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Golden Soil - Research into Unconventional Alchemy XXVII

Journal of Conrad Azohi - Day 1,302 after embarking

I have identified a second possible purpose for the mors-oil that coats the land of Atro so ubiquitously. We traveled to a village on the edge of the oasis a few days ago, and found a garden, filled with the vitae-rich clay that gives these gardens their verdancy, which bordered close enough to the barrier of oil that there was some cross contamination. What we found there was a surprisingly familiar sight.

Two years ago, I was trapped in a cave in a desert with an exiled alchemist, who had survived off of an elixir which he made from boiling a strange kind of mushroom. In that garden, I found more of that fungus, all growing off of a pile of soil that glittered gold. These fungal stalks had grown up almost over the side of the building the garden bordered.

The normal plants we find in these gardens were absent, but the fungus was flourishing. I recall my companion in that cave telling me that these fungi fed off of gold, mors, and vitae, but I had my doubts because compounds containing all three of these elements are rare in nature. However, here we find that, by mixing these two compounds, native to Atro, we get a perfect soil for this fungus.

My second theory for the purpose of the blighted land is that, perhaps, the people of this land intended to mix the oil with their vitae-gold clay, and create fungal fields. Perhaps something prevented them from adding the clay once the oil had been spread? Perhaps they intended to add the two compounds together after achieving some second goal that they never managed to achieve? I do not know, but the fact that the mixture makes such good soil for these fungi is too strange to be a coincidence.

In the next few pages, I detail pathways for the oil and the clay to combine into particles of this sandy soil.