Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:32:34 GMT -6
Mear Stamina: 5 (+2 Gym) Strength: 7 Resistance: 6 Dexterity: 7 Mentality: 5 Special Abilities: Swim, Fly Moves: Dodge, Bite, Summon Wooden Spear
The Labs had a number of novel things the mammalian had learned to and grown accustomed to over the years, to the point that, by and far, most things no longer were quite as shocking as before. Surprising, perhaps, but rarely greater in reaction to that. But when to came to visiting the question board for the month and seeing the new seed-packed request, it took her back quite a bit.
Now, for anyone in the Labs the request and job would not have been all that unusual, but for someone hailing from a desert region bereft of basically any kinds of plant life, who then came to the ocean of green in the middle of the continent where plants were quite literally growing out of buildings too long abandoned, the need to plant even more things seemed like wishing to throw a bucket of water into an ocean to keep the levels up.
Of course, it wasn’t nearly as simple as that, she knew, but the immediate reaction remained.
(1) Mear: 144 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:45:41 GMT -6
Do you suppose these are some rare plants, or plants in danger of disappearing? she wondered, as the two made their way along the streets to the promenade assigned for their task.
The agate walking by her side hummed briefly, It’s certainly possible. Though, in so far as I’ve taken notice, the people of the City can find joy in much simpler things as well. Something doesn’t necessarily have to be rare for it to be enjoyable.
The passing foliage of the street seemed to attest to as much - most of it was trimmed grass with the occasional planter or flower box, otherwise dutifully attended to by some city officials. The fact this region was seemingly swimming in greenery made the sight of it needing to be contained and restricted make sense in many ways, but still seem so very unintuitive to a freshly arrived desert mind none the less. Back home even a patch of grass would have been a sight to behold and something to nurture into growing bigger. Here, it seemed the City folk were adamant in keeping it off pavements and houses like their life depended on it.
(2) Mear: 144 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:46:04 GMT -6
Sure enough, by the time the two arrived to the promenade, the job ahead was made more clearer - the freshly cobble-laid road was edged on both sides with loamy just as fresh dirt and there were fading signs of construction on the edges. It was apparent that this promenade had just been completed, as far as the roadwork and planning went, and now just needed to be made beautiful by the trees and flowers awaiting a dirt bedding to the side. Once those trees took root and the flower got to blooming (and some years’ time) this pathway would be a nice shady place to pass through regardless of the season at hand.
So, looks like not so rare after all, she glanced up to the agate, rubbing her wrists in preparation for the work ahead.
Mear chuckled, Ah, only if you count proper city planning as a rarity. The mammalian smirked with a roll of eyes and nudged his side.
(3) Mear: 145 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:46:35 GMT -6
As much was true, it seemed - the Labs had strung up first (though some argued the Docks had already been there in some capacity) and everything else kind of just.. Stuck itself underneath them in successive order. The City was as much a collection of concentric rings looking ever more eclectic the further out it went as the rings of the very trees they were here to plant. It was most self-evident that any sort of ‘planning’ didn’t walk its way into the equation until a good chunk of time and expansion later and by that point it was ever difficult to deal with the somewhat random and chaotic ramshackle of the centre rings, even as outer rings were taking more solid shape.
But onto the task at hand. There was no official to call up to, and neither had they need to - the job description and instructions were already given to them by the planting association and all the required saplings and seeds were just waiting off to the sides. At some point more people would be assigned to this area to join them, but for now it seemed the two were the first to arrive.
(4) Mear: 145 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:46:57 GMT -6
Darky took out a small folded paper and opened it up, raising it slightly so both of them could take a gander. It was a map of the promenade from above and writing or drawing indicated where something was to be placed, how far it had to be from the others and what type. In total, there seemed to be at least seven different types of plants or trees (two kinds of trees, one kind of bush and four kinds of flowers) that needed to land into a particular pattern.
The mammalian’s lower jaw edged to the side as she looked around, found one of the empty crates used to bring the plants over and scooted it to the middle of the path. She placed the map down and steadied it in place with a loose rock in each corner. So, looks like were have a few different kinds here, she noted, tapping out the different drawings, then looked up to him, Want to take the bigger ones and I’ll take the smaller?
The agate nodded, stepping back to do a bit of prepared stretching, Shouldn’t be terribly difficult, I think.
