Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rybaer" data-source="post: 1635838" data-attributes="member: 118">Thurman Biological Sciences BuildingCC State University, Coast CityApr 1723:10"This just gets more and more strange," Dr. Linderman says.  "Well, let me show you what I have."He leads everyone through the lab and sits before one of a pair of computers on a table.  He pulls up a file full of images and clicks one.  It opens a picture of a greenish gray fungus in a terrarium.  Along the bottom of the terrarium is a fibrous mass similar to what everyone has already seen.  Growing out of that are half a dozen more traditional mushroom stalks.  Additionally, there are some skinny stalks with small bulbs one the end of them."This is what we've tentatively named the Green Wool fungus," he says.  "We discovered it on a collection expedition down in the Amazon this winter.  I won't bore you with all the scientific jargon, but essentially it appears to belong to a previously unknown and entirely new sub-class of fungi.  It shares many traits seen in other species, but also some unique ones."The indigenous tribesman call it the Demon's Mind, for the spores it releases have a powerful hallucinogenic effect that can lead to psychosis.  And while hallucinogens are well documented in mushrooms, they typically work by injestion.  These puff-ball structures can spray out clouds of inhalable spores and induce a powerful and rapid reaction."The professor clicks through a few more slides, pointing out the puffball structures."Now, this is where my concern begins," he says, turning to face everyone.  "About a month ago, immediately following the most recent energy Curtain that passed through Coast City, we found that this particular fungus had increased in size some ten-fold overnight.  I suspect it might have grown more had it not been contained in a sealed environment.  Further, it had gained some manner of internal luminescence."We suspected that the specimen may have been altered or mutated in much the same fashion that people and other animals have since the passing of the Curtains.  One of my grad students, Paul Link, took it upon himself to carefully document the changes."About two weeks ago, I started seeing less and less of Paul.  I could tell he was still studying the Green Wool at night because things would be moved in the lab.  That sort of thing is pretty common with grad students, so I paid it little heed at the time."Well, three days ago, the terrarium was gone.  I tried to contact Paul, but no one has seen or heard from him in several days.  His roommate told me that he hasn't been to their apartment since about that time either, but that he had started acting very strangely a couple weeks ago."From your description of the material you've seen, I can only assume that it is one and the same...the Green Wool.  I have no idea about what exactly it's doing to the people who have been affected by it, but clearly it has changed in powerful and dangerous ways."If anyone knows a way to stop this fungus, it would be Paul.  He's the only one who's studied it in any great detail.  Problem is, he took most of his notes when he disappeared and he's likely the one who released it.  I've been trying to reconstruct some notes from deleted files on the computers, but it's not exactly my specialty and the going is slow, even with this program I bought."</blockquote>

Verification