How do you get rid of Spores in PEAK?

Spores only start to fade 45 seconds after your last exposure, and slowly. Medicinal Root, Antidote, First Aid Kit, Cure-All and a Remedy Fungus cloud remove them; Bandages do not. Cooking a Shroomberry removes the 5 Spores it would otherwise give.

Which Shroomberries are safe to eat?

Red and yellow Shroomberries always have a good effect, green and blue always a bad one, and purple can go either way. The exact effect of each colour is fixed for the day, so once your group has tested them the result holds for every retry.

How do you cure a zombie bite?

Use any item that removes Spores, such as an Antidote, Medicinal Root or First Aid Kit, or survive 60 seconds until the infection runs its course. Curing yourself earns the Undead Encounter badge.

How often does the Roots appear?

It shares region two with the Tropics. In the current 208-island pool it appears on 104 days; the Tropics takes the other 104.

PEAK Roots Guide: Spores, Wind, Spiders, Zombies and Shroomberries

Overview

Scouts crossing a rope bridge between redwood platforms · Screenshot: PEAK Steam store page © Aggro Crab & Landfall

The Roots is a redwood forest overgrown with mushrooms, and the alternative to the Tropics for region two. You enter it straight from the Shore, and its campfire leads on to either the Alpine or the Mesa. It arrived in patch 1.40.a (November 2025) and appears on 104 of 208 days in the current pool. Today’s lineup tells you whether today is a Roots day.

	Roots
Region	2 (instead of the Tropics)
Main status	Spores
Environmental hazard	Wind gusts
Creatures	Spiders, beetles, zombies (Peak difficulty and up)
Badges	Forestry, Tread Lightly, Advanced Mycology, Cryptogastronomy, Mycoacrobatics, Web Security, Undead Encounter
Ancient Statue	1 on every Roots day

Terrain and route

The floor of the Roots is shallow water that slows you down. Above it stand huge redwoods with wooden platforms on their trunks; some platforms are linked by bridges, and the conical canopies on top are solid enough to stand on. Hollow stumps have an opening at the bottom and top, and sometimes hide a Honeycomb.

Three features make the climb cheaper than it looks:

Vines connect points across the forest. Grabbing one costs very little stamina, moving along it costs far less than climbing rock, and hanging still drains stamina only slowly. Treat them like free ropes.
Giant shelf fungi grow out of trunks and cliffs and work as ledges where you can stand and recover.
Bouncy mushrooms launch you upward and give back a little stamina on each landing.

The trees are poorly connected, so the usual route is along the floor to the cliff, then up. The exception is a redwood growing close to the wall: climb the tree and step onto the cliff from high up. Waterfalls knock you over briefly but do no damage.

Variants

Each Roots day rolls one layout, and like the rest of the terrain it is fixed until the reset:

Variant	What changes
Default	The standard forest; a little over half of all Roots days
Deep Woods	Many more trees, a very dense forest
Deep Water	Deeper red water that inflicts Spores, fewer trees, more waterfalls
Clearcut	No redwoods on the approach; bouncy mushrooms instead, including evil ones
Cave Mania	Rock formations and extra caves in the middle; the rarest

Today’s Roots map shows the layout before you start.

Hazards

Glowing mushrooms and pink spore clouds in the forest · Screenshot: PEAK Steam store page © Aggro Crab & Landfall

Hazard	What it does	How to handle it
Wind	Gusts push everything left or right; holding still on a wall costs as much as climbing	Wait for a gust to end before long climbs or bridge crossings; use trees and rocks as cover
Spore clouds	Pink glowing fog that adds Spores while you stand in it	Route around them; a gust disperses them for a moment
Bridges	Each has a weight limit of 1 to 5 scouts and breaks a few seconds after the limit is reached	Cross one at a time unless you know the limit
Spore bombs	Burst on contact into purple gas that adds Spores	Watch the ground, especially near edges
Explosive spore bombs	Yellow-green bombs that blast you away	Do not touch them on a ledge
Evil bouncy mushrooms	Purple, cracked; 5 Spores per bounce	Clearcut variant only; use the normal ones
Spiders	Hang from trees and cliffs, wrap you in a web (25 Web) and add heavy Poison	Throw an item at one to stun it, then pass underneath
Beetles	Chase scouts and throw them, without damage	Stay away from drops when one is near
Zombies	Climb after you, bite for 10 Injury and 10 Spores plus an infection	Sneak past sleeping ones; sidestep the lunge

