Cortinarius had been enjoying the cooler fall weather and had been getting ready to go on a trip to hunt for mushrooms. It was the perfect time for it and she loved eating them. The beginning of the trip had gone great. The way to her hunting grounds had been smooth sailing, an easy walk of several days to what she considered the holy land of mushrooms. However once she arrived things changed.
It was like a switch had been flipped and the cool fall weather turned to hot, hot, hot summer heat. Cortinarius had only found a few mushrooms that were ripe for the picking before the heat began to ruin the bounty of the forest. Everywhere she looked for delicious mushrooms yielded wilted, darkening, inedible mushrooms. Pausing in her frantic search she looked to her bag that she had stored the precious few mushrooms she had found. Already they were showing signs of the heat affecting them. "Nooooo..... not the mushrooms..... Darn this second summer! Why now?" She whined.
She considered her options as she needed to make a decision soon. She could eat the mushrooms she had found now and continue to hunt for any that might still be good. Or she could make a rushed trip home and hope that her small bounty would hold out until she got home to where she could store them in a cooler spot she had found. Both options meant that she wasn't likely to have any mushrooms stored for the winter which was the point of this whole trip: to go to a hunting ground further away from home to get mushrooms for the winter. She wouldn't be able to make this trip a second time after this heat wave ended if she left now to go home. This was her only chance to search in what was normally a mushroom lover's heaven.
Perhaps it was better to keep searching for now and keep an eye on her acquired mushrooms. She could always eat them before they went bad. If she was lucky she'll find more mushrooms that were still good and have enough to leave before that point. Her mind made up she went back to her search. She looked at all of the spots that would normally be growing mushrooms: at the base of trees, on fallen dead trees, on stumps, etc. Not many spots had mushrooms growing. It really made her wish that she had a familiar or a companion who could sniff out where the mushrooms were. Instead she had to rely on her own experience and knowledge to find them.
Over the course of a couple more days she had found some more mushrooms. However she was at the point of no return to where some of her earlier mushrooms would only last a few more days before going bad. She did was she could to separate them from the newer mushrooms in her bag but she was going to have to leave now if she was going to have any chance of keeping these mushrooms from going bad before she got home.
With a sigh she gave up on her mushroom hunt and turned to head home. She would have to rush and not take the leisurely scenic route she normally took in order to get home before the mushrooms turned. Making sure her bag was secured around her neck she broke out into a trot to head home. Once she was out of the woods and on an actual path in the grasslands she began to run. Sure the mushrooms might get a little jostled around but that was better than the heat getting to them.
Since she was running out in the open, the sun was beating down on her making her feel hotter and more exhausted. She had to slow down several times to get a drink when a source of water was near and to catch her breath. It was at one of these breaks that she met a fellow traveler. A small Pixie pony with a leaf mask and bag on their bag was also at this stream. "Hey hey! Hi! Could you help me out? My friend and I got separated on our way home and I need help finding them." They said, "I heard them calling from the other side of the stream but the bank is too high for me to get up it right here with my bag. Could you help me out?"
Cortinarius really didn't want to stop and delay her return home but she also wasn't one to turn her back on a Soquili in need. "Of course. Let me see..... I'll take your bag and it looks like while the stream gets a little deeper down that way, the bank down there isn't so high so you should be able to get up that way." She replied. When the Pixie agreed she took the bag from them and walked with them to the area she was talking about. Moving her bag and the Pixie's bag up high on her back she walked into the stream. The water was deeper but barely came up to her belly whereas it went up to nearly the Pixie's head, which meant the Pixie had to swim across versus her just walking across. Once they were on the other side and up the bank of the stream she put the Pixie's bag down for them. "Here you go."
"Ah thank you!" The Pixie said happily after shaking off the excess water, "I believe I see my friend over there. You had seemed like you were in a rush before.... if you cut through the woods here, you should be out towards a big flower meadow."
Cortinarius gave a nod and thought about it. She knew of the flower meadow they were speaking of and it was something she had to pass by on her way home. Cutting through the woods here should be a shortcut and could cut down her trip by at least half a day. "Thank you very much. I think I will cut through the woods here. Good bye!" She called out before heading off. It only took her one more day to get home, that shortcut having saved some time on her trip. She immediately went to her cool storage spot to store her mushrooms so she could have some over the winter time. (wc: 1072)
