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benthic_universityOnce again you find yourself attending an evening class on the Selectech Chapters from Practical Subterranean Mycology. Even though the subject has a tradition nearly as old as the Fall, no one has bothered to rename it so it would form a good acronym.
Today the classroom is looking almost cheerful. Someone had cleared out all the poetic yet grim memento moris. Someone, quite possibly someone else, had then decorated all possible and impossible surfaces of the room in joyful expectations of the Yule, in the best traditions of the four weeks of Advent. And finally a third someone has then replaced all the saints and angels, including the Virgin Mary and even the swaddled baby Jesus in the manger, with elephants, all triumphantly raising their trunks. Since the elephants are wooden or ceramic, they do not toot. But if they could, it would be a cacophony your ears would not appreciate for long.
(Yes, in the manger the baby elephant is carefully swaddled in the finest silk. Yes, there are several elephants hanging under the ceiling whom you can pull by the string and they then flap their gigantic ears, which apparently are how they fly. And yes, several of those flying elephants have musical instruments, such as a lyre, tambourine or– No, that is not a trumpet, that is just a gilded trunk, now that you came closer it is plain to see.)
When you cast your eyes around the room, the edge of the festive Nativity model arranged on the teacher’s desk (the only desk long enough to hold it all) is still attended to by your teacher. He is carefully arranging a shepherd’s crook into yet another elephant’s trunk so that it can lead the flock of sheep forward.
To your great surprise, sprawled in the very back row is another man, one with a veritable moustache, deep velvet blazer and giving the air of cigars and sharp sandalwood cologne. He is impossible to forget once you’ve met him once, the booming voice and a quick and hearty laugh identify him quickly in any salon or classroom: Professor Guildenstern himself. Good to know he is doing better, he even has a healthy colour to his skin!
He is flipping through a thin book. As he goes through it, ignoring the students filtering into the classroom, he says: “Manyar, this is all nice and–”
“I believe we have agreed that thou wouldst not interrupt the lecture. That includes the preparations. If thou dostn’t like the arrangement, I am free to discuss thy concerns during my office hours.” (That translates from academic English as: Sod off.)
Professor Guildenstern takes his leaves.
“And do not steal the teaching props.”
The thin book makes a disgraceful arc to the middle of the desk where it knocks off the comet. The star falls on the floor where it remains like a piece of wood, which it is.
“Well, now that you’ve seen how my predecessor sees our class, I think ‘tis time to move onto new possibilities of Mycology. We have so far talked of the practical every day use we have for fungi even in fields where we suspect it the least and how we adapt the fungi to suit these fields. Not to mention the social benefit.
Today,” he beams with a brilliant smile, “I would like to introduce you all to the area which takes up most of my personal research: Absorption!”
And here he goes, scrawling half-legible letters on the board, his hand barely keeping up with his mouth which itself is barely keeping up with his mind.
“There are several types of fungi that are excellent at absorbing all manner of – pardon the academic jargon – stuff from the substrate. Possibly the most famous is the amethyst deceiver drawing up arsenic. My personal favourite is the quartz deceiver which in similar fashion absorbs ideas from soil and as such fruiting bodies harvested from old colonies can be one of the most potent hallucinogens when eaten.
With little engineering we could strengthen their absorbing properties and for example purify the soil from which we grow our crops of unwanted heavy metals and thoughts. But apparently nobody minds enough to give anyone any funding. Ultimately, in the eyes of investors, people are the cheapest commodity.
Currently the most priced commodity is information and the speed at which it gets to you. The second best priced commodity is the safe encryption of that information. Specimens much like the quartz deceiver, doily milk-stem and the entire serratusfunis genus are capable of soaking up information in some form into their bodies and mycelium network.
A dedicated mycologist can form a fungal archive and file into it at will. Removing information is more difficult and retrieving the information requires knowledge of the archive itself. A good mycologist can put the entire Encyclopedia Britannica into two fungal pots of the bloody saw-stem over the course of five months… and then lose it all over the course of three hours when the atmospheric pressure in his house decides that decimal point is good for throwing darts.” The expression the Mycologist shows is already known throughout London as ‘I did not have a good summer.’
From behind the desk he pulls a low trolley cart with yet another bunch of fungi pots. These hold knotty lumps that look sharp and vaguely blue-brown.
