as overheard by a mildly reliable toadstool and recorded by Scriblet the Gnome

It was a night spun in cobalt silk, where the stars didn’t twinkle so much as swirl—spinning secrets into the sky like a tipsy owl on a celestial pottery wheel.

Down at the edge of the Hollow’s glimmerpond, Croaker sat on his favorite lilypad, legs splayed, belly full, and sense of restraint evaporated with the last firefly he belched out ten minutes prior.

Above him, the sky pulsed with light: yellows smeared into spirals, indigos tangled like lazy lightning. But Croaker wasn’t looking up.

No, he was fixated on a mushroom.

Not just any mushroom, mind you, but a radiant, whistling, slightly levitating Psilognome Shimmercap—rare, potentially sentient, and known to cause temporary enlightenment or irreparable confusion depending on humidity.

It buzzed.

He blinked.

It buzzed again.

He stuck out his tongue.

“Croaker…” came the flat, papery voice of Scriblet, perched nearby on a rock shaped suspiciously like a worried badger. “Do not lick that mushroom.”

But the deed was already done.

With a wet fwhip! and a contented gulp, Croaker was no longer of the Hollow.

He was of the Everything.

He leapt through constellations. He conversed with gravity. He tried to sit on the moon, but found it too opinionated. Somewhere in his mind, he became the lilypad, then the water, then a sentient droplet who questioned why frogs even exist.

Back on the shore, Scriblet sighed with a sort of ancient irritation reserved only for gnomes and primary school librarians.

“Well,” he muttered, adjusting his glasses, “there goes moderation for the week.”

And so the tale was scribbled into the annals of the Hollow, a warning to the curious and impulsive alike:

Beware the shimmering cap, for its melody is not meant for amphibian ears.
And always, always, ask yourself:
“Would Scriblet approve of this?”

He rarely does.