Chapter Text
By the time Jamie and Luna made it over to Jade, they were in the middle of a conversation with Riley. Though, they did take a moment to wave, which also prompted a wave from Riley. Jamie and Luna returned the gesture with their own waves. Almost immediately after, some mushrooms from inside Jade’s backpack caught Jamie’s attention.
Most of the mushrooms appeared to just be the ones Jamie had already seen plenty of times, though there were some colorful ones that caught their attention. There were both red and yellow mushrooms with some kind of pattern on their caps. The red ones had spots, while the yellow ones had swirls. They wondered if they tasted as good as they looked.
Jamie must’ve been looking at the mushrooms for too long, since they managed to catch Jade’s attention. Jade placed the backpack on the ground and fished both a red and yellow mushroom out of it. They then held one in each hand and stuck them out, not as an offer but as a display. “I’m guessing you two are interested in these?”
Without missing a beat, Luna immediately hummed an enthusiastic “mhm” and Jamie nodded. It seemed like they both really wanted to learn more about those strange mushrooms. Jade’s soft smile turned into a much wider grin after the pair responded. It’s been a while since I saw them smile like that…
Before Jade could speak though, Riley butted in. “You know, this would actually be a good lesson for those two to work on their Mycology badge.”
“Oh, right! I, uh, actually just got that one recently myself.” Jade tucked the colorful mushrooms back in their backpack.
Riley clapped. “Oh! Well, congrats! That one was a bit of a rough one for me.” Jade beamed at the praise. “Well. Don’t let me distract you any further from teaching those two.” Riley returned to watching out for threats, though they remained within sight and earshot of everyone.
Sometime during that interaction, both Jamie and Luna sat down beside one another, eager to learn more about those colorful mushrooms. Jade set their backpack down and sat down beside it.
Jade clasped their hands together. “Right. So, what do you two know about mycology?”
Luna tilted their head in confusion. “M-My… cology…?”
“Uh…” Jamie really wanted to say something snarky, but they chose not to. “I’m gonna be honest, I don’t even know what that is.”
Jade hummed. “Mycology is the study of fungi, which includes mushrooms, like the ones you two ate earlier.”
They moved the backpack to rest between them and Jamie and Luna. “You’ve probably already noticed, but I’ve come back with a bunch of mushrooms. Both plain mushrooms and some colorful ones.”
There were, in fact, colorful mushrooms. There were plain ones too, but those didn’t catch Jamie’s interest as much as the former. Just as they observed before, there were only red and yellow ones, though they didn’t know why. It seemed like Luna was curious about that too, because they decided to inquire about it. “Uh… w-why are there… only r-red and yellow ones…?”
Jade hummed. “Good question! I’ll answer that soon, but… I should probably tell you what these actually are, first.”
“They’re mushrooms, duh.” Jamie scoffed. “I think anyone would know that without even thinking about it. Just look at it!”
“Hmm. Not quite.” Jade shook their head. “They’re actually shroomberries.”
Jamie was very bemused by that name. “Shroom… berries…?”
“Correct. The ‘shroom’ part stems—” Jade giggled at their incidental pun. “—from the fact that it looks like, well, a mushroom. The ‘berry’ part is because they taste and are colored like berries.” They tapped their chin. “Though… I can’t quite figure out what the correlation is between the color and their effects. Like… wouldn’t a blue shroomberry be good… because blueberries are good… and the color green is generally a good color, but it’s bad here—” They were interrupted by Jamie clearing their throat. They immediately appeared to be embarrassed once they realized they’d been rambling. “Oh… sorry.”
Jamie shrugged. “Meh. It’s fine. So, now that we know what they are, will you answer Luna’s question about only bringing back red and yellow shroomberries?”
“Right. Of course. There’s five different colors of shroomberries: red, yellow, purple, blue and green. Red and yellow are always safe to eat, while blue and green are never safe to eat.”
Luna appeared to be perplexed by something. “W-What about purple…?”
Jamie butted in before Jade could answer. “Lemme guess. Sometimes they’re safe to eat?” Jade simply nodded in response. “And how did you figure that out?”
“Remember when you laughed about that one page saying something about pooping your pants if you ate a bad mushroom?” Jamie giggled again at that phrase. Jade was clearly unamused. “Seriously. I know it sounds silly, but… do you think people automatically know whether or not something is safe to consume? It’s all trial and error until it’s done and documented.”
“What if you come across something that hasn’t been documented? Then what?”
Jade shrugged. “Either try it out yourself and document it or don’t take your chances. Though, you’ll probably not be thinking about that in a life-or-death scenario.”
“What do they taste like?”
“Huh? Oh, the berries?” Jamie nodded in response. “The red ones are sweet, the yellow ones are tart and the green ones taste sour. The blue and purple ones are deceptive, because they both taste like grapes. You know, something that you’d assume is good.”
Jamie drooled at the descriptions of each berry. Sweet… berry… give it to me…
“However!” Jamie was suddenly snapped out of their daze. “We should really try to conserve these as much as possible.”
