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benthic_universityThis evening the class is delayed by five minutes (approximately). It is because a very officially looking paper – that is torn from a notebook and hastily written on in nearly unintelligible lettering, which is a true mark of authenticity it comes from a lecturer and the information is important, rather than the official letterhead of the Benthic admin which a) is very easy to forge, b) is usually bullshit reminding you of tuition fees anyway – informs you that today’s Selected Chapters from Practical Mycology are moved to Laboratory 11, and furthermore that the classroom is currently in use for Dental Ablutions 201. By the sounds of muffled explosions from within, DA201 is indeed there and will be there for a while.
Laboratory 11 turns out to be a bit further down the hall. You’ve probably passed by it on your way to the classroom and now have to backtrack. It is easily recognisable by a brass plaque that has been edited several times (currently most of the information is inscribed upon paper glued over the brass).
There is a helpful basket of goggles to borrow, in case somebody doesn’t have their own. You are studying practical mycology, everyone would expect you to have your own goggles. Everyone would also expect you to be scatterbrained and forget them in your other lab-coat. Or maybe something ate them, you know how some slime moulds are.
Beyond the door is a standard laboratory, clean white space smelling of disinfection, acid, acetone, alcohol and an absolutely abysmal amount of academic abuse. Highly unusual for a mycology lab is the lack of fungi anywhere. Instead it seems that every horizontal surface is covered in wine bottles. The labels have been torn off and instead the neck of each bottle bears a handwritten tag.
The Soft-Eyed Mycologist does not fit well into this place. Not due to spatial limitations – there is plenty of room, the lab has been designed to hold a lot of large stationary objects, all of which are currently missing except for an empty terrarium in a corner – but because he is the dirtiest thing in the room. At least his lab coat is. At some point it had been white cotton. Probably. But definitely not after it had been singed, chewed on, bled on and dragged through… well, whatever it was, it was colourful.
Then again, this is a practicing mycologist who has been put to the steering wheel of this part of your education. For a change he looks the part to the T.
“Today I wanted to change up the pace, because listening to me laying down the theory for you can become unbearable after a few hours. Thus, today is purely practical, and I suppose a bit of a breather. Unless you overdo it, in which case breathing is overrated.”
He smiles brightly, although not all that softly, as he elaborates: “As the Famoso Doctor Paracelsus claimed, poison is in the dose. Please, welcome to the tasting course! I’ve spent the past couple of days extracting toxins and other physiologically active substances from various fungi all around the Neath, or at least for some I’ve found sufficient substitutions. We are entirely out of false parasol extract at the moment, you can thank Professor Guildenstern for that. Left half of the laboratory are toxins, labelled by the fungus of origin. The right half of the laboratory,” he makes a sweeping gesture behind him, nearly knocking some of the bottles over, “are antidotes, labelled by their actual names. Several of them have more than one name, I had limited myself to writing down the three most common at most.”
A clap of the Mycologist’s hands snaps your attention back to him – no tippling in quite yet: “In the wild nearly all fungi toxins have a delayed time of showing symptoms. Usually in hours, but there are extreme cases such as the marrow amanita. I have managed to circumvent this with… a lot of work and several more esoteric fixatives. Because of that I would ask you all not to sample more than four times, as none of the antidotes present can fix your kidneys and liver experiencing seven years in the span of four seconds. It is not going to kill you permanently and it is a death-reversible effect, but it is one of the least entertaining ways to visit the silent river. Not to mention the cleanup is… an unique experience which I personally do not wish to repeat.
You still do not avoid a lecture, although it is a much shorter one. Now that you are actively learning about what various types of mushroom poisonings look like, you can now spot them easily – or at least you are supposed to – in yourself, your family, neighbours, guests, whoever you encounter. So why not throw some first aid while we are at it?
After all, a practical mycologist finds themself often in the field where there is no doctor of medicine for miles and a hint of civilisation is as distant as the Sun. (‘What about the surface?’ Well, you can see the Sun there, but try getting to it. The analogy is perfect.) Often you are going to be alone or at best in pairs.
(Fortunately the Mycologist remembers this is a mycology class and you are only half-listening, so you hear more about heat-strokes, anaphylactic shocks and transports of an injured body rather than improvised barber-surgery. Still, you are glad there isn’t a slideshow for this.)
Since your teacher is on the prowl among you, checking for anything going wrong (You are taking diluted poisons by spoonfuls. What could possibly go wrong? He must be paranoid.), it is easier than ever today to have a word with him in the false privacy between the desks and bottles.
After two hours you can stumble out of the classroom with a poison-induced hangover. But you’ve certainly been educated.
Laboratory 11 turns out to be a bit further down the hall. You’ve probably passed by it on your way to the classroom and now have to backtrack. It is easily recognisable by a brass plaque that has been edited several times (currently most of the information is inscribed upon paper glued over the brass).
