Chapter 1: No Prey? No Matter
For many turnings of the sun, the little Toadstool had stood beneath the elder tree, waiting with the stillness of a stone.
Its cap shone a deep red, bright as freshly spilled berry wine, speckled with broad white marks that gleamed like moons caught in frost.
Small though it was, the Toadstool considered itself a hunter of uncommon talent, patient and wise in the secret ways of the forest floor.
Yet no prey came.
No wandering beetle came near its roots.
No careless troll mouse brushed against its circle of damp earth.
The stillness had become insulting!
Beneath the soil, the toadstool flexed its tangled root veins with irritation, curling and uncurling them through the dark soil. Its squat body swayed from side to side.
Surely the fault did not lie with it.
A hunter such as itself merely awaited the proper moment to reveal its greatness.
Above, the colossal tree stretched high.
The Toadstool could feel the ancient roots below the earth, humming softly with life.
Naturally they were friendly.
Who in all the green realms would not wish friendship with such a magnificent toadstool as him?
The little Toadstool tilted itself sideways, peering across the woodland.
Ferns didn't rustle; even the bushes were silent beneath the drifting threads of mist.
At last the toadstool uprooted itself.
If the forest refused to offer prey unto a hunter as mighty as he, then clearly the burden of the hunt rested upon his own cap.
*Such was the curse of greatness.*
With a wet little *schlorp*, his pale root tendrils tore free from the earth.
The toadstool waddled forward beneath the vast canopy, crossing the forest floor in little stomps.
Moss spread thick as velvet beneath him, tangled together with old roots and blades of emerald grass jeweled with dew.
The world beyond was terribly inconvenient.
Several times the toadstool attempted to bite passing roots, believing them to naturally be a snack made for him.
Each attempt ended poorly. The roots snapped upward with startling speed, bonking him squarely atop his spotted cap.
The first strike made him wobble.
The second made him furious.
The third became an outrage of historical proportions.
The toadstool hurled himself into the air in indignation, tendrils flailing wildly as he screeched insults in the ancient tongue of green things.
Had any other plant been nearby, it would have gasped in horror.
Entire family groves were insulted. Pollination rights challenged.
It was, in every possible sense, extremely rude.
Nearby, an old Aether Oak listened in silence.
Then, with the authority only an elder tree could possess, one of its glowing roots rose from the soil and pressed directly atop the toadstool, squashing him flat against the moss with a soft *fwump*.
Slowly, very slowly, the toadstool reinflated.
He stared up at the immense oak with the darkest, most venomous glare his tiny fungal body could possibly produce.
If hatred alone could rot timber, the ancient tree would have collapsed where it stood.
The Aether Oak did not care in the slightest.
Utterly humiliated, the toadstool gathered his dignity, what little remained of it, and trudged deeper into the forest.
