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benthic_universityThis fine evening you are returned to your home classroom. Gone is the festive decor, including all the elephants which can now be assumed thoroughly refuted. The posters with your artwork done during the first class remain, although they seem to have switched places here and there. The paper certainly seems newer. On the other hand, the bowl of apples has returned. The apples are smaller, darker and lumpy. They taste sour, and try as you might, the brown juice will drip down your chin, it is entirely unavoidable. They are also very fulfilling, you don’t have to eat too many to feel full.
As you mingle and find your seat – God gracious, have you forgotten your usual spot over the course of the winter break? – there is something odd in the air. It takes you a moment to put a finger on it.
The teacher is absent!
Actually… The teacher is late. By ten-and-something minutes. You’ve known the Soft-Eyed Mycologist to be most punctual, at least for the class.
He does arrive though, and with him he brings the trolley cart you’ve come to learn to love, or at least get higher expectations as to what is going to be the practical portion of the class. Today it holds small round aquariums – the kind in which you are not supposed to keep fish long-term. The interior is full of something dense and white. Milk or sentient fog would be a fine guess, but the contents do not slosh nor swirl like a fluid would. A particularly homogenous cotton?
Massaging his temples, the Mycologist begins the class without any further ado. There are none of the jokes lecturers usually do in the first class after any break. Maybe he is not pleased to see you didn’t get yourself killed for good. Maybe he has a headache that threatens to claim sovereignty. This is as bad a moment as any to start a betting pool on when exactly that is going to occur.
“This is our last class before the final exam. As revising time is only two weeks–” you all are students, s long as you’ve got, like, four hours and enough willpower which can be supplanted by caffeine, you can pass any exam (besides Modern English Literature 101, because the Upset Lecturer is a hateful coot), as long as nobody asks about the results – “I will not use materials from this lesson in the examination. However related questions pertaining to general knowledge might appear, and this could be a refresher of the topic for those of you who need it.”
Using a stick of chalk as his weapon against the void, the Soft-Eyed Mycologist proceeds to defile the emptiness of the blackboard. The header and the bullet-points are written too fast to be properly eligible unless you already know what their content is, though.
“One of the most overlooked areas of any work is the fringe, the hybrid cases that surely are someone else’s responsibility, and the naturally repulsive. This course above such mistakes.
A well known hybrid in the mycological practice is lichen. ‘Tis a symbiosis of a fungus or several fungi and algae. On the Surface this is an equal partnership: While the fungus provides a stable position and heterotrophic nutrition, the algae photosynthetises. In the Neath, of course, there is little sunlight to speak of. Virtually the otherwise primitive aquatic green buggers are exploiting the fungal ability to gather resources from decomposition.
In spite of the academic attempts, such as they are, the common laymen populace can hardly differentiate lichens from mosses, so even species discovered in the Neath often bear ‘moss’ in their name.”
You get to hear the names of several species which you’ve seen and perhaps never identified: Mushroom hair which is the long strands that hang in the fungal forests and the mushrooms growing in Bugsby’s Marshes. (The specimen is unremarkable, but edible in case of emergency. You will recognise a case of emergency by trying to eat mushroom hair.) Minor tanglemoss, which looks like dead grass, but responds to touch by rapid growth of sticky strands that will try to trap whatever touched them. Harmless to humans, deadly to Rattus Faber and other small creatures – they starve to death, and the mushroom part of the tanglemoss calls that dinner. Fun fact, the Elder Continent is home to the major tanglemoss which is capable of restraining much larger vertebrae, humans included.
The Roof is home to miser-moss, an arrangement in which the algae is pulling its weight in the parasitic relationship by being bioluminescent in the glim-blue spectrum, while the fungus has evolved spores imitating insect pheromones. Posing as the native fauna of the Roof, this lichen is also actively predatory.
“Moulds are seen as one of man’s greatest enemies. They settle in a slightly damp house and poison the air with their spores. First they drive you mad, then they drive you dead. But the truth is that the majority of moulds are harmless to us and our bodies, while living, easily deflect their attempts to eat us. To our great benefit they proceed to decompose dead tissues, thus we are not knee deep in dead bodies, potato peels nor fungal shavings. Being reminded that we eventually end up in their undiscriminating care is a small price to pay for that.”
With that he lets circulate charcoal drawings of mouldy apples, dry rot on wood and fungal-wood (curiously there the rot forms circular patterns) and several polypores.