Spores

Spores only begin to fade 45 seconds after your last exposure and then decay slowly, so a few careless steps through clouds can cost you a chunk of the bar for minutes. Medicinal Root, Antidote, First Aid Kit, Cure-All and Remedy Fungus clouds remove them; Bandages do not. Fortified Milk makes you invincible for a while, which is the cleanest way through a stretch you cannot avoid.

Zombies

Zombies only exist on Peak difficulty and above. They sleep until you enter their line of sight, then chase with infinite stamina and climb any wall. They lunge in a straight line, so stepping aside sends them tumbling. A bite infects you with Spores every second until you use a Spore-removing item or survive 60 seconds. A zombie dies after about two minutes of chasing, or as soon as the campfire is lit.

Food and items

Shroomberries in five colours grow on vines. Red and yellow are always good, green and blue always bad, purple is a gamble. Each one also gives up to 15 bonus stamina, removes 10 Hunger and adds 5 Spores, unless you cook it first. The effect of each colour stays the same for the whole day.
Medicinal Root heals Injury, Poison and Spores. About two in seven are actually a Mandrake, which looks identical until pulled up and then screams, making everyone within 16 m drowsy. It cannot go in your pockets, only a backpack. Cooked, it removes 25 Curse and earns Cryptogastronomy; raw, it hides your stamina bar for a minute.
Button, bugle and cluster shrooms (each with a poisonous look-alike), Chubby Shrooms and Honeycomb.
Natural items: Bounce Fungus, Cloud Fungus, Shelf Fungus, Remedy Fungus, Warp Fungus and Magic Beans.
Luggage here often contains Antidotes, the best answer to both Spores and Poison.

Luggage and markers

The Roots is the second-richest region for luggage after the Mesa. On our maps a Roots day averages:

Type	Average per Roots day	Most on one island
Luggage	28.6	51
Big luggage	12.6	23
Explorer’s luggage	3.2	8
Ancient luggage	1.8	5
Clown luggage	0.3	4

That is enough for the Plunderer badge (15 luggage in one run) before you leave region two. Each Roots day holds one Scout amulet, and which of the four it is changes by island. The luggage locations page lists every box, and the luggage types guide explains what each one drops.

Ancient Statue

Every Roots day on our maps has one usable Ancient Statue. It revives all dead or unconscious scouts at once, at the cost of Curse, so save it for an emergency; see the revive guide.

Badges

Badge	Requirement
Forestry	Climb past the Roots (light its campfire)
Tread Lightly	Climb past the Roots without exceeding 25% Spores
Advanced Mycology	Try all 5 types of Shroomberry in one expedition
Cryptogastronomy	Cook and eat a Mandrake
Mycoacrobatics	Bounce up 40 m off a mushroom
Web Security	Escape a spider’s web and survive
Undead Encounter	Cure yourself from a zombie bite

The full list is in the badges guide.

Tips

Listen. Spiders, beetles and an awake zombie all have audio cues; hearing them first is half the fight.
Test Shroomberries early. Whatever a colour does is true for every retry today.
Tread Lightly: cook every Shroomberry, carry Fortified Milk and route around clouds even when it costs time.
Cryptogastronomy: carry a Portable Stove, or bring the Mandrake to the campfire in a backpack and accept the noise.

Common mistakes

Walking straight through spore clouds. Spores linger far longer than Poison, and they stack with Hunger and Injury.
Crowding a bridge. Some bridges hold only one scout. Cross one at a time.
Pulling up a Medicinal Root next to the group. If it is a Mandrake, its scream makes everyone nearby drowsy.
Hanging on a wall during a gust. Your stamina drains as if you were climbing; get to a ledge or a vine first.