more permanent here.
>Convert the mass into a stronger host body, SEPARATE FROM your current one. This will lead to other options.
>Convert the mass into enhancements for your CURRENT host body. This will also lead to other options.
>Convert the mass into something less permanent than fungiwood, to set up a temporary base or a stash for later.

>>1089580
Use it to enhance CURRENT body.

Yes, bolster your strength as you are. There are other adversaries here, and you will need your strength to fend them off and add their strength, too, to your own.

Is nimble strong enough to move things? It might be a good task to consolidate the lesser masses into a stockpile that you can access later at your leisure. Once you have established territory to defend, it might make sense to start constructing fungiwood defenses for it.

Remember, you are not a normal mushroom.

>>1089580
Agreed.
Enhance current body.

See if nimble and clumsy can coordinate.
Stronger together.
Nimble finds and guides and clears obstructions.
Clumsy lends his mass and strength to the jobs.

As to the bones.
They are a heavy but strong scaffold on which you can build.
But there is more.
Dedicate a small number of the thinnest mycelium to probe it carefully for cracks that can be leveraged over time.
There are rich, complex protiens inside bones and while not worth focusing on as a dedicated task, a minor but persistant effort may return great rewards.

your current body is good, make it better.
if there's any mass left over turn it into fwood

Mush 2024/07/30(Tue)16:25 No. 1094979 ID: e1a09b
File 172238192759.png - (63.70KB , 618x614 , MUSHROOM16.png )

>>1089623
>>1089588
>>1089591
Suspending the largest bone over the earth allows the hollow interior to be used for cover. The smaller bones are kept in the overall scaffold until a use is properly found for them. Another use of this arrangement is that the scaffolding could be conscievably converted again into something more akin to another agent, making it mobile.

As for the rest - Converted, compressed, shifted about... It takes time to process so much mass, but it expands the main body, hardening along the back and crown.

This leaves a ponderance about the future...

>I should focus on this area and fortification while the area is still peaceful. Danger could come at any time.
>I should explore. Surely if one carcass exists, others might be present.
>I should expand. Take over the plant colony and make their strength my own.

>>1094979
Hmm, I suppose some basic fortification would be wise. We can make a burrow of sorts under something sturdy, and then make a door we can retreat through and block to prevent a predator from getting to us. Optimally there would be a back exit as well.

You left a part of yourself with the plants, how is that going? Wander the area and see what you find.

>>1094979
Explore.
Even if no carcass is found, knowing what else is close matters greatly

Mush 2024/08/06(Tue)20:46 No. 1095455 ID: 2a20c3
File 172300240419.png - (27.47KB , 653x564 , MUSHROOMmap2.png )

>>1094985
>>1094995
>>1095052

It's difficult to come to a consensus. So many things at hand, and so much to do!

First of all, the 'plantself'. There is no connection left - it broke from you long ago, and the plant it ate is dying as the fungus overtook its roots. They spread under the soil, easily, without restraint. It is difficult to explain how this is known. A sort of sense for another that is not yourself and yet is, a sibling and yet not, with a mind and ambitions of its own.

A gentle knowledge that they will not act against you. A certainty of the same in return. One could not call it 'warm' or 'kind', but instead an indifferent and quiet purpose.

A sureness.

However, they own the underground. The underflesh rebels against the idea of any incursion, so any sort of fortification will have to remain aboveground. Fungiwood suddenly has purpose. But to construct with it, I shall need a good deal more biomass. the underflesh shall take what is below and leave for me the above, though some part of it peeks through the surface unavoidably. Thus...

>I shall head to the ridge.

>I shall head to the strange pools.

>I shall head beyond my knowledge, to the [South].

>I shall head beyond my knowledge, to the [East].

South, with the ridge there so you don't get lost

Sure, south.

>>1095455
To the south.
Ridge shall give height.