Luna raised their hand, to which Jade nodded. “W-Why should we save them…?”
“Well, like any other food we’ve come across, it’s not exactly a commodity out here. Furthermore, it’s not really easy to find something that’s actually safe to eat. Though… you two probably know that by now.” They paused in anticipation of further questions, but their face lit up as if they remembered something extra. “Oh! One more thing. They each have their own effects when consumed. So, might be worth holding on to them unless we absolutely need to eat them.”
Jamie cocked their head to the side. “Effects…?”
“Yes. The type of effect correlates with the color of the mushroom. The safe mushrooms will always have a positive effect, while the bad mushrooms will always have a negative effect. Purple is a bit of a toss-up because it could be either good or bad. Nobody has figured out the pattern behind the effects though, because it changes between person, even with the same color.”
Luna once again raised their hand. “O-Okay, but… what are the effects…?”
“The positive effects include faster running and climbing, curing any sicknesses or hunger and improved stamina. The bad effects, on the other hand, include temporary blindness, unconsciousness, or a slow and painful death in the worst case.” Luna shivered at that final effect. “So, try not to eat the blue or green ones if you can help it.”
This information was quite intriguing to Jamie. Not only were these “shroomberries” tasty, but they also had effects attached to them. Interesting… Though, they had one more question. “So, uh, where do you even find them?”
“These type of mushrooms, you will only find in forests like this. They prefer the damp and roofed environment, so they’re a bit tricky to come across in the wild.” Jade sighed wistfully. “I wish I had a camera right about now… this would be cool to show to the other scouts.”
The three of them sat in awkward silence for a moment. Eventually, Luna pointed towards one of the ordinary mushrooms, and inquired about those. “W-What about… these mushrooms…?”
Jade’s face lit up at the question. “These are just ordinary mushrooms, but still just as important to know about. They’re not colorful or tasty or cool, but… they can still be food, if you get the right ones.”
“H-How would I k-know if they’re good…?”
“Well… usually by how they look. One example of this…” Jade fished out one of the pages they’d grabbed at the last campsite. They handed it to Luna, who accepted and observed the contents. “Is on that page. And yes, Jamie, it’s the one that you keep laughing about. But, that mushroom in particular is called a ‘button shroom.’ It looks like… a button. As you can see, the one with spots on it is bad.”
“A-Are there other mushrooms t-to know about…?”
“There’s one that’s always safe to eat, called the chubby shroom. You can identify it by it having a chubby base. It looks…” Jade paused as they thought of a description for it. “Kinda like a vase. You don’t gotta worry about it being poisonous. There’s also cluster shrooms, which you can identify by a bunch of smaller mushrooms being clustered together. The bad ones will have skirts just under the caps. The final mushroom to look out for is the bugle shroom. Much like the cluster shroom, the bad one will have skirts beneath its cap.”
Luna hummed, though they appeared to be a bit overwhelmed by all of the information. To be fair, I kinda am too… “S-So… basically, if t-there’s s-spots or skirts… it’s bad…?”
Jade gave a thumbs up and a grin. “Correct!” They noticed that Luna was a bit overwhelmed and appeared to feel guilty about it. “Uh, sorry. I realize now that was a lot of information to take in, but I’m glad you understood nonetheless.”
Jamie recalled the mushroom they ate earlier. It looked almost exactly like the one on the page Luna held in their hands. “Wait… so we ate a button shroom earlier then? Cool.”
“Y-Yeah! I think t-that’s what we ate!”
Jade smiled at the small exchange between the two. “You’re both fast learners. Keep that information tucked away and you may both walk out of this with your own Mycology badge. Might even have an easy time with it with all that we’ve seen so far.”
Luna looked down at their sash, which was still just as empty as before. “M-My… first badge?” Jade nodded in response, which elicited a wide grin from Luna. Luna was suddenly very giddy after the fact.
Jamie appeared to be less than pleased by the exchange. “That’s cool and all, but is there anything else we should know about?” Luna deflated almost immediately, making Jamie feel bad.
“Well, you can cook them, but be warned that you can’t cook the poison out of the poisonous ones. It likely won’t taste much better than it would be raw, but it’ll be a little more filling.” Jade shrugs. “Wouldn’t hurt for you two to try next time we come across some fire. Learning how to cook them is part of earning the badge.”
Luna perked up at the prospect of cooking food. “O-Oh! That… that sounds fun!” Jamie shrugged nonchalantly.
Jade put out their hand to receive the page from Luna and tucked it away in their bag once more. After sorting out the contents, they stood up and tossed the bag over their shoulders. “Well. That’s all I’ve got for you two. Hopefully you learned a lot from that.” Jamie and Luna both rose up in a similar fashion, and both gave a thumbs up in response.
Much to everyone’s surprise, Riley was close by, listening in on the lesson. They’d been leaning up against the wall. “Pop quiz!” Jamie groaned, Riley appeared to be amused by this. “So what do you need to look out for when picking a mushroom?”
