The Alchemist (4)

"We don't know," Lucius replied reluctantly. At this point, it would just be insulting for him to deny it.

"How do we check?" the shroom asked, walking away from Pagan towards Lucius.

"You aren't part of my commune yet, so I have no reason to even attempt it," Lucius explained, walking to retrieve his knife from the arachnid corpse.

"We should get moving, we're burning sunlight," he said after, as he cleaned his knife on a nearby leaf.

"If you attempt it now, I'll join your commune right here," the shroom insisted.

"What happened to getting the Shri'kilian?" Lucius asked, turning to look at the shroom.

"It's a requirement for gaining the trust of the others. I doubt you'd want to advertise your commune as being free tickets to gaining stronger bodies," the shroom replied.

"Right, but I'm still not going to do it," Lucius said after some thought.

"What? Why?"