Private Fungus Amongus

[Persephone Dashiell]

​

Carefully, Persephone entered the ruins. Vegetation was everywhere. Mushrooms popped up all over the ground, overtaking what would have previously been a stone floor. This wasn't her typical haunt. Most days she was busy hunting down Ashlan artifacts or odd things left behind by Jedi. Not a huge fan of them but their artifacts commanded a great deal on the secondary market.

Today was the ruins of an ancient AgriCorps building. Once very grand but clearly lost to time and overtaken by nature. Her Professor at Kalinda University had sent her on this quest. The elderly Ithorian woman had put her in contact with someone who had a specialty of herbs and the like. Persephone didn't know if that meant current ones or ones thought to be extinct.

Professor Aawala had gotten word there may be spores and seed samples leftover at the site. Persephone wasn't so sure they would be viable but she was merely a student. One who needed to pass the program. As such she would follow directions to a tee and dop her best to find where Jedi would keep such a thing. Most would be in a cryogenic vault but knowing Jedi it was in a crusty wooden box, degrading somewhere.

Turning, Persephone looked at the woman who was a expert on this things. Or so she kept being told.

"So....if you were a Jedi in charge of these plants, and trying to perserve them, where would you keep them?"

Xiaoyu​

 

[Xiaoyu]

[

​

Xiaoyu lingered a few steps behind Persephone as they entered the ruins, her attention already drifting away from the crumbling architecture and toward the things that had taken its place.

Plants. Fungus. Growth where there shouldn't have been any.

The air smelled wonderfully damp.

She crouched almost immediately, the hem of her brown skirt pooling lightly around her boots as she leaned down to inspect a cluster of pale mushrooms sprouting from a crack in the old stone floor. Her green top; simple, practical, and tied neatly at the waist; shifted with the movement, its sleeves pushed slightly back so they wouldn’t brush the fungi. Her dark teal hair was loosely gathered behind her head, a few stray strands already escaping as she worked.

Her fingers hovered just above the caps, careful not to touch them yet. A few spores floated lazily in the air where something had disturbed them earlier.

Interesting....very interesting. Her blue eyes narrowed with quiet curiosity.

Persephone’s voice eventually pulled her attention away from the fungi, though Xiaoyu didn’t stand right away. Instead she tilted her head slightly, still staring at the cluster as if it might reveal some secret.

"So....if you were a Jedi in charge of these plants, and trying to perserve them, where would you keep them?"

Xiaoyu hummed softly. It was the sort of thoughtful noise she made when someone had handed her a puzzle.

“I don’t know much about Jedi,” she admitted plainly as she finally stood, dusting her hands against her robe. “Other than they like temples, meditation, and being mysterious about everything.”

Her eyes began wandering across the ruined structure, though not in the way Persephone might expect. Xiaoyu wasn’t looking for architecture or hidden mechanisms. She was watching the plants, watching which ones grew where and which ones avoided certain patches of stone. She walked a few slow steps across the room, pausing beside a thick line of moss creeping along the base of one wall. Her fingers lightly brushed it, testing the moisture trapped beneath.

“Plants tell you things,” she murmured, almost to herself.

A few paces further and she stopped again. Something about the growth here was uneven. Mushrooms clustered thick in some places, yet a section of wall nearby remained strangely bare despite the humidity. “Hmm.” Xiaoyu stepped closer and knocked lightly on the stone with her knuckle. The sound was dull… but not solid. Her eyes brightened immediately. “Oh.” She knocked again, a little more enthusiastically this time. “Hollow.”

Now she finally glanced back at Persephone, the faintest spark of excitement flickering in her otherwise calm expression. “If someone wanted to keep spores or seeds safe,” Xiaoyu said, gesturing at the wall, “they wouldn’t leave them out where moisture and animals could ruin them.” Her hand brushed across the bare section of stone where almost nothing had grown. “Dry. Dark. Cool.” Another knock.

“If I were hiding something delicate…” She gave the wall a small, thoughtful pat. “I’d probably put it behind something like this.”

Persephone Dashiell​

 

[Persephone Dashiell]

Persephone stopped to watch and listen. She almost felt a little bad about dragging Xiaoyu away from the colorful mushrooms that seemed to be springing up at every turn. In her eyes they looked poisonous but she was no expert on fungus. Or cooking for that matter. Very pretty to look at though, the ruins were almost like a childrens fairytale.

Brows furrowed as the dark haired woman seemed to be speaking to herself, trying to figure out where Jedi would keep the rumored objects they had came for. For some reason she became fixated on a wall without explaining much beyond the fact the wall was apparently 'dry,dark,and cool'. Of course the woman was not off base to assume something was hidden behind a wall. Lots of ancient artifacts and treasures were. Made the most logical sense to do such a thing.

However, Persephone didn't want herself and Zee busting down ruins for no reason. While she didn't care for the Jedi, she also appreciated architecture and how ancient things could last. There was a responsibility to keeping things in tact. A responsibility to cause as little harm as possible when going through these sites.

"So, this wall?" A motion towards the one Xiaoyu had been knocking on. "You don't think they would be kept in an underground vault? I've heard these things have to stay cold in order to remain viable. I mean, you're the expert and we can start examining the wall, just curious."

