Chapter 2 – Mushroom Metropolis

What. The. Hell.

His little body began to tremble, overwhelmed by impressions and feelings he couldn’t categorize. Jacob tried to think clearly, but his brain refused to process the situation.

Okay, let’s summarize this. I just drowned. Then… nothing? And now I’m a toddler in the city of glowing mushrooms. With… purple mushroom… people? Sure. Perfectly normal. Everyday situation. Happens in the best families.

He looked at his tiny hands. They were violet.

Oh.

The tall figure who had called out to him bent down to him and lifted him up. Automatically, his tiny hands clutched at the soft fabric of her robe. A melodic voice murmured something in a completely incomprehensible language, but the worried, then relieved tone was unmistakable. She repeated one word over and over again. “Shaelith.”

Okay, so apparently that’s my name… I think. And the purple lady is… my mother? At least it kind of feels that way.

She pressed him against her and he got a better look at her face. She was beautiful. More beautiful than anything he’d ever seen. Holy…

Her eyes were the color of amethysts, a sparkling pink, and seemed intelligent. And she had elf ears. He immediately reached for his own ears. Yup. Pointed as well.

The pointed elf ears of his… mother, were adorned with delicate silver chains that rang softly with every movement. But most impressive of all was her hairstyle. Dozens of complex braids interwoven with glowing mushroom threads and tiny crystals that looked like a glittering starry sky.

She carried him to the railing and pointed down, whispering something in his ear.

Whatever that means. “This will all be yours someday, Simba.” Or something like that.

Jacob’s toddler eyes widened. The mushroom city stretched into the depths like a bioluminescent Manhattan. Giant mushroom hats formed terraces and platforms, connected by shimmering bridges of what looked like living mycelium. Smaller, glowing mushrooms lined winding paths like streetlights. He only now realized that they were actually underground.

Welcome to Lower Mushroomhattan.

The other purple figures bowed deeply as his new mother carried him through high archways back inside the mushroom palace. Okay, VIP treatment. Could be worse.

She carried him through winding corridors whose walls were covered with phosphorescent mushrooms. Smaller mushrooms grew in geometric patterns from the floor and walls, as if they had been arranged by a particularly psychedelic or maybe even psychotic gardener. Mario would be envious.

They entered a large circular room whose ceiling glittered like a starry sky made of tiny, glowing blue mushrooms. There were strange toys everywhere. Crystals that hummed gently, tiny mushroom figures that seemed to dance, and what looked like a mobile made of living mycelium.

The “mother” laid him gently on a kind of changing table. The surface was soft and warm, as if it were alive. Another purple elf with a much less elaborate hairstyle approached to change him.

And when she did that, Jacob made a discovery that threw him completely off course.

Oh.

OH.

He was obviously not just an elven baby now.

He was a female elven baby.

It hit him like a blow. Suddenly everything became too much. Death, his death, damn it. The burning in his lungs. The cold water. Ben’s panicked look. The darkness. And now… this? A strange world. A completely foreign body.

His thoughts raced.

What the hell is happening here? Am I dead? Is this death? Is this some kind of cosmic joke? Have I been reincarnated and they forgot to reset my memory? Couldn’t it at least have been a male elf?

His adult consciousness struggled with the overwhelming feelings of a toddler’s body. It was as if two different operating systems were trying to run on the same hardware.

The tears came of their own accord. Big, hot tears that rolled down purple baby cheeks. The servant murmured something soothing in that strange, melodic language. She picked him up and cradled him gently.

Pull yourself together. You are alive. Somehow. That’s more than you had ten minutes ago. But his body, this tiny, alien body, had other ideas. The sobs grew stronger.

His “mother” came back and took him in her arms. Her robe smelled of something sweet and strange and she hummed a melody that calmed his troubled mind.

OK. OK. One problem after another. First of all… breathe.

The crying fit slowly subsided. The purple elves around him, alle women he realized now, seemed to find his behavior completely normal. Of course they did. To them, he was just a toddler. Probably cried five times every day.

At least I don’t have to come up with excuses for emotional breakdowns. Babies are allowed to cry. Probably the only advantage of the situation.

~

The next few days, or maybe even weeks, passed in fast motion. It was actually a bit difficult to tell, because down there in the mushroom metropolis there was neither sun nor moon, but instead everything was illuminated by these glowing mushrooms. In fact, he wasn’t even sure if there was a sun or a moon in this world.

Jacob, or Shaelith, as the violet elven ladies here called him, tried his best to make sense of this bizarre new reality.