Laboratory XI | ||||
| Authorised personel only Nur Mitarbeiter N'y pense même pas
|
There is a helpful basket of goggles to borrow, in case somebody doesn’t have their own. You are studying practical mycology, everyone would expect you to have your own goggles. Everyone would also expect you to be scatterbrained and forget them in your other lab-coat. Or maybe something ate them, you know how some slime moulds are.
Beyond the door is a standard laboratory, clean white space smelling of disinfection, acid, acetone, alcohol and an absolutely abysmal amount of academic abuse. Highly unusual for a mycology lab is the lack of fungi anywhere. Instead it seems that every horizontal surface is covered in wine bottles. The labels have been torn off and instead the neck of each bottle bears a handwritten tag.
The Soft-Eyed Mycologist does not fit well into this place. Not due to spatial limitations – there is plenty of room, the lab has been designed to hold a lot of large stationary objects, all of which are currently missing except for an empty terrarium in a corner – but because he is the dirtiest thing in the room. At least his lab coat is. At some point it had been white cotton. Probably. But definitely not after it had been singed, chewed on, bled on and dragged through… well, whatever it was, it was colourful.
Then again, this is a practicing mycologist who has been put to the steering wheel of this part of your education. For a change he looks the part to the T.
“Today I wanted to change up the pace, because listening to me laying down the theory for you can become unbearable after a few hours. Thus, today is purely practical, and I suppose a bit of a breather. Unless you overdo it, in which case breathing is overrated.”
He smiles brightly, although not all that softly, as he elaborates: “As the Famoso Doctor Paracelsus claimed, poison is in the dose. Please, welcome to the tasting course! I’ve spent the past couple of days extracting toxins and other physiologically active substances from various fungi all around the Neath, or at least for some I’ve found sufficient substitutions. We are entirely out of false parasol extract at the moment, you can thank Professor Guildenstern for that. Left half of the laboratory are toxins, labelled by the fungus of origin. The right half of the laboratory,” he makes a sweeping gesture behind him, nearly knocking some of the bottles over, “are antidotes, labelled by their actual names. Several of them have more than one name, I had limited myself to writing down the three most common at most.”
A clap of the Mycologist’s hands snaps your attention back to him – no tippling in quite yet: “In the wild nearly all fungi toxins have a delayed time of showing symptoms. Usually in hours, but there are extreme cases such as the marrow amanita. I have managed to circumvent this with… a lot of work and several more esoteric fixatives. Because of that I would ask you all not to sample more than four times, as none of the antidotes present can fix your kidneys and liver experiencing seven years in the span of four seconds. It is not going to kill you permanently and it is a death-reversible effect, but it is one of the least entertaining ways to visit the silent river. Not to mention the cleanup is… an unique experience which I personally do not wish to repeat.
You still do not avoid a lecture, although it is a much shorter one. Now that you are actively learning about what various types of mushroom poisonings look like, you can now spot them easily – or at least you are supposed to – in yourself, your family, neighbours, guests, whoever you encounter. So why not throw some first aid while we are at it?
After all, a practical mycologist finds themself often in the field where there is no doctor of medicine for miles and a hint of civilisation is as distant as the Sun. (‘What about the surface?’ Well, you can see the Sun there, but try getting to it. The analogy is perfect.) Often you are going to be alone or at best in pairs.
(Fortunately the Mycologist remembers this is a mycology class and you are only half-listening, so you hear more about heat-strokes, anaphylactic shocks and transports of an injured body rather than improvised barber-surgery. Still, you are glad there isn’t a slideshow for this.)
Since your teacher is on the prowl among you, checking for anything going wrong (You are taking diluted poisons by spoonfuls. What could possibly go wrong? He must be paranoid.), it is easier than ever today to have a word with him in the false privacy between the desks and bottles.
After two hours you can stumble out of the classroom with a poison-induced hangover. But you’ve certainly been educated.
Sign In
Date: 2025-12-16 02:12 pm (UTC)Before Class
Date: 2025-12-16 02:12 pm (UTC)Talk to the Teacher
Date: 2025-12-16 02:14 pm (UTC)Activity
Date: 2025-12-16 02:24 pm (UTC)The poisons are diluted so that a spoonful should be an effective but not a lethal dose to 90 % of human population. Each bottle is labelled by the fungus the poison came out from (or in a few cases, such as the watered down psilocybin, what fungus it is imitating). There is a variety of the common (fly amanita, ink cap with some alcohol to it, yellow-stainer) to the less common (Devil's bolete - not exactly uncommon but uncommon in the Neath, cobra cap) and several downright esoteric (mirror-button mushroom, blind idiot's sausage).
