Page 45 of I Married A Lizardman

Funny enough, those species didn’t have farming lands. Coincidence?

With my first batch of beets, potatoes, squash, and tomatoes, I wanted to make the clan a special meal before their departure. As I wanted to include a few Andturian ingredients, I joined the Gathering expedition that was off to pick some jovam roots, among other things. With the clan’s blessing, I would now grow them as well in my field, so they no longer had to be this parsimonious in consuming them.

While I’d visited the forest since my arrival on Xecania, I’d never gone very deep into it. The handful of times we had—at my insistence—Olix had fairly quickly turned us around to show me other wonders of his homeworld. That had struck me as slightly strange. But I figured that, as a Hunter, he’d spent so much time in the forest struggling to find game of late, that it reminded him of the difficulties that plagued the clans. Anyway, his world had plenty of other things that would blow me away.

As I loved nature, this walk in the forest was a triple treat for me. On top of the promenade, I would get to see how the Gatherers chose which roots were ripe—including the proper method to extract them—but also the kind of soil and environment they grew in. Unlike the Bosengi berries and vegetables I had been growing for my store, there were no guidelines on growing jovam roots. I would have to go based on observation of their environment and the pH of the soil, among other things.

There were twenty of us, traipsing through the forest, little Nosha flanking me. She was so adorable, it took all my willpower not to pick her up and cover her lovely face with kisses. Seeing her and the couple other kids that had joined us made me ache for a child of my own. Truth be told, I’d been disappointed when my period had come. Olix and I had beenextremelyactive sexually over the past five weeks. I’d been so sure we would have conceived. And yet…

Pawis headed towards one of the large aldomyan trees filling the forest. They were fairly spaced out, which made sense considering the size of the trunk and massive roots that spread deep and wide. Looking at the dark, almost black bark with dark red veins in the grooves, and their long, spiraling branches with wide, brownish red leaves made me feel like I’d walked into a whimsical world. A few different types of trees were interspersed among them, their trunks almost the same dark color, but their leaves a purplish blue or midnight blue hue. Oddly, while few of their tree leaves bore the standard green I was used to, the forest floor was covered in a large amount of greeneries, from very pale green to super dark.

It was among those patches of greens in the underbrush that Pawis began harvesting the root using some kind of trowel to loosen the earth around it. It took me no time to recognize the type of leaves that belonged to the jovam roots.

“The length and size of their leaves is how you know they are ready to harvest,” Pawis explained while picking another large root. “Try it,” he said, giving me his trowel.

I gladly proceeded, choosing one of the roots and stabbing at the packed earth around it with the tool to loosen it. The elder Gatherer’s eyes lit with mirth when it took me a few attempts, and then I struggled to pull the root out, even by putting my back into it. When I managed to yank it out, I stumbled a couple of steps back, which earned me a few giggles from Nosha and a handful of Gatherers nearby. Strength-wise, I would never compare with these guys. I made faces at them, which only made them laugh more before they got back to work.

I gave Pawis his trowel back and whipped out my portable analyzer to study the soil. With the large quantity of ripe jovam roots I could see just in this area, we would have a really nice haul today. While waiting for the analyzer to perform its magic, I gazed at my companions working methodically and efficiently, even little Nosha put me to shame with the ease with which she harvested a few roots.

Oddly, the upbeat atmosphere we’d started out with dampened relatively quickly. The happy chatter that always provided a lively buzz around the Andturians, whether when crafting on the plaza or cooking inside the Great Hall, had died down. Every face had taken on a serious expression—if not to say sullen—as they continued to work.

Glancing around me, I realized my companions were starting to move away from our current location, leaving a lot of mature roots behind. Pawis scrunched his face, his nose twitching. He stared for a second at the patch of roots in front of him, many of which were beyond ready to be harvested, but he turned around, his lizard eyes flicking this way and that as if looking for a new place to harvest. His nose twitched again, and he moved away, looking mildly irritated.

Although confused, I shrugged and went back to my work, taking a few shots of the other type of plants surrounding the roots—none of which I recognized—but that I intended to research once we got back home. That’s when I spotted a dark, gelatinous growth on some of the thick, gnarly roots of the trees and their bark. They almost blended with the trees, making them very hard to spot.

I squealed, rushing towards one of them, wanting to make sure my eyes weren’t fooling me. Alerted by my scream, a few of the Gatherers—that had begun wandering farther from my current location—came back to check up on me, a worried expression on their faces.

“What is that?” I asked Junit, a young male in his early twenties. “It looks like the wood ear mushrooms that humans eat. They aredelicious!”

Junit scrunched his face, his nose twitching the way Pawis’s had previously.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “This is a pest, a bad fungus on the trees. We don’t eat that. Stay away from it,” the male responded in an unusually clipped tone.

Without giving me a chance to respond, he turned on his heels and swiftly walked away. The handful of other Gatherers that had come to investigate gave me a stern look before leaving as well.

What the fuck just happened?

Baffled, I looked back at the fungus. Upon closer inspection, although it did look like wood ears color-wise, the shape was closer to snow fungus and the edges had a thin red fur that seemed to produce spores. I took a few pictures and brushed some of the spores to stick them in my analyzer. While waiting for the results, I headed towards my companions whose behavior was becoming stranger by the minute. They were now walking past entire patches of jovam roots, not appearing to see them or deliberately ignoring them. Nosha was standing in the middle of the small clearing, looking a little confused as she absent-mindedly rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.

“Pawis,” I called out, when I found the elder Gatherer just standing in the middle of the forest, staring blindly at the ground. “Pawis!” I called out again, louder, when he failed to respond.

His head jerked towards me. Eyes glassy, nose twitching, he appeared to struggle to emerge from whatever daydream he was falling into.

Something is affecting them.

“I guess that is all for today,” Pawis said in a disappointed voice. “It started out well. I had hope for a bigger harvest, but there aren’t enough that are ripe just yet. Let’s go home.”

Everyone nodded, many appearing relieved.

I gaped at them in disbelief as they hastily started to make their way back home. All around us, the plush leaves of tons of mature roots—some even looking like they would soon be overly ripe—were gently swaying in the breeze. I took pictures of the roots the Gatherers had left behind. Moments later, my analyzer beeped to announce it had completed its work, startling me. I didn’t need to read it to know what the results would say. A glance confirmed my suspicion: powerful hallucinogen.

Instead of the jovam root samples that I had intended to bring back to use as starter seed for my crops, I collected a few dark mushrooms. By the time I placed the fourth one in my bag, my nose was starting to itch, and a slightly nauseous feeling had settled in the pit of my stomach. A mild pressure at the back of my head hinted at a possible incoming monster headache.

Not dallying any further, I hurried after my companions.

By the time we exited the forest, the itching in my nose had receded, like the ill sensations that had started creeping up on me. The same was happening to the rest of the Gatherers whose sour mood had just as abruptly lifted, their more jovial demeanor gradually resurfacing, despite their disappointment at our poor harvest.

I made a beeline for my husband. He was working at one of the forges, Zoltar, and a handful of other Hunters and Crafters nearby, also working on preparing their weapons and nets for the upcoming great hunt and fishing expedition.

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