Upon a lonely, windswept moor, the grey wolf incubus
sniffed the air and turned to his brother.  "They're here, Izak..
I can smell them.  A very good selection, too!  Let's go."

At once, Jakob and Izak began to remove the items from their
heavy backpacks.  A tripod, microphone and a pair of headphones,
which Izak fitted snugly upon his head.  Delicately, they took out
two silver machines, jewel-like in their design, and milled from
solid blocks of aluminium.

The first, an antique Ampex VPR-5, lovingly rebuilt at the SAIA
technology department only a month before, and recalibrated by
Jakob himself that very morning.  The second, a Nagra 4.2 loaded
up and ready to roll.  The Nagra was used to record the soundtrack
at a higher quality than the linear soundtrack on C-format tape
would allow, although it made editing a little more complex.

Finally, Izak removed the ancient vidicon camera, and began
connecting the equipment together.  His sensitive nose wrinkled
in disgust as Jakob broke the seal on a fresh reel of Jycorp 196,
but Jakob breathed in the scent, and invigorated, began to lace
the videotape upon the recorder.

"This morning we are coming to you from the hills of Crow Valley,
 where, as the year begins to draw to a close, we can find among
 the damp leaves, some of the world's most appalling fungi.

"Here on this branch, for example," Jakob continued, "is the rare,
 worm-eating slime mold, which is actually capable of moving around
 and devouring prey.

"Over there, and I dare not get too close, is the fearsome
 death-cap mushroom, which, if consumed, kills within hours.
 Indeed, the toxin is so poisonous that it can cause sickness
 at a range of up to six feet."  As he spoke, Izak zoomed the
 camera in upon an otherwise unremarkable-looking white toadstool.

"Even worse than the death-cap is the giant Doom puffball.
 If disturbed, it will explode, which can result in serious
 injury."  Jakob picked up a small pebble and threw it at one
 of the round, white blobs for effect.  The blast knocked
 him flat and left a green smudge on the vidicon tube.  Izak
 turned off the camera for about five minutes, giving the smear
 time to fade, and Jakob time to recover and unruffle his
 feathers.  They would also have to remove some choice swearing
 back in the editing suite.

 With the tape rolling once again, Jakob paused to sniff the air,
 and promptly donned a pair of night-vision goggles.  Having
 caught this spectacle on tape, Izak put on what appeared to be
 a VR helmet, simultaneously plugging it into the recorder's
 monitor line using his wing-tentacles.

"Now this fungus," Jakob added by way of explanation, "is so
 deadly, that we cannot even look at it directly."  As he spoke,
 he searched through the heather until he came across an
 oddly-shaped rock, which he picked up and held before him.
 As the camera zoomed in, it became clear that the rock was in
 the shape of a large brown rat.

"We are looking for the Reaper mushroom, which occurs only
 in Crow Valley.  It is so deadly that if you so much as
 glance at the mushroom's gills while the moon is visible in
 the sky, it will immediately turn you to stone, as this poor
 rat has discovered the hard way.  You can usually locate them
 from the stone corpses found nearby.

 It is a truly remarkable, and very, very appalling fungus."

 So saying, Jakob strode towards a large stream.  Izak kept
 the camera steady upon him.  Removing the goggles, Jakob
 stared intently at the water, and then, with a flash of his
 wing-tentacles and a spray of water, brought out a small fish.
 Replacing the goggles, he returned to the spot where he had
 found the rat.  Banishing his tentacles, lest their heads
 also look upon it, he cleared back the heather so that Izak
 could get a good picture of the deadly thing.

 Jakob placed the writhing fish upon the ground under the large
 mushroom, whereupon it immediately became grey and stopped
 flopping around.

"Isn't that appalling?  Now, if we look over here.. yes..
 the grey radshroom.  These are usually found very close to
 the Reaper mushroom." Izak handed Jakob a small Geiger-muller
 counter.  As he held it over the fish, it began clicking
 furiously.

"As you can see, the fish, having been transmuted into stone,
 is now highly radioactive.  But the radshroom absorbs the
 radioactivity for food, like so.."  With a stick, Jakob moved
 the fish closer to the grey mushroom.  As he did so, the
 Geiger counter began to ease off, and the mushroom slowly began
 to change colour from grey to green.  Taking the stone fish,
 Jakob snapped it in two, revealing the now-calcified internal
 organs.

 Once they had sufficient footage of the Reaper mushroom and its
 hideous effects, Jakob and Izak moved the camera rig bodily to
 the bank of the stream where Jakob had caught the fish.
 Checking everything was still in order, they removed their
 goggles and began recording once more.

"Finally, we will be looking at something slightly less appalling,
 the Crow Valley song-algae.  Here you can see the algae, on the
 bark of this fallen tree.  Notice that it grows in distinct
 clumps.

 Now, the fascinating thing about this algae, is that if it is
 struck, it will emit a sound.  Each clump will emit a different
 tone, depending on its age and species.  By finding a log with
 a variety of different algae, it is possible to play songs on it.
 Izak?" 

 Izak came back from behind the camera tripod, to be relieved by
 Jakob, who donned the headphones and took over recording duty.
 On seeing Jakob's signal, Izak strode into the centre of the
 stream, and suddenly exploded into a hedgehog of arms and
 tentacles, each clutching a small rock taken from the bottom
 of the stream.
 Izak then stood before the log, and poked each section of the
 algae in turn, causing it to squeak.  Then, with a sly grin,
 he began frantically bashing at the log with all his arms
 and tentacles, capturing the sound of 'Greensleeves' on the
 microphone.

 This done, he handed the mic back to his brother, who stood
 once more before the camera to record his farewell.

"Next week, we are hoping to have an interview with the
 legendary Crow Valley panther.  From Jakob and Izak, good day."

 The two of them sat down, and using the spare set of headphones
 and a portable monitor, played back the entire tape to check it.
 Satisfied, the pair of them packed all their equipment into
 their backpacks once again, and began the long, slow journey home.
 
	(C) Joseph P Morris, 1/11/05