Language was the first step. He feverishly tried to memorize everything and to make connections. If only I had a pen and paper.

But it had to work somehow. He was making slow but steady progress. “Myzele” apparently meant “mushroom.” That was a handy word, since literally everything here was made of mushrooms. “Shaera” seemed to mean “dark.” “Maerla” meant mother. Or so he thought, until he found out that everyone here called his mother “Maerla”. Maybe it was her name? Or a title?

One problem was that it felt like his adult cognitive abilities were stuck in a toddler’s body, which was like trying to run Windows 11 on a Commodore 64. But at least he had time. A lot of time.

In any case, there were very clear hierarchies. His “mother” was at the top. All the other elves showed her an almost religious reverence. Her hairstyle was the most complex, her crystal ornaments the most elaborate.

The servants wore simpler hairstyles, but even these followed a complicated system of ranks. Like Ally Chen and her ladies-in-waiting, only with… oh, probably a thousand years more cultural sophistication.

And probably less drama surrounding the Homecoming King. But while we’re on the subject… where are the men?

He had only seen women so far. Not a single male elf yet. That had to mean something.

His motor control slowly improved. After what felt like a month, he was at least able to reach for things in a reasonably targeted way.

“Shaelith,” his mother sang as she picked him up. More melodic babbling that he still didn’t understand.

He cuddled up to her. Partly because his toddler body wanted to, partly because it was strategically smart to show affection. She was good to cuddle with. And she smelled so good. The mother smiled and her amethyst eyes sparkled.

As she laid him back in the crib, his gaze fell upwards to the mushroomy starry ceiling. Bedtime again. Goodness, how much longer would he have to put up with this? Maybe elves are already fully grown at two years old… hopefully?

As he stared at the glowing mushroom ceiling, rolling his eyes in annoyance and waiting until he fell asleep from sheer boredom, suddenly something happened. A kind of floating interface, like in a video game. It was semi-transparent and hovered right in his field of vision, but only when he looked up at a certain angle.

That’s great. Now I’m going crazy too.

He blinked, but the interface remained. It showed a short list with the heading: Traits.

[Exceptional Beauty]

[Daughter of the Matriarch]

What the-

He turned his head to the side. The interface disappeared. Back again and there it was. Okay. Either this is a very specific form of nightmare, or-

The realization hit him like a blow. He’d ended up in one of those damned isekai manga. Those stupid stories Ben always read where some guy was transported into a fantasy world with an RPG system. And of course – OF COURSE – it had to be a gender bender isekai of all things.

Ben would love this, he thought wistfully. His personal fantasy. Being reborn in a magical world.

Wait a minute. Ben. What had actually happened to Ben? Had he ended up here somewhere too? Or was he just dead? He shuddered at the thought. They had drowned together. But only he had woken up here. With a game interface and everything.

Sorry, Ben. I really tried to save you.

He stared upwards again. [Exceptional Beauty]. That wasn’t good. From being “average” on Earth to “exceptionally beautiful” in the mushroom world. And female. And purple. That would definitely draw attention to him. Yikes.

He tried to touch the interface with his tiny hands, but they just went right through it. Looked like it was purely visual. Like a head-up display.

Great. An RPG where I can’t even get into the menu. Fuck.

~

His “mother” carried him through other corridors of the Mushroom Palace. There seemed to be some kind of festivity going on today. Small groups of violet elves were standing together everywhere, drinking from crystal goblets and chatting in melodic song.

Finally something new. If I have to spend another day in this crib, I’ll go mad.

For the first time, he also saw male elves. They were quite different. Beautiful, no question, but their posture, their clothes, the way they moved, everything seemed somehow decorative. Like they were living works of art. They reminded him of peacocks. The female elves, on the other hand, radiated a natural authority.

A particularly attractive male elf stood in the center of a group. He wore an airy robe of shimmering fabric that showed more than it hid. The women around him touched his shoulders and arms. One stroked a strand of hair from his face. Another, laughing softly, shamelessly reached between his legs and weighed him up.

Okay, that’s, uh, interesting. Definitely different social norms than on Earth.

A new group entered the hall. The women’s hairstyles were different. They had different patterns, different ornaments, plaits braided in different places of the head. One of those women had a hairstyle almost as complex as the one his “mother” had.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute! They don’t belong to us. The women who are with us all have this braid right behind their ears. Ha, that’s it! They’re from another clan or something.

His “mother” greeted the new arrivals with lots of ceremonial back and forth as it seemed. Then the attractive male elf was led to the front. Was this some kind of presentation?

