Lichen makes a sound before giving it a little crunch. Enough for it to stop moving and not enough to mangle the poor thing, so Aurelle can take it without it wriggling in her bindle. With her jaws free of fish, she speaks. "That's a good start, I think." She hums approvingly.

What was it they needed again? Wood, fish, fruit, peppers, grains and bones? Lichen gives a thoughtful hum. "Perhaps another fruit? Or-- Bones? How fresh do they need to be? Maybe, er, something died nearby." Lichen offers thoughtfully. At least something the mycelia was good at finding was dead things.

She moved a few paces away to shake the water from herself before reaching towards the floor with her snout. Today was a new day, she reminded herself...

This time, the signals throughout the cave unfolded much, much more slowly. The growths on the ceiling were a given, but she was hoping the mycelia had been growing in other places too, somewhere with fruit or something that had perished recently. "There's a few trees, I think. Or perhaps bushes." She relayed with the tilt of her head.

"And something dead, but it's rotten. The mushrooms have already grown on it."

@Aurelle

"I think they want the marrow, maybe?" Aurelle offered. She knew Lichen ate marrow a lot more than she did (something about it felt a little icky in her stomach, actually) and would likely have a better idea of how old was too old for a bone.

Aurelle lifted her head to give the air a sniff. She couldn't immediately smell any rot, but her nose was full of fish already. "Do the mushrooms eat the marrow?" She asked Lichen, her head angling towards the dragon. "I don't want to hurt the mushrooms, though. Do you think we can get two bones from it without disturbing them?"

She followed Lichen towards the corpse. Though neither could tell what it was, the sickly-sweet scent of rot certainly hit them by then. The corpse was that of a deer, and though the mushrooms had grown and were eating away at what flesh and skin it had left over, some parts of the lone tunnel runner were already beginning to turn to oil.

Though death was natural, Aurelle still felt the urge to crinkle her nose in disgust. She definitely didn't want to touch it, and gave Lichen a little nudge. "Do you want to take a bone for yourself?"

1/2 fruit
1/3 bundles of firewood
1/1 12"+ fish
@Lichen

"Haw?" Lichen blurted without thinking, focused on leading the way to the carcass. After a moment of her brain rewinding through what Aurelle had said, she speaks again. " They won't mind." Lichen hums.

She settles next to the deer carcass, blindly touching through all the ick and nastiness as if it were just another day at the office. Working with rot so closely left very little to be upset about, especially as an opportunistic predator. "They eat anything. As long as it feeds them, dead skin, dead meat, dead leaves. Eventually it all returns to the soil or the network. Then allows them to create spores, so they can make more of themselves. I think."

With careful claws she plucks any mushrooms growing around the leg of the deer, the hats leaving pinky spore smears on her pads; not that either of them could probably see it. "But we shouldn't eat these." Lichen explains. Then, with a grunt of effort, yanks the leg bone free. She pauses to give it a sniff, before turning to Aurelle.

"Could you clean this?"

@Aurelle

"Okay," Aurelle said cheerfully. Lichen was, after all, the mushroom expert, and she did quite like hearing about them. Aurelle had... minimal skills with mushroom-based magic herself, which she mostly attributed to spending so much time with Lichen. She'd assumed if she hadn't, all her magic would still be microbe-based.

The elf took the bone, saying, "well, we only need two." Her hands went warm with magic as she touched the bone, erasing it of all microbial life. She knew, dimly, if she'd had a look at that thing, it'd be absolutely swarmed with things. Spores, bacteria from both in and out the body, and meat-cells, and... actually, she shouldn't think about it too much. She puked enough yesterday.

The important thing was it was clean.

"Did you want to eat this one, or do you want me to put it into the shawl?" She asked, either stashing it or letting Lichen have it depending on her answer.

@Lichen

"Ah, no. Put it in the shawl." Lichen nodded, not that either could see the gesture. She quickly busied herself with retrieving a second thigh bone from the deer, as she assumed it had more than just a single leg. Removing the growths and relocating them within the ribs of the carcass. "Maybe they'll make it hot in the hot-food place." She added excitedly, her voice bright. Though apparently the irony of giving over the bones, just to buy them back but hot, was lost on her.

It took a little more, but once the other leg bone could be wrenched from the carcass, she turned around with it in hand. "And this one, too." She added, though her voice sounded wet, as if she was drooling.

All this tasty food and a lot of restraint not to eat it immediately.

Lichen herself, was still disgusting. It was for the best that Aurelle didn't try to sense anything. Her front claws covered in spores, bacteria and whatever else was living on that deer carcass. Absolutely nasty.

"What are we missing?"

@Aurelle

"Hot bone?" Aurelle echoed thoughtfully. It didn't sound tasty to her, but the reminder of the smells in that tavern was also making her drool, a little. The berries and mushrooms she'd eaten were forgotten in lieu of what the tavern might have to offer.