“Most moulds are poorly classified and examined. Not many people want to work with them, both on the Surface and the Neath. Not only they are a constant reminder that our own decomposing process is merely postponed, every time anyone sticks one under the microscope, it seems we have discovered a new species.
Take this beauty for example,” he picks up one of the aquariums. Indeed, upon closer inspection it is full of white hair-like mouldy growth. Your teacher’s eyes shine and his smile shows too many teeth for comfort. Well, he is a lecturer of natural sciences and he is talking about a topic close to his heart.
“I’ve had it in my lab and on my table since the end of the summer. I presume it is from the penicillium genus. Provisionally I’ve dubbed it penicillium agnum. I am hoping to find use for it in archiving work, because it is capable of receiving and reproducing information. There are, of course, some kinks to that.”
He picks up one of the remaining gnarled apples and effortlessly slices through its thick skin. Sour juice drips over his fingers and onto the desk where it forms foamy sticky puddles. He throws a slice of the apples into the aquarium he’s picked up before.
A blood-curdling scream of absolute agony fills the air. It is loud, sudden, and it sounds desperate. Clearly it is coming from the tank which seems far too small to hold such a rich and pained baritone. Subtler, but not beyond noticing, is the scent of sandalwood cologne that fills the air. The scream fades into a whisper of pleasepleaseplease before it dies out completely.
The Mycologist, apparently used to thai reaction from the sample, has in the meantime finished cutting up the fruit. He looks at you with a fascination that most would hope would not be directed at them. Definitely not coming from a man with wet hands and a knife.
“I have no idea how it did that. Have a go at it. Take it home with you, if you would so please.”
As you mingle and find your seat – God gracious, have you forgotten your usual spot over the course of the winter break? – there is something odd in the air. It takes you a moment to put a finger on it.
The teacher is absent!
Actually… The teacher is late. By ten-and-something minutes. You’ve known the Soft-Eyed Mycologist to be most punctual, at least for the class.
He does arrive though, and with him he brings the trolley cart you’ve come to learn to love, or at least get higher expectations as to what is going to be the practical portion of the class. Today it holds small round aquariums – the kind in which you are not supposed to keep fish long-term. The interior is full of something dense and white. Milk or sentient fog would be a fine guess, but the contents do not slosh nor swirl like a fluid would. A particularly homogenous cotton?
Massaging his temples, the Mycologist begins the class without any further ado. There are none of the jokes lecturers usually do in the first class after any break. Maybe he is not pleased to see you didn’t get yourself killed for good. Maybe he has a headache that threatens to claim sovereignty. This is as bad a moment as any to start a betting pool on when exactly that is going to occur.
“This is our last class before the final exam. As revising time is only two weeks–” you all are students, s long as you’ve got, like, four hours and enough willpower which can be supplanted by caffeine, you can pass any exam (besides Modern English Literature 101, because the Upset Lecturer is a hateful coot), as long as nobody asks about the results – “I will not use materials from this lesson in the examination. However related questions pertaining to general knowledge might appear, and this could be a refresher of the topic for those of you who need it.”
Using a stick of chalk as his weapon against the void, the Soft-Eyed Mycologist proceeds to defile the emptiness of the blackboard. The header and the bullet-points are written too fast to be properly eligible unless you already know what their content is, though.
“One of the most overlooked areas of any work is the fringe, the hybrid cases that surely are someone else’s responsibility, and the naturally repulsive. This course above such mistakes.
A well known hybrid in the mycological practice is lichen. ‘Tis a symbiosis of a fungus or several fungi and algae. On the Surface this is an equal partnership: While the fungus provides a stable position and heterotrophic nutrition, the algae photosynthetises. In the Neath, of course, there is little sunlight to speak of. Virtually the otherwise primitive aquatic green buggers are exploiting the fungal ability to gather resources from decomposition.
In spite of the academic attempts, such as they are, the common laymen populace can hardly differentiate lichens from mosses, so even species discovered in the Neath often bear ‘moss’ in their name.”
You get to hear the names of several species which you’ve seen and perhaps never identified: Mushroom hair which is the long strands that hang in the fungal forests and the mushrooms growing in Bugsby’s Marshes. (The specimen is unremarkable, but edible in case of emergency. You will recognise a case of emergency by trying to eat mushroom hair.) Minor tanglemoss, which looks like dead grass, but responds to touch by rapid growth of sticky strands that will try to trap whatever touched them. Harmless to humans, deadly to Rattus Faber and other small creatures – they starve to death, and the mushroom part of the tanglemoss calls that dinner. Fun fact, the Elder Continent is home to the major tanglemoss which is capable of restraining much larger vertebrae, humans included.
