---

It’s been two long weeks under quarantine, with healers tirelessly mixing salves and Mycenians who have succumbed to the curse doggedly spreading it to anyone within grasp. Each morning, eyes turn hopefully to the cavern’s entrance—carefully barricaded to avoid any of the curse slipping through to the Cave at large—only to sweep back to the task at hand moments later. Still no sign of the scouting party. Still no word of any incoming help.

Things have become quite dire in the meantime. Steadily, the curse is spreading. Only a few healers remain, and morale is low. How will they ever create enough salves to turn the tide in their favor? Especially when, as careful as they are, each trip out to gather supplies ends in at least one more infliction; one less set of paws to work towards the light.

But then something changes. Tucked behind a large statue, the healers find a grove of little brown mushrooms. Faces dirty and swaying from lack of sleep, they press on, creating a new upsurge of salves and sending healers out to cure the masses. At first, the shift is slow, imperceptible… but with each new trip, more and more Mycenians feel the warmth returning to their bones, the weight lifting from their lungs. The ranks of the healers begin to swell, and finally, finally real hope blossoms.

It’s just the boost in morale needed. With renewed vitality and a larger population of healers, they spread out in search of the moss and gravewater necessary to cure the more stubborn infections.

By the time Bruc and Jessamyn finally return from their journey, it is to a cave revitalized, the Stonecurse nearly eradicated. The Mycenians are tired but in high spirits, ready to leave this chapter of the Cave’s history behind. Jessamyn prepares the spell. Bruc collects the necessary components. Together, they incant—and a bright, glowing light spreads throughout the cavern.

As the light washes over them, the last stony scales crumble away from the remaining Inflicted, showering the ground with a fine dust. Groans of confusion; gasps of concern echo throughout the chamber as Mycenians quickly rush to each other’s sides. ”I’m so sorry!” “Did I hurt you?” “I don’t know what came over me!” “Thank the Sorceress you’re okay!”

The Stoneskin Curse has been quelled, and all those who suffered under its affliction seem tired, but unharmed. One by one, pair by pair, Mycenians make their way out of the cavern and into the winding tunnels of the Cave beyond. And at the entrance, Bruc greets each of them with a stiff nod and presses a small memento into their paws.

---

“Found these growing throughout the cavern.” Bruc explains, holding one of the gloomy looking mushrooms between two claws. “They were infected, too, I think. But, it seems our spell has cured them, as well. Still, they’ve got a potent magic to them. May leave you feeling a little washed out if you eat them—but they’re not dangerous. At least, not anymore.”

In addition to a sticker, everyone who participated in this event will receive a Gloomshroom! This mushroom, when fed to a Mycenian, causes a desaturation effect much like that seen on the cursed individuals during the event. Similar to the Driftshroom, you will be able to ‘gloom’ your Mycenian each day, and may return them to normal again whenever you like.

The driftshroom and gloomshroom management has been moved to under the “Manage” page of the pet rather than having it directly on the pet’s page.  We did this to reduce clutter on the pet’s page and to prevent accidental drifting/glooming once a player is happy with their pet’s new hue/saturation.

Gloomshrooms are also available through crafting, much like their Driftshroom cousin.

The event prize shop will remain open until the end of the day on November 30th. After that point, all unspent points will first be automatically converted into whatever Talisman(s) they can afford, and the remainder will be converted into nuggets at a 100 nugget/point rate.

Our event feedback form is now live, and will remain open until the end of the day on November 30th. There were a ton of new mechanics for this event, so please do stop by to give us some feedback if you have time.

For every 20 survey submissions we receive, we will be raffling off 1 random prize shop item from the event! In order to be eligible for the raffle, please be sure to include your username on your survey form. Of course, you are more than welcome to remain anonymous if that is your preference.

godspeed warrior

Do we know how the stoneskin item will be distributed yet?

