"Okay, assume that I know what I'm doing." Wilona looked at the spot where a human's eyes would be on Fuzz's face. Seriously, what was this mushroom thinking when she grew her body and didn’t put features on it? Actually, maybe they should talk about that. "Why do you look like a doll?"

  "Why?" Fuzz looked at herself, head tilted, but she otherwise showed no other sign of her emotions. "I don't understand."

  "Like, you don't have any features? Duh?" Wilona gestured with her arms, moving them up and down to emphasize the myceloid's body. Most of it looked like rough tree bark, giving Wilona the impression that Fuzz was a doll overrun with mold.

  "Would it be better if I grew facial features?" Fuzz tilted her head even more—now she was outright uncanny. "Hair, uh, nails, and all the other things the human body commonly has?"

  "... No." Wilona wanted to correct her and say that she wanted Fuzz to grow a nose or maybe lips, not hair and nails, but she realized that Fuzz would look creepy no matter what she put on herself. "Maybe if you turn your body into a beautiful work of art?"

  "How do I do that?" Fuzz asked, crossing her arms. The myceloid sounded a tiny bit irritated, and Wilona decided to backtrack a bit.

  "I didn't mean to call you ugly." She totally did—Fuzz was hideous, but not in the human way. More like a starving wendigo. "But I was gonna say that your body needs some work."

  "So I'm ugly." Fuzz deadpanned. Wilona wanted to pinch the bridge of her nose. Seriously, isn't she a mushroom? Why is she being so self-conscious about this?

  "No?... More like, a diamond in the rough, maybe." Wilona lied through her teeth with the same confidence she had when talking about the different effects, scents, and comforts of various bath bombs. "Like, you're not ugly, that's obvious! You don't even have a face!" Not that it helped. "But, like, you still need to work on yourself, you know?"

  Fuzz sighed. "I'll see what I can do when I evolve even further," the myceloid answered, looking at her body. "I'm worried about it too, you know? About how I look."

  "Yeah, I totally feel you," Wilona nodded. "I wish there was, like, a makeup for mushrooms that could make you prettier when applied. Maybe we can make some? Runes can change the appearance of items too, right? We can put some illusions on you and see how that goes!"

  "Okay..." Fuzz nodded. For someone who liked to act tough, the myceloid was surprisingly self-conscious, huh? She felt more like Wilona’s friend than some monster of decay, honestly. "Hopefully, it works. I've never tried makeup before, but I know it can make people look different."

  "Eh... Not so much." Wilona shook her head. Like, it was true that makeup could make someone beautiful, but, like, that needed a lot of makeup if their face didn’t have the foundation for it. "No offense, but some people need more makeup than others."

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  "You mean me?" Fuzz pointed at herself.

  "No?" Wilona tilted her head. Why did she get metaphorically struck by that? Wilona closed her eyes—this mushroom was her friend now, so she needed to give her a pep talk. "Fuzz, you're not ugly. Okay? Believe me when I say that you just need to work on yourself."

  "I will." Fuzz trailed off. "Can we go back to runes now? I feel like we've gotten considerably sidetracked just now."

  "Oh yeah, the runes." Wilona shook her head. Talking to Fuzz like that felt way too familiar. It almost made her think she was back on Earth, arguing with her friends. "Assume that I know what I'm doing, right? How do I carve a star into this stick to turn it into a stave?"

  Yeah, she was making a wizard's staff. She had no particular reason to do it since she was kind of strong on her own, but a small boost to her power was always a good idea, especially since she now knew there were fantasy creatures out there who could kill her without even thinking about it.

  "You're asking about how big a constellation needs to be in order to be called a rune, right?" Fuzz asked. When Wilona nodded in confirmation, the myceloid explained how a rune worked. "First, runes are universal, and the power they contain isn’t connected to the size of the engraving at all. Runes can contain boundless power as long as they are made properly, crafted at the right time, and carved by a powerful enchanter. It’s like..."

  "A USB stick?" Wilona's words held no deeper meaning to the confused myceloid, but she seemed to recognize the runes, so Fuzz nodded. "Let's say that I am a powerful enchanter. That means I can make a rune with, like, 100 GBs worth of data in it?"

  All of that went over Fuzz's head. She decided to ask Wilona what she was talking about. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand a single lick of the terminology you just used."

  "Okay, so memories are finite, right? And I mean the ones we can remember in our brains." Fuzz nodded. She wasn’t sure where this was going. Memories were short-lived no matter what, weren’t they? "And not just memories for the day-to-day moments that people experience, but for learning a profession, spells, runes, that type of thing."

  "I think I'm starting to understand what you're saying." Fuzz's face strangely shifted—it was probably one of concentration. Wilona wasn’t sure, though.

  "Great!" Wilona clapped her hands in joy. "Let's say this book contains 100 MBs—a lesser version of a gigabyte, or GB—of data, and it has the meanings of runes or constellations written in its pages. Which are big. Runes are the same thing, even though they're smaller than the pages."

  "Yes, runes can contain the meanings of the constellations they are modeled after despite their size." Fuzz understood what Wilona meant now. "That is what I was trying to describe to you earlier, but I guess I should have used an example that made sense to you."

  "No, it's fine." Wilona shook her head. "I got there in the end, didn’t I?" She grinned heartily. "So runes can have an entire page's worth of information no matter their size?"

  "Yes. The only thing that needs to be considered is the power behind the enchanter's soul, the time of day, as well as whether or not the chosen planetary alignment is present at the time the runes are engraved."

  "Okay, I know that much..." Wilona fixed her gaze on the open pages of the rune book she owned. It showcased written examples and explanations for the various planetary alignments that could be used for runecraft.

  Wilona's eyes then moved over to her cloak. She eyed the interior of the enchanted item and hummed. "I don't see anything in this thing, not even runes."

  "You can check the stitches?" Fuzz suggested. Runecraft wasn’t just limited to carving, after all. More reliably, it was better to be called an art form where a person literally drew the power of the stars. "More advanced seamstresses use magical stitches while sewing to make enchanted clothing."

  "Magical stitches, huh?" Wilona muttered. "I didn't know those things existed."

  "You do now." Fuzz smiled. "Well, have you found the runework for the cloak?"

  "Sort of." Wilona pulled it open and revealed it to the myceloid. On the cloak's inner lining were lines upon lines of stitches that were both pleasing to look at and confusing in their complexity. "This one’s not even using planetary alignments to boost its effects."

  "Well, it is a lesser magic item," Fuzz pointed out. "Those usually don't have that. Actually, most people know that an enchanted item is high quality because of the planetary alignment drawn alongside the regular runes, so high-level enchanters ensure that the quality of their work isn't stained by some upstart wanting to add cool boosts to their own items by refusing to teach their apprentices proper combinations unless they have become experts."

  "That makes sense." Wilona nodded. "But, like, don't I have a book that describes planetary alignment? What's that about?"

  "It's most likely high quality, just like how your cloak and ring are on the far end of novice work," Fuzz answered. "You can bring it to a noble and ask them about it once you meet one. Maybe even a merchant? I'm sure some of those pass around here since there's a prairie next to the swamp."

  Wilona paused in her carving of the stave. "Merchants pass through here?"

  "Yes?" Fuzz asked in return. Did Wilona seriously not know this?