Fungal Bloom

Hostile

The ground breathes spores. Fire clears a path; nothing else does.

At a glance

Kind of world	Hostile
Serum in the arrival Box	2 ampoules
Native Serum stand-in	Myco Bulb
Quests	None

Screenshot comingfungal-bloom-arrival

Dim green dusk over rolling grass, dark breathing patches of spore ground, glowing Bloom Caps at their edges, green haze in the distance

What happens when you arrive

The grass looks almost ordinary at first, under a warm, wet, green dusk that never ends. Then you notice that the dark green patches in it are breathing. That is spore ground, and it covers big stretches of the land. Stand on it and the spores poison you. The fog is thick and green, you can only see a short way, and the shapes shuffling through it are not zombies any more.

The rule: the ground breathes spores

Danger	What it does	How to deal with it
Spore Ground	Every 2 seconds you stand on it, you get Poison II for 5 seconds. "Spores sting your lungs. A filter mask would help."	Keep to the grass, or wear (or just hold) a Filter Mask.
It spreads	Spore ground creeps into the grass and dirt around it on its own, five times faster than normal growth.	Burn it.
Spore Shamblers	Take the place of zombies: slower, tougher (24 health, 3 damage), and unbothered by daylight or water. Where one dies, the soil under it and around it turns to spore ground.	Kill them off the grass you want to keep, or with fire nearby.
Short sight	Green fog closes in from about 16 blocks and hides everything past 80.	Move carefully, listen for the shuffling.

There are no animals. Bring food. Dungeon spawners still make skeletons and spiders.

Fire is the only cure

Fire clears spore ground. Any spore block that fire touches or that catches fire turns back into plain dirt. Bring a flint and steel (or a stack of fire charges) and burn yourself a path. Digging it up just drops dirt and leaves the patch next to it.

Screenshot comingfungal-bloom-fire

A player with flint and steel burning a path through spore ground, flames crawling across the dark green patch

Masks

Any mask that counts as a filter mask stops the spores completely. The Filter Mask from The Ashlands is the easiest to make before you come:

LLL

➜

Filter Mask (Crafting Table)

The Bloom Caps

Glowing fungal caps grow along the edges of the patches (and on plain grass too). Unlike ordinary mushrooms they don't mind light, so they survive however brightly you light the area, and they give off a soft glow of their own. Break one for a Myco Bulb. The cap itself is never kept: the bulb is the harvest.

Ordinary red and brown mushrooms, even giant ones, grow here too, and they grow on spore ground at any light level.

Screenshot comingfungal-bloom-caps

A ring of glowing Bloom Caps at the edge of a spore patch in the green fog

What to bring home

Find	Where	Why it's worth it
Myco Bulb	Break a Bloom Cap.	Grinds into 3 Somnium Powder in the Mortar Station.
Brown Mushroom	Sometimes dropped by a Spore Shambler, along with rotten flesh.	Food, with a bowl.

Spore Ground itself always breaks into plain dirt, even with Silk Touch. You can't carry the infection home.

Serum and getting home

• The arrival Box's cache holds 2 Serum Ampoules.
• Native stand-in: the Myco Bulb. Grind one in the Mortar Station for 3 Somnium Powder (a Somnium Cap gives only one), so this world carries its own way back to the Serum.
• The spores never follow you into the Corridor.

Tips

• Bring a mask. Without one, a single wrong step means poison; with one, this world is just a foggy walk.
• Poison can't kill you on its own (it stops at half a heart), but a Shambler can finish the job.
• Bring flint and steel, and something to put fires out with if you have a base nearby.
• Fight Shamblers on spore ground you have already lost, not on clean grass: where they fall, new patches start.
• Follow the glowing Bloom Caps: they mark the edges of the spore patches, so the dark ground just past them is the ground to avoid.

Birds

Birds you can photograph for your bird log here. Open one to turn it round, watch it move and hear its call.

• Sporecrest Jay: common
• Stalkhead Stork: rare, dangerous

Everything this world adds

3 blocks and items (click to open)

Spore Ground

Bloom Cap

Myco Bulb

The traveler's tape

Every arrival Box has a chest by its door holding a cassette: the last traveler reading their journal of this world aloud. This is what they say. It gives a lot away.

Read the journal (spoilers)

I woke beside the weathered Box on grass that looked almost ordinary, and it took me an hour to see that the dark green patches were breathing. Stand on one and the poison creeps into your blood every few seconds, so keep to the grass or tie a filter over your face before you cross. The patches spread when you are not watching them, and the dead that shuffle through them leave new ones behind. Fire is the only thing that clears them, so burn yourself a path, and take the bulbs from the glowing caps along the edges: ground fine, each one gives three measures of Somnium powder. If the Serum is still in you when you read this, go back to the weathered Box and shut the door; the spores never follow you into the hallway of doors.