The Adventure of the Golden Mushroom Read online

The Adventure of the Golden Mushroom

  Kevin L. O'Brien

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  Text Copyright 2013 by Kevin L. O'Brien

  Cover design and typography copyright 2013 by Kevin L. O'Brien

  BlackAdderII font distributed under a free use license by Bruce Marx

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  License Notes

  Please consider writing a review for this book on the retailer's website.

  If you see any misspellings or typographical errors, please notify Kevin L. O'Brien using one of his online social networks. Thank you.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, including those based on the real world, are either products of the imagination of Kevin L. O'Brien or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Because some ebook platforms do not support special characters, certain words may appear misspelled, but this was done deliberately to avoid the problem of the platforms deleting the characters. Also, the LRF platform used by older models of the Sony Reader does not permit the use of links to external URLs, whereas the PDB platform used by Palm reading devices does not support any form of linking whatsoever.

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  Table of Contents

  Preface

  The Golden Mushroom

  About the Author

  Other Books by Kevin L. O'Brien

  Connect with Kevin L. O'Brien

  Sample Excerpts

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  Preface

  By the time Eile and Sunny began their second week of Dreaming, corresponding to their second year in the Dreamlands, Medb hErenn had grown confident enough in their abilities that she allowed them to take trips without her. She had in particular concentrated on enhancing their fighting skills, since their desire for adventure would place them in danger no matter how innocuous it seemed. She taught them everything she knew of swordsmanship, knife fighting, and quarterstaff dueling, then turned them over to masters of those arts, including a Dreamer who called himself Don Quixote. Early during the first week she had Eile learn how to use a shield, both as protection and a weapon, and by the middle she had decided Sunny should learn archery, and turned her over to a Dreamer named Roger Godberd, who claimed to be the original Robin Hood. Medb also taught Sunny how to control and enhance her innate magical ability, and augmented Eile's leather armor unitard with a cuir bouilli hauberk covered with metal scales and a breastplate and shoulder guards.

  Though they had been on a few solo adventures during their first week, they were now on their own, except for their feline guide and companion, Shadow-stalker. Despite the enormity of no longer having Imperious Medb to protect them, they faced their new-found independence as they did their Waking-lives, with boundless confidence and enthusiasm, and while their experiences over the next several Dream-years would teach them a certain amount of cynicism and disillusionment, they would never lose that confidence or enthusiasm.

  This story takes place on their eighth night of Dreaming.

  Back to TOC

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  Shadow-stalker sat on a stump and kept an eye on the Girls as they went about their harvesting. Eile should have been watching out for danger, but instead she observed Sunny as she rooted around inside a decaying log. Not that Shadow blamed her. The reputation of the Dark Wood was such that they had expected to be under almost continuous attack by monsters, cannibals, or crazed cultists. When nothing happened during the first hour, and the rest of the day promised to be similarly uneventful, they began treating the expedition like a holiday excursion, complete with picnic lunch. The only thing that marred their enjoyment was the overcast sky. Even Shadow felt bored, and she knew the Wood's reputation for danger was no joke.

  How the Girls were able explore it unscathed mystified the feline, but as an old saying went, fate had a way of protecting innocents, fools, and adventurers, and the Girls qualified for at least two of those criteria. Though even after a year, Shadow found it hard to think of them as adventurers; they looked too much like typical young ladies. Eile was older, being in her mid-twenties. She had a slim figure, with ochre skin and indigo-blue eyes. She gathered her long seal-brown hair into a ponytail that hung to her knees, while her face and forehead were framed by four big locks dyed a vivid fuchsia. A half-dozen rings pierced each ear, and her left nostril bore a single stud. Sunny had just starting her third decade, and she was better endowed in bust and hip, though both Girls were fit and trim. She also stood taller, but only by an inch or so, and she looked more adorable, though Eile appeared quite cute. Her complexion was buff and she had azure-blue eyes, with a huge mane of gamboge hair that billowed around her head, down her back, and over her shoulders. She wore a pair of glasses, though she only needed them for reading. She insisted on wearing them full-time, however, because without them her eyeballs would pop out of her head and start attacking each other.

  Or so she claimed.

  Sunny squealed in triumph as she stood up. "I got it!" She held out one hand, and in the gloved palm lay a mass that looked like stiff, opaque, yellow gelatin.

  Eile bent over to open the backpack sitting at her feet, and pulled out a jar. She pulled the corked and presented it to Sunny, who dropped the mass into it. Sunny stripped off the glove as Eile recorked the jar and dropped it back into the pack.

  "We're just about finished, aren't we?" she asked as she straightened up.

  Sunny pulled a scroll out of her belt. She wore a darling adventurer's outfit, consisting of a collared, sleeveless top that left her midriff bare, an open, long-sleeved jacket, and a flowing, pleated skirt that dropped to her ankles. Her feet were covered with soft boots and she kept the gloves tucked under the belt when she didn't wear them. A Robin Hood hat, complete with a large, fluffy, golden plume, topped her head. Her composite bow leaned against the log, and she also carried a long, slim dagger in a scabbard dangling from the belt.

  "Let's see. Trovah leaves, sheckel berries, cannard acorns, shroom nuts, hilizon root, kasbah moss, urndin lichen, sorvaun fungus, and now vumit slime mold. Yep, the only item left is the Golden Mushroom."

  "And where do we find that?"

  Sunny unrolled the scroll further to reveal a map. While Eile looked over shoulder, she glanced around the clearing. "It should be this way--" She nodded towards her front left. "--in some kind of wetland."

  Eile gave her an appreciative grin. "I'm sure glad one of yer magical talents is an unerring sense of direction. I wouldn't want ta get lost in these woods."

  Sunny returned a loving smile, but said nothing.

  As Sunny rolled up the scroll, Eile picked up the pack. "Great. Looks like we'll get everything in record time." She wore a suit of armor that consisted of a hauberk of cuir-bouilli covered in overlapping metal scales and reinforced with a metal breastplate and shoulder guards, over a leather unitard. Leather gloves and shoes completed the ensemble, but she wore no helmet. She was armed with a short-bladed, double-edged broadsword, and she kept a wooden shield braced with iron secured to her back.

  Sunny retrieve her bow. "Come on, Shadow."

  The cat hopped down and trotted over beside them as they headed out of the clearing. "So, it will be a quiet trip after all."

  "Yeah, looks like our luck's holding."

  Shadow yowled in irritation. Sunny's dogged cheerfulness and carefree attitude could be annoying at times, especially when they were in potentially dangerous situations. Even Eile would lose patience with her on occasion.

  "Well, I don't understand why the bad rep," Eile remarked. "I mean, we've heard all the stories, but this doesn't seem like such a bad place. A little gloomy perhap
s, but nothing like the Enchanted Woods."

  "Perhaps," Shadow said, "but the Enchanted Woods lies just across the Oukranos River. The Zoogs could colonize the Dark Wood if they wished, but they won't live here, or even visit except in large numbers, and there is very little that Zoogs fear. That should tell you something."

  "What about cats?" Eile spoke in a slightly mocking tone.

  She sneezed in derision. "We fear nothing, not even what Zoogs fear. But we're not foolhardy." And with that she sprinted out ahead of the Girls.

  Eile couldn't help smiling. Shadow always did that when she didn't want to talk anymore.

  "You shouldn't antagonize her like that," Sunny said in a disapproving tone. "She's only doing her job, trying to keep us safe."

  "Yeah, sorry." She meant