(5) Mear: 145 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:47:23 GMT -6
With the job division decided, the two got to work. Darky set aside the shovel for now and instead pulled on the thick leather gloves - normally training implements, but in this case also handy in keeping one’s hands and claws free of dirt. She then took to the smaller flowers and picked up one of the half-crates with a several pre-potted flowers waiting there. After a bit of checking with the map to see which kind went where (and briefly even identifying which flower was what, seeing as her green thumb was more like a mustard yellow thumb) headed over to the first flower bed on the side.
The tat-lung’s part required less planting but was slightly trickier in method. The young saplings were placed all in a row to the side, with little bags around their dirt-pot-roots, and each would have to go a specific distance from the other. Fortunately the officials had left for them a line of knotted rope, something to measure out the distances exactly.
(6) Mear: 145 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:47:49 GMT -6
While the agate only had two toes to his hands, making counting on one’s fingers (or even proving an ability to count) that much more difficult, his mind none the less understood numbers. They weren’t.. exactly the same kind of logical patterns as humanoids, but then, the much more abstract version would have been a little difficult for them to understand anyway.
Taking the rope, the agate slowly flew down the promenade, unfurling it as he went and counting the knots along the way. At the end, he placed it down and made sure the line ran more or less straight along the path, before hovering back towards the beginning. Glancing to the map, it shoved there would have to be ten trees and five bushes to each side, all evenly spaced relative to each other. A quick piece of math on the number of total knots gave him the space in between needed, both trees and bushes, and he gently picked up two of the saplings to fly down to the middle.
(7) Mear: 145 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:48:31 GMT -6
Counting the knots, he stopped at the exact middle and backtracked a certain number of knots to either side, placing a sapling on the ground next to the spot. Then, flying back, he brought two more and counted back more knots from the previous sapling, placing those down as well. Working his way back to the beginning, eventually six of the trees to one side had been placed next to their to-be locations, so he picked up another batch and began flying them to their locations on the end of the line.
Meanwhile, Darky had further consulted the map and begun to draw a line in the fresh loam with her heel. The flowers were to line the paving exactly, so in that sense she didn’t need much math to calculate the exact length or width of the beddings, but she did need to keep an eye on the pattern. Four different kinds and colours of flowers needed to go in a specific order.
(8) Mear: 146 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:48:51 GMT -6
In addition, each had to have a little bit of space between the other, just to avoid the roots tangling together terribly. Not something needed to measure in knots by any means, but still something she needed to keep in mind. The initial heel-furrow was intended to give her a vague width to the bedding. Plus, it saved some of the digging time in general.
With the line done, she took the flowers to the beginning of the line and began to dig small holes into the furrow with her hands. In this case the soil was still fresh enough that it hadn’t been packed down heavily, as they sometimes did with dirt roads. The first rains were also still a ways away and would quench the beddings, packing them down some. By that point the plants would have to already be in the soil. With the hole done, she carefully picked up the flower, freed it from its pot and gently loosened the roots from the packed-in shape they were, before placing it into the hole and pulling the dirt back over the roots.
(9) Mear: 146 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:49:13 GMT -6
That was one down.. Probably something like a hundred to go. But no time to get caught up in that now. Focusing on the next furrow, she dug another small hole with the gloves and continued to plant the flowers, one at a time in the row.
On the agate’s side, the trees had been all sorted, so he turned to evening out the bushes in a similar fashion. Fortunately, since they were to be placed between pairs of trees and a little back, he didn’t even really need to count the knots on that one and just made sure the to locate them in the middle portion of the trees around them. That sorted out the preliminary location of both trees and bushes, but only on one side. There were still a row of both back at the beginning that needed to be placed exactly the same on the opposite side of the road.
Mear glanced to them with a silent sigh. It was certainly no heavy lifting, but he would have appreciated something to carry more than two at a time all the same.
(10) Mear: 146 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:49:30 GMT -6
The flying back and forth was a tedious task, especially when you only had two hands to work with. Sure, he could have also used his tail to look around one, but the saplings were still so small and young he was afraid of accidentally damaging them in transit. Two by two, the little trees were placed to their designated spots and in short order, the bushes followed suit, each matching their respective counterparts on the opposite side.
He flew back to the beginning and stood, looking out to the promenade - all the little saplings and bushes ran in an orderly pattern to either side of the row. Although, ‘ran’ wasn’t quite the correct word. For the most part they either teetered precariously on their flat bottoms or were carefully placed on their sides. The plants each had been measured out in terms of their location, but the digging was only just beginning.
