Awaiting Vell's return from Stone, the Buckle crew and a few new faces get to work. One hundred and fifty thousand True later they have a month's supply of grains for the soup kitchen and Buckle, and an intermediate plan...mushrooms.
Glitch, Ty's student - it makes the bard smile to hear that, although he does not pester the pale elf for news of his son no matter how much he wishes to - is to find edible mushrooms and spores for seeding. Kat is on poo patrol with Charlie, getting what manure they can for growing. Gala makes a visit and agrees to discuss import of foods from the deep gnomes of Beryl. The bard hopes she can bring back spores as well, for the Deep mushrooms grow much larger than those on the surface. Melody heads out to find more on growing mushrooms as well, in case Vell doesn't make it back and to supplement whatever the elf might find.
Andrew and Elly start prepping the storage room. It's large enough to hold layers of growing areas, and they fashion trays and gather branches to spore. The elf wizardess uses magic to adjust the temperature while the bard uses old-fashioned water buckets to introduce humidity, and the room itself is windowless and below ground and has no other mushrooms growing in it. Glitch mentions that other fungus can be a problem, but hopefully they'll know more when Vell and Melody obtain what information they can. Michael and Edward along with the stable boy are put to work compiling compost, for the Buckle itself is a great producer of wastes.
And he prays they return soon. They have a month to get the mushrooms growing, and the soup kitchen - a lifeline to some of the much fewer people still in the city - folds.
No pressure.