 

[Xiaoyu]

[

​

Her attention had already drifted back to the wall, fingers lightly tracing along the uneven stone as if she could feel the difference rather than see it. Up close, the lack of growth was even more obvious. No moss clinging to the seams. No creeping vines forcing their way through cracks. Even the air felt a touch less damp here.

At Persephone’s question, Xiaoyu gave a small, absent hum, more acknowledgment than response. She tapped the wall again with her knuckle, listening carefully this time, her head tilting just slightly.

“Mm… underground vaults would work,” she said after a moment, her tone thoughtful but casual. “Cold helps; it helps slow things down after all .”

She crouched again, this time near the base of the wall, inspecting where stone met earth. The hem of her brown skirt brushed softly against the moss as she leaned in, her green sleeves shifting as she rested her weight on one knee.

“But too cold can ruin certain seeds,” she continued, almost like she was thinking out loud rather than explaining. “And spores…some prefer stable conditions more than freezing ones.”

Her blue eyes flicked upward again, scanning the wall more carefully now. “No water damage here,” she murmured. “Not even a little.” She pressed her palm flat against the stone, holding it there for a second longer than necessary. “Temperature’s steady too…” That seemed to interest her more than anything Persephone had said.

Xiaoyu stood again, dusting her hands lightly against her skirt, though her gaze never left the wall. “If this place was abandoned,” she went on, “anything exposed would’ve been ruined first. Moisture, animals, time…” A small shrug followed. “But something sealed properly?”

Her fingers tapped once more against the hollow section. “It survives longer than the building.” Only then did she glance back at Persephone, her expression calm but quietly certain. “We don’t have to break it,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “If it was meant to be opened, there’s probably a mechanism. Let’s do a thorough search.”

Her eyes drifted back to the stone, already searching again.

Persephone Dashiell​

 

[Persephone Dashiell]

Persephone looked back at Zee and made a 'hold off' motion. She had planned on instructing the droid to remove a few pieces of the sections that had sounded hollow when Xiaoyu was knocking around. Yet it seemed the woman had other plans for them - look for an opening. While mildly disappointed, she did have a point that it was meant to be opened. Technically a vault after all.

Heading to the opposite end of the wall as Xiaoyu, Persephone suspect the opening would be in the middle or a small door located elsewhere. She also had another theory. Walking to what would be the 'end' of the thick stone where it gave to an opening at the end of a hallway - or what was left of that hallway - Persie began to examine the one edge of the stone.

Fingers ran along the corner, unusually pointed and not rounded over time as she would have suspected with stone at the end of an opening.

"Zee come help me out. See if we can't pry any of this stone off."

Persephone suspected a facade. As Zee used his brute strength to pry it off, she was greeted with her theory ; shiny durasteel just underneath the stone.

"I think we found something....or a structural beam, but seems odd given this is supposed to be a stone building."

 

[Xiaoyu]

[

​

The faint scrape of stone against metal carried easily through the quiet ruin, and her attention shifted only when the sound changed; stone giving way just enough to reveal something beneath it, something different, which was enough for her to pause and think. She straightened, brushing her hands lightly against her skirt before stepping closer, her pace unhurried but intent. Her blue eyes flicked from the disturbed edge of stone to the exposed surface beneath it, narrowing slightly as the light caught something far too smooth to belong here.

Durasteel? Her eyes narrowed and her instincts sharpened immediately. Without a word, she moved in beside Persephone, leaning just slightly to get a better angle at the exposed section. Her fingers hovered near it for a moment before she finally touched the edge where stone met metal, tracing the boundary between the two materials. "That doesn't belong..." Xiaoyu murmured.

She tapped lightly against the durasteel this time, listening. It sounded cleaner, kind of manufactured, so to speak. Very different from the hollow stone she’d been testing earlier. Her gaze shifted, following the line of the metal beneath the remaining facade, mentally mapping its shape. “Too deliberate to be structural,” Xiaoyu added, almost absently. “If it were a support, it wouldn’t be hidden like this.”

She crouched again, ignoring the dust as her skirt settled around her, studying the seam more closely now. Her fingers pressed gently along the edge where the stone had been pried back, testing for any give, any irregularity. ularity. Her hand moved a few inches to the side; then stopped. A slight inconsistency. Not visible unless you were looking for it. The tiniest interruption in the smooth line of the durasteel.

Her nail tapped against it once. "Mhmmmmm....”

Xiaoyu leaned in closer, pressing it harder. There was nothing. She tried again, this time sliding her finger along the seam, searching for a catch, a latch, anything that might respond. Again, nothing. Her brows knit faintly. “Not mechanical… or at least not simple,” she murmured, more thoughtful now than certain.

She leaned back slightly, glancing between the exposed durasteel and the surrounding ruin, her gaze briefly drifting to the plant growth creeping along the nearby stone. Then she looked back at Persephone.

“If this was sealed on purpose,” Xiaoyu said, tilting her head just slightly, “it might need something specific to open it. Heat, pressure… a particular tool…” Her eyes flicked to Persephone’s gear, then to the droid. “Or something less obvious.”

She shifted just enough to give Persephone space near the exposed section, though her attention lingered on that tiny irregular seam.

“What do you think?” she asked simply.

Persephone Dashiell​