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Post by Briar on Jul 30, 2023 18:42:15 GMT -6
But fortunately, the fungal beast had stayed right where he had left it, in its box. He had put down a bed of hay in an attempt to make it more comfortable, but judging by the smell, it was already starting to rot. Would it be worth changing the bedding? Or was this the creature trying to make itself comfortable? Actually, maybe this was even its way of feeding... What did it eat? Would it be similar to tending a mushroom...?
There was so much he didn't know about this thing. Briar gazed upon it and sighed -- from behind the protective mask that he was wearing. He was only told to avoid unprotected skin to... flesh... contact with the creature, but since it was a fungal beast, he figured it was better to err on the side of caution and avoid breathing in its spores too, if it produced them.
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Post by Briar on Jul 30, 2023 18:42:42 GMT -6
Still, the fact that it had stayed put was good. Maybe it wasn't very mobile. Briar didn't know what to expect, since it did have a lot of growths resembling tentacles, and these did move about. It was probably capable of some kind of movement under its own power using them. But it might not be very fast, or very motivated for that matter, so long as Briar gave it enough of what it wanted. And if it stayed put, that would make taking care of it easier. Or rather, that would make taking care of the rest of the garden easier with it here.
He could always move it somewhere else. He had sort of considered it, but Noa had mentioned that this thing was for the garden, and now that he had made a recent addition to it, Briar couldn't rule out Noa stopping by to check that it was still there.
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Post by Briar on Jul 30, 2023 18:48:10 GMT -6
And to be accused, even falsely, of trying to make off with another one of Noa's 'things'... An involuntary shudder went through Briar at the thought. He had done it once -- actually released some Harachiu he found in the depths of the property somewhere -- and paid the price for it. Bending to Noa's whims didn't make him happy, but he wasn't stupid enough to think he could do whatever he wanted on sheer bravado alone. He was all too familiar with the prospect of working for a master who held power over him, whatever form it might take; for the most part, you kept your head down. Either you picked your battles very carefully, or you ended up dead.
Back to the matter at hand though, having established that the fungal beast hadn't run off -- so to speak, anyway -- he now turned his attention to studying its condition for any changes.
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Post by Briar on Jul 30, 2023 18:48:22 GMT -6
His lack of familiarity with this creature and its ilk meant that he wouldn't be able to tell much by looking at it, but presumably Noa had acquired it in a saleable condition. He could at least try to see if there had been any significant changes. If there weren't, that was probably a good thing. He had spent some time the day before too, inspecting it and taking mental notes of what he could: the number of visible tentacles, the color and size of it. Observing it now, there didn't seem to be much difference between its state now and what he had seen the day before.
That would, he hoped, give him some time. he was going to have to do some research if he wanted to take proper care of this creature, let alone harvest anything of use from it. There had to be books on the topic, surely.
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Post by Nadia on Jul 30, 2023 22:11:52 GMT -6
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Post by Briar on Jul 30, 2023 22:46:57 GMT -6
There might even have been books on the topic in Noa's private library, though Briar didn't feel comfortable looking for anything in there. He had never been, but it was a library within the Gracehaven estate, so there was a good chance that mixed in with the books on more regular topics were tomes of things he didn't want anything to do with.
Noa hadn't said that the library was off limits, and Briar did recall that Noa had warned him away from the door that ultimately led down to the depths where he had found those Harachiu, so maybe there really was nothing too important of note there... But he would rather not risk it. At this point, a trip into the city would have been preferable to making use of the things in the estate house itself.
Briar gave the fungal beast a last look over, then departed for the city.
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Post by Briar on Jul 30, 2023 22:47:08 GMT -6
He returned some time later, with a few books under his arm. There had been a library, though he had some difficulty navigating it. It was the first time he had been there, and... well, he hadn't ever had any occasion to go before. Or rather, he probably had, but it hadn't been that long since he had learned to read, and there had always just been more pressing matters at hand than expanding his scant -- not to say almost nonexistent -- education. Even now, the reading he was doing was for a job, wasn't it? That was just how these things worked themselves out, unfortunately.
He'd had to get some assistance from one of the staff after all. Wandering around for the better part of half an hour looking for what he needed hadn't produced any good results, and he didn't have the whole day to waste at the library.
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Post by Briar on Jul 30, 2023 22:47:38 GMT -6
It was awkward, explaining what he needed and why he couldn't find it; worse still was the knowledge that the encounter would probably be at least a little memorable for the person helping him, by virtue of his inability to speak if nothing else. And then it had turned out that there weren't that many books with information about fungal beasts at all, and the librarian had admitted, a little apologetically, that people just didn't know that much about them. There wasn't a lot of interest, even among horticulturalists. The ones who knew how to extract the venom were few and far between, probably because most people didn't like looking at the things, let alone working with them.
