((Takes place a week after the Água de Beber thread)

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Oka!

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Oka had made a decision, one that took month's to decide upon. She was going to get her currant berry plant back, and drag it with her to Leo. A simple enough plan. At least, in theory. She'd made it to Gemini. Easy enough! Then, subsequently, she got lost in Tunnel A once again. She didn't talk to her reflection this time. But she'd at least realized to follow the wooden planks. Oka passed through Polaris, stopping to gaze at the crystals longingly.

She'd have to pick another one up. And after another day of travel, she'd made it to Eridanus. The cave was nostalgic, after so long away. The scents, the humidity, the endless noise, even. Oka longed to find the hollow in which she'd hatched. She'd never fit in there again. But...she could look in there.

All this was good enough. In theory, at least. But there was one problem. Oka forgot the way to her clearing. She wandered. Lost in the Maw of Mosses for a solid few hours. She made sure not to cross her own trail. And somewhere within that lost wandering, Oka saw it. The Monarch.

In all the days that Oka had spent here, she'd never seen this. Had she never been looking in the right place? The mushroom stretched tall, tall as most trees did. No, taller. with a glinting cap. Oka's eyes glittered with joy. Whenever she came across fungi, she devoured them. They were a treat, breaking up the monotony of grasses and leaves she consumed on a daily basis. And this? This was the mother of all mushrooms. The biggest she'd seen. She'd have to take some with her. Maybe if she collected a few spores, she could regrow it in Leo. She preferred the caps of the mushrooms. The stems were tough and woody, and comparatively held little flavor.

Large as Oka was, even she would have trouble reaching the cap of the mushroom. Oka glanced around, searching for something she could climb upon to reach it. A fallen tree, collapsed over a massive root of another would do, at least. For a normal gembound, it'd be too far for them to reach the cap. But, thanks to Oka's massive size, it was just barely enough for her. Oka glided to the tree log, poking it gently. It didn't feel like it was too rotten to climb upon. Just yet.

Then, she began to glide up it. It creaked under her weight. Oka's nerves began to rear their head. It was a far stretch. But she could just hide in her shell worst come to worst. Right? The snail leaned it's front off the ground, stretching it towards the Monarch. Closer. A tentacle gripped the edge. Closer. The other. There! Her mouth reached it. The tree creaked under Oka's weight. It was nerve wracking. But she'd made it to the food. She'd test it, then tear off a chunk to take with. Tentatively she began to nibble away at the cap.

At first, there was nothing: only the sound of the wind, the rustling of it as it moved through the trees and ferns; and the distant hum of Bumblebugs as they went to and fro.

The cap chunk tasted a little acrid, but certainly edible; slimy on the outside, but dry--yet somehow moist--within. It was spongy, dense, yet light; a lovely texture even if the taste was a little off.

The bushes shifted with the wind.

The bushes shifted as two tall, jet-black humanoids--covered in oilstone--pushed through, and stepped into the clearing. The buzz of the bumblebugs became deafening. Ominous.

"WE ARE HERE TO PROTECT THE GIANT MUSHROOM," boomed the first figure, and lifted a spear he hadn't been carrying, and brandished it. There was an army behind them. "THIS IS OUR GIANT MUSHROOM, AND WE ARE THE BEES," said the second, and dissolved into the sound of the wind. The first fell apart, becoming a mass of Wallcrawlers that fell and scattered away. But the whole forest was an army of them, of these tall, mysterious oily beings. And the forest was moving with the wind, and the wind was a soldier, and the soldier was Wallcrawlers; and the wind sounded purple.

Very strange, that; how could wind sound purple?

Far more reasonable was the bleeding of the shapes of the trees, where they melted and slithered about. One of them dug a hole, and looked to Oka through leafy eyes. "I must sink," she told the snail, before melting into the mud.

Ahh, such was life in the mud-cities.

Oka is hallucinating after consuming a large chunk of hallucinogenic mushroom. These hallucinations will last approximately four hours (gradually becoming less intense over the duration), and for a week after they fade, Oka's slime will cause mild hallucinations in any who touch it before it dries.

@Oka