Oh. OH. This is a dating agency. Or maybe an auction for boytoys?

The women began to negotiate while the man stood there like a statue. He smiled, but his eyes looked distant, as if he was a little bored.

His tiny hands clawed into the soft robe of his… mother. Yes, his mother. [Daughter of the Matriarch]. The interface label suddenly took on a whole new meaning. Maerla. That didn’t mean mother, it meant Matriarch, or maybe both, he wasn’t sure yet. And his mother was obviously the boss of the show here. And he was her daughter.

Oh no. I’m a little princess.

~

A servant put him back in the crib as the glimmer of the mushroom ceiling slowly began to fade, which was the way he could tell it was supposed to be “night” here. She began to hum a strange melody. Something about the melody caught him completely off guard. It was so strange and yet so comforting, as if it touched his soul directly.

Pull yourself together. Just because you’re a purple elf princess now doesn’t mean you have to cry at every lullaby.

But the tears came anyway.

And why wouldn’t they? This was real. This was no dream, no hallucination of a dying brain. He had really landed in another world. In a different body. He was someone else now.

He stared upwards again, making the interface appear.

 [Exceptional Beauty]

 [Daughter of the Matriarch]

This was his life now.

The memory of the lake flashed back to him and he could feel the water in his lungs again and saw Ben’s panicked face as he clung to him. His ridiculous attempt to save him.

But the melodic voice of the servant calmed him, made him sleepy, and managed to lull him to sleep. His eyes fell shut. She stroked his head gently. And the baby that had once been Jacob Williams finally fell asleep.

For a while anyway. He woke up again soon after, when he heard a footstep. Someone was there.

He opened his eyes. There was nothing more but a dim violet light now and the mushrooms on the ceiling pulsed faintly. A silent shadow slipped through the archway.

Male, slim, in dark robes. His hair was tied back, without the elaborate adornments he’d seen on everyone else. It was a practical hairstyle. Something metallic glinted in his hand, a long, thin and razor-sharp hairpin.

Shit! That’s a knife! It’s a fucking knife!

In a split second, Jacob cataloged the situation. This was no servant or visitor, this was an intruder. A man! An assassin! And he was the target.

They want to kill me. Seriously? I’m a goddamn baby, what could I possibly have done?

The man moved towards the crib and his face was an expressionless mask. He raised the blade.

Jacob had exactly one advantage. No one expected a baby to recognize danger. His toddler body may have had little strength, but he had full control over one thing. His voice.

He took a deep breath and then produced a cry that had nothing to do with normal baby crying. It was a piercing, panicked death scream. It was pure, adult agony from the throat of a toddler, completely unnatural and disturbing.

The assassin froze. His eyes widened in confusion and his cold-bloodedness wavered for just a tiny moment.

But that moment was enough.

Three of the caretakers rushed in with startled faces and glowing symbols appeared on their skin. Jacob saw weird glyphs suddenly light up on their arms and faces, pulsing in the semi-darkness.

Okay, they’re definitely not just babysitters.

The assassin glanced backwards and then threw himself onto the crib, blade flashing in the faint light, but too late. One of the women moved her hands in a fluid gesture and the air around the man seemed to freeze.

His movements became slower, as if he were wading through syrup. His eyes widened in sudden realization that he had no chance.

“Rynalazel!” The melodic voice of his mother filled the room as she rushed through the door. At the word, which might have been a name or an order, the expressions on the three women’s faces turned from surprise to cold fury.

The three women coordinated their hand movements in a flowing choreography. The glyphs on their bodies glowed more intensely, and shimmering threads of mycelium shot from the ground, the walls, the ceiling, wrapping themselves around the frozen man. He opened his mouth to scream as the threads dug into his skin, but the threads immediately entered his mouth.

His mother stepped forward and spoke a single word to the assassin. The threads of mycelium pulsed once, twice, then they began to multiply. They penetrated through his skin, under his clothes, wrapped themselves around his limbs.

The man began to twitch as the hyphae penetrated deeper and his eyes widened in what looked like excruciating pain. Jacob watched in fascination and horror as the fungal threads crept through every orifice of the man’s body. Small mushrooms sprouted through his skin from the inside.

In less than a minute, the man was no longer recognizable. Where he had been standing, a dense tangle of mushrooms was now growing, whitish at first but then turning increasingly blood-red. A soft, choked sound came from inside the web. Then there was only silence.

Jacob suddenly felt freezing cold.

Okay. Wow. These purple elves are definitely not as chill as they look.