Mush 2024/08/12(Mon)22:40 No. 1095753 ID: e1a09b
File 172352760182.png - (40.94KB , 1000x1000 , MUSHROOM17.png )

>>1095463
>>1095471
>>1095524
We move south. The two agents remain with the bone, working at the fungus there to more evenly spread it over the structure and intermittently seeking biomass to bring to it and work conversive growth, while my mount and I move south.

There is little life. Distantly, this is concerning. Where shall new biomass come from, if not from the dead? And where the dead from, if not burgeoning life? Hopefully this is not so completely widespread. But as time passes, we come upon something. We first loop around it, checking for anything similar, but find nothing but strange holes in the earth, deep and concerning, before we turn back towards home with the box between us and the distant bone. My mount rests behind me.

It is... a point. A point, thrusting up from the earth, with sharp edges. A marking on one side. A seam on another. After nudging it, I get the feeling that it is much, much larger than what I can see. I could set Mount to excavating it, revealing more. Something about the material is strange, hard, and cold. Not just without life, but like stone, it has never known it. Never will. And the seam is no crack or fissure. Even my most slender of psuedopods could not slip through, it is so perfectly aligned.

Instinct cries in concern.

Curiosity whispers in anticipation.

I find myself uncertain.

>Excavate the object.
>Return to the holes.
>Leave both to be.
>Examine closer?
>Move further south.

>>1095753
Examine closer. There's some kind of symbol on it?

You will need to see the whole object to understand it. dig it out

Mush 2024/08/19(Mon)17:48 No. 1096079 ID: b2738a
File 172411491671.jpg - (95.33KB , 3000x3000 , MUSHROOM18.jpg )

>>1095754
>>1095794
There is. Circles and lines. It means nothing to you, just like the lines and circles you uncover as you unearth the rest of it. It's a sloping shape set into the earth, massive to you. Easily more than ten of you long. Heavy. The seams are tight. Even your mount is easily dwarfed by the scope of it.

What a strange thing.

Obviously nothing can be done here. Not even your thinnest mycelium can fit in the seams.

Of course, there's some holes behind the D O O R a ways back.

>Return home.
>Make a wide circle back to cover more terrain, as this feels like a total loss.
>It's only polite to knock.
>Something else?

Strange thing, could it be a shell? Some kind of seed? Try knocking to see if it sounds hollow, there could be biomass inside.

>>1096079
we really shouldn't.
What was that about holes? Holes in the ground? May as well take a look.

>>1096079
Tap it with something hard like a small rock.
Place a mycellum against the ehell as you do so and see what you can feel with the vibration.

My turn. Handy 2024/08/27(Tue)20:04 No. 1096588 ID: 2b99c2
File 172481425362.jpg - (15.59KB , 300x300 , HandySaysHello.jpg )

>>1096148
>>1096083

You find a stone and wrap a psuedopod around it, using it to tap on the monolith. It rings with a curious reverbation, and in response dark psuedopods emerge from the seam in its material. Three of them, rising up, with fractal branches near the ends that terminate in dark, blunt claws.
It warbles sounds at you, and there's a pause.

The warbles grow more urgent, more sharp, before it slows to a stop.

Oh. Of course. This is, after all, my containment. The box is just... a box, it couldn't hold me. But there's no one here to talk to but Y O U. The little thing you pilot can't even hear me properly. But Y O U can. Only three of you? That's it? Sure, I was put here because no one will bother with it, but... That's a little sad.

It's doing nothing. You should move back home and return to marshaling ideas.

Tell you what, let's make a deal. I can't open this like this. If you're more interested in seeing what I can do, just... uh, give me a little more.

Only three h a n d s won't do me any good... By the way, good to meet Y O U. No names here... Well, no names that matter for Y O U, but I'm Handy. It's a pleasure.

>Explore past the holes.
>Return home.
[color=red]>Examine the holes.[/red]
>Something else?

Well there's certainly something in this shell, yet if you can't open it then time to head home.

Might as well check out those holes while you're out here though. Just a quick look.

Well, let's examine the holes before we go home.

>>1096588
Holes
So many good things.
Passage somewhere else, buried treasure, well... biomatter, defenses,
Check those holes