She stuffed the first one into her shawl, and then reached out for the second. The sterilization of this one went without a hitch, too, and soon she stuffed a second bone into the bindle and adjusted her bag. So, what was next?

"Do you remember where the bush or the tree was?" Aurelle asked. "Maybe we could find some fruit, or some peppers. Or some grains."

She nudged the bindle, thinking. "I think we've made... fifteen coins so far. It should keep us fed for a few days, but..." but they could be fed for even longer if they kept going. Options were always good, too-- what if something they were served was, God forbid, yucky? "Well, it can't hurt to check everything."

1/2 fruit
1/3 bundles of firewood
1/1 12"+ fish
2/2 bones
@Lichen

Lichen lowered her head towards the carcass, surely with a connection right next to them opposed to slightly under the soil, it would be easier than ever to find the tree-bush-whatever it was's again. Her feelers reached out to gingerly tip-tap around the ground of the carcass.

Rising to her feet she thinks to ask, "how many coins does it cost for a hot-deer?" It hadn't crossed her mind that anything would cost more than one coin; or that they were trading these items in for more than one coin each...

The network was easy to tap into, but not so eager to please her after rudely relocating part of the network to elsewhere. However, it did light up with the same signals, something living, surrounded by lots of little dead tissues. A tree or shrub that had shed a few leaves, or fruit if they were lucky.

Thankfully, she had the foresight to figure out Aurelle probably didn't want her nasty, spore covered bits touching her. "This way," she said, wandering in the direction of the potential tree-bush. Making her feet scuff across the cave floor to make enough noise that her footfalls were easy enough to follow

@Aurelle

"It seems to depend on how long you've been awake for," Aurelle said, following Lichen to whatever she'd found. "They're called breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast is for when you first wake up, and it's three coins. Dinner is before you go to sleep, which is four coins, and between that time is called lunch, which is two coins."

"They said that different foods were for different times," the elf added. "But I don't know what hot bones and hot deer fall under. But, dinner is the biggest meal, so maybe it's that? Or maybe we can just ask what they are and they'll give it to us."

It all seemed very complicated, but Aurelle didn't mind too much. "I'm sure it's easier in practice," she said, more to herself.

When Lichen came to a stop, Aurelle stopped walking and stood next to her, too. "What did you find?" She asked, tentatively reaching out. She felt bark beneath her hand again. "Oh, I think it's another tree."

She bent, touching the ground. "If you go looking for fruit, I'll try find more sticks." This one seemed a little more plentiful than the last, at least, and soon Aurelle had another bundle going.

1/2 fruit
2/3 bundles of firewood
1/1 12"+ fish
2/2 bones
@Lichen

Lichen's throat makes a low rumble of agreement. Then, up she goes, back up the tree to hunt for goodies. "How do they know when we've woken up?" Lichen asks from her treetop perch, feeling around for any fruits within the tree.

The whole thing seemed utterly ridiculous to her, new foods seemed wonderful, but it cost more depending on how long you've been awake seemed needlessly complicated. Wouldn't it be easier to let them choose from the selection or just switch when they ran out of that food?

This whole food business was a tougher thought to chew on than Lichen ever expected. Well, as long as Aurelle got what she wanted, how it happened was less of a concern to her.

Her feelers reach outwards towards the top of the tree, feeling branches for anything dangling from them...

...After passing over a few that didn't seem quite right, a few too small and not quite ready, she touched something of a decent size. After some more careful feeling around, the item had a smooth skin and smelled sickly sweet. It had to be some sort of fruit, she leaned up to carefully snip the stem of it with the tip of her beak. "I think we've found.. cave mango." Lichen called as she clutched the fruit against her chest. The uncertainty in her tone made it seem like she'd absolutely made that up on the spot.

With the fruit in claws, she began to descend from the tree.

@Aurelle

"I have no idea! Maybe they're all creeps and weirdos," she teased, cheerful. "But I suppose it's just the honor system. Or... maybe they have special foods that you have to eat when you just wake up, so you go and get it from them. Aurelle shrugged. She wasn't a breakfast expert, as much as she'd like to be.

While Lichen searched the tree, Aurelle kept picking up firewood. She couldn't quite tell, but it certainly seemed like a lot of sticks-- surely enough for three bundled by now. She could barely keep a grasp on it all now, even with both arms.

Her head lifted. "Cave mango?" The elf echoed, sniffing the air while Lichen came down the tree. "It smells good. Do you want to put it in the bag?" She turned, offering the bindle out towards the general direction of the dragon's nose.

"I think this should be..." she hummed, calculating. "Errr... thirty-something, now. Thirty-four coins? That's a lot of coins." She turned her head over her shoulder to Lichen, puffing out a thick swath of hair.

"Do you want to try finding peppers or grains, or do you want to head back? I'm, um, not sure if I can carry anything myself, though. It's a lot of sticks."

2/2 fruit
3/3 bundles of firewood
1/1 12"+ fish
2/2 bones
@Lichen