For your consideration, I saved the notification every time the robot/autobalancer swatted me

edit: Any chance we could see the “alt text” for the other ending? Or was it predetermined that good would prvails? (oops, after I type the question out the answer seems obvious..)

we were actually certain the cursed would win, so that’s the only ending we had written up.. and then we frantically had to write a healer ending. Here is the alt. ending text:

It’s been two long weeks under quarantine, with healers tirelessly mixing salves and Mycenians who have succumbed to the curse doggedly spreading it to anyone within grasp. Each morning, eyes turn hopefully to the cavern’s entrance—carefully barricaded to avoid any of the curse slipping through to the Cave at large—only to sweep back to the task at hand moments later. Still no sign of the scouting party. Still no word of any incoming help.

Things have become quite dire in the meantime. Steadily, the curse is spreading. Only a few healers remain, and morale is low. How will they ever create enough salves to turn the tide in their favor? Especially when, as careful as they are, each trip out to gather supplies ends in at least one more infliction; one less set of paws to work towards the light.

Soon enough, the last healer succumbs. Through no fault of their own, of course—they were careful about checking their surroundings for any sign of danger; quiet as possible when they bent down to pluck the little brown mushrooms from the earth. But the Cursed are everywhere, and it was bound to happen.

And, for a while, the cavern is left in silence, with only the faint sound of shifting stones occasionally floating through the air.

When the barricade comes down some time later, it is Bruc and Jessamyn standing among the settling dust. They assess the situation; have a brief, hushed conversation; split ways and head into the quarantine zone. Jessamyn prepares the spell. Bruc collects the necessary components. Together, they incant—and a bright, glowing light spreads throughout the cavern.

As the light washes over them, the stony scales crumble away from the Inflicted, showering the ground with a fine dust. Groans of confusion; gasps of concern echo throughout the chamber as Mycenians quickly rush to each other’s sides. ”I’m so sorry!” “Did I hurt you?” “I don’t know what came over me!” “Thank the Sorceress you’re okay!”

The Stoneskin Curse has been quelled, and all those who suffered under its affliction seem tired, but unharmed. One by one, pair by pair, Mycenians make their way out of the cavern and into the winding tunnels of the Cave beyond. And at the entrance, Bruc greets each of them with a stiff nod and presses a small memento into their paws.

Edit because I missed the question: Ishy and Sapphy We will be putting that into the regular shops next week!

Ooh, does the gloomshroom have different levels of desaturation like how driftshroom has different hues it slides on?

Kippie It’ll desaturate a pet somewhere between 1% - 100% desaturation, and you can try for a new level of desaturation once per day like the driftshroom!

Myla EEEXCELLENT…. I now have another nugget sink, as if I wasn’t already perpetually poor lmao. Could other ways to find tealies and pondshrooms be put on the table for consideration? The levels of customizability and characterization from drifting and now desaturating are alluring and it would be really fun to have slightly easier projects to chip at between events.

EDIT: ALSO may we please see the fullsizes of the event pets? c:

Ooh I was right about Mr Gloomy shroomy! Glad they’ll be available thru crafting, I can see these being a lot of fun.

Feedback submitted!

And LOL thanks for sharing the other ending. xD No matter what though, I’m glad everyone in the cave is ok~

Myla Does that mean the stoneskin item will have the three stages as toggle options?

Kippie Yeah! I can discuss that with staff and see if we can include it some other stuff.

Lala It’s actually the most toggley and complex item on site. Not only does it have toggles for the different levels (you can have just stage one, stage two, stage three, or all stages, or some, or mix and match, etc.) , but also for the different body parts (head, body, tail, arm). It took forever to make and upload, but it’s super customizable because of that!

Myla <3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333!!!!!!!!!

Well, I guess I don’t need as many gloomshrooms as I thought then :O

Do drifties and gloomshrooms stack? Do you manage/proc them separately?

Jacq yes and yes Briar my avatar is currently both.

Oh! There’s something interesting I’m noticing about geness images.

I think gloomshroomed pets (whether they are visibly desaturated or not) are currently breaking them. XD

Like this or this one.

Edit: Looks like we’re all good now! (owo)b

Jacq and for anyone else interested, the new interface now looks like this:

As you can see, drifty items are still drifty, and not affected by the gloomshroom. The regular site items are also not affected by the gloomshroom.

Edit: I will add two notes though.
Briar & Aucos’ geness image is also broken.

