Fungal infections/Guide
This guide will explain a variety of considerations and methods that can be used to gain or cure fungal infections.
Becoming Infected
In some cases, you may wish to obtain specific infections, and perhaps even to infect specific body parts. Doing so is possible, but requires some preparation and patience.
First, make note in your journal of any fungal zone that you find. This allows you to easily return to the area later when you're ready to get started. You'll typically encounter a few fungal zones during normal gameplay, but you can also simply wander around on surface zones to try and find one. Second, obtain a copy of the Corpus Choliys, which contains the randomly generated recipe for a fungal cure in your world. It may also be a good idea to gather the cure ingredients ahead of time - particularly if the cure requires a rare corpse (refer to the corpse table on the fungal infections page for more detail).
When you're ready to infect yourself:
- Enter a fungus zone that is home to
brooding puffs. - Become infected by entering the puff's spores. Make sure to note the color of the puff and its spores (both will be the same color).
- After confirming that you've gained the itchy skin effect, wait 2-3 days nearby, and see what infection you get.
- If you got a different infection than you wanted, cure the infection and try again with a different-colored brooding puff. Repeat this process until you find the infection(s) you are looking for.
- To get infections on specific body parts, you can simply infect your entire body with the type of infection you desire, and then cure each body part that you don't want the infection to remain on. Refer to the #Curing Only Specific Body Parts section below.
Curing Fungal Infections
The 
Corpus Choliys contains the cure to fungal infections. You must find the book in game and read it to learn what is required of you to cure a fungal disease.
The fungal infection cure recipe will be randomized but will always have the same general structure:
- Eat a raw corpse of a specific worm-like creature.
- Then, spray a mixture of
gel and one other random liquid onto the infection.
Refer to the fungal infections page for more detail about the specific corpses and liquids involved.
Eating the Corpse
To initiate the cure, the player must eat the raw corpse of a worm-like creature.
Non-carnivorous creatures will need to wait until they are famished before they will be able to stomach the thought of eating the raw corpse.
When the correct corpse for the cure is eaten while the player has a fungal infection, the player will see a pop-up with the following message:
You feel a little queasy. |
At this point, the player has 100 turns to apply the cure to their fungal infection(s).
After those 100 turns have passed, the player will see the following pop-up and will have to consume another corpse to perform any further cures:
The queasiness passes. |
Preparing the Liquid
The cure requires a 1:1 mixture of gel and another randomly chosen liquids:
The mixture must be put into a 
spray bottle so that it can be applied to the infection.
- You can find guaranteed spray bottles for sale at the
Six Day Stilt - the southeastern zone of the market loop always includes an 
apothecary who sells two spray bottles. - The spray bottles may appear to your character as a weird artifact [empty] if you have not previously identified one.
The Southeastern zone of the Six Day Stilt market loop also is guaranteed to contain an 
ichor merchant, who will most likely be selling gel and the additional random liquid you need to complete your cure. If for some reason you can't find gel for sale, you can buy a 
desalination pellet from the ichor merchant, and use it on some slime. For example, a large amount of slime will burst out of a 
giant amoeba when killed.
Applying the Cure
To actually apply the liquid concoction and cure your fungal infection, do the following:
- Ensure that the spray bottle is filled with the cure solution.
- Select the spray bottle from your inventory and choose the "apply" option.
- A list of items that looks like your inventory will appear. Your fungal infection is included in this list, but you may have to scroll down quite a bit to find it. For example, if you have
fickle gill, a "fickle gill" object will appear in this list, and you can select it.
At this point, if you've done everything right, you'll see the following pop-up confirmation that you've been cured:
The infected crust of skin loosens and breaks away. |
If the liquid mixture is correct, but you haven't eaten the right corpse (or the 100 turns allowed have already expired), you'll instead see the following pop-up:
Your skin itches furiously. |
If the liquid you applied is not correct, you won't see any message at all.
Curing Only Specific Body Parts
If you have multiple infected body parts but only want to cure some of them, you can do the following:
- Use the spray bottle to apply a non-cure liquid to each of your fungal infections. This changes their descriptions to be liquid covered (for example: gooey mumble mouth).
- Go to the equipment screen and "clean" each of the infections that you want to remove. This restores the target infections to their normal name (for example: mumble mouth).
- Load up your spray bottle with the cure solution and choose to "apply" it.
- Apply the cure to each fungal infection that is not liquid covered.
Other Methods of Removal
If for some reason you cannot obtain the Corpus Choliys or the required ingredients for the cure, you can consider resorting to Voluntary Dismemberment to remove your infection. However, this won't work for non-dismemberable body parts, such as your back.
Certain cooking recipes that grant temporary mutations can also remove fungal infections from the face or hands. For more details, refer to the fungal infections page.