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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:00:59 GMT -6
The accidental warning received, the crossbreed having made it clear that annoying or directly harming it would gain its attention in a way Haix would rather avoid, Haix returned to her book and watching the crossbreed for any other signs of a reaction.
When none came after she was fairly confident in copying the method of proper movement in armor based only on the images and text, she shut her book again and located one of the ladders that lead upward to the top of the tank. A set of pouches were tied together, then around her waist, and she began the climb upwards with a great deal more ease than she would have climbing a cage wall. Reaching the top quickly, she walked around the perimeter of the tank, careful never to stray too close to the edge. While she might have survived such a fall, she would not enjoy dragging her broken bones to the room she kept the powders and supplies in. 11
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:01:11 GMT -6
She came to a stop by its head, the massive spars of wood that looked like teeth protruding from beneath the surface. There were no apparent eyes on its head, an odd feature that had to be related to the nature of its crafted predecessors, but the living island being blind would not be too much of a problem. It had dealt with the tiny fish seeking to make a meal out of it accurately enough.
The rest of its body was a long trail of green, from the brighter green hues of the twisted bark that served as its skin, to the almost blueish hues of the leaves hanging from the trees that sprouted from its back and the deeper green vines that swayed slightly from the movements of its body in the water. She looked forward to climbing on the beast when the time came, testing the strength of those hanging vines, but she would wait until the odds of ending up like the fish were lower. 12
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:01:26 GMT -6
Calls to it provoked no response, no matter how she chirped or barked or hissed or screeched. Whistling likewise cause no reaction, the creature floating before her as placidly as it might have had it been a log. It reacted not to tone or words, the alternating threats and more cheerful toned commands not bringing it to so much as cause a ripple. Growing bored herself, and not wanting to flare her frills in a pointless attempt to goad the creature, she crouched beside the lip of the aquarium and simply described its appearance to itself. She even smacked the water with her hand a few times, splashing water towards its head that only the most high flying droplets reached.
It bore the words with all the patience it had shown the fish, more so in that it did not so much as twitch in reaction to her. The reactions that inspired by any particularly inquisitive fish and snails below, hidden from Haix’s sight by the scum on the surface, as she talked at it would have made her grateful for the lack of a response. 13
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:01:45 GMT -6
Bored now of the blind island beast, but not so bored that she would risk hopping in the water to climb on it, she walked along the perimeter with her pouches in a full circuit of the aquarium walls. The minor forest sprouting from its back was truly an amazing sight. It was mostly a single file line of trees with thick trunks, their size large enough to put a nyssa’s trunks to shame. Those trunks split and gave the illusion of there being more than just the one row, the first tree on its back easily mistaken for two. The smaller trees on its head were clearly a pair, their branches tangling together to form a mat of leaves competing for the light, and the upraised bark that ran down the sides of its face almost suggested eye-like shapes. Too bad the suggestion of an eye was not the same as actually having one. 14
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:01:55 GMT -6
Finishing her walk, she came to stand before the head once more, sliding off the patches to lay on the overhang. The first pouch was opened, the smell of copper filling the air as she looked over at the cross. If it was like a pliathor, it would have some sort of reaction to the pouches contents when she dumped it into the water, and would hopefully be a good method of keeping its attention through training and rewarding it for doing whatever she wanted to do.
Winding her arm back, she threw the bag at its head, a trail of red fluid leaking out behind it as it flew. It splattered against one of the larger spars of teeth, the bag and meat slowly sliding down its face and into the water. It looked as if some of the blood was dribbling down from its snout to its massive lower jaw, but there was no reaction at all from the taste of blood that had to have reached its mouth. 15
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:02:10 GMT -6
With that plan failed, more pouches were opened and their contents removed. Brightly colored cuts of fruit, some still dripping with their own juices after having been roughly swung about in their pouches, were taken out of some. Others contained mashed up balls of long-dead insects, the pulped remains of earthworms and shattered shells of beetles melded into easily throwable rolls. There was even some chopped up fish, its smell strong enough that Haix threw them first at the floating beast. There was no reaction as the bits of fish bounced off of its jaws or landed straight in the water, one particularly hard throw landing a fish head in the branches growing from its head.
Some of the fruits were taken and consumed by Haix after that, enjoying her snack before what she expected to be largely a waste of them. What she did not eat was thrown as well as the bug balls, both food items a nyssa might have enjoyed enough to consume, but prompted no movement from the crossbreed. 16
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:02:27 GMT -6
Out of food with which to throw and watch sink from sight, excepting one ball of crushed insects that had decided to float, Haix walked around the beast again. There had to be something she could use. If the beast had been at least willing to try the food she had thrown at it, she would have had a treat to use in training. If it had moved away from some of it, clearly displeased, she would have something to protect herself with if it decided she was as annoying as the fish it had crushed.
The crossbreed gave her nothing. Lifeless as a log, it floated in the pool, the only sign that it still lived having been it killing a handful of fish. She could not treat it with sunlight, was not allowed to train the beast anywhere that was not the park or docks, the latter being the only real choice to accommodate it despite the rumored soft-skin poking around in others affairs, and so messing with the lights pouring down on the beast would not help her. 17
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:02:39 GMT -6
If a beast only needed dirt, water, and light to survive, if it had no need for anything else so long as those needs were met, how could one even hope to gain its attention?
And then, feeling like an idiot for not realizing it before, Haix made her way to the nearest external ladder. This creature was related to nyssa, which also could pull energy from like and soil alone. So how had anyone managed to get them to eat the bugs and fruit they supposedly would eat? How did she ensure that a beast would obey her in exchange for treats that meant nothing to them if their bellies were full? She only had to take away that alternate food source. For all that she had tried to make the tank a good place to keep the beast, she had given it enough that it would never even need to notice her, never try to eat something with its giant jaws. 18
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:02:49 GMT -6
It took a long time for the tank to drain.