YOU CANNOT “NORMAL” SATURATION OR DRIFT WITHOUT UNCHECKING THE OTHER BOX, AND THAT MEANS YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GO BACK TO A SATURATION OR DRIFT FROM A PREVIOUS DAY!Lala

What do you mean? The two are entirely separate. Unchecking gloomshroom does not affect drift, and unchecking driftshroom does not affect gloom. You can undrift/redrift without removing gloom, and you can ungloom/regloom without removing drift.

glitch I just edited it to make it more clear, but uhm, like I said, this might have been an edge case.

So what the problem is, is that the “drift” I had on Briar is something I really liked, but it was from like quite possibly a month ago or more.

So unchecking “Gloom” would “serious gloom”—however, it leaves “Driftshroom (randomize hue)” which would…give me the hue of the day.

So yeah, this isn’t great as two options because keeping a drift or saturation is now an issue.

So, uh, now that we have two drifting mechanics on site, I was wondering if it’d be too much trouble to add a hue/saturation simulator on site? (Possible added to the Magic Puddle.)

I don’t consider this a high priority thing, but it’d do wonders for quality of life if we can preview different combinations of hue/saturation to site coats without having to download x number of images and a separate art program. :>

So unchecking “Gloom” would “serious gloom”—however, it leaves “Driftshroom (randomize hue)” which would…give me the hue of the day.Lala

No it does not. See the explanatory text immediately above the checkboxes:

To get today’s value, remove the effect then reapply.

glitch
So, just to clarify with Lala’s issue, a new hue/the hue of the day will not be generated unless the check is removed and reapplied? (As opposed to automatically being generated when just hitting apply without first removing the check?)

Edit: So under this new system, one must serious, before a new drift can be generated. As opposed to just hitting the drift button everyday?

Gloom shroom gonna destroy me… I’m so ready

Just weighing in to say that I find the explanatory text above the checkboxes confusing. I don’t really get what hitting “apply” will do with a box checked vs without it checked or how one would “serious” a pet as in the past. This doesn’t really matter to me as my one drift is a permadrift, but I feel like maybe it could be better explained.

the new drift mechanism is super confusing to me. i understand it now in this moment, but i will almost certainly mess it up in the future because it is not intuitive the way the button was.

press button —> get drift.

now it’s go onto page, box is checked already? UNcheck box. apply. REcheck box. apply AGAIN. the extremely brief instructions aren’t very clear, but the real problem is the process itself is not intuitive. strongly suggesting staff takes another look at this new mechanic.

as for the event… well, it really stings that i miss out on the new gloomshroom because i couldn’t participate in the event. if i’d known just pressing the activation button would win me a neat new prize, i would’ve done so and just ignored all the upsetting stuff… :/

this whole event, from the ‘work against others instead of with others’ premise, to the way the mechanics were handled (all the auto-rebalancing wasn’t fun, even as a spectator), to a full third of the points being considered “bonus”, to that final “oops you don’t get one!” of the gloomshroom… it’s all left a terrible taste in my mouth. really disappointing.

glitch okay I see what you mean now, but it literally says (randomize hue) after the part which is partly where the confusion is. Maybe “hue shift” and “saturation shift” would be better because it’s be less expecting someone to submit options for and cancel the result half the time and get the result the other?

Also on mobile so will edit but the post will not be pretty

Over all I had a lot of fun with this event! I thought the chaos was amusing and I liked watching the whole thing evil e into something more stable. It was kinda fascinating to me. Plus, it’s different than anything I’ve ever really seen on a pet site so I really liked that!

Also don’t participate don’t get a prize, I don’t think that’s a hard concept to understand.

glitch can you also check to see if my avatar is updating properly or if I’m doing something wrong? I just even re-saved it and it was showing desaturated serious hue but when I hit save it went back to desaturated drifted hue. It’s also might not be auto updating like it usually does?

Thanks for the new interface glitch~! ^^ (posting so anyone who’s curious can see)

Ohh! Glad to see the new interface! That makes so much more sense. Thanks glitch!

Remember that today is the last day to collect prizes, collect the gloomshroom, and fill out feedback!