Mushrooms
Mushrooms are natural food shared by all four slime species.
Food shared by all
Mushrooms grow in the forest and in damp, shaded parts of the swamp. Aqua, Undead, Magma and Gloom can eat them directly; they are the only natural raw source all four species recognise as food without processing. Suitable prey is more rewarding for Magma, but a mushroom remains an available alternative.
Eat or carry
A hungry slime can use a mushroom where it grows. If it picks it up instead, the extracted nutrition becomes cargo and, once set down, a food parcel. The parcel no longer shows which mushroom or biome it came from; any colony member may carry, store and later eat it. The same site can therefore satisfy immediate hunger or strengthen a distant nest's stores.
After harvest
A collected mushroom is not replaced on the same spot at once. Damp time first builds growth potential separately for each suitable biome. When a shower ends, new groups may appear on free, reachable ground near trees, reeds or water lilies. Entrances, water and occupied places stay clear; full populations limit regrowth. An emptied site can remain bare for some time, then recover visibly with its surroundings.
Three Aqua shared a mushroom patch today. Two ate where they stood. The third disappeared between the trees with its find.