The Roof is home to miser-moss, an arrangement in which the algae is pulling its weight in the parasitic relationship by being bioluminescent in the glim-blue spectrum, while the fungus has evolved spores imitating insect pheromones. Posing as the native fauna of the Roof, this lichen is also actively predatory.
“Moulds are seen as one of man’s greatest enemies. They settle in a slightly damp house and poison the air with their spores. First they drive you mad, then they drive you dead. But the truth is that the majority of moulds are harmless to us and our bodies, while living, easily deflect their attempts to eat us. To our great benefit they proceed to decompose dead tissues, thus we are not knee deep in dead bodies, potato peels nor fungal shavings. Being reminded that we eventually end up in their undiscriminating care is a small price to pay for that.”
With that he lets circulate charcoal drawings of mouldy apples, dry rot on wood and fungal-wood (curiously there the rot forms circular patterns) and several polypores.
“Most moulds are poorly classified and examined. Not many people want to work with them, both on the Surface and the Neath. Not only they are a constant reminder that our own decomposing process is merely postponed, every time anyone sticks one under the microscope, it seems we have discovered a new species.
Take this beauty for example,” he picks up one of the aquariums. Indeed, upon closer inspection it is full of white hair-like mouldy growth. Your teacher’s eyes shine and his smile shows too many teeth for comfort. Well, he is a lecturer of natural sciences and he is talking about a topic close to his heart.
“I’ve had it in my lab and on my table since the end of the summer. I presume it is from the penicillium genus. Provisionally I’ve dubbed it penicillium agnum. I am hoping to find use for it in archiving work, because it is capable of receiving and reproducing information. There are, of course, some kinks to that.”
He picks up one of the remaining gnarled apples and effortlessly slices through its thick skin. Sour juice drips over his fingers and onto the desk where it forms foamy sticky puddles. He throws a slice of the apples into the aquarium he’s picked up before.
A blood-curdling scream of absolute agony fills the air. It is loud, sudden, and it sounds desperate. Clearly it is coming from the tank which seems far too small to hold such a rich and pained baritone. Subtler, but not beyond noticing, is the scent of sandalwood cologne that fills the air. The scream fades into a whisper of pleasepleaseplease before it dies out completely.
The Mycologist, apparently used to thai reaction from the sample, has in the meantime finished cutting up the fruit. He looks at you with a fascination that most would hope would not be directed at them. Definitely not coming from a man with wet hands and a knife.
“I have no idea how it did that. Have a go at it. Take it home with you, if you would so please.”
Sign In
Date: 2026-01-13 03:41 pm (UTC)Before Class
Date: 2026-01-13 03:41 pm (UTC)Lecture
Date: 2026-01-13 03:42 pm (UTC)Activity
Date: 2026-01-13 03:42 pm (UTC)After Class
Date: 2026-01-13 03:43 pm (UTC)Well, there is still everyone else left here.
OOC
Date: 2026-01-13 03:46 pm (UTC)Anyway, in spite of that, there is still class today. If you excuse me, I am going to do something about the lack of edible food in this household.
Please be nice to the Lamb, which is what the mould is named.
[1]Editor's note: That's like salutations, but with no shirt on.
Re: OOC
Date: 2026-01-13 04:59 pm (UTC)Re: Sign In
Date: 2026-01-13 05:03 pm (UTC)Re: Before Class
Date: 2026-01-13 05:14 pm (UTC)When they move, it is slow but not sluggish, understated. There’s very little to draw attention to their presence at all.
Every twenty minutes, a handkerchief that was once a stark white in contrast to their ensemble is drawn from their waistcoat, and dabbed only briefly to their left nostril. It was only once a white: now it is spotted with varying reds and browns. Each is only a single spot or smear. Then the handkerchief disappears again. The movement is practiced and the stains numerous enough for one who might be paying attention to gather this is regular and expected now. But then: who is paying attention enough to notice?
Re: Lecture
Date: 2026-01-13 05:47 pm (UTC)It's hard not to come to the conclusion that the Tailor does not have interest in playing the student today. They don't care for the lichen or the moss or the fungi. All that said, an obligation is an obligation, and they take those quite seriously. They see things through to their natural completion. There is only one class after this, and they will be done.
