Monolith

Collectors Editions Broken Bottle Trinkets A broken bottle. Whatever it once held has been removed. 20 Animated Statue Familiar This peculiar statue wasn't standing there when you last looked, and it certainly wasn't posed in that way either. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. 1500 Hourglass Trinkets Keeps the time until it clogs; then, all the time is yours! YOURS! 35 Mossy Maze Colony Apparel A medley of lush emerald-colored mushrooms that have somehow sustained a colony on a passerby dragon. Parasite? Symbiote? Fashion statement? 1000

An Odd Pair Monolith has always been a silly, bubbly dragon. Spotted with black and white, she fit in perfectly among the black ravens she befriended and the clouds they flew between. Monolith had been a fairly normal dragon for most of her life, enjoying the simple things in her life and collecting bottles and shiny, colorful bits of glass that would sparkle with the light of a hundred rainbows. And even with her curious mind and imagination, she never in a million years thought that something so bizarre as an alien mushroom-parasite would enter her life. The fungus came from a slightly broken jar, like the broken penny jar you could find scavenging. The mushroom cluster was a mossy green, like soft grass, and seemed to call Monolith to it.

Of course she brought it home, the spotty fungus seemed to scream ‘lair plant’. The action, at the time, seemed harmless, but the fungus seemed to invade her mind that day. All she could think about was the strange mushroom that grew in a broken glass jar. What made it worse was that the poor thing seemed to be wilting faster and faster each day, not reacting to the water and plant food that was carefully added around the plant.
One day, out of desperation, Monolith gently picked up the plant and spoke gently to it, asking what was wrong and how she could help.

To her complete and utter shock, the fungi answered her.

“You.”

The monotone voice resounded not off the walls of the lair but within the confines of Monolith’s mind, startling her enough to knock her off of her haunches and onto her back, the jar and fungus dropping onto her chest.

“Please help us,” the monotone returned, stronger this time in its mental presence. “We need a bonded host to survive the cruelty that is the world.”

Monolith was shocked silent, what kind of mess did she fall into? But the creature needed her help, how could she refuse? Solemnly she nodded a yes, though she wasn’t entirely sure if the fungus would be able to see the gesture.

It must have understood though, because after she gave permission, she could feel the tingle the parasite slinking under her skin, spreading to the tip of her tail and up her nose, leaving a vibrant green in some places along her scales. The mushroom no long sat on her belly, but was rooted between her wings, pulsing like a heart. Slowly she rose, and looked herself over. The green striped her once black mane as well as lining her underbelly, and stars decorated her paws and the tip of her tail. Shaking her head she could feel two antenna bounce along with the movement.

Monolith may have been confused normally, but a secondary emotion flared beneath her skin. Happiness and excitement were like fire in her veins and before she knew it she was outside, the voice from before gasping (in a hilarious monotone) at the sight and sounds that the Zephyr Steppes had to offer it.

“I feel like introductions might not be necessary,” Monolith broke the silence as she felt herself pad forward into the grass, seeming to not control the action. “But I’m Monolith.”

The fungus stopped it’s amusing catalog of the scenery, “We are Mani.”

“Well, Mani,” Monolith beamed at the name, “I think we’ll be good friends from here on out.”

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