Luna jumped in almost immediately. “Spots and skirts!” Riley gave them a thumbs up, which elicited an excited clap from them.
“Which shroomberries are safe to eat?”
Jamie opened their mouth to speak, but Luna once again jumped in. Jamie was visibly frustrated now. “R-Red and yellow!”
Jade seemed to notice Jamie’s frustration. They pulled out a fat mushroom from their backpack and displayed it. “Jamie, which mushroom is this?”
“Uh… a chubby shroom? Because it’s, you know, chubby?”
“Exactly! Good job, Jamie.” Jade clapped and Jamie felt slightly embarrassed at the gratification. Jade returned the chubby shroom to the backpack.
Riley pushed themselves off of the wall. “Okay. I think that’s good enough for now. Seems like you two will be cooking them the next time we find fire, so maybe we can test you again then.” Jade nodded in agreement.
Jamie let out a sigh of relief. Finally done with this boring lesson… They returned to their former spot and sat crisscrossed. Luna sat close by and mirrored their position.
Just as Jade walked by the two of them, they paused. They fished for a red and a yellow shroomberry and held it out to the duo. “I know I said to conserve these, but since I made you two sit through that lesson, I figured I’d reward you. I’ll let you two decide who gets what color.”
Jamie held a special place in their heart for sweet stuff, so they nearly impulsively grabbed the red shroomberry. However, something else in their heart insisted that they give Luna the chance to pick first. From the sounds of it, they never really had an opportunity to be picky, and Jamie would’ve felt bad for taking that from them.
They didn’t know it at the time, but that’s also why they let Luna have the marshmallow back at camp. As much as they wanted it themselves, for some reason, they would’ve felt bad for taking that away from Luna.
Luna likely came to the same conclusion but for Jamie, because the two of them ended up staring at each other awkwardly for a while. However, Luna’s stomach ended up growling, so they decided to end the staring contest. Their hand hovered over the yellow shroomberry for a moment before grabbing the red one, leaving the yellow one for Jamie.
Before Jade could walk away, Jamie grabbed them by the wrist. “Hey… uh, thanks. Appreciate it.” Jade smiled, then walked away after Jamie let go.
Jamie took a small and hesitant bite out of the cap of the shroomberry. They weren’t particularly fond of tart things, so they wanted to start out easy just in case. It… actually wasn’t that bad. It was obviously tart, as described earlier, but it wasn’t overwhelmingly so. The stem was rather bland, but they didn’t mind. They felt a rush of energy course through their veins, though it didn’t last for long. They felt a little more full after eating it, too.
They heard a sniffle from Luna, which prompted them to look. Luna had ate about half of the shroomberry, though they stopped and appeared to be sad. Jamie had a suspicion as to why they were this way. “Don’t get to eat this kind of stuff often, huh?”
Luna was slightly startled by Jamie, but they shook their head in response. “I… I’m s-so used to… stale or rotten food… t-this is… nice… m-maybe I should t-thank Jade when I’m done.”
Jamie suddenly felt good about letting Luna have that marshmallow at the last campsite. As much as they enjoyed having sweet stuff, they also enjoyed letting their… new friend… experience something as wonderful as that. Are we really…?
Luna rose from their spot, but stopped when Jamie beckoned for them. Jamie tucked away as much shame as they possibly could before asking the following question. “Hey, uh. I’ve been giving it some thought. And, uh, do you… uh… want to… be friends…?”
“F-Friends…?” Oh god, I messed that up, didn’t I? Luna laughed. “I… I t-thought we already were!” Oh. Maybe I didn’t.
“Huh. Okay. Well…” Jamie cleared their throat awkwardly. “Cool. Uh, don’t let me stop you from doing whatever you were doing, then.”
Luna skipped away with a smile on their face. Jamie couldn’t help but let a smile creep on their own face too. Luna was a strange kid, but Jamie grew to appreciate their quirks. They’re not so bad after all…
Luna approached Jade and gave them a hug. At first, Jade was confused at the gesture, but eventually happily returned it. They told Jade something, which Jamie was just barely able to make out. “T-Thank you for the s-shroomberry, Jade! I-It was good!”
Jade was taken aback by the gratitude. “Oh! It’s okay, really. Happy to hear you enjoyed it.” Luna skipped back towards Jamie after the small interaction.
Before Luna could sit down again, Jamie rose up from their spot. “Shouldn’t we get going now? As much as I don’t really wanna go back into the forest, I… still want to get out of here.”
Riley sighed. “They’ve got a point. We should probably get going. Thoughts?” Everyone nodded or hummed in agreement. “Great. I’ll be outside waiting when you’re all ready.”
Jamie took another look around the cave as Jade and Luna went on ahead. Even though it was dark and the floor was hard, it did shield them from the dangers outside. In that regard, they were comfortable inside it. However, as much as they weren’t ready to face whatever was out there again, they were ready to go home.
They walked to the opening of the cave, then paused for a moment. With a deep sigh, they stepped out of the comforts of safety and back into the unknown.