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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 13:07:51 GMT -6
Even if it was to get the grub out of her own mine cart, it was simply too gross for Fiera to handle on her own. She'd have to leave it there. She hissed at Lunara. "Fine, you win this time. You couldn't PAY me to touch that nasty thing." She grumbled, and snatched the gem identification guide before closing the cart again. Lunara seemed thrilled, at least for the moment. Fiera could only roll her eyes. Whatever. Maybe she'd be able to find someone else to take the bug once she got out of here. For the moment, it could stay there in its little nest of gems. It didn't stop her from being mad though, and she stomped back over to where she left the gems on the floor, dropping to the ground beside them. She flapped open the book as violently as she could, going through the identification traits.
Fiera 15 Lunara 16.0/18.0 45
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 19:28:18 GMT -6
The first gem was a wobbly, multi-shade blue colored gemstone, resembling a frozen ocean wave of sorts. Or perhaps a piece of candy, if the ocean wasn’t your thing. Fiera’s first thought was an agate, because it seemed like these odd stones were ALWAYS some sort of agate, and she had given up on guessing that things were turquoise. According to the gem guide though, it was something called a chrysocola. She grimaced at the description- what kind of word was that? She had never heard of such a thing before, though she supposed the guide wouldn’t lie to her. She shrugged and pocketed the gem regardless, making a mental note to put it in her cart later. Maybe that grub would wander off on its own and she would come back to an insect free mine cart. She doubted it though, and was mostly putting their next meeting off.
Fiera 16 Lunara 16.1/18.1 46
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 19:28:40 GMT -6
The next was a tiny red stone, partially translucent but consistent in color throughout. It was so small that Fiera never would have noticed it if she hadn’t been working on levering out the chrysocola and notice it right next to the blue stone. Still, even small gems could earn one a pretty penny due to their rarity. She paged through the ID guide and to her surprise, it was a ruby! Or at least, as far as she could tell it was one. Fiera had to admit, she wasn’t expecting the answer to be so… normal. By this point she was so used to something or other-ites that getting a gem she had actually heard of was a bit of a letdown. Not too much of one though- she wasn’t going to look a gift equillion in the mouth, here. She pocketed the ruby along with the chrysocola, shuddering again at the thought of meeting that beetle baby again.
Fiera 17 Lunara 16.2/18.2 47
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 19:29:03 GMT -6
She had another reason for wanting to keep the gems on hand, too. This wasn’t Fiera’s first time in the mines, and she knew that she wasn’t the only thing down here. Most creatures heard a miner coming long before they actually showed up and knew to avoid them, but Fiera had had multiple face to face encounters with creatures of the gemkind multiple times. Many of them, such as her gem dragons and gem wyrm, were made up entirely of crystal. It was possible to lure them over to you and make them realize that you were friendly. Fiera had managed to make a couple friends like that- but you needed bait to make it work. As a result, the humanish tried to keep a couple of gems on her person at all times. The creatures of the mines wouldn’t wait for you to fiddle around with your mine cart after all.
Fiera 18 Lunara 16.3/18.3 48
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 19:29:21 GMT -6
Those gem critters hesitance and skittishness was for multiple reasons, too. Part of their shyness was natural fear of the unknown, seeing the strange creatures that came and put even more tunnels in their home. The other reason was that they knew that they weren’t alone down here. Considering how bright and noisy most miners were, most of the crystal critters knew that it wasn’t a good idea to hang around what was likely going to attract even bigger and nastier creatures. No one wanted to hang around when the big guys came prowling. Fiera had yet to meet any of the truly dangerous creatures, but she had met at least one of the predators of the deep. She had already found her gem dragon on that same trip, now that she thought of it, and had just come back to where she left off in the mines after dropping the critter off at her kennels.
Fiera 19 Lunara 16.4/18.4 49
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 19:29:40 GMT -6
The creature she had found was a ‘tunnel worm’ as it was commonly called by miners. It was only a very tiny one. Perhaps it was a baby, or maybe just a naturally smaller subspecies. Despite its minute size however- about the size of a cat, and perfectly easy for Fiera to pick up- it certainly had the marks of an apex predator. The worm was able to chew through the stone walls of the caverns with ease, with a ring of terrifying teeth. The humanish could only imagine what a creature like that could do to one of the stone creatures that lived down here. It certainly reacted well to the bacon she had tried to feed it at any rate. While it was of no threat to Fiera (though that was likely just because she kept her fingers away from its mouth), she wouldn’t trust it around her other pets.
Fiera 20 Lunara 17.0/19.0 50
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 20:38:22 GMT -6
Still, the tunnel worm had proved easy to tame with a bit of food, and had been safely delivered to her kennels. It wasn’t particularly bright though, and was happy to do little more than eat and sleep. Fiera hadn’t taught it many tricks yet, but she was sure it could be a valuable companion in the future. She smiled fondly at the thought of all the creatures she had waiting for her at home. She had admittedly hoarded a lot of them, but she took perfect care of all of them. The kennels she kept them at were top quality and had round the clock caretakers- something offered to the majority of the city dwellers, even if they only rarely took the labs up on it. While she couldn’t personally attend to all of her creatures, Fiera was equally proud of them and went to visit them as often as she could.
Fiera 1 Lunara 17.1/19.1 51
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 20:38:37 GMT -6
For now though, she was stuck down in the mines with just Lunara for company. Not that she minded the yumenokei, of course. Lunara had proved incredibly helpful so far- her tendency to help bugs as well notwithstanding. She gave the creature a quick pat and kiss on the head before getting back to work. This tunnel had proved fruitful so far, though she was only about four feet into it. She wasn’t really sure when to stop, to be honest. Usually an outside force or her own feelings of exhaustion kept her from mining for too long, but nothing too exciting had happened so far. She felt fine as well. She was filthy of course, but that was par the course. She didn’t feel tired, or even hungry. Fiera knew that she could keep at this for quite some time so long as Lunara was willing to stick around.