Dirt and plant matter was sucked away at first, newly purified water pumped in to help wash away enough of it so that the tank looked surprisingly clean. The crossbreeds roots spasmed and were pulled closer to its body as it fought to keep them from being pulled out. The water level decreased rapidly as it finally began to move, swimming as far as it could from the drains, bumping into the glass walls and tearing down one of the internal adders in its confusion as it tried to pull itself out.
The dropping water level came to a stop when there was only a few feet of muddy water left, the great island beast laying there with its roots fanned out around it like hair. Haix returned then with more pouches, annoyed to see one of the ladders snapped in half, its upper portion protruding from the mud. 19
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:03:00 GMT -6
Once she had climbed one of the external ladders, she walked over to one of the interact internal ones, the one closest to where the crossbreeds body lay. She could see the water around its body churning, the body itself twisting as it tried to find a deeper patch of water, or perhaps some undisturbed mud to dig its roots into.
With a laugh, and a nervous look at where the broken ladder lay in the mud, she began the clumb down the inside of the cage. Some of the rungs were covered in green hair-like structures, the algae that had grown onto it reluctant to release its hold. Some of the rungs had caught the scum from the surface of the water, the pure water that had been pumped into the aquarium never quite washing it away. All of them were slick with the water that had so recently filled the tank. 20
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:03:11 GMT -6
As she drew closer to crossbreed, it became apparent that the ripples and splashing around its body was that of its roots, the tendrils twisting and waving in the mud as the creature tried to swim through it. She let it swim and pull itself in a full circle, waiting for the head to grow closer as she undid the pouches and removed the first ones contents. Linking one arm around the ladder rung, she turned her body and prepared to throw the contents at the beast, opening her jaws to yell at it with each throw.
The first throw missed entirely, the meat landing in the mud with a splat a few feet away from where the beast’s head lay. Its jaws opened as if it was trying to breath, it turned to where the meat had fallen, and the second dropped item found its way into its mouth. Most of them at least, a slice of apple sliding out to land on the mud, a white crescent that slowly slid beneath the muck. 21
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:03:29 GMT -6
The great head froze, the fish head still peering up at her from between the leaves of its head trees. The jaws remains open though, and she threw more of the items down, some leaving sticky juice or bug dust on its head before sinking below the mud, others sliding into the open mouth as if her aim had been perfect.
She halted after several successes, watching the mud-bound creature below her. The tendrils slithered across the mud towards its head, reaching through the water in search of the source of whatever was throwing things at it. When they found nothing, the beasts head began to lift from the muddy water as if it would somehow see her clinging to the ladder above it. Which, much to her surprise, it did. The large, colorless things revealed as it lifted its jaw out of the water could have been nothing other than eyes. Eyes that could see well enough for the creature to kill a handful of tiny fish darting around in the murk, eyes that directed its tendrils to snake upwards towards her. 22
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:03:39 GMT -6
She climbed as quickly as she could though the tendrils stopped short of where she had stood on the ladder. She climbed even faster as she felt the vibrations in the ladder, as she felt it start to wiggle and shake under her grasp. She make it out as the creature ripped the lower half of the ladder free, the upper portion remaining attached to the wall as the part connecting the two bent and snapped under the weight of the crossbreed.
She sat at the overhang, laughing as the crossbreed dragged the ladder down on top of itself, splintering a few branches as it fought to pull it off of itself. She laughed as it moved the ladder along the ground, refusing to relinquish it as it scooted across the muddy ground. She yelled at ti to release the ladder, and it froze again, its body twisting to face where she sat so much higher than it. It did not release the ladder but instead dragged it closer as it lifted its head, but it lacked the flexibility to raise it high enough for its eyes to catch a glimpse of her. 23
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:04:00 GMT -6
For that, she threw down a few more treats, these seeming to inspire the creature to try harder to look for her. Curious now, she walked away from where she had last spoken to it, and yelled aloud about trees. The beast’s head swung in her direction, its body forming a horseshoe shape as it sought to follow her. And so it continued, with treats rewarding the beast whenever it looked towards her in response to her voice. Or perhaps the treats were nothing more than some taunt the halfbreed was unwilling to put up with as it thrashed around in the much shallower water.
She wanted to find out before taking it to the docks, or even to the land she intended to keep it on. Tossing all but the last of the treats down to it, a piece of pineapple saved to pop into her own mouth, she climbed down the external ladder to engage the pumps and refill the aquarium. 24
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Post by Alma on Sept 2, 2019 23:04:41 GMT -6
The water and treads refilled, the muck washed from her body, and Haix returned to inspect the crossbreed. The dirt was much shallower now, and there was no life other than the halfbreed to be seen, the rest flushed away or suffocated by the dirt. She climbed one of the ladders of the tank silently from behind the crossbreed, wondering how long it would be before she could remove the ladder pieces that lay in the dirt.
Then, with a deep breath and fully prepared to slide back down the ladder it the tank had been a bit too overfilled, she called out to the beast. The roots came free of the shallow mud quickly, but failed to breach the surface, instead trailing behind the crossbreed as it turned to face her. It swam closer as she called to it again, its jaws opening and closing, head lifting to better see her before hitting the water with a splash. The jaws opened again, and she yelled out as the treat flew through the air and landed perfectly in its submerged lower jaw.
And it happened again and again, Haix laughing to herself that all it took was making it try the treats to get it to respond to her. A thankfully non-violent response. 25((Final halfbreed now trainable. Levels counted.))
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