The antidotes aren't listed on the bottles with poisons. You either know or you can look it up. As always, this is an open-textbook activity and you can work in groups.
Please do not die. That would be awkward. Everything has been done to ensure your safety, after all.
After Class
Date: 2025-12-16 02:26 pm (UTC)Time to ehad home and have dinner? No?
OOC
Date: 2025-12-16 02:31 pm (UTC)Anyway, this is your time to make up some poisons. Or if you have a knowledge of poisons, you can truly shine now here. (and of course, you can also do both or neither.)
In entirely different news, this is going to be the last class written this year. Benthic ceases classes for the winter holidays because nearly all teachers are (Anglican) Christians, and also I am very likely to be overwhelmed by doing a running lap around my relatives all over the state. If I somehow weasel out fo that, I am planning to be too busy playing Pathologic and ESO
Fun fact: I've bought two books as reading material for the Selected Chapters from Subterranean Mycology. I've opened none of them so far.
Re: OOC
Date: 2025-12-16 06:47 pm (UTC)happy holidays friends I will also be very busy with driving places and whatnot. Travelling is a pain
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-16 11:17 pm (UTC)Wait.
Hmm... This looks promising.
Swift relocation.
The Chimeric Professor enters Laboratory XI! Neatly registered first on the Sign-In line.
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-17 03:48 am (UTC)Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-17 03:55 am (UTC)The eagle-eyed among the class might notice that they both now have matching rings on their left ring fingers.
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-17 04:11 am (UTC)UbiquitousScarlet Guest made his way inside, having seen the sign at the usual room, found the new lab, and waited until someone else entered to slip in behind. He signed his name quickly and slipped into a corner of the room where he was least likely to be spotted. He kept his head ducked, posture small, praying nobody noticed him...Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-17 04:29 am (UTC)He filled out his clothes just a little more, rose just a few inches taller than memory served, though he held himself in such a way that he seemed small in stature, if not in actual bredth. He almost looked sick and wary in expression. And he worked so incredibly hard to be as out of sight as possible, not meeting anyone's gaze, barely looking around the room, the colors of his clothes perfect for blending into the basement lab.
Except they weren't in the basement lab, were they?
Re: Activity
Date: 2025-12-17 07:47 pm (UTC)First steps were to note the names, details noted in the books about the sources, and how the toxins appeared in their containers, including thickness and smell. He noted how certain toxins moved, how they clung - or didn't - to the sides of their bottles, how they stuck to fabric and skin (quickly washed off, just in case of osmosis).
Next came tasting. In his notes, the Guest described mouth feel, fore-taste, after-taste, aroma, bitterness or sting. He noted how the grenadine cap felt like it coated the mouth in fuzz, how the ruby veil extract seemed to slide like a snake down the gullet, how the smoking ink cap made the air feel cool like he'd just consumed mint.
After came the description of symptoms as they arose. Dizziness, welts and tumors, breathlessness, weakness in the limbs, unable to feel the skin, feeling the skin too much, blindness. Each symptom was noted with the utmost clarity and detail, up until he no longer had the ability to write. Then he would grab the antidote prepared and wait for the ability to write again to note the final symptoms of the toxin as well as the mouth feel, flavor, effects, and common names of the antidote as well as where to find them, if they were available in the wild.
This repeated quite a few times, the Guest wearing down physically and mentally with each step too close to the border of semi-eternal sleep. He kept a bin handy for any bodily purging events, but kept taking longer and longer breaks between toxins. This was getting exhausting...
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-17 11:42 pm (UTC)Their hair has grown as long as they are tall, each individual lock showing a different color from root to end, so delicately braided as if to form multiple hued rainbows. Their tail received a similar treatment, the tip split in seven and each one showing a differently colored pattern of scales. All of this contrasting deeply with the rest of the body, having now chosen a predominantly black coloration, a gradient that becomes lighter around the softer scales, giving an obsidian-like sheen to their body. Oh, were they not dressed one could witness a true work of art.
And, despite this, their movement isn't impeded in the slightest. The hair braids and contracts on its own to prevent any bother, and the tail is more useful than cumbersome, even in a tight space filled with fragile and dangerous bottles.
It seems the Mycologist has prepared quite the interesting class today. And they have come to enjoy it! Quite in their element, within this lab and provided with deadly substances. Playing with death under a doomed countdown? Yes please!
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-18 05:46 am (UTC)They signed in, smiling a bit in relief that they could still remember this much.
Re: Sign In
Date: 2025-12-18 08:55 am (UTC)They are looking less put together than usual today. Seems like they lost track of their day before this. Well. They're here now!
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-18 04:10 pm (UTC)"Greetings, my lovely dears. I see you two happier today, such a joy." Then their eyes went towards their hands, and with wide-open eyes, they add. "Much much happier, I see! Should I...?"
