It's funny, Barcus thinks. If you asked an outsider, a surface dweller with no real knowledge of gnomes or drow, they'd see the similarities between them rather than the years of conflict between their races. Just a couple boys from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. Makes sense that they'd be friends.

He laughs, nodding. "Say what you will about any Underdark race, we're all beholden to the mushroom in the end."

"I hadn't thought about that," he says as they cross the threshold into the garden, and his voice gets a little softer out of respect. "My older sister used to love to carve roses into her projects, even though she'd never seen a living one. If it's about growth...well, crystals show growth, too, but they take eons. Most of us don't have that kind of patience."