Page 46 of I Married A Lizardman

“Olix, we need to talk,” I said in an urgent voice.

All eyes turned towards me, my tone stirring curiosity and worry among the nearby clanmates.

“What is wrong, my Susan?” Olix asked, putting down the mold he had been making arrowheads in. “Did something happen during the Gathering?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice tense with a strange mix of anger and excitement. “There’s a hallucinogenic mushroom in your forest that’s messing with people’s heads. And I’m wondering if it could also be messing with the herds.”

A general gasp rose around me, shock and hope descending on every face. A part of me wondered if it had been a mistake to speak of my suspicions in front of everyone instead of using my husband’s methodical approach of getting all the answers first. But they would be leaving on a great hunt in the next couple of days. There wasn’t enough time for Olix, Luped, and me to investigate. The more people on this, the faster we would get solid answers.

“Explain, my mate,” Olix asked, taking a step closer to me.

Realizing something big was happening, the Crafters stopped their work, and everyone approached us, including the Gatherers that had just returned from the forest with me. I gestured at Kuani’s worktable, asking permission to use part of it. The female nodded, moving aside some of the housewares she’d been working on. I placed my sample bag on the table, opened the flap so that it would lie down on the surface, then drew out a couple of dark mushrooms. I left them sitting on the flap so as to not contaminate Kuani’s workspace.

The Andturians recoiled, many muttering about why I would bring this rot to the village.

“I believe this is the source of all your problems,” I said, pointing at the mushroom.

I recounted what I had just witnessed. Pawis and Junit gaped at me in shock, not recalling having any such behavior, nor did the others.

“And you wouldn’t because the hallucinogens were messing with your heads,” I said sympathetically. “Look at the people closest to the mushroom,” I added, pointing at them. “Their noses are already starting to twitch, and I bet you all want to get away from here.”

They nodded, flabbergasted. I placed the mushrooms back inside the bag and closed the flap, not wanting to needlessly indispose them.

“That’s the behavior I witnessed,” I continued. “I took pictures of the patches of jovam that the Gatherers all walked away from earlier, saying there was nothing left to harvest.”

I passed Pawis my tablet, and the poor male stared at the images in shock. He handed the tablet over to the other Gatherers and members of the clan for all of them to see, then grabbed his quills at the back of his head with both hands, distress and disbelief warring on his face.

“So many roots going to waste, rotting in the ground,” he whispered, floored.

“You couldn’t see it,” I said in an appeasing voice. “As soon as we left the forest, you all returned to your normal, charming selves. You did nothing wrong. It’s a good thing we left when we did because the spores were starting to affect me, too. Who knows what a mess I might have been then?”

“But why did it take longer with you?” Zoltar asked, with genuine confusion.

“I think it’s because the Andturian nose is more sensitive than a human’s,” I replied pensively. “Therefore, I needed to be exposed to the spores a lot longer before they started affecting me. There might be other reasons but, even though our noses are pretty long, our sense of smell isn’t that developed,” I said in self-derision.

That earned me a few amused smiles. The Andturians sometimes teased me for my unusual features, but never in a mean or hurtful way. To them, my nose made them think that someone had tried to steal it out of my face, but it was too well-attached, so it just remained pointy when the would-be thief gave up.

“You know,” Pawis said, looking like he’d just been struck by a new idea, “it’s been a little over a year since I’ve noticed the first one of these mushrooms. There weren’t that many back then.”

“I bet if we ask Surtas about these mushrooms, he will say they’ve been around for about two years,” Olix said, anger descending on his features.

Zoltar emitted a rattling hiss that spoke of fury, echoed by many of the others.

“The same time those vermin from the Conglomerate started putting pressure on us to sell our lands,” Zoltar said between his teeth.

I nodded. “That would be a very clever way to drive you out without getting caught,” I said, anger bubbling inside of me. “But we can’t just throw around accusations,” I cautioned them. “I genuinely believe this is what is driving away the herds. Judging by the basic analysis my device made of the spores, it’s an airborne hallucinogen that would affect pretty much any air-breathing species. It is abnormal that we didn’t encounter a single animal in the forest. There’s always life in some form, little scurrying creatures in the underbrush, others climbing and nesting in the trees. Even the birds were nowhere to be found except very high up near the tree line, away from the spores.”

“We had noticed,” Olix said. “We figured the same thing happening to the herds was driving away the smaller creatures. Now we know. Time to eradicate this rot.”

“We have the filtration masks we use when mining,” said Tokus—one of the wood and ore Gatherers. “We could use them to remove the rot and harvest the jovam roots.”

It was a clever temporary idea until we found a proper and permanent way of eradicating its propagation. We burst into action, everyone spreading while Olix and I contacted the other clans to inform them of my discovery.

Epilogue

Susan

An entire day spent removing the mushrooms and burning them proved our test conclusive. Obviously, we hadn’t covered the entire forest—it was much too vast. But in the large areas that were cleared, life started creeping back in over the following days. The Gatherers were also able to walk about mask-less without being negatively affected.

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