Submission (#6755) Approved

Quest: Resonance - Act 2
Act Type: Exploration
Word Count: 963
Adult Elnin Present: Enji ELN1232
Regional Affinity: Silveil
Claiming Regional Affinity for: Nono ELN2457

[Adventurer] Rank Unlock Mini-Requirement: Act of Exploration

After the workshop with Niyari Nono had dared to spend a lot more time in the wilderness by himself instead of waiting for Kiki to go out with him. He was careful not to use too many flowers to use for the paintings and only did around five of these pictures before stopping. He learned a lot about the plants and how they liked to group together though. The mushrooms liked to stand tall and proud on their own, big enough to seek shelter underneath them. They weren't like the mushrooms back home that preferred to build clusters. Nono wasn't sure if it was because of their size or if it had something to do with the glowing properties. Normal plants needed sunlight to grow but here in Silveil it was night all the time so the plants glowed themself. Did they need their space to give off enough light? There was still a bunch Nono didn't know.
He was just making his way to the waterfall he had seen from a distance when a voice spooked him.
"Careful there."
Nono jumped and looked to his right where the voice was coming from. An Elnin with a long tail was sitting on a rock, faerie orb moving above their head.
"I'm sorry?", asked Nono in a small voice, not sure what he had done. Careful.. Was there something dangerous here? His eyes flickered back and forth from the path he was planning on taking and back to the Elnin.

"You are stepping on the mushroom roots."
"Huh?"
Nono tilted his head a bit to the side. Mushrooms didn't have roots! Right? As least not visible ones like some trees had. He looked down but it was so dark that he couldn't really see anything.
"The mushrooms here work a bit different. They have flat roots that are above ground. I think they are communicating with each other and the animals a bit differently. Those tufts are not grass."
Nono looked a bit more closely and could finally see and understand what the stranger meant. That wasn't grass. Had it felt a bit more spiky because it was all roots and not grass?
"Oh! Where do I step then?"
The adult got up from the rock and gestured towards him.
"Just walk in my direction. You can see it better when you're a bit away."
Nono did just that.
"You see all the darker patches around those big mushrooms? They are a bit darker even if the glow is so close that you would think the are would be illuminated, right? Those are the roots."
Nono squinted and at first he didn't really notice what the Elnin was talking about but then his eyes adjusted properly to looking at the shadows underneath the glowing mushroom and he could see it. The 'grass' there stood up straighter and seemed more dense and yes, darker!
"Oh! Yeah, I can see it!", said Nono excited and looked back at the Elnin in wonder.
"You must really know your way around here!"
The Elnin smiled back at him but shrugged.
"I'm doing my best to learn about the wild life of each place I visit. Sometimes it's harder like here. I think the villagers near this place all know about how to traverse the forest but people that come from far away and want to visit the waterfall probably never dealt with these kind of mushrooms."
Nono nodded and looked around, thoughts swirling through his head.
"Are the roots around the mushrooms always in these circles or do they get bigger?"
"Hmm, on that I am not super sure. I think when the mushrooms reached their tallest height then the roots have spread enough and they stay that way without spreading further."
"What if we marked the roots somehow? I don't know if building a real stone path would be good, that would flatten down all the real grass. But we could maybe do small stone or glass pebble circles around all of the big mushrooms that are near the path!"
The Elnin looked around, still smiling.
"That sounds like a great idea. Something like a reverse fairy ring. Instead of having a circle of mushrooms, we make a circle around the mushrooms! That should definitely help with travellers not stepping into them and keeping a distance. Amazing! Hey, what's your name, kid? I'm Enji by the way."
Nono beamed at having his idea liked and blushed even a little bit from recieveing the praise.
"I'm Nono. I don't live here but I like to visit the glowing places."
"Okay Nono, do you want to gather some little stones with me?"

Together they got to work and found enough stones for most of the mushrooms. The task was definitely bigger than Nono had anticipated though, finding enough small rocks was hard here. It took probably around two hours for them to gather stones for five mushrooms and array them all around the roots.
After the finished work Enji reached into his pocket and got a bag of trail mix out. He offered them to Nono and they both sat down on the big rock with the snack between them.
"We did good work here today. I'm sure the mushrooms will be happy if their roots get less disturbed."
Nono nodded along, munching on the mixed nuts.
"If I find some more rocks I will collect them until I come here again! Maybe I could even paint them."
Nono was very excited about that, it would be like decorating the stone circles.
"But it's getting late, I should probably head back now. Oh! I still haven't even been to the waterfall now!"
Enji laughed.
"Well, now you have a reason for coming back here with those stones at least!"