“This beautiful species is known both as the dowager saw-stem, the Rabenhorst’s saw-stem and the knotted onion; all names reportedly because cutting the fruiting bodies releases toxins that stimulate the lacrimal glands. By the way, the toxin also absorbs very quickly through the skin. Dermal exposition takes more for a human body to reach the lowest observable effect threshold, but you will be weeping for hours.
The Rabenhorst’s saw-stem records sounds and upon stimulation quietly reproduces them. For your today’s practical, to get the ropes of it, you will use the finest equipment an archivist can have.”
The finest equipment are two dinner forks with the middle teeth broken off, that is for stimulating the fungus, a stethoscope, so you can hear the fungus, and finally a trowel and a spoon so you can replant and rearrange your archive as needed.
And what exactly is it that you are doing?
“With the help of a typewriter and some string and a lot of coffee I have turned your last practical creations into a neat little collection," the Soft-Eyed Mycologist picks up the thin book Professor Guildenstern had so angrily thrown into the Elephant Nativity before, “And archived it in this specimen. The fungus then proliferated and I replanted it purposefully out of archiving order. With the collection as your guide, your task is to organise it back together. You can keep the collections, by the way. There should be one for each of you.”
The end of the class sees you saved from (or disturbed from, depending on your attitude) from precision archive-gardening. You can go home and wash the ringing whisper of the mushroom out of your ears.
But not before the Mycologist calls out: “I am not yet through all of thy essays, but expect them graded and returned before the holiday season closes the classrooms!”
Today the classroom is looking almost cheerful. Someone had cleared out all the poetic yet grim memento moris. Someone, quite possibly someone else, had then decorated all possible and impossible surfaces of the room in joyful expectations of the Yule, in the best traditions of the four weeks of Advent. And finally a third someone has then replaced all the saints and angels, including the Virgin Mary and even the swaddled baby Jesus in the manger, with elephants, all triumphantly raising their trunks. Since the elephants are wooden or ceramic, they do not toot. But if they could, it would be a cacophony your ears would not appreciate for long.
(Yes, in the manger the baby elephant is carefully swaddled in the finest silk. Yes, there are several elephants hanging under the ceiling whom you can pull by the string and they then flap their gigantic ears, which apparently are how they fly. And yes, several of those flying elephants have musical instruments, such as a lyre, tambourine or– No, that is not a trumpet, that is just a gilded trunk, now that you came closer it is plain to see.)
When you cast your eyes around the room, the edge of the festive Nativity model arranged on the teacher’s desk (the only desk long enough to hold it all) is still attended to by your teacher. He is carefully arranging a shepherd’s crook into yet another elephant’s trunk so that it can lead the flock of sheep forward.
To your great surprise, sprawled in the very back row is another man, one with a veritable moustache, deep velvet blazer and giving the air of cigars and sharp sandalwood cologne. He is impossible to forget once you’ve met him once, the booming voice and a quick and hearty laugh identify him quickly in any salon or classroom: Professor Guildenstern himself. Good to know he is doing better, he even has a healthy colour to his skin!
He is flipping through a thin book. As he goes through it, ignoring the students filtering into the classroom, he says: “Manyar, this is all nice and–”
“I believe we have agreed that thou wouldst not interrupt the lecture. That includes the preparations. If thou dostn’t like the arrangement, I am free to discuss thy concerns during my office hours.” (That translates from academic English as: Sod off.)
Professor Guildenstern takes his leaves.
“And do not steal the teaching props.”
The thin book makes a disgraceful arc to the middle of the desk where it knocks off the comet. The star falls on the floor where it remains like a piece of wood, which it is.
“Well, now that you’ve seen how my predecessor sees our class, I think ‘tis time to move onto new possibilities of Mycology. We have so far talked of the practical every day use we have for fungi even in fields where we suspect it the least and how we adapt the fungi to suit these fields. Not to mention the social benefit.
Today,” he beams with a brilliant smile, “I would like to introduce you all to the area which takes up most of my personal research: Absorption!”
And here he goes, scrawling half-legible letters on the board, his hand barely keeping up with his mouth which itself is barely keeping up with his mind.
“There are several types of fungi that are excellent at absorbing all manner of – pardon the academic jargon – stuff from the substrate. Possibly the most famous is the amethyst deceiver drawing up arsenic. My personal favourite is the quartz deceiver which in similar fashion absorbs ideas from soil and as such fruiting bodies harvested from old colonies can be one of the most potent hallucinogens when eaten.