(11) Mear: 146 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:49:48 GMT -6
While the agate flew back to begin dealing with that, the mammalian continued down the row, finishing up the first of the flower half-crates. She took the empty one back, threw it onto the pile of other empty crates the constriction workers would eventually take away, and picked up the next batch. Checking the map once again helped her keep in mind the flower pattern, which thankfully was just a repeating one. All the same, every crate she picked up needed to be looked over to ensure it had the proper colours in it, otherwise she could run out of one and leave gaps in between.
Kneeling back down to the side of the road, she dug another three holes with the gloves and placed the three respective coloured flowers in there, before gently pulling and patting the dirt down. Compared to the agate’s progress, the flowers had only gone on for about a couple of meters and there was a lot more road to go before the promenade ended. At this rate she would definitely need some help there.
(12) Mear: 146 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:50:11 GMT -6
The two had brought a shovel but the agate’s hands were far too big to handle that with any kind of accuracy (perhaps more akin to how humanoid children would scoop up sand on beaches with little plastic shovels) and likewise too big to dig a properly deep enough hold for the trees like the mammalian did for the flowers. Which wasn’t to say the agate had no plan..
He stood in front of the first tree-to-be-planted, marked out a spot in the first where he had measure its location and briefly closed his eyes. The arcane energies in his mind shaped themselves into a spear, tight and narrow, and when he slammed his hands into the ground, a spire of bamboo erupted from the ground where the spot had been designated, pushing back the dirt. With another wave of the hand, the bamboo flaked and turned to dust, but leaving behind a nice little tree-sized hole in its wake.
Carefully, the agate removed the paper covering the sapling’s roots and placed it into the hole, before pulling dirt back over it and lightly patting it down. Leaving his hands there, he closed his eyes briefly again, lending a teeny tiny fraction of those earthly energies into the roots to encourage growth, before focusing on the next one.
(13) Mear: 147 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:50:34 GMT -6
One by one, the bamboo spires erupted and dug holes for the trees and bushed a like, as the agate gradually worked his way through one side and then the other. The mammalian, keeping to her quite literal lane, managed to get the flowers planted to one side of the road in the meantime, though her knees were certainly beginning to protest all that kneeling on paved rock, while her shoulders gave notice that they didn’t appreciate being hunched so much in a row.
When the agate finally finished, the mammalian was walking back for another batch of flowers, this time to begin the row on the opposite side. I’d like to think I understand people who garden, she began, tossing the empty crate onto the pile, But all you do is hunch and crouch all day. Nature and plants are certainly pretty, but how can that be enjoyable?
The tat-lung chuckled, rubbing his own wrists as well, For some the struggle is the joy, because the fruits - in this case literal - that you reap from things struggled with are that much sweeter than if you simply sat and watched them fall from trees.
(14) Mear: 147 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 29, 2020 8:51:35 GMT -6
The sphinx sighed, stretching her back, but conceded the point. How’re you feeling?
Physically speaking it’s not too bad. But I had to put a fair bit of energy into them and a nap afterward wouldn’t be a bad idea. The sense of tiredness from arcane energy spent was definitely detectable in the bond, even if it was, for now, still faint. The cost of magical was often like that - you could seem whole and hale on the surface, but below you could barely have the strength to stand if you kept expending that inner force too much.
Oh, trust me, I’d probably join you in that, the sphinx breathed out, glancing up at the sky. There would be plenty of daylight still left, but they also had plenty still to go if she did it on her own. The agate had managed to pick up on that piece of thought with little effort, smirking, Do you need a helping hand, by chance?
Relief washed over the sphinx face immediately, Spirits, yes, please.
Mear chuckled with a nod, Then allow me to help. He turned towards the roadside row and closed his eyes. Where before the arcane force was shaped into a singular cluster, now he shaped it into a single line of a wall, evenly dispersed. When the hands slammed the ground, the bamboo shot up in a single file along the road, each shoot making a hole sizeable for the flowers. A few such walls later, the roadside was pre-dug and simply waiting filling as the mammalian quickly went by to place the plants into each hollow and pat them down.
Finally, the two stood back, mammalian dusting hands and appraising the work down. Not bad, I think.
(15) - (added) Mear: 147 (2/5)
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