They'll grant the Mycologist one thing: his voice is pleasant to listen to. Endlessly warm. Passionate about the subjects he actually cares about. His eyes take on new brightness. His smiles grow wide. They try to recall if he ever looks at people that way, then dismiss the notion before it can be allowed to burrow and cause damage into a brain that already nurses the low pulses of an unceasing headache. Here comes the handkerchief again, and there it goes-
Actually... hm. What an interesting specimen hes brought for them today.
Re: OOC
Date: 2026-01-13 06:05 pm (UTC)(Also feel free to get weird with the apples. I am having fun getting weird with the apples.)
Re: Activity
Date: 2026-01-13 06:27 pm (UTC)"I'm presuming these are bits from a single originating body. Any knowledge as of yet if the information received by the separate parts could be transmitted or saved to the origin a la a Blemmigan to the Uttershroom, or will each be individual hosts to the information imparted?" It's not a mushroom, after all, not like the example mentioned, but it's a fungus capable of some level of data transmitting, if only auditory.
Re: Activity
Date: 2026-01-13 06:32 pm (UTC)(Do not ask. Do not get involved. Remember how well that went the last time. And the time before that. Nobody wants you involved.)
Re: Sign In
Date: 2026-01-13 06:53 pm (UTC)Re: Activity
Date: 2026-01-13 06:59 pm (UTC)The fishbowl is taken to the back of the classroom once more. It is set on the desk: it is examined. The Tailor leans back in their seat again and watches the thing which by all appearances seems to be little more than a mould.
On schedule, a drop of crimson beads at their nostril. Nonchalant, the Tailor draws one glove off one hand, and lifts their (pale, nearly white) fingers to their face. The single bead of blood is drawn onto their middle finger: some of it seeps into the lines of their skin, but enough of it maintains its shape long enough for them to raise their hand over the mouth of the fishbowl. A single sudden gesture is enough to cause the drop to fall. Red blooms onto the white.
A howl resounds almost immediately. It is animalistic, and edged with numerous snarls, like a rattling and roaring beast locked in a cage desperate to escae. It echoes in a ringing sort of manner as if from a long corridor or a deep well. There's a faint grim smile on the Tailor's face at the result, though their eyes tighten as the pleading begins in their own voice.
Please, the Lamb wails softly, pleasepleasepleaseithurtsplease.
So drown it, the Tailor doesn't tell it, because it's stupid to talk to a fungus like it understands. Like it's not simply repeating what it's been fed. So no, they don't tell it to drown the ache in anger like they are prone to do. In any case, the pleading should die out any moment-
PLEASE, it screams suddenly, the volume increasing, the pitch high. It's a testament to the durability of the fishbowl that the glass doesn't crack. PLEASEDON'TGO-
They click their tongue, and drape the stained handkerchief over the mouth of the bowl. The begging dies almost immediately.
What an intriguing specimen. Good to know the pleading is as pathetic to hear as they always imagined it would be. See, this is why they prefer the anger. It is much more productive.
Re: Before Class
Date: 2026-01-13 07:07 pm (UTC)The Guest hadn't been paying attention when he grabbed the apple, nor when he bit into it. Sour, unexpected for what he thought the apple was. But the juice was seen as the apple was pulled away to inspect. Nothing tasted bad about the apple, but a gag reflex was activated with the sight. He'd had too much rotten food as a kid to trust any fruit that suddenly looked and tasted unfamiliar, especially when it was suddenly misshapen and brown in fluid.
A piece of paper was ripped from his journal and the bite spat into it. All appetite fled him as he considered what to do with the surely rotten and not just genetically modified apple.
Stars, he'll be stuffing down that nausea and gagging memory the rest of class...
Re: Activity
Date: 2026-01-13 08:59 pm (UTC)He took up the handkerchief he used to mop up the apple blood and squeezed a drop into the bowl. Just as it had with the Mycologist, the mould wailed in a deep baritone, though somewhat quieter when not given a whole slice. At least it was consistent.
The Guest looked down at his mould in its solitary bowl, trying not to let his heart quiver. As a hunter, he always had his knife handy. He was unused to using it on himself. He was not the prey, but… maybe he could give up his throne as predator for merely a moment. Just long enough to understand what the mould wanted. He sliced a little into the tip of his pinky, easily sacrificed, and watched it drip into the mould and disappear into the fuzzy white. His mould, fed on his blood, gave weak sobs and wordless pleas, sounding like a tyke, a child, a young man, his current self, and his other all in one, quietly crying in a chorus that turned whispers into a cacophony. His face twisted in nausea, but he swallowed it down.