Still, there were a few titles that had a few paragraphs each, and between them Briar thought he might be able to learn something. Any information had to be better than none at all.
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Post by Briar on Jul 30, 2023 22:48:47 GMT -6
He had decided to take the books directly to the garden, so he could read them within view of the box that the fungal beast was sitting in. The kinder explanation he could have given for it was that he wanted to be able to cross reference what he was reading against the actual fungal beast itself, but in his heart he knew that it was more because he didn't quite trust that thing. Not that anyone was asking.
He couldn't spend all day babysitting it, but it made him ill at ease to just leave it be. What if it did escape? It was still sitting right where he had left it, wiggling and occasionally making a faint noise that somewhat resembled a fart. Was the gas toxic too? Was he slowly poisoning the air of the gardens just by letting this thing rest and... ferment in this space?
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Post by Briar on Jul 30, 2023 22:49:58 GMT -6
Briar repressed another shudder. Well, at least it was out of doors, so the fumes would disperse. But he certainly hoped that it wasn't doing anything to hurt the rest of the garden. Most of it could be replaced with enough time and effort, and if this fungal beast really was killing off the rest of the plants, he could probably make a case for it to be situated somewhere else. But it would be a lot of work to replace everything, and he wouldn't exactly be glad to lose all the plants he had tended to a thing that he hadn't even wanted to take care of in the first place.
Briar sat himself down on the edge of one of the raised beds, and cracked open one of the books. It took him a long time to even find the relevant section. He had learned to read later in life, and wasn't very good at it.
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Post by Nadia on Aug 2, 2023 1:18:19 GMT -6
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Post by Briar on Aug 20, 2023 21:44:51 GMT -6
Briar had managed to produce a single vial of… some kind of sludge from that fungal beast after a week or so of tending it. Apparently that had been enough for Noa, at least for the moment. Briar hadn’t gotten any requests for more of it, anyway. And whatever other vices Noa might have had, after having worked here for more than a year now, Briar had come to the conclusion that the mage wasn’t the type to expect Briar to anticipate what he wanted. He had been wary of trusting that observation at first, having previously lived under masters who punished him for transgressions real and imagined, but it seemed that for whatever reason, Noa didn’t expect that level of... what? Attentiveness?
It was a small mercy, especially considering there wasn’t much else good to say about him, as an employer or as a person.
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Post by Briar on Aug 20, 2023 21:45:42 GMT -6
At any rate, the fungal beast was situated, and if Briar wasn’t being tasked with harvesting it, then it didn’t actually require that much care. He still had to keep everything else away from it, but the Koguma didn’t seem interested in it, and the Galabex was always in Briar’s company when she was here. So peace had returned to the garden, at least for a time.
That meant that he had time to work with the Galabex again. He had thought they would have to move on to the more… challenging aspects of what he needed her to do, but as it turned out, the time for that hadn’t come quite yet.
While Briar had been preoccupied with other things, the Galabex had apparently worked out how to fly on her own. He had known that she was apparently capable of it, but he hadn't really seen it for himself.
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Post by Briar on Aug 20, 2023 21:46:18 GMT -6
Not until recently, anyway. He found out when he had come to fetch her one morning, going up to the gate to let her out, only for her to clear the whole thing and run right over his head. At first, he had thought she had merely managed a truly magnificent jump, but when she didn’t come down, well... He realized he had more things to work on with her.
They’d have to work on that first. If he couldn’t get her to come down, he would probably never be able to catch her again. No, that wasn’t quite true; by now she had grown fond of him, so he would probably have managed to coax her down eventually. But it was best if he could get her down quickly, with a hand signal. But to do that, he needed her to be up in the air first.
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Post by Briar on Aug 20, 2023 21:46:51 GMT -6
Even with that being the case though, he didn’t see a need to force it to happen. He would simply do his usual work around the garden until he noticed her going up. It was one of the ways they’d always bonded, not unlike the relationship he’d had with a stray cat at one point. The Galabex certainly didn’t seem to mind spending time this way.
The tricky part was paying attention to the Galabex while doing his work. It took some time before Briar noticed that she was in the air, the first time; there was no sound, like the flapping of wings, since the Galabex didn’t have any. She simply… ran, upward, as if there was some path in the empty space. But once he clocked her walking aloft, he whistled for her attention, then gave her the hand signal to focus on him.
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