The week that followed the unfortunate mishap in the classroom only grew more chaotic. As it turned out, Del's now sentient Gigastool was an endless source of unwanted attention.
Per Bartholomew's advice, she solicited Teagan's assistance in forging a pact with it, though it was unclear to her if the strange little fungus was a summon, a familiar, a pet, or something else entirely. Because of the pact, the thing was required to be completely obedient to Del which was all fine and good except she really didn't know the first thing about caring for mushrooms, semi-intelligent or otherwise. Observing her efforts to do so was enough to prove as much to Gairovald.
"Master, is it really safe to allow a creature such as that to wander the halls?" Teagan had asked the night of the incident while giving his report.
Gairovald didn't have a good answer to the question. Only time would tell. Already, from what he could see, the little abomination would be tough for even him to kill.
"Do you think it would be possible to recreate whatever phenomenon gave birth to that thing?" Gaspar wondered for what must've been the hundredth time. "I'm deeply curious to know just what part of the process gave the thing consciousness."
"Is it really worth knowing?" Jericho wondered as they watched the thing as it ran into a wall, knocked itself back with an odd squeaky grunt, then picked itself up and repeated the process. "It doesn't seem like the wretched little monster is all that useful. For one thing, it can't seem to figure out how to walk around the damn wall. Seriously, the archway leading up the stairs is barely a foot to the left!"
"There's no evidence that it can't learn and adapt," Gaspar countered. "It's barely a week old, and for the most part its environment has been largely controlled. I believe this is the first time it has left its master's bag."
"It's been running into that wall for almost an hour now!" Jericho exclaimed.
Gairovald listened as they argued the issue, unsure how he felt personally. At a glance, Jericho's dismissal of the creature's intelligence seemed warranted. It wasn't even attempting to adapt to the situation it was in, or at least it seemed that way under the assumption that it was actually trying to get anywhere. Gairovald wasn't convinced that was the creature's objective, however.
As Gaspar had mentioned earlier, the little Gigastool had existed primarily in Del's bag since the day it was created. He had overheard her expressing concerns to her friend about leaving it unsupervised, unsure what it might do. He had also listened as she relayed interesting behaviors of the Gigastool when it was allowed to wander in her quarters. She described actions such as picking up small objects to peer under them, nibbling on them, then leaving them to investigate other things. That indicated to Gairovald the creature was deceptively curious, which also suggested a capacity for some kind of intelligence.
At the moment, looking at the way that little mushroom was fixated on that exact spot on the wall, it wasn't necessarily that the thing was trying to pass through it. in fact, if it happened to fall to the side one way or another, it would adjust itself to once again hit the exact same spot it had been hitting. The interesting thing about it was the fact that Del had run into that exact spot earlier on her way to classes. It was what had caused the shroom to become dislodged from the bag in the first place. Immediately afterwards, she had picked herself up and hurried up the stairs, apparently oblivious to her missing passenger. The mushroom had been running into the wall ever since.
As far as he could tell, the thing was trying to imitate her, though clearly it felt something was missing from the impact which was why it hadn't gone to follow her up the stairs. Could it be vibrations, perhaps? Del was heavy enough that when she collided with the wall, a mild shock wave rippled out from the area of impact. The mushroom was small and light, so it wouldn't be able to replicate the effect to the same magnitude.
"That thing is likely going to become quite the menace," He sighed, interrupting Gaspar and Jericho's ongoing debate.
"I doubt that," Jericho snorted as he glanced at the shroom which was still maintaining its bizarre cycle.
"What's a menace?" Daniel wondered as he wandered up to the group holding what looked like some kind of filled bun.
"He's talking about that funny little mushroom man," Gaspar replied. "I don't know where 'menace' came from though. It hasn't displayed any sort of behavior to warrant it."
"Oh hey!" Daniel brightened, "It's that cute little guy who's usually peaking out of the new girl's bag! What's he doing over there?"
"Besides bashing its lack of brains out on the stone wall? I couldn't tell you," Jericho shrugged.
"So cute!" Daniel smiled. "I want to go pet it!"
"I wouldn't recommend it," Gairovald advised.
"Why not?" Jericho scoffed. "What's it going to do? The thing barely reaches his ankles, and it's too stupid to be aggressive."
"See, Jericho says it's fine!" Daniel stuck his tongue out. "I'm going to go pet it!"
"Don't say I didn't warn you Gairovald sighed.
Daniel wasn't listening as he practically skipped over to the persistent gigastool. Gairovald chuckled to himself and snapped his book shut, then prepared a crystal ball. Chances were, something memorable was about to happen, and he wanted to capture it.
"Is anyone else getting an ominous feeling?" Gaspar wondered. "I don't know why, but every time I see him wearing that dopey grin, I feel like he's done something to jynx himself."
"What can a teensy little mushroom man do?" Jericho repeated his dismissal. "If anything, Daniel will make a fool of himself with his ridiculous baby talk and peculiar concept of cuteness."
Gairovald could only smirk. Between Daniel's chronic bad luck and his suspicions about what said mushroom was capable of, he had every confidence that Jericho was about to be proven horribly wrong.
"Hey little guy, whatcha doin?" Daniel asked in a sickly sweet tone most people reserved for babies and young children. "You've been running at that wall for awhile now."
