After the meet and greet, which had been absolutely successful as Izumi had totally ignored all the drama, smol Fox could be found at the temple.

After a brief and proper following of ritual to the Fortune himself, Izumi headed into the stacks in search of whatever he could find on Asakazan 'Shrooms.

--

D1 LE Can FOXEH find info?? Int/Inv TN 20, VP for skill: 4d10o10k3 21 SUCCESS!!!!!

The Esteemed Journal of Medicine, Mycopharmaceuticals and Recreational Narcotics provides an index of hallucinogenic mycotids of the planet. Most of the species seems to be polypores, fungi growing on the stalks of other fungi, often found near the top of the stalk. The journal seems to indicate that while a amount of chemicals an individual mushroom might contain are hard to estimate, the brightly colored ones tend to contain more narcotic compounds. Someone has added a digital footnote under some of the presented species, noting 'bad journey' in a small print. Few other species, notably the Asakaze Red Hat and Yellow Koku Bracket, have similar digital foot notes mystically noting them to be 'good shit'.

He noted down as much info as he could on his densai. Kitsune Biopharmaticals would probably want all of this. Well one of the departments other than his own. Not many people would be wanting 'Notes of hallucinogenic mushroom' in their perfumes.

He expanded his search to the larger fungi. The ones he guessed were being used for building and the like.

--

D1 LE Can FOXEH find more info?? Int/Inv TN 20, VP for skill: 4d10o10k3 20 SUCCESS!!!

Journal of Ecological and Esoteric engineering lists several species that produce high quality chitin and phalloidin that can be extracted to produce durable and flexible biomaterials. The Blue Stalk and Grey Knob species' are noted particularly suitable for such pursuits and the article recommends that the colony should move to utilize the local fauna as soon as possible. Quick query reveals that this particular article was published in month of the Rat, 3082. Several review articles have been published since, but none of them seem to suggest anything else. While some smaller species have desirable qualities, harvesting them is noted to be 'painstaking and dangerous', the laboratory listing the two heimin technicians that perished to recover the samples used for the study.

Now this would be exactly what Momma Fox wanted, so he copied across everything he could to his densai. He muttered to himself.

"SheprobablywantsmetofindalocalPhoenixifthisstuffworksout."

Which led to further thoughts.

Iwonderifthey'llletmerunsometestsonfungalextractions?

Elsewhere in the Temple another member of Team MCA was having less success. His initial foray into the archive generated over a million hits, so his search terms were probably all out of whack.

Day 1. LE. Library visit. Seeking info on Ravagers and Drifters. Investigation / Intelligence at TN 20: 5d10o10k3 17

Well that wasn't going to help anyone...

Still thinking about that Crane pilot aren't you my boy?

Koseki smiled at that and raised his hand, making a 50:50 gesture to old man ghost. With a bit of careful thought he refined his search and eventually met with some success.

Day 1. LE. Library visit. Second attempt. Predatory species of Asakaze? Investigation / Intelligence at TN 20. Void for +1k1: 6d10o10k4 22

She started her day optimistic, chipper and dressed snappily. After several hours at the temple, the Kuni's patience and good will had eroded. Her hair was tied in a pony tail, bow tie undone and suspenders off her shoulders. She doesn't know where her blazer went. When Koseki was just about to take the Journal of Exotic Beasts and Creatures, it was taken by the Kuni.

"Look, pal, I've been here all day, take a walk," she told him sternly.

She seems nice, boy. Crab too. You should marry her. Ghost dad smirked from a nearby seat.

With a raised eyebrow and bemused smile Koseki's hands dropped to his hips. "I see... well, pleased to meet you too Crab-san. Hotaru Koseki, of the Firefly Explorer Corps. I did not realise that seeking knowledge could be such a competitive sport."

He gestured to the journal issue she had grabbed. "I can wait. Quite patiently too. But that's the volume and issue I need, so... I'll just sit nearby and wait for you to finish."

Eriko took the book and put it close to her body, turning slightly to that her shoulder face Koseki than any other part of her in a sort of close-quarters 'fight me' stance. She was perhaps expecting a fight for this book until she the Firefly introduced himself, politely too. This made it a bit awkward.

She sighed deeply and relaxed her stance slightly, turning to face him finally. "I'm Kuni Eriko, witch hunter and been here too damn long that I might be mistaken as a fixture. You thought I was a lamp, didn't you? I don't think it's a competitive sport around here and I will make it one if anyone raises a fuss about it...but yeah, I guess my search brought me here. Makes sense to figure out more about the wildlife around here before I head out. And you, what's your deal?"