With little engineering we could strengthen their absorbing properties and for example purify the soil from which we grow our crops of unwanted heavy metals and thoughts. But apparently nobody minds enough to give anyone any funding. Ultimately, in the eyes of investors, people are the cheapest commodity.
Currently the most priced commodity is information and the speed at which it gets to you. The second best priced commodity is the safe encryption of that information. Specimens much like the quartz deceiver, doily milk-stem and the entire serratusfunis genus are capable of soaking up information in some form into their bodies and mycelium network.
A dedicated mycologist can form a fungal archive and file into it at will. Removing information is more difficult and retrieving the information requires knowledge of the archive itself. A good mycologist can put the entire Encyclopedia Britannica into two fungal pots of the bloody saw-stem over the course of five months… and then lose it all over the course of three hours when the atmospheric pressure in his house decides that decimal point is good for throwing darts.” The expression the Mycologist shows is already known throughout London as ‘I did not have a good summer.’
From behind the desk he pulls a low trolley cart with yet another bunch of fungi pots. These hold knotty lumps that look sharp and vaguely blue-brown.
“This beautiful species is known both as the dowager saw-stem, the Rabenhorst’s saw-stem and the knotted onion; all names reportedly because cutting the fruiting bodies releases toxins that stimulate the lacrimal glands. By the way, the toxin also absorbs very quickly through the skin. Dermal exposition takes more for a human body to reach the lowest observable effect threshold, but you will be weeping for hours.
The Rabenhorst’s saw-stem records sounds and upon stimulation quietly reproduces them. For your today’s practical, to get the ropes of it, you will use the finest equipment an archivist can have.”
The finest equipment are two dinner forks with the middle teeth broken off, that is for stimulating the fungus, a stethoscope, so you can hear the fungus, and finally a trowel and a spoon so you can replant and rearrange your archive as needed.
And what exactly is it that you are doing?
“With the help of a typewriter and some string and a lot of coffee I have turned your last practical creations into a neat little collection," the Soft-Eyed Mycologist picks up the thin book Professor Guildenstern had so angrily thrown into the Elephant Nativity before, “And archived it in this specimen. The fungus then proliferated and I replanted it purposefully out of archiving order. With the collection as your guide, your task is to organise it back together. You can keep the collections, by the way. There should be one for each of you.”
The end of the class sees you saved from (or disturbed from, depending on your attitude) from precision archive-gardening. You can go home and wash the ringing whisper of the mushroom out of your ears.
But not before the Mycologist calls out: “I am not yet through all of thy essays, but expect them graded and returned before the holiday season closes the classrooms!”
Sign In
Date: 2025-12-02 01:36 pm (UTC)Before Class
Date: 2025-12-02 01:37 pm (UTC)Lecture
Date: 2025-12-02 01:39 pm (UTC)Activity
Date: 2025-12-02 01:40 pm (UTC)After Class
Date: 2025-12-02 01:40 pm (UTC)Essay
Date: 2025-12-02 01:42 pm (UTC)OOC
Date: 2025-12-02 01:44 pm (UTC)Anyway. Advent time. Do you celebrate it? Do you celebrate anything else? Any convenient talk hooks I could drop in? I am bad at conversations.
(I'll drop by later when I have cooked.)
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-02 05:10 pm (UTC)They're looking a little wan. Perhaps the cold season's not doing them much good.
Re: Essay
Date: 2025-12-02 05:56 pm (UTC)It's not very long. The writer has ideas, clearly, but didn't appear to have the time to give more than an overview of the subject. But, since the second page has so much space, there are two illustrated mushrooms taking up the remainder, labelled properly. And- hey, what's this? They've been painted a little, with the pigments made from their living counterparts' fruiting bodies?
That's cute. Seems they're a little more of an artist than a writer. Still, it's only two- not a large sample size. But optimistically it can gain a couple extra points for effort on a paper that's... passable. Solidly passing. Maybe in the low 80 percent range?
(Some might argue this score. The point is it isn't up to the Tailor's exacting standards at all. Better than nothing, though.)
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-02 06:17 pm (UTC)They don't seem too worried, though. Stopping to have a look around the festive decorations and audibly laughing joyfully at the creative transformation of the more Christian themes (which is to say, all of them).
Sign in, no apples, then to their usual seat.
