Absolom snorted, secreting a myriad of knives into the various pockets and sheaths of his leather armor as he spoke. "He'd be laughing his ass off alright, although I'm sure the mushrooms themselves would be providing more to that bout of insanity than the actual discovery of the 'Cathedral Bōlētus'. The Cornicen is right though; it does smell nice. Kinda like that pine wood they import from up North -Gaella maybe?- mixed with that lemony spice from the East. You know, the stuff that the headmaster used to put on his duck at the feast day banquets. Best thing we ever stole, huh Optio?"<br/>He chuckled quietly to himself, stiffly leaning on his cane as the group advanced carefully into the fungal forest.<br/><br/>---------<br/><br/>Their progress was slow, hampered by strange, twisted roots and clinging, choking vines. Though the floor of the cavern was a hard, barren rock, the mighty mushrooms that rose from it seemed to have lain down roots as easily as if the granite was putty. The great fungi had also taken the liberty of dusting the floor with their spore, leaving a soft blanket that both dulled the ring of legionnaire boots and obscured the occasional grasping root. More than a few soldiers were now smeared with spore warpaint from their unfortunate encounters with those hidden natural tripwires, their faces glowing a faint, eerie blue. All stood at high alert, marching in wedge formation in utter silence but for the occasional hushed order that a simple hand gesture could not encompass. There were strange murmurs among the trees, whispers and hisses intermingled with the occasional distant primal roar.<br/><br/>Movement was slowed further by the simple fact that the Optio had chosen to bring Absolom along; in the best of terrain he would have been hard-pressed to keep up, but these was hardly the optimal conditions. His cane caught regularly, and his overly-sensative scarring seared at every possible jar and stumble. Further, the Skeleton was one of their primary means for tracking in this wretched place, his deathsight providing insight into where the more dangerous flora and fauna regularly plied their trade. For the past hour now the Skeleton had hobbled beside Immune Cathak -their tracker- supplementing the faint and well-disguised trial of the skirmishing party with the faint whispers of the ether. Death had been in this place recently, a foreign death that had only recently exacted it's toll. Absolom's blunt declaration of such had set a somber mood, the poisonous surety that they would not find all their wayward comrades in one piece seeping in to stain moral.<br/><br/>Progress ground to a halt nearly two hours into the hunt. The trail they had so diligently been following had lead the legionnaires straight to the sheer wall of a cliff, over which a waterfall tumbled. Although the water seemed pure enough, the fine skein of spores that bobbed at the surface dissuaded most from sampling. Absolom and Cathak spent a few futile moments searching for a trail, but found nothing. It was as if the skirmishers had simply stepped into the cliff face, a tribute to the gods of the deep. Even Absolom's sense of recent death availed them nothing, he felt it emanating from within the rock itself.<br/><br/>As the Skeleton kicked angrily at the chalky white pebbled that littered the riverbank, one of the junior legionnaires pipped up<br/>"Optio... You don't suppose there's something behind the waterfall? I mean, it's kinda cliched, but..."