Koseki flashed another polite smile and gave an understanding nod. "I have never met a witch hunter before, but I am reasonably sure that I would not mistake one for a lamp." He wasn't sure if it would be improper to comment on her face paint, so he kept quiet about it.

"Funnily enough I was trying to figure out the same thing. You see, this is only my second ever planet and, well, nature is still pretty damn weird to me. Deep space can be strange, but not giant mushroom trees and flesh-eating reptiles strange." He gave her a good 'what are you gonna do' shrug.

"Plus I heard maybe some people went missing out in the wild, and maybe they were attacked by Ravagers or something. So here I am, in the library, trying to learn things. Eventually assemble my own Asakaze Safety Manual I suppose."

Good lad. That's thinking like a Firefly.

Eriko gave a few sound nods as she rested the text against her hip, clearly not reading it yet. "Hotaru, right? I guess I can't say that I've seen many of you either, especially on land. Maybe once or twice when I'm a station once...If you want my advice: nature is always weird. That's the right assumption you can make about any place you land on. It's hard to make assumptions even on the same planet, you can't take one lesson and use it everywhere. Nature tends to place tricks on you where one fauna might look exactly like another...but one is poisoned. Same goes with flora too, not that I plan to eat anything that can be picked out int he wilderness."

She raised a brow at him at the mention of the safety manual and lifted her chin at him. "Aw, yeah? That's a pretty clever idea. You sure the folks around here don't have one sitting around already?"

Koseki found himself enjoying the way she spoke and relaxed a bit. He nodded at the right points and couldn't help but smile at the description of tricksy nature.

"Thanks. I figured if one existed it would be the first thing I sent out to miai guests. Well, along with the invitation." He shrugged and gestured around at the library. "I mean, maybe? But you'd want it to be easy to find. Like the safety cards for your mining equipment. Or the repair log for your shuttle. You know?"

"Hah, that would be nice. Might have been nice for the folks several centuries too, I bet." She smiled sadly and gave a shake of her head. "If they don't have one sitting around, they're probably just working overtime to keep us pampered. They must be. I can't say I've been to a miai before but I get the feeling there's always someone in the background with a big net to catch whatever is out to get us which is all fun and games. Maybe not exactly but it would look real bad if anything happened and if we stepped out of bounds."

It was hard to disagree with that so he nodded. "True. It's a wild world by the looks of it, and it would be pretty poor form to lose your guests to giant rampaging lizards. Heck, maybe I'll help 'em out. Write some safety guides."

You think that's going to impress her boy?

Koseki shrugged at his dad, which sort of worked with point he'd just made.

"Maybe we can take a look around together? Outside I mean. Safety in numbers, right? Seeing as we're both so interested in this crazy place." He smiled and hoped she'd say yes...

"That's a pretty cute idea, I don't know how many people will actually do the reading. Sometimes folks like to plug and play, figuring things on the run. I'm guilty of that sometimes, like my first tuk-tuk ride..." she shrugged. "The other guy fared worse."

"Take a look at the book together?" She said curiously as she held it up. "I don't think anything is going to leap out at me on my reading but that would be a first. Would probably be the most dangerous pop-up book I've encountered so far."

He laughed pleasantly. "Actually I meant let's look at the real thing together. The outside world. If you like? Not the predators specifically, but theres a lot to see out there."

"Right, it's what I said." She nodded, trying to establish that's what she meant all along. "If you're planning on heading out there, I would mind someone going with me...Just to be clear, I'm not going to ogle at the cute wildlife and the phallic symbols, those things just are around certain points of interests. How can I be sure that a safety-minded Firefly can keep up?"

Koseki chuckled. "I've done more than my fair share of stress-testing Kuni-san." His mind's eye flashed back to icing a couple of pirate fighters in a planetary ring.

"Gotta know how far you can push things before they'll break. What kind of points of interest have you got in mind?"

"Stress-testing, huh? But what if I'm actually planning on breaking things?" she said with a coy smirk. "I don't know what sort of data you can find from what, especially on something that isn't likely fixable again after I'm done."

Eriko gave an open shrug at the question, seemingly keeping things close to her chest.

"Well, I'm still figuring that out. Still working on getting a map of the place and probably some more history. And it would help to know some of the cute little critters around here in case they decide to get real friendly and give me a proper welcome," she said as she wiggled the book in front of him.

"But tell you what, if you want to give me your contact, I might be willing to take you somewhere before someone has to pick up the pieces."

Koseki pulled out his densai and gave her a grin. "Now that sounds like a challenge, saying I wouldn't be able to fix whatever you broke." It was amazing what you could do with a bit of lucky number one all-purpose tape...and a lot of luck.

"Either way, I'm in. Here you go Kuni-san." He passed over his contact code as ghost dad looked on with a mixture of pride and old fashioned grump.