The gigastool was still far too preoccupied with its objective--whatever that might have been--to realize Daniel was talking to it. There wasn't so much as a slip in its rhythm as it persisted in its peculiar pattern. Daniel wasn't the type to be deterred once he made his mind up however.
"You must be getting hungry by now," He announced, then started searching his person.
Glancing down at his hand, he realized he was still holding his half-eaten bun and extended it towards the shroom. There was no reaction. Gairovald bit his lip as Daniel's grin faltered a bit. Some small part of him hoped Daniel would give up and leave the thing alone and spare himself what Gairovald suspected might be coming next. Unfortunately for Daniel, however, Gairovald wasn't such a nice guy that he would stop someone from persisting in foolish behavior to prevent misfortune from befalling them. How would they ever learn?
"Come on little guy, don't be shy!" This time, Daniel thrust the bun directly in front of the gigastool's face, interrupting its course. "Try this! I promise it's good!"
Gairoval watched with some amusement as the mushroom man came to a halt as it regarded the object now suddenly blocking its path. It sniffed at it a bit, then extended what looked like too little stubby arms and tried to push it away, making what he interpreted to be a disgusted snort. Daniel, ever the lovable buffoon, didn't realize this was the case at all and somehow mistook its intentions.
"You want the whole thing? Wow, you must be hungry!" He chuckled as he thrust the bun at the shroom, knocking it on its butt. The thing mewled a protest and started chittering furiously at Daniel. "It's ok! Go ahead, take it!"
"He realizes that bun is the size of the thing, doesn't he?" Jericho deadpanned.
"That's not necessarily an issue," Gaspar replied. "There are a number of creatures, such as shrews, that need to eat several times the amount of their own body weight in a day to sustain themselves."
"It's a mushroom, not a shrew," Jericho objected.
"More particularly, it's an Aurelian Gigastool," Gaspar retorted. "A malnourished one at that! you can tell as much from its diminutive size!"
"Shhhh!" Gairovald interrupted. "Just watch."
Almost as soon as they turned their heads back to Daniel and the mushroom, the little gigastool had clearly lost patience. It opened its little maw nice and wide and made a show of chomping down on Daniel's finger as hard as it could muster. Based on the fact its tiny little teeth couldn't break the skin, it wasn't all that hard, but it was enough to cause Daniel to recoil with a startled shriek befitting a true damsel.
"Ouch!" He cried, "what was that for?!"
"Cupcake...." Bobo sighed and shook his head as though he had said something wise and sagely. Gairovald was amused to note the little sprite had found a perch on his pile of books again.
"It is not nice to bite people!" Daniel scolded the mushroom, holding his finger as the gigastool appraised him critically while doing something odd with its mouth.
Did it have a tongue? Its movement reminded Gairovald of a young child experimenting with a new taste in their mouth. He would have to annotate that... after this bit with Daniel concluded that was. He could also have sworn the thing had grown just a hairs breadth....
"Hey, are you even paying attention?!" Daniel demanded as it started wandering back and forth in front of him, making a sniffing sound. "Hey! I'm talking to you- GAAAAAH!"
All at once, the mushroom pounced. With strength and agility Gairovald was sure it hadn't had only moments ago, the gigastool pantsed Dainel and started tugging at the boxers below, little teeth latched to the fabric. Gairovald could only stare on as the creature wrestled to steal Daniel's underpants, knocking him over in the process as Daniel fought valiantly to keep his privates covered all while his butt waved bare and free in the air for everyone to see. This went on for a few moments while Bobo, who was equally shocked by the sudden change of pace, stared on, slack jawed.
"DANIEL! CUPCAKE!" The sprite shrieked in alarm as he finally came to his senses and sprang into action.
Gairovald could only imagine what it must look like to everyone else seeing the torrent of cupcakes Bobo began throwing in volleys at Daniel and the mushroom. Unlike him, it would appear to everyone else that those cupcakes were appearing out of thin air.
"No Bobo!" Daniel wailed as his butt was pelted with cupcakes, "Stop it! You're just making it worse!"
A few bounced off the Gigastool, which had grown from it's ankle biter size to at least the height of Daniel's knees within the duration of this exchange, before it realized it was being assaulted. Leaving Daniel's underpants, it investigated the cupcakes that had fallen across the ground around it, then as quickly as it had attacked Daniel, it started gathering the cupcakes.
Worried at its growth, Gairovald took its momentary distraction as an opportunity to cast a charm that would prevent it from growing any larger than it already had. It was a temporary measure and he'd need a more permanent solution, but he had every confidence there would be another opportunity to deal with it properly in the near future. There was to be another patrol that night for one thing, and he was fairly confident that Del would likely bring it with her, especially after finding out about the scene it had caused in her absence.
"Did... that... just... happen?!" Jericho wondered as the gigastool finished scooping up cupcakes and proceeded stuffing them into its mouth as it ran past Daniel and up the stairs, steering clear of the wall it had been hitting for so long with ease.
"Why?!" Daniel exclaimed, half laughing and half crying over the ridiculous experience. "Why does this always happen to me?!"
Gairovald could only laugh as he walked over to help his hapless friend back up to his feet.
"I told you so," He stated with a smirk.