Re: Essay
Date: 2025-12-02 06:50 pm (UTC)Just as promised, the essay goes on (and on and on) about a species of mold found only in a well-hydrated antiravine near Zenith gifted with an extraordinary toxin that doesn't kill twice in the same fashion. It combines theoretical research and experimental procedures to pose the hypothesis of it being due not to a toxin but actually a vitamin only this fungus synthesizes and uses for its own nourishment and survival, preliminarly named 'Allosteromycin'. This vitamin's unique chemical structure and constant violant irradiation gives it a unique property: It can adapt to become an allosteric effector of any and all organic enzymes found within any living organism that consumes it.
Of course, the concept of "allosteric effector" is a quite recent one, half-invented and half-cited from obscure, not-yet-famous sources from the Surface. It essentially means an organic substance capable of binding to an enzyme (which is to say, an organic catalyst) and change its activity either for better or for worst. Well then, the Allosteromyces uses its allosterimycin to improve its biochemical pathways, ensuring an optimal metabolism and a widest spectrum of favorable conditions for growth. But, if a non-fungal creature eats it, the allosteromycin targets specifically the worst-functioning enzymes of the unfortunate commensal and inactivates them for good, thus causing the unpredictable variety of deaths related to its exposition.
Once this is experimentally proved (taking into account the necessary limitations in the state of the art, for Leonor Michaelis and Maud Menten are currently working in the principle that will be nailed into the minds of so many students in the future), there is a section explaining how this substance could be used as an incredibly accurate tool for the diagnosis of metabolical diseases and, perhaps, be turned into a 'homing medicine' for such health problems.
It is also evident for any academic worth half their brain's weight in neurons that this essay was at first longer, like much much longer, and suffered extensive edition, cutting, rewording and synthesis to become the manageable work placed on the table today.
Re: Essay
Date: 2025-12-02 07:07 pm (UTC)The basics are simple enough, outlining the malleability, durability, and weaknesses of a fungus-column. Solid-box traps and slashing weapons are ideal. The tendrils aren't coordinated enough to easily strike close to the main body, so closing the distance is the main objective. Slashing the nerve clusters is the elegant way to disable one temporarily, while chopping a few vital organs (plural, due to redundancies) is the straightforward lethal method. If you get nicked by a barb, there are several affordable ways to neutralize the acid, detailed here.
As one continues to read, however, it becomes an increasingly clear example of the struggles that come with the existence of laymen. As it turns out, not everyone has the preternatural coordination to track and slash tendrils striking from every angle. Or the perception to identify minute movements across many moving parts of one's prey, and adjust one's position accordingly. Or a blade light enough to nip around the body, sharp enough to slice hardened mycelium without pause, and long enough to bite at the organs within the ooze using a single slash. A basic menace eradicator might barely be able to attempt the techniques aimed at a junior Monster-Hunter with an acceptable degree of bodily harm after the hunt.
The one strategy that nearly anyone could (and does) accomplish is rushedly tacked on toward the end. It relies on the age-old axiom that more stuff has a tendency to beat less stuff. A fungus-column, after all, has a limit on how much it can divide its focus. If threatened on one side, the redistribution of flailing tendrils can leave an opening for another angle to perform inelegant (or elegant, if you prefer) butchery. The Monster-Hunter spin on this is providing some detail one how to make oneself look like a threat in the sensory organs of a fungus-column, including and surpassing a few strategies a regular marsh-goer would understand well.
The paper is... reasonably legible, and clearly written from experience. However, it isn't particularly formal and is lacking in scientific organization and specificity. Although no mechanical errors are present, one might sense a lack of care on the part of the writer.
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-02 09:18 pm (UTC)The Professor approaches said teacher with talking intentions.
"Merry December, my dear! Please allow me to praise your festive elephants, they are perfect each and every one! Oh, and... Good to know Professor Guildenstern found his way back from disappearance."
After a moment, wondering what and how to say it, they decide to attack with something less obvious.
"Today the Cottage celebrates yet another change of season. Do you think a certain Queen and Knight will be seen around soon? I've been looking forward to the progress of one such player and if I'm not mistaken, this one could be their last distinction left to achieve..."
Of course anyone could approach the Professor either on their way to the desk or back, there is plenty of time and plenty of friends to catch up with.
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-02 09:29 pm (UTC)The Guest had gone through the process of signing in before noticing the decor and smiling, a laugh huffed through his nose. He could take it in further when he got to his seat.