He was content to leave it alone until he attempted to put away his knife. Out of his bag tumbled the pair of steel sewing scissors, clattering to the desk. He’d tried blood… And he already hurt… “How much worse of a sacrifice could meat be?”
He hadn’t realized he said this aloud.
The Guest rolled up his sleeve until one of his deep, angry scars was exposed. He found a loose corner and braced as he gave it the barest, tiniest snip.
The miniscule piece of flesh fell into the bowl along with a drop of blood and the classroom suddenly rang with his own, agonized screams. ITBURNSITBURNSMAKEITSTOP, it shrieked, but the Guest… heard something else. He scrambled to open his personal notebook to the correct page and wrote down what he heard. It was in a scribble of Irish and personal prose, turning what should have been a clear translation into prose of a shade so violet that it put kings of the world to shame, obfuscating the meaning just as much as the language it was first written in.
Another snip, another round of PLEASEPLEASESTOPITBURNSSTOPI’MSORRY, another set of notes hastily scribbled in a mad haze as the Guest bled over himself and his work. He did this three more times, his hands curling to claw at the bleeding arm to either stifle the blood or encourage its drip, before pausing, coming to a realization.
“I know how to find out who…”
The Guest ripped open the top buttons of his shirt with the grip of a monster with its hands around its prey’s throat. He exposed the sigil of Correspondence on his chest, finding a loose corner with a blind hand and hastily, carelessly snipping at the raw flesh, leaned over the bowl to let the skin fall into the mould. The poor thing erupted into an animalistic scream that could’ve shattered weaker glass, perhaps hurting any ears close enough to hear, the man above it left with blood dripping down either side of his jaw. The shriek was familiar to certain individuals in the room. It tasted like soot and ash and fire and sounded like satin being ripped and torn without mercy, squeaky and gritty and rending and slicing through the air like nothing.
And it gives Milo nothing. No whispers under the scream, no meaning, no clarity.
He gripped the sides of the bowl, leaned over and trying to bleed into the mould more. “No, no, no, please! I almost had it! Please! Who did this to me!? Cé a rinne seo dom!? CÉ A RINNE SEO DOM!?” He would likely have to be pulled off of his mould by force, giving trembling sobs not unlike his mould’s reaction to his first drop of blood.
Re: Lecture
Date: 2026-01-13 09:16 pm (UTC)He'd just barely gotten the fruit to stop when the pleas erupted from the mould. Good lord, was the Guest inside a nightmare? What was this class!?
Re: Sign In
Date: 2026-01-14 08:40 am (UTC)Re: Before Class
Date: 2026-01-14 09:31 am (UTC)Maven and Devil had approached to greet the Guest when they caught sight of the apple and juice. They had apples of their own, but had thankfully not bitten into them yet.
"Oh goodness!"
"Geez, what's wrong with these apples?"
Re: Activity
Date: 2026-01-14 09:49 am (UTC)Re: Before Class
Date: 2026-01-14 03:42 pm (UTC)He scooted the distasteful fruit aside and smiled. "How's the month been treatin' ye? D'ja see that snowball fight in Spite?"
Re: Activity
Date: 2026-01-14 03:52 pm (UTC)Milo's ears rung, being directly above the bowl when it gave that unearthly shriek, the blood that dropped from him letting the Lamb quiet to match his sobs.
He couldn't hear the question in full. "A name! Please! Please..." He finally let go as he was grabbed, weeping and shaking and bleeding from too many places.
Re: Before Class
Date: 2026-01-14 05:05 pm (UTC)At the mention of the snowball fight the two went a bit silent. Maven glanced at Devil, whose gaze went pensive, before looking at Milo, "Yes we did! We were surprised to see it start back up, but we did have fun last time so it wasn't an issue."
"Yeah, that's what this time is too, a whole bunch of fun..." Devil muttered with only a mild bit of bitterness, eyes glancing off to the side.
Maven reached over to give his hand a squeeze before going on, "And yes, we've been trying to take it as easy as we can. Not easy when there's a little one to take care of, but it helps that there's many adults around. Thank you again for the teddy bear, it was very sweet!"
Re: Before Class
Date: 2026-01-14 05:20 pm (UTC)He did notice the reaction and decided to drop the topic of the snowballs. He'd have to be careful. It seemed a lot of topics would be delicate while this whole spat was going on.
"Are you, um... feeling a mite better, then? After the party, was real worried about you. Looked... Yeah..."