Fiera 2 Lunara 17.2/19.2 52
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 20:38:51 GMT -6
So she kept mining, chipping more and more pieces off of the rock ahead of her. The tunnel was tall enough for her to stand up properly in, and was now deep enough that she could swing her pick axe at its full range, something she had been working at for a while now. The sense of satisfaction only fueled her further, so she kept chipping away. At first, Fiera thought that the tunnel she was in was getting darker, and she checked her headlamp just to be safe. It seemed just as bright as usual though, even after a bit of percussive maintenance, so she took a closer look at the rock she was digging through, picking a recently picked off pebble from the floor. She walked closer to the tunnel entrance, where her mine cart was. Holding the pebble up to the wall there, she compared the coloration.
Fiera 3 Lunara 17.3/19.3 53
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 20:39:07 GMT -6
Sure enough, the rock she was digging through now was even darker than before, and it wasn’t exactly light to start with. The earlier parts of the tunnel were a dark grey color and were porous in texture, consisting of some sort of volcanic rock. Or so Fiera guessed, as her gem identification guide only covered crystals, not regular rocks. Further in though, it looked like the stone got darker and darker until reaching a near black color. It still had that same porous quality though. Maybe some other material had gotten burnt up in it? Fiera wondered if that meant that she would be finding different forms of gem in there. She was enjoying the types she had been getting so far, but she wasn’t about to argue with a bit of variety. Gems were gems after all. Maybe she’d even find another fossil! Now wouldn’t that be something interesting.
Fiera 4 Lunara 17.4/19.4 54
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 20:39:23 GMT -6
She had only found one fossil so far, unless you were counting a piece of filled amber she found. She had given that away to someone else as soon as she found it though- she had no interest in a dirty, bug filled hunk of tree sap. Only the perfect, CLEAN form of old tree sap, duh. She did find one interesting fossil, though. It looked almost like a scale, but was made of dark brown stone and had various divots in it, like you’d expect from a golf ball. She could have sworn she’d seen some sort of similar scale on a modern creature, but she couldn’t for the life of her recall what. It had been interesting enough for her to take with her though, and now it sat somewhere in her apartment on a shelf. Yeah, she hadn’t found time to get it appraised yet, but maybe she’d be able to find some sort of future use for it.
Fiera 5 Lunara 18.0/20.0 55
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 20:39:38 GMT -6
The thought of finding another fossil was enticing… but now that she thought of it, maybe wasn’t possible today. She was digging in volcanic rock, after all. It didn’t have any of the signs of sedimentary stone, such as varying sized grains and striping. Instead it was all dark, rough and porous, indicative of a bubbling flow of magma once upon a time. If there had ever been any fossils in this stone, they would have melted away to nothing but ash when the lava hit. She’d find it a waste, but considering that crystals frequently grew in volcanic rock, she guessed that it was more of a trade off than anything. One valuable mine bounty traded for another. So she’d keep mining, and hoping she would find more gems as opposed to getting her hopes up for another fossil. After all, no one could be disappointed by those shiny beauties.
Fiera 6 Lunara 18.1/20/1 56
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 20:40:04 GMT -6
At least this rock was proving easy to mine through. Some volcanic rock was as hard as… well, stone. It was incredibly solid and impossible to do much more than chip away tiny pieces from over a long, long time. Many miners didn’t even bother with that kind of rock, ignoring it in favor of winding one’s way through veins of sandstone and other light rock. Explosives were banned down here, after all. That probably explained the winding nature of even the most professionally made tunnels down here, now that Fiera was thinking of it. Some types of rock just weren’t worth digging through, and could be poor in gems as well. Still, if Fiera was going off the beaten path here… wouldn’t that mean that she was heading straight for that sort of rock? That would be a disappointment- the going had been so easy so far, incidents with the local wildlife notwithstanding.
Fiera 7 Lunara 18.2/20.2 57
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 20:40:18 GMT -6
It would suck if Fiera had been mining for all this time, only to be met with an impenetrable wall just a couple feet in. She hoped that wasn’t the case. But why be negative about it! Fiera liked to call herself a glass half full kind of person (though she really wasn’t one at all, based on her propensity for whining.). Even if she did have to stop short soon, it wouldn’t be a waste. She had still found plenty of gems and even… ugh… a pocket pet. Even if it wasn’t her preferred kind of pet, she could always toss it to Piko Pets and let THEM deal with the awful thing. She had still earned far more by now than she usually did on her best questing day- which usually ended with her earning IOUs and favors. There were endless options for gems, on the other hand.
Fiera 8 Lunara 18.3/20.3 58
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 17, 2020 20:40:34 GMT -6
And besides, despite the change of color in the rock, it hadn’t actually gotten any more difficult to mine yet. The small air bubbles interspersed throughout the material made it very easy to break with her pickaxe, and it was brittle enough that large cracks spread through it with every blow, making future hits more effective. She couldn’t call it pleasant to work with- mining was hard, dirty, and unpleasant work- but it certainly didn’t make things harder than they needed to be. She was able to keep up a good pace. Now that she was in the rhythm of it, Fiera was making really good progress on this tunnel, and had soon dug out another few inches ahead of where she was, slowly but surely carving out another branch of the mines for people to use and explore. You could even call her a community builder, she thought smugly to herself.
Fiera 9 Lunara 18.4/20.4 59
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