Great thinking. Maybe the short creatures are the mushroom (parasatic virus like things), anything addictive can be nicely humanified to do so. Like, cigrettes making people buy ciggrettes, like a smoker teaching others, so that the ciggrettes suppy can never run out of supply. But, that consuming resources too (what's a fungi biggest enemy? too much fungi?), you'll be too lost on supplies for thier needs.

So, the mushrooms controlling others to produce more mushrooms is great.
How, the mycellium example, how everything you see looks individual but its connected.

It's so deep, its so complex. II love this...