'Give my congratulations' is what was left unsaid. But just in case, they'd want confirmation that there is 100% what it seems no downsides or side-notes.
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-18 04:26 pm (UTC)"Scar? Is that you...?" Asked in the most subtle tone, at least.
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-18 04:49 pm (UTC)The Guest laid his head on the desk with a sigh. "Tell me it's not that obvious. I worked so hard to look normal, I don't wanna be cornered by the constables the moment I leave the lab."
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-18 08:14 pm (UTC)"Oh no... And are you feeling well? Of health, at least? Don't worry much about your appearance. This is the Neath! Just look at me. There's thousands of ways to explain why someone looks different than the day before. Just pick a comfortable tale and tell it until it stops being necessary. If someone asks, that is."
"And allow me to advice you: The more ashamed you appear and the more you try to hide what can't be hidden the more obvious it'll be that it wasn't desired. Thus it becomes a problem. Thus people who cares will come asking. Act as if it was something that happened and own it as such, that's my advice. And the constables? Why would they look after you? You are not them. You have been coming to this class for months and have people who would vouch for you. Your teacher is a magnificent lawyer. And you just happen to be a very handsome Irish person, exactly as any other day. That doesn't make you suspect of anything. Not counting stealing hearts."
Sealed with a playful wink and a reassuring smile.
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-18 08:44 pm (UTC)It wasn't his cleanest lie, but he could perfect it.
He'd done everything so far to make his appearance seem like normal, using tricks of the eye and a certain amount of posture to hide differences and enunciate similarities. Sure, the clothing color trick failed with the movement between labs, but that was one method of many. The Guest just had to trust it would be enough.
Trying to settle into his usual - if slightly closed in - posture, the Guest could be seen wearing makeup to adjust the shadows around his cheekbones and brow, creating the illusion of the same face. At least, as long as the viric tie laid out of view. Otherwise, the eyes just slid right over and nothing was noticeable. He smiled softly, just short of a laugh. "Excuse you, I've not stolen any hearts yet. Lies an' slander."
He considered the first question, trying to forget that he was in the wrong body. "I'm... fine, on the subject of health. A brief scare when it happened, but I was somewhere safe and away, the usual... side-effects taking place. I, erm, didn't know he was a lawyer."
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-18 10:02 pm (UTC)"I know you can overcome this. And you will go through the day without further problems." Then chuckling at the heart-stealing comment. "Say yet, my friend. Eventually I'll find proof and you'll have to face the evidence!"
"And it is good to know you are well. Will await Peldt's words and see what we can do in due time." Then taking a look towards the course's teacher, finally back to the Guest (Scarlet as he is) and smiling endeared. "Our Mycologist is quite the polymath, I'm afraid. Whatever he sets his gaze into, he masters, not allowing himself any alternative. Terrible for his health, astounding for witnesses."
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-18 11:10 pm (UTC)He rubbed his neck with a hum. "Well, I can give y' a summary. Peldt's cut me off again. Sorta. Says we can't risk it anymore, that I have to use the, um... random switch out, now that that's happenin'. Five percent chance at any given moment, he says. I'll be honest, it's not great, but I think... I think I get what he's always sayin' now." The Guest breathed through his nose and looked back at the Professor. "It'll be alright, though."
Re: Activity
Date: 2025-12-19 03:40 am (UTC)The Tailor looked... not great. Their notebook, open on the countertop, was full of scrawls that were hardly legible, though it appeared they were attempting to copy and cross-reference the textbook beside it comparing toxins to antidotes. Despite all appearances (their slightly unkempt attire, their pale complexion, the iciness of their hand and the deep, deep shadows under their eyes) suggesting their own encounters with the poisons in the room, they hadn't actually picked up a single spoon.
But their eyes were still mostly focused, and their grip, slightly too tight, eased, fingers retreating. "Pardon. I only meant to ask if I could examine your notes. I... don't think I can participate in today's activity. Not accurately, in any case." Their mouth was already pulled downwards at the corners, but now the frown took on an apologetic twist.
For now, there were no questions on the Guest's appearance, strange as it was. Hard to say, yet, if the Tailor had not noticed, or was simply ignoring it. But- they'd clearly seen him moving through the room, so... who could say how perceptive they were today or not?
Re: Before Class
Date: 2025-12-19 03:57 am (UTC)They walked through the Is as if it were the dream, and not the other way around. "Distracted" wasn't quite the right word. That would imply they were focusing on something, rather than Nothing.
(Coward, not thinking about it. Forgetting. Perhaps the memories will be gone again by the time Piper turns to look at them. But this in-between state is better than falling back in.)
If anyone wants to talk to them, they'll accept an actual distraction. They'd prefer not to lie point-blank about how they're doing, though, if they can help it. Is it too much to hope no one will ask?