Re: Essay
Date: 2025-12-02 09:30 pm (UTC)Then the Guest started in on the part of the essay that focused on research and development and he found his legs. While unclear what his topic was in the initial paragraphs, it soon became clear that the Guest was focused in on hunting. The Guest was not hunting mycelium, however; he was hunting with mycelium. The fungus in question - Mycena mancinella, the main focus of the premise - was both corrosive and bioluminescent, although only in contact with carbon-based biological matter such as blood or muscle tissue. Applied to a blade, an arrow tip, a bullet, the fungus would react to contact with the creature and begin to glow. At the same time, the corrosive nature of the fungus hindered the prey and slowly invoked neurotoxicity. If left, the fungus would render the prey a twitching, frothing mass of corroding flesh, alive until the brain stem was completely eaten through. The unneutralized mycelium network would, over time, eat away at the pelt, the muscle tissue, the nervous system, the bones, creating accelerated decomposition.
Without neutralizing the network, there would be nothing left of worth, for use in food, clothing, or even money as evidence of the kill to be brought before the Department of Menace Eradication. The Guest concluded that, while useful in the tracking and disabling of prey, M. mancinella was to be used sparingly and limited only to threats to human populations or invasive species. However, the use of the fungus could not be understated and the Guest went into great detail about the corrosive attributes, the method of bioluminescence, the use in cleaning and hunting both, and the painful, slow death of victims for the next three paragraphs. Some of the descriptions of accelerated decay were quite… graphic, but at least the Guest had found his literary voice in the passion.
It could not go without stating that half of the concepts listed were without source. Or, at least, without outside source. The level of accurate detail in the effects of M. mancinella proved that a primary source of evidence was being supplied in areas, including the application of the mycelium in the cleaning of washroom grout.
The essay did not have a final paragraph in a traditional sense, rather ending with a single, dry sentence opening up the idea for other uses of other mycelium in hunting, cutting off the virulent passion for one, single, dangerous fungus. It was clear that the Guest wasn’t used to writing essays, this perhaps being his first attempt at one. Keeping that in mind, it might’ve passed, if recognized only for scientific rigor and accurate information. However, if grading for format, it was subpar, messy, incomplete, and without proper style as approved for use by the university. In the end, it was up to the person grading whether this essay lied in pass or fail.
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-02 09:37 pm (UTC)The Guest smiled as he looked around at the decorations, finding the tone festive, whimsical, appealing, and - most importantly - against the established status quo of Christian authoritarianism over a holiday that was originally Pagan to begin with. He'd hold it in that the math said, if a Christ did exist, he would have been born in the autumn. Didn't want to spoil the elephants in the room.
Speaking of the elephants in the room, the Guest looked over the altered Nativity with a fond and, perhaps, almost plotting smile. It was difficult to say whether the smile meant intention or just fantasy, but it was hard to tell what most expressions truly meant with him.
The Guest was doing somewhat well today and was open to conversation, should anyone approach.
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-02 11:08 pm (UTC)"Good evening Milo! Enjoying the elephants in the room? Such a lovely sight, and a welcome festive novelty."
Now taking a seat in the chair next to him, and still thinking about the flying musical elephants, the most fascinating concept in their opinion.
"How have you been since last class?"
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-02 11:40 pm (UTC)He tosses his pages on the stack somewhat haphazardly. He leans over the paper as he signs in, taking an extra second to find the name he initials beside. His eyes are downcast as he strides to his seat. The lamp-cat hops up the steps to follow him.
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-02 11:41 pm (UTC)He resettled to fully face the Professor. "What've you been up to, eh? You look dragged backwards and tossed."
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-02 11:45 pm (UTC)Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-03 01:36 am (UTC)Devil, surprisingly arrives first. He blinks a bit at the sight of all the elephants, then glances around the classroom as if he's searching for something. Or someone. His shoulders slump a little, he sighs, and then he signs his name in.
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-03 01:41 am (UTC)Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-03 02:06 am (UTC)"Evening, Professor. I was hoping to borrow a moment of your time. If you're not terribly busy before class begins?"
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-03 02:59 am (UTC)Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-03 03:05 am (UTC)Before settling into his usual seat, the Persistent Professor took a closer look at the strange pachyderm-enhanced nativity scene on the front desk of the hall. Behind him, his Blemmigan Secretary was carefully arranging its employer's(?) notes and books out on the desk. A cursory glance would reveal that there was no apparent order to this placement, which seemed instead to be either entirely random or based on some Bizarre myco-logic.